I was invited to perform at this thing called the “Guitar Geek Festival” by its host Deke Dickerson a few months ago. Of course hearing the title alone peaked my interest, so I quickly agreed to play.
I must say this past Saturday was definitely one of the neatest festivals I’ve ever attended. And it was certainly an honor to be asked to perform as well. I would still have loved to be there even if I wasn’t on the bill. They set up a ton of rare, vintage museum-quality guitars and gear all along the walls of the Anaheim Plaza Hotel’s Ballroom walls. There were old Rickenbackers from the 1930′s, a slew of extremely rare amplifiers from Sho-buds to Standells to Magnatones, several Mosrite guitars (one of which even had the original shipping box), a heap of Ecco-phonic tape echo machines, awesome double-neck guitars with their respective artists holding the actual guitars pictured on album covers, and so much more. But one of my personal favorites was seeing what is believed to be the late great Link Wray’s actual Danelectro Longhorn guitar! It was so much to take in at once, so I came back to it after our set to really get a chance to read the placards and take a few pictures.
I brought my three-piece band out which ended up being Andy Alt on the bass and Jon Wouters on the drums. I had a great time playing for people who are all genuinely excited about guitars and guitar players! The overall vibe is more geared toward the vintage guitar sounds of the 1950′s instrumental country picking and 1960′s reverbed-out surf! So, our set was mostly instrumental originals with lots of reverb, and the two covers we did were “Red House” and “Caravan”. Some awesome performances throughout the day included Dave Wronski’s “Slacktone” band, the original Crickets who backed up Buddy Holly over 50 years ago, a guest appearance by Larry Collins (who played on the last double neck Mosrite that Mr. Mosrite ever built before he passed away), and the man of the hour and host of the event Deke Dickerson ripped it up throughout the day with several of the groups. Also, the guy who built the Batmobile and the Munster Coach was there, and they gave him a shout. I hope to play it next year, but even if I don’t, I’ll probably still go, cause it’s an awesome time!
I also got to meet John Bryant, son of the late Jimmy Bryant. He’s such a nice guy and is so interested to hear any stories about his dad. Here’s a link to the website where you can join a forum discussing Jimmy Bryant: Click Here.
And I wanna give a special thanks to Bruce Zinky for providing us with 2 hand-wired tubed Supro amps to add an extra sparkle of tone to the show! I played through my Fender “Bassman 50″ with its two 15inch cab along with the Supro 15inch combo amp! I was pushing 45 inches of air (but probably more if i did some math). Check out Supro Amps.
So if you enjoy old guitars, good old-fashioned live music, and reverb and tape-echos check out the 7th Annual “Guitar Geek Festival” next year! And here’s Deke Dickerson’s site to follow the man behind this event at Deke’s Site.
