Friday, February 16, 2001 - Hilton Trade Show - Orion321 & Fat Vinny and the Wiseguys
We opened the doors to the Harrisburg Hilton and Towers at exactly 10 A.M. We found the PARocks table
blank except for four guitar lesson cards and a propped up Julie Schreiber promotional photo. Julie's dad,
who is also her manager, came by a little later, to tape a laminated newspaper article to the table.
Some guy with a wrist brace was the first to come to the table. He told us how he hurt both wrists actually
but only wore one brace cause he needed use of his hands. He had done it in a Target parking lot by falling
off his scooter. We were happy to have someone there to talk to for a bit.
We were then oh so lucky to be visited by Shannon's dad on his lunch break. Eep! Shannon=embarassed.
Lot's of nicely dressed people would randomly come through some doors and hang by the restrooms behind us.
One cheery woman excitedly asked us what was going on and why we were there. Melanie did her best at
explaining and the woman seemed very interested. She wished us luck and left.
We just sat and chatted with one another till a lad popped up and said his name was Tim. Shannon felt stupid that
she forgot he is Stone Jug's drummer, which she realized when he returned with Tony of Stone Jug.
They showed up with their buzz bags and a stereo with no speakers. Helpful huh? hee hee It was nice to have
company though. They hung around for about an hour or so. They even got us fries which was very nice (thank you!).
Before that some guy who introduced himself as Indian kept coming up to the table to chat. He talked about
coming to see "his band" Catch 22 so we assumed he was part of the band and the other guys he hung out
with were in the band too. The one guy looks like Thom Yorke of Radiohead and the other guy talked to us
about British music. We had heard commercials on the X for Catch 22 and thought they seemed like they
would be fun, but we could not go that night cause we had prior engagements to attend. Indian even invited
us to his party and Shannon said how they were wee young gals and probably wouldn’t even be allowed to,
and he then asked how old we were. Shannon said 16 and he was like "Woah!!!! Hah, oops!" and Melanie
said she was 18 and he was like "Oh 18, eh? Well you might be ok, but I don’t know about your friend."
Indian kept asking where this Jim who was showing up was. He joked around, saying that when he arrived
we could all beat him up.
A graphic artist lad dropped off his CD and wee art booklet and Shannon was all happy to get that
because she is really interested in graphic art. Yup, so he was nice.
Before noon, a band from Canada, Orion321, came by. They were scheduled to be interviewed by
Jim, [ed note. - fact in dispute] we could not do anything. No Show Ponies came by too,
but we had no tape for the video camera to interview anyone. So for hours Orion321 waited around.
When Jim showed up around 3, we set up the camera and he hung around for a bit. Shannon messed
with the camera some more and Ben, from No Show Ponies helped her out a bit. Tripod troubles!
We didn't really know where to do the interview. We were talking about having everyone sit in a
circle on the floor by the table, but it was loud so Shannon suggested the wee room that was next to them,
by the coat room and phones. So, that's where the interview for Orion321 and Fat Vinny took place.
It was too loud in there too, and it was really hard to make out what they were saying, but we couldn’t think
of where else to go. Orion321 gave us each a CD of theirs (Bottom of the Sky) which was really nice.
Fat Vinny of Fat Vinny and the Wiseguys popped up asking about an interview so we said
sure. Melanie interviewed him, but people kept walking by that worked there and he got a little
upset (in an amusing way) and kept editing himself. After that interview was done, we sat around
for a bit longer and then left by 4:30.