A Show That’s Instrumental to Music’s Future : Marketing: The music merchants’ trade show in Anaheim brings out the latest in high-tech and decidedly 1960s-style equipment.

In an introductory letter to participants at the Winter National Assn. of Music Merchants International Music Market at the Anaheim Convention Center over the weekend, NAMM president Jack Coffey made note of that “most difficult situation” which the rest of us call the war in the Persian Gulf, and urged the market’s participants to instead look to a brighter future and get on with business.

He needn’t have bothered. Though war demonstrators, both pro and con, waved signs on a corner only a block away, the NAMM show (which wraps up today) went on as it has in all previous years, as a cacophonic world unto itself. It may have been one of the few places in the country Friday where, despite the thousands in attendance, one could spend the whole day without a sight of CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer’s sleepless gaze or once hearing mention of Scud missiles.

The NAMM market is where manufacturers and distributors of musical instruments and their countless accessories gather to tempt dealers with their products. Stalled economy or no, this year’s market drew a record 700-plus exhibitors and what was estimated at more than 30,000 spectators. Though supposedly closed to the public, any number of heavy-metal urchins, gear groupies and hangers-on invariably find their way into the four crowded exhibition halls because, for its four days, NAMM is the musician’s place to see and be seen.

It’s scarcely a place to be heard, for the Convention Center becomes a bedlam of screaming guitars, player pianos, synthesizers, bagpipes, desktop computer music software, Karaoke sing-along machines, musical saws, pan pipes and all things that go bump in the night. It is where a booth offering African percussion made with animal skins and calabash gourds can be set up next to a computerized stage system pumping out fog and a disco beat. It is where one is introduced to elephant-shaped “Elecaster guitars” and the Flavor Reed: berry, vanilla and grape-flavored clarinet and sax reeds.

And somewhere in the midst of this are the new instruments and ideas that can shape the way music will be made in the days to come.

Much like last January’s NAMM market, new items seemed to be looking both to the past and the future. While there were any number of new digital-age entries that would require a thick technical manual to fully utilize, other manufacturers are continuing to return to the decidedly more low-tech, though arguably more personable, instruments they made in decades past.

In both cases, the battle at the NAMM market is for products to distinguish themselves amid increasingly crowded fields. There were, for example, hundreds of dealers offering variations on the basic Fender Stratocaster guitar, many of which were so state-of-the-art that they were nearly impossible to tell apart.

Running counter to that is a movement that one might dub the “Silvertone-ization” of part of the market. Silvertone was the old Sears, Roebuck brand name for its often quirky, distinctive musical instruments, which, like people, may have had flaws or shortcomings but also had personality. Easily the most “Silvertone-ized” instruments at the show were Jerry Jones’ exacting copies of ‘60s Danelectro guitars, which had combined metal lipstick tube covers and Masonite (a construction material most often used in cheap doors) into some marvelously idiosyncratic instruments.

Nashville’s Jones has been so successful he can scarcely handle it--Leo Kottke, Jimmie Vaughan and Los Lobos are among his customers and his factory is back-ordered.

“I think it’s because, despite the great number of companies making instruments, there aren’t that many different types to choose from; everybody is making variations of the same things,” Jones said, “I think this is a backlash, and a return to an earthier, more dimensional sound. And we’re basically selling fun. You can’t imagine the number of people who walk by and do a double take and smile ear to ear when they see these things.”

Among other companies doing well with their distinctive older instruments was Santa Ana’s Rickenbacker, which has combined star endorsements from Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Chris Squire and others with reissues of its classic ‘60s guitar designs, including a John Lennon model licensed by his estate.

Brea’s Fender followed up on last year’s successful reissue of its tube-powered 1959 tweed Bassman amplifier with a reintroduction of its early ‘60s Vibroverb amp, while Fender’s custom shop and standard product lines continued to introduce guitar and bass models drawing from its original ‘50s and ‘60s designs. The company also offers Signature Series instruments, guitars made to the specifications of such stars as Eric Clapton, Yngwie Malmsteen and Jeff Beck.

Even before Clapton, Beck and others instituted the notion of the guitar hero in the ‘60s, star appeal has been a large factor in instrument sales. Many NAMM exhibitors spiced their product lines with “name” endorsers, with in-person appearances by the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Hal Blaine, Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, Joe Pass, Allan Holdsworth, Al DiMeola, Albert Lee, Steve Morse, the Ventures, Blues Saraceno, James Burton, Chris Squire, Gregg Bissonette and Vivian Campbell. Even the metal parody band Spinal Tap played a concert Friday night to promote a consortium of product lines, while introducing such new songs as “Break Like the Wind.”

The celebrity coup of this year’s show was Ernie Ball/Music Man’s gaining the endorsement of Eddie Van Halen, who does seem to be the most influential musician of the past decade. Though the San Luis Obispo-based firm (formerly located in Newport Beach) is hardly a guitar-making giant compared to its competition, the company’s Sterling Ball said the firm makes up for size in other areas: “There’s a lot of ego involved in these guitars. I want these guitars to be nice. We don’t need to make bad guitars or more of the same generic instruments.”

Signing autographs for fans at Music Man’s booth Friday, Van Halen explained why he chose them to collaborate with on his new guitar: “They pay me a lot of money! Just kidding. Really, one of the reasons is they’re located only two hours away from where I live, and I could work with them on it. I wanted a guitar that would be my baby, and be the one I would use for everything. Once we got it right, I told them they had a deal. The bottom line is if the guitar we’re building doesn’t sell, I still have one, and I love it.

“I want every guitar that goes out to be right. We’re only making 1,000 of these the first year. Other companies were promising to make 22,000 units a year, and there’s no way they can all be good when produced at that level. And it’s important to me that it be American. The reason I stopped working with another company was they started building everything in Taiwan and there’s no way you can have any quality control.”

“Made in the U.S.A.” has again become a positive selling point for instruments, and nationality was also a factor in jazz great Joe Pass returning to Gibson guitars after once endorsing a Japanese product. “I see a lot of things that say ‘Buy American,’ and I feel that way a little,” he said. “I mean, how else can we make good things if nobody buys them?”

Perhaps the most impressive high-tech high jinks were to be found at Yamaha’s sprawling booths. Last year the industry giant, which has its U.S. headquarters in Buena Park, supplanted its industry standard DX7 synth with the remarkably more expressive SY77. This year’s hot new toy, the QY10, is a lower-end product aimed at both pros and amateurs.

Smaller than a VHS videocassette, the QY10 is a combined 8-track sequencer, 30-voiced synth and 26-timbred drum machine, which essentially is like having an 8-track recording studio, complete with instruments, that will run on batteries and fit in a suit pocket. Yamaha’s Phil Moon likened the potential appeal of the small, powerful package to Nintendo’s GameBoy, and explained, “Previously you’d have to pay three or four times as much to get all the capabilities that are in this little box. One of the best things in our line last year was a drum machine that sells for $399. This is the same price, has a drum machine and all the other capabilities besides.”

Amid all the star-struck and high-tech activity, the most literal splash at NAMM Friday occurred at the Kawaii piano booth. An overhead sprinkler main broke, sending a hydrant-force blast of, shall we say, reclaimed water down on the exhibit for about 20 minutes.

“The ferns did real well,” quipped Kawaii’s Dan Hergert, “but over 25 pianos filled with water. This is a multimillion-dollar-selling show for us, and this came pouring down in the midst of it, so I’m not sure how it will affect us.” Fortunately the firm was able to bring new carpet and instruments in, and with piano tuners working through the night, was back to business as usual by Saturday morning.