I wanted to add a blog post to capture the Dallas Daion Maniac Event that occurred over the weekend of October 12th, 2024. Many months prior I got tapped to host the event. I’m not sure if I volunteered or just accepted the assignment. My partners in crime that helped organize the event were Michael Callahan and Michael Bechmann - the co-moderators of the Daion Facebook Group.

The event was attended by about a dozen Facebook group members from around the world - Australia, UK, Denmark, Japan, Africa, and the United States. The special gust was Hiro Teradaira, the designer of the Daion instruments that we all so adore, and his son Kohichiro.

I first saw a Daion in 1984 (or 1985?) at Brook Mays Music store in Northpark Mall in Dallas Texas. As I remember, it was the only Daion in the store. My bass at the time was a black Peavey T-40 with a rosewood fingerboard. The Peavey was my first bass (not a bad bass to start on actually). At that time I had been taking lessons for about two years or so and was already playing in bands in high school. Compared to the Peavey, the Daion looked exotic. It was an ‘84 Wine Red Mark XX – a 24 fret nine-piece neck-through bass with all it’s beautiful wood grain exposed under a shiny clear lacquer.