Who attended this year + best moment

[MatthewMoss]

Wow! I can't start to explain how awesome the road rally was! I am typing this on my iPhone in the airport waiting to catch my flight back to Houston followed by a drive home to Louisiana.

So who from the forum attended the rally and what was your coolest or most eye opening moment?

I will post mine later when I am using a full keyboard!

-Matthew

[llama]

It was great meeting up with you Matt. What an amazing experience the rally was. I read before how people say the rally is a life changing experience and I always thought ok.....eh...maybe...But having attended my first a few days ago...I can say it is...
High point in terms of panels and classes would be the game composers panel. But hanging with so many cool people was the greatest. I'm looking forward to next year already......

Derek.

[ciskokidd]

I always wanted to meet John Mayer!!

Seriously though it was a pleasure meeting you Matt. And Derek, it was great to meet you as well, although the picture of Stan's tattoo will forever be in my head!

What a great weekend. I am back at the day gig, and jonesin for more of the Rally high.

My high points were meeting new forum friends and deepening the bonds with my old forum friends. You guys made this rally so special for me. On the musical side, Steve Memel was the high point. His classes opened my eyes up to a whole new level. He made a deep impression on how I can work on getting out of my own way as a songwriter.

-Cisco

[sarahrm]

Best moment for me would be uuuummm... EVERYTHING : ) Matt you are an amazing bass player I really enjoyed listening to your cd driving home last night : )
Sarah Rhodes

[mazz]

Matt,

Great meeting you! Sorry I didn't get to hear you play! Maybe next year.

My favorite part was all the hugs I gave and received with friends old and new.

Cheers!

Mazz

[Casey H]

Sunday night's huge dot dinner...

Suz Doyle's lobby rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody on her uke...

Still trying to learn to pronounce Taeko's name...

Casey

[willwillp]

I was there and it was as great as ever!

The A&R panels were fantastic as usual. I'm always a bit surprised at some of the things they like and don't like and their reasoning. Ralph Murphy's panel was great for this too! All of the classes I attended were fantastic as usual. Steven Memel helped take some performances from good to great, Jai Josef's and Pat Pattison's song-writing classes gave me even more tools for my songwriting. I tried to squeeze into one of Jason Blume's classes but I showed up a bit late and there were already people spilling out into the hallway to hear him speak. So I walked down the hall and watched Rob Chiarelli and Ron Harris re-produce a current hit with about $1000 worth of gear in about an hour by keeping it all simple...and of course it sounded fantastic!

The best moment for me though was rapping with Ron Harris in the hallway while he was waiting to do another panel. Ron is a cool dude and I just wanted to tell him I enjoyed his panel and thank him for sharing some of his knowledge, but we got to talking and in the course of about a 5 minute conversation he made a few comments that got me much more focused on what I was doing as far as production and focusing on getting a great vibe. I wasn't trying to pass any music to Ron because I came to the Rally in order to continue elevating my writing game, but Ron was curious what I was working on and asked me for some music. That's why the Rally is great. You have some of the best writers, producers, A&R, publishers all there to help you, and it can seriously elevate your game.

[dotted8]

One of the best things was making it through the four days in one piece...

I do wish I had spent more time meeting with the forumites but with so much going on and since it was just my second rally, I spent most of time running class to class soaking up the knowledge (as opposed to last year when I soaked up mostly beer.)

One of my favorites though was Rob Chiarelli and Ron Harris' production class on Sunday morning (the one Will spoke of), that was great!

[guitaroboe]

So many to mention...

Jammin' with Mazz at the 12 floor party-that boy can PLAY!!

Hooking up with my new lifelong buddies matto, crsevenstring, kclements... again so many to mention.

Watching Tinozigzag literally hassle a percussion instrument from some folks jamming in the lobby.

The panels, classes, I don't know where to begin!

Last but surely not least a success story that happened to me out of the blue. More about that when
I get the confirmation email. Let's not jinx it!

Adonis

[kclements]

For me, the friendships, the laughs, the education, the TV/Film panel and on and on - too many things to mention.

Adonis, Mazz, Tino, Chris, Patti, Chris, Chuck, Dave, and many more - thank you. Thank you for helping me feel welcome. Thank you for the guidance and critiques and suggestions.

I think the biggest thing I re-realized is that we are all in this together - and the more we help those around us, the better off we all are. It was nice to be in a hotel filled with people who feel the same.

kc