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Yep, it was that time of year again. The time to head to the swamps of
southern Georgia. It seemed like it would never get here for the longest
time! I’m writing this a couple of days after I’ve come back, so I may not
remember everything. But that’s why everyone should write their stories, so
that maybe all the details can be caught.
Thursday, April 19
This morning, I got up more or less like I’m going to work (about 5AM). My
father gave me a lift to the airport and I got checked with no problems. I
had a little extra time, so I went to a snack shop and got my favorite
drink, orange juice! Eventually, I got on the plane and was on my way east.
I put on my noise-canceling headphones, shoved a TD mix minidisc into the
player, started reading Tolkien’s “The Two Towers” where I left off and
everything was good.
After arriving at Atlanta about 30 minutes ahead of schedule (it’s the end
of the world!), I go to grab my luggage. After seeing only one suitcase in
the carousel, I began to panic! Where’s my keyboard?! After wandering
around a bit, I found that the rest of my stuff was already removed from the
carousel and placed in a special area. Whew! Okay, now I head for the car
rental place and I see Steve Whiteley sitting there in front. We greet, and
I tell him that Marion Horrod will be getting in later, since her original
flight was cancelled. We were going to meet up with her originally.
Anyway, I get the car, and we drive to Vic’s house, and I don’t get lost
this time! :-)
Marcel was the only person at Vic’s when we got there (except for Vic’s son
and his friend). Marcel had all his gear set up, but without a PA system it
was kinda hard to hear it. I plugged in my keyboard to make sure it still
worked, and it did. The three of us ended up hanging out, chatting and
listening to all sorts of prog rock from Vic’s collection. Eventually, Vic
came home from work (poor guy), and his wife Natasha also came home. I didn
’t meet her last year. Through the rest of the afternoon, Tom George, Frank
Arellano and Jim Moore join us. I think that’s everyone at that point. I
hope I didn’t forget anyone. We went out to eat at some taco grill place
nearby. The Mexican food pretty good, but out here in the southwest, we got
the really good stuff! :-) Vic had to leave us after a while to go pick up
Marion from the train station.
When we got back to Vic’s place, we found that Bill Fox had shown up while
we were out. Vic also returned with Marion, and now we had a nice sized
group at the place. We listened to Stratosfear (starting with ‘3AM’ of
course) on Vic’s 8-track player. What a novelty! It wasn’t aligned
properly though, so we got to hear one song on top of another, which was
interesting in spots. Jim needed to go into work on Friday, but will be
meeting up with us in the park. We all crash for the night later on.
Friday, April 20
We head out about 10 AM. The first thing we need to do is get the PA system
through which the musicians were going to make their noises heard. We get
most of it loaded in my car, since I had a free back seat. We caravan down
in 4 cars, and it was occasionally challenging to keep everyone in sight
with all the other traffic. Steve was in the car with me, and we chatted
and listened to a bunch of music. We had plenty to choose from with all the
minidiscs and CDR’s between us. Gotta love that recordable digital
technology!
We stop to have lunch and grocery shop at the same time. I forget which
town it was, though. Anyway, it was fun breaking off into groups
responsible for different food items, and having a full-out raid on the
store. I think we spent well over $300 on food.
We get down to the park a bit after 6 PM. We’re totally speeding down the
road to the entrance. I plopped in a minidisc with both Cyclone and Force
Majeure on it and we listened to that on the home stretch. Those albums go
very well with the surroundings. Vic was in the lead, and I was right
behind him. Steve and I spotted some deer on the right side of the road.
And if I didn't anticipate that they were going to dart in front of us, I
don't think we would have been able to avoid them after going about 75 mph
down the highway. Vic and I both hit the brakes and swerved a bit, and no
deer or human was injured. I wonder what that looked like from the other
cars?
We get to the cottages, and are greeted by Lars Jones and Roger Smith. I
met Lars a few years back when he was here in AZ, so they were both familiar
faces for me. But Lars had more kids than when I last met him. :-) We got
settled in and ate some dinner. We also got the musical gear set up in one
of the cottages, and started jamming. I think most of it was just goofing
around, but I can’t recall. I was surprised when Bill whipped out a
Hawaiian-style slide guitar, and even more surprised at the un-Hawaiian
sounds he made with it! :-) We end up staying up late listening to and
discussing TD music (probably around 3AM).
Saturday, April 21
I actually get up earlier than I thought I would, got showered and stumbled
over to the other cottage to grab some cereal. We decided to head out on
motorboats today. We walked to the general store to make the rentals. As
we were walking, we saw someone driving a black PT Cruiser. That’s odd, how
many of those do you see around here? Oh well. We get back and we see the
PT parked in front of one of our cottages. It turns out that’s Morgan Marks
’ car! At some point about that time, Jim rejoins us and we then head out
on the boats.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot more people in the park today than there was
last year, so a lot of the wildlife was scared off, and traffic on the water
was a bit more hazardous. We went out to Minnie’s Lake, and the other boat
decides the clutch shouldn’t work any more, so we tow them back. It was
quite challenging in some spots to navigate two attached boats through the
trees. We also visited the now-famous Billy’s Island, which I didn’t get to
see last year. When we return, we find that John and Peter of Airsculpture
fame had arrived. I think this total number of nuts constitutes a mob. :-)
They joined our musical set up with their compact Nord modulars and laptops.
And we spent the early evening jamming and eating dinner. The alligator
meat was quite tasty!
This evening, I was wearing a t-shirt from Serial Experiments Lain, one of
the anime shows I like to watch. I was quite surprised to find that Lars
had seen Lain, and we talked about it for a bit. It’s nice that we can
share other common interests besides TD.
Later, we also had the raffle games with some TD and related goodies. I
really enjoyed Roger’s “Name That Tune” and “Name That Film” games. I think
Jim and I were the best players for those games. We should go head-to-head
sometime and figure who the champion is! :-) With the way the games were
set up, everyone was able to win some good stuff, so it was really a lot of
fun all the way around. I ended up getting CDR’s of The 1999 Klangart show
(listening to it as I write this), the Dresden 1983 show and FSP's and Ruud
Heij’s performance at E-Live 2000 among other things. In the end, it was
another late night.
Sunday, April 22
Today, we took a walk on the trail into the swamp. It was really neat
walking on this elevated wooden walkway through the forest. I guess it’s to
minimize the impact to the environment, and to keep the path from closing
when the water levels rise. Also, all of the sudden, I was Lars’ sons’ best
friend, walking hand-in-hand with them and talking with them. I’m sure Lars
enjoyed the brief break. :-) That was a nice walk. We even saw a fawn
hidden below us next to the boardwalk and snapped plenty of pics, much to
the fawn’s dismay, I’m sure.
I’m not remembering much of what we did after that. I think we just relaxed
and chatted a bit… I should have used my minidisc recorder as an audio
diary, but oh well… This evening, we ended up playing our main show at the
museum. That was a lot of fun. We even had some strangers come in and
check out what we were doing for a little while before they were scared off!
One couple was actually from Scottsdale, AZ and chatted with me briefly
after they saw my address on my keyboard case. It was a good evening, up
until I was to fulfill a request for my TD piano medley. I hadn’t really
practiced it in a while, and succumbing to my nervousness, I ended up
blowing it pretty bad. Everyone was really nice about it though, still
somehow managing to enjoy it despite my screw-ups. I must redeem myself in
the near future!
We stayed up late again, discussing and listening to music. It was like a
party every night!
Monday, April 23
I get woken up by a hug. Huh?? I blink my sleepy eyes a couple of times,
and I see Lars’ sons right there in my face telling me goodbye. So I sit up
a bit and hug them back. I guess that means it’s time for the Jones family
to head home.
After breakfast and all that stuff, we head out on the water again to
explore different parts of the swamp. We also go back to Billy’s Island.
This time, we notice a young owl inside the fenced-in cemetary. It looks
like it's stuck in there! We also hear mom hooting in the distance, and
eventually catch sight of her in the trees nearby. She’s huge! I start
walking towards her to try to get a decent picture, and her call changes
tone, sounding more urgent, maybe as a warning not to come closer. I center
her in my viewfinder, and half expect her to dive at me. Unfortunately, she
didn’t. That would have made an excellent photograph! :-)
We get back to the park and have our final performance together. This time,
we’re playing outside under the picnic shelter. It was a loud show too! We
had to counter the extra noise coming from some of the equipment, so we
cranked up the volume. My right ear was actually slightly numb when it was
done. The first track utilized some excellent samples of a certain person’s
snoring, and Lars’ kids screaming. It was humorous when we first heard it,
but it took on a more dark and mystical feel when we actually performed the
piece. It will probably be called “Wildlife in Okefenokee” or something
like that…
After we packed up our gear, we head for the boat docks for an early evening
cruise on the water. The last little bit of daylight was just about gone.
We took a big pontoon boat out on the open water near the park and just
drifted in the breeze with the engine off. It was really neat hearing all
the night noises, and spotting alligators with our flashlights. We all try
to sit nice and quiet as we look around, cuz Bill was recording the night
sounds with his minidisc. Man, I knew I should have sprung for the mini
binaural mics I've been wanting to get for my minidisc. I regretted not
doing that. I bet Bill got some good recordings with his. I'll do that
next year. When we were heading back, there was a big, bright satellite
passing through the sky. I don't think it was the ISS, but I could be
wrong, as it was about the biggest one I've ever seen.
After dinner, we had the last late-night party of the trip. John and Peter
had to turn in early so they could get back to Atlanta in time. So we bid
them good night. They were certainly nice guys, and very good musicians.
It’s very impressive how they could get those small Nords to do so much. I
made a note to check out one of their CD’s, and just ordered “Thunderhead”
from Groove. Bill had to turn in early as well, but I didn’t realize he had
to leave early. Duhhh, he had to drive back to Pennsylvania! I don't think
I gave him a proper farewell. At least I remembered to write in his book
before he turned in. I think it was about 3:30 or 4 AM before I went to
bed. I was sooo tired!
Tuesday, April 24
I get up around 8:30 or 9 AM. I wanted to be out by about 10 originally.
Oh well, no shower this morning... Steve and I end up heading out about 11
AM after bidding the others remaining goodbye. No worries though, since my
flight wasn’t until 6 PM. We drove straight to Atlanta, and dropped the PA
system off before heading back to the airport. There was a rain storm that
seemed to just hang over the airport area. We got checked in for our
respective flights, and I got to my gate as they were boarding the flight.
Steve and I parted ways and I boarded the 767. This is the largest plane I’
ve ever been on. It was nice and open inside with the dual aisles. We
ended up sitting on the ground for quite a while, waiting on the airplane
food. I was so tired, that I didn’t do much reading, but I did listen to TD
minidiscs all the way back. I even dozed off for a while.
I got back to Phoenix only about 15 minutes late, so that wasn’t too bad.
As we were deplaning, a lady that was sitting nearby asked me about the
strange little machine I was listening to. So I proceeded to tell her some
of the wonders of minidisc. I tell ya, they really need to do some more
marketing here. Minidiscs are too good to remain virtually unknown to
America. Oh well.
And thus ends my accounts of the this year’s Okefenokee gathering. It was
great getting to meet up with all the other original swamp nuts, and to meet
everyone else that joined us this year. It’s great being able to put faces
and voices with the names. I’m sure I missed some details, but hopefully
that will be covered by other attendees’ stories. It was indeed a wonderful
time for all, and hopefully next year’s attendance will continue with an
even bigger group of nuts! :-) Who knows, maybe this will someday mutate
into a full-out EM fest rivalling E-Live or Alfa Centauri (yeah, right!).
:-) I hope you enjoyed reading this.
Dave B.
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