There are a few changes going on at Not So Modern Drummer and with me. First and foremost, a new owner has taken command of DrumSellers.com. Billy Cuthrell is now lead instigator and I am staying on for a while as assistant administrator. Billy has some great plans for improving and expanding DrumSellers.com. The site will continue to be the classified ad sister site of Not So Modern Drummer. Billy has the experience as a drummer, as a vintage drum nerd, a former music store owner, and an active member of the retail percussion industry. Read more about Billy in this issue. Also I’m ready to quit buying and selling drum gear after forty years, so I’m selling off the last of the inventory that I have listed on DrumSellers.com and I will take reasonable and even unreasonable offers from NSMD readers Here is the link to that inventory https://www.drumsellers.com/?category=georges-drum-shop.
I might also mention that the Not So Modern Drummer business is still for sale. The assets include the domain name, the website, all the digital article content dating back to 2013, all the thousands of print back issues that I have in storage, the email list of 43,000 subscribers, and a few other minor assets. The price is only what I paid Bill Ludwig III for it in 2009 when it only had less than 1000 print subscribers. Contact me to discuss that price and other details about acquiring the business. 330 338 6035 george@notsomoderndrummer.com
Why am I selling it? I’m retiring and going to limit my activities to local gigs in the Memphis/Mid South area, my private students I teach at Memphis Drum Shop, and the drum instruction books and videos that I produce and sell. To that end I bought the domain GeorgeLawrenceDrums.com that will be a site about those activities. It will be linked page on the NSMD site. I’ve never been shy about putting myself out there in the world of drums and drummers, but NSMD is going to feature me a little more prominently now. I remember founder John Aldridge telling me once that he used Not So Modern Drummer as his personal calling card for his drum engraving services. Also, a subscriber once asked me if I am “Mister Not So Modern Drummer”, so I guess my identity is very entwined with it and I’ll own that title. When I sell Not So Modern Drummer, I will move GeorgeLawrenceDrums.com to its own separate site and the new owner can use NSMD as his personal calling card.
I’ve written about this before, that retiring from being a life long professional drummer/gun for hire with many fingers in other associated pies is hard because I can’t just say “I’m retiring” and someone will hand me a gold watch. I’ve been slowly but surely been cutting out my multiple streams of income, services and vocations one at a time as I have to, and it’s hard to let go of some of them, especially the playing, touring, and recording, etc. But we drummers wear out physically before other musicians and have to face when our bodies won’t let us play as hard as we did when we were younger. I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about. I can still play but only in less physical and stressful situations. Now, if I could just hire a roadie to carry these dang heavy drums and set them up for me!
P.S. The NSMD site is under reconstruction/redesign right now. It is still live and working but many of the links will be in different places on the home page. I’ll let you know when all that is finished.