So after a REALLY great "Space Jam" on Tuesday night at North Bar (someone counted at least 23 musicians!) I got about 4 hours of sleep before my wife Rachel took me to O'Hare to fly out to Los Angeles at 8am. After a good flight and a quick drive to Anaheim, here's what greeted us:
So yeah, like I said in my last post, HUGE! I met the rest of the Legere Reeds team (all super great people, by the way), and helped to organize some of the Legere booth.
Here's a pic of me at the booth with Ryan Saranich on the left (another Legere saxophonist, who I'll be jamming with throughout the show) and Tim Levy in the middle (VP of Sales for Legere, and the nicest guy ever!).
After a quick meeting I headed back to the hotel to try for at least a little practicing (Ah, the eternal dilemma of sax players trying to practice in hotel rooms!). Here's my room:
Fairly normal room, right? Though, Hmm... something tells me Disneyland must be near by, but I'm not sure what that is...
That night, Tim Elvy and his wife took me and Sean (another Legere helper) to a great music club nearby called Spaghettini, where we heard Canadian guitarist Rob Tardik and saxophonist Carson Freeman, who both did a great job with some really fun, uplifting music.
And like almost everyone around here at this time of year, Yup, they'll be at NAMM.
And speaking of that, I just read two interested stats about the NAMM show. The first is that around 96,000 people were here last year, and the administration is actually hoping for a little LESS this year. Yeah, you heard that right, this event is by invitation only and it's so big, they're trying to keep it even more focused. They don't need as many people as possible to come, as it's already so successful.
The second stat I just heard is that supposedly 50% of all the exhibitors at the NAMM show get sick by the end of the weekend. (Uh oh, that includes me!) I guess with the crazy amount of people trying out a bazillion instruments, talking to each other (AKA "yelling") over all of the music going on, and whatnot, germs tend to spread. So here's hoping I don't catch this years "NAMMthrax," as the regulars call it.
Well, that's all for now. I finally got some good sleep last night and am ready to get to work!
So yeah, like I said in my last post, HUGE! I met the rest of the Legere Reeds team (all super great people, by the way), and helped to organize some of the Legere booth.
Here's a pic of me at the booth with Ryan Saranich on the left (another Legere saxophonist, who I'll be jamming with throughout the show) and Tim Levy in the middle (VP of Sales for Legere, and the nicest guy ever!). After a quick meeting I headed back to the hotel to try for at least a little practicing (Ah, the eternal dilemma of sax players trying to practice in hotel rooms!). Here's my room:
Fairly normal room, right? Though, Hmm... something tells me Disneyland must be near by, but I'm not sure what that is...
That night, Tim Elvy and his wife took me and Sean (another Legere helper) to a great music club nearby called Spaghettini, where we heard Canadian guitarist Rob Tardik and saxophonist Carson Freeman, who both did a great job with some really fun, uplifting music.
And like almost everyone around here at this time of year, Yup, they'll be at NAMM. And speaking of that, I just read two interested stats about the NAMM show. The first is that around 96,000 people were here last year, and the administration is actually hoping for a little LESS this year. Yeah, you heard that right, this event is by invitation only and it's so big, they're trying to keep it even more focused. They don't need as many people as possible to come, as it's already so successful.
The second stat I just heard is that supposedly 50% of all the exhibitors at the NAMM show get sick by the end of the weekend. (Uh oh, that includes me!) I guess with the crazy amount of people trying out a bazillion instruments, talking to each other (AKA "yelling") over all of the music going on, and whatnot, germs tend to spread. So here's hoping I don't catch this years "NAMMthrax," as the regulars call it.
Well, that's all for now. I finally got some good sleep last night and am ready to get to work!