Chicago 2007

This pictorial is dedicated to the sponsors of the
Hollywood Custom & Vintage Drum Show Benefit and
to the drummers and drum afficianados who attend these events.

And to the great community at drumsmith.com who came up BIG
for the Hollywood Custom & Vintage Drum Show benefit.

Text, images and video by Ronn Dunnett copyright 2007
Use of images, text or video without consent is prohibited.

All images are watermarked.

The opinions expressed in this pictorial are those of the author

Welcome!
Somewhere along the line I lost track of how many of these pictorials I have done. In fact I've forgotten how I even got started doing them! I do enjoy putting them together in spite of the time it takes from my other commitments and it's always worth it when I hear from those who, for whatever reason, cannot attend events like this one. Anyway, you've got 7 very long pages to go through
lots of MPEG clips and drums and drummers to see.

Before you do I'd like to thank the following friends for their help and support on this trip out

Jeff and Keelin Quay and all at Blue Man Group Chicago
Dave Mason & family
Glenn, Mark and Jeff
Dave Hansell @ Boom Alley Drums
Paul Mason @ Tempus

and congrats to Rob Cook on another successful show!

Also a very special welcome to our brother / sister forums around the world!

Drummerworld
Pearl Forum
Paiste forum
Cymbalholic
Mike Dolbear forum
House of Drumming
RMMP
Drummer Cafe
Drumshed.org

PS: There is something really really cool and important on the last page of the pictorial
- make sure you go through ALL of the pages OK?

This is how these things always start off - on an aircraft. Being a rather nervous flyer I try to distract myself and at the same time get some work done - in this case, more drawings for the R Class bass drum pedal.

First stop after a few hours in traffic - Steve Maxwel''s drum shop. Steve has a truly unique shop located in a vintage building in downtown Chicago.

Steve Maxwell's - one of the best vintage drum shops in North America.

Meet Ben who handles the day-to-day operations at Steve's shop.

I bet Pat would've got a kick out of these mean greenies

Some perennial friends from Finland and the UK. Short of falling in a vat Guiness, it's near heaven!

Between Curotto and Maxwell it's almost redundant having a "vintage" drum show. These guys have it all!

Steve's wooden Dynasonic collection

New from Johnny Craviotto - beaded brass snare drums.
At $2-3k, these are an in$tant cla$$ic.

Lou's old kit

Hmmm...could this be the inspiration for Yamaha's Messe display?

These look vaguely familiar. This is a Ludwig prototype kit of the soon to be released Stainless Steel ProBeat (ProBeast more like) in a brushed finish.

After visiting Steve's shop Paul and I were off for a few business meetings before heading to the Briar Street theater to hook up with our pal Jeff Quay. Jeff has been the lead kit drummer behind the Blue Man Group's Chicago stand for 10 years. This is Jeff applying dayglo war paint for the show.