Mark and the band on stage at the Gibson Showroom
David as Billy from ZZ TOP
Day one RnR Fantasy Camp
Once again I have the pleasure to work at the 2009 Hollywood Rock n Roll Fantasy camp here in Southern California. I will be getting you all a day by day account of the goings on, with you hearing it from my unique perspective of course.
Day one started officially with the big opening night. But in the afternoon, while the campers were busy registering at a West Hollywood hotel on the strip, the counselors were meeting each other, and then rehearsing at the Gibson showroom in Beverly Hills. After we were tight enough for some of the music we will perform later on, it was time to meet our campers. Some of them have lots of experience and some don’t but that is the magic of seeing the bands start as complete strangers and then become a unified group that will be proud to rock on the last night of the camp at the famous Whiskey A Go Go in West Hollywood.
First let me tell you about the amazing 12 counselors present for the camp. Our fearless leader is Kip Winger who I have had to pleasure of knowing for many years. VERY talented man and he did a great job at getting the gang to pick songs we can perform for the campers. Mark Hudson, always eclectic is here, Elliot Easton the other guitarist I trade off riffs with who is super tasty with his note choice. We have some amazing drummers like Alan White, Sandy Gennaro and two newbies to the camp, Slim Jim
Phantom from Stray Cats, and Danny Seraphine from the band Chicago. They will make a great addition to the camp. Another new counselor is Share Ross the bassist from Vixen who is awesome, and Rudy Sarzo who I have have been gigging with recently in Las Vegas and has quite the rock resume with Ozzy, Quiet Riot and Whitesnake just to name a few. Rounding things out on keyboards we have Teddy Andreadis from Alice Cooper and GnR, and Rami Jaffee who has played with a very impressive group of bands from the Foo Fighters to The Wallflowers.
So as you can see the talent we have for this camp is over the top and that is just the counselors! After all the counselors met their bands, in a very primitive fashion we all went over a song to play at the opening party. So with only an acoustic guitar my band rehearsed “Wild Thing”. The idea is to get all 12 bands a chance to jam a song, not very rehearsed so that everyone will enjoy the progress they make on their journey to learning and becoming better before living the rock dream on stage at the Whiskey Sunday night.
The party opened up with the creator of the camp, David Fishof dressed as Billy Gibbons, greeting the crowd after Kip and the gang performed “Tush”. (I will never forget his Gene Simmons impression with some crazy KISS jokes!) He explained some of what everyone could expect to happen this week at the camp, and it will surely be a huge success as David as stacked the deck with talent.
Now after a wonderful catered meal, it was time for the 12 bands to get on stage, to do their songs. My band was 11 in order so of course I got to see some really good bands and some rough around the edges. I knew mine would be decent but not great, as I really didn’t know what they could do from the short time we had to go over our song.
We rocked it to my relief and after the last bands song, it was time for the counselor band. We did a few cool songs and then it was time to bring up the special guest to kick off the party, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad. After three killer tunes from his past, the night came to a close as day two, would be a full 14 hour day for the campers.
I was tired of course but excited to see what progress my band called “WTF” (you can figure that out!) would make during out time together. Should be amazing when Steven Tyler walks in to see the expression on their faces. Special thanks for Gibson Guitars for looking after the counselors and loaning me a sweet ES 335.
More excitement coming soon!
Bruce
www.kulick.net