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For a musician, there's really nothing like the NAMM show, the annual National Association of Music Merchants convention in Anaheim, CA. For a four-day weekend every January, respectable hotels like the Hilton and the Marriott, usually booked with people attending the latest chiropractor convention, are swarmed by longhairs in town for a mess of schmoozing, drinking and playing (although Mike contends that the chiropractors make at least as much of a ruckus as us sex-drugs-and- rock-and-fusioners...I doubt it myself). You can walk through the lobby bar of the Hilton and see Vinnie Coliauta, Rick Neilson of Cheap Trick, John Entwistle, Tal Bergman, our own Mr. Keneally and too many "players" to mention, all doing the drunken schmooze thing at once-- it's really scary. The convention floor during the day is even more breathtaking...everyone from Terry Bozzio to Blues Saraceno to Alan White to Paul Gilbert to Eddie Van Halen (this year...wow!) to Dave Weckl to John Pattitucci to Ed Mann and countless others can be seen playing, or just hanging out by their respective endorsement company's booth, or even just wandering around. What follows is one man's (me) story of NAMM '96.

This was the first year that I've attended NAMM in which I wasn't looking for or needing any endorsements that I didn't already have, which is a nice feeling since otherwise you're walking around with your hands out trying to sell yourself to equipment companies that have better things to do than listen to the likes of you. Fender is my bass and strings company, SWR does my amplification and speakers, SansAmp provides a rackmounted overdrive and studio-direct effects unit, and Tobias and Peavey have done nice things for me as well (an Act totally devoted to gear, with pictures and details, will appear sometime when I get around to it). The show is Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday-- I arrive Thursday morning, after having checked in to the fine hotel that SansAmp had booked for us (The Eden Roc Motel...yippee!) since they were sponsoring the show we were playing that night in the Pulse Bar of the Hilton...yes, the same madcap scene I described above. The convention floor is a constant din of guitars, drums, cymbals, bass (always some insanely fast slapping), etc. from all of the different booths on the floor. Every company you've ever heard of (Fender, Ibanez, Zildjan, Ludwig, B.C. Rich) has a booth, staffed by eager employees wanting to make deals with the retailers who've flown in from around the country. In their spare time, they'll talk to you if they know you. I made the rounds efficiently that morning, hitting all of my companies and telling everyone I knew to see Keneally's show that night. In the meantime, me and Mike had to do the first of our three daily scheduled appearances at the Rivera Booth--I plugged into a cute little guitar amp they make called the Knucklehead and away we went (now I'll thank the cool people at Rivera, 'cause they're cool, and also because they're putting us on the road with the Hellecasters soon. Thanks!). Unfortunately, the NAMM organizers have these little decibel police running around all over the place, checking to see if your particular performance exceeds the db limit of 85 db. Amid the above- described din of NAMM, 85 db is ridiculously low, but fearful of a repeat of last year (when the NAMM police shut down the power at the Guitar Player magazine booth for the entire show because we were too loud), we acquiesced to their fascist wishes and had no fun in doing so. But, over the three days, we adjusted nicely and put together a fine one by the last day--Keneally/Beller duo versions of Lightning Roy, I Can't Stop and Cheddar/Snowcow were more than satisfactory given the conditions. We also did, as advertised, a no-Toss show at the Taylor booth (they make acoustic stuff). BFD unplugged, to be sure. Material included Skunk, 1988 and Inca Roads, believe it or not, which we made it through nearly unscathed. The Taylor folks were bitchen cool to us as well, and mentioned possibly booking us a clinic tour sometime in the future...we won't let them forget that they said that. Much thanks to the people who kept track of our on-floor performances and attended them.

But, onto the real meat of the story...the Thursday night show in the Hilton bar with Jake E. Lee. It turns out that SansAmp (more cool people...we only know cool people, except for drummers that want to hurt us after our shows) scrapped the idea of us doing sets first and last, and wanted us simply to play for 90 minutes first. We all thought that was a good idea, but our apologies to those of you who were misinformed by the info on this here page. So the task fell to me to write a 90 minute set list; I felt ambitious, wanting to impress all of the NAMM folk, and here it was (slashes indicate segueways): Career Politicians/Lightning Roy, Skunk/...Thorax In You/Top Of Stove Melting, I Will, Dentyne/My Dilemma/Spoon Guy/Uglytown, Spearmint Pup/Day Of The Cow 1/Them Dolphins Is Smart (Live Version)/The Immigrant Song (yes, THAT Immigrant Song), Blameless, 'Cause Of Breakfast, Cheddar/Snowcow/S.I.S.(will appear on "Live In Hollywood") /Snowcow Reprise/Aglow, Scotch/The Desired Effect, Assholes (you know this as the heavy instrumental bit in "O'Bannon" off of Dust Speck) /Power Of Love (a Hendrix tune), Vulture Fun (from the Tar Tapes, I think)/Gypsy Queen (we love that Santana groove!)/Rosemary Girl. If that sounds scary, it was.

Soundcheck was at 5:00, and Jake was supposed to go first. He's late, though, and I end up talking to his bass player for the moment, a last minute replacement and nice guy named Mike Andrews (talk about last minute...he didn't even hear three of the tunes in the set until 3:00 AM the night before the gig). 6:00...no Jake. 6:30...no Jake. They don't soundcheck, to our relief, since doors were supposed to open at 7: 15 and I was getting ready to scream bloody murder at someone if the almighty Jake showed up at 6:45 and was allowed to check at that point. Toss is behind us in a cave-like structure on the stage (it was shaped that way) and no matter what we do, he can't hear us that well...a real bummer since this was going to be our most important show to date and on-stage communication is everything for us. But, eventually we just said fuck it and went with what we had. Doors open, about 150-200 people walk in...our largest crowd to date. We were really amped, and when we hit the stage, it showed, at least for me--I chumped Lightning Roy harder than I ever have. In time I and we settled down and played a fun, effective show, if not the tightest one we've ever done. Highlights......Toss' friend Satnam Ramgothra got up and played tablas during the solo section of Uglytown, and the vibe was perfect...Power Of Love involves call and response singing between me and Mike, and Mike saw fit to simply stop singing, leaving the crowd to hear my beautiful voice alone (thanks, Mike)....Toss went berserk in the Santana groove, shredding like no other....Mike blew the segueway out of the Day Of The Cow 1, going to the familiar Snowcow instead of Dolphins, but no one noticed or cared except for me, who had slaved over the set list......Mike was a stud in Breakfast, holding his own while I fell to pieces next to him in the third chorus....my solo in Dilemma was cool for a change.....overall, the reaction was great, and the people in the room were standing still, watching us, which is more than you can say for Jake E. Late, who showed up at like 9:15 and took an hour and 45 minutes to complete his changeover, then proceeded to play 35 minutes of near worthless instrumental rock. Someone gave Mike a gorgeous silver dolphin bottle opener after the show...a good omen if there ever is one. Poor Thomas Nordegg, who almost got killed at the last show he tech-ed for us (see Act 5), somehow ended up having to turn Jake's bag of 12 pedals (really!!) into a working setup from a schematic scribbled on a napkin. Somehow, he did it...the guy is simply incredible and no mere words could ever do him justice. As for the rest of the night, well, we retired to the back of the bar and drank ourselves silly. Back at the Eden Roc Motel (somewhere during the drunkenness it turned into the Eatin' Cock) I passed out while Toss, Satnam and someone else lasted 'til 6:00 AM.

That was just Thursday! Friday's schedule included the above-mentioned Taylor acoustic show at 1:00 and the Rivera 85-decibel-special show at 3:00. All day, people were coming up to me, Mike, and eventually Toss (who didn't make it onto the convention floor until 3:30 PM) and giving us the lovely feedback of life about the previous night's show, imperfect as it was. Mike was also signing autographs at EMG daily, and he probably started to feel like a big star somewhere along the way. His new EMG ad, in which he's surrounded by pinkness and flowers, is stunning, and there were big posters of it floating around. But, aside from the shows on the floor, nothing huge really happened on Friday. We were all saving our energies to do the hang in the Hilton lobby that night, unburdened by the responsibility of a gig that night. Now, all around the area, companies reserve huge ballrooms and sponsor shows (much like the one we did at the Hilton, but even bigger). You can see just about anyone you want...that night the Allman Bros., Tony Levin, others even better that I can't remember. Me, Toss and Mike opted for the Hilton mess. It got so crowded that you couldn't walk, and you just go from strategic location to location in search of whatever it is you're looking for...bigshot players, a seat, women (Toss is in a relationship and Mike's married, so you do the math). The NAMM women are really insane; some total 80's throwbacks, mostly just gorgeous and strutting for the hormone-crazy long-haired men. That night we saw in the lobby at various times Brian Tichy (drummer for Slash's Snakepit...Slash played that night where we had the night before, and the MC couldn't get the crowd to make nearly enough noise to warrant an encore. NAMM is like that.), Tal Bergman (drummer for Billy Idol, part of Shampoohorn), John Entwistle, Rick Neilson (Cheap Trick)...I said this already, right? Wow, my head's getting tired again. It's just hard to describe the impact of about 600 drunk music people, men and women, totally hijacking the entire Hilton lobby. I can't really comment in too much detail about the rest of the night, but at a certain point I stood on a table and did an erotic dance, pretending to be a female (this shocked the people there, but you guys know me). I eventually ended up in the hotel room of a certain employee of a stringed-instrument magazine with two companions...how's that for vague? We fell asleep at 5:45 AM.

Which sucked, because we both had to attend an important breakfast the next morning...it's a schmooze thing, you know? I staggered back to my hotel Saturday morning, woke Keneally, and we trudged off to do our thing. The secret companion and I exchanged knowing, weary grins, and went back to whatever we were doing. At this point, I was able to meet one of my current bass idols, Oteil Burbridge of The Aquarian Rescue Unit. If you haven't checked out Col. Bruce Hampton and the A.R.Unit, you are missing something amazing...these guys can really play, and Oteil is simply a freak. Also attending the breakfast was Peter Murray, who works for Canadian Musician magazine, and did an interview with me just a few days before NAMM. I learned that my piece was part of a "10- hot-bass-players" thing, and when I heard that other featured artists included Jeff Berlin, I want to say John Pattitucci but that might not be true...I was working on 75 minutes sleep, remember?...anyway, I freaked out and stopped listening to him. Oh yeah, that reminds me...the current issue of Fender Frontline has an article written by me- -you know, one of those artist advice columns with a musical example. Probably one of the worst pictures of me ever taken is in this magazine, and if you ever see it, burn it for me will you? The musical example also has the wrong key signature. Oh well...all press is good press, right?

I had to meet my friend Wes Wehmiller (ungodly bass player, might do some work with Warren Cuccurrulo's solo stuff) at the Hilton lobby at 12:00 noon, and play at Rivera at 3:00 PM, so I couldn't really get back to the Eatin' Cock to sleep, so I sat in a chair in the Hilton lobby, right next to where I did the erotic dance the night before, and fell asleep for an hour, waking up at 11:58 AM. I mostly stumbled around the rest of the day, and it's hard to believe that the best Rivera show we did was under those conditions, at least for me, but there you go. Andy West, the unbelievable bass player of the Dixie Dregs and currently of the Mistakes, Keneally's latest project (order this CD now, it's amazing). I'd been listening to the Mistakes CD a lot, so I was psyched that he was there, and thankfully rose to the occasion. Afterward, me, Mike, Andy and Rich Lewis (who was bouncing around the show taping everything he saw like a madman) sat down and chatted...Andy's a cool, cool guy. Several jokes were made about what his career status was in the years leading up to my birth. Other highlights from that hazy day included Eddie Van Halen's appearance at the Peavey booth, which created a crazy scene and a security nightmare...Dweezil showed up with Warren DiMartini and signed some stuff at Peavey and at Seymour Duncan with Blues Saraceno...I checked out Oteil Burbridge at the Modulus Graphite booth, and wanted to kill him for being so good. Keneally left for LA for good after our chat with Andy West, and I went back to the Eatin' Cock to finally sleep at around 5:30.

While I was sleeping, Sabian led all of its endorsers (including Toss) in a marching band style march from the convention floor to the same place where we played and Slash couldn't buy an encore. This night's party (for which I awoke at 7:30) in that room killed all of the other nights--the band that recorded Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life" (without Stevie, of course) played, and others...but the topper was this Latin funk outfit led by a bassist named Marco Mendoza, an LA scene fixture. Sheila E. sat in on percussion, and they tore the goddamn roof off of the place. Grizzled NAMM veterans were screaming like they were at a Judas Priest show. Last night's companions were again keeping me company, and we bounced all over the place from show to show (check out a guy named Wayne Krantz if you ever get a chance), at one point hearing an unfortunate true story about a light truss that fell on a performer's head from about 30 feet, severely injuring him and causing paramedics to arrive and the whole mess--whoever that guy is, I wish him better luck in the future, perhaps in his lawsuit.

I'll end this seemingly endless weekend with this cute little foot-in- mouth story. A wonderful girl named Chandra Lynn, who works for the company that owns Guitar and Bass Player magazines, invited me and my companions up to their private suite for an after-hours party. At 2:30 AM, we made it there. It was a welcome relief to see the spread of food and free drinks after the craziness of the previous 5 hours, and we dug in. So Chandra pulls me over and says, "There's someone I'd like you to meet." She introduces her friend to me (bass player for blah blah blah, she says), and says to me, "this is Janie (first name?) Hendricks". I say hi, and wishing to create conversation, say, "So, do you work for Guitar player or Keyboard magazine?" She looks at me, totally nonplussed, and hesitantly replies, "Well, actually neither--I manage Jimi Hendrix's estate. I'm his sister." I look at Chandra, and she can't bear to look back. All I could do was smile and act stupid, which wasn't too hard to pull off at that point. I suppose she won't forget me this way. After a late-night Denny's run with Toss, Satnam and that other guy again, I slept for for than 2 hours for the first time in the last 48. I came home Sunday morning, and Sunday night I went to bed at 8:00 PM. I woke up at 8:30 AM Monday morning.

NAMM. It's not a convention, it's an adventure. I feel lucky to be able to go, so I didn't mind sharing it with you. I'll need a break for a bit, but the Life Of Bryan continues on and on and on...........B.B.