Here is another attendee's video of the OHM show at Alva's. Great quality.
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« December 2009 | Main | February 2010 »
January 2010
January 20, 2010
January 19, 2010
NAMM 2010: Final Day Wrap-Up
The final day of the 2010 Winter NAMM show was pretty light, both in terms of artist appearances and foot traffic. Carl Verheyen played at the Alfred Publishing booth, and was great as always. While he did play a few instrumental tunes, most of his songs included vocals, and he did it all solo - no backing tracks. I loved the meaty, natural tone he was getting from his strat.
I played some nice guitars on Sunday, including some great Fenders, but my favorite guitars of the day were the Suhr Pro Series models. I had stopped by Suhr a few times during the show, but hadn't played anything until the last day (most of their guitars were mounted and not playable anyway). The Pro Series stuff was really nice; great necks, perfect action. I think I liked the Teles the best.
The highlight of the last day (and one of the biggest highlights of my entire trip) was seeing OHM and Kofi Baker's Tribute to Cream with Mike Keneally at Alva's Showroom. This is another show that deserves it's own review post, but I'll give you the short version here. "Amazing" and "Fun" are two words that immediately come to mind when I think of this show. OHM played first, and were incredible. Chris Poland was ferocious from beginning to end. After OHM's set, Kofi Baker (drums) and Pag (bass) returned to the stage with Mike Keneally for a set of amazing, eccentric, improv-laden Cream tunes (Kofi Baker is the son of legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker). Poland joined in at the end and really turned it into one of those special shows that all in attendance will be talking about forever. Again, I'd like to post more on this gig later, including a gallery of my photos. I shot some video also, though the sound is not great. I'll post the vids shortly.
Looking back, this NAMM trip reminded me of 2008 when there were amazing gigs every night, and I got to chat with many of my favorite players. NAMM for me is more about the musicians I get to see play than the gear I get to play myself. Living in the Chicago area, seeing a local show from someone like Alex Machacek, for example, is not a likely scenario at the moment. Having said that, when I hang and talk with guys like Souvik Dutta from Abstract Logix, or Matt Lincir from Alva's, it bolsters my faith that the type of fusion and jazz music I like could be effectively promoted to a wider audience. For now though, a trip to NAMM gives me the fix I need.
Look for more NAMM posts this week including gig reviews and photo galleries.
January 18, 2010
January 17, 2010
NAMM 2010: Day 3
Saturday is always the NAMM show's busiest day, and I have many highlights to report. Early in the day I was able to see Chris Poland and 'Pag' from OHM jamming at the Eminence booth. It's always a treat to see players of this caliber in these small-scale NAMM floor settings. Chris was burning as usual. After Eminence, I hit some other booths and saw lots of big names on the floor - I saw Gene Simmons heading to an appearance with a throng of people following him, Slash made a couple of appearances, I saw Flea walk through, saw George Lynch chatting with Uli Roth, saw Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert, and Tony MacAlpine signing at the Ibanez booth, and on and on.
One of the highlights of the day for me was meeting Steve Lukather. As you may recall, back in November I posted a video of Luke jamming with Joe Bonamassa that Luke himself commented on. He essentially agreed with an earlier comment that he was overplaying on the song, and that the clip kinda sucked. Out of respect for Luke, I considered taking the post down at that point, but a good discussion was ensuing in the comments so I left it up. When I met Luke yesterday, I sheepishly revealed that the Guitar Channel was my site, and that I was the one who posted that video. Obviously I didn't need to do that, but I wanted to tell him I was sorry if I pissed him off. He absolutely could not have been cooler about the whole thing. He said hey, sometimes you're gonna have a bad night, but the next night you might play great. He said the difference nowadays is with YouTube, everything you play gets posted and viewed by millions of people. His "no-worries" attitude was very genuine, and super cool. What a great cat.
Another highlight of the day was seeing Tony Levin's Stick Men band play in the LOUD Technologies demo room. Their stuff is very rhythmic, and highly progressive. Levin is an absolute maniac on the Chapman Stick.
After the show I headed to San Pedro to see Alex Machacek (guitar), Ric Fierabracci (bass), Tom Brechtlein (drums), and Phil Turcio (keys) at Alva's Showroom. Marco Minnemann was originally slated to play drums, but due to unforseen circumstances, Brechtlein was enlisted to fill in. At the show I met up with Souvik Dutta from Abstract Logix, and guitarist Amit Heri who has been traveling with Souvik during NAMM. What a great hang. Got to talk with Alex before the show and between sets. He's always been one of my favorite players, and is a great guy to boot. His new album with Marco Minnemann sounds like it's going to be killer. I believe he said the title will be "26 Tales;" it was originally part of Minnemann's Normalizer project, but it will be released on it's own through Abstract Logix. Can't wait to hear it. I'd like to give this show it's own write-up, but I'll say this - These guys were some of the best pro's I've seen. Alex told me before the show that he was a bit nervous about the gig, since the setlist had to be changed at the last minute due to Minnemann's absence, and he was not as familiar with the material as he'd like to be. Nevertheless, everybody killed on this gig. They worked off of charts, and it was so cool to see these guys execute on such a professional level. There were a couple of tunes that Brechtlin hadn't even played before, but you would have had no idea. Fantastic playing by everyone involved. Below you'll find one of the videos I shot from this great gig.
I probably won't spend much time at the show today, being that it's the last day which is traditionally light on content. Tonight, however, is going to be huge. I'll be heading back to Alva's to see OHM, and Kofi Baker's Cream tribute featuring Mike Keneally on guitar. I'm sure this will be an awesome show that will pack Alva's to the gills. Stay tuned...
By the way... between the slow internet connection in my hotel, and the God-awful ATT&T coverage at the convention center, my ability to post updates, videos, etc, has been severely hampered. I've got a ton of pics, and some great videos, but most of it won't be uploaded until I get home.
Alex Machacek - "Actual Proof" solo live at Alva's 1/16/10
January 16, 2010
NAMM 2010: Day 2
Day two of the 2010 Winter NAMM show was crazier than day one, and I know today (day 3) will be even crazier still. The crowds in some areas of the floor were simply impassable, due in large part to all the top players making appearances. Carlos Santana appeared at a couple of booths, and single- handedly brought all foot traffic in his vicinity to a standstill. One of the longest autograph lines I saw was for bassist Tal Wilkenfeld. Her work with Jeff Beck has really catapulted her notoriety, and rightly so. She's a super talented player.
One of the highlights of the day for me was seeing Johhny Hiland jamming with bassist Dave Larue at the Ernie Ball booth. Hiland is a monster country picker who just recently switched to Ernie Ball after being a long-time PRS guy. What a player. I got some decent footage of the jam, which I've embedded at the end of this post. I also saw Hiland playing at the ENGL booth while Steve Morse was signing autographs there. What a great player.
I also got to chat with Prashant Aswani. He has a new album on the way which sounds like it's going to be awesome. It looks like I'll be doing a new interview with Prashant after the
album is released (I previously interviewed Prashant in 2008). Later in the day, he created a gridlock-inducing crowd downstairs at the Spectraflex booth were he was demoing some of the new tunes.
Obviously gear is king at the NAMM show, and I checked out some great stuff, including the Moog guitar, some great Schecter models, and some beautiful Godin acoustics. Before heading out for the day, I caught some of bassist Jon Reshard's band playing outside, where I also met Guthrie Govan who was taking in the set. Very cool!
After NAMM, I heading up north to meet my old grade school buddy Josh (we hadn't seen each other in probably 25 years!) for dinner, and a trip to the Baked Potato to see Scott Henderson's trio. Unfortunately, our seats were kind of crappy (we were behind the mixer all the way to to the right), but that didn't stop us from enjoying Henderson's awesome, kinetically-charged set.
Gotta head out to take on day 3. Don't forget to check my Twitter feed for updates...
Johnny Hiland and Dave Larue jamming at Ernie Ball - NAMM 2010
January 15, 2010
NAMM 2010: Day 0 - Day 1
Well, my NAMM trip is only a couple of days old, and I can already tell this will be similar to 2008 when I was exhausted everyday from all the activity. I arrived from Chicago late Wednesday afternoon to find I had forgotten my camera battery charger at home (major Doh!). I couldn't find the model I needed in a store out here, so my lovely wife was kind enough to ship my charger to me at my hotel. The package is arriving later today, so I've refrained from taking too many shots yet to save my battery. Granted, I do have the iPhone camera, but it's not ideal, especially in dark concert environments.
Undaunted by this temporary setback, I proceeded to my first concert outing - The Bombastic Meatbats at the Baked Potato. I caught their first set, and enjoyed every minute of it. I love the funky, throwback vibe of this band. Jeff Kollman was fantastic on guitar, but the secret weapon on this gig was Kenny Aronoff on drums. Aronoff plays with the Meatbats on occasion when their original drummer Chad Smith is not available, and he absolutely burned the place to the ground Wednesday night. The guy is an old pro who plays everything with conviction and intensity. Such a fun player to watch.
NAMM officially opened on Thursday - when I hit the show floor I was still tired from the long travel day and late night excursion to the Spud. Luckily the first day of NAMM is traditionally light in terms of artist appearances and demos, so I took it pretty easy and got the lay of the land. I took very few pictures due to my aforementioned camera situation, but I did see some cool stuff. I saw artists like Steve Morse, Tony Levin, and Vernon Reid milling around, and checked out some cool guitars at Ernie Ball, Suhr, and a few other booths. I'll dig into the gear a little more in the coming days when I can use a proper camera that isn't on the brink of death every second. The show was waaaay crowded. More so than last year's opening day. I can't imagine what it will be like today and Saturday. Quick side note: if you are attending NAMM and you own an iPhone, the NAMM 2010 Follow Me app is not only essential, it's super cool as well. You can pull up maps of the show floor, lists of exhibitors, schedule events, and much more. The coolest feature though, is the on-floor location awareness. Just leave your WiFi on, and the app will show your location on the map after a few seconds. You don't even need to connect to an access point. Way cool, and highly recommended.
After the first day on the show floor, it was time for my second concert of the trip - The Steve Morse Band at Brixton South Bay in Redondo Beach. I'll be posting a full review of this gig soon, but I'll say this for now - Despite a few technical difficulties, this was a fantastic show. I've seen Morse at least a dozen times, and he's always great. One of the opening acts was Morse playing with vocalist Sarah Spencer. They have a new album coming out called Angelfire, and this was their first gig ever. In fact, they were selling pre-release copies of the disc at the show, and I happened to buy the first copy of the album ever sold. To anyone. Ever! Not only that, but Sarah was there when I bought it and was kind enough to sign it for me. Very cool! Here are my pics from the show:
Flickr - Steve Morse Band: Live at Brixton South Bay - 1/14/10
That's all for now. Time to get ready for day two. Tonight after NAMM, I'll be heading back up to Studio City to catch Scott Henderson's first set at the Baked Potato. Don't forget to follow my Twitter feed for short updates during the day.
January 13, 2010
Leaving for NAMM today
And so it begins... I'll be flying out to California later today for the 2010 Winter NAMM Show. It's going to be an awesome trip I'm sure. In addition to the show itself, there are amazing gigs happening every night. I've got 5 shows reserved, including the Bombastic Meatbats tonight at the Baked Potato (it's gonna be a looong day!). I'll try to post daily wrap-ups like I did last year, but be sure to follow me on Twitter for more up-to-the-minute updates. In addition to the daily posts, you can expect photo galleries, videos, and gig reviews upon my return. Stay tuned!
