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Join Chris and Cooper for guitar news, interviews, and tunes.
Cooper discusses NAMM 2023
Cooper: How's it going, everybody? You're listening to the Fretboard Confessional. My name is Cooper Greenberg. I'm here at Alamo Music Center in San Antonio, Texas. I got a little solo episode today.I hope that's alright.
Chris is out and I figured I'd take the opportunity while I'm here, get some talking going on about the NAMM show. We went to the NAMM show last month, in April, it was my second name. So it was nice after last year. It was kind of a weird show, and this was still kind of a weird show. But You know, I got to do a lot of cool things, a lot cooler things than last year, but in a way, I'm sure, you know, you've been watching every single video on YouTube as I do the same thing.Everybody's talking about how it was smaller and there's not as many brands there, but some of my favorite stuff was still there. So I wanna talk a little bit about the experience and mostly about the guitars that we took home, the stuff that we got, the stuff that I got to design, custom wise, and of course, the food that I ate because that's what I was most concerned with. I went with Patrick Marr, Joseph, Adriana, a bunch of folks here at the store and I was representing the guitar side. So, really for me this year, it came down to a lot of Taylor and Martin as per usual. Fender and Gibson were not there, who's to say if they will be back at any point in the future, but I did have a very good time as plenty with Taylor and Martin.So when we got there, first day of NAMM for us, Alamo Music Center and a lot of your other favorite independent music stores that are a little bit smaller. We have the AIM meeting, which is the independent music stores. Lot of Yamaha stuff, Guild, Cordoba. You know, there's there's a certain set of vendors that really work with us. Independent music stores with some more exclusive products and just kinda different promotions.But we did the AIM meeting, got to see some new Yamaha stuff, which I will get into. But the same day, we went to the catch event, which we've talked about at length on our YouTube channel, you'll be seeing some of these catch guitars come through. But, you know, really, that was kind of the first kick off thing for me that I was most excited for. Catch event is held off-site from the NAMM Show, so it's not at the convention center, but one of the hotels. But it is basically where Taylor gets to showcase all their most interesting ideas for custom guitars and we get to bid on them and win the chance to buy them.And in the past, you know, last year, we got one catch guitar. It's always kinda hard to tell, you know, who's gonna like these and trust our gut. But this year, we we went a little bit deeper. So I want to talk to you a little bit about those. First off, the Catch Event has the best food at the NAMM Show.Last year, I got my first taste of that payaya. And I was looking forward to it. It did not disappoint. We got payaya. There's little cheese plate action.You know, some beef tenderloin. They they really roll out the red carpet and make you feel special to trick you into buying all the nicest stuff, which we did. And I'm not worried about that. It was worth it. And I wanna talk to you about the three that we received first.These are the three that we bid on at the show that we got that exact guitar. We ended up bidding on ten and I believe we got ten. Actually, no. We bid on eleven. There's only one that we missed out on.It was a very cool guitar, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. So we got ten good ones come into us that you'll see over the next few months. But the other seven that we bid on that we won. We did not get from the show. They will be built for us.So we will be seeing those probably later on this year. But today, the first three that we won from the actual show came in. So first off, there was a This was catch number six if anybody has the gallery and you wanna check out the ones that we got. You'll be seeing them on the website and on the YouTube channel, but Catch number six was a grand auditorium with a torrefied Spruce Top and East Indian Rosewood back in sides. It was almost like kinda, you know, it's it's interesting with Taylor stuff because you can easily kinda draw similarities between some of their standard guitars.This one was no pick guard, but it's kinda like a nice, torrefied age top eight hundred or nine hundred series that makes up the inlays and stuff. But It's a very nice, straightforward, warm, you know, the torified set could give you that warmth. It's it's feels great, sounds great, and Indian rosewood back and sides. Really nice binding on this and inlay. And I understand that me describing guitars is not the same as CNN, but we will be rolling out all the stuff on social media and YouTube.So you'll be able to know which one I'm talking about This is catch number six. The next one that we got from the show, I was really excited about at the show. It's a Grand Concert twelve fret western striped red cedar top, beautiful cedar top satin finish on this one, and it had the Honduran Rosewood, which is kinda Taylor's step up from the East Indian. I think that Martin and Taylor both kinda offering step ups. Martin goes heavy into the It was the Madagascar now they're going with Guatemalan.It has the look of its own. It has the sound of its own, but I like that they kind of have the upgraded you know, premium rosewood. But this one is a grand concert with the cutaway twelve fret and satan finished cedar and Honduran rosewood. It's got Indian rosewood binding all over it.Really pretty rosette. Nice wood, vine, and lay. Wood on the rosette. It's a very wood forward guitar. So if you're one of those people that loves just letting the wood shine.It's a it's a fantastic beautiful guitar. That was catch number thirteen. And the last one that we got from the original batch was catch number sixteen. And I have all three of these in the studio with me right now that we've been photographing and looking at today. This one is my favorite of the the first batch.So this one is another Grand Concert twelve fret. No cutaway on this one. But it is thinner redwood top, sassafras back and sides, insane figuring on the sassafras, insane striping and depth of color, on the sinker. It's a it's a true sinker fan's dream. It's got a flame maple binding all over really cool in lays on the fretboard.It's kind of a split diamond, and of course, go to five tens. It's a really, really beautiful guitar. It would be fantastic for a finger picker. But, yeah, those three guitars of the ones that we would get from the show think I'm glad that we got these ones because the grain is just beautiful. And I know the grain is gonna be good on the ones built to order. And Casey our tech said it's some of the nicest sinker he's ever seen. So very excited about that one. I'm gonna tell you about a couple other things and then, you know, the rest you'll see as they come in. If anybody wants to know more about the full lineup that we got, feel free to, you know, give me a call, email me, call into the store.I wanna talk about them. But couple really cool things. One, there was an all koa master grade, you know, top back and sides, all master grade that was one of the most insanely flames guitars that I've ever seen. And we did get that one. It's adorned with quite a bit of abalone in Inlay that I didn't quite recognize.It's a very, very cool, and I'm excited to see that one. The other one that will kinda be exciting for the the deep Taylor fans. Everybody always kinda looks out for those eight string baritones that they made. They've done some three hundred series ones. They did one this year that is a seven hundred series, basically.So it's like a seven twenty six all koa, same exact kind of outfit and endorsements as the new seven twenty four and seven twenty two. But it is an eight string baritone grand symphony with a florentine cutaway. And so when we saw that one, Of course, everybody's excited about it, and I didn't quite want to limit us to just one. So we will be getting two of those and I'm so excited to get those in the studio. I know that they're gonna sell very fast.But if that sounds like something that you'd be interested in, let us know because I can send you photos or, you know, you'll see them everywhere else, but it's a very cool guitar.
I'm looking at all the photos of everything that we got. I'm just excited about it.So that was a catch event. There was an open bar. I'm not gonna lie to you guys. We got some old fashions, and we'd ate a lot of payaya. And we just looked at beautiful guitars the whole time.There's a couple other things that we kinda got a sneak peek of that will be rolled out later this month that I don't want to break any rules by talking about, but some very cool and very new things for Taylor that I think people are gonna enjoy. Yeah. We'll talk about those more and I can get with Chris on those and we can dive into what we think about them. But it wasn't just about the customs, it was about new products as well, and I think that Taylor is gonna be making things that a lot of people will dig. So that was a catch event.Lot of food, a lot of drink, a lot of guitars. We went to the show the next day and it's chaos all over the place you don't wanna be in the drum section. I'm sorry for your drummer, but it's loud and it's upsetting. So I basically reserved myself towards as much of the guitar and pro audio stuff as possible. Gotta see some very cool new Guild and Cordoba stuff.We've looked at them on the channel. They've been popular. So I was glad to see those and kinda see some of the new finishes that they're rolling out. Guild, you know, it's the same way.I'm very excited about the new Guild American stuff. And I wanna you know, get into that because I think that Guild is kind of having a a moment right now and not to sound like too much of gen z or when I say they're having a moment. But some of my favorite artists right now are playing Guilds. For one there's a a a band called Wiseblood. The singer songwriter, Natalie Marring plays a Guild D40It's I'm obsessed with that guitar right now. I think it sounds incredible. Her sound is very seventies, late sixties. And I think a lot of young players are looking for something a little different, so it's cool to see Guild kind of playing into that Same with the electrics, you know, they got the surf liners, the new deluxes came out. Really, really nice people to be around too.But that night, I guess this was Thursday, we I had my big meeting with Martin and going from Martin at the show, which they were kind of the big big brand for acoustic on the store. I mean, on the the showroom floor because Taylor didn't even have a booth. They did all of their NAMM business at the catch event and then Andy Powers and Bob Taylor and some of the upper brass were at the show to kinda talk to people, but they didn't even display any guitars. There were no NAMM limited this year. While some of my favorite guitars from them last year were NAMM limited.So we have the K62s and the you know, the sinker top stuff. None of that this year, which is fine. We got plenty ay the catch event, but I was kinda bummed to see they didn't have a big display. However, Martin had a substantial showroom display. And some of the stuff in there, I think, will be a little polarizing for people Many of you have seen the new street legend guitars, and I'm kinda curious to get those in and take a closer look at them.It's really hard to hear anything on the on the floor at NAMM. But, yeah, I got to see them for the first time. And if you're familiar with Martin Street Master series, as seen on, like, the 00015 Streetmaster, D15M, 00016 Streetmaster. It is a finish that is not necessarily a relik, but it's kind of this rubbed you know, distressed look. And I think that people have grown found and quite an audience for those, especially with the 16, people fell in love with that guitar.But bringing it to the standard series, they have a D18 and D28 Street legend, and they're a little bit different. And if you see the photos of them, they took it's I'm trying to figure out how to say this. They took images based on guitars in their museum. And they have printed them on a D18 and D28 with a satin finish. So it gives you the appearance of reliking, of aging, of distressing, and it is not anything structural done to the guitar.So I will leave it at that. That was an interesting thing. We'll wait till we get them in the studio and shoot a full video on them, and then we will hear your thoughts. But that is one of the the main polarizing things that was at the show. They had a couple other new products on display.You know, they had the D42 Bitcoin everybody needs a Bitcoin guitar. I imagine that will be extremely popular. No. But they had they had some nice stuff. I am a fan of the non street legend satin guitars.We've already gone through our first round of those and we have more of them coming in. But I do like what they have done with the satin and we've seen pretty much all the other guys kinda do the same thing. Gibson came out with a faded collection. And I I'm not trying to disparage one over the other, but I do appreciate that Martin did a full pour satin nitro that is very very smooth. One of the biggest things, I'm not saying that the Gibson is not smooth or, you know, whatever, but it just felt the nicest of the satin finished guitars that I've played in a while.And I kind of appreciate, yes, it is a measure to get guitars out faster or maybe a little bit less expensive. But I think that Taylor has proven that, you know, people will pay a premium for high end satin finished guitars. And these being Mitra Finish, I think that they're gonna find a nice audience So I did like those. I saw those. And of the new product that was released at NAMM, those were kind of some of my favorites.But then, of course, I get to go to the custom wall and they do it a little bit different. Kind of the same idea, you know, you can bid on a select few. I think Taylor had like thirty or forty guitars. Martin had maybe eight, maybe ten, either way. So I will say that Martin's customs are a little bit more niche if that makes any sense with Taylor.It's like every single guitar is definitely geared towards greatest hits super premium. And, yes, the Martin ones are super premium. But they I'm gonna pull up some some photos that I got here and walk through it. They had one guitar that I really fell in love with. It was a a slot head you know, twelve fret small body all coa that I definitely bid on.It was, again, extremely flamed Koa. And so with Martin, you bid on the guitars the same way. You might win them. Some of these are just one of one. So if you don't win that one from the show, you're not gonna get it.However, the the one that I liked the best is probably that small body coa. You don't see a ton of crazy, crazy coa from from Martin. So that was very cool. Another one was a double o fourteen fret with Coca Cola back in sides. That was one of one that I had to at least throw our name in the ring for that one.They had a VTS triple O. This is an OM. They had a VTS OM that was kind of forty two style that I definitely bid on. Really, really pretty stuff from Martin. I just I loved them. So with those, we bid on four. Two of those were one of one. The other two I said, if we don't win these ones, we definitely wanna get them built.So we will see those when we see them. But, yeah, it was great. The best part about the Martin booth though is the wood picks. So they bring sets of wood and a build sheet that kinda has a list of options that only really work at the Nam Show. You get kind of special promotions, so I did woodpicks.And I chose Guatemala and I mentioned earlier that's kind of the premium option. You know, we had a a custom from Martin a couple years back. Actually, I guess, that was last year when we went to the factory. That was Madagascar. They have a extreme shortage of Madagascar.They're not really using it anymore. I'm assuming hopefully supply gets back up. We'll see it again, but they've pivoted to the Guatemalan. And, you know, so I picked Guatemalan back in sides for both of our customs, and I really wanna do something a little different. So I did one that was a Adirondack top, Guatemala and back insides with the golden era bracing, quadruple o twelve fret.And I think that will be the first quadruple o twelve fret that we've seen in the store. You know, the m thirty six is the quadruple o size, but this one I kinda wanted to dig into that a little bit, see what the twelve frets like. I really love the twelve frethed tread knots. And I was up at Gruhn earlier this year in Nashville, and they had some beautiful twelve fret quadruplets and triple o's. I'd really like to get more into that.I'm excited for that one. It's it's pretty straight up spec after that kinda twenty eight style, but I wanted to make it accessible more or less. The next one that I did was a little fancier. I did a Guatemala one back in sides with Italian alpine spruce in kind of a forty one, forty two style. The biggest thing that I wanted to kind of play with on that one was the rearward shifted bracing.I really like that feature and I think that it's underutilized A lot of people really push for the forward shifted. But the rearward shifting, I I really kinda wanna see what that would look like. We saw it with the d twenty eight Rich Robbins in earlier when they released that guitar last year. And I think it has just a really special sound, so I wanted to do something that was a little more fancy. I chose one of my favorite inlays for that headstock, which is the CFM block with the golden era.So it's kind of a little more vintage style, but definitely a very luxurious guitar. I guarantee that we will not see either of those until well into twenty twenty four, but I think they're gonna be worth the wait. If you're interested, I'm happy to show you the two sets of wood that we picked. And not to mention, we did some wood picks of factory that we've talked about before, but really nice wild grain rows would, and really nice Koa and I have all those pictures as well. So if any of this stuff sounds interesting and you wanna geek out about it with me, I'm happy to do that and show you all the wood because I think we picked some really nice sets.But yeah, the Martin booth was awesome. I really love all those people. There's a guy named Jerry Lawler over there that we hung out with at the factory. It was great to see him. I got to see one of our our favorite guys, you know, that doesn't live near us, but does a lot of very cool guitars with us.His name is Kari. I ran into him absolutely randomly at the Martin booth. So it was kinda like a nice homecoming at both of these events with Taylor and Martin. They they know how to make a guy feel special. It was very cool.And then that night, we had be Martin dinner. And it was obviously no customs lying around. It was all getting into the food. So let me tell you. It was insane.There was a cold cheese charcuterie spread that just like blew my mind right when you walk in. Get a glass of wine. He walked through the cheese line. I mean, they had several types of blues. I'm a big blue cheese fan, so they got couple blues to choose from some triple cream brie.Just the fantastic way to enter a room. Straight into the cheese. And then, I mean, we're talking scallops, we're talking shrimp cocktail, all kinds of beef, some lamb chops. I saw Chris Martin himself walking around just pulmon a lamb chop, having a good time. So, yeah, the food there was Amazing.And I also got to meet a guy. I don't know if anybody's up in Oklahoma, but if you've heard of Edmund's music, There's a fellow there named Taylor who was kind of their guitar guru. And our martin rep Jim put me in touch with Taylor we had our Martin meetings, kind of our, you know, rep meetings back to back. And he said, you gotta meet this guy. And you meet a lot of people at NAM, and all of them say, it's nice to see you again even though you've never met before because nobody remembers who they met the last show.I haven't met half these people and they're like, oh man, how you been? It's good to see you. I have no idea. So Taylor was my one planned, new friend, play date, and we hung out at the catch event, we hung out at the Martin Dinner And this guy is an absolute wealth of knowledge. I learned quite a bit from him.He's gonna help me kind of put together some very cool Martin customs for our 95th anniversary next year. So, yeah, very cool friend to have, I would highly recommend if you are in the Tulsa area go meet Taylor at Edmund's music. I know they got a few different locations, but reach out. If you're up there, I wanna give them some support because they're very cool people. But, yeah, the food at the Martin event, insane.And from then, you know, I I wanna talk about a couple of things. We do not carry bourgeois guitars or Eastman, but they had some fantastic instruments They had kind of a o m forty five deluxe style. They have Brazilian back in size. It was a hundred thousand dollar guitar or ninety five thousand dollars if we're being specific, but that was wild. And then, you know, we shot a video yesterday in the store.I'm not quite sure when this is gonna come out or when this video is gonna come out, but we talked about the FG9 from Yamaha. Really one of the most interesting guitars that I've seen and probably besides all the customs and everything, probably my favorite new release of the NAMM show. I love the red labels, Yamaha, especially the Japanese made stuff, and all the way down. I mean, for a three hundred dollar guitar, Yamaha, oftentimes beats out everybody else and then through the line in every price range, I think they make a very compelling option, but they have been missing a real premium, you know, something to compete with the high end Martin's, the high end Taylor's, and then even the the boutique or more boutique esque stuff, and they put up the f g nines this year. And Yamaha's booth, like I talked about in that video, it's everything.It's like on a floor and a ballroom all to itself. They got pianos and synths and pro audio. Base, electric, acoustics, motorcycles. They're not motorcycles, but they got a little bit everything in there. And it's kinda hard to see products because it's not lit up very well in there.It's got mood lighting. You got a funk R&B band playing Michael McDonald hits, which actually did happen. They were dropping all kinds of good stuff. But We walked the floor with our rep named John Sculley, fantastic guy and definitely knows everything about all this Yamaha. I mean, we got incredible presentations on everything.But the one that was kind of set aside that they just had two guitars out on a wall of its own was the f g nine, and these are their high end premium acoustic guitars made in Japan, Adirondack's Bruce Top, They have a mahogany version which is the FG9M and a rosewood version FG9R And I was told to my face at this show, oh yeah, you won't see these for a while. I'm like, dude, come on. Who do you think we are? We're all on music, man.We gotta get these further videos And of course, at the show, we already some of our main people that always call us and ask us about stuff. We're like, when are you gonna get the f g nines? So I really, really appreciate John. He kind of pulled some strings and we did get allocation pretty fast. It's not gonna be a huge production, you know, number for the first year, I'm sure, but we did get a couple sent our way, and I just I'm in love with these guitars.They are Drenot. As in f g, if you know f g eight hundred all throughout FG5s, all the way up the line. That's their Dreadnought style. And they are big body. They are meticulously made and very very tastefully appointed.They have this kind of rope, purfling, and rosette almost kind of mimics a herringbone, but it's a design of its own. They have a really nice interesting little inlay on the heel cap with an f g. It's inlayed in Maple. But they are understated, but you kind of feel and know just by looking at it. It's it's a beautifully made guitar.And I got very excited about those. We already did sell the FG9R that we got in stock. I haven't seen the FG9M yet. I think it's on its way to the store. But luckily, we'll see a few more of those this year and then hopefully go much deeper in them because it's gonna be hard to kind of convince people to spend four thousand dollars on a Yamaha.I think a lot of people think they topped out at a certain point, and they've introduced something new, but I think the way that they've done it and the product that they've made, I'm very excited about And I would love to see an FS version. I think a lot of people would go for an FS nine, so I'm a little smaller. But for now, the beautiful Adirondack top, FG9R and M, they're really, really cool. So if you have a place near you, it gets the Yamaha guitars if you're near us. I would highly recommend checking them out.I would put it toe to toe with a lot of different things. I think something about Yamaha's Japanese guitars just kinda has a little special sauce. So very cool guitars. I really enjoyed the NAMM Show this year. Like I said, it was not the most packed with all kinds of new products.No Fender, no Gibson, and obviously there's a ton of smaller builders there. And it was fun kind of meeting people seeing those products that a boutique guitar showcase where they had a panel talking about how our kids will never even know that head stocks existed because all guitars are gonna be headless with no tuners, fat chance, But, yeah, it was it was very cool to see a lot of nice people. I met the Armenian piano mafia. They were cool dudes. And, you know, on the side, some cool stuff.If you are interested in learning how to play keyboard, there are some very cool new Yamaha products. I always wanna see Yamaha and Kawai and all these, you know, non guitar brands that we also like over here. Not that Yamaha is not a guitar brand, but you know what I'm saying. The keyboards in the sense. I think the CK88 and the CK61, if you're looking for a stage piano, very cool.And I'm not trying to bog this down with all these new products, but I need to be able to word explode about my experience because it was a very fun time. And I'm looking forward to going back next year. And I think that, you know, like I said, we're kind of looking at some stuff for our 95th anniversary for next year, some customs, some exclusives. And I think that I have a few ideas one of which being since our store was founded in nineteen twenty nine, I really liked the idea of finding a historical design from nineteen twenty nine and recreating it. Luckily for me, my favorite Martin style was created in nineteen twenty nine, the first OEMs.So I think doing some kind of pay tribute to that would be very cool, but Obviously, there were no Taylors around in 1929. So I think it'd be fun to kinda hear from y'all, hear what you guys think would be cool. What are some, you know, appointments and styles that you think are missing? Because there's always kind of room to expand upon what what these brands create. And I think for our store, we're just we're kinda geeking out always about acoustics and electrics.So I'd like to hear from y'all kind of what you think and what you like to see. If you're into sync or Redwood, you know, let me know because I'm on a kick right now. And I think that if that's your thing, we'll have some very cool coming in soon that I'm excited to talk about. But we'll save that for another episode. In the meantime, I appreciate you listening to me kind of gush about how cool NAMM was.If you have the opportunity to go, I would recommend it. It's a fun time. But also, you can get a lot of the benefit by just going into your local music store that's kind of plugged in with those, be it our store, be it Chicago Music Exchange, Edmund Music, because we all kinda get the same thing out of it and hopefully get some cool souvenirs to show you and hopefully pass on to you. Because everything that we got this year is something that I would want and I think that's the way it should be and hopefully when we do that It inspires these brands to make stuff with guitar players in mind and not just flashy for the sake of being flashy, but stuff for tone and for beauty and for kind of heirloom instruments, which they should be. But we will get into the new stuff that I can't quite talk about yet, we'll get into our next exclusive sneaker peaker Redwood, and all the stuff from Catch as it comes in, you'll see on our YouTube channel, same with the Martin Customs, and it will be a very good time, and I'm excited to play them all for you.But in the meantime, this has been the Fretboard Confessional. My name is Cooper Greenberg. I will talk to you next time.