Oct, 2017: This is our very special friend Hiro Takai (stage name TakainoMoheji) from Japan. We'd booked him to play our 15h anniversary Harp Guitar Gathering in southern California (his 3rd HGG appearance), and he was dying to see the instruments and the dogs. And they, it turns out, were dying to meet him. He's a force of nature and an incredible musician (specialty: his custom koto harp guitar).

8/27/2016: Had a wonderful evening when our friends up the street (Ben & Pauli Carnes) had us to dinner to meet two new couples, who then came down for a museum tour.
Ben (in construction) was a pro Bluegrass pedal steel player in another life and they have a ton of musician friends through their church.
A lot of laughs and stories with Chester Thompson and his wife Roz (from Nashville) and Ronnie and Sandy Van (local). The two men hadn't seen in each other in awhile, but had briefly been in a band together ages ago.
Ronnie (guitar) has various credits, from the Jackson 5-like "The Sylvers" in the '70s to touring with Diana Ross.
Chester I am embarrassed to admit, I had never seen play in my life, even though he did stints with pretty much all my high school prog rock idols! I only knew (from Ben) that he was associated with Genesis. So you can imagine my mouth dropping open (and staying there for some time) when my humble, soft spoken new friend told me of his first gig at age 24 with Zappa. (Me: so was he a genius? Answer: Yeah. Me: how'd you learn all that stuff? A: EVERY SINGLE NOTE was written out. Whereas in Genesis it was all by ear.). I only saw Zappa once when Flo & Eddie were with him. Then Jean Luc Ponty did a stint and left, and Chester says he was right after that.
"Zappa was my school...Weather Report was grad school..."
Yes, his next gig was with the seminal band before my getting turned on to them (Jaco and "Byrdland," naturally). Chester was just prior, in the band with fellow rhythm section player and still one of his best friends and favorite musicians, Alphonso Johnson (he and Roz were here in LA staying with the Carnes after a short South American tour with Johnson...and I had missed their practice run at the Baked Potato!).
So I had not just missed Chester playing down the road, but apparently JUST missed him over and over 40 years ago (and for whatever reason I missed becoming the standard Genesis fan).
Anyway, hearing about the management insisting on putting Jaco in the band and Chester giving it a try in the studio, then leaving ("it was oil and water"...and then he imitates for me Alphonso's style, then Jaco's...) was pretty darn surreal. More than once, I said, Dude, you've gotta write a book about all this!
While the wives socialized, we guys relived our youths, sharing about the first time we each saw Billy Cobham with the Mahavishnu Orchestra (me at the Aragon Ballroom in the Chicago 'burbs....Chester would ultimately do a double bill tour with Cobham's band...) and similar revelations.
MAN - he just kept throwing out all these quick pick-up band "supergroup" gigs he's done (members from Yes, King Crimson, Steve Hackett, on and on).
Oh yeah - Genesis. From 1977 to 2007, their touring drummer (Me: so was Phil a good drummer? A: Yeah, he was fantastic! He did all the studio drums, I did 'em on tour...). Still not really believing all this prog-rock history sitting next to me at the Carnes', I HAD to check it out...here's Chester with Phil Collins in their drum duet.
After dinner we headed down to our house for a quick tour. Neither couple - despite the men's whole lives in the music biz - had never seen anything like the stuff in the Miner Museum, and were quite appreciative. 1st photo is Chester demonstrating the berimbau. 2nd photo is Ronnie managing to actually sound funky on my KeyKord automatic-cording tenor guitar! Fun folks, every one. Who KNOWS who you might meet just up the street!

8/13/2016: Two of our favorite musicians (and people) stopped by for an exceedingly pleasant visit: Wife and husband duo (hammered dulcimer & guitar) Karen Ashbrook and Paul Oorts, while gigging and festivaling on the West Coast.

5/5/2015: A local acquaintance of mine, Mitchell Manger (at left) is a music attorney who also runs Antiquity Music (rare acoustic and electronic keyboards). He made an appointment for his fist visit to the museum, and asked if it was OK to bring a friend. I hesitated, asking for the usual background check. He assured me "Wally" was OK, and was known in the music biz. Wally turned out to be frickin' Gotye, dreamboat pop star of "Somebody That I Used to Know" fame. Well, I didn't know, but my wife sure did. I don't know who was more infatuated - Jaci, me, or Maezi. Turns out Wally was a super normal, total geek like me. Read the whole crazy story on my blog Wally's World.

9/13/2014: Guitar & lute multi-instrument and multi-string virtuoso John Schneiderman drove up from Orange County and made the rounds of some of the Miner Museum’s harp guitars. I had to take a selfie with my hero. See my blog Schneiderman Plays the Blues for more instruments and John.

12/31/2013: Just before New Years Day...and a surprise visitor who just happened to be in the area - all the way from Padua, Italy. Luthier Max Monterosso has been an email pal for awhile now, as he builds fine guitars and now harp guitars. Our thumbs up was for his friends back home.

3/11/2013: After years of bugging him, I finally coerced Fred Walecki (of family dynasty Westwood Music fame) into coming over. Actually, it was Isaac Jang who finally made it happen. Isaac is a luthier apprentice of (guitar/harp guitar luthier legend) Kathy Wingert and also did repairs in Fred's shop. For more on my long, occasional relationship with Fred, see my blog A Visit with Fred Walecki.

10/12/2012: I got a call from the manager of Trent Reznor (founder of the acclaimed Nine Inch Nails) asking if his client could come over and investigate and possibly rent some of my oddball dulcimer or zither-y things (to film to pre-recorded playback). Being mainly a keyboard guy (his manager said he is a classically-trained pianist), Trent naturally gravitated toward the Dolceola – half piano, half zither. He decided to go with a couple different choices for his partner to look at (Atticus Ross, with whom he does David Fincher's soundtracks). Trent's on the left, with part of his technical crew, Dustin Mosley and Jun Murakawa. All 3 guys were super nice, and appreciative museum visitors. I couldn’t wait to see what they did with these, though hoping nothing too dark and disturbing with the Dolceola (as Trent’s musical reputation preceded him…). I’ll let you be the judge, as his video “Ice Age” is now out. See more on my blogs Nine Inch Harp Guitars and Dark and Disturbing Dolceolas.

5/8/2011: Four of the hottest young acoustic guitarists on the planet (all on the Candyrat label) came through L.A. last night on a short tour. They stopped by on the way up to Santa Barbara and had fun trying out some odd harp guitars. L-R: Gareth Pearson, Craig D’Andrea, me, Antoine Dufour, Ewan Dobson II.