Marching to Same Drum : Hundreds of Small-Business Owners Pitch Musical Wares at Convention in Anaheim

ANAHEIM — Don Morris carries fond memories of his days as a young guitarist in a New Jersey garage band that played in the shadow of a rival group led by a guy named Bruce Springsteen.

The Boss graduated to bigger venues, and Morris, now 47 and living in Brea, long ago traded his guitar for a steady day job. But the allure of the music business is strong, and Morris has returned to his garage to build amplifiers for sale to upscale guitarists.

“I’m more apt to lose my stomach lining working for myself,” said Morris, who has no plans to quit his day job as a technician with Yamaha Corp. “But this is something I’ve always wanted to do, to put something together and strike out on my own.”

Morris isn’t the only musician-turned-businessman trying to carve out a profitable niche in the $5-billion music industry.

Hundreds of small-business owners--many of them former garage-band veterans--are busily pitching their musical wares this weekend at the massive National Assn. of Music Merchants convention at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The show, which regularly draws 60,000 attendees, is best known for the lavish displays sponsored by industry leaders like Fender, Gibson and Yamaha, which hire high-priced talent to promote their gear.

Judging by the crowded scene in Hall E at Anaheim’s soon-to-be-remodeled Convention Center, there’s still plenty of room for mom-and-pop ventures.

“Hall E is what many in the industry call the ‘incubator hall,’ ” said NAMM Marketing Director Bob Morrison. “It’s filled with 10-foot-by-10-foot booths set up by guys, some of who are coming to their first meeting.”

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Kim Andrews of Los Angeles is using the show to pitch an upscale music stand. Pasadena musician and businessman Lee Oskar is pressing music store owners to stock more of his harmonicas. And Dan Ezso, a longtime musician from Los Angeles, is selling a compound that guitarists use to make their picks less slippery.

Like Morris, who’s leasing exhibit space from a neighbor in the music industry, many of the Hall E denizens are holding tight to their day jobs. To cut costs, they enlist friends and relatives with production and management skills. And more than one has commandeered a neighbor’s garage when his own garage began to overflow.

“We survive on a shoestring at times,” said Paul Rivera, founder of a small, Sylmar-based company that builds amplifiers. “But we believe in what we do. It’s taken many years, but we’ve now got name recognition, we’re exporting to 32 countries and we’ve got a core group of customers out there.”

The music industry has a rich heritage of small companies that arrive at the right time with the right product.

“What people forget is that all of the big companies, like Gibson and Fender, started out as little companies,” said Trevor Wilkinson, founder of Wilkinson USA, a small, Anaheim-based guitar equipment supplier.

But few newcomers can match wits or pocketbooks with the industry’s dominant companies, so most try to set up shop in niches where the survival rate is likely to be higher.

Many of those niches are made possible by the digital technology revolution that’s reshaping the music industry. According to NAMM, fully half of the product categories now in existence weren’t around just 25 years ago.

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Advertising and marketing are as important as the original idea, small-business owners say.

Ezso originally called his resin-based product “Pic-Grip,” a name that failed to stick with guitarists. After a friend suggested the name “Gorilla Snot,” sales took off. Ezso said he plans to find equally catchy names for several other products now in the development pipeline.

John Gracie, a retired Rockwell Corp. engineer from West Hills, learned the importance of advertising and marketing when he began wholesaling a proprietary instrument stand to music shops.

“I never held marketing types in high regard when I was working,” Gracie said. “But now I realize marketing is the name of the game. If customers don’t see it, they can’t buy it.”

Young companies can’t afford to advertise, but they can benefit from word-of-mouth endorsements from satisfied customers.

Wilkinson’s small company struggled for years to build a name among serious guitarists who wanted quality gear to upgrade their instruments. Eventually, customers began asking for Wilkinson equipment by name.

Wilkinson’s company, which has 10 employees, now sells gear to respected names like Fender and Yamaha.

Morris, who has yet to sell his 100th amplifier, said his sales are picking up following a string of favorable reviews in the music trade press. But he’s wary of ramping up production too quickly and risking manufacturing glitches that could destroy the reputation of his ElectroPlex Amplifiers line.

Many small-business owners--like guitarists who are invited to join bigger established bands--dream of the day that their company is acquired by a larger, more-established company.

“That’s my plan,” said Ezso, who co-founded Gorilla Snot four years ago with a college friend. “But for now, it’s fun, more fun than playing golf.”

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Rivera, who sold his small company to Northridge-based JBL Inc. in 1991, that his dream of selling out to a bigger company, turned into a nightmare.

“JBL owned us for three years,” Rivera said. “But just after they bought us, the regime that made the offer was gone and a new regime came in. All of a sudden nobody knew who we were or why we were there.”

Rivera, 44, subsequently bought the company back and now operates the $3-million concern as a family business. His wife, Grace, handles financial affairs, daughter Karla handles media relations and a son, Paul Jr., handles marketing.

“When I was young it was much easier,” Rivera said. “Now the field is crowded, the dealers have their hands full of different lines. And the larger companies just have so much more horsepower.”