Since I haven't gotten around to writing this until several
months afterwards, my sense of chronology is somewhat screwed
up. Even more so than normal... so I'm not going to give a
day-by-day description of things, just hit the hilights as I
remember them.
I wake up early, and feeling rested. I head into Pomeroy and
McDonalds. My last taste of junk food before three days of
healthy cuisine.Then, off to the ranch.
The first time I came here I was hit by a sense of deja-vu,
caused by 'touring' the ranch online so many times. Now, on my
fourth trip here, it's like coming home. Got my cabin
assignment, staked out my bunk, and searched out some coffee.
While I'm pretty much cuilinarily-impaired when it comes to
food, I can say that the coffee here is out-of-this world. It's
from Equal Exchange, their 'Body and Soul' blend, and it puts
anything Starbucks can come up with to shame. My roommate this
weekend was Jeff Bjorgo, another repeat offender, who was taking
Emily's guitar class. He's from Minnesota and it showed when, on
a morning which held the first frost of the year, he walked
shirtless from cabin to the showers while the rest of us huddled
around the coffee pot for warmth!
Vanessa let on that though there wasn't a concert at the FP
Station that Saturday, on Sunday PBS's Mountain Stage was in
Athens doing a show at the college with Leo Kottke headlining
and that Jorma would be opening for him. She had gone out and
bought tickets for all campers and their guests, so we'd have
the first FPR Road Trip! Later, when she found out that some of
the students had brought guests withot telling her, she drove up
to Athens and purchased additional tickets so no one would be
left out. I just can't adequately describe the effort and care
that Vanessa, Ginger,John, and all the others put into making
this place what it is, a little piece of heaven on earth!
I always love getting here early on Friday, feeling the
emptiness slowly fill and come alive with people. This feeling
is getting enhanced by the fact that I now know many of the
people that arrive. Don Hindenach pulls in and greets me. He was
on Geoff's class with me in May and did a beautiful song by Josh
Woodard called 'Spirit World' in the student performance. He
said he probably outdid me this time, bringing 6 guitars and 2
amps. I laughed and said I still had him beat, as I brought 7
and 3! As I was setting up my gear in the workshop Mike
Falzarano came in and began arranging the class. He said hello
and said I looked familiar, as he was teaching a class when I
took my first class with Jorma, back in May of 2003. Mike
Sharp, from GE's class also came in. Mike is from Long Island,
but originally from England. Or, at least, he's got one hell of
an English accent; I never really asked him where he's from.
He's got a real good feel for the blues and a nice touch on his
Strat. Mark Horowitz also came in. He's a bass player who's
taken a number of Jack's classes. I first met him back in June.
He was one of two bass players this weekend in Jamstock and I
was looking forwards to playing with him, as he really captures
Jack's style in his playing. The other bass player was Kathy,
who is Hot Tuna's road manager. I knew of her from Ellie Kohler,
who had taken a Box Set class with her last year. They had been
working on a song together, but never got to perform it in the
student performance. Ellie finally did it in the last Box Set
class in June, and I had the mp3's of those performances with my
on the laptop so Kathy got to hear how Ellie finally did it, as
well has her rendition of the 'Irish Ballad'.
Orientation, then lunch, then, time to get ready for the first
workshop. Mike had set up a vocal mike through the PA in the
workshop. This worked well, as he supplied most of the vocals
during the workshops, but really came in handy reigning in 11
electric guitars! As this was the first time Mike was trying out
the Jamstock idea, he didn't have any one 'formula' in mind for
the class, but started with a concept and watched where it went.
I should add that Mike really took this seriously. He always
answered our questions, no matter what they were, and was always
open to suggestions and definitely open to pushing our musical
bounds. The basic format was that he would put the chord
structure of a song up on the whiteboard, we would all play
until it sounded reasonably coherent, then we'd start to take
turns soloing. For someone like myself, who doesn't get to play
with other musicions, this was what I needed. I found (when in
GE's class) that I get this 'deer in the headlights' feeling
whenever someone nods at me break out of the rhythm section and
do a solo. I still had it at the end of the weekend but to a
lesser degree, and listening to the recordings of the classes I
think I gained a bit more confidence and can do better, the next
opportunity.
In-between classes smaller jams tended to break out. I remember
one time I started strumming Paul Kanter's opening riffs to
"Wooden Ships". Another student began soloing over it and laid
down an absolutely beautiful track. Unfortunately that was one
of the sessions where I screwed up and recorded an hour or so of
silence on the multi-track! I wound up only getting about half
of our sessions down, for reasons I can only describe as
technical incompetence on my part. At least I did get the
student performances, my biggest fear is flubbing that as those
who know me know that they'll get a recording of it out of the
deal.
We also got some spill-over from the other classes. Jeff came in
Saturday night during some jams and laid down some vocals and
slide guitar. During the next day he apologised during the
Student Performance for frying his voice the night before, but
he sounded good to me.
I met Idj, who runs a Hot Tuna website and has THE best Hot Tuna
tab on the web. He's from France, and I gathered that this was
his first trip to the US, just for a session at the Ranch.
There's a link to his site on the previous page, as well as on
my Music page.
During an informal session on Saturday, Mike Sharp, Kathy, and
Sean were jamming to an Albert King song, Cross Cut Saw, and I
sat down to watch and listen to what they were doing. Mike
invited me to join the jam, which I did, and at the end we
decided to do that as an ensemble during the Student
Performance. Somewhere along the line I was practicing my
version of 'I See The Light' and had a few listeners who offered
some compliments. I decided to give that a try, solo, as well.
Later I was talking with Kathy and invited her to accompany me
on bass. She was interested but not familiar with the song. I
gave a brief run-thru of it and realized that my version was a
bit different from any of Jorma's. I had arrived at it by
listening to about 5 or 6 versions of it from Jorma and
basically picked out the bits that I could figure out and play
and pasted them together into a 'medley' of the song. Kathy was
in demand from several others for her services and Mark was
working up a number with the Cantrells, so I wound up doing it
solo.
Unfortunately, it being autumn and somewhat dry and windy, there
were no campfires this weekend. We made up for it by jamming
indoors well into the night.
On Sunday afternoon, of course, was the Student Performance
Workshop. Jorma couldn't make this one, as he had to get into
Athens to do the soundcheck for the Moutain Stage show, so Mike
was the 'Master of Ceremonies' for the day. Our class would be
going on last, as we figured everyone would be deaf by the time
we got through. I'm always left in awe of some of the students'
numbers. My personal favorite from this one is Jeff's rendition
of his original song 'No Surprise', an absolutely beautiful 'ode
to long-distance love'. The ranch now has a CD out (available
through the FPR Store) called "I Found Myself A Star" which
consists of original songs by FPR alumni. Jeff's recording of
this song was chosen to be on this CD. Mark wanted to do a
Jefferson Airplane song with the Cantrell's backing him, but
wound up doing "California Dreamin'", with himself playing
acoustic guitar and singing. I have to admire him, as he's been
playing acoustic guitar for less than a year and managed to put
this together. When we ran out of acoustic players, I was all
set to go up solo but Mike got up before I could and motioned
for us to join him. We set up set out. While I wasn't that
thrilled with the settings I had on my amp, and started out my
solo in the wrong key, I think I recovered fairly quickly and
finished it off well. Mike, of course, played and sang superbly,
Sean did a nice solo, Kathy laid down the foundation, and I
think it came off well.
Mike F. then asked if there were any more takers and, since I
was already up there, said "Yes". This always seems to surprise
my instructors, hopefully because I kind of lay back in class
and not because of their perception of my talent, or lack
thereof... Anyway, I tweaked the amp a little but, as I started
playing, I realized that it was still not what I wanted to hear.
Oh, well, "don't break the groove" and all that so I just plowed
on through. I really should have done it on acoustic but, my
Ibanez acoustic-electric just doesn't sound that great unless
it's plugged in and I was exhausted from carrying my electric
stuff, plus setting up the multi-track to record it all and
didn't feel like making another trip between the workshop and
the FP Station to bring my acoustic amp and guitar. So, I went
electric which, at least, helped drown out my voice.
After the show there was an early dinner followed by everyone
heading into Athens for the Mountain Stage show. As I was
heading towards my car I passed Don and he invited me to
navigate for him in his car. He was familiar with the area (his
daughter lives in Athens) but wasn't exactly sure where we were
going and wanted me to read the instructions that Ginger had
printed. This was good as the instructions were only for how to
get there, not how to get back. This wouldn't be a problem
except that a lot of the "how to get there" part was on one-way
streets, so you couldn't just reverse them to get back.
We got there all right and found a parking garage. We waited a
few minutes while a car ahead of us tried to get the machine to
accept his bill for the parking fee when I noticed a sign
indicating that parking was free on Sundays. Don beeped at him
and either he heard us regarding the free parking or he just
gave up and drove in. We parked, made our way to the hall, and
found our seats. What a great show! There were a number of
opening acts, none of which I can remember their names, then
Jorma, then Leo. Barry Mitterhoff came in to join Jorma for his
set. It was the first time I had actually seen Leo in concert.
It's amazing what he can do with a 12-string. After the show,
back to the ranch and, surprise surprise, more jamming.
Monday was one last session, then packing, then the good-byes.
It's taken this long (6 months!) to really figure this weekend
out. As I play alone, I look for opportunities to play with
others as part of a group. Yet I'm hesitant to do so as I lack
the experience and most people near my age have been playing
since they were teenagers, vs. my 3 years of playing. This class
gave me a bit more confidence, both in what I can do as well as
in what others have problems with doing. I still have to get
over my 'deer in the headlights' feelings, but I think I've
definitely made some improvements in that area. Michael
definitely takes the class concept seriously and has some good
ideas for next year's Jamstock. One which I really like will be
to have us break up into smaller groups, giving us more time to
really explore a song.
Leaving was harder than usual because the status of my job was
up in the air and I couldn't commit at that time to any classes
in 2005. But now, six months later, things are a little firmer
and I've signed up for three classes.... can't wait to be back!
