Keith drums message home

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 29

Keith drums message home

By

JOANNE HARRISON

NZPA-Reuter Houston Keith Karnaky’s customers want to make a lot of noise. He has just the equipment to help them. Mr Karnaky is the owner of what he touts as the world’s largest drum store, a 99005 q m wonderland of congas, bongos and every other imaginable percussion instrument for musicians to bang on. His drum/keyboard/ guitar shop on a busy Houston motorway offers everything from the latest synthesisers to African talking drums that mimic the tonality of African languages. "We have more than 100 drum sets,” Mr Karnaky says, “and lots of other stuff nobody else in the country sells. We’ve got bells from Pakistan and India and gongs from China. We’ve got cuica from Brazil — they make a tunnel sound when you

rub the stick up and down inside.”

Many of the items have a story behind them.

“We used to get the African talking drums from sailors because no manufacturer offered them,” he said. “God, those things smelled awful. But we had a dance group that wanted them.”

The Drum Shop attracts customers from across the musical spectrum. “There are probably less than 100 (drum stores) in the United States. It’s a pretty specialised business,” Karnaky said. The greying Houston native has been banging on drums for a long time. As a child he sold used drums the way other kids sold lemonade, in the driveway of his parents’ home.

Later, he moved his fledgling business to a couple of rooms in a space above his doctor

father’s office. Until recently, Mr Karnaky’s ever-expanding inventory of drums jammed the floors — and even hung from the ceilings — of an old brick house near downtown Houston.

Then fate, in the person of art patron, Dominique de Menil, stepped in. She wanted the land Karnaky’s store occupied for the car park of a new SUS2S million private museum. She offered a swap.

Mr Karnaky surrendered his old space for a huge new one on the edge of Houston valued at more than SUSI million.

The rest is history. And so, according to Mr Karnaky, is most United States-manufactured musical equipment.

“Almost all of it comes from overseas now,” he said. "Things like Sonor drums, the Mercedes of drum sets, they’re from West Germany. In electric drums you’ve got Yamaha from Japan, Dynacord

from Germany and drums from Sweden.” His customers know they can find just about any percussion instrument needed, and maybe even a musician to play it.

On the notice board in his shop, one hand-written advertisement from a dance band seeks a drummer who can read music and play “authentic Czech arrangements.” Another, from a group known as Screeech, wants a “hardcore drummer (13-15) influenced by Social Distortion, Susidals and Naked Raygun.” Matching up musicians and offering advice on musical instruments is all in a day’s work for Mr Karnaky’s 22 employees. They speak their customers’ language.

“We can do one of those for six bills,” said one guitar clerk to a heavyset customer carrying a toddler. “That’s cool, man, I’ll get my cash together and catch you

Wednesday,” comes the customer’s response. Teenage boys slowly browse, reverently touching keyboards. Longhaired professionals move quickly, sizing up the equipment needed for their next performance. In the store’s specially glassed-in electronic drum centre, Mr Karnaky cranks up the future of music.

“Look,” he says, “for as little as SUS3SO . ($563) you can buy a computer that’ll put down a beat faster than any human can play, then add congas, cowbells and sounds it would take 16 drummers to create — and you can do it all with two index fingers.” As he presses the keys on what looks like an oversized business calculator, the sound of an orchestra comes pouring out.

"We’ve got some things in here,” he says, "that’ll do everything but book the act for you.”