Good Hands Drum Shop — Local services in New York

Jess Birch, the Owner of GOOD HANDS, is the Drum and Cymbal (1) Whisperer, (2) Historian, (3) Teacher, (4) Wiser Brother, (5) Sherpa, (6) Player, (7) Coach, (8) Air Traffic Controller, (9) Shopkeeper, (10) Aficionado ... and more. One who welcomes and regards customers as friends, and treats them like family, he is generous with his scarce time and boundless knowledge and experience, with patience and never even a trace of a superiority he has well earned and deserves.

He is the exceptionally rare real deal, and it doesn't matter if you walk out of the shop with a free sticker, a $3000 cymbal, or a vintage kit, or a priceless snare. I eagerly travel for hours to his shop -- which is in reality a drummer's clubhouse, studio, hardware store, and library.

Jess is one of the coolest cats you will ever meet. You can make book on it. And if you get your gear from anybody else, you will never know what you are missing. They say "if you know, you know." If you go to GOOD HANDS, you...

Worst sales staff on the planet. I'm a touring drummer with a national act. Whatever city I'm in, we stop in the local shops internationally. This is the 3rd time we stopped in maxwells. Nice drums, but can never get any help. This time was no different. Finally got a girl to talk to us after 20 minutes. She knew absolutely nothing about the products, and had to keep going to the manufacturers website. Waste of time. I was eager to purchase a gretsch bop kit like we saw at Vic's in Chicago last week. Maxwells had the same kit,but couldn't tell me anything about it. They must live off mail order as there were 4 other employees just chatting. I'll be calling Vic's this week to have a gretsch kit shipped to me. They have a great staff, as does Forks...

So I'm big on getting the salesman interested in me and paying attention to me, but if he doesn't leave his office desk and put the phone down, there is no hope. Further, a lot of the stuff doesn't have price tags. I didn't get a feel that the staff is SO knowledgable. So its a Meh store. And NO STEVE WAS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, he is king on the youtube channel, but if steve is on a boat smokin a cigar, won't help me. Plus the prices aren't so great, you can find better deals online. But bottom line is its worth checking out if your a vintage/jazz/classic rock guy and you will be able to compare a lot of nice stuff, so 3-4 stores for me, 3.5 stars really, just need more excited salesman to get behind the kits and show...