Thanks to my affiliation with Instrumental Music, I went to the NAMM show this year!! For those who aren’t familiar with NAMM, It is the largest trade show for musical instrument manufacturers and merchants and has been coming to Anaheim, CA for many years. I hadn’t been to NAMM in about 14 years so I was really excited to see all the new products etc. The trek from Ventura to Anaheim is about 2 hrs, so I left pretty early to allow myself enough time to visit the booths I really wanted to see and visit some friends working there. Of course when i arrived at about noon, I realized I should have left my house earlier; when you go to NAMM be prepared to park far and walk.
Once inside, I was immediately familar with the layout as it hasn’t changed much in 14 years. I saw many faces I recognized from the music biz. Naturally, being a drummer, I headed directly for the the drum section. Here’s some highlights from the booths I visited (in no particular order):
1. Matt Sorum, Omar Hakim, Zoro and Steve Gadd at the Vic Firth booth.
2. Remo’s new bass drum heads: Super cool. Also their pre-tensioned heads in colored geometric shaped frames sounded great with mallets. I think these were for kids. Remo also has a new be-bop in black lacquer that’s nice.
3. Nikki Sixx signing autographs near the Gretsch drums booth.
4. Talking with Chris Lombardi the owner of DW about artist endorsements. The new Peter Erskine Be-Bop kit is very cool. I also chatted about Alex Acuna’s affiliation with them and GonBop. Checked out their vintage style stands and I need to get the 9000 series pedal which is incredible.
5. I’m a huge fan of Bosphorus cymbals so naturally I talked with one of the owners Kevin Vosbien who greeted me warmly. One of the best moments by far was watching Jeff Hamilton (co-owner of Bosphorus) play one of his Remo signature kits in the Bosphorus booth. If that wasn’t enough, as I lingered there trying out Stanton Moore’s (kit pictured above) cymbals. along came Joe LaBarbara who sat down on the open kit and treated us to a short and very sweet performance.
6. At the Roland booth I checked out their amazing line of V Drums and talked with one of the reps since I’ll be teaching with one of their kits very soon. Awesome products all around.
7. Taye drums makes some of the most melodic acoustic kits I’ve ever heard. I tried them out and talked to them about endorsements. Derrek Phillips from Charlie Hunter’s band plays Taye drums.
By this point I was pretty beat, so I visited some friends: Darrell Smith who’s a product designer for Line 6 and Jeannette Villareal who works for Larivee Guitars. All in all a great day. Whew! Can’t wait for next year.
