Hey all you ROCKERS!! Time for me to recap this year’s winter NAMM show! I think the title of this story says a lot. For those that DON’T know… NAMM stands for National Association of Music Merchants and it is the largest trade show of its kind. People come from all over the world to take part in this convention which is basically like a smorgasbord of ALL THINGS MUSIC!! It’s like a GIANT toy store for music lovers/musicians only you actually get to PLAY with the toys!! This year’s NAMM attendance was the best EVER… approximately 88,128 registrants in all which set a new attendance record for this convention. There were 1560 companies displaying products this year and the international attendance was listed as 10,605 people from more than 100 countries. Needless to say… THIS was the place to BE!!
I was more than happy to represent AAM this year and even though I came down with the flu on the first day… that didn’t stop me from having a BLAST! I missed day one (well most of it) because that was my traveling day but upon arriving at the 
Anaheim Convention Center to check in we (my friend Gail and I) decided to run in real quick just to look around and I instantly ran into one of my favorite guitarists Andy Timmons!! What a sweetheart. I found out that he would not be performing this year which was a bummer but it was great running into him again. That is how it is at NAMM… every time you turn around you run into another famous musician… they’re EVERYWHERE! TOO COOL!!
We wanted to really walk around and check things out… so we did. This convention center is HUGE… kinda like 5 football fields all connected together with a couple of upper level fields too, so to say that we put some MILES on our feet would be an understatement. The problem with this show is that there is SO MUCH to see and no matter how hard you try to see it all it just isn’t possible. Of course we had to check in on all of the major players in the industry like Peavy, Ibanez, Marshall, Fender, ESP, EMG Pickups, Dean Markley, Rolland, Zildjan, Pearl, Shure, Spectraflex Cables… you get the picture. Pretty much all of the exhibitors have scheduled autograph sessions for the different artists that they sponsor but you have to get to their booths to get the schedules and then
TRY to coordinate your own schedule to get to meet those rockstars that you can… this is not easy but SOMEBODY’S got to do it… RIGHT… LoL!? We were constantly seeing lines formed at various booths and we would just ask who they were waiting for and BAMM… another autograph for us!! We met so many people… Slash, Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Joe Satriani, Reb Beach (Winger/Whitesnake), Dave Rude & Troy Luccketta (Tesla), Damon Johnson (Brother Cane/Whiskey Falls), Brendon Small & Tommy Blacha (Metalocalypse), Kerry King (Slayer), George Lynch (Dokken/Lynch Mob), Herman Li (Dragon Force), etc. There were members of Godsmack/Another Animal, Shadow’s Fall, Lamb of God, Hell Yeah, Saliva, Atreyu, Soil, Sevendust… I could go on and on… not to mention every drummer that ever mattered… it was INSANE!! We were able to check out some live performances at some of the booths while we were walking around. Yngwie Malmsteen and Reb Beach both jammed out live and Dave Rude from Tesla did an acoustic performance of some of his solo work with the Dave Rude Band. We also got to meet Marcus Henderson which was VERY COOL. Marcus is the guitarist behind the massively popular Guitar Hero line of video games and he is SO AWESOME!! I really enjoyed talking with him about the game that has taken the WORLD by storm.
Speaking of Guitar Hero… that seemed to be the thing to do this year at NAMM. There had to be at least five different booths
that had the game set up for the NAMMies to play. Rockband was also featured. A couple of booths had ongoing contests where they would sign up different folks to play each our and at the end of that hour whoever had the highest score would win a prize… like a mini-amp from Crate… not to shabby if you ask me. Peavy had a nice big plasma screen set up with a few guitars and people could just walk by and play. The cool thing about Peavy is that the guitars THEY had to play the game were actual guitar bodies that were created specifically for Guitar Hero. They were AWESOME!! I fell in love with an Ozzy Osbourne guitar that was made for the game. I LOVE the entire line of Guitar Hero games and the thought of the major guitar companies getting onboard and making gaming guitars just ROCKS… I’m down!!
Another great thing about NAMM is what happens after the convention closes each day… that’s when the parties start. Most of the surrounding hotels host the parties and performances for the many companies of NAMM. One of the coolest things about NAMM is the odd pairings of artists which makes for some of the best live shows EVER!! Where else could you see George Lynch jamming out on some killer guitar while Taylor
Swift and her band perform a killer country music set in the next room? One performance found a mixture of seasoned musicians, some of which were members of Blue Oyster Cult and Yes, performing some killer ‘old school rock’. That show brought in a HUGE crowd!! The Hilton is FAMOUS for its NAMM performances. Whiskey Falls played in the Hilton’s lobby and it was GREAT!! Damon Johnson (Whiskey Falls guitarist) is a NAMM veteran having played with such bands as Brother Cane, Alice Cooper & Slave to the System so there were MANY other musicians catching his attention and waving hello. The bar in the Hilton is infamous in its own right. This place is jam packed every night during NAMM and when I say jam packed I mean WORSE than a can of sardines. You are literally elbow to elbow with people and cannot move at all most of the time. It could take you hours just to make your way to the bar for a drink but considering the fact that you’re rubbing elbows with all of the rockstars while waiting… well… it’s ALL GOOD!! If you were to view that bar from an arial position it would look like an ant farm with that one small squiggly line of ants moving around and that’s the only movement you’d see!! It IS the place to be if you’re not at a live show and if you are catching a show then you’ll 
want to swing by the bar afterwards for sure.
Like I said… NAMM is a HUGE party (disguised as a convention… lol) held every January in Anaheim loaded with live music, lots of toys to play with, tons of rockstars just walking around at their leisure and so many cool things to see. NAMM is NOT open to the public and that’s actually a good thing. I can’t imagine the chaos that would happen if it were a public event. If you ever get a chance to attend this convention then DO IT… every year it gets better and better and each year is a one of a kind experience as no two NAMM conventions are EVER the same. It’s been almost a month now since I was there and it still feels fresh. One thing’s for sure… I can’t WAIT until next year!! Peace out!!
