Long Aston Steel Guitar Festival

[Digby Hardy]

Just a note of thanks to everyone who attended and supported SESGF2011, we had over 50 people and 14 players. I don't think we could have coped with more, this first time. As Roy has said there was wide range of playing styles and standards and this is exactly what we wanted - it's getting people to play their guitars for their friends that really matters. Of course players like Dave Hartley and Kev Brown were inspirational and additionally everyone else also got their own buzz from making the effort to play.

We are in Wales until Tuesday evening - more later once I get home.

Thanks once again to everyone for an enjoyable and happy weekend.

Digby

[David Hartley]

Many many thanks to Digby and Chantal for organising this, the first SESGF, and will undoubtedly be an ever growing annual event. I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend there in Long Ashton. The venue is perfect, the players entertained us all playing their best on the stage, under the stage lighting and through a fantastic Bose PA. I would recommend anyone unable to attend this years show try their best to get there in 2012. the dates have been already set for 5th and 6th May 2012. I have already written it in the diary and reserved my room at the inn too.

For those who showed interest in the Telonics equipment I was playing through, and the steel mixer please remember Mark Dunn is your UK contact.

[email protected]

[Shaun]

Thanks Digby and Chantel for putting a Great Festival, it was so good to meet some old freinds and make plenty of new ones. Sorry my performances were not good but I'm determined to do better next time. I second Uncle Roys comments re David and Kevin. Always good to watch the masters at work.

[Digby Hardy]

SESGF 2011 has been a great hit with all who attended and we now look forward to SESGF 2012. Before that however Ron and I would like to thank all those who supported the festival and contributed to its success.

Sunday afternoon group photograph with thanks to Neil Cameron:


Below is the list of those who actually made it to the Long Ashton, unfortunately a few were unable to attend due to unforseen circumstances and several could not stay for the Sunday.
1 Digby Hardy
2 Chantal Hardy
3 Shaun Winning
4 Ron Kew
5 Angela Kew
6 Stephanie Williams
7 Kate Williams
8 Sam Duncan
9 Aaron Williams
10 David Hartley
11 Fran Allum
12 Pauk Higgens
13 Neil Cameron
14 David Barlow
15 Reg Sell
16 Jean Sell
17 Gordon Sell
18 John Smith
19 Roy Heap
20 Sylvia Heap
21 Dexter D'Silva
22 Tim Stone
23 Catherine Stone
24 Dave Barnsfield
25 Priscilla Barnsfield
26 Yi Vei Kok
27 Terry Smith
28 Pat Smith
29 Peter Lindsley
30 Mike Eacock
31 Christine Crawford
32 Robert Shifer
33 Kev Brown
34 John Green
35 Steve Fletcher
36 Henry Nield
37 Mick Beniams
38 Nick Hawkins
39 Michael Breach
40 Gus York
41 Ray Hill
42 Wendy Hiill
43 Dave Remnant
44 Alan Kelly

[Digby Hardy]

I've placed and album of souvenir photos on the SESGF website, all photos by Neil Cameron. If any of you have photos you would like to add please send them to me and I'll try and add them in.

[southdowner]

Belatedly an introduction from me to those steelers and supporters at Long Ashton to whom I did not introduce myself during the event, I'm Neil Cameron who took the photos and recordings all day, both days.

I am a lap steel learner from East Sussex, attending my first steel event and really enjoyed the music you made and meeting several of you, I hope to be able to play at next year's event. I was off to a bad start on the Saturday by arriving later than I intended to set up, having had to buy a flashgun in Bristol that morning, 3 of the 4 major pieces of equipment I was using were new to me, other than pre-checks and formatting, on top of that I wasn't feeling too well either! I'm a film and cine man rather than digital, so that was another issue to resolve, the manual I needed to "digitise" my approach to photography did not arrive until after I had left for Long Ashton! On Sunday I stayed behind the camera for the closing circle and song on Sunday, intending to pan the video round to Digby on stage - a natural move with cine film but of course cannot do it with this video unit, move the camera and the picture breaks up completely.

The videos were taken on a Zoom Q3HD (link for your reference) http://www.samsontech.com/products/prod ... &brandID=4
In support was earlier model Zoom Q3 (link for your reference) http://www.samsontech.com/products/prod ... &brandID=4
This was set to record sound only but was available to switch to video for the Q3HD in event of failure.

Digital DSLR Pentax K100 Super and Nikon Coolpix S50 compact for the still pictures, some of the results are now to be seen on the event website. As the Pentax was set to auto, for reasons as stated,the shutter speeds were relatively low, hence the lack of crisp definition, next time there will be less duplication in pictures taken, and less powerful, intrusive flashgun activity and hopefully better results, apologies to players with regard to the use of flash this year. Faster data-sharing to enable you to view results sooner.

All the edited stills are with Digby, videos en-route Digby on usb pin drives. Sound files not touched yet. Only Digby will publish (a selection of) this material to websites, I hope in time to make individual player's own performance video and/or sound files available to those individuals interested, and any still pictures too. Cannot yet write a DVD etc., so this data may have to come to you and be held in the form of usb pin drive. File protocols have been, and remain a time-consuming problem with regard to the video files, the manual with the Zoom unit, and accompanying software, could be better shall I say!

[Uncle Roy]

Well done Neil, you worked hard for the two days covering I think everything that went on in the hall. Looking forward to your results.
I wasn't aware that you were one of us mad steelplayers. Welcome to the den.

[southdowner]

Thanks Roy / Uncle Roy!

There's still photos for all to see posted on the show website, video will follow during next few days hopefully.

http://www.chanos-isgf.org/SESGF/

Neil