I bumped into Nikki Sixx today.
- Thread starter hannaugh
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NonsenseTele
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What did you find good on gears there?
G
guitlouie
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It's funny when you meet someone who is uber-famous. I ran into Steven Tyler and Joe Perry one time backstage at an Aerosmith concert, and I'm not even really a huge fan. Yeah, Toys In The Attic is cool, but they got really goofy after a while, but still, I was like what he hell should I say? Well, Steven Tyler was talking to the girls I was with and his security tried to drag him off, and he was like "But, they're girls, I like girls." And all I could think to say was "Yeah, I like girls too!" He then told me to ditch the beer I was holding or his goons would have to throw me out. It was very surreal. Anyway, like everybody else here, I am much more interested in hearing what it was like to be at NAMM. Any cool new amps? I may be in the market!
Nikki Sixx looked pretty decent actually. Not bad given his history.
Today I basically just covered ground. I tried to walk through the entire show and pick up swag, wasn't able to see everything. Tomorrow is going to be my play day where I just play stuff all day, and then on Sunday I'm going to ask questions and talk to people all day.
Here is a sampling of some of the stuff I saw today:
- About 8 million guitars. It's like if you put 50 Guitar Centers together. The show is about the size of 5 or 6 football fields.
- About 2 million drum kits. That was definitely the loudest area of the convention center.
- A TON of guitars and basses with burl tops. Everywhere I went there was burl. I guess burl is really in right now.
- Probably 3 or 4 booths with just wood... gorgeous wood. Mostly maples.
- A 6 string electric violin that is tuned like a guitar and is fretted like a guitar, which I thought was pretty cool because I kind of want to play violin. It sounded awesome too.
- Drum sticks and guitar picks made of wheat! I got a wheat pick.
- The Heritage guitar booth... I love those guys! They had some great stuff.
- Some really crazy looking guitars made out of metal (like...Les Pauls made of metal), some even crazier regular guitars with bizarre finishes. Some of them were holographic.
- Lots of Guitar Hero/Rock Band style learning tools for various instruments
- The new Ovation guitar with a built in mp3 recorder for songwriting... it's cooler than it sounds, it actually does a lot of stuff.
- Some really gorgeous acoustic guitars and mandolins at the Breedlove booth. I got a free Breedlove calendar.
Really, the coolest aspect of NAMM is that when you find a booth, a lot of the time the booth has everything that the company makes in it. For example, the Martin booth is huge and has a sample of every instrument they make. You could try all of them if you wanted to. Of course, the down side is that unless you are plugged in, you can't hear sh*t because there is so much music going on everywhere. The Roland room is cool because they have headphoned testing stations. You just pick a pedal and grab a guitar off the wall and play and can actually hear it. Gibson, Fender, and Taylor all have their own rooms upstairs though, which are much easier to hear in. There was some nice new stuff from Taylor.
Hardware wise, I went to the Schaller, TonePros, Gotoh, Hipshot, and Sperzel booths. I didn't see any crazy new products, but I didn't spend a whole lot of time at any one booth today. I will say though, that the people at the Hipshot booth were the most friendly, and they gave me a keychain made out of a bass tuning key.
One interesting fact: almost all of the violin/cello/viola makers were Asian. I'm not really sure why that is.
Anywho, I still have two days left to check stuff out. When all is said and done, I will write a more detailed post with the really cool stuff and links to websites. I'll have to go through the cards and brochures and pick out the interesting things. There were so many amazing guitars made out of awesome woods, and I will post links to them for you guys to check out later on.
Oh, I also met the guy who designed the Martin backpacker. He was nice, and kind of funny.
Today I basically just covered ground. I tried to walk through the entire show and pick up swag, wasn't able to see everything. Tomorrow is going to be my play day where I just play stuff all day, and then on Sunday I'm going to ask questions and talk to people all day.
Here is a sampling of some of the stuff I saw today:
- About 8 million guitars. It's like if you put 50 Guitar Centers together. The show is about the size of 5 or 6 football fields.
- About 2 million drum kits. That was definitely the loudest area of the convention center.
- A TON of guitars and basses with burl tops. Everywhere I went there was burl. I guess burl is really in right now.
- Probably 3 or 4 booths with just wood... gorgeous wood. Mostly maples.
- A 6 string electric violin that is tuned like a guitar and is fretted like a guitar, which I thought was pretty cool because I kind of want to play violin. It sounded awesome too.
- Drum sticks and guitar picks made of wheat! I got a wheat pick.
- The Heritage guitar booth... I love those guys! They had some great stuff.
- Some really crazy looking guitars made out of metal (like...Les Pauls made of metal), some even crazier regular guitars with bizarre finishes. Some of them were holographic.
- Lots of Guitar Hero/Rock Band style learning tools for various instruments
- The new Ovation guitar with a built in mp3 recorder for songwriting... it's cooler than it sounds, it actually does a lot of stuff.
- Some really gorgeous acoustic guitars and mandolins at the Breedlove booth. I got a free Breedlove calendar.
Really, the coolest aspect of NAMM is that when you find a booth, a lot of the time the booth has everything that the company makes in it. For example, the Martin booth is huge and has a sample of every instrument they make. You could try all of them if you wanted to. Of course, the down side is that unless you are plugged in, you can't hear sh*t because there is so much music going on everywhere. The Roland room is cool because they have headphoned testing stations. You just pick a pedal and grab a guitar off the wall and play and can actually hear it. Gibson, Fender, and Taylor all have their own rooms upstairs though, which are much easier to hear in. There was some nice new stuff from Taylor.
Hardware wise, I went to the Schaller, TonePros, Gotoh, Hipshot, and Sperzel booths. I didn't see any crazy new products, but I didn't spend a whole lot of time at any one booth today. I will say though, that the people at the Hipshot booth were the most friendly, and they gave me a keychain made out of a bass tuning key.
One interesting fact: almost all of the violin/cello/viola makers were Asian. I'm not really sure why that is.
Anywho, I still have two days left to check stuff out. When all is said and done, I will write a more detailed post with the really cool stuff and links to websites. I'll have to go through the cards and brochures and pick out the interesting things. There were so many amazing guitars made out of awesome woods, and I will post links to them for you guys to check out later on.
Oh, I also met the guy who designed the Martin backpacker. He was nice, and kind of funny.
NonsenseTele
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Cool! If you pass on these booths of woods and if one is Gallery Hardwoods, say to Mr Larry that Fernando, the damn brazilian, have sent a hello to him!
Wana_make_a_guitar
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:sad:
I want To Go :sad1: :-\ :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:
I want To Go :sad1: :-\ :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:
Yesterday I wasn't sure if they were allowing cameras, and since they are searching bags I thought it best not to take mine since parking is far away from the convention center and I didn't want to hike all the way back to put my camera away if it turned out they wouldn't let me in with it . But today I'm definitely going to take my camera after seeing several people taking photos with the celebrities and stuff.
DangerousR6
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Now you can't tell me in this day and age you don't have a camera phone. ... :dontknow:hannaugh said:
Nick Ellingworth
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The only relatively famous musicians I've met are a couple of members of Amplifier who were the support band at a Porcupine Tree gig I went to in 2007, had a good chat with them while I was buying a load of stuff from the merchandise stand. :icon_biggrin:
A few years ago, like 20 or so, the Portland trailblazers decided to draft Sam Bowie instead of Micheal jordan, We the fans have never forgotten that. anyway, Sam didn't work out, he was injured so often and for so long that he just went away eventually.
Last Year the Portland Trailblazers picked another Big guy for the first pick, Gregg Oden, who missed the entire first season, injured...
So last summer I see him , Greg. in the local grocery store, he was in a drive arround shopping cart, I said " Hey how's the knee?" he responded that it was getting better, I then turned to my wife who was 30 feet back up the isle, and yelled
" Honey, look, it's sam bowie" and to my surprise Greg got a laugh out of it....
Last Year the Portland Trailblazers picked another Big guy for the first pick, Gregg Oden, who missed the entire first season, injured...
So last summer I see him , Greg. in the local grocery store, he was in a drive arround shopping cart, I said " Hey how's the knee?" he responded that it was getting better, I then turned to my wife who was 30 feet back up the isle, and yelled
" Honey, look, it's sam bowie" and to my surprise Greg got a laugh out of it....
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
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hannaugh said:
"...and it provides a nice surface to spread jelly. And there I was, smoking fake dope with the real Peter Frampton. Which was weird because I'd smoked real dope before with people that looked like Peter Frampton."
Nick Ellingworth
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Only British prog fans are likely to have heard of them.dbw said:
