George's Drum Shop | About George Lawrence

George Lawrence @Sylvia Theatre

Below: George Radio!A ll George/All The Time! :-)
the "Lost" Buster Brown Band tape! serious, nasty funk band from Dallas. I was just out of college.
The Uncle Rainbow tracks are three sets recorded at Fannie Anne's night club in Dallas later that year
(Uncle Rainbow spawned the Bourgeois Tagg band in the eighties)

Hailing from Jackson Mississippi, George has lived and worked in the major music centers of Los Angeles, Nashville, and Muscle Shoals Alabama, recording and touring with some of the best musicians and recording artists from around the world. He is known for his "deep pocket groove" and his ability to inspire other musicians to play their best. He is currently touring and recording with the infamous veteran band POCO, and playing other free lance sessions and gigs. George’s life long involvement with drum shops as a teacher led to the fulfillment of one of his lifelong dreams, the establishing in 2002 of George’s Drum Shop in the Akron/Cleveland, Ohio area where he teaches, repairs, builds and sells drums when he is not on the road. His drumming styles range from funk, R&B, soul music, blues, country, rock from classic to metal, pop, big band jazz, be-bop jazz and jazz-rock fusion music. He spent many years as a recording studio "session cat" and reads standard transcription and Nashville number charts flawlessly. He has played drum set in every imaginable setting including concert arenas, videos, TV, clubs, churches, symphony orchestras, and clinics. A true professional sideman, George is available to work gigs, recording sessions and clinics anywhere in the world. To contact George about playing a gig or tour or playing on your recordings (your studio or his) email him at george@georgesdrumshop.com or call him at 330 338 6035.

George is very active in the drumming community both locally and nationally, attending drumming festivals, drum festivals and conventions around the country as a performer and clinician as well as hosting his own Southern Drum Show in Nashville TN.He has taught thousands of students, many who have gone on to become professional drummers and some who have become famous drummers, most notably Keith Carlock, also from Mississippi, who is now recognized as one of the top drummers in the world working with the likes of Steely Dan, Sting and James Taylor. Pro and aspiring pro drummers from around the country seek George out for the highest level of instruction on the drumset.

In 2008 George became a partner in the Famous Drum Company which manufacturers pro level snare drums and drum sets. George also became the owner and publisher of Not So Modern Drummer Magazine in 2008 and produces the annual Southern Drum Show held in Nashville every year during the same week as the Summer NAMM convention.

George's Drum Shop has been in business almost constantly in one form or another since 1985 but it actually started in my bedroom when I was in high school. I was always buying drum sets and refinishing and refurbishing them, reselling or horse trading them mainly just to satisfy my jones for the next great new drum set I thought I had to have. During my late teens and twenties I used to visit, hang out, teach and work in drum shops and music departments all around the country as I moved and travelled from place to place. I was involved with the B&S drum shop in Dallas and Mike's Drum Shop in Santa Barbara California. I also frequented Frank's Drum Shop in Chicago, Skip's Music in Sacramento, the original Guitar Center in LA., The Pro Drum Shop in Hollywood, Brook Mays Music in Dallas and many others. I was always in love with drum shops. I think a drum shop is a romantic business because creative people are involved as staff and customers. I enjoyed hanging out with the other drummers and talking about playing drums, checking out the latest gear, our music careers, etc. My mother and I talked often about opening a drum shop and after my stint in the California music business, George's Drum Shop was started in earnest in 1985 when I settled down in my hometown of Jackson Mississippi. My mother put up a couple of rental houses for the collateral for a business loan.

Jackson 1985: The first George's Drum shop was located in an old house on the edge of the large Meadowbrook Mart shopping center in North Jackson. This enterprise lasted three years and thanks to Reaganomics and the poor economy of the state there just wasn't enough drummer business in the area to sustain a stand alone drum shop. I closed that location down in 1987 and operated out of a building in back of my home teaching students, repairing and building drums and selling them to students on the side. I also published a mail order catalog for a while.

I moved to Nashville in 1993 where I worked briefly at the now defunct Pro Drum Shop, taught and sold at Sam's Music in Brentwood, and starting in 1996 taught at Fork's Drum Closet, one of the premier drum shops in the country. I started my online drum retail business DrumGuru.com in 2000 selling just a handful of brands.

I moved to Akron Ohio (my wife's hometown) in 2002 where I resurrected George's Drum Shop and GeorgesDrumShop.com in the funky and eclectic Walterville Warehouse complex (Walterville isn't really a place, it's a state of mind :-) In 2004, I moved the store to neighboring downtown Cuyahoga Falls Ohio when my friend Jim Mothersbaugh offered me cheap rent in the big storefront building his family owned. Jim's brother is Mark Mothersbaugh and cousin Bob Mothersbaugh of the Devo band and they all used to practice and shoot their videos in this building. It was located on a pedestrian mall next door to the downtown ampitheatre so I threw three yearly drum festivals there which reached an attendance of 10,000 in 2006. I also joined Poco in 2004 and have been playing 50 dates a year with them AND running the shop full time. Whew!

In 2006 the musical instrument retail industry had one of the worst years since the Great Depression of 1930. Many of the biggest music retailers went bankrupt including Woodwind and Brasswind, Brook Mays Music and Lentine's Music. My business had been doubling its sales for four years straight but in 2006 suffered a 30% fall in sales. It was obvious that the days of mom and pop music stores were about gone with the advent of big box stores like Guitar Center and the fast growing popularity of online shopping. The downtown Cuyahoga Falls location was also suffering from urban blight which reduced my retail traffic, so in 2007 I decided to concentrate on internet sales, seeing that local sales were once again too unpredictable to depend on. I moved the shop back to the small Walterville warehouse quarters and reduced my staff, inventory and other overhead expenses, but increased my customer base and total sales. Now, though I still cater to the local and regional drummers, the majority of the shop's business is shipping to long distance customers and foreign dealers and resellers who find me via the internet. It's a new way of doing business but I like it and my customers seem to dig it. I now ship all over the world as a new fangled internet store and spend time with my local customers just like the old time drum shops I used to frequent; the best of both worlds.

The next step is to expand square footage in another location across the street..This will probably happen in early 2009 as soon as the present tenants are able to move into their new building. Stay tuned for the airing of that episode! :-0

The Cuyahoga Falls Front Street Location from June 2004 until 01/07
storefront2

George and artist Tom Sullivan hanging the Recycled Drum Set Sculpture at the Cuyahoga Falls location.

George performing at the shop's 2006 Drum Festival; attendance for the day; 10,000!