female guitarist Shredmistress Rynata at

NAMM '05, Anaheim, CA

I had a great time at NAMM in Anaheim and want to thank Minarik Guitars for inviting me. Bill Minarik, Mark Minarik, the ever so helpful Rick Wells, Bill's lovely wife and the Minarik girls keeping everyone company... it was truly a wonderful experience.

It seems every year more and more guitar companies spring up and this year was no exception. However... I have to say that the style and uniqueness of the Minarik Line TRULY stood out from the rest. And it showed. A never ending stream of visitors oggled these strange and yet so appealing instruments. The Inferno, Diablo, Goddess in various designs and colors. The artists performing included: Dick Dale and his son Jimmy, the Charvel Brothers, Abdel Khineche and moi, The Shredmistress. Everyone rocked, and shredded and surfed and "shadowed" on the Minarik guitars, demonstrating the wide variety of sounds and styles these instruments are capable of. For info on those guitars visit the Minarik website at Minarik Guitars

Special thanks also go to Eric Colbert who shared a booth with Tipton Guitars and demonstrated his array of fab guitar pedals. Guitar wizard Ronny North was the guitar maestro at that booth and he shredded away. Ever so often I stepped in and played the cool Tipton guitars and demo'd Eric's pedals, from the Ramstein to the Metalizer to the Extreme... those are serious pedals folks! Check out MSP for the low down on those amazing stomp boxes. Amy Schugar stopped by there and played some guitar. She plays with Michael Schenker and did some nice licks. Yeah.. women guitar power!

I did more shredding and blues and country and funk, depending on the set up at various other guitar booths. It was cool to see what's out there. I focused on the smaller, boutique companies since I think they've got more innovation going. Brubaker Guitars (see pix) is a cool company with some nice guitars. The guys at Brubaker Guitars decided that "green" was my color with the hair-do and all. Hence the green guitar. Personally, I like the chunks of blue hair with the poster background. Very styling. BTW: cool guitars! I checked them out and jammed quite a bit.

George Dennis LTD from the Czech Republic. George, the owner, played his 60's Strat thru his designer amp and also had this cool voice talkie thang attached to the mike that was quite interesting. We talked and played a bit. Super nice guy.

You know I could go on and on about some of the cool people I met there and I think I will. The booth of William Kritzberg Guitars featured a full band. All seasoned musicians from various well known bands. They let me sit in for a couple. Very groovy. Their guitars are the lightest I have ever played. But they have tone and great neck action. When I stopped by again, Tricia Freeman was singing with her female guitarist (forgot her name). This woman has some powerful vocals and did some great blues.

Playing some tasty jazz stuff on this cool D'Aquisto Guitar at the Aria USA booth. Photo by Jim Steinfeldt I sat down at Aria USA and played some of their fantastic jazz guitars under the brand name D'Aquisto. Aside from shredding metal I'm also a jazz and blues guitarist with quite an arsenal of chops in those genres and playing on those guitars brought that out. Lovely Guitars. Jim Steinfeldt, a photographer friend of mine caught me there and took the cool pix.

Some more massive shredding took place at the Floyd Rose booth. They are mainly known for their whammy bar system but they have come out with a most innovative guitar design. It's mainly the string mechanism that set them apart. No more tuning pegs. The strings just lock in at the head stock and it takes all but seconds to change a string. Very nifty. I was hooked on a guitar resembling a small Flying V and it sounded amazing. Thru a Vox Valvetronic amp, set on a killer overdrive tone. Couldn't stay away from that. Guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Color heard the Shredmistress shred at Floyd Rose and posed for a picture with bass meister Reggie Mars. He was super sweet and paid Shreddie a bunch of compliments which, as you can imagine, I ate up.

I came across Switch Guitars which featured a line of interesting guitars. What caught my eye was the Revolution X101 guitar which at first glance closely resembled the Burns Flyte I own. But it's a different animal. All their guitars are made out of "Vibracell" a patented material. There's no wood here. And the designs are cool. See pix below with Jennifer Corday and myself, posing with the pink ladies. Those guitars ARE PINK!! We were going for a color coordinated look here. I played some cool blues/funk stuff on the Revolution and loved it. Squeaky clean tones but I'm sure this thing can shred. It's made for that. The feel and balance was nice. Met the Cheap Chicks girls there and lots of folks checking out the guitars.

More guitars. Stopped by Turner guitars or Renaissance Guitars as they're also called. Turns out that Lindsay Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac uses them. I played several of their models and they were really good. Well made and adaptable to many different styles. I had seen Lindsay B. with those guitars and always wondered about them. Now I know. Thumbs up for Renaissance.

Did some cool playing at the Scott Dixon Booth. They make some really interesting cases for amps and guitars. Out of England, made according to military specs as Dave Scott was telling me. It took them 6 months to get permission from the english government to use this formula. The whole backline looked like it was out of Star Wars. Gleaming and shining in the lights. They are virtually indestructible but really light. At one point 2 or three sturd guys were standing on one of the guitar cases to demonstrate just HOW sturdy they are. I brought over the Minarik Inferno and jammed with Rikk Beatty (guitarist, a bassist and Jimmy Dodd a 5 year old drummer and we brought down the house to a huge crowd. They were watching the kid I just know it (grin). Too cool. As I stopped by later, I got introduced to the neighboring booth Mayones Guitars. They came from Poland and make some fine handcrafted guitars and basses. High end and high quality.

Ran into lots of friends, including FemMusers, Gogirls, Indiegirls, and assorted friends from past and present, like Kelly Z., Jocelyn Cayenta, Grace Holmes, Anita, Ronny North, Mara, Abby Kincaid, Laurie Morvan, Kathryn Grimm and Randy, Robin Beacham, Jennifer Corday, Cheap Chicks girls, Denise Vasquez, Daize Shayne, Toby Wilson, Tony Raven, Ray from Storyteller, Callie, Jim Steinfeldt, Bernard Baur of Music Connection etc. Plus saw Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Reggie Mars, my bassist, accompanied me Saturday and Sunday, being a great escort and helping me find my car at night in this maze of parking garages. You RULE DUDE!

I have to admit... after 4 days of this I was on "equipment overload"... there is so much stuff available. I wanted to focus on guitars this time around and I did! So... check out some of the pix below and drop me a line if ya wanna chat here

See ya next NAMM and remember...... IN SHRED WE TRUST

female singer/guitarist Alexa Vetere and Shredmistress Rynata with their Minarik Inferno guitars


world renown surf guitarist Dick Dale is endorsed by Minarik guitars and so is moi! He and his son were awesome! Very cool to share the stage (or booth should I say) with such an amazing guitarist.


Groovy to meet actor Steven Segal at the Hilton while we both were attending an acoustic singer/songwriters showcase! He was quite an imposing site.