The adventure began at the Ukulele Rebellion in San Francisco. I normally don’t drive there – it’s better to take BART, but I had a very important event to attend after the Uke Rebellion. I parked up the hill on Divsadero Street and walked down with two ukuleles, a packpack with songbooks and a music stand in tow and met with about 25 other uke players at Oakside Café right next to the panhandle of Golden Gate Park. My friend Emeline wanted to play my 8-string uke, so I played the Kala with a low G string on it – we played from the Daily Ukulele songbook and then we played our own songs – 80’s songs such as Take On Me by Aha and Friday I’m In Love and then contemplated our mash-up of Stray Cat Strut and Hit the Road Jack – switching from one song to the other in the middle worked but could we play the two songs in unison as well? After the jam me and my friends Dean and Steve walked up the street to a café – a cold, icy San Francisco wind blew as we sat outside, but that didn’t stop us from jamming some more on ukuleles.
Finally, I continued the musical journey south to the Quarter Note in Sunnyvale – the benefit concert for Dave Price, an awesome drummer guy, who was recently in a car accident that messed up his arm pretty bad. Many local musicians from the south bay would be there to support Dave and I’d been invited. How cool that everyone would “come together” for Dave. When I got there, I could barely find a parking place – it was around 7pm and the place was packed! An awesome band played when I walked in – I’d missed a few of them, like South 46 and others that I liked. I saw my friends, all the people I’d hung out with at Woodham’s and JJ’s whom I hadn’t seen in a while – some dancing – everyone was happy to see me and Stuart and I danced right away. I had forgotten just how many people I knew in this musical social world. The band ended and my good friend Mike Osborn was up next – I hadn’t seen Mike Osborn in ages and remembered how my friend Vikki and I had discovered him at an event to help Doc, the guitar player, get his driver’s license back – it was the first time we’d watched Mike Osborn play guitar, and the way he played it was like no other I’ve ever seen – he really knew how to show his love for the guitar. So I was happy that I hadn’t missed him. As I heard him play and sing, I remembered just how good he was – then Dave Abbott went up and sang and played with Mike and his bass player – good old rock n’ roll music. I felt immersed in the music, surrounded by all these cool people.
After Mike Osborn, one band after another went up and played and each one was amazing in its own way – Ariel belted out the tunes – like Bobby McGee with her band, Johnny Neri and his band wowed us with good old rock n’ roll music, and Oliver, Dennis Dove and Dwane gave us some bluesy and soul music, along with the Deevas with their amazing voices – Mike S. and Kenny, with GypsyJack and Mario played together and reminded me of good times when they broke into, “Every Time I Roll the Dice.” It was impossible for me to take pictures of everyone. All I know is, my friend Emily, whom I hadn’t seen in months, showed up for a while, Dave Price himself was there, and Chuck was the MC of the night – I danced and danced, talked and hugged all of my friends, and stayed for as long as I possibly could – remembering that I had work the next morning but somehow not caring – like when they’d have those Sunday night jams at Woodham’s and I’d swear I’d be home by midnight – yet at 1:30 in the morning there I was dancing and singing along while someone played Johnny B. Goode – yep, good times.
Before I left, the guitarist who plays with the Johnny Neri band, walked over to me – sweaty from playing lead on the rock n’ roll songs. “I’ve been looking out for you!” he said. “I know it’s probably been a year, but here!” He held out his hand and handed me a bunch of guitar picks – all of them said “The Beatles” on them and they had various pictures of the Beatles on the backs of them.
“Wow, thanks,” I said looking down at the guitar picks, wishing I could remember this guy’s name. I knew him though.
“My Dad got those at Abbey Road, and I knew you loved the Beatles, so thought you’d want them.”
“Yes, thanks for thinking of me.”
I stood next to my long-time guitar teacher, friend and the person integral to bringing me into this music world, Mike Sult, and looked at the Beatles guitar picks. I handed one to him and said he could have it because I knew he liked the Beatles. He thanked me. As I stood there looking out at all the fun, eclectic musical people around me and listened to the music, realizing that I know them all – that these are my friends – I felt like the luckiest person in the world. The Dave Price Benefit Concert was an amazing success.
Check out the photos here.
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