A Day at Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany

I recently returned from a two-week trip to Europe that included a visit to the Frankfurt Musikmesse—the world’s largest trade show for musical instruments, recording gear, DJ and stage-lighting equipment, etc. It’s like a NAMM show, only way bigger—there are shuttle buses to get people from one of the eight-or-so halls to the next.

Given how the main purpose of my trip was a vacation with my family, I decided to avoid an expensive hotel room (rates go up during trade shows, and there is often a multiple-night minimum stay!) and traveled to Frankfurt for the day from my hometown of Essen via high-speed ICE train. Traveling comfortably at speeds of up to 300 kilometers an hour, this train got me to the central Frankfurt railway station in just under two hours. Upon arrival, I hopped on a streetcar for the short ride to the convention center. In a brilliant bit of organization, my Musikmesse press pass was good for unlimited travel on Frankfurt’s regional buses, trains, and streetcars, so I didn’t have to worry about having the right type of Euro coins for a ticket.

Since I only had a few hours to spend at the show, I focused my efforts on the upstairs part of Hall 3—a gigantic room shared by makers of acoustic stringed instruments, music publishers, and yes, burly guys in lederhosen selling accordions. It didn’t take long to run into some familiar faces.

I arrived at the C.F. Martin & Co. booth at the same time as fingerstyle blues ace Woody Mann, who was eager to see his brand-new Custom Artist Edition signature model. Basically an 18-style M-series guitar with ultra-plain appointments, the instrument was one of the lightest steel-strings I’ve ever held, and Woody appeared to be quite pleased upon putting it through its paces for a tune or two. “This will work just fine,” he said, thanking Chris Martin and Martin’s artist relations associate Chris Thomas, who were both beaming during Woody’s impromptu performance.

Immediately next to Martin’s display, another Martin was busy showing his latest creations. I’m talking about Martin Seeliger, whose company Lakewood Guitars is one of the most successful European makers of steel-string guitars. Although the German-made instruments have at times been available in the USA, the combination of an unfavorable exchange rate and a slowing US economy has resulted in no current distribution or presence at NAMM shows. I was able to tour the Lakewood facility (housed in a former cigar factory) in nearby Giessen when I attended Musikmesse several years ago, and I have enjoyed an ongoing friendship with Seeliger ever since. Lakewood’s booth was filled with custom guitars that represented instruments conceived using the company’s new online Guitar Designer.

I continued my round of visiting German manufacturers by stopping by AER amplifiers, Albert & Mueller guitars, and Shadow Electronics. Although AER has gained a notable presence on the US market in recent years, it was interesting to see several of the company’s products that aren’t yet being imported. At Musikmesse, AER’s Udo Roesner showed me a line of electric guitar amps and some new pieces of PA equipment, both of which he hopes will eventually be available to American customers. Albert & Mueller is perhaps Germany’s premiere small-shop maker of acoustic steel-string guitars (but the company also makes nylon-strings, mandolins, and other instruments). Highlights of A&M’s display in Frankfurt included baroque mandolins and their Michael Gurian-style flattop model. Shadow Electronics is no stranger to many American guitarists. Inhabiting one of the largest booths in Hall 3.1, the company clearly wanted to make sure that visitors would get to hear its new Nanoflex-6 hexaphonic acoustic pickup, which was demonstrated through an overhead array of six loudspeakers. The demonstration was run through a new preamp that allows each string to be processed individually or in any combination. Guitarist Claus Boesser-Ferrari and bassist Ralph Gauck were on hand to ably show the unit’s potential.

The Shadow booth also turned out to be a magnet for several of the European guitarists I had hoped to connect with during my day at the Messe: in the 20 minutes or so I spent listening to Claus and Ralph, I was able to greet old friends Ulli Boegershausen, Jacques Stotzem, and Sandor Szabo, and was introduced to Korean YouTube sensation, 12-year old Sungha Jung.

Two makers whom I wanted to make sure not to miss were Switzerland’s Claudio Pagelli, and the Czech Republic’s Amistar resonator guitars. At Amistar, I once again bumped into Claus Boesser-Ferarri and Woody Mann, both of whom frequently perform with Amistar resonator instruments. Woody had recently received a new thin-body tricone model with built-in electronics called the Stager, and he was pleased to find a similar model at the booth to show me. Combining the tricone’s sweet voice with a gig-ready pickup system does indeed seem like a great idea, and a demonstration by Slovakian blues man Lubos Bena served up convincing resonator tones.

Pagelli is one of the most original luthiers on the scene by any standard. His designs have graced production guitars by Eastman, Schertler, and Burns, but the focus at this year’s Musikmesse was the celebration of his 30th year in the guitar business. Claudio and his wife Claudia (no kidding!) greeted me with a brand-new archtop which, in typical Pagelli manner, combined outlandish looks with traditional design.

My day at Musikmesse flew by at a rapid pace, but before I headed back out to Essen, I made sure to say hi to some of my West Coast friends by stopping for a chat at the Taylor, L.R. Baggs, and Breedlove booths. Before I knew it, 4:30 had rolled around, giving me barely enough time to rush back to the train station to catch my ride out of town. Were a few hours enough to take in all of the show? Definitely not, but it was fun to catch up with friends from both sides of the pond, see some unusual guitars that are rare in the States, and renew my sense that our little world of acoustic guitar is indeed an international one.