North East Meetings

[Tony Russell Davis]

We have lift-off on meetings in the North East. The venue will be the Buck Inn, Thornton Watlass (same venue as the NESGF) and the first one is planned for Sunday afternoon April 19th. Aim to meet up about 1 - 1.30pm and we have the room until we want, let's say 4.30 - 5.00pm? The finish time is not set in stone, but we probably need to get home at some point before Monday! The pub is not usually busy on "non-jazz" Sunday afternoons and we will be in the concert room anyway, so not disturbing any lunchtime stragglers.
Here's the web address for the jazz listings http://www.buckwatlass.co.uk/jazz/ and do have a look at the rest of their website?
PS let me or Nick Bidmade know if you are coming.

[nevada150]

Hi Tony, count me in for the meeting. Is it a "chinwag" or are we going to do a bit of playing too?
Cheers,
Keith.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Hi Keith - I should have made it clear, we will bring instruments and play and talk. Nick Bidmade has some backing tracks and will pre-advise us of the ones available so we can pick some to play together. Anyone else who has tracks is welcome to bring them along (let's know the tune and key beforehand if you want the rest to join in). The aim is that during the afternoon, we can play steel guitars together and/or singly, talk about steel guitar "stuff" (tunings, techniques etc.) maybe swap tips and tricks and generally get to know each other and the instruments.
We hope this will develop into a regular thing and we can organise the time depending on any suggestions.
PS I have a couple of amps available if you can't bring your own, and if anybody wants to pack a regular guitar to do some back up, that'll be most welcome.

[Nick Bidmade]

Ok guys - watch for a PM coming your way. We have five interested parties - Tom Fletcher, Keith and Derek, Tony and myself.
I have asked for your email addresses (I have Tony's already), so I can circulate to you all a couple of MP3 files as backing tracks to practise before we meet on 19th April.

It's difficult in advance to judge people's standard of playing or experience of playing in front of other people so a couple of 'round robins' will give us all a change to show what we can do. We can also think about how frequently we might want to meet, and what else we want to get from meeting together - technical stuff, set-ups and adjusting psg, learning intros and turnarounds, comparing instruments and copedents, amps and settings, party pieces etc etc etc.
Hope all five can attend on April 19th. Please PM me with your email addresses.
Here we go!

Nick

[Nick Bidmade]

Just waiting to hear from Derek...

[Willie Gamble]

Tony, when next you meet in Thornton Wattless, would you please take some pictures or video, so that we poor individuals up here in the frozen wastelands of Scotland can see what you guys look like and put faces to the names we see on the forum.

I hope you glean as much fun from your meetings, as we do up here, ours was long time in the coming, but by God it has been well worth while.
It truly is as much fun as you can have with your trousers on

Asleep at the steezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Tony Russell Davis]

OK Willie will do; the photos will be no problem but I can only hope one of the others can record stuff.

[nevada150]

Hi Tony,
I'll bring my Camcorder with me to the meeting and try to get some reasonable footage. As you know, it's a mini DVD machine and I'll be able to send you copies of whatever I take. I may be playing 6 string rather lap steel at the meeting, takes me quite a while to learn something new on the plank!!!
Keith.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Thanks Keith, why not put the ank in the car anyway? (Please?)

[nevada150]

Hi Tony,
Yes I'll bring the plank with me, but I'm struggling a bit with the tunes we're going to "attempt". You may all need earplugs!
Keith.