Coheed and Cambria bassist Michael Todd––fresh out of the slammer––visited with Fender’s bass guitars and amps manager Jay Piccirillo mid-morning on Saturday at the 2010 Fender Showcase in Anaheim, Calif. “Yeah, I spent the holidays in jail,” said Todd. “We had what they call cake. We get skittles, graham crackers and chocolate bars from the commissary and put it all together in like a bread bag and fill it with hot water. They mash it all together and put it in the oven, which is under their pillow, and then rip the bag off of it and cover it with chocolate pudding. It’s so f*ing disgusting.” Fortunately, his jail stint is behind him and the Woodstock raised rocker is back to making music. The band expects to release their fifth studio album, Year of the Black Rainbow, in April. Dick Dale and his son Jimmy packed the Fender acoustic guitar booth during an impromptu jam session with their new signature models. After showing off his musical chops, Dale had some advise for a young man in the audience. “Remember, your body follows your mind so don’t screw up your mind with shit, alright?” said Dale. “Keep your body clean and then you’ll last. And don’t follow somebody else’s path just because you want to be friends with them. Walk your own path, and they’ll follow you. And stay clean. Otherwise, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
Bassist Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance checked out several bass guitars while taking a turn around the showroom floor. My Chemical Romance is set to co-headline the Soundwave Festival in Australia with Faith No More and Jane’s Addiction. The band also anticipates releasing their fourth studio album this spring. Richie Kotzen made a surprise visit by Fender, agreeing to even hop onstage to play a quick tune. Kotzen recently released Peace Signs in December. “I just came off the road, 10 weeks of touring in Europe to promote the new album. I went to 14 or 15 countries and it was really cool,” said Kotzen. “I’ve been doing a lot of touring overseas in Europe and right now I am planning on putting some together for North America. I have not done a proper North American tour in a very, very long time so that’s kind of in the works and I’m looking forward to that.”
Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan browsed the Fender Custom Shop. Later in the day, the Custom Shop also hosted Chris Pontius of Jackass. Fender also spotted another actor out on the floor in Forrest Gump/CSI actor Gary Sinise chatting with Fender bassist Tony Franklin. (Clip is available on Fender Vision!) John 5, Yngwie Malmsteen, Anthrax’s Frank Bello and Scott Ian, Motley Crue’s Mick Mars and Jim Campilongo were some of the artists holding court at the autograph booth. In the corridor, Mars ran into Phil Collen, who had just finished playing a song onstage with his PC1 and the all-new G-DEC 3. The two longtime rockers hadn’t seen each other in about 20 years. A quick clip of their reunion is up on the Fender Facebook page. As for the G-DEC 3, the Def Leppard guitarist had this to say: “You can be a bedroom guitarist all you like and it sounds great but when you get onto the stage, that’s the real test really,” said Collen. “I just went up there and played with a band live and it worked and sounded great.”
Malmsteen spent a few minutes chatting with Fender Vision about his new compilation album out called High Impact. “It’s a compilation of really intense guitar playing, plus it’s got some bonus tracks–– one of them is Michael Jackson’s song actually, pretty cool. It was just for fun basically. It’s definitely not made to be anything like the original. The original is the original. Keep that as that is. This is tuned down, a little bit more heavy metal.” Punk rockers Rancid drew an enormous crowd at the Gretsch booth late in the afternoon, so large in fact that the Fire Marshal nearly shut down the set, which included ska-punk number “Time Bomb.” “This show was wild,” said Tim Armstrong. “Definitely a fun one.” Rancid’s guitarist and lead singer now has two signature models out on the market. Fender released the Tim Armstrong Hellcat Acoustic last year, while Gretsch just rolled out the Tim Armstrong Signature Model.
