Now if any of you had Googled the bands and artists I mentioned in my teasers, this would have come up fairly quickly. But you didn’t and so I was able to maintain the element of surprise.

Check it out here.

Yes what you see is all no-shit true. I have come to LA, in part, to jam with these guys. Not non-stop mind you. This is a four-day thing and we don’t interact with them till Day 3. And prior to arrival, based on our levels of proficiency, we were placed in bands with other campers.

The band has three guitarists, drums, bass, keyboards, female lead singer. (Three guitars as there are always too many. But I and one other guy play more lead guitar, the other guy plays more rhythm.)

Rough itinerary:

Day One: (Today) Register, jam, band rehearsals, master classes (there are lesser-known gods here as well who act as counselors), party this evening, jams.

Day Two: Band rehearsals, master classes on a variety of topics, jamming with counselors (one announced goodie being Hendrix’ Voodoo Child.)

Day Three: Q&A and jam with Chuck Leavell. Chuck is the Stones’ keyboardist and played with the ABB back in the day as you may recall from my post.

Q&A and jam with Jon fucking Anderson of Yes; band rehearsals.

Same night, our bands play the Viper room. (We got lists of songs we could play by each band to choose from. See below.) Check out Sunset Strip, Hollywood. Fight off fans and groupies.

Day Four: Q&A and jam with Ian Paice and Steve Morse. (Somewhere in here we get a master class on guitar with Morse!)

Final night (Sunday): Our bands perform at the Whisky a Go Go, joined for one tune by Paice and Morse. There will be professional video. Viper Room is up to us though not sure how well phone videos will come out. 

Next day the campers all go back to our jobs as accountants, undertakers and KFC managers.

Why am I doing this? Well, it’s for more than the obvious “it’s cool” reason. It’s also because I take playing music seriously, I’ve reached a certain level of competency and because the “jam” scene in Boston appears quite dead.

Also because most of my peers don’t play anything but if they did, they have long since abandoned it for Disney Days with grandchildren, bitching about their ailments and quiet weekends at their summer house by the lake. Some – not all – but some of them have one foot in the grave, one foot on a banana peel.

Fuck that! To quote a wise man, I am too old to rock and roll, too young to die. More later …