By Ronny North
Part 1 of 2
After surviving my first day at Winter NAMM, I was ready to go. On the second day it was a little more relaxed, but I was very tired and sore from our long night on Thursday.
We got to the convention center around 11am and I played at the Mills
Booth. It’s always a blast to hang with Dave and Susie Mills so doing demos for them is always fun. After I played a bit, we decided to have a little lunch before I went on with my day. I was also nursing a torn off finger nail from the night before on my left hand.
After we ate, I was off to play at the Brazen Guitars booth. I hung out a bit and played for a while and tore it up a bit on a few of the new Brazen guitars. I also got a chance to talk with my good friend Keri Kellie who just happened to be doing a signing across the isle from Brazen for Diamond amps. It was great to see him and to catch up since I hadn’t seen him in a while.
After my demo, I popped by to see my buddy David at Stash picks who hooked us up with some passes for his party Stash picks was throwing at a Hotel near the show. After all this I still hadn’t had a chance to make it into the main halls because I was playing so much.
The day went by very quickly and soon it was night. We decided to go back to our hotel change and go to the Stash Picks party before having some dinner. We had also planned on going to see the Eddie Van Halen thing at the Fender party later. Well my girlfriend Arlene graciously offered to drive us to the party so we all could have a drink (at this point none of us had even one drink the whole time). I really don’t drink, but I wanted to at least have a couple to blow off some steam from all the craziness. Well, the Stash Picks party was kicking and everyone was so cool. David went all out and had an open bar and tons of pizza (genius!!).
My girlfriend Arlene and my assistant Karen quickly found a place on the couch and were taking in the whole scene while having some pizza and cokes. I on the other hand was hanging out on the other end of the room by the bar talking with everyone including fellow Guitar Jam columnist Jim Basara. I always have a blast hanging with Jim when possible and this time was no exception. We were having the best time talking guitars while eating pizza and having some drinks.
Soon after friends Jody Page (owner of Pedalsnake) and his girlfriend Julie arrived from the Fender party. Pedalsnake is distributed by Fender and I’m endorsed by Pedalsnake. Jody was going to get us passes to see Eddie play later that evening. Well when they arrived Jody told me that they had popped by the Fender thing to grab some food before coming to our party we would then all go from our party to see Eddie play. He was scheduled to play at 11pm.
Apparently Fender decided at the last minute to have Eddie play at 7pm since, lets just say, he wasn’t in very good shape and probably wouldn’t be able to perform at 11pm. Jody and Julie watched it and then came to meet us. They showed me the video when they arrived at the Stash Picks Party and apologized to me about missing it since they know how much of an Eddie fan I am.
We watched the video and hung out. We had the best time and had way too much to drink. Luckily no one was driving so we were having a blast. It was quite the site to all pile into Arlene’s car for the 3 block drive back to our hotel to park the car. After way too much pizza and drinks we all walked to the Hilton Bar from our hotel.
The place was going off and it seems everyone was coming up to me to talk. I had a blast hanging with all my friends and everyone kept buying me drinks. We all had the best time and it’s great to blow off some steam once in a while. We closed the place down and walked back to our hotel. What a crazy night!!!
I’m told I was having quite a great night….
On Saturday, as you can imagine I felt like I was dead and decided to sleep in a bit. We finally made it back to the show around noon. I played at the Mills booth a bit and we checked in at the Minarik Guitars booth to see when they wanted me to do my big demo. They told me they wanted me to play at 2pm (it was now a little after 1pm..) It gave me some time to look around.
Of course I ran into tons of friends and spent most of the time chatting. We also walked passed Jani Lane doing an unplugged thing at one of the booths (scary). We were quite the sight, me towing my Coffin Case Guitar Coffin around, Karen dragging my cart with all my promo stuff and brief case and Arlene with her camera gear.
Back at the Minarik booth there was quite a big crowd waiting for me to play (cool!). There was also
a big video screen at the booth playing footage of several of their artists, including yours truly playing and talking about Minarik guitar.
I was up and ready to go in no time and we decided that my assistant Karen would be in charge of running my backing tracks on my Zune. I don’t know what I did without it. The Zune guys have it going on with their units. I decided to just play to tracks off my new DISCONNECTED CD. Well, after plugging in Minarik Lotus to my AMT Extreme III pedal I was ready to go. I dove into my song “Life Inhibited” and was having a blast. The crowd was really into and was really cheering after each song.
My demo really went off and was my best one all weekend. After I finished playing I hung around and met everyone for a bit and signed a bunch of stuff and took a lot of pictures with people who wanted pictures with me. I also handed out a ton of promo CD. It was cool and got me going again.
Tune in for part 2 of 2 tomorrow >
Ronny North plays his own signature brand of instrumental guitar rock and is fast becoming a So Cal guitar hero. He has appeared in several national and international music publications, including this one each week.
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