My friend Paul Sgalia gathered the old gang for reunion in a nice, small park outside of Quakertown, PA on Saturday. It was a cloudy day with a faint mist of rain coming down, so, thanks to a small pop-up tent we were able to play some music and share some stories, as well as catch up with each other.
Paul Epstein and John Longwell made it up from West Virginia, Paul Sgalia came down from Vermont, Rusty Neithammer from Media, locals Bob Flower, Chris Simmons and LA Williams made it from Bethlehem and Tom Gillam from 10 minutes away. Roy Smith, Joe Mirenna, Will Hart and a few others couldn’t make it.
Our infamous opening set for Ted Nugent in East Greenville, PA in the mid 70’s.
The pickin’ session was really fine, with lots of old tunes from the repertoire, old time fiddle tunes, strange acapella ditties, and lots of stories from gigs past and almost forgotten. Actually, most of the songs sounded better with age. I know we all soaked it all in and deeply celebrated our enduring friendships.
I chunked out rhythm guitar while the fiddles, mandolins, banjo, harmonica made sweet music in a small corner of quiet Pennsylvania state park. I hope we can do it again. There is noise about doing a show at Godfrey’s sometime but I am content with a simple friendly gathering like today.
The Ted Nugent opener has a particularly peculiar place in rock and roll history. It turned up in a Rock and Roll book The Decibel Diaries: A Journey through Rock in 50 Concerts.
Here’s the link https://books.google.com/books?id=37YEDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=shimerville+sheiks&source=bl&ots=DOjHLp7oKg&sig=5WMTI4vNsZQFgBAkOL6djaQs-wc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCz_XevfTdAhVup1kKHSJUATIQ6AEwA3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=shimerville%20sheiks&f=false