{"id":2141,"date":"2025-01-23T12:53:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T20:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2025-01-25T13:43:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T21:43:29","slug":"the-namm-ness-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/?p=2141","title":{"rendered":"The NAMM-ness of it all\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NAMM<\/strong>\u2026it\u2019s a whole thing\u2026something that comes (post-Covid) every year, and each year I\u2019m conflicted about going, and kinda wrestle with it more than I should.

If you don\u2019t know, It\u2019s basically a trade show for the music support industries like amps\/instruments\/software\/recording\/accessories etc etc, think CES but for Guitar Center type stores all the way down to Mom and Pop music stores in Idaho\u2026and it\u2019s also a showcase to the buying public of new goodies\/technologies\/hardware etc, with a large smattering of celeb appearances\/signings\/performances, and a goodly amount of partying and semi-mayhem at night.

For pro musicians, it\u2019s often considered a must, for the simple reason that you just run into ALL kinda music pros from every related field, usually just by accident, and since that is truly how this business runs, word of mouth based on recent contact gets you half or more of the work you get in this business, (assuming you have the basic abilities needed, a WHOLE other subject). So pro people tend to try to go, even if they\u2019re not really enthused, simply because it\u2019s a reasonably smart business thing to do.

There\u2019s also the downsides to consider\u2026..massive crushes of people, a parking nightmare of almost biblical proportions, possibly the worst food concessions I\u2019ve ever seen in my life, NAMM Flu<\/strong>, (where there\u2019s an outbreak of some kinds of contact\/air driven diseases in the days following NAMM because of all the proximity\/hand-shaking\/close-to-face yelling from loud nearby sonic violence), running into cling-ons who will try like hell to monopolize your time in order to gain \u201cstatus\u201d by hanging around you because of YOUR perceived \u201cstatus\u201d, real or not, walking for literally miles, (it\u2019s a huge show), and noise pollution the likes of which is not usually heard of except on large constructions sites and Guitar Center on a Sunday when there\u2019s a sale on. It can be brutal.

So I\u2019m always conflicted about going. On the one hand I REALLY REALLY like running into people that often NAMM is the only time I see them, but because we shared some tour or other musical experience in the past and bonded, it\u2019s truly wonderful to see them again and catch up, if even just for the moment or two before we all bound off to some VERY IMPORTANT this or that, I really do enjoy meeting in person the companies\/people who I\u2019ve been talking to in emails and phone working on and out gear issues\/endorsements\/help, (and there are so many manufacturers who been SOOO gracious and helpful), checking out specific gadgets and softwares etc, and even running into the occasional fan person who has seen you play with someone and really enjoyed it, they\u2019re usually very sweet and respectful of your time etc, but it\u2019s a treat for them and I enjoy that with them, it\u2019s nice. And of course on the other hand, see above\u2026..

Because of Covid a few years ago, I haven\u2019t gone for awhile, and have heard that it was kinda going down the tubes and wasn\u2019t what it once was, so I\u2019ve kinda just ignored it mostly, and I haven\u2019t been in literally years, and since the last coupla years have been personally pretty busy (thankfully) for me, I didn\u2019t miss it. But last year I was invited to a bday party of a new-to-me friend that I did some shows with earlier in the year, who is a super nice guy and a great player, and at the party I met a number of people that I literally hadn\u2019t even heard of, but were just lovely people and all very accomplished players and music pros ( I ended up writing a little thing about it on social media, I had such a nice time). I was so impressed by this group of people that it kind of re-invigorated my sense of community amongst musicians, which has I admit taken a serious beating over the years, culminating in a semi-withdrawal from professional music in the year or so just before Covid, and lasting until around 3 years ago when I started doing some of the best and most rewarding music work I\u2019ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of, really just kinda by accident (a whole other story I should maybe tell someday\u2026.talk about being a lucky bastard, that\u2019d be me\u2026).

One of the people I met at that party was a fairly high level fellow at a very large musical instruments\/hardware\/electronics company we\u2019ve all heard of, who asked if I was gonna go to NAMM coming (the current one happening now), and I described my confliction about it in general. He was effusive and convincing in saying that I really really oughta go, that things were really picking up there, and that it has become better than ever, been re-invigorated and streamlined etc, and if I wanted to go (and bring The Biscuit, cause I brought her up as being interested), just hit him up and he\u2019d make it happen.

So that conversation stuck with me and got me thinking I\u2019d go ahead and march on down there again. Normally I\u2019d talk to one of the companies I work with (usually GHS Strings, whom I\u2019ve been with for literally over 35 years since I was in a band called The City on Chrysalis, which had myself\/Stuart Mathis\/Billy Trudel\/Jerry Speiser from Men At Work who had recently kinda broken apart, and Peter McIan who had produced the first 2 two giant Men At Works records in it, another whole story on it\u2019s own), but since he had offered and I thought it would be polite as well as kind of fun to stay in touch with him, (I liked him and his enthusiasm, and since it was mainly him that convinced me I thought it would be the right thing), I reached out to him and he said that he was still able and willing, and I got him the info and let it be till we got closer to the event. Thing was, as we got closer to the event I reached out again a coupla times including just very recently, got no responses at all, realized I had never got the confirmation email that you typically get from NAMM, and that I was probably screwed and not going to be going.

And that\u2019s one of the problems that I have with LA music folks in a nutshell\u2026..they will self aggrandize and pompous about like Trump on a bender in a whorehouse, but then when it comes time they can disappear, (typically if they think it won\u2019t matter or you don\u2019t have enough juice for them to put out the energy etc.), so this was a gentle reminder that many LA people, (notwithstanding the generally lovely folks at that party), will often turn out to be just like that, and one must always be ready for them to turn out that way.

Anyway, me and The Biscuit were mildly disappointed, but in my case of course there was also some relief for the reasons above, and then some NEW FIRES (!?!?!) started, and some of my other kind of work (if you\u2019re a musician in LA you\u2019d better be VERY GOOD\/lucky\/have a sig-other with some dough\/be an extremely good politician to be able to live and work here), so it\u2019s kinda ok it worked out that way\u2026.that parking thing and the NAMM Flu being the things that I\u2019ll never ever miss\u2026 I\u2019m a bit bummed that in particular I won\u2019t be able to get some face time in with some of the manufacturers who have been REALLY helpful over the last 3 years (GHS\/KALA\/MXR BASS INNOVATIONS\/AMPEG\/JBL\/JAD FREER\/UNION TUBE AND TRANSISTOR\/PETERSON STROBE come to immediate mind), but I\u2019ll catch them next year, and I\u2019ll make sure I handle it correctly this time\u2026.

So you NAMMsters have a ball, I\u2019ll catch you next year (probably anyway), and I\u2019ll watch for all the cool goodies from over here!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAMM\u2026it\u2019s a whole thing\u2026something that comes (post-Covid) every year, and each year I\u2019m conflicted about going, and kinda wrestle with it more than I should. If you don\u2019t know, It\u2019s basically a trade show for the music support industries like amps\/instruments\/software\/recording\/accessories etc etc, think CES but for Guitar Center type stores all the way down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,300],"tags":[859,344,860,862,861,863,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142,"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/2142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}