Mosrite Factory 88 + Semie Live footage

[Sarah93003]

What an awesome find. To see him in video just makes it so much more personal. Wow! Truly awesome.

[Strat-o-rama]

Incredible. Semie is exactly how I imagined him to be: a likeable personality and a good talker; he would have those qualities to have kept resurrecting himself and Mosrite.
It is also interesting to see him playing professionally, and very revealing, messing around on a guitar to check it out while in the shop. You get an idea as to how Semie hears his own guitars: how he used the tremolo for steel/hawaiian type effect, his licks and little chord ditties. We all do it when we check out a guitar; our little "home base" chords and licks. You get a good feel of how Semie was strongly rooted in country and blues.
I'm sure if he had not passed away prematurely he would have continued on as a boutique shop, continuing to carve his own niche in the music business.
As Deke implied, I can't help but think his bone cancer was in some way brought on by the very nature of his work. Semie had been working with many carcinogenic materials since the 1950s, long before anyone was aware of the dangers of long term exposure.
Great video. Thanks for posting!

[EF@MosriteRecords]

Hi gang. Thanks for posting Austin. I remember these surrounding so well. The motor home in the parking space there was purchased by Semie in 1985 from a close friend of mine Kathy Anderson when Semie and Loretta were staying with me for a week when I lived in Calif. I'll find and post a photo showing Semie loading it to start back to Jonas Ridge. I have a lot of VHS footage but need to convert to DVD so I can upload to hard drive. So information can be shared, I will, after seeing this Video from 1988 ask Andy if the Services for Semie should ever be shared. The services were taped and do exist. There are several live performances of Semie in Japan with Nokie which are on DVD already. Also there are live home videos I had done in Bakersfield in or about Memorial Day 1989. They include Semie & Loretta, Brian and Debbie Lonbeck, Rose Lee Maphis, Billy Mize, Bonnie Ownes, Gene Moles. Buck Ownes, Rose Maddox, Susan Raye and many others. They were taken at the weekend opening of Bakersfield Pioneer Village opening and the Museum there. Back then there were more of us that played TOWN HALL PARTY still with us. Joe's second doubleneck is there in Bakersfield.

Luv to all
Elaine

[Veenture]

Hi gang...//...Luv to all
Elaine

Nice to hear from you again Elaine...look forward to what you are able to share with us...if and when you get the time!

It is amazing to watch moving pictures and also hearing the voice of 'uncle' Semie...
Austin has done us a great favour by posting this video footage.

Take care,

Paul

[nategibson]

oh my goodness, amazing footage! thank you so kindly!!! i echo everybody's remarks about semie's pickin... great to hear his comfort zone, great to see him on stage pickin'... just good good stuff!

[ElTwang]

F A N T A S T I C !!! More please.

[Chemo]

This was a great video. Thanks a lot for sharing, 101Volts!

[Haole Jim]

THANK YOU all for the postings and especially, the footage.

It's really amazing to see Semie so hugely vibrant. Personal conversation / trading correspondence with him was a little later, not long before he eventually moverd toward his passage.

Observation, if those big men could play that little fretboard so well, we with smaller hands should not whine about the narrowness.

[oipunkguy]

this is so awesome, thank you for the posting. hard to imagine so many instruments coming out of such a small shop.

[Dennisthe Menace]

this is so awesome, thank you for the posting. hard to imagine so many instruments coming out of such a small shop.

.......at one time, it wasn't a small shop.......