Wapsi Cabin Jam Photos

Last Saturday, I packed up my Tama set and ventured out to The Elsner's cabin somewhere on the Wapsipinicon River north and west from Troy Mills. His wife Lauren took a few photos.

1)    Glen Gardner and Dave Bonham

2)  Mike Frederick, Mark Awad, R.Smith, Dave Bonham and Maki Dervo on a jam song.

3)  I'm thinking this was Maki playing his original song Cool Water and Dave adding some electric guitar counterpoint.  For our first time ever playing together, it did came together quite nice.

4)  Darren Barker (Half in picture to the left) provided the PA sound and mics,  David Arnold adds a bit of sax to the songs.

5)    Unlike last year, I opted to play drums only and managed to play for a good four and half hours.  The simple reason was that I had a big turbo fan blowing on me and it kept the goddamned mosquitoes away from me, although I got a kick out of seeing the mayflies come off the river and land on the cymbals.  They would bounce off after I hit the cymbal.   Since I loaded the car up with drums and percussion, I had no room to bring my guitar.

When I did the jam with Brenda and Greg, I took a couple of Paiste cymbals with me but this time out, I took a couple of my favorite K's with me and for the first time the K Hybrid Crash sounded great when I played it life.  I also took my trusty Armand Ride and K Session Dark Crash too.  The last cymbal I used was the 16 inch rock crash, that bridges the past to the present, that cymbal was used on the 1984 OK Lounge gig I did with Tyrus/Paraphernalia.  I originally replaced the snare head on my DW copper snare but decided to use the Pearl snare, which also was used in the OK Lounge show too.  To add more nostalgic value, I used a Ludwig Speed King drum petal, complete with that famous squeak that is associated with John Bonham.  At this point, I will probably sell the Paiste cymbals in my collection and probably trade up for a couple more K Zildjians.  Which means I'm going to be more committed into playing drums in the near future.

This was the second time I have played the Tama set live and I have to say it sounds pretty good, sometimes even better than the five thousand D W set that has been calling the bedroom its home since 2005.  The Tama set was a shell pack without hardware that I got for 125 dollars, a steal if you ask me.  The drum heads sound mighty good.  I did bring some of those moon dampers to put on the snare to deaden the ring and I couldn't tell if their was much ring since they tend to carry a but further than when I'm indoors.

6)    Steve Black Wolf and Donna Jo Elsner joins Mike,Mark, Glen and Dave on Turn The Page I believe.   Or maybe not.  Donna Jo has hosted the Cabin Jam to benefit the kids at Tanager Place so that they can learn how to play music via donations.   Mark Awad played bass the whole five hours without any breaks and fell ill for a bit, but managed to recovered and when I left to go home at 1 30 AM he was playing guitar around the campfire as Cathy, Donna Jo, Lorie and many others sing songs till sunride.  It really was a fun time.

7)  Steve Black Wolf, Mike Fredericks, Donna Jo, Glen Gardner, Dave Bonham and Maki Dervo

8)  Even we had a few four legged puppies joining in on the fun.  This furball kept following me around when I was grabbing a hot dog and felt compelled to give him one.  He almost bit my finger off.  (Darren Barker, Steve Black Wolf, Mike Frederick, Donna Jo, Glen Gardner, Dave Bonham and Maki Dervo)

9)  Sunset on the Wapsi as Lorie Parker and Cathy Hart played their songs, Darrell played drums on this segment while I was getting eaten up by the Mosquitoes.  The Tiki thingy weren't helping much.

10)  Finally Lauren gets credit for taking the photos that have been posted.  She's is Glen's wife and avid supporter of the music scene as well.  Glen has been very busy with his acoustic songs as well, he plays a lot at Checkers, Urban Pie, sometimes The Artisan Sanctuary, Stone City and Ramsey's.