JoyFest 2005

Joyfest is a big party Steve throws every year at his palatial estate (It's named for his lovely wife Joy). It's basically a jam session, and all day long the stage is taken by various players playing various instruments. Since I was unable to take pictures while we were actually playing, these are mostly pictures of what went on beforehand. I don't know the names of a lot of the people in these pictures, so if you're one of them, and you want to be identified, drop me a line.

Former Valves drummer Rick Murphy was in attendance

As was current Valves drummer Tom. The boy sitting at the drums is Mark Choiniere who was part of a 3 piece band made up of brothers. More pics of them coming up.

And here they are. The band is called “MILES PER MINUTE”. They are based in New York. Pretty impressive for 3 kids, Mark in particular is going to be a monster drummer if he keeps at it.

This is Matt Choiniere, who's 13 and the oldest.

Mark again.

And finally brother Phil, who's 12

Here is the Reagan family enjoying the show. Her boyfriend Timmeh holding daughter Reina...

And here is Reina in all her glory!

is it possible to have too many cute baby pictures?

Nope

Phil was overheard saying that he didn't like playing bass....

Let me tell ya something kid, guitar players are a dime a dozen, good bass players? Not so much...

Steve's daughter Lauren with her studly beau, Dan Macalini

One more shot of the drummer of the future...

Being watched by the drummer of the present. Note to Tom's boss: The shirt is just a joke, heh heh

Big Steve takes the B3. Johnny sticks to his piano

Tom and Rick doing the whole Allman/Doobie/Grateful Dead dual drummers thing.

And Rick showing us why he's still popular with the ladies. It's ladies, right Rick? Just checking...

And the blues jam officially gets underway. That's Greg attempting to play my bass. The whole "no frets" thing seems to mystify people, oh well...

Reagan belts it out

The B3 actually belongs to Steve, and yes he can play it pretty well. He's no Greg Allman of course, though he did once marry Cher briefly.

Reagan looking sultry. The guy behind her is Tom Choiniere, and he's the father of the 3 kids. Good player, very jazz oriented.

The guy playing greg's guitar is Mike Thomas. Greg is breaking the 5th fret rule which states that all good bass parts can be played without ever going past the 5th fret. I think it's BS personally and I sometimes play above the 5th fret just to annoy people.

Tom Choiniere again

The Dynamic Duo rockin out...

Reagan and Rayna, very pretty

Yes, that's me. At some point in the afternoon, I gave Rick Murphy my camera and he started taking shots with it while I played drums for a while. Nice to see I dressed up for the occasion...

Kristin Thomas. The long-haired girl with her (with purple shades) is Lynn Cherny

Lauren also plays drums (that's her set she's playing). She's really good too.

And the Fabulous Lowboy himself came down and played for a while. Looks like John is happy with what he's hearing...

Not sure who this guy on the right is either. I should probably write this stuff down.

And finally me again, looking wistful yet jerjune.