After many months of anticipation for this past weekend’s Roundup, I would have to say that my expectations were actually exceeded.
What a great group of people we have on this forum. Without intending to slight anyone that is not mentioned, let me pay special tribute to a few deserving people.
Fred Gretsch got up and left his place in Georgia at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning in order to be with us at the Roundup. How special do you think that made us feel that the company’s owner would come out here and hang with us just because we happen to like the product that he, originally, and now with FMIC’s assistance, has made? Never once did he betray his fatigue with a yawn, a grumpy look, or a demonstration of disinterest. To the contrary, he was the model of grace and elegance (is it wrong for me to call another man “elegant??”), and he got right in and celebrated along with us. Even his Gretsch Trivia contest was great fun and had people competing mightily for those $2 bills. A couple of participants didn’t think that the $2 bills were really legal tender, but we’ll leave that for another time!
We all talk about Joe Carducci a lot on this site. We do that for so many reasons, such as his tireless energy, his devotion to all of us who have drank the Gretsch Kool-Aid, and for the many customer service things that he does on a personal level for each of us when we have had a problem with one of our guitars. But, you have to also know that he is just a very fun guy to be around. He has a smile that lights up a room and you know from the first minute that you meet the guy that you are going to like him. He’s just one of those kind of people. And, he is also one bad ass guitar player! He joined us on number of songs, but the most fun we had was when he sat down and taught us an easy jam pattern that was a change from the standard blues progressions that we tend to fall into when we jam with others. Great fun with a great guy!
A special thank you to both Fred Gretsch and Joe C. for their extraordinary generosity with us at the Roundup. Joe sent out a ton of Gretsch swag. He had to rent the largest SUV available to be able to fit it all in. Everything from Gretsch stools (no one lacked for a place to sit at this Roundup!) to Gretsch Electromatic amplifiers to Gretsch beer glasses to Gretsch shirts to Gretsch patches to Gretsch anything and everything. Oh yeah...and even Gretsch poker sets! Even if not one of the BIG winners, no one left the Roundup empty-handed. I know that Fred and Joe were very happy about that. Fred happily remarked to Joe that they had packed up just enough swag so that everyone got to be a winner.
It goes without saying that the big prizes were just over the top! A Black Penguin guitar. WOW!! It is everything that you ever thought that it might be. Mitch mentioned in another thread that he prefers the White Penguin, but I mean to tell you that if you saw this guitar, your eyes would literally fall from your head. It is STUNNING. The black is so classy and the gold binding and bling absolutely jumps off the guitar at you. That gold Cadillac tailpiece looks so cool against the black body of the guitar, too!
But, that wasn’t all. They gave out an Electromatic G5122 and a black Power Jet. Very, very cool guitars. While everyone wanted that extraordinary Black Penguin, there wasn’t any hesitation for the winners of these two guitars to eagerly rush forward to claim them! Again, very generous of Fred and Joe.
But, then a Playboy amplifier on top of all of that! These Gretsch amps do kick ass. Joe was playing through my Executive and kicked it up to where it began to break up nicely and got an amazing tone out of it. The Playboy is just a slightly scaled down version at 15 watts and a 12" speaker. It even has the very fine on-board tremolo. Great amp and very nice of Fred and Joe to make that happen for us.
And a special thank you to the lovely Kim Falcon. Kim is the consummate professional, yet she is also such a sweet and friendly woman. There was not a single moment where anyone felt like they couldn’t approach her to chat with her, to ask for an autograph, or to have their picture taken with her. One of the other women in attendance even remarked about how nice Kim is (which, in my experience, doesn't happen all that often when women get around another pretty woman!). And, when photographed, she would nuzzle right up to all of us old codgers and make us feel quite special. Yet, she made it clear at all times that she was just one of the group. There was no prima donna in her. And Sunday morning, she was even photographing us! Because she had a prior family commitment, she couldn’t make it until the evening hours, but she was still a great part of the event.
A big thanks also to Proteus for making the trek out to party with us. Proteus is a very fun guy to hang with. In real life, he doesn’t talk in paragraphs like he does online. And he doesn’t use big multi-syllabic words either; he actually does talk like the rest of us schmucks. So, one of the fun things about this Roundup was for all of us to get a chance to know him better than his online presence. And, the dude has some chops! He played afm_380's natural Country Club with a spruce top and, except that he was missing the Caddy green color from his own, he felt right at home and easily slipped right into playing from the very first moment that he stepped into the Lodge.
Another big thank you to afm_380 and SissieKidd for their tireless efforts on all of our behalf. Joe C. sent out a HUGE number of Gretsch 125th anniversary stools. Rather than leaving them in the boxes, Joe wanted them assembled so that there would be an abundance of available seating during the weekend. afm_380 and SissieKidd, along with an occasional momentary assistant, assembled all of the stools. They were working almost from the moment that they arrived until well into the hours of darkness. Very cool of them.
Finally, a guy that I had never met before, but felt like I knew him from his online presence, was Yettoblaster. We all know that Steve has had devastating personal tragedy in his life in the past couple of years, not to mention the fact that his wife currently suffers from very serious illness and that he is treasuring each moment that he has with her. Thus, we knew that the odds were long against him attending. But, we all had the selfish desire to get to know him offline and there were many of us that were still hoping against hope that he was going to be able to attend. When he announced a few weeks back that he would be able to attend, I know that I was not alone in feeling a sense of glee that we would finally get to meet him.
Yetto is a real mensch. He smiles almost all of the time and has a self-effacing, self-deprecating sense of humor. We had some damn good players at this Roundup (more later about this), but Yetto really set the bar extraordinarily high. I don’t exaggerate when I tell you that this guy is a next-level player. In his normal modest way, he told us that he came to California to learn to play jazz in the worst way, and that he succeeded! But, this guy could play circles around everyone else at this event and not even break a sweat. Yet, you almost had to force him to get up and play, I’m assuming because he didn’t want to show the rest of us slackers up. While most of what he played tended to be on the jazzier side of things, he showed during a few moments that he has some phenomenal rock chops. He lit one up from an amp in the back of the room that just about scorched us by its heat.
We interspersed some short mini-seminars amid the music jams throughout the day on Saturday. After a short bit of playing on Saturday morning, Yetto gave a presentation on improvisation. He demonstrated to us the manner in which the various scale modes would provide melodic opportunities, and showed us how those scales were able to be played at various positions on the fretboard. Then, he distilled all of that into one simple song that brought it all home for us. Great talk from a great guy whom we are fortunate to have amid us here online. (I wish that we had a video of his presentation to put on here, because we would all behefit from it. Alas, our intrepid reporter was sleeping in!)
Finally, a quick shout-out to my good friend, and frequent musical mate, known online as bluesgoober. He came out on Friday night and played with us after setting up the sound system, but unfortunately wasn’t able to join us on Saturday due to a high-dollar gig that he was playing. But, he was back on Sunday morning playing with us. Thanks, bluesgoober, for letting us use your sound system and for helping to make the event such a fun one.
Watch this thread as more information, photos, audio and video gets posted by all of us and by Proteus. It was a great time.
