Summer NAMM 2017

Summer NAMM in Nashville remains a cozy, guitar oriented affair. The freak show element that enlivens winter NAMM is absent in the more tradition-oriented music city version. Still Gator cases provided some photo ops.There weren’t a great number of new things of particular interest to modern guitarists, but the few there were proved pretty exciting.

Gator

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Guitar Moderne NAMM 2017 Report

This year’s winter NAMM was INSANE! Thursday was as crowded as a typical Saturday and it escalated from there. The noise floor was non-stop jet-engine level. I came home with ears ringing and NAMMthrax. Was it worth it? You bet. Three full days was barely enough to cover all the cool stuff. It opened with a terrific concert band doing a modern composition that incorporated either recorded or live recitations from young people (I couldn’t see from my vantage point) about the difficulties of growing up. This boded well for a forward-thinking show and, in fact, there were ample examples of manufacturers leaving the traditional behind to explore new territory.

Other than the upward trajectory of the business evidenced by the crowd, the only trend I noticed was the invasion of the pedal market by Greece and Brazil. As usual, NAMM often stands for “Not Available, Maybe May,” so stay tuned to the manufactures’ sites and guitarmoderne.com for updates, and, if you would like to hear me talk about this year’s winter NAMM, check out Matt Wakeling’s Guitar Speak podcast featuring yours truly.

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Guitar Moderne NAMM 2016 Report

The good news is that NAMM keeps growing. The better news is that the amount of gear, well, geared to the modern guitarist is growing as well. This year, Anaheim featured a plethora of pedals that made new and glorious noises, a far cry from your standard Tube Screamer and Klon clones (though there were some great versions of the latter from J. Rockett). Also in evidence were unique guitars that managed to look both modern and retro. Hall E, always the land of new ideas good and bad, this time served up some really good ones.

The only bad news was how difficult it was for my one-man show to cover even the equipment of interest to Guitar Moderne readers. Premier Guitar and Guitar Player offer access to much of what I missed, but here is what I found to be the best of the rest.

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Nick Reinhart shows what you can do with some Red Panda pedals and a Line 6 DL-4. Check out the color coordinated strap, sneakers and pedal. The man is talented and stylin’.

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Reader’s Rig: Ted Drozdowski of Ted Drozdowski’s Scissormen

You may know Ted Drozdowski’s name if you were a fan of the late, lamented Musician magazine, or read his articles in Premier Guitar magazine and his posts on the Gibson website. A respected music journalist, Drozdowski has also studied Mississipi Hill Country Blues with masters like R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. With his band, The Scissormen, he keeps the flame of this elemental blues style alive, while adding a modern psychedelic aspect that only adds to the music’s mystery.

Pedalboard

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