Bob Pletka 01/28/14
So how often are you happy about getting up at four in the morning?... I'd say once a year, and that's the morning everyone here at ET fly's out for our
annual trek to the winter NAMM show! Leaving the always cold (30 degrees) Portland OR in route for Anaheim CA where it's usually 75 to 80 degrees
headed for the convention center full of more gear than you can see in three days is bad ass!
However this year was bittersweet. In November of 2013 we lost our dear friend and business associate Jan Jurcho. Jan started JJ Electronic in the
early 1990's and we have put a page up in his memory which you can see here "Jan Jurcho". We all miss you Jan.
Jan has left JJ Electronic in the most capable hands of his son, Tomas Jurcho, who for many years now has helped to make JJ Electronic the premier
manufacturer of vacuum tubes today.
JJ Electronic and Eurotubes.
Jan and Tomas have been working on producing a guitar amp which we had spoken to them about back in 2013. The decision was made to debut the
"JJ One" guitar amp at the 2014 NAMM show. To say that the amp was a hit with all who listened to it and played it would be an big understatement.
Here are a few shots of the amp and you can read more about it here, "JJ One". All of us from Eurotubes do spend some time at the JJ booth but we
also spend most of our time seeing our customers and researching gear so we hired local guitar slinger and long time friend Brian Hadley to demo the
amp for the entire show. Of course we did give Brian and his wife Lesa a few breaks and all of us took turns to demo the amp.
Marshall once again had the epic visual display but unlike last year they once again as in years past had a sound room to demo their new hand wired
combo's which sounded very nice. I don't know that I was into the new "Tattoo" Marshall's, but they did attract a lot of attention!
Orange introduced the new Dual Dark Amps for players after more gain and a heavier sound.
65 Amps was directly across from Bogner again this year and neither ever disappoints! Of course Reinhold was in prime form.
Magnatone amps were again attracting a lot of attention this year, new models with plenty of vintage vibe. Check out the Bigsby on the Flying V!
Dave Friedman was displaying his amp line which sounds great.
BadCat was in great form as usual with some new gear, however I don't know that they proofread the line sheet for the Hot Cat 50 which states that
the power section uses 3 EL34's! We checked, 2 is more like it.
The basement floor is always fun and we spent quite a bit of time playing Kauer Guitars and the Novax fan fretted guitars.
We always look forward to visiting the Taylor room which is one of the largest rooms upstairs housing some of the finest acoustic guitars made.
In the ESP room there was a wall of guitar creations that were simply bizarre! Robert Caggiano was in the room shredding up a storm.
Fender has one of the biggest rooms upstairs and it does rather boggle the mind to see so many Fender custom shop guitars in one place. Fender
also brought to market head versions of the Deluxe Reverb and the 57 Fender Deluxe. The new Silverface reissue amps sounded great and have
verb and trem on both channels.
Charvel, Gibson and PRS all had their usual rooms upstairs, more KILLER GUITARS!
The Premier Builders room is full of Two Rock and Tone King amps along with DeAngelico, Koll and Fano guitars, very cool!
Palmer had a slew of new pedals, Amp and Instrument switchers, programmable FX bus mixers and some cool little amps. Check out the little guy
with the magnifying glass built into the front, the amp uses a single JJ Electronic KT88 for power and the glass magnifies the JJ Logo. Check them out
here; http://www.palmer-germany.com/mi/en/Guitar-Amplifiers.htm
Here are some random shots of people, guitars and amps!
One of the best things about the trip is getting to hang after the show with friends. This year Brian Hadley accompanied by his wife Lesa joined us
(Brian was demoing the JJ One amp!) and a life long friend of our own ET's Michael Kohn joined us. Donnie Watson came in all the way from Texas,
here's a shot of them in the Orange Booth.
A few after hours shots.
Always remember one thing, stay AWAY from the accordion!
This page is a review of the 2014 NAMM show with many of the photo's we took. You can see ALL the photos on our Facebook page here;
https://www.facebook.com/Eurotubes on the Photos page.
NAMM 2014
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