Jr Browns Guit-Steel Day 1

[chris ivey]

good job. i could barely tie my shoes at 14.

[Julian Davis]

thought you guys might like to see this.. I'm taller than him now, we still talk all the time. [/img]

[Kevin Hatton]

Julian, good luck with your guit-steel. Keep at it through the challenging plateaus. You'll get it. It's all the amount of time that you put into it and the inspiration that you have.

[Todd Clinesmith]

Great job Julian.
What part of Kansas are you in ?
I bet there is a good straight steel teacher you could find on the forum. I may know someone close to you as well.
If you have another car you can sell, or a few bucks in the bank, I would suggest getting a lap steel to practice on. Once you develop proper technique on the lap steel it will transfer over to the Guit- steel. The steel learning curve will increase big time by learning on your lap or on a stand with the steel horizontal.I know Junior learned it that way.
Keep it up.
Todd

[Julian Davis]

i live in pittsburg kansas, but I am willing to travel a little if I can get anything from it.

[Julian Davis]

alright guys, 18-19th I'll be in Nashville TN. hanging out at third man records for Record store day, Jack white is a good friend of mine.. but when I go to leave nashville. on the way home, I'm going to make a stop in a town called waverly TN, TO SEE JUNIOR BROWN!

[Dave Bader]

my Guit steel. custom buit for me, and Hi dave! I see your on this too! just got this 3 weeks ago. it's already road dirty. I've worn the top paint off from arm sweat. awesome player. it's violent, have it loaded in the car ready to go!

Hi Julian. Glad to see your getting good use from your guit-steel. Looks good on the stand. Wish I had one when I was 14. I probably put $1500.00 into mine too. I'll have to dig throughout the receipts some time and add it all up. I'm making all the hardware for my next ones but I'm still working on a new headstock design for the steel. If you ever get anymore tuning pans and you want to sell, let me know.

[Julian Davis]

If I find any tuner pans I cant get rid of them! too hard to find haha. GS-2 is coming up in 7 months. gretsch style, bigsby, pinstriping, nice glossy paint tv jones. you know a sweet gretsch. what will your new model be like?

[Dave Bader]

Now you got me thinking. I had enough alder to build two so I have a body started but without any pickup routing. I think a bigsby style would be cool. Curly maple tops and bigsby style pickups would be sweet. Can't wait to see your GS-2. Keep me updated.

[Julian Davis]

or an old supro style. It would be worth my cash to buy old supro pickups with the sweet old covers, the wing pickguards, glossy red with white outer binding. piezo on the bridge with a bigsby. gumby headstock. have you named your Guit steel yet? Mine is "the skirtshaker"

[David Mason]

It's really "neat-o" but; though I can understand the idea of being more mobile than a normal steel guy, but is there any other kind of musical advantage over a guitar on a strap and a standing-height steel guitar? I could see this being harder, not easier. Of course I'm speculating, but maybe the owners can tell me the advantages? It appears my automobile & teeth have entered into a wallet-draining conspiracy, but I could eventually stick together a fakie. I have often looked at Warmoth's doubleneck bodies & thought... You can get a 30" scale bass neck with no tuner holes drilled, but I'd be more inclined to go with an aluminum C-channel beam. Due to my spine, shoulder, arm, neck - AARGH etc. it would be a mounted-stand-ONLY instrument, so one advantage is already toast.

As far as "over-emulating" a certain artist, a good chunk of obsessive-compulsive aping disorder is a fine way to explore instruments - you get a pre-made set of real, solid, tangible goals, which works great when you're young. I'm not sure I could play guitar if I hadn't latched onto Steve Morse for a few years there. You'll know when to let go.

Like the music or not, one of the most intelligent guys out there now is John Mayer, and he has quite willfully moved through Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dave Matthews, and he's current remora'd to Jerry Garcia, which is a "good fit" IMO. While in his SRV phase, a record company made a fair bid for his apple cheeks, lush lips, wavy hair... so he did the one-man boy band* thing for a few years to score some credibility & long-range potential. Only then, when he could afford to pay Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino, he became a bluesman, 21st-century style. A few tense moments at Columbia, no doubt?

*("Your Body is a Wonderland" has GOT to win some sort of prize as the most blatant Nookie Magnet of the 21st century, for sure.)

[Stephen Cowell]

Here's a different side of Michael Stevens...

http://youtu.be/2LiLV-9cWHQ

... the Cowboy Poet Luthier!

[Julian Davis]

I talked to him about 3 days ago, he siad he was finishing up work to go perform somewhere saturday. love that roy smeck

[Peter Huggins]

Here's some photos I took a few years ago (2006) at the Dallas Guitar Show. Mr. Brown and Mr. Stevens gave a talk about the Guit-Steel. I also talked to Junior about possibly playing Deke's Guitar Geek Festival, which he did a few years later (he tore the roof off the joint!)










Note how faded the finish was already on "Big Red".

[Julian Davis]

someday. I will get a pic of me playing big red. and JR playing the Skirt shaker. TIL

[Dave Bader]

or an old supro style. It would be worth my cash to buy old supro pickups with the sweet old covers, the wing pickguards, glossy red with white outer binding. piezo on the bridge with a bigsby. gumby headstock. have you named your Guit steel yet? Mine is "the skirtshaker"

No name yet, I'm not great at naming things. I had a cat named monkey and two bird that were both named bird. If I had to think up names for all my guitars my head would explode.

[Julian Davis]

understood.. hey a question for all ya'll out there. what should I be pluckin' my skirt shaker through? i really have no amp at all.. well a mesa studio 22 that sucks. give me something. no more than 1000 bucks.

[Rick Barnhart]

Fender Twin Reverb

[Russ Wever]

~> Silvertone 1484

[Rick Barnhart]

[Dave Bader]

Silverface deluxe reverb or twin reverb.

[Mike Nihen]

Peavey Delta Blues. Used...$300.00. The 15'' will move some air and has reverb, dirt and grit. You'll have more fun with one of these than anything else. When you turn 18 you can sign up for the Fender back breakers....

[Julian Davis]

I had a silverface twin. that was horrible. half the time I thought I was going to break it cause I had to set it down every 30 seconds. I'd consider a deluxe reverb. but too be honest. I got 3 friends saying to go quilter. so I'm going to go quilter.

[Julian Davis]

did we drop this thread. hello operator? it's been a while since I've logged in, I switched the Lap to e9 and can no play just about anything I want. do the old western sounds. I even sat in at the hootenanny one night and played with all the Pedals. I just installed a runbarr on my GS about maybe 30 minutes ago. I love it.. you guy's need one for all your steels. metal steel guitar players .(I don't play metal. it just speeds me up is all, I practice Django Reinhardt and arpeggios from hell)