Greetings,

This last Saturday, April 26, two separate Meinl Cymbal artists hosted clinics in the US. Nick D' Virgilio hosted a clinic at Just Drums in Midlothian, Virginia and Derek Roddy hosted a clinic at Explorers Percussion in Kansas City, Missouri.

Both clinics were a great success and a huge round of thanks goes out to Shane Fowlkes and his staff at Just Drums and to Wes Faulconer and his staff at Explorers Percussion. Both teams worked very hard to make the clinics a memorable experience for all who were involved and attended.

Check out the photos.

Take care,

Chris

Greetings,

If you want to know what some of your favorite Meinl Cymbal artists have been up to, maybe you should check out Alternative Press magazine from time to time.

Just this year alone, three out of six covers have been graced by bands whose drummers play Meinl Cymbals. And all three bands - Paramore, (February 08) Panic At the Disco (May 08) and Cobra Starship,(June 08) are in the top of the charts here in the US right now.

Not bad.

Check out the photos.

Greetings,

Just a heads-up...two Meinl Cymbal artists are giving clinics this weekend in the US. Both clinics happen on Saturday, April 26.

Nick D' Virgilio will host a clinic through Just Drums in Midlothian, Virginia. For more details, click here.

Derek Roddy will host a clinic through Explorers Percussion in Kansas City, Missouri. For more details, click here.

Anyone who can make these won't want to miss them. Nick and Derek are both great human beings and great drummers with a lot of knowledge and experience that they are always willing to share with everyone.

Take care.

Chris

arthur hnatek is a 17 year young drummer from geneva, switzerland and today he stopped by at our factory to choose his set of cymbals (which then ended up being a mixture of byzance and generation X). so far I have not heard much about this young musician until yamaha drums decided to host their legendary groove night at the 2008 musikmesse in frankfurt and invited arthur to play at their prestigious event. many drummers from the u.s. and from all over europe played that night, but it was this 17 year old kid who got stuck in my head. arthur performed tower of power's "you've got to funkifize" and he sounded simply amazing. bernhard castiglioni of drummerworld.com and jojo mayer stood next to me while he was on and all of us where seriously impressed by his mature playing and technical abilities. a meinl video podcast will be available soon about arthur.

here is arthur's artist feature for more info about him and his new meinl cymbals. I am proudly welcoming him to our family and looking forward to working with him and inspiring his playing with our cymbal sounds.

ps: i would like to thank wolfgang haffner for introducing arthur to me at the 2008 musikmesse which originally has paved the way for arthur's and our relationship. coincidentally, wolfgang just called me to say hello while I was typing this blog and was delighted to hear about meinl and arthur. it's come full circle :-)

Congratulations to Meinl Cymbal Artist Brann Dailor and Mastodon!

Rolling Stone has just named these guys 'Best Metal Band of 2008' in their Best of Rock issue, which hits the streets any day now.

Congratulations to Brann and the boys for a well-deserved honor.

U.S. magazine "DRUM!" is doing its annual readers poll. everybody can vote online for his or her favourite drummer, band, equipment, etc.

some of our cymbals got nominated this year - which i think is awesome.

here is a link to the website where you can give your votes:

VOTE DRUMMIES 2008!

every once in a while a nearby school sends an intern so he or she gets a feeling how it is to have a "real-job". this time they even sent two young ladies our way who will help and support us in our daily work for the next three weeks.

welcome jenny (left) and jacqueline! i hope your time here will be a valuable experience for any future job decisions you will have to make in your life.

...min. 300 gr. (10oz)  Schnitzel per person, times 9 guys means +/- 3 kg or more then 6 pounds (lb) of Wiener Schnitzel on the plate..... For sure lot of fun and especially lot of work to do at our recent lunch break here at MEINL cymbals. The idea for that was Stefan's dream for a long time... so Jacqueline, Jenny, Michael, Uwe, Micha, Jens, Reinhard and myself had some great time at a local restaurant last Friday, but rest assured... we survived and made it.. but for sure enough Schnitzel for the next couple of weeks.... take care!

this hasn't happened a lot before, but i have to say that since a few days, and especially since yesterday, there is a real excitement starting to happen within our team about facebook. it seems like it's the new thing on the www everybody is talking about. we are starting to really get into it and have spent days and nights on facebook lately. not only have we created an official meinl cymbals facebook account, but also myself and a few of my colleagues now have their own personal facebooks, which is really cool.

i know i know, for many people, especially in the u.s., facebook is well established tool. however over on this side of the world, it is now just starting to happen. more and more people are signing up. it's similar to myspace of course. however IMHO myspace is more like a source to find information, especially about music. facebook on the other side is a tool to make communication with others who have the same interests much easier. it's a communicative tool, not just informative. everybody here at our office now really digs it.

if you have a facebook account already, please find us and join our groups along with other drum enthusiasts. if you don't have an account yet, i encourage you to create one and start to explore its possibilities too.

here is the link to our cymbal facebook account:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=762396601

more to come.........thanks for reading, stay tuned and be safe.....

Howdy,

I was sending some cymbals to Trevor Lawrence Jr. the other day, and it got me to thinking about just how much the guy works. I mean...he is ALWAYS working...on heavy duty projects too! That being said, I became a little bit curious about some of the inner-workings of his studio-session-work life, the ins and outs, and the road work that he does as well.

So I emailed him 5 questions to pick his brain a little bit, figuring you guys and gals might want to know a little more about what goes on with an in-demand LA session cat. Check out his answers.

1. You're constantly working on different projects in the LA studio scene. What aspect are you working on the most with these projects, i.e. tracking drums, song-writing, engineering, producing, programming?

When other people call me, I'm usually playing live drums and/or percussion. I always have something going on production-wise and that will usually involve programming, writing, etc.

2. When you have multiple projects offered at once, what determines which one you take on? It can't all be about the cash, right?   :-)

When I'm already booked for something, I try to stay loyal to that gig and I try to schedule for the other thing around that. Recently I couldn't do an Alicia Keys session because I had to go out of town with someone else that I had committed to around the holidays. Nope...it's not always about the cash. "If You chase checks, they run." - Leonard Cohen - But I always ask myself if a call is worth the money being offered and if the music and people involved are cool.

3. What were your favorite projects that you worked on in 2007 and what roles did you play in each one?

Definitely Alicia Keys' album was fun and a great vibe to make. I think cutting a bona-fide country record with Snoop might have made hip hop history, which was definitely fun. Also, playing on my boy Everlast's record was fun too. I'm his musical director now and we'll be going on tour starting in late May across the US.

4. How do you balance road work and being out of town and away from the studio scene?

When I'm home, I'm here to do sessions and when I'm out, I try to schedule them so I can do them when I come home. If not...then that's the business. Soon, I'll be able to send my son to sub for me. That will be a great day!!!   :-)  

5. What are you currently working on now?

Actually, when I got this email, I was in the studio with Dr. Dre and I've been working with him pretty frequently since last August. With him, I pay two roles: vibe starter (I start grooves and patterns and we jam and songs are basically created) and drummer/percussionist. Also, I'm on the upcmoming Qunicy Jones album and I've been working with my good friend, producer Mike Elizondo.

Thanks for reading. Take care.

Chris

am dienstag 01. april (kein scherz) begann der kartenvorverkauf für unser drum festival. wie bekannt sein dürfte, haben wir das festival auf zwei tage verlängert und wird am 6. und 7. september auf unserem betriebsgelände in 91468 gutenstetten (bei nürnberg) stattfinden.

tickets fürs festival, detaillierte informationen zum genauen programm- und tagesablauf, sowie eine liste und links mit übernachtungsmöglichkeiten hier in der gegend gibt es auf www.meinldrumfestival.com.

wir stecken mitten in den vorbereitungen und rühren kräftig in der werbetrommel. anscheinend mit erfolg, denn es ist überraschend, wieviel tickets in den ersten drei tagen des vorverkaufs schon bestellt wurden. sogar aus portugal und frankreich gingen bestellungen ein. wichtig für euch zu wissen: die tickets für die masterclasses am ersten tag sind limitiert, denn eine zu hohe teilnehmerzahl bedeutet in der regel weniger wissensvermittlung für den einzelnen teilnehmer. noch sind genügend tickets verfügbar, aber wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst heißt es so schön. wer ein ticket für samstag bestellt, hat automatisch auch freien eintritt am sonntag. es gilt also für beide tage. eintrittskarten für nur sonntag können auch auf meinldrumfestival.com zum vorverkaufspreis bestellt werden, aber sicherlich werden noch genügend sonntag tickets an der tageskasse erhältlich sein.

nochmal langsam zum mitschreiben:

tickets für gültigkeit an beiden tagen (2-tage-tickets) samstag und sonntag sind limitiert und können ausschließlich auf www.meinldrumfestival.com bestellt werden.

tagestickets für nur sonntag können auch auf www.meinldrumfestival.com zum vorverkaufspreis bestellt werden. jedoch sind diese nicht limitiert und werden auch an der tageskasse noch erhältlich sein.

was den special guest angeht, so hülle ich mich noch in schweigen, da es noch nicht sicher ist, ob es klappen wird. falls alles nach plan läuft, wäre es das highlight aller meinl drum festivals. wenn nicht, dann wird uns sicherlich was ähnlich tolles einfallen. sobald irgendwas feststeht, werd ich es natürlich hier mitteilen.

bis dahin viel spass auf meinldrumfestival.com. dort gibt es auch ein archiv mit allen videos und bilder der vergangenen festivals.

it's a great pleasure for me to welcome kurt lelièvre to our team. as of today april 01, kurt is our new representative for belgium and holland and will be working with the music retailers there. so far he has been the drum-department manager for adams music in belgium. kurt also is an amazing drummer himself and has a nice hairstyle :-)

welcome kurt - you are a great accession to our team. we are all looking forward to working with you.