Get to know a little more about the man himself !!

http://www.drumstars.co.uk/staff/

Good luck Dom and welcome to the team we know you'll fit right in

Wez and Phil

It has been a pleasure working with all of you, and I am proud of how much your drumming has progressed whilst I have been teaching you. I have had great fun during our lessons and I hope you all have too.

Keep drumming, keep working hard but most of all keep having fun! I'm positive your new drumstars teacher will bring new light to your drumming style.

Thank you all for your support and your hard work. It has been a pleasure and I wish you all the best for the future"

Thanks again Amy.

Hi everyone, just a quick message to say hello !!

sorry we haven't had any updates for a few weeks but I've been a little busy with the arrival off our first baby little Finlay Guy Westgate, with any luck he will follow in my footsteps and pick up the sticks.

I also wanted to give a shout out to one of my longest standing student as its his birthday tomorrow !!

Happy birthday to Joe Lamb, Joe is a very well mannered, polite, educated and very talented young man who as I said has had lessons with me for around 3 yrs.

He can read and play to Grade 5 standard. He can also pick up by ear and has a great fresh approach to play along's with some tasty fills under his belt, most important he is a joy to teach week in and week out and is up there with the best of our students at Drumstars UK.

Happy birthday dude we can do anything you want tomorrow even Avenge 7fold ( that's if I can keep up )
:-)

Thanks

Wez

Hey all

Just a quick shout out to our teacher Phil and one of his students Glen Richardson.

Glen has been taking lessons with Phil for a couple of year now and has started to sit some exams in turn giving him something to show for his efforts.

He came to Phil around two month back with the idea of sitting his grade 4 rockschool, with some great teaching from Phil and a load practice and hard work we are chuffed to give a massive congratulations to Glen for passing his grade 4 first time around with some impressive playing and comments.

Well done dude, keep up the hard work and lets nail grade 5!!!!!!

Wez

So for the last month some of our student's have been jamming away to their favourite tracks desperate to find that cool cover that would bag them the all important prize !!!!!

The entries we received from, George Rowan, Catherine Marley, Thomas Hardy, Dylan Thompson, Jack Marley and Adam Welsh were all top notch and with everything From Foo Fighters to Elvis thrown in there this was a tough one to judge.

Although all the songs performed by the student's had been covered before by other drummers our drumstars students still managed to impress us with some awesome playing. There were some inventive beats and fills and overall a very high standard of performance.

With this in mind it took us two days of watching the entries and hand full of texts and phone calls before we could pick a winner. Step forward Dylan Thompson, from his cover choice to his creative performance and fantastic time keeping we all agreed in the end that Dylan was to be crowned the worthy winner.

Check out his winning entry below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcRirxNH3aQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Thank you to all the other student's who took the time to enter the competition we all really appreciate the time and effort put in by each and every one of you and loved watching your video's

Thanks
Wez, Amy and Phil.

I received a few messages around a month ago now from one of the North East's hardest working and well respected musicians. He asked if I knew any decent young drummers who were ready to gig as he was putting a band together to manage and mentor. All the band members were in place minus the drummer (damn its hard to get a good one). I suggested a young chap called George Rowan who after a few years of lessons and a lot of practice and effort has become a great, cool, calm and solid player.

Jump to Tuesday just gone and I'm standing in my local pub for the first Tuesday buskers night a very busy well ran evening giving a chance to solo artist, musicians or bands alike. I ended up there to support George and his new band having beaten off any competition he is now part of Eliza Smiles.

After 4 rehearsals the female led pop rock outfit played a hand full of songs inc Foster the people's Pumped up kicks and Jessie j's Price tag. For a band of 14yr old musicians this was a brilliant, confident and mature first performance and I'm very happy and proud to say that with a few month of practice and a full set of catchy songs these guys will be the hottest young band in the north east!!!!!!!!

Awesome stuff
Wez

Check out who blew our festive socks off in December

http://www.drumstars.co.uk/drumstar-of-the-month/

Cheers Wez, Phil and Amy

I started playing drums about two years ago in lessons with Amy at Drumstars. I started as a total beginner at 16 so I could get up to a good standard to pass my audition for a music course at college. My two main influences are Nicko McBrain and Lars Ulrich, but I also really like Shannon Leto and Michael “Moose” Thomas.

My first experience of playing in a band, and live in front of an audience was when I started college last year. My first time performing was a Halloween themed gig put on by my college at a pub called The Smugglers. There were quite a few bands playing so everyone played a two-song set. The songs I played were “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker, Jr. and “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon. The night went great and I wasn’t nervous like I thought I might be.

The best gig I’ve done so far was another one put on by my college at The Sage Gateshead. It was a great venue and we played in Hall Two in front of around 300 people. My group did a medley of four classic Disco songs, we got a great reception from the crowd and everyone enjoyed themselves.

I’ve really enjoyed my time at Drumstars and learned so much thanks to the great teachers there. In the future I’ll be constantly trying to improve my playing, learning new techniques, and hopefully getting a band started and doing my own gigs. And thanks to an evening put on by the Drum Shop, I got the chance to meet Nicko and buy a signed Iron Maiden snare!

Next year I’m getting the chance to go to New York with my college and work with some musicians over there. Then once I finish college I plan to do a foundation degree course at university, and to think all of this happened because I started getting drum lessons two years ago at Drumstars.

Andrew Skelton

Two of our longest serving drumstars got a great surprise on Christmas day when their parents teamed up with Andy, Wez and the rest of the Drumshop UK crew to build them the mother of all drum kits.
Jack and Catherine Marley are two of our longest serving Drumstar students and after a couple of years of working with their teacher Amy are playing to a grade 7 standard!

Jack and Catherine's dad came in to see us and opted for a monster set up, as you can see from the image there was a load of gear however it was easier to build than to keep a secret. It's hard work not putting your foot in it but we managed and they are both over the moon.

They received

Yamaha birch custom (inc. a full set of hardware)
22 bd
10
12
14
16
14sn All fitted with Evans drum heads

Full set of Paiste PST5 cymbals

And a nice little Paiste 2002 bell tree (Gavin Harrison style)

They also got a PA for play along's not to mention a dedicated drum room built in the family garage!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you both hope you are loving the kit and thanks for your continued hard work and support, enjoy it dudes it's rock n roll !!!!!!!

Drumstars will be closed over christmas and new year, we will be closed on the following dates

CLOSED - Sat 24th Dec

CLOSED - Sun 25th Dec

CLOSED - Sat 31st Dec

CLOSED - Sun 1st Jan

We will re open as normal sat 7th Jan (9am) as normal

Merry christmas and a happy new year !!!

Wez, Amy and Phil.