For Flaxwood, winter NAMM 2008 was a great success this year and, more importantly... t'was a blast!

Participating at a fair halfway around the globe for a small company like ours is always a huge investment of time, money, energy not to mention nerves, and it really stretches our human resources to their limits. Just consider the time difference; I've got calls regarding the show arrangements at 16:00 LA time... which is 02:00 Helsinki time. Well, at the end of all the stress, hassle, bureaucracy and airport cavity searches, to then finally come to the fair and see our booth full of enthusiastic people pretty much all the time, meet great musicians, receive accolades and (last but certainly not least...) a good stream of real orders, well... our cup overflows.

L.A. session ace Carl Verheyen jamming at the FW booth

It evidently pays to be persistent...

I have been told many times that it is important to keep coming back to NAMM, that it starts paying itself back big time only after several appearances. Well, it seems to be true for us already on the second year. We had a good introductory fair in 2007 which broke the ice and helped prepare the ground for this year's success, a lot of people visiting now being familiar faces from the year before.

And evidently a lot has happened during one year...

The idea of a great but radically different guitar has had time to "settle in" somewhat; new ideas sometimes need time (and as a keyboard player, let me tell you, you guitarists can be a darn stubbornly conservative bunch sometimes, a fact that fortunately most of you are willing to concede with a sheepish grin...).

Also, Gordon did a good job over the year to drum up quality interest and support, garnering us a great review in 20th Century Guitar magazine, and bringing us to the attention of some really great guitar stores and musicians across the nation.

The recent and ongoing debate in the media, and at a political level in Congress, regarding the use of endangered exotic woods to be used in guitars, has also focused attention on the question, "Well, what are the alternatives?" much to our advantage. I hope and believe we have proved that not only is there an alternative EC friendly material out there, but that this material can hold its own even when compared to the finest tonewoods growing in countries where it does not look foolish to walk around in a Panama hat. The flaxwood material we have developed over five long years is a veritable ace tonewood in its own right, and the guitars we produce are testament to this fact.

Don Preston (of Leon Russell Band, Joe Cocker Band, Canned Heat and JJ Cale fame)

The flaxwood material, far and wide?

Although our main focus is producing branded Flaxwood guitars using our patented technology, we may consider offering this technology to other quality manufacturers in the future, and interest in our methodology was evident in the number of stand visitors from the Big Name producers, who sent droves of their design and production people down to our stand to see "what those boys from Finland have come up with". We welcomed our dear competitors to our booth, and told them about what we're doing. I believe their interest has been clearly aroused; so there is an alternative that is not only good, but great.

Will Ray of the Hellecasters

FÄNX!

Thanks are in order after such a great show:

To Veijo, our master luthier who is the single most important person in this whole story, and who was kept too busy building guitars to make it to NAMM this year; we all hope that we will find a way to bring him along to Disneyland next year.

To the NAMM stand crew - Gordon (our main man in the USA, experience, charm, connections), Harry (a truly great player who we are delighted will be our FW demo man on the West Coast), Richard (premier FW shredder and flax evangelist from Swedish Lapland), and Michael Johnstone for hanging with us and regaling us with (often absurd) stories about our musical heroes.

Flaxwood USA's Gordon Roberts makes it official

To webmastah Jussi back in Finland (sorely missed at the booth this year), the back-office team Soile and Kaija; to Klaus, Bifi and Lotten at People's advertising agency, who have given us a brand and visual image with which we can step confidently on to the world guitar arena; to brother Peter and Dr Stanley for support and advice.

And let us not forget our owners, who have not faltered in their support over several lean years while the product was under development.

And the last but BIGGEST thanks go to YOU, Flax player, Flax fan, Flax owner, Flax retailer, Flax salesman, Flax enthusiast, Flax evangelist, and to all guitarists with a good set of ears, an independent spirit, and the courage to speak their minds with their peers. Go all ye forth and multiply a whole lot. Without you.....

Kim Lerche

Minister of sales, entertainment and propaganda
Kingdom of Flaxwood

Chris Lawrence of the Mike Ness Band

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