NAMM '11

I attended the 2011 National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) trade show at the gigantic Anaheim Convention Center near Disneyland. The NAMM show is an overwhelming, four days of music and gear exhibits that draw musicians and merchants from all over the world. It’s music mecca. There is so much going on in and around the show that it is impossible to do it all. Luckily, I managed to do a lot!

My legs were sore after the first day. My backpack kept filling up very quickly with magazines, catalogs, CDs, and other things I accumulated throughout the day. I was actually trying to not overdo it; I could have collected a lot more stuff. I’m glad I didn’t, because I don’t think my luggage would have handled anything more. The picture was taken after two days NAMM. You can see I already covered the spare bed with my swag.

I was like a kid in a candy store as I looked at all the latest gear in the numerous exhibit halls. There was a huge hall downstairs, four big halls on the main level, two upper levels, an arena, and exhibits in the adjacent Marriott hotel.

Of course, it only took me a couple hours to locate the sole bouzouki in that gargantuan place. Of course, I had to check it out. It was definitely what I would call an entry-level instrument. They said it was a prototype and asked my opinion about it. I gave them some tips and thoughts on how to improve it. They were very appreciative, and let me try out some of their other exotic instruments – like the balalaika. If you know me, you know I love to try any kind of stringed instrument.


Music Everywhere
In addition to the enormous exhibit hall, there were music performances in the convention center, right outside of it, and in nearby establishments including the Marriott and Hilton hotels, which both had two stages in their main lobbies alone. These performances started at 9 a.m. and didn’t end until well after midnight every night. There were many concurrent concerts. If you didn’t like one, you’d walk over to another one. I liked most of them, though.
I had fun discovering several great bands as well as seeing my old guitar teacher’s self-named, jazz-rock band, the Alex Skolnick Trio. The trio played on the main stage at the Marriott hotel, and put on a great show. I haven’t seen them play in years, and they just keep sounding better. They played some music from their upcoming album that was great. (Side Note: Alex is as gifted as a writer as he is a guitarist, and I urge you to read his blog about the recent NAMM show, as well.)

There were performances in the exhibitor booths during the shows that were amazing, too. I missed seeing Alex play at the Heritage guitar booth, but I really enjoyed seeing other awesome guitarists like Johnny Hiland and Andreas Oberg.



In addition to those guitarists that I knew and loved, I also discovered some awesome musicians who were previously unknown to me. And the funny thing is that most of them look like regular people whom you wouldn’t know were so insanely talented. For example, I heard a good guitarist in the Eminence speaker booth, and asked about him. The rep said, “oh, that’s Tomo Fujita, he’s an instructor at Berklee and taught guitar to John Mayer.” So this place not only has rock stars, it has people who taught the rock stars!

There were many awesome players in the various booths. I saw a bass player from Israel whose fingers just flew all over the neck nonstop at one of the booths on the main level. It made my arm hurt just watching. I don’t know how his arm didn’t get tired. While I was walking around on the lower level, I heard some really fantastic piano playing at one of the booths. It turned out to be a Grammy award-winning pianist from Romania named Marian Petrescu. His fingers were flying, too. I really felt the emotion in his playing, as well. It is so great to see these musicians up close and to be able to talk with them after their performances. A lot of times I could buy one of their CDs directly from them.

Rock Stars
Of course, there were bona fide rock stars there, too. I saw Adrian Vandenberg from Whitesnake, Joey Kramer from Aerosmith, the Dragonforce guitarists, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa, Rikki Rocket from Poison, Steve Morse, and Dave Navarro, to name a few. Glen Drover, who played with Megadeth, looked at me and said, "You look really familiar." I could tell he was really thinking about where he could have seen me before. I couldn't guess where or when I may have met him previously. I mentioned something about possibly seeing me on America's Most Wanted. But who knows? Maybe I have a rockin' twin out there, and we were somehow separated at birth. I'll have to be on the lookout now.

I also saw some of the rock stars from fantasy camp, including Ant Glyne in the Albion booth, and Bruce Kulick who was right outside the booth with Michael Schenker, Leslie West, and Uli Jon Roth. I thanked Bruce for being nice to my son and me at fantasy camp a couple months ago.

George Lynch’s booth appearance turned out to be the funniest experience for me. In the booth along with George was Hellyeah/Mudvayne guitarist Greg Tribbett. The way it was organized, Greg was the first person that you meet, then George, who was next to him. Unfortunately, when I went up to Greg, he had just run out of 8x10s to sign. The person in front of me got the last one. A worker at the booth went in the back to look for more. So instead of just standing there, I went over to George and said, “I’m cutting over to you first.”

George jokingly replied, “Hey, there’s no cuts.”

I then explained to George what happened, and right then the worker came back and said there were no more pictures of Greg left.

So George took matters into his own hands. He grabbed one of his own 8x10 photos, turned it over to the blank back side, and proceeded to draw a picture of Greg on it. When he was finished, he gave his masterpiece to Greg to autograph. Problem solved. And I now have a George Lynch original Sharpie drawing of Heallyeah guitarist Greg Tribbett, personally autographed by Greg. I had no idea that George “Mr. Scary” Lynch was such a character.

While I was briefly hanging out with Alex Skolnick outside the Budda amplifier booth (Budda is one of his many sponsors), a couple other guitarists stopped by to say “hi” to Alex, including Kerry King from Slayer. I felt a little intimidated by him. Kerry looks scary, but he is actually a nice guy.

Getting Schooled
Upstairs on the second floor were meeting rooms, and I was able to attend an hour-long presentation about guitar in the 21st century from Carl Verheyen, one of L.A.'s first-call session players for years. There was no PowerPoint at this presentation - just a Fender Twin, a Strat, and a microphone. He also had a very small pedal board that he called his “honey, I’m home pedal board” because he can just carry it around like a little briefcase.

Carl passed out a practice sheet that he printed up for everyone in attendance. The sheet stressed the importance of string bending. It was awesome to see him play up close, and hear him play so many styles so well.

I sat right in front. But neither my eyesight nor my knowledge of theory was as good as the guy sitting next to me who was calling out the altered chords that Carl was playing. There were some serious guitarists in that room who were paying very close attention. I’m intending to write a future blog about the class and some of Carl’s insights and opinions, such as “tab (a form of written guitar musical notation) is for wankers.” There were people videotaping it, as well. You might find it on YouTube.

Bay Area Connection
I’m happy to say that the San Francisco Bay Area seemed well represented down there in Anaheim. Within twenty minutes of the show opening, I bumped into Robyn from Rockin’ Robbie’s music store in Concord. This was her 20th NAMM show. When I was watching Johnny Hiland, also in attendance were three nice guys from a music store in Dublin or Danville - one of those nearby East Bay towns. I forgot which one. A couple former bandmates of mine were also there, as well as my buddy, Art, from Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. I also bumped into Suzy Roks, the professional photographer who photographed Art and me when we played at the Fillmore Auditorium for the big fantasy gig. There were a bunch of exhibitors from the Bay Area, as well: EMG, Furman, Nady, Mesa/Boogie, Grid1, Dunlop, Monster, and others. The Bay Area rocks!

There were even some great rockers on my plane ride home to my city by the (East) bay, including Mike Bordin, drummer for Ozzy and Faith No More, and Sammy Hagar’s guitarist, Vic, who sat right in front of me. I chatted with Vic when the plane landed. He’s a really nice guy.

So I made it home safely with a very heavy suitcase, and got quite a welcome. My eight-year-old daughter created and hung a welcome banner and created a bag of confetti that she threw on me. It was a great ending to a great trip.

In the End
It was an unforgettable experience to hear such great music, see so many stars, and check out so much gear all at once. It was humbling and awe-inspiring to hear mega-talented people like Carl Verheyen and Johnny Hiland just warming up, let alone performing right in front of me. It’s also inspiring to see how great a person can be when they have talent and passion for something.

I like to analyze things, and I’ll write up a more detailed post mortem blog about the trip with lessons learned, side notes, and a list of things to remember to do next time. If you ever attend, it could be a good guide for you. And if I attend again, it will remind me in case I forget any of this. God willing, hopefully there will be a next time. But I want to spend my money on gear now. We’ll see if I have anything left for next year!