Collectors will be displaying and selling vintage masterpieces, retailers and distributors will be showing off their wares, and there will be performances from a diverse range of guitarists including Jeff Lang, Lloyd Spiegel, Davidson Brothers and King of the North plus many more.
Rob Walker, CEO of the Australian Music Association, says, “We’ll have over 50 exhibitors. Among them the major suppliers and brands, prominent local and interstate retailers, local guitar and ukulele makers, local custom amp makers and a decent collection of vintage to see and buy. The major players in the guitar industry in Australia will be represented at the show.”
There will be hundreds of different brands to see, try and buy, making it the biggest pop-up guitar store you’ll ever see. “We tried to showcase the guitar in as many forms as possible,” says Walker. “We will present the cream of Melbourne’s guitar scene. From the young guns to the seasoned pros presenting anything from ambient music and ukulele maestros, to bluegrass, and blues and roots, and jazz to straight ahead rock and high performance shredders. The clinics and workshops feature the likes of Stevic Mackay of Twelve Foot Ninja, Brett Kingman, Phil Ceberano, Jimi Hocking, Marcel Yammouni, Shannon Bourne, Lloyd Spiegel, James Ryan, Simon Hosford and many more, tapping into the guitar as a communal experience concept – the ‘Dude, you have to check out this lick,” nature of the instrument.”
We ask the revered folk and blues axeman, Jeff Lang, if he had any mentors when he was coming up. “Early on I played alongside a guy named Mick Riley in Geelong,” he says. “He was very encouraging. And then when I first started touring around the country Phil Manning was the guy who was incredibly supportive and kind of showed me the ropes, made me feel welcomed into the scene. He was and remains a great player too.”
Importantly, unlike the NAMM Show or its Australian equivalent AMAC, the Melbourne Guitar Show is for the public. You don’t need to be associated with a brand, retailer or media to attend. It’s for anyone who loves the guitar or the music it makes, so families are welcome, as are those who just want to hear a couple of days’ worth of great music from some of Australia’s best.
So what is it that makes the guitar so enduring in the face of shifting genres and changing technology? “I guess that I was drawn to music where the guitar is prominent – rock’n’roll in particular early on,” Lang says. “The electric guitar can sound really nasty and mean and that probably appealed to all the pent up frustration and confusion of being a teenager.”
Walker has his own take: “I think because it can be played in so many different styles and ways,” he says. “It can be used for any style of music as well as creating its own styles. The guitar is very much connected to the technological world, so the way it is played has progressed along with technology. The guitar has embraced technology really as it has expanded the applications and sounds you can get out of it. The acoustic guitar’s popularity in Australia is at an all-time high. It’s portable, you have percussion and melody in one instrument and it is the most accessible instrument for accompanying yourself too.”
BY PETER HODGSON
