NAMM SHOW 2010 - New Year Hopes
This entry was posted on 1/9/2010 9:05 AM and is filed under Personal,news.
2010 News in Music and Saxophone
It is 2010 and the world is still spinning! I am loving this new year and all the amazing energy I am feeling from all over the place. I know many are struggling and it will be a while before a sense of hope can be felt. But, my world seems to be stirring with anticipation and I love it.
NAMM 2010
My first big event of the year is NAMM. NAMM stands for the National Association of Music Merchants and is a huge music trade show held in Anaheim California mid January every year.
This year NAMM runs from Thursday, January 14-17, Sunday. Held at the Convention Center and running over into area hotels with the worlds music makers and the worlds manufacturers attempting to entice the worlds music sellers for a chance at surviving the worlds economic downturn.
The music industry has been in disarray ever since the digital era unseated the cigar smoking old school derelicts that ran and squandered the music wealth of yesterday. Then the growing world economy with uneducated, severely underpaid, third world labor began using the web to cut into the markets and the bottom feel out with the world economy going bust in the middle of it all.
That was last years NAMM show in a large nut shell. China and others taking a big cut of sales, money was tight and the industry continues to grown from changes that no one can handle very well but the new upstarts from distant lands since it is all up for them.
Last year was a strange show. Many bailed with open spaces on the show floor for the first time since I have gone. Manufacturers shacked together sharing spaces and the theme seemed to be survival. The larger music events were downsized or canceled. The security measures kept all the 'bad' people out and it felt like no one was there at times.
This year - 2010 - there is a sense of hope and some caution. The digital destruction is adjusting as new forms of media begin to be effected. I guess it was easy for most when it was just music, but now books, writers, movies, television, libraries, and even Walmart might feel the hit from these trends. I have always felt that nothing changes until the people in charge feel the pain. How many billion dollar industries must fold before big industry, government and individual consumer costs skyrocket?? Awe - the pain is going global - right where it needs to be to find any solution at all.
I guess that's a wrap on the first decade of 2000. Things went from hard to harder and my industry has been at the heart of much of the pain.
2010 - Where is it going??
If I stopped right here it would be unkind. I believe things are adjusting and a sense of logic and fairness will filter back in as the dust settles. We have every reason for optimism at this point since we have all survived thus far.
NAMM 2010?
Well, we have some big shows going on this year!! I know because I got hired for some of the fun! Of course I am excited to be working with some huge names in the music world, but I am actually more excited to see a direction change from the large music industry companies to get back in the game this year after a lame 2009! I am encouraged by the activity and chance taking. As an independent little sax player, music producer, record label - it marks a change in my business also. Sitting safe in the stables needs to be replaced with the call the CHARGE!! I am ready! SpongeBob says that all the time and that's how I hear it in my head!!
"I'm READY!!!!"
NAMM for Greg this year?
Very cool stuff. I was asked to play the Yamaha Dealer Show Friday night. This is a major production with full orchestra, a great horn section I get to be apart of, and huge industry names performing in a totally state of the art venue in California Adventure - Disneyland - California!! The Hyperion Theater is beautiful!! I love this room! First Class all the way!!
The names I found online performing this year include Natalie Cole, Michael McDonald, Jason Mraz, Vince Gill, Jon McLaughlin and John Ondrasik. Sounds like fun hungh??
The Dealer Show is Yamaha Dealer, NAMM and or people connected to either of the two. They don't sell tickets and it is really a NAMM Show hook up thru Yamaha. I will be at rehearsals all day Thursday and Friday so don't expect to find me on the NAMM Show floor hanging much till Saturday!
Other NAMM events for the SAXBOY include a day of Yamaha Sax Demonstration / Concert fun. I will be hanging at the Yamaha room in the Marriott doing short shows with Tom Zink on Keyboards on Saturday. The Schedule is 11 am, 1 and 3 pm on Saturday and I will be playing the 50th Anniversary White Yamaha Alto 875EX! This is a beautiful new finish and limited 50 piece saxophone that I have had in my hands for a month now - WHAT A TREAT! If you are going to NAMM - STOP IN on Saturday to Yamaha at the Marriott and say HEY!!
Other events - Running out after I finish the Yamaha 3 pm show to play with an amazing ROCK band in Hermosa Beach 530-8pm. Balls of Steal is a Rockin' EWI/Tenor Sax gig with screaming energy at the Lighthouse in Hermosa!!
Cancellation - had to bail on the Dean Grech show on Thursday at 3PM due to rehearsal schedule conflict with the Yamaha show. I hate bailing on people! If you see it listed on the Calendar - NO SHOW for Greg on Thursday. I will be in lock down at Disney......
NAMM 2010 - I will take a thousand pictures - I will talk to everyone I can find - I will play a thousand saxophones - I will shot video - I will have a blast - I will spend the rest of the month writing / sorting / posting / and mindlessly babbling about the show. I think I always do......
One more chance to say - Blessings in this new year!!
SAXBOY, Greg Vail, gvSAXBOY, Greg Vail Music
Calendar - www.gregvail.com/sys-tmpl/calendar/
