Ampeg had one of the coolest items at the show, their custom one-of-a-kind pinball machine.

Really Really BIG Stuff
Here are a couple really large instruments. On the left is on huge (60") Japanese Taiko drum made from a large tree trunk. It's really quite a bit bigger than it appears in the photo, the guy in the picture is about six foot five.

I was able to rope in this passerby to give this sax some scale, I didn't even have to ask him to ham it up for the picture.

Grant Green has told me that this is a contrabass sax made by ORSI (Milan, Italy) for LA Sax.

Here are a couple of other related sites:
www.contrabass.com/italy/italy.html
www.contrabass.com/pages/compendium.html

This is a cool mutant sort of world drum kit. This was in the Meinl booth as an attention getter. They do sell a Djembe' that big though, the guy in the booth referred to it as the "Mother Djembe'". When I played one I didn't hear the low boom, you have to get about six feet away before you can hear the huge low frequency wave that develops from this instrument.

Meinl USA
3300 Ambrose Ave. Nashville, TN 37207
www.meinlpercussion.com

This is the sumptuous lunch that I had the pleasure of purchasing for the paltry fee of $8.88. If you can't tell, it's a tuna sandwich, two tablespoons of potato salad, an eighth of a tomato and a small rasberry ice tea. I hope you appreciate the lengths that I go to in order to bring you these pages!