To bring people together to build, support, and promote the drum community by providing excellence in customer service, product offerings, and education.
OPEN LETTER: ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY BY VIC
 Today officially marks the one year anniversary of the opening of Vic’s Drum Shop and I cannot help but reflect upon the past year and think what an amazing journey this has been. Business has exceeded our expectations, we’ve hosted 13 drum clinics and dozens of in-store appearances and master classes with some amazing artists, and new customers from all over the world continue to show up every day. So today, I’ve decided to do something special for myself – I’m taking today off. As of yesterday, I’ve worked 425 straight days. Mind you, I haven’t been in the shop every single one of those days – I attended Winter NAMM for 5 days, attended both PASIC last year and Summer NAMM this year for a day each, and even spent one day in Indianapolis setting up a kit for Simon Phillips – but nevertheless I was still working, just off-site. |
| SO WHY EVEN DO THIS Opening a shop like Vic’s is a huge undertaking, from both a financial perspective as well as an execution standpoint. On paper it can seem like an utterly ridiculous idea. But drums have been my obsession my entire life. I was the kid that would fall asleep reading drum catalogs, memorizing every word and photograph, and then find them strewn across my chest the next morning with the light still on. I also felt that Chicago needed a dedicated drum shop again. Since 1993, Chicago has not had a dedicated store that sells drums exclusively. It made no sense to me. Chicago is such a huge market and possesses a rich history of drum shops, drum manufacturing, and drummers. Chicago once had two great drum shops – Frank’s Drum Shop and Bill Crowden’s Drums LTD. Both were located on Wabash St. and sat side by side. I remember shopping at both and riding the elevators to their upstairs locations. They carried everything. Both Ludwig and Slingerland drums were manufactured here in Chicago as well. In fact, my very first kit was a Slingerland chrome over wood. And of course, so many brilliant drummers have come from Chicago like Gene Krupa, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Danny Seraphine, Paul Wertico, Jimmy Chamberlin, Todd Sucherman, and Glenn Kotche to name but a few. So I was compelled to do this. No ifs ands or buts. Chicago needed Vic’s. The entire drumming community needed Vic’s. |
| LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION. Ok so I have this nutty idea to open up a huge drum shop in Chicago. But where? Why not install the shop in an established music community? Why not inside of Music Garage rehearsal facility. Why not indeed! I had already been rehearsing there for five years. My entire staff had already been rehearsing there as well. It’s an incredible facility and was already a destination point for over 2000 musicians a week. A logical choice! The location has worked out perfectly. Sure we’re violating some golden rules of good retail. We’re not on a main street. We’re located on a side street that’s a dead end! Well at least we have a nice store front window…oh wait, we don’t even have one of those either! But what we do have is a community of drummers built right in. 120 drummers rehearsing right in our building. Now that’s pretty cool! Plus it helped alleviate some of the the initial concern regarding who would shop in the store at the very beginning. |
| WHAT’S IN A NAME I named the shop Vic’s Drum Shop because I wanted people to know there was someone behind it. We’re not some corporate entity. I specifically went with “Vic’s” because I wanted to pay homage to another great Chicago drum shop from yesteryear named Frank’s Drum Shop. I go by Vic or Victor – Mom calls me Vic, Dad calls me Victor and some friends call me other names which I won’t get into here. But Vic’s sounds like Frank’s and as a kid growing up and shopping at Frank’s, I remember how well known that store was. Everyone knew Frank’s, even non-drummers alike. It was an institution. Many of us never even referred to it by its full name, Frank’s Drum Shop. We simply called it Frank’s. We just knew it was a drum shop. We’d say, “Let’s meet at Frank’s” or “I just have to go and pick up a few things at Frank’s before the gig”. So I’d like to think (and hope) that Vic’s can achieve that kind of recognition. Where someone will just say Vic’s and everyone will know that it’s a drum shop. Only time will tell… |
| THE GRAND OPENING – OCTOBER 29, 2011 What an unreal experience this was – 16 world-class artists and over 2000 customers in 7 hours! I wanted to do something special, something different, in a grand way (like the name of the event implies!). I wanted artists and raffle prizes and performances and food and drink and dancing girls… Well maybe not dancing girls. So for starters, I invited 60 of my friends who just happen to be the most amazing drummers in the world and I got 16 to show up. So many were out on tour or doing sessions. The 16 artists we got were a wonderful mix – Terry Bozzio, Will Calhoun, Jimmy Chamberlin, Jimmy DeGrasso, Hannah Ford, Jerry Gaskill, Gavin Harrison, Johnny Rabb, Jim Riley, John Riley, Derek Roddy, Danny Seraphine, Todd Sucherman, Nathaniel Townsley, Chad Wackerman, and Billy Ward. |
| We barely made it. If we would have had an extra week to prepare we most certainly would have taken it. But we didn’t. The day was upon us. We had advertised. Artists had arrived in town. We had to open our doors. Many of us worked through the night the day before. (Jimmy DeGrasso personally tuned 130 snare drums for hours!) I remember getting home at 7:15am on that Saturday morning and setting my alarm for 7:30am just so I could close my eyes for a bit. I remember later that morning that some customers were starting to arrive at the shop by 10am. We opened at 11am and I began greeting them outside. I remember thinking that I would probably spend the day taking small groups of 5 to 8 people on short tours of the store. I had no idea the floodgates of people that would be converging upon the shop in the next hour. |
| At 11am I received a call from Mike Portnoy with whom I’d been communicating since 4am. Mike had been attempting to fly out of Pennsylvania for hours in order to attend but had encountered a severe snow storm. At 11am, Mike was calling me to tell me that it was virtually impossible for him to make it for the Grand Opening. The airport was closed and he was being sent home. Needless to say we were both extremely disappointed. But the shop was opening right that second and I had to go out and work the floor. I was standing in our second cymbal room and when I came out, there they were! Everybody! Hundreds of customers! We were overrun with people. I was flabbergasted. There went my plan of giving small tours out the window. |
| The next seven hours were the fastest seven hours of my life. So many conversations. So many encounters. So unbelievably hectic. We would not have survived that day without the additional support of all of the manufacturers’ representatives who were on hand to help service all of our customers. They along with the shop’s staff were absolutely magnificent. The party was in full swing. We had a bartender and mixologist serving drinks. We had free hors d’oeuvres and food and even set up a green room for the artists stocked with more food and drink. Yet somehow I forgot to eat. I missed it. I missed it all. Funny. Like I said it was the fastest seven hours of my life. |
| What an amazing event. The artists all signed autographs and met with fans (Even Terry Bozzio who hasn’t signed autographs in over 10 years happily signed!). Then they played in our teaching studios. (Many of their performances from that day can be seen on YouTube and there are numerous photo albums from that day right here on Facebook.) After the store closed, everyone got onboard our rented tour bus and headed to Macello restaurant for our celebration dinner. Everyone was there, the staff, the artists, manufacturers’ reps, friends, and family. It truly was the perfect way to end such an auspicious day. I was on cloud nine and didn’t even feel like I had only slept 15 minutes. A good thing since I later found the battery to my van was dead at 1:30 in the morning. But that’s another story for another time… |
| THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS…WELL, NOT EXACTLY Many people have asked me, “What’s up with your face on the bags and shirts?” As we were attempting to come up with a logo for the shop just weeks before the Grand Opening, we were discussing using different easily identifiable graphics and images, something that would denote drums. In one of those discussions, the idea of using my face as as a logo came up. We knew that there were a significant number of people out there who knew my name and my face. But the question was did they know BOTH! I thought what if someone sees the name of this new drum shop in an ad and they think, “Well there was this drummer named Victor that I know…I wonder if it’s the same guy”. Or I thought about someone else who might know my face but not know my name and therefore not make a connection with me, the guy they know, and the name of the shop. So the idea of using my face as a logo was born. The name of the shop next to an image of my face would guarantee that folks would make a connection, right? We were so pressed for time planning the Grand Opening Event and still dealing with last minute construction that we didn’t even have time to take a proper photograph. We ended up using a promotional photo that my good friend Rob Mazzella, owner of the GMS Drum Co., had taken the year before up in my rehearsal studio. My body and drum kit were cut out and the image was turned into a negative. Voilà. Done. We had our logo. |
| Days later, when ordering bags for the shop, I thought I had it all figured out knowing what sizes and quantities of bags we needed. Except I forgot one thing – what image or graphic goes on the bag? Oops. It was a crazy time. Gear was still showing up and construction wasn’t even done. The shop would be open in a week and we were out of time. So we began discussing the exciting topic of bags! I’ve always thought that Bloomingdale’s shopping bags were interesting since they didn’t really emphasize the name of the store. Instead they are boldly labeled “big brown bag” or “medium brown bag” or even “little brown bag”. In recent years they’ve even done some in different colors (“little pink bag”) and even different materials (“big canvas bag”). So I thought, “that’s it!”. Let’s use the same understated approach. More people are likely to reuse the bag since it doesn’t have a store name on it and it may even function as a conversation starter with someone asking, “Who the heck is that?!” (That last theory has actually been confirmed by several customers, two of which were able to connect with someone on a romantic level while riding the ‘L’. You’re welcome.) I must admit that I’m still a bit embarrassed by having my face on the bag. I often find myself turning the bag face-side down when at the counter bagging up something for a customer to avoid staring at myself. Even worse for me is walking down the street or entering a large venue carrying one of the shop’s bags when doing a delivery. (Entering Wrigley Field to do a delivery for the Springsteen show was particularly embarrassing.) |
| After the design for the bags was sorted, we next had the t-shirts to contend with. That was a no brainier. We had less than a week before the store opened and I was tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that needed to get done. So in haste, I said, “Put the face on it!” And there you have it. It’s funny what decisions one can make when one is tired and out of time. |
| PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN So many of you have commented positively regarding our Facebook posts and Facebook team and I appreciate that greatly. Truth be told as a few of you have suspected, the posts are essentially generated by me on my iPhone and on the fly. I thought about using a professional social media expert like most businesses do to assist in this department but quite frankly felt that they wouldn’t be as effective. They would not and could not share my personal point of view or be my voice. I want to have a strong personal connection with you. I want to share personal things that I think you might find interesting or inspiring – from a song to a piece of gear to a customer. I’m always genuinely excited about every one of my Facebook posts. (My personal favorite is CUSTOMER OF THE DAY, Ben Dillon, from September 9th of this year.) I’m surprised sometimes when certain posts are extremely popular and receive dozens of ‘likes’ and slightly disappointed when others are not as well received. (Only one person liked Joey Cassata’s (ZO2) “Joeylicious” VIDEO OF THE DAY? Really?!!? Sorry Joey. Or only 4 people liked Travis Barker’s DRUM TRACK OF THE DAY featuring a song by Avril Lavigne.) But that’s ok. Not everyone can like everything. That wouldn’t be very interesting now would it. So I’ll keep on posting while walking down the hallway, from in the bathroom, from backstage at a show, and even while sitting at a red light. And hopefully you’ll continue to ‘like’ some of it. By the way, this will be my last post for today. I’m taking the day COMPLETELY off! |
| THE FUTURE As the song goes, we’ve only just begun. While we’ve achieved so much in such a short period of time, there’s still so much more to do. And do it we will. I’m in it for the long haul. I’ll personally be here for the next 40 years. Literally! Decades from now I’ll be the old long grey haired dude behind the counter ringing up some 12 year old’s drumsticks. The 12 year old will turn to his friend as they leave the shop and say, “Do you know who that old guy is?” And his friend will shake his head ‘no’ to which the 12 year old will say, “That’s Vic!” His friend will look back at him in astonishment and say, “Wow! Really? There’s an actual ‘Vic’?!!?” There is indeed and I’ll continue to show up to work everyday. I don’t know what else to do with myself. I don’t have an MBA. I can’t do anything else nor know how to. I have no real skills and often make the joke that I’m unhireable. I’m not an IT guy and I can’t work on your car. I’m just a drummer who simply loves the drums and loves this industry. So I have to make this business work and I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to make it the very best drum shop it can possibly be. You deserve that. |
| TODAY I don’t really know what I’ll be doing today besides sleeping. I guess I’ll be a doing a little bit of everything and nothing at all. I’ve been going for so long and so hard that it might prove a little difficult to stop and shut down. I do know for certain that the shop will be just fine without me thanks to having the greatest staff in the world. I’ve often said it and will continue to say it – it’s the people that make a difference. Anyone can open up a shop like Vic’s but without the right people working in it, it cannot and will not succeed. I’m incredibly lucky and grateful that I’m surrounded by the very best – an expert team of drummers who share my passion, enthusiasm, and conviction for the work we do. You can’t ask for anything more. The store is greater than any one person. It’s all of us. |
| IN CLOSING I cannot thank all of you enough for the incredible amount of support and encouragement I’ve received this past year. You’ve kept me going and you continue to keep me going. You understand the work we do at Vic’s Drum Shop. You understand the vibe of the shop and the significance of why a shop like ours has to exist. Most important, you understand the concept of community and believe as I do in what the great Steve Gadd says, “We’re all in this together.” Thank you so very much. |
| Sincerely, |
| Victor Salazar Vic’s Drum Shop |
