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2005 MCS Party/Winter NAMM Review
Click here for pics:
http://www.amazon.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=...&y=-yyhm0f
Thusday: Traffic and Guitar Gods
My friends Rob, Mike, and I drove down to Anaheim on Thursday. What should have been a 5.5 hour drive turned out to be a close to 8 hour trip due to a few pit stops and heavy traffic on I5 in LA. Our plan was to check into the hotel and meet some of the Moser Custom Shop forum folks at the House of Blues in Hollywood to see the Iron Maidens perform. As we’re nearing LA a friend of mine from Brubaker guitars calls and asks for a ride to Loing Beach after NAMM tonight to deliver a bass to Rev Jones, Michael Scheneker’s bass player; Schenker, George Lynch, Frank Hannon, and Gilbey Clark were all playing a show in Long Beach that night. Since my friends and I were totally tired from the drive and since Long Beach is way closer to our hotel than Hollywood, we decide to check out the Schenker show.
So my friend Jeb from Brubaker shows up at the hotel later that night with Rev’s bass, a snow white custom Brubaker. We oogle it and leave for the show. Like a dumbass, I left my digital camera and camcorder back at the hotel because I figure we can’t bring them in the club for the show. WRONG! Every frickin person there has some sort of digital recording device. ARGH! As wer got to the show Frank Hannon was ending his set. Giblet Clark comes on. I can’t really say anything positive except that all the sound levels were good. His Krank amp was pure treble fuzz and his leads were kinda kranky. His drummer looked like Jack Black, so at least we had a few laughs. Celebrities in attendance at the show included Michael Angelo Batio, Dean Zelinsky, Jack Frost, the bassist from Great White and a few other familiar faces. Lynch hit the stage and was a major disappointment sound-quality wise. He played an old ass Telecaster with 1 single coil pickup and the headstock had a piece of white tape with ESP written on it covering up the Fender logo Come on now! That’s just plain LAME. He played through 2 old Marshall heads and a Mojave head with Organe, Hiwatt, and Marshall cabs. He was painfully loud and his tone was very clean. In fact, when he hit the heavy hammer ons it sounded like he was missing every other note. Many people near me made comments on this. He puts his heart and soul into his playing but the sound quality just wasn’t there. I could hardly hear the vocals either. After Lynch, Schenker hits the stage. Robin “The Nose” MacCauly was singing and I gotta say he sounded good. In fact his whole band sounded great but I don’t think Schenker was loud enough. He played well enough but he pretty much stood there in his classic crouch the whole time while his entire band upstaged him. Rev Jones is an ANIMAL on the bass. He plays entire lines with his strumming hand on the neck while his fretting hand just dangles. I can’t say enough good things about this guy. Before the show he covered his brand new bass in a mess of stickers. Why oh why oh why… We talked with him before the show a bit and he’s a really nice guy, just like when I met him at NAMM last year. Lynch’s singer sang the song Assault Attack (that was supposed to be Graham Bonnet’s song but he didn’t perform because he bowed out at the last minute).
To make a LONG story short, we got lost on the way back to the hotel and by the time we all crashed out it was 4am. And we still the rest of the weekend ahead of us.
Friday: Moser Custom Shop Party
My friends Mike and Rob walk to the NAMM show while I go to the airport and we’re off to Neal Moser’s house for the Moser Custom Shop party and jam. I have my Framus Cobra 1/2 stack in the car for the jam. When I get to Neal’s, he’s busy in his shop putting a few finishing touches on some brand new guitars. A few of Neal’s friends and customers were taking delivery of their new handmade instruments at the party. Ronz from Scotland was picking up a Thunderbird bass and Clammy (Exciter’s bassist) was picking up his Arachnid Ultra bass. I’ve seen work in progress pics of these instruments. Pictures do not do them justice. I didn’t get to play Ronz’s bass but Clammy’s is probably the nicest bass I have ever played. Everything on it is perfect. I can’t say enough good things about Neal and his work. Most of the recently built guitars were already at NAMM but a bunch of Bastard V import guitars were laying around the house. These play really really nice and look killer. Neal’s wife Earlleen made massive amounts of food and desserts, including cookies shaped like MCS guitars. After eating we had a jamm session in Neal’s backyard. We played some blues stuff then later moved onto some metal including a few Maiden, Metallica, and ACDC tunes. Ronz is a great showman, a killer bassist, and he has a really powerful voice. His drummer friend is equally as talented. Everyone who jammed could play really well, especially Kenny with the killer green GMW (thanks for letting me play it Kenny). Brian Hoffman (ex-Deicide) was at the party with his wife. They are 2 of the nicest most down to earth people I have ever met. Hell, everyone at the party was really nice. My wife and I left around 7pm because we were dead tired. I think Clammy put it best when he said “how cool is it that you can go to a party and get delivery of a custom guitar?” After the party my wife and I go to Baker’s Square for a late dinner. Mark Wood and a bunch of TSO guys and girls are there (including Alex Skolnick). I guess metalheads need their pecan pie and breadbowls too!
Saturday: NAMM
I had to leave right after the show so I knew I had a lot of pictures to take and videos to make. I felt like the walking dead because I hardly slept that night (damn cheap hotel pillows!) So here’s the rundown:
Hamer: I played a killer Korina V but not much else.
Peavey: Not much to see this year except the JSX heads in some cool coverings and the new Hartley Peavey Signature guitars with great quilted maple tops.
Bogner: Played the Uberschall again and bought a Bogner shirt. That Uber has some serious balls.
Guthrie Govan: Got some video of him jamming. This guy is insanely good.
Brubaker: More crazy spalted maple tops and necks with some great red/orange finishes. Great job as usual and Kevin Brubaker is a very nice guy.
Dean: Wow. They always come through at the show. The new Schenker Vs are fantastic. Hell, all of their guitars play sooo nicely. The new Dime Razorbacks are super duper kicks ass. The paintjobs and graphics are top notch. I hate Floyd’s but the ones on these guitars didn’t bother me a bit. All the USA guitars (V’s, ML’s, Hardtails) are so freakin nice. I want 12 of each. The Dimebag memorial display was great. Most of Dime’s Dean’s, new and old were on display along with his stage outfits, his concept drawings for the Razorbacks were nicely framed. It was a very positive tribute to the man and I think Dean did a great job on it. I kept coming back to the booth to play the Dime and USA Deans and and the end of the day I met Michael Schenker and got his autograph and some pics with him. He was just sitting there chatting with Dean Zelinsky and was very talkative and nice.
BC Rich: Well, they’re back on track. The handmade guitars were very well built and were all set up nicely. Tim Keyes from the custom shop is a very friendly and nice guy and we chatted a lot about the guitars. My favorites were the archop Bich’s but all of them, including the spalted maple top Warlock and red Stealth were killer. Some of the newer imports including the import archtop Bich’s played pretty nicely. And there was no fat idiot telling me I couldn’t play the guitars!
VHT: I saw the new Deliverance amp but didn’t have a chance to play it. Looks cool though!
ESP: They really need to redesign their booth or space out the signings. There’s a HUGE line to get in due to all the celebrity singings so nobody who isn’t in line can’t play the freakin guitars inside. Outside all the custom shop stuff is strapped to the walls so nobody can play that either. C’mon man…let us play the guitars already! The same crap happened last near. But I will say from what I could SEE (not TOUCH) the custom stuff looked really nice and the graphics were top notch.
Moser Custom Shop: Wow. I played every guitar multiple times. On display were 2 Evil Bitches, 2 Bastard Vs, Tracii Gun’s Black Widow V, Brian Hoffmann’s Beastmaster, the Spawn Prototype, the Phoenix 10 Prototype, Clammy’s Arachnid, a Genesis neck thru, a Genesis Templar, Michael Vangerov’s guitar, and a Blade Runner. The reaction of most people walking by the booth was “holy shit!”. The import BVi guitars got a favorable reaction and everyone loved the handmade stuff. I got to chat with Brian some more and played his Beastmaster. Even though the necks on most of the handmades there were pretty chunky they still played like a dream and had super low action. I can’t say enough good things about these guitars. I’m glad I ordered mine a while ago because now there’s a huge waiting list for the handmades.
Charvel/Jackson: Great stuff as usual. The USA Charvels are pretty basic but play very nicely. The USA custom Jacksons were killer. Great inlays and finishes. The archtop Solosit type guitar with the wood inlays was one of my favorites. I don’t know what else to say about these guitars except for they’re great!
Krank: I got Vinnie Paul’s and Jerry Cantrell’s autographs at the Krank booth. Vinnie was very cool and Jerry didn’t say much.
As usual the show was overwhelming and when you only have 1 day to see it all, it becomes even more daunting. I wanted to play more stuff and meet more people but in the end just focused on stuff that really interested me. I did meet Scott Ian, some guys from Death Angel, and a few others. I saw James Murphy, Glen Drover, Dave Mustaine, and others walking around but I didn’t have the energy to bother them. My friends Mike and Rob went to the Hilton lobby parties 2 nights in a row and pretty much met every famous musician in the world. Guys from Dimmu Borgir, Neal Schon, Twisted Sister, you name it, they met them. I drove home Saturday night and hit way too much fog on the Grapevine and Pacheco Pass. In conclusion, another great show and a really good but tiring time.
Click here for pics:
http://www.amazon.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=...&y=-yyhm0f
Thusday: Traffic and Guitar Gods
My friends Rob, Mike, and I drove down to Anaheim on Thursday. What should have been a 5.5 hour drive turned out to be a close to 8 hour trip due to a few pit stops and heavy traffic on I5 in LA. Our plan was to check into the hotel and meet some of the Moser Custom Shop forum folks at the House of Blues in Hollywood to see the Iron Maidens perform. As we’re nearing LA a friend of mine from Brubaker guitars calls and asks for a ride to Loing Beach after NAMM tonight to deliver a bass to Rev Jones, Michael Scheneker’s bass player; Schenker, George Lynch, Frank Hannon, and Gilbey Clark were all playing a show in Long Beach that night. Since my friends and I were totally tired from the drive and since Long Beach is way closer to our hotel than Hollywood, we decide to check out the Schenker show.
So my friend Jeb from Brubaker shows up at the hotel later that night with Rev’s bass, a snow white custom Brubaker. We oogle it and leave for the show. Like a dumbass, I left my digital camera and camcorder back at the hotel because I figure we can’t bring them in the club for the show. WRONG! Every frickin person there has some sort of digital recording device. ARGH! As wer got to the show Frank Hannon was ending his set. Giblet Clark comes on. I can’t really say anything positive except that all the sound levels were good. His Krank amp was pure treble fuzz and his leads were kinda kranky. His drummer looked like Jack Black, so at least we had a few laughs. Celebrities in attendance at the show included Michael Angelo Batio, Dean Zelinsky, Jack Frost, the bassist from Great White and a few other familiar faces. Lynch hit the stage and was a major disappointment sound-quality wise. He played an old ass Telecaster with 1 single coil pickup and the headstock had a piece of white tape with ESP written on it covering up the Fender logo Come on now! That’s just plain LAME. He played through 2 old Marshall heads and a Mojave head with Organe, Hiwatt, and Marshall cabs. He was painfully loud and his tone was very clean. In fact, when he hit the heavy hammer ons it sounded like he was missing every other note. Many people near me made comments on this. He puts his heart and soul into his playing but the sound quality just wasn’t there. I could hardly hear the vocals either. After Lynch, Schenker hits the stage. Robin “The Nose” MacCauly was singing and I gotta say he sounded good. In fact his whole band sounded great but I don’t think Schenker was loud enough. He played well enough but he pretty much stood there in his classic crouch the whole time while his entire band upstaged him. Rev Jones is an ANIMAL on the bass. He plays entire lines with his strumming hand on the neck while his fretting hand just dangles. I can’t say enough good things about this guy. Before the show he covered his brand new bass in a mess of stickers. Why oh why oh why… We talked with him before the show a bit and he’s a really nice guy, just like when I met him at NAMM last year. Lynch’s singer sang the song Assault Attack (that was supposed to be Graham Bonnet’s song but he didn’t perform because he bowed out at the last minute).
To make a LONG story short, we got lost on the way back to the hotel and by the time we all crashed out it was 4am. And we still the rest of the weekend ahead of us.
Friday: Moser Custom Shop Party
My friends Mike and Rob walk to the NAMM show while I go to the airport and we’re off to Neal Moser’s house for the Moser Custom Shop party and jam. I have my Framus Cobra 1/2 stack in the car for the jam. When I get to Neal’s, he’s busy in his shop putting a few finishing touches on some brand new guitars. A few of Neal’s friends and customers were taking delivery of their new handmade instruments at the party. Ronz from Scotland was picking up a Thunderbird bass and Clammy (Exciter’s bassist) was picking up his Arachnid Ultra bass. I’ve seen work in progress pics of these instruments. Pictures do not do them justice. I didn’t get to play Ronz’s bass but Clammy’s is probably the nicest bass I have ever played. Everything on it is perfect. I can’t say enough good things about Neal and his work. Most of the recently built guitars were already at NAMM but a bunch of Bastard V import guitars were laying around the house. These play really really nice and look killer. Neal’s wife Earlleen made massive amounts of food and desserts, including cookies shaped like MCS guitars. After eating we had a jamm session in Neal’s backyard. We played some blues stuff then later moved onto some metal including a few Maiden, Metallica, and ACDC tunes. Ronz is a great showman, a killer bassist, and he has a really powerful voice. His drummer friend is equally as talented. Everyone who jammed could play really well, especially Kenny with the killer green GMW (thanks for letting me play it Kenny). Brian Hoffman (ex-Deicide) was at the party with his wife. They are 2 of the nicest most down to earth people I have ever met. Hell, everyone at the party was really nice. My wife and I left around 7pm because we were dead tired. I think Clammy put it best when he said “how cool is it that you can go to a party and get delivery of a custom guitar?” After the party my wife and I go to Baker’s Square for a late dinner. Mark Wood and a bunch of TSO guys and girls are there (including Alex Skolnick). I guess metalheads need their pecan pie and breadbowls too!
Saturday: NAMM
I had to leave right after the show so I knew I had a lot of pictures to take and videos to make. I felt like the walking dead because I hardly slept that night (damn cheap hotel pillows!) So here’s the rundown:
Hamer: I played a killer Korina V but not much else.
Peavey: Not much to see this year except the JSX heads in some cool coverings and the new Hartley Peavey Signature guitars with great quilted maple tops.
Bogner: Played the Uberschall again and bought a Bogner shirt. That Uber has some serious balls.
Guthrie Govan: Got some video of him jamming. This guy is insanely good.
Brubaker: More crazy spalted maple tops and necks with some great red/orange finishes. Great job as usual and Kevin Brubaker is a very nice guy.
Dean: Wow. They always come through at the show. The new Schenker Vs are fantastic. Hell, all of their guitars play sooo nicely. The new Dime Razorbacks are super duper kicks ass. The paintjobs and graphics are top notch. I hate Floyd’s but the ones on these guitars didn’t bother me a bit. All the USA guitars (V’s, ML’s, Hardtails) are so freakin nice. I want 12 of each. The Dimebag memorial display was great. Most of Dime’s Dean’s, new and old were on display along with his stage outfits, his concept drawings for the Razorbacks were nicely framed. It was a very positive tribute to the man and I think Dean did a great job on it. I kept coming back to the booth to play the Dime and USA Deans and and the end of the day I met Michael Schenker and got his autograph and some pics with him. He was just sitting there chatting with Dean Zelinsky and was very talkative and nice.
BC Rich: Well, they’re back on track. The handmade guitars were very well built and were all set up nicely. Tim Keyes from the custom shop is a very friendly and nice guy and we chatted a lot about the guitars. My favorites were the archop Bich’s but all of them, including the spalted maple top Warlock and red Stealth were killer. Some of the newer imports including the import archtop Bich’s played pretty nicely. And there was no fat idiot telling me I couldn’t play the guitars!
VHT: I saw the new Deliverance amp but didn’t have a chance to play it. Looks cool though!
ESP: They really need to redesign their booth or space out the signings. There’s a HUGE line to get in due to all the celebrity singings so nobody who isn’t in line can’t play the freakin guitars inside. Outside all the custom shop stuff is strapped to the walls so nobody can play that either. C’mon man…let us play the guitars already! The same crap happened last near. But I will say from what I could SEE (not TOUCH) the custom stuff looked really nice and the graphics were top notch.
Moser Custom Shop: Wow. I played every guitar multiple times. On display were 2 Evil Bitches, 2 Bastard Vs, Tracii Gun’s Black Widow V, Brian Hoffmann’s Beastmaster, the Spawn Prototype, the Phoenix 10 Prototype, Clammy’s Arachnid, a Genesis neck thru, a Genesis Templar, Michael Vangerov’s guitar, and a Blade Runner. The reaction of most people walking by the booth was “holy shit!”. The import BVi guitars got a favorable reaction and everyone loved the handmade stuff. I got to chat with Brian some more and played his Beastmaster. Even though the necks on most of the handmades there were pretty chunky they still played like a dream and had super low action. I can’t say enough good things about these guitars. I’m glad I ordered mine a while ago because now there’s a huge waiting list for the handmades.
Charvel/Jackson: Great stuff as usual. The USA Charvels are pretty basic but play very nicely. The USA custom Jacksons were killer. Great inlays and finishes. The archtop Solosit type guitar with the wood inlays was one of my favorites. I don’t know what else to say about these guitars except for they’re great!
Krank: I got Vinnie Paul’s and Jerry Cantrell’s autographs at the Krank booth. Vinnie was very cool and Jerry didn’t say much.
As usual the show was overwhelming and when you only have 1 day to see it all, it becomes even more daunting. I wanted to play more stuff and meet more people but in the end just focused on stuff that really interested me. I did meet Scott Ian, some guys from Death Angel, and a few others. I saw James Murphy, Glen Drover, Dave Mustaine, and others walking around but I didn’t have the energy to bother them. My friends Mike and Rob went to the Hilton lobby parties 2 nights in a row and pretty much met every famous musician in the world. Guys from Dimmu Borgir, Neal Schon, Twisted Sister, you name it, they met them. I drove home Saturday night and hit way too much fog on the Grapevine and Pacheco Pass. In conclusion, another great show and a really good but tiring time.
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