Reading the posts has me remembering way back, this time 1994. I was one year out of high school. I was part of group of "garage" type bands we had when we were in high school, and those bands knew a couple other bands, so the Saturday after Thanksgiving we had what we called "Turkey Jam", the first one out of a friends garage in 1991 with four bands, to 92 and 93 at one of the lodges in the local park that became seven and eight bands from noon to 10pm. It was quite an undertaking.
In 1994, the guys that had done it the last couple of years were tired of it, especially now that they were no longer in High School they didn't want to go through all of that. I didn't want the Turkey Jam to go just yet, so I called one of my friends and we had some meetings to set up the event. This Turkey Jam I wanted a little more diversity of music styles, as opposed to the punk style, "alternative" style and metal of past TJs. I enlisted my good friends on piano and bass and set up one of the acts as an "out jazz" trio, we got a really good funk band with funny costumes, a couple of the good ol' standby punk bands that everybody liked and would come to see, and a couple of metal and rock bands to round it out. About 8 bands in total.
I won't go more into the logistics of the gig, or that the gig almost didn't happen because the person that was to get all the necessaries for us to play there didn't get them. Basically, my politeness and trustworthiness convinced the park official to give us the BIG lodge for our festival (Thank God). Anyway..
One of the bands that I was especially pleased when they said yes to the gig and was excited to see them play, was a Death Metal band called Lethargy. They had just released an EP and buzz was around that things might happen for this band. Despite the fact that I don't care for death metal much, I respected this band and these guys as real players and musicians. The drummer for this group was one Brann Dailor, whose addition to the group was a real big asset. It really solidified their sound. There was buzz around him as well from all my drummer friends who were following Lethargy, as "the" metal guy. Brann didn't disappoint. Watching him from stage right, he deftly went through the bands set with ease and with a great sound. His kit was double bass and he was playing a piccolo snare, but the three up one down setup and odd ride cymbal placement we're pretty much set by then. After his set, we talked for a quick second in between getting his kit off the stage and the next drummer's kit on. I asked about his piccolo snare, his seat height (super low), how he likes to have his setup as close as possible to him so he has not only precision but economy of movement. He even mentioned that he saw my out jazz set earlier and though he wasn't into that music, he liked my approach and thought I sounded good. That was really cool to hear that from him, even back then.
Where's Brann Dailor doing now? Well, any Mastodon fans on the forum can tell you, he's doing quite well!! It was cool to have that moment, and all the while thinking that wouldn't it be cool if Lethargy, or any other band this Brann guy might be in, might make it big??
Thanks for reading. Probably could've been shorter but I like to add a little back story.