NAMM Show 2010!
Well I made it back from NAMM about a week ago and I’m only now writing about it. Lazy I know, but I’m still trying to get into the whole blogging thing.
NAMM was an awesome time again. My 4th show so far. Unfortunately I did not go out on the show floor all that often, because this year I was working for Madeleine Crouch at the booth for RPMDA (Retail Print Music Dealers Association), NASMD (National Association of School Music Dealers), MDA (Music Distributors Association), and Piano Manufacturers Association. Great experience of course, and I got to meet a lot of the wonderful members of these organizations. But definitly less time spent on the floor!
Of course I did do a quick run through on Saturday, and by far my most memorable stop was Luna guitars. I do have a guitar bias, as this is my most recent instrument that I’m learning. So most of my time spent on the floor was a quick run through of the drums section (I now have PAS roots!) and then onward to look at guitars!
I ran by the 2 Old Hippies Booth, I saw the owner speak at a NAMM Breakfast Session on Wednesday so the company sparked my interest. They had a pretty clever promotion going on where they had everyone who stopped by the booth sign up to be in the drawing for a VW Bus. On Saturday at 2pm they have three keys, and then drew a name and that person picked on of the keys. If the key started the bus they won the bus. If they key didn’t start the bus, they got a free guitar! So two people got guitars and 1 person won a VW bus. They booth was pretty cool looking, they had the bus there, and they have a clothing line so there were maniquins. They spent a lot of time on the look and design of the exhibit. Now on to the guitars right? I did play about three of their guitars, and yes, they were nice. They had a good sound, but nothing WOWed me.
I stopped by DBZ guitars because one of my friends (Chris) that I graduated with works there now. They of course have really awesome looking electrics. Chris has told me previously that they had a few acoustics but they are not made at the same place as the electrics. I definitely know a lot more about acoustics because that’s what I play, so usually when I’m going to actually try the guitars out I’m going for acoustics. So I tried the DBZ acoustics. Don’t waste your time. They are terribly heavy, and sound awful.
I also stopped by the Michael Kelly guitars booth because I follow them on twitter and wanted to check out what they have. One of the guys at the booth was very friendly and asked me about what I was looking for. I told him I wanted a light acoustics with a thin neck and he found me a couple to try. They had a nice sound, good playability and were beautiful instruments. But nothing “spoke” to me ;) As corny as that sounds, I just didn’t find a guitar that I HAD to have.
Then I stopped at Luna and fell in love. The idea of these guitars remind me of the Daisy Rocks, except not as pink and glittery. They are made to be lighter and they have thinner necks so women are generally more comfortable playing these over standard guitars. I purchased a Daisy Rock last year after seeing it at NAMM, but I honestly love the Luna brand even more because they have a more subtle artistry to them. I think a lot of people have a hard time taking the Daisy Rock brand seriously because of the name, and because most of the guitars are pink or purple or have sparkles or butterflies. Their guitars sound amazing, and are very good quality, but I really like that the Luna brand isn’t so “glittery”.
I went over to see Yamaha’s exhibit at the Marriott of course, had to catch up with my old coworkers. They downsized their space a lot. The last 3 years they have drumsets and guitars in Hall C. This year, everything was in the Marriott.
I happened to be hanging out at Yamaha’s exhibit when they were doing a drumset artist signing. They had about 25 artists all sitting at these tables and people got a drumhead in the beginning and then went from artist to artist (much like trick or treating!) and at the end they had a drumhead FULL of signatures. It was very cool. I’ve never seen an artist signing with that many people at once. It was very cool!
To top that off, I was waiting to say hi to John Wittmann from Yamaha and one of the drumset artists caught my eye. He has a Meinl hat on, and I thought he looked a lot like Felix Pollard who was one of the PASIC 09 artists. Felix was one of my favorite artists to work with for PASIC, and I was so busy during the actual convention that I never got to actually meet him in person! So I was trying to be all sneaky and get a look at his badge to confirm he was Felix, and I was having trouble. So I asked this guy who was sitting there watching the signings if he was familiar with drumset artists, he said he was, and so I asked if that guy was Felix Pollard. He wasn’t sure, but he was able to get a better look, and it actually was Felix! So I got to go and say hi and introduce myself as Erin, and he knew who I was right away without me saying I was from PAS!
Later I saw him at the Meinl booth and we got a chance to talk and he showed me some photos of his new baby! He asked me what I’m doing with my life and all that, and then he ended up giving me his email and phone number and said he wanted to keep in touch!
Like I said, Felix is a great guy, and a pretty awesome drummer, if you havn’t seen him before youtube him right now!
I stopped by DW, Sabian, Zildjian all were PACKED every time I stopped by! Taye drums had a kit that I thought looked pretty cool (photo above). I really wanted to say hi to West at Taye because I follow him on twitter, but the couple of times I stopped by their booth he was either talking to someone or not there! Oh well, there’s always next year.
My advisor from college got to be the introduction speaker for the collegiate program at NAMM! That was exciting for us Ferris State Students, because it means that NAMM is recognizing our program as a great one! Dan gave students pointers on how to get the most out of the NAMM show and he had my friend Shawn (who now works as an accountant for Alan Friedman!) speak about his NAMM experiences, he also had Chris (from DBZ) and myself speak about how NAMM has helped us in our career goals.
The Breakfast of Champions Breakfast Sesssion on Thursday was actually very cool. They had a few manufacturers share their stories, including the current CEO of Martin Guitars and the President of 2 Old Hippies. Both had great stories to share and I really enjoyed it! Then Joe Lammond the President of NAMM interviewed Yoko Ono! She talked about music advocacy and little bit about the John Lennon tour bus. That was pretty amazing! I had to leave after that because I had to meet Madeleine, but I heard that Quincy Jones came after that! It was definitely a star studded Breakfast of Champions! (The Breakfast was quite amazing as well!)
The next Breakfast session I caught on Friday, I got to see Victor Wooten perform live for my first time! This was really cool for me because I learned a lot about him in my Music Technology class when we were learning about bass guitars and pickups and all of that! So I have seen him perform on youtube many many times. Nothing compares to seeing him live! He played for a very short time, but it really was one of my highlights from NAMM!
I also got to meet Sara Barielles who is one of my favorite artists. I first got to hear her at NAMM 08 actually when I was interning for Yamaha! She was performing at their Dealer Concert and I thought she was absolutely amazing and bought her album the next week! I’ve been listening to that album for the last 2 years and it’s still one of my most played! If you are familiar with her, Gravity is my favorite song on that album. So I saw that she was doing a signing for Shure… and I havn’t gone to an artist signing since my first NAMM show, BUT she is one of my favorites and I thought I would regret it if I didn’t. So I took the time and spent an hour and a half in line, and then met her for like 1 minute. But she was really sweet, and now I can say I’ve seen her live (when she performed with Stevie Wonder!!) and then I met her and have her autograph!
So that was my big fan moment of NAMM 2010 haha. Other than that, I went to the Sabian Live party. It was cool, I ran into Will Hawkins who is a photographer (he does some work for Pro-Mark, etc) he also did a lot of the drumset photos for PASIC. We got to catch up, and he introduced me to some of his friends. My friends and I hung out with them that night outside of Sabian Live and I met Finian from Makepeace Brothers. They have some great music as well ( which I just found out when I looked at their website last night!). Great music, also youtube Makepeace Brothers!
Then Saturday I went to see Printz. Which was a band put together by some of the guys from RPMDA! Joel Menchey and Alan Friedman, Jen Lowe. It was a really good time, but next year they need to have a longer set!
All in all the trip was great. California never disappoints.
