I recently attended the NAMM trade show in Anaheim, CA, where I was showing off the Kava Laptop Studio Bag as well as my first prototype sample of the Big Namba Studio Backpack. One of the questions that keep being asked was, “where did you come up with the name Namba Gear for your company? Once I told the story, it seemed unanimous that I should share it with my readers. So here is the story, with the warning that if you are easily offended by the word “penis” that you shouldn’t read any further.

A Short History of the Differences Between The Big Namba and The Small Namba

I came across a little known piece of “new” information when I stopped at London’s Heathrow airport at the beginning of 2007 on a flight from Berlin to Los Angeles. Well, at any rate, I didn’t know it and none of my friends knew about it, so it was new info to us.

I love the bookstore at Heathrow as they always seem to have a great selection of travel essays. And this is where I stumbled upon the writings of Mr. J. Maarten Troost and his travel book, Getting Stoned With The Savages. It seems that Mr. Troost gave up his Washington D.C. lifestyle, World Bank employment, and dress shoes to move to the South Pacific and become a “flip-flop man.” This move took him to the 83 islands of Vanuatu and his humorous adventures of discovery that he had relocated to an island on the Pacific Ring of Fire, including the world’s most active volcano, daily earthquakes, largest number of fatal shark attacks, alternating seasons of cyclones and mosquito attacks, and the last known cannibals. Needless to say, it wasn’t quite the idyllic island life that he had imagined.

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In conjunction with Broadjam, Namba Gear has proudly enhanced the Broadjam Song of the Month contest prize package with a Kava Laptop Studio Bag. Namba Gear will be giving away a free Kava bag with a retail value of $99.95 to each month’s winner of Broadjam’s Song of the Month for 2008.

Designed by musicians and DJs, Kava Laptop Studio Bag is made to comfortably carry all of your gear. It holds a 17″ laptop, 12″ LPs and audio devices, has a cable management system and a secret stash pocket. To learn more about how you can win a free Namba Gear Kava bag by entering the Song of the Month contest, go to www.broadjam.com, click DELIVER MUSIC and look for the CONTEST DESTINATION.

ABOUT BROADJAM

Broadjam Inc. provides easy-to-use and affordable web services to help independent musicians promote themselves and get their music heard. Offering artist services such as turnkey website hosting and desktop promotional tools, broadjam.com has become one of the world’s largest music communities on the Web. The dynamic community serves independent artists and fans from all 50 U.S. states and over 110 countries around the world, and hosts a massive online database of searchable independent music. Providing musicians a place to call home, broadjam.com includes a song review system, artist web pages, the ability for artists to sell their music downloads, over 175 Top 10 Charts, opportunities to place music, classified ads, song contests, the ability to transmit music (give private access to download songs), and more. The company’s premium membership with web hosting allows members to build a professional music website without graphic design or web building experience.

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Guest Blog by GuitarJunky 

You’ve heard it before I’m sure.  YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR! (or not).  No middle ground.  It’s either or.  It’s true no matter what.  Cars, restaurants, clothing, yada, yada, yada!  Why is it though we put so little value on music and music education that we continue to buy very poor quality guitars?  For that matter, trumpets, flutes, saxophones too!

I was asked recently by a friend if buying a “guitar gift pack” from one of the big box retailers would be “good enough” for his child to learn on.  You’ve seen them.  Cheaply made copies of famous guitars, that usually won’t stay in tune, cheap electronics, and packed with a cord, strap, 3 picks, crappy little amp and a song book.  When I replied that I thought it would be perfectly good enough to use for building a campfire, he was somewhat pissed and defensive. “We all can’t be guitar snobs like you!”  Hm…apparently, he thought I was going to support his implied opinion of his child’s music ability.  You know what I mean…”I don’t want to spend a lot, in case he won’t stick with it,”  or  ”It’s just a passing phase,” or whatever excuse they can come up with to justify their unwillingness to actually go to a real music store and get a bit of education first and not go so cheap. (Which I suggested he should do)

 Is The Cheap Guitar A Recipe for Failure?

In an earlier post, I asked the question, “Where are the new guitar players coming from?”  In that post I was feeling the world may be moving away from the guitar in lieu of things like “virtual guitar.”  I guess I’m not surprised after all at the decline.  This “cheap guitar is good enough” idea is a recipe for failure.  I’m not suggesting that every beginner needs a brand new Taylor or PRS but I’m totally convinced that you should buy the absolute best quality you can afford.  What better way to insure interest?  If it sounds good, plays good…you get the idea. There is an abundance of good quality student level guitars out there to choose from.  Maybe local retailers need to figure a way to get that message out and not concentrate so much on price leader ads.

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If you are a guy, than perhaps your father or your older brother gave you this sage advice, “Always carry protection.” Of course the meaning may have been focused on limiting your chances of untimely procreation instead of discovering the best method of protecting your laptop computer and recording gear stored inside. However, the idea that you need to seriously consider how you protect your “valuables” is the consistent message, isn’t it?

What Is The Cost Of Protection Worth?

Indeed, for the musician, producer or DJ that may be carrying a laptop computer, microphone, headphones, audio interface, cables, external hard drive, and even a MIDI controller or keyboard, it is not just about the replacement cost of all the gear if a strap should break and your stuff crashes to the sidewalk (and that cost could be considerable), but about your time, energy and passion in putting together the music and performances residing inside. What is that really worth? Yes, you should have backed up, but often there just isn’t enough time and we go on our way with the best of intentions… and that we will back up later… tomorrow…

Keeping that reality in mind, we need to really examine the bags or backpacks that we use to transport our “musical life” and irreplaceable performances. How thick is the padding? Is the bottom of the bag even padded at all? Are there appropriate spaces to store all of your gear? How does the bag fit on your body and is the bag ergonomically designed for comfort?

The beauty of the advance in technology is that now the professional recording studio has become extremely portable. We really can take our portable recording studio anywhere and turn out quality recordings, but the danger in this flexibility is in the transport of your equipment.

Meet My Kitchen Table Drummer

I am a musician and songwriter, as are most of the people involved with Namba Gear, and I have been recently recording on my own music project. In order to keep costly studio time to a minimum, my percussionist and great friend, Koorosh Daryaie, has been coming over to my house with his laptop for us to do drum programming.

KD has both Pro Tools and Ableton Live on his laptop and we will use either Digidesign’s Strike Drums or Native Instruments’ Battery to do my drum parts. It takes us about 3-5 hours per song to program drums, which KD drops into a Pro Tools session that can be transferred directly into the recording studio’s larger Pro Tools HD system. KD shows up at my house with his backpack (currently from another manufacturer), which holds the laptop audio interface, MIDI controller, and cables and I hook him up to a pair of my studio monitors on the kitchen table and we go to work. Unfortunately, I think KD has gone through three of these backpacks in as many years.

If You Are A Wal-Mart Shopper, Namba Gear Bags Are Probably Not For You

Let’s face it, bags and backpacks that will hold your laptop computer are “a dime a dozen” and it is easy enough to do down to Wal-Mart or Target or even Guitar Center and buy a $39 backpack or messenger bag. So if you are that “Wal-Mart shopper” Namba Gear bags are probably not for you. That is not what we are about.

Namba Gear bags are designed by working musicians, tested by working musicians, with the musician’s life and lifestyle as well as the transport of his most precious work in mind. Namba studio laptop bags are superior quality, heavy-duty products and are about giving you the protection and piece of mind that you, your laptop computer, and your music or recording gear deserve. Isn’t your music worth protecting by getting the best studio laptop computer bag or backpack on the planet? (OK, that last line was a bit of shameless, self-promotion as a result of passionate typing, but damn-it, it really is true.)

By the way, Koorosh is one of our (now very happy) Namba Gear testers.

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