Well, I must say the only cool pics I got were of other guitars. Uniquely made ones. See below. Company is Minarik guitars and they make some really cool guits.
www.minarikguitars.com That Alice in Wonderland themed 12 string is pretty sweet.
My take on NAMM 2022:
Considering 68% of the international exhibitors couldn't make it you could see some real attrition on the show floor. Not really anything interesting to see other than what I have below. IMO. I would suspect it will bounce back in years to come.
Since I had a vendor badge as opposed to an attendee badge I feel like exhibitors were less likely to want to engage with me when I would go into their booths. Eastman and Bourgeois shared a booth space which makes sense as they are partnering up on their touchstone series. Every time I went into the booth I got a "don't touch" type of vibe from the people in there. I think this is a bi-product of there being young non-playing folks in marketing positions at these companies. I saw a lot of that. Unlike the Vintage guitar booth where the British gent who was a guitar lover and one of the execs kept handing me guitars to look at. Great company and some pretty cool strat / tele / LP copies.
https://vintageguitarsrus.com/
Cordoba Music Group Booth:
Okay so this was a disappointment. CMG was one of about 20 exhibitors who opted for a small office booth on the show floor as opposed to an open space. It really felt like an apt only scenario and they had just a few guitars hanging. A couple of the surfliner series and quite a few multi color cordoba ukes / guitars hanging up. I met a couple of the marketing folks, Caleb and Myrna. They were in their 20's and though they were nice enough, neither were players nor could they tell you anything about Guild save for what is going in Oxnard. I didn't get pics because frankly the door to their booth office was closed most of the time on the first day and I was gone that afternoon. Between what I had going on my clients on this event and other apts I only got to walk the show floors a few times. Caleb did confirm that the Surfliner series was launched on amazon prematurely and that official release / guild.com launch was May 31 which you all know by now. I got to see them fairly close up without getting to play one. No amp in the room. They look like they will be pretty fun and the colors shown on their site is what you get. Necks are pretty raw which doesn't bother me. They had a Westerly Collection bass hanging on the wall and a The jumbo Oxnard 12-string. Basically the 12-strIng version of my F-55.
One of the best moments was having drinks with Larry Fishman of Fishman electronics. We were discussing Guilds and told me that he got his start making bass pickups for Guild at the Westerly plant in the 70's or 80's. He was a nice guy and of course I had to tell him how big a fan I am of the prefix which I have in my DCE3 and the outboard acoustic EQ that I use at my shows. I was intrigued to find out that most of their production is now in the US. A bi-product of the pandemic, rising transport costs and difficulty of getting chips from China. I was pleased to hear this and I hope it stays that way. I also hope many others follow suit. He was pretty proud of that fact. He also said because of this he was able to hire about 40 people and put them on the assembly line. Loved hearing that.
All in all I wish I had more to report and some better pictures. I just didn't really see anything that blew me out of the water. Especially from our beloved brand.
letstalkguild.com
Or maybe a Stratecaster HSS...
What colour is this Pelham blue or Lake Placid Blue ? Looks nice to me ; very few makers (if any) have been able to come out with an iconic model as popular as a Strat or a Tele, an SG or a Les Paul. That's where I would expect something convincing from the people at Guild ; I don't think they are there yet, but it pleases me still...Is the 12 strings above a Gibson (it could be from the Moustache bridge) ?
