Brady Drum Company and Kings of Leon have joined together to auction a special drum for the Australian Bushfire Relief Appeal.

In February, Australia suffered its worst national disaster in over 100 years at the hands of the Victorian bushfires. The fires ripped through local communities in Victoria obliterating everything in its path. Unfortunately, 210 people have died, over 2,000 families lost their homes and over 1 million acres of land have been destroyed.

To assist with the relief efforts, Brady Drum Company has donated a new 2009 release snare drum handcrafted from Wandoo (Eucalyptus Wandoo) for auction. In addition to headlining "Sound Relief", a charity concert to raise funds for the relief effort, the members of Kings Of Leon have thrown their support behind the appeal and have lent their signatures to this drum. The band's drummer, Nathan Followill, has performed live since 2006 with a Brady snare drum. 

100% of the proceeds will split equally between the Australian Red Cross, The Salvation Army and the RSPCA who provide financial, emotional and medical support to the families, pets and livestock devastated by this tragedy.

The auction will go live on eBay on May 1, 2009 and will close May 10, 2009.

BID HERE: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290314130449

Brady Drum Company will include free shipping worldwide to the highest bidder.

Snare Drum Specifications:
* Handcrafted by Australian master craftsman, Chris Brady
* Wandoo (Eucalyptus Wandoo) timber, a native Western Australian hardwood
* 14 inch diameter x 8 inch depth
* 10 chromed tube lugs
* R-Class snare strainer
* German tempered snare wires
* Canopus Bolt Tight detensioning washers

Individuals are invited to make donations to The Salvation Army's Bushfire Relief Appeal, The Australian Red Cross' Bushfire Appeal, and the RSPCA.

Brady Drum Company returned to the NAMM Show in January to introduce our latest products to the industry. The uniquely Australian booth design enhanced our newest instruments and innovations and complemented the company's return to being a 100% family-owned and operated business in late 2007.

Company founder Chris Brady was on hand to introduce his new benchmark for sounds, all of which were snapped up by eager retailers on the show's opening day! There was also a constant stream of artists who all wanted to play the drums, talk about how great they recorded and meet Chris.

A sneak peek of the action at the Brady booth during NAMM was captured on video by talented artist, Alex Alexandrov. You can view the footage here:

www.bradydrums.com/NAMM2009video.html

Hi everybody,

We're attempting the impossible here! After almost 30 years of crafting drums, I'm attempting to create a solid record of all Brady drum owners out there in the drum world. We want to bring the extended family of players closer together but in order to do so we need to know who you are (Especially hard for me to keep track of you all as I didn't begin serial numbering my drums until 1995).

Please send us a quick line back with your name, location, instrument/s owned and year of purchase. All photos would be greatly appreciated too.

Please email to chris@bradydrums.com

Work on the new website (www.bradydrums.com) is coming along nicely. It's hard to be patient but it will be worthwhile in the end. I've seen the drafts and they're spot on. It's going to be a really excellent website and I'm looking forward to sharing it with my fellow drummers shortly.

This was taken from Kelly's blog earlier today, talking about progress on the new site. Thought you might want to read it.

Cheers, CB.

"Woke up and ate M&M's for breakfast. I'm knee-deep into writing and designing the new Brady website so a handful of M&M's every hour, coupled with an abundance of loud music, is enough to inspire and persevere through the peaks and valleys of sitting in the same place for hours on end, while trying to pump out your finest work. Not that writing a website is anything new, especially in this case. I wrote the very first Brady website at age 18 and wrote a very large portion of the old one too a few years later, so it's an interesting challenge to "one up" yourself yet again almost a decade later.

As for the new website itself - I couldn't be more thrilled with the way it's coming along. I'm terribly excited and this one will be a HUGE improvement on the old one. More.....well, more everything really. Not going to spoil the surprise by letting some of the best features slip in advance but I will say that it's crisp, clean and stimulating; distinctive, uniquely "Brady" in appearance; comprehensive and informative in content; cohesive; and greatly improved in the execution of the fundamental ideas and overall concept. (and of course, better written! ) .  

The first photo shoot of the new gear to be photographed for the website gets underway in the next few weeks. From there it's full speed ahead with the official launch hopefully not too far behind. Folks signed up to the Brady newsletter get first peek at the new website just before launch. If you're not yet signed up, but want to be, send an email to newsletter@bradydrums.com .

Back to work now!

:) Kel