This was our second year at NAMM…it feels really good when you play something big one year and everyone loves you enough to invite you back the next year…not that we aren’t lovable like that ha ha! We played for Fender/Gretsch which is basically the same company with one having more classic old school vibe and feel and the other one being the typical rock guitar…Now don’t get me wrong, I‘m a Gibson girl, but a fender strat WAS my first real guitar…I remember wanting one really really bad because Courtney Love played them. I started off with a Squire (Fenders' more moderately priced child) and later moved on to a real Fender. My first guitar was black and I remember having a Cramps sticker on it and a pic of Courtney Love (of course!) I played a set of two shows/back to back nights at some club in Westminster that isn’t even around anymore…with this ridiculous wanna be Kiss copy band called FiFi Larue…the shows were good, unfortunately some jerk stole my guitar when I made the mistake of not packing it in the van (at this point we’re talking mini van, not uh, van van…) My second fender went the same way…she was gorgeous, baby blue and managed to sound amazing although I was still playing out of a shot to shit Rickenbacker amp… I remember playing the 3rd or 4th annual Mad Monster Party that we used to play every year at the knitting factory… Someone stole it from the back room along with my coffin case. That sucked… and to this day I am a straight up Nazi about someone watching the gear at all times… I always just brushed off the loss of the guitar, cause after all it’s just stuff… but I’m SURE at this point in my life if I lost the Gibson I would surely lose my shit.
NAMM, oh yeah! NAMM! So Fender put us up in the Double Tree the night before so we didn’t have to deal with the NIGHTMARE that is parking at NAMM… Now if you haven’t been to NAMM it would surely blow your mind… even for the mild gear head it’s overwhelming… all the new guitars, psuesdo-rock celebs everywhere! One out of three people looks like they came from a time machine set to the 80’s… Mick Mars was there, Yngwie Malmsteen, Strung Out played, Kerry King, Slash, etc, etc...
We played the Fender stage which is inside and set up like an auditorium…it was cool, but honestly like the vibe wasn’t there… we were rocking and a lot of these people were trade show old people mixed in with our crowd… See namm is weird because you CAN'T buy tickets, so fans CAN'T get in… so when you see a whole bunch of people singing along, which thank God there were, then that means that your fans also work for companies… extra cool! So our set was good… there we’re a ton of cameras and the video looks pretty sick as do some of the photos, but truly my favorite set was the second one, down on the motherfucking floor super punk rock style. This was where we played last year, on the floor at the Kim Falcon booth…There’s just something about playing right there that has super good vibes… I was able to jump into the crowd and really “ACT OUT” I like that… that’s when I really feel it and am stoked… Chris Pontius loved it, and you know we love him! Other pseudo big fan moment was Dhani Harrison (George Harrison’s son) watching from the side of the fender stage and telling us how much he loved it when we got done… BTW he rolled up in a bullet proof escalade. Just sayin. So we played and it was great, both sets….it was only like 3:30 by that point and I was exhausted as I’m sure all the other girls were too… we walked around shaking hands and kissing babies and later after watching Strung Out’s set we headed off to a delicious sushi dinner with the Strung Out dudes, Michael Shultz (the homie) Billy the fender marketing genius and a few others… Sushi was cool, but I couldn’t wait to get some sleep and go round 2 as a spectator at nmamm the next day!
I rocked out on the Malcom Young model Gretsch which actually sounded pretty sick after I let a super tech friend rewire the sob to run hotter...I shot some stuff for Altitude TV which is now REVOLVER TV(more on this in a bit!) and the day was pretty packed, but in a good way!
The rumors were true! Rancid actually came out and played the Gretsch floor stage on Saturday… It was nothing less that phenomenal…it was good to be a punk rocker that day…I really really felt proud…it was one of those moments that really make me feel proud to do what I do and be a part of this hellcat family. I actually got teary eyed! And I wasn’t too big shot to sing along with all the other fans, cause this was real! I later ran into Corey Parks (Nashville pussy/Chelsea girls) who was there promoting her new cabinet line (super sick and white!) It’s funny because everyone is there promoting SOMETHING! It was good to see all these people (Tim, Corey, Michael) who believed in the band and gave us their love and support… that’s why we are where we are… we give them mad props and love! Viva Namm 2010!
