Agedhorse

[MrKnobs]

Andy -

 

Are you still here, or did you travel to Austin for NAMM?

 

I visited the GenzBenz display today, hoping I might find you there.

 

 

Terry D.

[tlbonehead]

Hey Terry,you old PLX hater. Where ya been?

[agedhorse]

Naah, I skipped Austin but spenty time at the factory in Scottsdale. Talking about heat... holy crap was it hot. 115 during the day and it "cooled down" to 100 at night. Unbelievable.

 

E-mail me your impressions of summer NAMM. Anything interesting that caught your eye?

[MrKnobs]

Originally posted by agedhorse Naah, I skipped Austin but spenty time at the factory in Scottsdale. Talking about heat... holy crap was it hot. 115 during the day and it "cooled down" to 100 at night. Unbelievable. E-mail me your impressions of summer NAMM. Anything interesting that caught your eye?

 

How bout I just post 'em?

 

My first impression was formed at "The Hang." I appreciated all the free food and especially the free alcohol, but BOY was the sound terrible.

 

I knew it would be bad when I showed up to register. They were prepared for hundreds if not thousands, there were at least 20 stations with smiling girls there to register folks, and I was the only customer Thursday at 3.

 

Friday was the first full day in the exhibit hall. It was sparse, seriously sparse. I was wearing a buyer's badge and I felt like a cute teenage girl in a halter top walking the dock as 300 sailors came ashore for leave.

 

I tried not to make eye contact with any of the vendors, and I kept my pace brisk. Not good enough!

 

A cute Asian woman grabbed me by my badge and pulled me around. "Do you sell guitars!" she almost screamed at me as she pulled me closer to her face.

 

In my surprise, I couldn't remember what the business on my badge did, so I replied semi-honestly: "I'm in acoustics." "ACOUSTIC GUITARS?" she yelled! "No, honey, acoustics as in what would make this big tin barn much better."

 

Then all was revealed. She said, "I'm SORRY, IT'S VERY HARD TO HEAR IN HERE!"

 

We had a nice chat, she talked about restaurants and how they're all intentionally reverberant now so you have to get close to hear, and she asked me if I could fix the Convention Center acoustics, and if I could do it by tomorrow.

 

"For you - and two million dollars, I'll do it!" I beamed at her.

 

But just as the pulling and the screaming had been nothing, so was her attraction to me. She only wanted my money, and not selling guitars was a foolish admission to have made.

 

I returned the next day with my crazy bastard bassist Zito, who is as horny as a teenager despite his advancing years. He wanted to see this lady and maybe his answer would be different.

 

Sure enough, on Saturday the place was still pretty empty, and there was the cute lady who had grabbed me. Zito and I attempted to stroll by, and we were snagged just as I had been.

 

But Zito wanted to be snagged. He eagerly said "Yes!" when asked if we sold guitars, even though we both wore badges from the same company. She didn't remember me at all, which was at once insulting and comforting.

 

Turns out she sells some weird ring thing you put on your finger that controls your guitar FX without having to step on pedals. I guess she doesn't understand that the original reason for putting those boxes on the floor was because your hands were busy.

 

Anyway, she tried to put the ring thing on Zito's finger and unfortunately picked his ring finger. He said, and I'm not kidding, "Hold on, honey, for some reason I can't breathe with a ring on that finger!" (he's been divorced like six times).

 

I busted out laughing but she didn't get it for a moment. Then she got it, and her laughter was almost as lovely as it was too {censored}in loud!

 

Maybe she really was deaf.

 

But she was a good sport. She said, "I'm kinda like you, Zito, except in my case it has to be a really BIG ROCK with good RESALE VALUE!"

 

 

Zito is an old deaf bastard too, and later he told me he really thought she said something about "I kinda like you" and "BIG COCK."

 

Wishful thinking, I guess.

 

More to follow, maybe.

 

Terry D.

[agedhorse]

I was afraid it was going to be light... did it seem to pick up at least with folks that were serious about what was being offered?

 

Sorry I missed you guys, sounded like I could have had some fun there... if not get arrested for something;)

[MrKnobs]

Originally posted by agedhorse I was afraid it was going to be light... did it seem to pick up at least with folks that were serious about what was being offered? Sorry I missed you guys, sounded like I could have had some fun there... if not get arrested for something;)

 

It was very light.

 

Not a whole lot of deal making either, from what I could see. Many, MANY exhibitors standing alone at their booths, no buyers in sight.

 

I spent a lot of time looking for that Anderton dude who runs this place. His guys at the EQ booth said they didn't even know if he was in town. But I saw a picture of me taped under the counter with a big NO written in red marker across the front, so it might be that they weren't being completely forthright with me.

 

I left my University business card at the EQ booth for him, and the guys were at least kind enough to wait for me to get a few feet away before they tossed it.

 

As usual, Roland had a large exhibit of strange toys that nobody but kids really want, and several young people on platforms jamming out weird sounds desperately trying to make eye contact with somebody.

 

I loaded up with free earplugs at the H.E.A.R. booth, they were nice folks but nobody was visiting there.

 

I stopped by GenzBenz to see if I could spot you, I was surprised to see a combined booth of several companies, I didn't realize you guys were owned by a mega corporation.

 

There wasn't much GenzBenz stuff on display.

 

I stopped by Shure to see if Matt Engstrom was there, to finally shake hands with a guy I feel I know pretty well, and to thank him for everything he's done for me (some of which he doesn't know about, which is a long story). He wasn't there either, but at least the guys that were knew exactly who he was. Another business card wasted, probably.

 

There were probably 10 displays of freakish looking guitars, guitars seemed to be the order of the day.

 

I was pretty thrilled to meet Roger Nichols who was pitching his line of plugins in person. I didn't get to talk to him much because his booth was pretty popular.

 

I'm not sure what Playboy bunnies were doing there scantily clad, but there was quite a long line to get signed photographs.

 

Zito and I bumped into some very scantily clad and tattooed girls hawking ukeleles. Zito said something I didn't hear into one of their ears, but I did hear the girl loudly say, "LOOK BUT DON'T TOUCH" so I guess he was asking about her tattoos as Zito is pretty decorated in various ways himself.

 

I'm not sure what anyone would want a ukelele for.

 

One thing that was absolutely NOT in short supply was food and alcohol. Anywhere you walked in the exhibit hall you were never any more than 20 ft from the nearest booze.

 

I was disappointed to find out every vendor who had Monte Montgomery tickets was almost immediately out. A Jimmy Vaughn performance is mildly entertaining, but Monte Montgomery is a life changing experience. Oh well, it's not as if I don't live here and have many chances to see him.

 

But I do have some work for the sax guy who sometimes plays with him, and I lost his card.

 

I think Zito said it best when we walked in to "The Hang" on Thursday night. He said, "Let's keep in mind that we're at a music retailer show, not a music show. He was saying it about the people on stage at the time, but that thought popped into my mind many times during the weekend.

 

Too bad there weren't many retailers there.

 

At any given time, I would say that there were at least as many people outside of the convention center as in. Which was quite a statement, considering the temperature was over 100 degrees all three days.

 

I hope some of the folks who registered at least had some fun in Austin. It didn't look like much business was being conducted, but at least the parking was no problem.

 

Terry D.

[ctardi]

Terry, what did you do to the EQ guys?

[Ear Abuser]

Thank you Mr Knobs. Reported as only you could!

 

WhenI become President, I am going to issue a Presidential signing statement to some wholly unrelated bill that will force every teenager to turn over their ugly, non-guitar shaped guitars, which will then be fed into a Vermeer tree chipper, in the name of national security.

[agedhorse]

Guess I didn't miss anything but the "trouble" I would have gotten into eh?

[MrKnobs]

Originally posted by agedhorse Guess I didn't miss anything but the "trouble" I would have gotten into eh?

 

I can help you with that "trouble" thing you speak of.

 

Terry D.

[MrKnobs]

Originally posted by Ear Abuser Thank you Mr Knobs. Reported as only you could! WhenI become President, I am going to issue a Presidential signing statement to some wholly unrelated bill that will force every teenager to turn over their ugly, non-guitar shaped guitars, which will then be fed into a Vermeer tree chipper, in the name of national security.

 

There were some guitars made of composite carbon rods, in a lattice. Very strange looking. Vendor said they have better "high end". The price was "high end," at least.

 

And of course there were many in the shape of bloody axes, dragons, etc., there were neon ones, there were dozens of the sort that have just the outline of a standard body and empty space within.

 

My wife got mad I didn't get her a pass, but she would have been bored to tears. After she first started the petulant act, I pointed out the security was lamer than an airport on Sept. 10th 2001, and she could easily sneak in on Julie's pass since they weren't carding anyone.

 

She refused, so right then and there I knew she didn't really want to go, she just wanted to be mad.

 

Me, I wore both the NAMM badge and my hanging Area51 Access all Areas pass. I got a lot more comments on the latter. Once I was motioned aside by a door monitor and I was afraid he'd ask questions about the company I supposedly worked for, but he just wanted to read the Area51 pass and have a chuckle. Made me wish I'd worn my "US Olympic Screwing Team" windbreaker too, but it was much too hot for that.

 

Bought the Area51 badge in Roswell NM, by the way.

 

I forgot to mention that I was surprised to see a Keeley booth. You know, the guys that make $60 Boss pedals into $200 Keeley pedals by adding $2 worth of parts. It's the blue LED that does it, I think.

 

Anyway, I was happy to find the Keeley booth so I'd have something to play with, but I soon discovered you can't really judge the sound of a pedal through an amp unless you turn it up a little more than might be appropriate at NAMM.

 

I wonder if their presence there means we'll be seeing Keely stomp boxes in Geetar Center now?

 

I spotted something odd that seemed very useful to me, a purpose built kick drum pillow that included a stubby aluminum mike stand in the middle. I was gonna offer the booth guy some $$$ to sneak me one, but then it occured to me it wouldn't stuff through the hole in the front head, and I'm much too lazy to remove and replace someone's bass head just to get it sounding good.

 

Looking for something good to say about this NAMM, I must admit it had a very high food booth, bartender, and restroom to attendee ratio. No waiting to get a bad hot dog and vodka collins, and no waiting to *ahem* deal with the results either.

 

It was also very educational. Watching the NAMM crew play onstage at "The Hang," I learned that even if you play pretty well, YES, IT DOES MATTER how you're dressed/looking on stage. The 15 piece band (including horn section) was definitely "attack of the rock'n'roll receptionists/salesmen/housewives."

 

It was too much for me when they broke into "We Are Fa-mi-ly." I almost horked up my red house wine, crappy hotel chicken qeusadilla wraps, and rancid tuna finger sandwiches. Instead, I choked down some more and I was quickly back on the dance floor shaking my booty before the last of the six guitar players finished stepping on each other's solos.

 

What a hoot!

 

The army of funk players was soon replaced by a band fronted by some shirtless madman who did the traditional stomping around while bent over flashing devil horn signs all the while emitting a constant guttural scream that was way into the clipping range of his no doubt multi-polyp'd vocal cords.

 

It was f*ckin' LOUD, too.

 

So that was my cue to slip out on the balcony and admire the view of downtown Austin in the balmy 103 degree night air. Unfortunately, possibly because of the way I look, I was cornered by another drunk (I count myself as one by this point) who seemed to be trying to set a new record for number of conspiracy theories believed by one single idiot.

 

Apparently the mistake I had made, other than standing next to him, was to look for a moment too long at the new Frost Bank Building, which some say has a top resembling an owl, which I'm told is worshipped in secret by President Bush and other members of the New World Order. I wish I could say this drunk dude was the first guy who told me that, but I have a keyboard guy in my band who believes all this stuff too.

 

I was joined after a while by Zito, who was even drunker than I was (thank God for the earlier horking, I guess) and was taking the night air hoping his face would return to the usual ashen guy-who-only-comes-out-at-night color after having been slapped by a couple of cute girls. His philosophy is, and always has been, "No guts no glory." I've seen some pretty cute girls on his arm, so it must work once in a while.

 

Zito took in the nutcase's psychobabble for a while, then, in characteristic fashion, decided to one-up him with some crazy theory about Nazi's living in the center of the Earth through some hole in the south pole or some such.

 

I was glad to scrape the dude off my shoe and took that moment to flee, under the pretext of needing another drink. As I left, I almost lost it as I heard the nutcase guy saying, "Dude, I dunno, that's f*ckin' nuts, man..."

 

Zito has always been an excellent wingman.

 

I suddenly had the desire to talk to someone saner and cuter, and remembered the nice looking 40-ish lady who had invited me to lunch the day before.

 

I went in search of her.

 

Terry D.

 

P.S. The above story is completely true.

[mparsons]

WhenI become President, I am going to issue a Presidential signing statement to some wholly unrelated bill that will force every teenager to turn over their ugly, non-guitar shaped guitars, which will then be fed into a Vermeer tree chipper, in the name of national security.

 

You better not be talking about my guitar!