This One Time, at Band Camp…

Last night, I took part in Band Camp, “an evening of ridiculous noisemaking” put together by Kelly Seagram. She sent out a call to a couple of dozen musicians here in Accordion City to join her for a free-form musical jam at Guitar Girl studio. Since I love jamming with other musicians, I couldn’t refuse the invitation.

I’d never been to Guitar Girl studio before, so I expected the typical inexpensive music studio: a dank, dark industrial space with only the most basic of amenities. I was pleasantly surprised when I walked in to find this:

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Yes, it was converted warehouse space as I expected, but it was nicely converted warehouse space. Bright, well-heated and with nice furniture and paintings on the walls, it was even nicer than a number of warehouse lofts that people call home.

The studio is divided into three large areas, two of which seem to be specifically for performing and recording. We spent most of our time in one of these areas, which is shown in the photo above.

The third area, shown below, seems to be for hanging out.

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An important part of a music studio is the couch — I’ve never been in a studio that didn’t have one. I was expecting the standard issue ratty fifth-hand Goodwill sofa, but that’s not the case at Guitar Girl:

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The place had a nice little kitchenette:

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And there were even a couple of “floater” instruments: a decent electric guitar and bass, each hooked up to a pretty decent amp:

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People started arriving at about 8 p.m.. As one would expect, there was no shortage of guitars:

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Gavin brought the synthesizer rig. This being the 21st century, “synthesizer” these days means “keyboard hooked up to a laptop computer”:

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I brought the you-know-what:

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And people brought other, less typical instruments — there was even a Theremin, which has hooked to an amplifier via an assortment of guitar effects pedals.

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What jam session is complete without a big inflatable mattress?

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And then, the jamming began:

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Someone brought a projector and projected Baraka and other films on the wall, which made for some great pictures:

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There’s always room for poi!

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Click to see the photo on its Flickr page.

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To see all the photos I took, click here to set the Flickr photoset page or click here to see all the photos as a slideshow.

We got a lot of great jamming done, I got to meet new people and everyone appeared to have a very good time. My thanks to Kelly for putting Band Camp together — I’m looking forward to the next one!