Hey Abacus - Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I had forgotten about some of the demonstrators that used to be around over 20 years ago when I was selling Organs and Keyboards but you sparked off a lot of good memories of those people

Howard Beaumont was a great player but unfortunately we took him for a meal before one of our public concerts and he lost the fish dish all over the Farfisa Coronet he was playing at the time.

Another time Brian Sharp was demonstrating a Hammond Regent organ for us and, as you probably know, he use to like a drink or two and promptly fell off the organ bench at the very begining of a concert we were arranging - just keeled over. We had to announce that he had been taken ill to the audience and sober him up out the back.

Glynn Madden is a very good player and I like his style but whatever happened to the others we used to use like Brian Rodwell, Les Bonner, Tony Pegler and Paul Daniels brother (was it Phil - I can't remember now)

Those guys could really make the instuments of the day sound great. Mind you some of the organ names seem to have disappeared now. Names like: Elka Orla, Farfisa, Lowrey, Thomas, Technics, Wurlitzer, Riah etc and more obscure ones like Cavendish, Bird and Kimball (That only Minns used to sell in the UK).

Good to see Wersi - back in the UK as well

Many thanks for the review - much appreciated

KFingers

Abacus, thanks for your detailed report about the Festival.
It let me feel like I've been there...



Nice to see that you liked the new Guitar Mode as I like it.
I find it to be a very nice and cool feature that makes very easy to program Guitar parts in songs and styles.
Nonetheless it can be also very funny to play it in real time.

Hi Kfingers
You would be surprised how many are still going, although some have now passed away to the Great Organ in the Sky. The name you were thinking of is Trevor Daniels.
Here's a link to a site that might interest you though.
http://www.organfax.co.uk/

Bill

Abacus: Terrific insightful review. Thanks for sharing. - Scott

Hi Esh
Here’s a link to the company that organises the Caister and Blackpool Festivals. http://www.keyboard-cavalcade.co.uk/index.htm
Don’t forget the Stop Press section.
Also pop along to this site, as there are quite a few different Festivals in the UK. http://www.organfax.co.uk/

Bill

Bill,

In word Wow, thank you so much for this great report. I am an organ fanatic and would love to have a private chat with you one of these days. (Time permitting.)

quote:
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Originally posted by Dnj:
Why dont we have these festivals in the USA!!! Argggggggg!
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Quote

You got that right!!!! As a society Americans are preoccupied with other things like spectator sports, dam shame!
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There used to be a home organist festival of sorts in Florida but do not know if that still exists.

Does anyone here want to explore doing a Keyboard - Organ festival if so, lets start a new topic and see what can be done.

Jerry

Was Bill Irwin there?

Tom. Both Bill Erwin & Bill Horn normally bring over a group of 20 interested people from the USA, but this October Keyboard festival we only saw one couple who had organised there own visit to the festival.
Organ societies all over the UK are very strong and the Caister Festival was 20 years old this October. It will next time (April 2006)move a few mile down the road to another holiday camp near Lowtestoft, Norfolk. UK.

The link is http://www.organfax.co.uk/sceptre-promotions.html

Hi abacus (don't know your real name)

I'm glad you enjoyed my concert slot and Stagea. It is a very unique sound as you can appreciate and I wanted to get across the various styles that Stagea can produce, including the club anthem style which was demonstrated nicely in "Under The Sea". They were all fairly simple pieces to play and you can see how easy it is to get Stagea to sound good.

Did you buy a copy of my CD by the way? If you want one let me know and we'll sort something out, I still have loads left and once my website is up and running I will sell them online to. 'Stagea Styles' is my latest CD, whilst 'Go The Distance' was my original one.

Interestingly, John Walker and I did a sound comparison between the HX-1 and Stagea, the difference was astonishing! Stagea sounded like the original instruments whilst the HX sounded like a reproduced sound, smoother and more like a synth.

Anyway, thanks for listening on the day and maybe I'll be playing at an Organ Society near you sometime soon!

Regards

James

sorry, do know your real name - Bill!