CAMP FREDDY Guitarist Issues Sunset Strip Music Festival Recap

July 7, 2008, 15 years ago

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CAMP FREDDY guitarist/founder Billy Morrison has issued the following update:

"First on the menu – the acoustic performance on Sunset Strip as part of the music festival. We did a live broadcast of Camp Freddy Radio first…..not exactly the smoothest show ever, hahaha!!! Its really hard doing outside broadcasts because you cant hear the person in the studio properly, and the audience watching you do it cant hear the songs that you are spinning! So when you verbally cue a song, you aren’t sure if the board operator in the studio is actually playing that song (the music is not played from the live location – it's played from back at the radio station) and then the audience watching you do the show stand around in silence waiting for you to talk again!! A complete recipe for disaster. But it's all part of the fun, and we got through it. After the DARLING STILETTOS, we played a short set of acoustic songs. Dave (Navarro) was unable to be there, so we had Matt’s (Sorum) friend Lanny Cordola, my songwriting partner Patrick Cornell, along with Billy Duffy and Brett Scallions help us out. An interesting and somewhat different afternoon.

Later that night our friends from the UK, McQUEEN, were playing at the Whiskey A Go Go as part of the SSMF. And me, Sorum and Duffy had all been invited to jump up and play with the girls. So we all found ourselves upstairs at the world famous Sunset Strip club at about 1:00am in the morning, watching the girls rock the Whiskey. It’s the first time I had seen the band (although they had guested with Camp Freddy in May during our Roxy Residency) and they blew me away!! Awesome songs and a killer live show. And at the end, they rocked a couple of covers so that we could join em. I grabbed a guitar and played 'Dirty Deeds' and 'It's So Easy' with Sorum on the second drum kit and Duffy on lead guitar. So much fun – thank you girls (and the ever present Mr Zutatt) for having me.

Aspen. In the summertime. No snow. A weird place for Camp Freddy to play. But play we did, at the Belly Up Club’s July 4th party (except we played on 3rd and were onstage at midnight to usher in the 4th celebrations!). But I am getting ahead of myself. The first signs of this being a slightly ‘different’ gig was when Matt and I were sitting in a town car, on our way to LAX Airport. Dave and Billy Duffy were ahead of us in their car, when my phone rang. It was my guitar tech, who casually says 'Have you seen the news? Some guy is wandering around LAX telling people he’s a terrorist and he has a bomb. Airports closed...' Great. Our flight leaves in 45 minutes. A quick cellphone pow wow with Navarro later and we have turned around, booked a private plane for ourselves (not cheap, but a good emergency plan!!) and I was back at home eating Pinkberry before you could say ‘Fucked Up’!! The next morning we tried again. This time, it was over to a private airfield in the Valley, drive straight on to the tarmac, park next to the jet and take off immediately. Instead of a five hour trip, with a change of planes in Denver, we landed directly in Aspen an hour and a half later. The only way to travel.

The show itself was a lot of fun. We did a half hour acoustic set, followed by an hour electric set. Doing the ALICE IN CHAINS classic, 'Got Me Wrong', on acoustic with Jerry Cantrell singing just blew my mind!! And playing 'Suffragette City' standing next to '80s legend John Oates (who was RIPPING on lead guitar!!) was another Freddy first for me. All in all the Aspen trip was another strange and wonderful Camp Freddy experience. I know that we all have to thank Chris Chaney for letting us stay in his family's house up there. Your hospitality knows no bounds mate. It was fantastic, thank you."



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