Did it work, the no walking bass thing at his year’s festival as introduced in my last month’s welcome? The answer is mostly. Tuesday night there was a pretty good jam at my campsite and plenty of jams in the nearby campsites the rest of the week. However, I was caught on Friday night moving my bass while intoxicated (you remember BMWI) by a very prominent bass player who had read my column and commented on it. There were extenuating circumstances though. I wasn’t looking for a jam but rather bringing my bass back to camp from having some work done in the luthier’s pavilion by Matt Bohn The Bass Doctor. Matt is truly the doctor and the man for bass work. Unfortunately, though I was slightly intoxicated at the time, not very, but I would have blown about a .06 or so. So luckily, no ticket and my bass insurance stays the same.
As for Saturday night neither the McCourys or Michael Cleveland’s band showed up for my jam, which disappointed the two or three others (grinners rather than pickers) who showed up expecting them. Maybe it was something I said. My bass spent all day Friday getting gussied up for the opportunity but apparently they got a better offer. The night however wasn’t a total waste. Smiling along with them, the grinners and I went to get a hot link and listen to the hot picking at the crossroads.
In all seriousness or maybe as serious as I can get, although almost 3 weeks have past, it’s still not too late to let you know I thought the festival was fantastic. How good does it get for bluegrassers from the Bay Area, mostly all of them graduates of the Jack Tuttle school of bluegrass to have Jack’s daughter Molly be one of the headliners. I’m sure this is true for all of the folks from all over California and other states who also got to know Molly and Jack from all the music camps they taught at over the years.
Also, in my first chance since Father’s Day, I want to applaud the volunteer effort that it took to run the Festival. I did my very small share at Vern’s and I hope to continue to be part of the Vern’s staff going forward. I’d like to name names but I truly couldn’t and I’d hate to overlook anyone but I’d say the folks with the radios and golf carts kept very busy and were working some extremely long hours. My thanks to all of them for a great festival.
The key to my next year’s planning and success is in my mission statement “more jamming and less walking”. As I was reviewing this with my planning committee I realized that this mission statement could be interpreted two ways. Did I mean no walking bass or no bass walking? This could be confusing because I am not certainly planning to stop walking the bass as it is too much fun usually but rather not to lug around a doghouse unless national security demanded it. Ultimately, I chose to leave the confusion in the mission statement cuz’ it is all nonsense anyway.
The crux of the situation for next year’s festival week is how to lure more jammers to the electric only area where I camp. Moving isn’t much of an option as all the jamming past Tuesday night was with our neighbors and annual camping partners which I’m not willing to give up as it keeps Linda happy. The neighbors are her long time jamming partners and she looks forward to jamming with them every year. One of them is a bass player so while we share pretty well one of us gets left out some of the time.
The question remains how do I get more jammer foot traffic into the electric only area. You know the jammers with the wimpy little cases and their friends with designer banjo bags. Goodness knows I’ve tried to use this space to generate traffic and my position at Vern’s to talk it up but the results speak for themselves. I’m considering a neon sign for the top of my rig saying “Nightly Jamming Here! Hard Driving Bass Already on Site”.
Do you think the PTB would allow it?
It’s a good thing I …er I mean the planning committee… have 49 weeks to work on this annually occurring issue because there ain’t gonna be any bass moving (but probably some walking) except maybe to get it to the Doctor for an annual check up.
