Well, I'm driven to say something about the forum gathering weekend. All day I've been mentally reviewing each event, making mental notes for paragraphs on each. But that wouldn't really get to the heart of the matter. The workshops from forum members were informative, practical, interesting and fraternal. The time spent at the Collings factory was as fascinating as it's always been. Seeing Willis Allen Ramsey and Jeff Plankenhorn perform at Hill Country Guitars - well, I can hardly stand to see performers at a big venue any more. I'll take that shorter show where I can watch fingers, talk with the performers and really hear the music over most any other format of live music.

I'd say the thing that was different about this year's gathering is that we made a lot more music together. Not only is Quincy's a very cool place - more gallery than store - but from 7 pm to 1 am, I had a guitar in one hand, glass of good wine or cold water in the other, and I was either sitting in a circle jamming, or sitting with one or two other guys, talking, learning and playing. I suppose that's what a good jam is all about, and I hadn't really had the pleasure before last weekend. It helped that we had some incredibly gifted players with us, with a wealth of song knowledge, who could lead us and pass the music around. It also helped that I've been practicing, and really felt like if I couldn't quite keep up, I at least wasn't lost.

Saturday night was another great jam in Allen's hotel room, and it was every bit as fun as Quincy's. Again, Fred led tons of fun bluegrass and gospel, Ace played some of his incredible arrangements, and Dale showed up with more original songs than we could sing in a night. I felt honored to be allowed to play along with a beautiful song Dale wrote after his mother died of cancer - such a personal thing to share.

And there's the heart of the matter. It was all the music we shared with one another, fueled by a passion for good guitars (or is it the other way around?) that created connection among us. Of course there were old friends around as well, guys from gatherings past, and that just led to the comradery.

I've decided that next year, I'll bring my family along. There's so much of the gaterhing that they would have enjoyed, but honestly, it would just give me an excuse to stay longer and play more with these good friends.

Allen, I know it was more that just a handful of phone calls to pull it all together, and thanks. To everyone else, I hope to see you again next year. And to the rest of you on the forum, I hope you can find a way to join us next year.

David

* I posted this on the other section but maybe this is more appropriate so here it is.
------------------------------------------
Greetings.
Just got settled after flying back from Austin. I'm sure there will be a string of posts about the gathering. I'm on now so here it is.

IT WAS GREAT! It was really wonderful to finally meet a bunch of folks you talk to electronically and have a ton of fun for 2.5 days with.

First of all, a mighty big THANK YOU to Allen for coordinating the whole event, letting us use his Wimberley Inn room as our local jam room (w/ drinks provided from his personal cooler), and for driving me around. What a host. I first went to Allen's home after flying in last Thursday. Beautiful home, lovely wife, and cute kids. Then we drove to Wimberly through the back roads of Hill Country.

After checking in at the Inn, we went out to dinner. Coming back from dinner, we found Fred Coates ("bluegrasd2ha") and his wife Joan in the parking lot. Fred was ready to play! He had his hat on and D2HA slung around his neck and looking for someone to jam with. Man, can he play and sing. I will now call him Fred, the man with a thousand songs. Through the weekend, he never ran out of material. Guys, Fred can play that dread like there's no tomorrow. Watching, listening, and jamming with him through the weekend was a great learning experience for me. Anyway, so the three of us played in Allen's room, Allen had his dread and I had my OM1A deep body. I just knew my guitar and I were in for a fight (in a good way!)

Friday morning, Allen and I ate a little breakfast with Fred and Joan at the Inn. Then we drove to Bill's Kingdom, a.k.a. Collings Factory. That place is very un-assuming and you could drive by it and not know it's there. The only thing that gave me a clue was the mailbox up front that said Collings. The four of us met up there with David Ely(from San Antonio), Dale (from Oregon), locals Victor, Don, and a couple more people to do the tour with us. We met Alex at the front office and Steve M. was there to welcome us. Before we started, the man himself - Mr. Bill walked in. I wanted to start bowing and flail my arms/hands up and down chanting "We're not worthy"...but didn't.

Steve McCreary conducted a very detailed tour for us, showing all the different steps/stages that go into building their fine instruments. Everyone in the place was very cordial and nice, answered all our questions. It was very educational and after seeing all that, I am not surprised why their guitars sound incredible. We caught up with Mr. Bill in the mandolin/archtop room upstairs. He was busy working on the instruments. Yes, he works there just like the other bees. The man loves his works, likes to talk about it, and he did say that he is very appreciative to all of us who buy and play their guitars. Bill and I chatted a little about the Forum. He remembered that I interviewed him at the last NAMM show in L.A.

At the end of the tour, Steve gave us some goodies to take with us. No, not guitars. WE WISH! We all drove to the new site of their new facility down the street. Still under construction but I heard will be occupied possibly by the end of the year. Then Steve took us all to lunch at the Salt Lick, a very popular local eating place. They had excellent ribs/tri-tip/sausage plates. Good thing coz we were all starving (it was past 1pm already).

Afterwards, some of us went back to the Inn where we had our little fingerstyle workshop at the Inn's dining area (hardwood floors made the guitar sound dance around the room - very nice). The attendees tried their best to stay awake, especially after a tour and a big meal.

Off to Quincy's for a 6:30pm rendezvous with everyone for some jamming. What a store. Mood lighting, dark red walls, big couches, and beautiful guitars on the wall (a bunch of Collings, of course). Pat welcomed everyone. What a great guy. He had wine and finger foods (even cookies) for us. Texas hospitality at it's finest. We were free to try any of the guitars. We did bring all our guitars with us. Hmmm, I distinctly remember David's new C-10 short scale sunburst. Nice. Well, the playing went on until almost 1 AM. Yikes. Steve McCreary joined us as well. He was playing and singing away with everyone. What a great time that was.

Saturday morning, we all met at Kevin's Hill Country Guitars. What a great store. Lots of Collings on the wall. Kevin's a great guy, to say the least. He let us try any guitar we wanted to play and I think that was a bad (good?) thing for "someone" in the group because he fell in love with a great CJ that we he would not let go. A little group headed out to Jamie K's shop a few miles away. He showed us his workshop and shared with us lots of stories. In the finishing room, we sampled a couple of finised guitars. Man, they played really nice. JK was a cool dude. You could tell he loves his trade and is passionate about making great guitars.

We were running late after that. Lunch was after 1pm. Sort of ran into Fred's bluegrass workshop slot. Good ole' Fred talked to us about what he does best over lunch. I'll tell you what- the numerous times (and there were plenty) Fred played around us WAS like a workshop to me. He plays the heck out of that D2HA. That flatpicking of his is awesome.

At 3pm, we all went to Hill Country Guitars for a songwriting workshop with Willis Alan Ramsey and Jeff Plankenhorn. Willis is a great singer/songwriter. Didn't talk much about writing but we were just as happy to see him do a bunch of his songs. I thought Jeff did an excellent job as a side man with his dobro and Kevin's dread (the only one not for sale in the store!). After that, it was another marathon jam session in .... Allen's room! Nobody cared whether it was a bit crowded or not as long as our Collings guitars did not bump into each other, we were happy.

We called it quits around 9pm. We were all pretty tired after 2 full days of activities. This was my first one and I'm sure glad I came. For me, the best part was meeting some of our fellow Forum memebers. You could feel that there was something there that held us together. It was evident that we all had good tastes when it comes to guitars! You should have seen us passing the guitars around. Yep, just little kids showing off all their toys (Dale was the worst coz he had the most toys!). I hate him for that and because he's such a good player.

I know one thing, I will try my best to go to the next one. All of us were taking pictures so I'm sure they'll turn up, probably in the photo gallery or somewhere. I'm sure we have a bunch of good ones.

I'll let the others chime in about anything else they want to "report" on. My thanks to everyone who took part in the whole event. Could not have met a much nicer group of folks.

...drove back from Wimberley last night, got gas, then went to the hotel lobby for a couple glasses of wine and a very good cheescake. Went up to my room at about 2:00AM....much earlier than the other nights/mornings.

The alarm went off at 5:23 Austin time....drank a redbull I had, showered, drove in a few circles to get to the airport...luckily, it was a muggy, dark, and slow Sunday morning...turned in the double-upgraded cadillac, checked my bag, paid $34 for an upgrade and slept to San Fran...

Since I had a killer breakfast taco in Austin airport, I had some great asian food with some sake and Odwalla in SF. Then I wandered down to the gate, where I busted out the new braz/sitka and started playing, abiet quietly, my songs. Steve called my cell to see how Sat. went. I relayed the awesome vibes...Sophie's b-day at Fiesta Texas was awesome!

A young gal who spent the weekend in SF, sat by me while she waited to board for Burbank...she asked me to play one more before I headed to board...I didn't even know she was listning. A great flight to Eugene, seated next to the other biggest guy on the flight...overbooked. Great conversation with a great person the whole flight.

Two hours of driving, seeing the family (Zach put on his new Collings shirt straight away...I also brought him a real Texas 'scorpion' paper weight), the 2nd bottle of Shiraz, playing the D2Hbraz along w/ Willis streaming on my computer from his '71 recording at Sunset Sound Studios, Hollywood. (I hope it's obvious that I can't get Spider John out of my head!)

I've certainly spun my share of black webs, but this brief summary of the 'caboose' of the forum gathering has analogistic connections to the whole gathering.

Mosty...Thanks to {y'all} who tolertated my lack of schedule and watch, my aggresive playing, and unpredictability. You are all such awesome folks...It truly is not what you know or how good you are or how many instruments you have, but rather, it's HOW YOU TREAT PEOPLE! Life is too short and the electricity of a gathering like this is priceless.

More 'Thanks' are appropriate than can be expressed. So many great folks graciously giving a BIG Texas welcoming and for the drive of the ultimate in HUMAN CHARACTER.....Relationships.

Sometimes we're on our way to nowhere...

We are all a bit bent and devil spent...

When we are searching for these great Collings Instruments, we hope to find our precious jewel one...

Supermarket fool...Motorbank stool pigeon...

There was no robbin' our own time...but rather, no robbin' our shared time. It was precious, fun, impromptu, authentic. Great folks and music is the medium.

No one was taking ransom, we were missin' the summer wind, then it was time to take our leave...

Keep up the forum...what a catalyst for an illustrious occupation.

Meitaki to all...may we see each other often and stay close when we are far.

And that is all my story.

Kia Manuia,

Dale

It sounds like it was a great time. I wish I could have been there.

quote:

Originally posted by Rockerbob:
It sounds like it was a great time. I wish I could have been there.

i 2nd that emotion. i had reservations made but my vacation got cancelled when we thought rita was going to be bad.

then rita blew herself out and proved not as bad as expected and vacations were re-instated. so i'm good to go, right?

then thursday night i was packing to head up there friday morning when i ran a shard of glass into my foot so deeply i was unable to extract it. i ended up making an early morning emergency room run and spending the weekend with my foot elevated.

i will regret for a long time that events conspired against me and i will hold out hope to attend the next one no matter what.

/guy

First I would like to offer my deepest thanks and well done to Allen for setting up a great weekend! Second a big thanks for Allen for inviting an outsider (I don’t own a Collings-------YET!) to tag along.

Thanks to Steve at Collings for a great tour and lunch. Your hospitality is matched only by the superb quality of the guitars Collings produces.

Thanks to Hill Country guitars for hosting a very special mini concert/workshop. I can't get the CJ you were about to ship out of my mind. Do you take trade ins?

Thanks to Quincys, the Rodeo Drive of guitar stores, you always make everyone feel welcome like old friends.

Thanks to Ace for the CD and a great finger style workshop. I spent Sunday planning the room I will dedicate to practicing so I can use all of your suggestions.

Thanks to Fred for trying to get me take lead a time or two. Unfortunately it's hard to take lead when you’re struggling to keep up. Listen to you play was educational, inspirational and just great fun. Cool hat too!
And to every one else I met over the weekend thanks for letting a beginner tag along try to soak up as much knowledge as possible.

Now I am left with two dilemmas, how many lunches do I need to skip to afford a Collings Mandolin and /or guitar, and should I get it a Hill Country or Quincys?

Pictures from my camera will be uploaded tonight.

Sent my pix to Ed yesterday - he must still be on that big project.

Thanks everyone for sharing what had happened in the gathering!! David, I got the pics, you want me to post it for you or you want to post direct in the photo gallery section?

Thanks everyone for hosting and attending the gathering! The forum is not worthy, its the guitar we love that bond us together!

Ed

Ed, if you have the time, why don't you add them to the front page with the other gathering pictures? I had a good time the other day looking through my old factory pix and it was interesting to see the factory change over three years - it makes a neat history,

David, thanks for the pics throughout the years! A new 05 Gathering Session is already in production! I used a lot of the people's quote and pics to form the section. It is something we should document probably on this website. Big thanks to Allen again!

I wish I can have it completed and upload tonight! (Your time tomorrow)