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Location: south east Michigan | Ref: the Nancy Wilson thread.
Maybe the artists are just not out there.
Look at the popular music of the last 15 years. Where are todays versions of Nancy or Mellisa or Glen Campbell or Cat Stevens or America or Kenny Loggins, or even Neal Diamond and David Cassidy for cryn' out loud??
Compared to 20 years ago, who gets up front with guitar in hand and plays and sings anymore?? What percentage of today's "popular" music is even guitar music?? Can anyone name one "popular" guitar god that has come along in the last 10 years?
Maybe we'll be able to come up with 5 names, but whatever the number, there used to be 5 times that back in the day.
Maybe we should not knock Kaman's endorsement policy. Do you really want Clapton or Stephen Stills to endorse a Ovation signature model? At this point, wouldn't that lack credibility and have the nasty taste of doing it just for the money?
btw... I know that's alot of "????" but I checked my inventory and if don't use them by the end of the year, I loose them. :) |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Originally posted by Slipkid:
Maybe the artists are just not out there.
Look at the popular music of the last 15 years. Where are todays versions of Nancy or Mellisa or Glen Campbell or Cat Stevens or America or Kenny Loggins, or even Neal Diamond and David Cassidy for cryn' out loud?? Brad, they are out there. Problem is that old farts like you and I just can't see them. We ARE our parents.
Dave |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | They are out there. Many of them... John Meyer for one quick example...
I think you just have to look harder or in different places these days. All the guitar gods we grew-up with were readily available over the radio. The way the recording and radio industries work these days is far different and new guitar focused (and other great genres) music just isn't featured... |
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Location: south east Michigan | new guitar focused music just isn't featured...
Dat's what I'm saying.
John Meyer... that's one. |
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| Dave Matthews - that's two. |
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| Oh, and disregarding that sappy, overly-sentimental "Collide" that got airplay last year, Howie Day does some good stuff. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Some great young(er) players these days:
Johnny Lang, Martin Zeller, Derek Trucks, Kasey Chambers, Chris Matthews, Joe Bonamassa, Patti Rothberg.... |
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Location: Chehalis, Washington | Someone needs to convince Santana to pick up an Adamas to try out, and have him play it with some of the dozens of newer artists he does duets with...great way to get a public showing. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | Blame the lack of upfront musicians on corporate radio. With computer play-lists, and marketing research.
A DJ pointed-out that nowadays we would have never heard of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, CSN&Y, Santana, or dozens of others. None of these musicians would have fit into any of their cliche niche's.
Skynyrd wouldn't be country, they ain't rock (they's country boys).
Jimi ain't Hip-Hop, and he's too Black for rock.
Janis, a fat drunk chick singing Bessie Smith?
Pink Floyd? Frank Zappa?
You get my point... I've heard (and so have you) street musicians that were better than anything on the airwaves/mtv.
Add On-- I'm gonna go looking for Brad Paisley on the web. |
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Location: Alberta, Canada | Brad Paisley,comes to mind.
Dave |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Kaki King |
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| Kaki King isn't really popular. I love her, but I don't know anyone else who knows about her. In that vein, I'd say Joey Eppard... but he's about as popular as Kaki. |
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Location: East Tennessee | Originally posted by colt357:
Brad Paisley,comes to mind.
Dave Vince Gill and Steve Warnier are two more GOOD country pickers. :cool: |
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Location: Alberta, Canada | GGG, I couldn't agree more. Saw Vince with Clint Black and Reba in concert. Vince is an incredible player and Clint is no slouch either. And Steve Warner (and his brother) has always been a favorite of mine.
Dave |
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Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | Keith Urban is a great player, very popular these days and much influenced by Glen Campbell.
Wayne |
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Location: Lebanon, TN | Maybe now we have the contour bowl, Vince would be a stellar endorsee. Before that, with Vince's weight swings, anything other than a SSB would have to be played tilted 45 degrees to the ceiling. :D |
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Location: CT | Let's get a coupla O's in the hands of some upstanding rap artists. I can see it now: 50 Cent waxing poetic about drinking 40's, whackin' his bitches and ho's and cappin' some po-lice while playing a slothead reissue. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I agree on Keith Urban. He performed some very nice solo work on the James Taylor PBS tribute show. Brad Paisley is also an excellent musician. I miss the balladeer types like John Denver, Jim Croce, Dan Fogelberg and James Taylor who were difficult to categorize into any specific music genre even when they were at their height of popularity. |
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Location: Tennessee | Keith Urban is a great player, very popular these days and much influenced by Glen Campbell.
No kidding ... KU is now in rehab hisself. |
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Location: Round Rock, TX | Ray Lamontagne, Amos Lee, Citizen Cope, the Decembrists would all be good candidates, in my humble, but accurate, opinion.
And, of course, one genre where the singer/songwriter is prominent and the genre itself is the fastest growing (some say the only growing) segment in the music market - Contemporary Christian music. Get guys like David Crowder, Todd Agnew, Chris Tomlin and Jeremy Camp sportin' O's and you'll be gettin' bigtime, all the time exposure |
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Location: Scotland | This guy was playing live on a pretty high-profile UK music show this week
http://anthonydavidmusic.com
He was playing a recent Custom Legend. Sounded great. Nice to see a young, hip guitarist not playing a Taylor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG-u6vs3U-M |
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Location: Chehalis, Washington | Wilblee - I heard a little rumor a while back about a possible Adamas endorsement for Steven Curtis Chapman...rumor is he was VERY impressed with another guy's 2080.
Interesting to see if something comes of that. |
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Location: USA | ok...maybe i havent sold a trillion copies but i think i carry the name and sound proudly :)
Im always endorsing the guitars no matter where i go...
come on throw me a bone here... :)
or rather an endorsemment. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | You've got my endorsement, Styll. Happy now? |
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Location: Alberta, Canada | Not sure how I overlooked Keith Urban. He is very good. He played our town this past July. Awesome show and very impressive fret work.
Dave |
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Location: south east Michigan | Originally posted by Tupperware:
Brad, they are out there. Problem is that old farts like you and I just can't see them. We ARE our parents.
Dave [/QB] Okay... I just might concide on that point. To tell the truth, I know just a couple of the artist names mentioned. I'd like to think I keep my ears open but that might not be true. But can very many of these guys/gals be concidered truly "popular" in the mass media sense?
Like I wrote about a week ago... maybe we have moved from broadcast music to narrow-cast music.
Let's turn this endorsement thing around. What if an educational program was started that brought in selected sales staff from selected stores and gave them the type of tour that we fans get each year? I think the guy on the sales floor holds a lot of power in where he directs people who, for that moment, are looking for direction. |
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Location: USA | Thanks Mark ... Truly appreciated. :) |
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Location: Tennessee | What if an educational program was started that brought in selected sales staff from selected stores and gave them the type of tour that we fans get each year? I think the guy on the sales floor holds a lot of power in where he directs people who, for that moment, are looking for direction. Somebody has to fund it. At somewhere around $1000 a person (airfare, hotel, goodies, etc.), it would take A LOT of money to have any impact at all. And the impact would have to be pretty large to recoup the expense involved. Can't see it happening. Spend that money on rebates, store promos, freebies, etc.
When I read the "The Book", I came away with the distinct impression that all of the players who sported Ovations "back in the day" did so because an Ovation rep showed up with a guitar, put it in their hands, told them to try it out, and stayed on it. How much of that is happening today?
There are plenty of artists out there ... and we really shouldn't know who they are. But we should ask our kids ... they'll tell us - some have already been mentioned in the thread, but I guarantee that my kids are not into John Mayer, or Jack Johnson, or Dave Matthews, or Santana ... these play old people music. The country performers are different and I'd love to see a resurgence of Ovation in that genre. |
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Location: Chehalis, Washington | It would be nice. Most of country's pickers and strummers now are playing Martins & Taylors, with a good strong streak of McPhersons now (like Brad Paisley), which is basically the same in contemporary Christian music. Mostly Taylors and now a lot with the McPherson product since Paul Baloche, Chris Tomlin, and Amy Grant are on the artist bandwagon there.
The hard part with a "true" country artist playing an Ovation/Adamas is it just doesn't have that "traditional" country guitar look. Let's face it, the dreadnought guitar is the country western standby. No one ever paints a picture of a cowboy sitting beside his horse with a campfire, cigarette, and a roundback...
On the other hand, Garth has his own signature Tak, so maybe country and Kaman aren't that far apart... |
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Location: ms | I think thats true about the "look" but now that Amy,Brad and many orthers are playing Mcpherson`s it might be a perfect time to get say a 12 fret slothead with a Mcpherson like soundhole into some of these guys hands. I`ve used Mcpherson`s and while they are nice in no way do i think they are worth anywhere near what they cost. |
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Location: Omaha, NE | Man, there is a TON of great stuff out there! The music today is wonderful! Jack Johnson comes to mind as a prototypical singer-songwriter. We just added "Never Know" to our play list. The guy is really something...when you dig into it, that song is really tough to sing properly, but he makes it sound so laid back its incredible. I'm still working on it! :-)
Some other groups worth checking out:
- 311 (try "Love Song" or "Don't Tread On Me")
- Cake (try "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" or "Never There")
- Sublime (try "Santeria")
- Green Day (try "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" or "Good Riddance")
- Good Charlotte (close your eyes on "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" and tell me you don't hear Keith Moon)
Its all good. |
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Location: Tennessee | I'm with you Omaha ... good bands, all. But as my kids would say, they are all so last-century. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | I think it's cute that we all take such a proprietorial interest in Ovations growth and health. You'd think this was a daily shareholder meeting.
The corporation does not appear to be in any danger of losing money or failing to pay dividends. (Hey! Is stock available on the open market? A couple shares in my folio would look cool, just for decoration.) In fact, I'm sure we do have a shareholder or two here, it would only make sense... and they don't seem to be bitching.
Ovation is quite well established in the marketplace. They aren't number one by a long shot, and probably shouldn't want to be. Then you start worrying about something other than the quality of your instrument...and everyone else is gunning for you. |
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Location: Tennessee | Stock symbol is KAMN. I bought a few shares about three years ago. The sotck has doubled in the last two years. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Thank you bobbo and, my point exactly! |
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Location: Omaha, NE | Kaman Corp is an interesting company. Here is a good news story talking about KAMC\'s financial performance. It also has revenue broken out by category. Its interesting stuff.
As an investor and business person, I'm not sure what to make of KAMN. Logic says that no company can be effective managing such a broad array of businesses. They have facilities all over the place, doing all kinds of different things. How can you expect a CEO to make good strategic decisions regarding bearing manufacturing in Germany, sub-assembly manufacturing for Boeing C-17's, and wholesale music distribution? It makes no sense.
On the other hand, somethings don't work in theory but work perfectly well in reality. Perhaps KAMN is an example.
But Ovation guitar fans should remember that music only represents around 17% of KAMN's revenue, and Ovation is an even smaller subset of that. The music division as a whole is lagging the rest of the company in terms of bottom line performance. This is fundamentally a military/aerospace stock. |
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Location: Midland, MI | Originally posted by Omaha:
But Ovation guitar fans should remember that music only represents around 17% of KAMN's revenue, and Ovation is an even smaller subset of that. The music division as a whole is lagging the rest of the company in terms of bottom line performance. This is fundamentally a military/aerospace stock. I submit that if they would only offer the "Magic Lantern" package as an option on new LX Ovations, the music division would perk up noticeably.
;) |
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Location: Tennessee | But Ovation guitar fans should remember that music only represents around 17% of KAMN's revenue, and Ovation is an even smaller subset of that. The music division as a whole is lagging the rest of the company in terms of bottom line performance. Yup, correct. But 17% turns out to be almost $200 Million in revenue, putting them at or near the top of the heap in terms of the overall market. There is a very viable business in just this segment. And while the music business is lagging behind the military/aerospace side of business ... well, there's a war going on right now. These things have a way of reversing themselves, while the consumer products business tends to be more stable and consistent in its margins. |
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Location: Omaha, NE | Originally posted by stonebobbo:
But 17% turns out to be almost $200 Million in revenue, putting them at or near the top of the heap in terms of the overall market. As long as everyone understands that there is far more to the KAMN music division than Ovation guitars. Ovation (particularly USA made Ovation) is a tiny piece of the overall package. |
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Location: Copenhagen Denmark | So how about enlarging the Ovation Guitar Package :confused:
:cool:
Vic |
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Location: Midland, MI | Originally posted by Enfant Terrible aka V-Elite:
So how about enlarging the Ovation Guitar Package :confused:
:cool:
Vic Well, the Trekker came with a carry bag and a stool, and we all know how well that package sold. :p |
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Location: Chehalis, Washington | When you walk your trekker, naturally you'll want a carry bag for the stool...
:eek: |
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Location: south east Michigan | Good one Andrew!! :D |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Not me, I already have perfect stool. |
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Endorsements.. correct me if I'm wrong