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Drummers Only: 2019 Edition!

2019 gave us the The Fyre Fest documentary which introduced the world to Andy King, a man who brings a whole new meaning to “taking one for the team”, Game of Thrones met it’s conclusion (spoiler alert: DISAPPOINTING), The Avengers as we know them came to an end (spoiler alert: HEARTBREAKING), Greta Thunberg’s “How Dare You” speech made her Time’s Person Of The Year 2019 and the film adaptation of the musical Cats proved that the only decent movie about Cats is The Lion King.

Outside of pop culture, 2019 proved to be a big one for us here a Drummers Only for a number of reasons, but this is the introductory paragraph that no-one reads. Seriously! You can say anything here, your deepest darkest secrets or home truths and it won’t get noticed…The Rise Of Skywalker was actually really good! Anyway, now for the good part…

Don’t you just love it when your favourite TV show does a “clip show” episode right after an important cliffhanger episode? Well this blog is effective the written version of that so STRAP IN PEOPLE! 2019 was a HUGE year for us. I’d honestly argue 2019 was the busiest year yet for us. Having two shops definitely helps that. Oh yeah, we have two shops now. DIDN’T WE TELL YOU ENOUGH?! Phone calls and emails would suggest not. Anyway, 2019 is indeed the year we leveled up from single store to a CHAIN. Opening a second store in Scotland would be predictable…and cold, so we decided it was time to venture south of The Wall and open a brand new store in Leeds!

The wonderful Jake Brooksbank, a total legend who really knows his stuff, manages the store. He’s assembled his own army of expert staff but you’ll see a Glasgow face down there from time to time and vice versa. It’s pretty righteous that there are now TWO Drummers Only stores in the UK. Plus, what other drum store would have a DELOREAN turn up to their new shop opening party?! Having two stores also opens us up to having more locations for clinics. Speaking of…

2019 was a HUGE year for clinics, kicked off with the legendary Steve Smith who blew away a capacity audience with some real fan girl moments! Steve was closely followed by the internets favourite teacher Mike Johnston. Matt Halpern & Federico Paulvich followed in Mikes footsteps, which also ended up being the first official clinic at the Leeds shop. Simon Edgoose destroyed all of our brains with the capabilities of the Yamaha EAD10 while Craig Reynolds ventured to Glasgow to blow the ROOF off in tremendous fashion.

Matt Garstka journeyed up north to blow our minds with an incredible performance and Luke Holland tore the building in half in Leeds with an insightful social media and drumming Masterclass. Our year, and DECADE rounded out with the guru himself Benny Greb in both Glasgow & Leeds stores. We last had Benny in 2013 so it was amazing to see a noticeable growth in his playing only six years later. Phenomenal! You’ll have noticed that many of our artists this year were Meinl affiliated, so it seemed only appropriate to pay a visit to the factory, right?

We got to venture out the shop a few times in 2019 and see some cool places/people. I guess for the Glasgow troops, and myself the journey to Leeds was pretty exciting (we don’t get out much) but I’m talking GLOBALLY…or at least to Europe. Conveniently both trips involved cymbal factories! Paul & Gordon took a trip to Turkey to visit the Istanbul Agop factory while Adam & Jake got to jet-set to Germany for a jolly boys outing to Meinl HQ.

A bit closer to home, Drummers Only were representing Sonor Drums at the 2019 UK Drum Show, which involved 72 hours of being in a giant room with what felt like the whole of the UK’s drumming community smacking drums right next to your face. LOUD…but lots of fun! We get so many customers online and further afield than Glasgow or Leeds that it’s nice to actually meet them face to face…you know, even if we can’t hear what they’re saying by lunchtime.

Despite our numbers in staff growing here, it would be a crime to not give an honorable shout out to our Liam who hung up his Drummers Only t-shirt to be a professional computer wizard. Total LEGEND!!

Finally, with the opening of Leeds and with the theme of growth this past year, we decided it was time for Glasgow to have a bit of renovation. By “renovation” I actually mean packing up all our drums from Commerce St into several van loads and moving it half way across Glasgow to the east end into a BRAND NEW SPACE. We moved from Commerce St for a number of reasons COUGH parking COUGH rats & the smell of damp COUGH deliveries COUGH.

We essentially had a blank canvas that allowed us to build a shop to suit us and cater for everything we need it to, which we simply couldn’t do affectively in our old place. I think you’ll all agree, it’s MUCH better…and getting parked right outside the front door is a bonus!

So there you have it! Your yearly round up of all the goings on in Drummers Only life. Myself (Adam) & Chris also started a podcast, which you can subscribe to HERE, or if you use Spotify…HERE where we went into everything above in a touch more detail…though we did get distracted by drum gear talk. We work in a drum shop, what do you expect?!

Make sure you keep an eye on all the socials this year for even more exciting goings on in the life of the UK’s largest independent drum store chain. I guess you could say that we’re taking drum stores BACK TO THE FUTURE!

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