Meinl Cymbal artist Art Cruz can be seen online now in a couple of new videos that have just been posted. The footage came from the 2010 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival on the Atlanta, GA tour date.

Art is a really great drummer. Lots of cool licks, a great metal feel, and he holds it all together for his band Winds of Plague in a very cool way. His mixture of Byzance, Mb20, Soundcaster Custom, and Generation X is a very musical one.

Sorry for the shakiness, but I was trying to stay out of the way of Rick Malkin, who was taking pictures for Meinl that day.

Enjoy!

 - Chris

Meinl cymbals and percussion is proud to announce that the company's second international Meinl Drum Festival will take place at the Teatro Metropolitan in Mexico City on July 13, 2011. Meinl will produce the festival in cooperation with Gonher distribuidora, Meinl’s distributor in Mexico.

"After the huge success of our first international Meinl Drum Festival in Moscow in 2009, it was just a matter of time until the second one was going to follow," says Meinl's festival organizer Norbert Saemann. "After discussing this possibility with our Mexican distributor, we were confident that it could become another groundbreaking event. During my visit to Mexico City in September of this year and seeing the Teatro Metropolitan, I was positive that we will be able to accomplish something the Mexican drum community has never experienced before. I am really excited to turn this idea into reality and am ready to work very hard for the success of our second international Meinl Drum Festival."

"We are proud to be the host for the 2011 Meinl Drum Festival in Mexico City," explains Gonher's Jorge Gonzales. "Bringing such a world-class and prestigious festival to our home country is a great honor for us. We are looking forward to that experience."

Norbert Saemann continues, "I'm currently working on putting the line up together. Meinl artists who have been invited include Ozzy Osbourne's Tommy Clufetos, Prince's drummer Chris Coleman, Derek Roddy, Thomas Lang and a few others. We will also invite some of our national Mexican endorsers of course."

News about the 2011 Meinl Drum Festival’s progress will be posted regularly on meinldrumfestival.com. A dedicated Facebook Fanpage has also been created and can be accessed at facebook.com/meinldrumfestival.

Meinl Cymbal artist Jason Bittner held a clinic at Long Island Drum Center in Plainview, NY on October 21. Check out three videos from his performance.

On October 26, 2010, Meinl artist Wolfgang Haffner has received the prestigious Wolfram-von-Eschenbach Award.

In a solemnly ceremony held at the townhall of Franconian city Wolframs-Eschenbach, the annual prize is awarded to indigenous Middle Franconian artists for outstanding cultural accomplishments and for representing their native region in the world.

Meinl proudly congratulates Wolfgang Haffner to this recognition.

Meinl cymbals congratulates their artist Jost Nickel to his outstanding performance at the 2010 Montreal Drumfestival last sunday.

(c) photos by Heinz Kronberger

Meinl cymbals is pleased to welcome Yuma van Eekelen to its family of cymbal artists.

Yuma has recently joined the legendary Dutch Death Metal Band Pestilence and has beein touring with them ever since. Right now Yuma and Pestilence are getting ready to enter the studio for the recording of another album.

Yuma plays Meinl Mb20, Soundcaster Custom, Mb10, and Generation X cymbals exclusively.

Check out a couple of videos just posted featuring Alex Lopez of Suicide Silence online at meinlcymbals.com.

These videos were shot on the 2010 VANS Warped Tour in Atlanta, GA. Alex just recently came over to Meinl Cymbals earlier this year. He decided to make the switch based off of how much he loved the sounds and selection. Even though Alex plays for one of the most brutal and technically precise bands around, Alex comes from the school of BIG ROCK drumming. For being involved in a genre of music which has technical demands that can make some of the drummers involved seem almost "robotish," Alex digs deep from his influences (guys like Grohl) and tries to put the swagger into every beat as much as possible. It definitely shows.

The way he lays into the Soundcaster Custom mega-bell ride is brutal for sure, but Alex really brings it to life in the context of what he's playing. Musical cymbals for musical drummers, even when it's this heavy!

The next Thomas Lang Drumming Boot Camp will be held from October 14th-17th 2010 in Westlake Village, Los Angeles. Thomas will teach small classes for 8 hours per day while sharing his unique drumming concepts and hardcore practicing approach.

Click here for more information and registration.

Meinl Cymbals is pleased to welcome LaDell Abrams to its family of cymbal artists.

LaDell is widely known as one of the masters of 'gospel drumming,' and rightfully so. Born and bred in Michigan, LaDell has manned the drum chair for Usher and gospel legend John P. Kee.

Currently LaDell is dividing his time between two legendary gospel artists - CeCe Winans and Andrea Crouch.

There are some new artist videos online. Both from the 2010 VANS Warped Tour

• Ryan Leger (Every Time I Die)
• Marc 'Meggers' Eggers (The Casualties)

Meinl cymbals proudly welcomes Italian drummer Marco Iannetta to their family of endorsing artists.

Marco uses Meinl's Byzance, Mb20, and Mb10 Series Cymbals exclusively.

Meinl cymbals contratulates German band Unheilig with their drummer and Meinl artist Martin Potthoff for winning the prestigious nationwide Bundesvision Song Contest. Voted by the viewers of the TV contest, Unheilig's song "Unter deiner Flagge" won the neck-and-neck race among 16 other participating bands.

Martin and Unheilig are currently getting ready for a German tour starting November this year.