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Guitar-B-Que

Southern Oregon Musician's Potluck

What is it?:

Guitar-B-Que is a Southern Oregon social gathering hosted by J.D. Berlingeri and Nick Garrett-Powell. Guitar-B-Que is a potluck for musicians to meet up, make introductions, catch up with old friends, enjoy delicious food and drink, and jam for hours. Pick your room and style, jamming loud rock with drums, amps and keyboards in the Electric Room, jazz and acoustic music in The Piano Room, all kinds of folk songs and roots music on The Patio, while spontaneous jams break out all over the lawn leading up to The Gazebo, always full of jamband storytellers.

History:

While living in LA, I tried to connect all of my musician friends from different social circles at a little house party in Hollywood. It didn't work out. The idea was that my techie friends in the audio engineering community should meet my musician friends from the hip-hop community and the gospel music community that I had been networking with. These are the days of MySpace, 2007 in Los Angeles, trying to hustle and meet folks who were getting work done. I eventually moved back to Oregon, but never forgot the idea of a real life social network.

In 2012, almost on a whim, I posted on Facebook about who'd be able to host such a thing, and JD Berlingeri immediately responded and offered up his home and his musical gear. Simply incredible. The result was an unforgettable music party of nearly 100 people, the first Guitar-B-Que. Word caught on quickly and the second event was nearly 300 people.

Up until 2019, many Guitar-B-Que's were held, Guitar-B-Que IV was biggest at over 350 people with Guitar-B-Que X being the last. Festivities will resume, the inevitable Guitar-B-Que XI will be held responsibly when Covid-19 is no longer a concern.

Plans to muster the attendees of Guitar-B-Que for charity purposes would be done under the name Music Medicine: Guitar-B-Que Crew.

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