The Electra Forums

I am pleased to announce Electra Fest 2014 plans have been made! I am going to post it here and a couple other places so that the word gets out and people can start planning.

It will be July 19th and 20th in Evansville, IN at The Guitar Lab facility. Evansville is a moderate sized city (about 130,000) near the southern tip of Indiana, It is within 3 hours of Indianapolis, St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, Cincinnati, and probably only a little more to Memphis. That should give you an idea of location. So we are fairly centrally located in the US, and while you may not be familiar with Evansville - you likely are familiar with the nearby larger cities mentioned. We have most chain restaurants, and a good selection of local fair. We also have a Tropicana Riverboat for Gambling on the Ohio. Most moderately to lower priced chain hotels are here as well. I think the most handy hotels will be on the "East Side" and there is a regional mall and lots of shopping nearby that area - and it is handy to I-164 which is the partial circle surrounding the city. We have a nearby Guitar Center and several mom-and-pop shops too for strings and things.

The Guitar Lab is a full service teaching facility and studio. We will have a full day of events on Saturday and likely a half-day on Sunday. We will have two medium sized rooms available to us. Restaurants are nearby. There is a break room with a fridge and I will have some drinks there (non-alcoholic only - sorry). Rest rooms of course. One room is a studio with a drum kit. Mike Boren, the owner of Guitar Labs, was kind enough to allow us to use his facility. So thank him when you see him. We can "convert" him over to an Electra nut like most of us are...

I have invited Tom Presley and he indicated he would attend. Tom is one of the key people behind the scenes of the old Electra and Westone brands in the 70s and 80s from SLM. If you are in this group you are invited! I may invite people from the Guitar Lab as well, as this will be an excellent educational opportunity for them to learn about fantastic old Japanese guitars and a crazy bunch of guys that play and collect them. The NEW Electra folks are invited too, but at this point I don't have a confirmation. They are finishing up with Summer NAMM in Nashville, TN on Saturday. My hope is that one or more can swing by if they have time as we are only 2.5 hours away from Nashville. In fact, I have flown out of Nashville's airport, so if you wanted a Nashville vacation you can fit this on the edge of it easily. I'd like to make this an education experience for those that have not attended, and fun for everyone, new or previous attendees.

We will have the usual events associated with Electra Fests past:
- We will bring and share our guitars. Amps will be there to play them too.
- We will have contests for the best guitar of show, and so forth (all in fun)
- We will have the web cam as in previous years!
- We will bring prizes to donate and have a drawing for prizes. In past years we have had multiple guitars, some great condition and some are fixer uppers - but it is ALL fun. Also other prizes - could be anything from an effect pedal, a tuner, or possibly electra SWAG - we don't know what will show up.
- We will have discussion sessions on Electra Guitar History, Repairing Guitars, and possibly new Electras as well.
- This is THE place to be to try an Electra that your buddy has that you have never seen before! Wondering what that module sounds like in an MPC, there you go - someone here will have it and you can find out for yourself.
- We can have some Jam time. I hope to have some local musicians/teachers attend too. So if you don't play bass or drums, we might have someone around that does.
- This is THE place to buy, sell, and trade too - that way if you want to move some electras to get other ones - you can do it in person!
- I have a number of amps too, I will bring (unless I can't for some reason), a vintage marshall, fender, a Bogner, a BadCat, and I know members that usually bring a vintage mesa - I might have a new mesa too - we shall see. This might be subject to space availability.
- what else? You tell me what you want!

I will supply a list of area things to do, restaurants, and so forth on your "off" time or for your spouse if they come with you.
- I'd like to plan a dinner at my favorite Pizza and Micro-brew place nearby (but it will be everyone buy their own - sorry).
- We have Holiday World - one of the nicest Amusement Parks and Water Parks in the world about an hour or so away!
- KY and Barkley Lake are about an hour and a half away, and about halfway between here and Nashville.
- I mentioned the Riverboat Casino
- I will try to get a good deal at a decent hotel, but i will need numbers of attendees to work with them.
- if you have a specific request I will see if I can help

So if you take a summer vacation, you may spend a few days at one of the nearby Cities or vacation destinations and head over here for the weekend before heading home (or start the week off here, and then go to a vacation destination). There are LOTS of possibilities with this - especially if you are driving a distance to get here. You can go to NAMM if you are in the music business that week before and then head here over the weekend for a day or two of the fest. Anyway you get here, we want you here . It will be fun.

Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or plan on attending. Please PM me on if you are attending or not. I know I could not attend every year - sometimes you just can't. But hopefully this year will be special. I know I am looking forward to Tom Presley attending and asking him questions! I look forward to seeing you here.

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Thorny

Do you realise just how much I hate you all?! Looking forward to it....

Mate, good on you, and tie TP up so that he can't get away.. so many questions!!

Just thinking out loud... a Talon would make a good prize, eh....

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

Just an update - things are on schedule. Don't be hatin' !

We should officially open at Noon on Saturday 19th starting off the main day of festivities. I will be available earlier, including on Friday if you call me. We will have some drinks there (a cooler, with non-adult beverages while they last). Tom Presley has confirmed (whew) so he will be there. We will have several members with their collections here. I plan to have our normal time to play and enjoy, as well as some teaching/presenting of Electras to any students that may be attending from the guitar lab. I know of possibly 4 new electras that will be in attendance along with the vintage. I know of two guitars to be given away as well as smaller prizes. There will be some amps in attendance too, in order to plug them into. So we will have the opportunity to present on old electras, MPCs, matsumoku-era, a bit on Westone era - Tom can speak - and we can talk about collections and repair. Folks can go over their collections they are bringing. We can end the day by going to Turoni's for some of their killer brews and thin crust Pizza (strictly volunteer, and pay your own). Then next day will be more play time, some jamming, some less structure, maybe some buying, selling, trading going on - who knows - depends on what the folks want to do. The point is to have some fun!

I am inviting teachers, students, and staff of Guitar Labs - so there will be (you all will thank me) people that can play a LOT better than me there. Hopefully we can have a bass, drummer, and other band members present.

If you have questions for Tom P - please PM them to me. I will try to compile one list for him. Think of good ones. I will use my best judgement when asking questions. And I expect we will have a bunch of folks wanting to know the same things. I don't have a time for him yet, but I plan to give him as long as he wants to speak. I would think an hour or two maybe, I don't know. I am just glad he is coming and don't want to scare him away

Who knows, maybe he will bring some cool pieces too.

Take care. Hope to see you there.

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Thorny