Volume 124 Issue 54
kansan.com
Friday, November 4, 2011
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Derek Sharp started playing drums 30 years ago when he was 9 years old. He met his wife when he was 10, and shortly after he built her a treehouse in which they would spend most of their summer together. As time passed, Sharp's interest in drums and carpentry grew, and when he was a senior in high school, he had but one job: purchasing used drum sets, refurbishing them, and selling them for higher prices. This is what spawned the idea for TreeHouse Custom Drums, Sharp's Topeka- based drum manufacturing company.
Lawrence is known for having one of the best music scenes in the Midwest. This being the case, there are a variety of music retail stores in town that provide musicians with the equipment they need to hone their skills and perform. One such store is Supersonic music. At first glance, Supersonic seems like a relatively normal music store. It is, however, the only store in Lawrence and Topeka that works in close affiliation with a custom drum company.
Sharp, a husband and father of three, purchased Super-sonic Music's Topeka location in 1998 after managing the store for two years. Two years after purchasing the store, he was approached by a customer who expressed interest in having him build a custom drum set. Sharp, who was familiar with the anatomy of drum sets through the work he had done on them, was up to the challenge. "TreeHouse didn't exist, but he gave me money and said 'I get the first drum set.' Nine months later I gave him the second drum set. I liked it better." Sharp says.
Making drum sets by hand proved to be an extremely difficult task. "I actually had to make the tools to make the tools to make the drums," he says. "It took a while."
After successfully completing his first pair of custom drum sets and opening a new Supersonic music location in Lawrence, Sharp was inspired to start TreeHouse Custom Drums. Located in the basement of Supersonic's Topeka location is what Sharp refers to as "the drumgeon." Sharp builds all the TreeHouse sets there. For the most part, it looks the way you might imagine any carpenter's workshop to look, aside from the fact that it is littered with drum shells and a wide variety of
custom made tools that ease the meticulous process of drum manufacturing. The workshop's location beneath Supersonic Music has been an extremely important feature for TreeHouse, Sharp saves.
Because his drum workshop is located beneath his music store, he doesn't have to pay separate phone and electric bills. He also cuts out all the middlemen that a manufacturer needs for production, snipping, storing, marketing, and selling the drums. This, Sharp says, is what allows him to sell his custommade drums at such lower prices than his competitors. An average four piece custom-made TreeHouse set sells from anywhere between $1,800 and $2,200. A Gretsch American made four piece drum set lists for around $5000. "My goal is to be around $1,000, out of the customers pocket, less than they would have to pay for a mass-produced professional drum set." Sharp says.
Since March of 2005, Sharp has had only four cumulative months where he wasn't working on a TreeHouse drum set. As such, his workload requires, for the most part, 12 to 13 hour work days, and occasionally 16 to 18 hour work days. "If I have an obligation, I do my best to honor it," he says.
Since the inception of TreeHouse in 2000, Sharp has been reluctant to allow anyone besides himself to work on the Tree-House sets. "A lot of people approach me saying they want to
help out, but they don't realize the time and precision it takes to build a drum set," he says. But in January of 2010, Sharp took Jason Degenhardt, Supersonic's online sales manager and drum instructor, on as an apprentice. "It's an apprenticeship, so he's teaching me as we go along." Degenhardt says. "It's been a blast. I play the drums, and I teach the drums, and now to be able to make the drums, are you kidding me? It's come around full circle. I get to do everything."
Sharp invited Degenhardt to start working for TreeHouse after seeing his organizational skills and his attention to detail. "For the most part, people come in wanting to help and they have no idea, and I don't have time for them to mess up one of my orders to learn how." Sharp says. "They have to come on board with lots of organization and an understanding of what its like to be excellent."
北京福星饭店
WIN/KANSAN
paken,
als
每股派息2.14元
Bill 2012-096 to fund the Dance Marathon
Total: $2,583
Bill 2012-094 to fund Spencer Museum of Art Student Advisory Board's World Aids Day Total: $450
Total: $450
Bill 2012-091 to fund the International students Association's Event "Flavors of the World"
Total: $155
Edited by Sarah Champ
PASSED BILLS:
FAILED BILLS:
2012-099 to exempt Engineers Without Boarders from travel expenses
Bill 2012-102 to fund Environs showing Ingredients, a documentary about the local food movement Total:$285
Following the double-fatality accident last April, Scott Hopson, the Mayor of Eudora, wrote Gov. Sam
Qualls said that the $800,000 project will install cable barriers two miles east of Eudora, and two miles along the Kansas Highway 7 interchange in Johnson County. KDOT will finance the project, which is expected to begin next summer.
Hopson said that he and other citizens of Douglas and Johnson Counties initially asked the state to install cable barriers along the entire stretch of K-10. However, the group scaled backed their request after KDOT recommended a more economically feasible plan.
Brownback asking for improved safety measures on the highway.
"The installation of the cable median barriers at these two sections is to alleviate vehicles — hopefully — from crossing over the median" she said.
Hopson said that he was pleased with the state's choice to provide the
Bill 2012-098 to fund Into the Streets
Total: $3,989
accidents on K-10 have killed 11 people, according to statistics from KDOT. Of the 11 fatalities, eight occurred at locations where KDOT plans to put in the cable barriers, said Kimberly Qualls, the Northeast Kansas public affairs manager for KDOT.
ns into law
1. "I have arguments
ots. I have
of evidence
by case and
sively and judges are
an invaul-
cable barriers along the highway
held on the Frank Green Hall,
"It couldn't have worked out any better. We had a lot of smart people, a lot of folks who were pas-
PAGE 3
SEE K-10 ON PAGE 3
Index
CLASSIFIEDS 7
CROSSWORD 4
CRYPTOQUIPS 4
OPINION 5
SPORTS 8
SUDOKU 4
in contents, unless stated otherwise; © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
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HI: 57
LQ: 37
29
Warning up for the weekend
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