Guitar Center's Drumm-Off competitions begin this week

Guitar Center’s Drum-Off 2007 local competitions will launch this week at over 200 stores across the nation. Store preliminaries start on Wednesday, September 12 and take place every Wednesday ending with local store finals on October 3rd. Now in it’s 19th year, Drum-Off continues to bring together thousands of the nation’s top undiscovered drummers for the chance to compete for incredible prizes, national recognition and the bragging rights of being crowned Drum-Off Champion.
Drummers have been signing up at their local Guitar Center stores since August 1st, preparing to showcase their talent by performing a three-minute drum solo, at their store level competition. Judged on originality, skills/technique, style, stage presence and overall performance winners of the store preliminaries will advance on to the store finals. Subsequent winners will then advance on to district finals, regional finals and finally the grand finals which will take place this winter. Drum-Off is open to contestants 16 years of age and older.
This year’s Drum-Off champion will receive a prize package valued at more than $45,000 including a Toyota FJ Cruiser, $10,000 cash, a feature in a Guitar Center ad campaign, a $2,500 Levi’s shopping spree, a custom designed drum kit from DW, Pearl, Tama or Gretsch, a Roland TD20 electronic drum-set, a set of cymbals custom printed with the winner’s signature, a one year drum, cymbal, stick and head endorsement deal, and a write up in Modern Drummer magazine. Additionally, store, district and regional winners will walk away with thousands of dollars in prizes from top Drum-Off partners.
Previous Drum-Off winners have gone on to enjoy successful music careers, record albums and tour the world with many noteworthy bands. 2002 Drum-Off Champion, Cora Coleman, has gone on to tour with many of today’s most recognized musical artists including legendary recording artist Prince, playing on his most recent album 3121 and at Super Bowl XVI. Eric Moore II, Drum-Off 2003 Champion, has also achieved notoriety by performing with psychedelic funk band Sly and the Family Stone as well as singer Bobby Brown.
A new addition to this year’s Drum-Off is a new interactive website that offers members the viral tools to upload tracks, edit profiles and share their passion with other members within the online community. A “Top 100 Tracks” section features the best songs as rated by the members of the cyberspace community. Users can also chat with other drum enthusiasts on the discussion boards dedicated to everything from talking shop to sharing techniques or viewing the exclusive video content with drummers such as Travis Barker, Adrian Young and Stephen Perkins. Users can also access From the Vault an archive of interviews and articles from Modern Drummer.

Partners for Drum-Off 2007 include: Levi’s, DW, Evans, Vic Firth, Remo, Zildjian, Pearl, Roland, Sabian, Tama, Gretsch, Pro∙Mark, and Modern Drummer.

About Guitar Center Guitar Center is the leading United States retailer of guitars, amplifiers, percussion instruments, keyboards and pro-audio and recording equipment. Our retail store subsidiary presently operates more than 200 Guitar Center stores across the U.S. In addition, our Music & Arts division operates more than 100 stores specializing in band instruments for sale and rental, serving teachers, band directors, college professors and students. We are also the largest direct response retailer of musical instruments in the United States through our wholly owned subsidiary, Musician's Friend, Inc., and its catalog and Web site, www.musiciansfriend.com. More information on Guitar Center can be found by visiting the Company's Web site at www.guitarcenter.com.