Namm 2007 “A Virgin’s experience”!
This past week I finally made the trip to Anaheim California where the annual National Association of Music Merchants Convention that took place January 18th-21st. It was a fantastic trip for the most part. Before I get into my review, I want to thank Keith Gordon of Gennum/Westone Laboratories for the badges for me and my friends to obtain access throughout the entire weekend. If anyone is looking for in ear monitors, he is the person to see!

The experience started off bad when my flight was delayed while I was in Cleveland causing me to miss my first day of my first NAMM experience. Yes, I am (was) a virgin to the whole NAMM experience but I gathered as much info on who would be there so I would try to be as prepared as possible. I was disappointed as anyone as my close friends and associates know that I’ve been looking forward to meeting the Wilson sisters (Heart) and heard that they would be walking around on Thursday. Well, only Nancy and some of her current band mates made the trip to NAMM this year due to a chest cold Ann inherited a couple of days before NAMM. Nonetheless, I missed them along with Michael Anthony and C.C. Deville who were doing signings that day. I had to turn my attention to the next day which included meetings with Kerry King (Slayer), Tony Campos (Static-X), Matt Roberts (3 Doors Down) and rock legends Paul Stanley & Ronnie James Dio. A couple of weeks back, Paul was supposed to do an interview with me for the site but was unable to accommodate our request. He told me that he WILL do one before he starts his European dates for his solo tour later this spring. So look out for that! We stopped by the Coffin Case booth to see a friend of Glam-metal JD DeServio. He told me to say “hello” to all the readers. We also saw Nick Cantanese walking around and he told me to say “Hello” to all the GlamMetal Heads as well!! Next up was Rock Legend Ronnie James Dio. Dio was accompanied by his whole band and this was the only time the entire weekend that the line and meet and greet was disorganized. We were lined up with me close to the front of the line (first 10). Sure beats being the last in line (lol), but it didn’t matter. I fortunately was able to talk to him for a short time and he was really cool. I told him that a friend of mine (Leah) made the trip up to see him and he pointed right to her grabbed her and gave her a kiss on the cheek while taking her behind the counter giving her a sincere hug of gratitude. It meant so much to her meeting him! 

I then walked around and saw that Rudolph Schenker (Scorpions) was there so I stopped by and met him. He was very cool but was English was very rough to say the least. He did say to look out for a combo tour with the Scorpions and some other cool bands this summer! While walking out saw Billy Sheehan and had a cool picture of him from the Dave Constantino band show last month in Buffalo. He loved the show and had a great time at it! He was looking forward to the BX3 show in Buffalo at the end of February as well. GlamMetal will be all over this show!!

All the NAMM veterans know that Saturday is usually the craziest day with all sorts of stuff going on. Some of the people I met were Nuno Bettencourt (formerly of Extreme- Nuno made a comment on how cooler my hat was than his), Mick Mars (only got an autograph from a nice person in line who got it for me) as they cut off the line, Dave Mustaine who was polite (to the contrary of stories that go around on him), and the biggie of the day…Nikki Sixx!! I was able to take the pic guard from my smashed Nikki Sixx bass from the “The Route of all Evil tour” at Darien Lake in September of 2006 and get that signed. The lines for Nikki were very long as he signed at three different booths (Dean Markley strings, Basson sound, and Ovation Guitars). We stood in the Ovation line. I also showed him a picture of me holding the bass after the show (with his spew on my shirt) and he said (that’s very cool)!! Nikki was late getting to the Ovation booth which was the third booth on his schedule hence me being late for Mick Mars. 
 
For all of you all around music fans, I also met Sheila E (who was at the same booth as Nikki Sixx before he got there) and Bootsy Collins. I must admit, Bootsy may have been the coolest of them all this past weekend. Very cool guy!! Sunday was a very dead day compared to the rest of them. I did see music legend Stevie Wonder walking around with his entourage. I tried to break through the entourage to get a picture (some others were successful) but unfortunately, I was unable too. Saw Rikki Rocket at his own booth promoting his own designed drums. While walking out, I did see Warren DeMartini and was able to grab a picture with him. He also was very nice! I only stood in line to meet Steve Stevens (Billy Idol). He couldn’t elaborate but did say that Billy may be hooking up a big tour with some other bands later this summer. 

The biggest part of the entire weekend in my opinion, was the Black Tooth Bash which was a tribute concert held in memory of Dimebag Darrell Abbott. It seems like everyone got a pass for the show except for me as I was trying to very desperately to come up with one. Well, when it came time for the show, there were extraordinary amounts of people who were waiting to get in that it didn’t matter who you were (musicians, show organizers, celebrities of some sorts) you were waiting like everyone else. It seems too many passes were given out and it wasn’t a single file line waiting to get in, it was a clusterfuck of people waiting to get in!! My friends and I decided to go back downstairs to hang out where the action was. After an hour or so, we headed back upstairs to see what was going on as it turned out they moved the waiting line back to the door and fewer than 30 people or so were hanging out. Some security dude announced that whoever was up there (another security guy began closing the door behind us at the same time) that they would be able to get in by showing your pass and by 5 at a time. I didn’t have a pass and after seeing my friends go in I was like..oh well.. this wasn’t meant to be I guess!!! Well, it started out that way, but after a minute, the security guy said well…everybody can go. I was able to get in and to my amazement, the place was HALF PACKED!! People maybe got pissed because it was so packed or for whatever the reason, left. I was able to make it up close to the right side of the stage and snag some pictures. I only seen two parts of the show. The first band I saw included Tim “Ripper” Owens, Scott Ian, and Vinnie Paul. They played “Electric Eye”, then two Kiss songs “Parasite” and “Cold Gin”. You knew I was in my glory. After a couple of more songs; Lemmy, Kerri Kelli, Brian Tisch. and Damone Johnson took the stage and kept the crowd energy going. It was a slower set than the first with some blues tracks thrown in with the classic “Route 66.” I was so glad just to be in there and part of it all that I couldn’t remember all of the songs they played!!

So that was my trip down in a small nutshell. I’ve met many nice people the entire weekend and it was a music networking dream to go along with it. Hopefully we will be able to hook up some interviews as yours truly was working it the entire weekend to go along with coverage on some cool concerts coming our way for 2007. So if any of you guys get the chance to go to NAMM in the future, GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Check out more photos here