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Drum City Guitarland

By On 01st Nov 2020

A former professional drummer who once played drums for Frank Sinatra, Ronny Kae lived and breathed drums. In 1964, with only $50 in his pocket, Kae moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Colorado, where he bought a building to realize his dream of owning a drum shop, calling it Drum City.

In the 1970s Kae decided to incorporate guitars into the business plan, and he renamed the shop Drum City Guitarland (DCGL). Kae passed away from cancer in 1993, but his sons, who worked in the shop and are both drummers, have kept the dream alive. Ronny’s older son, Tim, who we spoke to for this article, specializes in drums, while Jason manages the guitar department.

Through the years, DCGL built their collection through local and worldwide trade-ins, purchasing allotments of drums now classified as vintage, securing limited production drums directly from manufacturers, and creating a niche for themselves by buying toured drums played and autographed by name artists.

With a combined building and storage space of more than 10,000 square feet, more inventory equaled more choices for their customers, making DCGL a destination store to buy an instrument. They’re also a worldwide top-five DW drums dealer. With new and vintage instruments, they’re a modern drum and guitar shop as well as a living museum with decades’ worth of gear on display, which you can touch, play, photograph yourself with, or purchase.

December 2020 Issue