This is making me miss New York. I used to work up at far Rockaway point on tugboats. Good times, them.
LIVE from New York - It's the Coney Island Rockabilly Festival!
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- Rated: 69 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 1:18 a.m. crowbone:
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Sep 6, 2009 8:34 a.m. Blaydrnnnr:
I actually called home last night to see if I might be able to drive up for the weekend I'm missing it so much right now. To see the 'Billy festival in a place that puts on such a show 24/7 would be fun.
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 8:39 a.m. Proteus:
Long night!
First, some prize control.
JC and Blaydrunner are the first proud winners of Gretsch license plates, for the address of the Gretsch building at 60 Broadway.
And, Blaydrunner, Cadaver, and 68Comeback are winners of Bigsby shirts.
Now I have three Sho-Bud shirts for the first right answers: Cha Cha's is located at the corner of the boardwalk and what street?
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 8:43 a.m. Proteus:
Supper in Paradise...
... or at least a charming seafood-n-steak place between Emmons and Brooklyn Bay. I had the NY steak, and it was powerful.
You surely know Joe Carducci and Kim - and that's Jason Herndon, Gretsch Nashville artist relations guy, and his betrothéd, Jamie.
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 8:47 a.m. Proteus:
Remember the diner we ate early Saturday morning, with the endless menu and the Ukrainian waitress?
Here it is:
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Street scenes, on the way from hotel to venue:
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- Rated: 7 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 8:54 a.m. Tin Roof Rusted:
Boardwalk and Stillwell?
TRR
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 8:54 a.m. Proteus:
Outside Cha Cha's...
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And inside Cha Cha's, before the evening's festivities:
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This is one of the few places I've ever been where there's a line for the men's room, not the ladies'...
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Inside Cha Cha's, looking out...
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Why am I reminded of a sequence in My Cousin Vinny? -
- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 8:58 a.m. Proteus:
It may not look like much to YOU, but this amazing drum fan probably saved our lives as the evening got hotter and hotter...
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:04 a.m. Proteus:
What you can't hear by looking at these pics of gathering dusk and nightfall are all the sounds of the boardwalk, which you may imagine.
Or you can wait for the video walkabout, which, with any luck (and perseverance on my part), will appear in that not-too-distant future.
But add to the sonic pictures in your head the sounds of a deeply twanging rockabilly band ringing out over the end of the strip from the roof bar of Cha Cha's.
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- Rated: 22 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:10 a.m. Blaydrnnnr:
Boardwalk between stillwell and W12th, wow..Astroland.... great summer nights. Oh, I guess its Stillwell to be exact..sorry
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:18 a.m. Proteus:
I won't insult anyone by asking who this is and what she's doing: I'll tell'ya flatout, that's Kim Falcon and she's shooting.
BUT - for a Gretsch Zippo lighter - who can tell me what her ammunition is, and exactly what she's shooting at? I hope it's not a fair question: I'm looking for a very specific noun.
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- Rated: 22 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:23 a.m. Blaydrnnnr:
Well, Paint balls and a freak.
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:31 a.m. Proteus:
Now... at least the most attentive of you may remember that I said something about the entire evening of burlesque which was scheduled for last night.
It happened, it truly did – burlesque alternating with geek-n-freaky sideshow acts.
And...well, here was my thinking. I thought that, by its nature, burlyqueue was something best captured in moving pictures. A moment's calm reflection might suggest to any thoughtful person why that might be so.
Accordingly, I shot video. LOTS of video. Ten heavy gigabytes full of video.
There are several small issues. The first is that the quality is generally not so exquisite. Place was crowded, I didn't have a consistent (or consistently close) vantage point. Lighting was not ideal, and - again, by the nature of it, should you meditate for a moment - the moving targets of my videography were often blazingly white against a dark background.
Purely logistically, it would take more hours than have passed since the last fan fell (fan-dancers, get it?) to have turned all that raw footage into compressed and postable video.
AND we're fixin' at this moment, 10:26 AM, to go out on the town for a subway ramble to points of interest in Brooklyn, and then Manhattan. They tell me there's all kinds of stuff to see.
Those are merely technical issues. There are also broader questions of appropriateness with which the responsible Gretsch journalist must grapple.
You can appreciate my quandary – and you can probably tell I'm trying to break it to you gently that you'll just have to wait for some burlycue.
But I can tell you that there was a wide and interesting variety of dancers, each with her own take on the ancient art of making fascination from something everyone everywhere does every day – with subtexts often at least as interesting as the Main Event (sometimes considerably more). It was all ... ah ... very INteresting. And less risque in point of fact than it might at first blush (if you do) seem.
So some footage will come along, eventually.
Now the geek-n-freaky stuff is shorter and less problematic – if considerably more disturbing, and I suppose it's some kind of commentary on Murrican Culture that it may seem less offensive to post a man eating dog food or swinging a 55-lb anvil suspended from his earlobe than it is to document people artfully (and partially) disrobing.
But so it is.
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:32 a.m. Proteus:
In the meantime, a geek-n-freak teaser in the form of man lying on a bed of nails, just after the girl standing behind him stood on his chest, and before the concrete block on his tummy was shattered with a sledgehammer blow.
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- Rated: 14 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:33 a.m. Guitarmaniac:
Stillwell Avenue and Boardwalk
and Kim's shooting paintball at a human target...
Thanks for the great coverage!
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:36 a.m. Proteus:
WHAT does all this have to do with guitars in general, or Gretschs in particular, I can hear strident voices ask.
So, to bring it all back home for the moment, may I present the requisite Gallery of Girls-n-Gretschs?
By no means do I imply, or should it be inferred, that these lovely ladies are offered as substitutes for the promised motion pictures. No indeed.
However, at least ONE of them did appear onstage in different attire.
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:37 a.m. Proteus:
So, Elvis went down to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil ... and found out he WAS the devil.
His first reaction was to hurry to Cha Cha's to sign up to win a Gretsch 5120:
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:39 a.m. Proteus:
BUT ... this young lady, depicted with our Master of Ceremony for the evening, Jelly Boy the Clown, won instead:
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Sep 6, 2009 9:40 a.m. Proteus:
So the devil asked, quite politely, if he could have his picture taken with Kim instead (and, by way of demonstration, he displayed just one of the vices which might lead one astray).
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- Rated: 22 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:40 a.m. Blaydrnnnr:
OH!! The CC!!! And she's wearing a Matching dress??!! ( almost?) Gorgeous!! ( The girl Too.. )
The Falcon in Black, with the Blonde in Black.... Nice!
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- Rated: 312 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:41 a.m. Proteus:
Now Joe and Company are waiting for me to join them for our madcap Manhattan meander, so I leave you momentarily (OK, hourentarily) with some pictures of various Gretsch guitars...
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- Rated: 22 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 9:44 a.m. Blaydrnnnr:
Great, GREAT stuff Pro..thank you soooo much.....Have fun Buddy!!!! Kim..( sigh)
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Sep 6, 2009 9:48 a.m. the schroeder (tm):
...shooting pellets at Bad News?
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- Rated: 18 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 10:23 a.m. nielDa:
I made it to Coney Island yesterday, hanging out with the Gretsch crowd at Cha Cha's last night - Proteus (Tim), Joe, Jason, Jamie, and definitely Kim. Really fun group.
Note: The photos are great - but I know for a fact that Tim is holding back from posting photos of at least 40 talented (and clothing-free) burlesque performers - AND video.
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- Rated: 24 ↑
Sep 6, 2009 11:30 a.m. redrocker:
This is making me miss New York. I used to work up at far Rockaway point on tugboats. Good times, them.
C'mon, you're just making that up...
