April 2015 - Spring is Here!

 My friend Rob Kampa has been a busy boy.  Rob, of MagStar Drums fame, is one of the first and best of this generation’s custom drum builders. He moved to Nashville a while back and has been doing all the drum building and custom work for Andy Foote’s Drum Supply House for quite a few years. Rob and his wife Maggie have recently become the proud new owners of WorldMax USA, leading parts supplier to the DIY and custom drum building industry and makers of the infamous Black Dawg line of brass snare drums. I was wondering for a couple of years who previous owner Walt Johnson was going to hand the baton off to when he retired, and I can’t think of more suitable owners than the Kampas. If that weren’t enough to keep his day full, he is now also building drums for the resurrected Walberg and Auge Drum company.  Jeremy Esposito is the other name in the W&A venture and has set it up as a non profit company. Much luck , Rob. You are now a cornerstone of the drum smith community. We need to do an article on you and the three drum companies you work with.

Not So Modern Drummer will have a booth at the Chicago Drum Show in May. I won’t personally be there because I have some performances I can’t get out, of but our Production Manager Chris Speich will be there along with Aaron Mlasko of Mlasko Drums here in Nashville. Please come by out booth to say hello to Chris, maybe talk about some advertising in NSMD, and to check out Aaron’s cool drums.

Matt Crouse interviewed me recently for his very cool podcast "Working Drummer". It's a conversation about what it is like to be a lifelong working drummer, my history and experiences, and Matt's take on things too. He is very good at this and I'm so glad he included me. Matt is an old friend. We met twenty years ago when we were both working at Fork's Drum Closet. http://www.workingdrummer.net/2015/04/15/georgelawrence/

I have resurrected the Famous Drums brand with a new work horse Black Beauty brass model featuring a Dunnett throw off.  It has a low price of $385 and you can check it out at our Reverb.com storehttp://rvrb.io/2015-black-beauty-70g

The Snare Drum Olympics will be held this year. The judging will be in November and results will be published in the December Issue. If you want to enter a drum or two or three in this year’s contest and publicity event please sign up on our mailing list at www.snaredrumolympics.com and review the application and procedures. Since the Nashville Drum Show is not being held this year, we will have a separate public event for the public judging and debut.

There are many great articles in this issue including a healthy number of reader submissions and appraisal requests, so get our your iPad or your telephone or your Dick Tracy watch and read away.   –George Lawrence

PS - Don't forget to check out all the new products in our new store: https://reverb.com/shop/georges-drum-shop