Four years ago today…
..was Woodshaft.
Woodshaft was conceived ten years ago back when I was in Residential Goosing, the band I was in during my senior year of high school. We wanted to have a big music festival out in the country. There were a few other bands from the Auburn area that were in various stages of activity. However, necessities that were absent from the scenario included a drummer for our band and the courage to perform our songs in front of anyone who wasn’t in the band.
Residential Goosing broke up in the fall of 1996. Years later, the mighty Auburn band No You, which ruled Auburn High School in the 2001-2002 school year, performed at the Legion Park band shell in May 2002 – another unfulfilled dream of Residential Goosing. That got the ball rolling for what would become Woodshaft 2002.
No You’s popularity and the presence of Vince Riley’s guitar shop in Auburn led to an explosion of new bands in town, ranging from middle school to high school age. Woodshaft was a showcase of all the new talent in Auburn, and an opportunity to finally live out the Residential Goosing dream.
We got back together a few days before the show, frantically re-learned our songs, and taught them all to a drummer who had never heard the songs in his life in an afternoon (fortunately he was a really good drummer who caught on very quickly).
The show went really well, several hundred people came out to the farm to enjoy the show, and it was definitely a great sendoff to Residential Goosing. The RG saga always felt like it never properly concluded, and that was a wonderful final chapter.
Woodshaft led to Solstice Fest, which then evolved into the Music in the Park series, which still continues to this day in Auburn. So it’s nice that our little creative spurt ten years ago was able to leave some kind of positive legacy on our hometown.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Congrats Neal,
I like Auburn, the wife and I were just there yesterday (Tuesday) I made sure to stop at Hoagies for a few minutes on the way home.