Thanks so much to Proteus for your hard work on behalf of the GDP community. The last few days I've felt like a kid with an unlimited free pass to the best circus in the world.
One of the toughest things about the NAMM show is information overload. For anyone that has never walked the hallowed halls of the Anaheim show all I try to convey is the fact that from the moment you enter the building you are continuously surrounded by stimuli for the senses. There's thousands of conversations taking place all around you and people trying out guitars, basses, pianos, euphonium and any other instrument you can conceive of.
The NAMM I visited in '93 took up, as I recall, five buildings. One could spend an entire day scurrying from display to display and not even come close to seeing everything. You might find yourself standing a couple of feet from a multi-platinum artist, a musician you recognize from the house band on a TV show such as Letterman or Leno, or perhaps you'd find yourself faced with one of the oldest most effective marketing tools known, a very pretty young woman wearing a skimpy outfit. In any event, NAMM is the exact opposite of sensory deprivation, it's sensory overload to the highest degree possible. By the end of our second day at the '93 NAMM, my fellow visitors and I were more than ready to leave. On the second day we each visited a handful of booths we had taken note of the day before, swept through the big ticket vendors of interest (IE Fender) and called it a day early on. On the third day we held a straw poll and unanimously agreed to forego a third trip to the convention site, we'd seen enough to know that we'd seen too much.
I mention all of this only as a way of adding perspective for my next statement. Proteus spent some very long days working hard to bring us this information. He sustained the effects of a four day onslaught to the senses that only a NAMM show or perhaps D-day style combat can provide . . . and did so with good humor. We are all given a rare opportunity to experience many of the enjoyable parts of a NAMM show without the hustle and bustle of it all.
All of the photos and sound clips came about only with serious preparation and effort on his part. My one, and probably only, NAMM visited was a walk in the park, plenty of sightseeing with only a little in the way of business to be attended to. Proteus worked very hard to give us the content of this thread. He also kept in interesting and entertaining along the way.
I would love to have had the opportunity but I have to confess that I couldn't have done such a fine, fine job of covering the show. Thanks Proteus, you done good!
but I liked the way this coverage was slanted all towards everything Gretsch. Now, fess up and tell us that you had to be in a dead run to keep up with that human dynamo, Joe Carducci!! How do he do it?
