The musician sightings at NAMM, which runs through Sunday, heated up Friday as I passed Tom Dumont (No Doubt), Kenny G, Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Neal Schon (Journey), Billy Zoom (X), Tim Mahoney (311), Rikki Rockett (Poison), Peter Frampton, and Hollywood-based hard rock hero, Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead), just to name a few.
My first stop of the day was to the massive Roland synthesizer and Boss guitar pedal display. Subscribing to the theory that one can never have enough guitar pedals, I am generally suspicious of multiple guitar effects units. These principles were questioned slightly after I tinkered with the new Boss ME-25 Guitar Effects pedal. It was very versatile and would make a great substitute if you were looking to get rid of the clutter of a bunch of guitar pedals. It even had Super Stack function that could give you that metal crunch to impress your metalhead friends.
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As a huge fan of textural synthesized soundscapes of M83, I couldn't help but stop to talk to the mastermind behind it all, Anthony Gonzalez. It turns out Anthony is working on a follow up to the brilliant Saturdays=Youth album here in Los Angeles. He was looking for the Livewire Synthesizer folks who create some amazing analog synthesizer modules. I wished him well on the new album and carried on into the vast maze of booths in search of new gear.
