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Joined:
March 2015
Posts: 50
| How many of us are in the Midwest and might want to meet up somewhere for a weekend? I'm in Western Wisconsin. Great city on the Mississippi River. It'd be too much work to figure it all out this summer with my schedule, but maybe I could arrange something next summer (2016). We've got some great pubs, great scenery (we're in the Driftless Region, known as such because the glaciers never came through and flattened our landscape), also have a pretty impressive music scene for a city of this size. I could probably get a few great local guitarists or singer songwriters to join us for a clinic or just to noodle around and chat it up.
I guess there are more options than I'm even thinking of right now. We're in the process of remodeling a 150 year old barn on the family farm and launching a small brewery up there (which is where all my money goes now). Who knows how long this project might take, but once it's done we'll have about 4000 sq feet of insulated barn to play in and beer made with ingredients grown on the farm (we have our own hopyard too).
It's a beautiful old barn, made with peg and beam construction. Long term, whenever we get this project completed and the brewery off the ground, I think I'd definitely be in for hosting a middlewestern meet up at the farm.
We're located about 2.5 hours from Minneapolis. About 4.5 hours from Chicago. Right off I-90. The city is on I-90 right before it crosses into MN. The farm is north of I-90 about 25 minutes. A nice four hour drive from Iowa City up the Great River Road scenic byway.
There are plenty of great hotels in the city, but it's beautiful on the farm and people could either bring RVs or pop up tents. On the other hand, if someone has already established an annual midwestern event... that sounds great! Where and when is it?
If someone else from this region wants to join me in planning the event or if there's a proven formula that people like at other gatherings around the country (schedule of events, etc), anyone want to share that formula with me?
If we wanted to, we could schedule it while there are other events taking place in the city. We have all sorts of conventions and Beer, Wine, and Cheese festival type things. We're known for our outdoor scene, have tons of bike trails (on and off road) and bike tours, three rivers, a marsh. We also have more bars per capita than anywhere else in the country. Wine bars, old school speakeasy type places, 1950s martini lounges, sports bars, college bars, Irish bars, music bars, a German bar that serves beer in 1 and 3 liter mugs and has like 47 different kinds of brats and 30 different mustards. And we're home to the old Old Style Brewery, which boasts the worlds largest six-pack. Our patron saint is King Gambrinus, the Saint of Beer. Paddleboat tours of the Mississippi. We're also home to one of the largest vintage guitar collections and sales in the world... but not many Os or As on his walls these days, sadly. Here's a video tour of the guitar shop. Skip about halfway in to see some of the Not For Sale collection. I'm sure I could get us a guided tour if we wanted to check that out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjuJ-EOWXuI
If we wanted something informal, we could do that easily enough. Or if we wanted something more planned, I could check with the Regional Art Center here about renting their wonderful old theater for an afternoon or something. They host all sorts of music type concerts and events in that small theater. Come to think of it, we have probably a dozen or so options for a theater location. | |
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Joined:
March 2015
Posts: 50
| CORRECTION: Skip about nine minutes in for the tour of the NFS guitars. | |
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Joined:
March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | Hi New Guy! You should copy and paste this into the general forum. This section is mostly for pictures and comments about gatherings that have already happened and unless there has been one recently, nobody even looks here.
Wish I could come to yours but running the shop keeps me tied down. You'll have a total blast though. I sure did at the Black Hills gathering I held a few years ago.  | |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Good luck. Wisconsin? I don't think so....... | |
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Joined:
March 2015
Posts: 50
| Yeah, Wisconsin. That state that everyone in Illinois spends their money to vacation in, the one right near to all the other midwestern states. It's not like I suggested it happen in February. And I'm certain that the land and facilities I've offered to host it on can at least rival any other venues being offered up for free. Do I need to hang platinum albums on my barn walls or something? Guess I could go ask my neighbors to borrow a few. LOL. Jeez Louise. I was just offering a potential invitation to anyone in the area or who might be on the road in the summer. | |
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Joined:
June 2011
Posts: 12
Location: New Jersey | Hey New Guy. I'd consider a Wisconsin road trip for that kind of hospitality, and I'm all the way over in Jersey. Sounds like a great time. I'm a big fan of Wisconsin's own Petros guitars, and Macyn Taylor as a player. | |
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Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12755
Location: Boise, Idaho | It's my birth state, home of the Packers, beer, brats and cheese, and more lakes and trees than anyone could ever want. Beautiful place. I used to go back on a regular basis, but most of the family is gone now, so I don't visit much. If you get something together, I'll as a friend in Neenah to fill in for me. He's a Taylor guy, but he's OK otherwise. | |
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Joined:
March 2015
Posts: 50
| Thanks, guys. Taylor guys are welcome. I've played a few Taylors into sounding alright and then selling them. One time in an effort to open one up in a hurry (it sounded so dead), I turned the amp on, plugged in a CD player, hit repeat, placed the guitar in front of the cab with volume set on 6, and left for almost a month (26-27 days I think). This old, old trick had worked many times on wooden boxes for me; my dad used to repair very, very old stringed instruments for a major dealer in Chicago, and I learned the trick from him. Get the body and strings humming without any instrument wear. Coincidentally, I believe this is why player guitars sound so much better--exposure to volume and movement--than so many babied guitars. Not necessarily the case for O/A folks, but pretty much the case for everyone imprisoned in a woodenbox love affair. I'm not sure when the a/c failed in the farm house, but it was about 110 degrees inside and the humidity was so high the windows were fogged and flies were dead on the windowsill. The damn glue had failed and I popped the Taylor top in a few wild ways. Since then, I've learned to create a mix on the ipod and to keep a fan handy as back up on these adventures in wooden box break-ins. Seriously, gimme 14 days at 24 hours of loud as hell and I can make almost any wood box warm up in a hurry. Works great if all your neighbors are musicians and live at least a mile away and agree to your playlist (Go with classical and a mix of old rap, seems to work). When you're looking for "opened up" it can pretty much make a 800 pos woodbox into something people are offering to buy off ya. There ya go. No need to do it with my Adamii, but it makes woodboxes sound better than ones priced five times their value brand new on the wall. I know a production guy I taught this trick to and he'd put a pos Yam in a soundproofed singer's coffin and gunned it with an amp whenever he wasn't booked. He did this for 16 months. We called that thing the chosen one. Lord, did it sing. It became a secret weapon for some out of sorts folks doing session work.
Gimme some time and I'll have this all figured out, logistically. Once I've got this massive barn remodeled, which looks great in the architectural drafts, I'll then line up some talent for seminars and fun. I aim to give Mark in Boise a reason to come back to Wisconsin, and for everyone else who didn't make it the first year to think... I'm not missing it next year. This could take a while. The barn. Is. Huge. | |
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Joined:
August 2003
Posts: 4619
Location: SoCal | My congrats and appreciation for you to make the offer...hopefully, you will be able to host a great get-together. These get-together are so important, especially to get to know others in the OFC and to see and play an assortment of guitars.
In So.Ca, we only had one in 2004. Evan had Al there. Of course, this doesn't include clinics by Matt Smith or the Thursday at NAMM parties at Moody's house. All valuable. Soon, you may need to change your screen name.
Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to travel that far or I would be there. | |
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Joined:
August 2011
Posts: 887
Location: Always beautiful canyon country of Utah | I can sleep on a bale of hay with a plastic bag to protect me from the elements so I would be ok. As far as nutritional needs go a stale granola bar from 2013 is all I would need for 3 days or so. Oh yes and a stale open beer from 2014 to wash it down with!! | |
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Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | nerdydave - 2015-07-09 3:43 AM
I can sleep on a bale of hay with a plastic bag to protect me from the elements so I would be ok. As far as nutritional needs go a stale granola bar from 2013 is all I would need for 3 days or so. Oh yes and a stale open beer from 2014 to wash it down with!!
In that case, you can go to Weaser's get together in Syracuse (but you would need to supply your own hay, plastic bag, granola bar, and beer. There is a limit to his hospitality)
Wisconsin ain't so bad. They DO like their beer in that state. | |
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Midwestern Gathering?