The Steel Guitar Forum

As a teenage wanna-be steel guitar player, I used to set up my triple neck Fender next to an old chest of drawers that served as my record storage facility (Two top drawers) and my record player table (the top).

I'd spin a Jerry Byrd record, and when it would get to a good part, lead or back-up, I'd reach over and pick up the needle-tone arm and replace it on the record surface in order to hear "that part" once again.

There's nothing quite like the shock one gets when he leaves one bare arm lying atop one or more sets of strings....while lifting the metal arm of the WEbcore record player.

WHEW! An eye opening experience. Please tell me, that I'm not the only one that ever did anything as shocking as this~! Please.

Playing in front of a crowd, the band leader's guitar was severely out of tune and his amp was next to me so I leaned over to turn it down and went incandescent.

Some years ago I had my left foot in a small puddle of beer spilled on the floor, my left hand on my strings and reached out to shake hands with a fellow steeler who just came in the club. It was quite a severe shock for both of us but it did make me a faster player. NOT REALLY!!!!!

One of my first gigs was at a CYO dance on a very hot summers' evening in the midwest. Place was SRO and I was having a ball playing thru a brand-new Sears Silvertone 2-12" 100 watt w/reverb amp. Soaked with sweat, I put my lips right on the old Shure 55 microphone 'cuz the Bogen 35 watt P.A. was barely making it. Next thing I saw-was a blinding white flash and felt like my whole body was on fire! They tell me the crowd noise stopped as I was unconsciously screaming over the mic. The other guys in the band thought I was maybe winding up to do "Great Balls A-Fire", as the shock finally sent me reeling back into the piano where the back of my head made contact and knocked me loose. I remember a puff of smoke coming out of my mouth as I began to regain my composure and introduce the next song! Just then, a girl in front of the bandstand screamed and pointed at me. The bass player nudged me and murmured something about blood-as I instinctively put my hand on my head to find the source of the stinging feeling. As I removed my hand I saw that it was all bloody, and the sweat on my brow was now turning red! That's about all I remember until I woke up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I received 40 some stitches and altho' I wanted to return to the gig, I spent the nite "under observation". Since I didn't play the last 2 sets, the good priests weren't going to pay me until I threatened to SUE! AH-the good 'ol days----

------------------
ree-00-dee-doo

I had a guitar player ask to borrow my tuner once while we were on stage. I had my right hand sitting on the strings as I handed him my tuner. As I passed him the tuner our hands just happened to be touching the little metal stand on the back ot the tuner and ZAP! More recently, at band practice (different band) The lead player wanted to cover an acoustic lead and I was going to cover the electric parts. I just happened to be sitting behind my Emmons, my knees barely touching the knee levers as he passed me his strat. Man I wish I'd a wore long pants that day!

oooooooops double post<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Mullis on 07 November 2001 at 07:24 AM.]</p></FONT>

Before that 3rd wire, the ground, was required on all outlets, there was a few people that got killed that a way.

Bob Carlson.

Years ago when doing Sunday noon shows for club owners and their "booking agents" back in about 1960 in and around Manchester N. England - I was in a so called rhythm and blues band.
Whilst waiting for our last spot to go on again, a bands singer was zapped for ever as his mouth touched the mike; it had an aluminum stage covering.
I never did manage to play that place again and wasn't bothered if I ever played on a metal stage ever again.

Bob Mainwaring. Z.Bs.and other weird things.

------------------

You guys certainly have had some shocking experiences, I do declare.

When about age 15-16, we were playing for a gala opening event of a Kaiser/Frazer New Car Dealership in Milaukie, Or.

My brand new Gibson twin speaker amp was on the brightly red, painted concrete floor and I was (at the moment) wearing my double soled English Broge shoes with steel cletes on the toe, both sides, two in the center and one on the heel. I reached down to give the on/off switch a click and tho't I'd been hit by lightening! Within half an hour, my left eye swelled nearly shut and became totally blood shot.

To this day, some 50 years later, when I get the least bit tired, that left eye(with great vision still....)becomes heavy and tired and quite litterally feels like it's going to sleep.

That was a re-VOLTing experience.

Then there was the night our TV band played this open-air program on a wooden (water-logged) dock on Lake Sacajawia (sp?)in Longview, WA. For the entire show, I kept feeling this tingling sensation in my hands and arms. It never dawned on me until days later that I could have been electrocuted from that playing experience.

Thanx for sharing your electrifying experiences with me. I needed that!!

Ray, you may need to explain the Kaiser/Frazier dealership to some!

You young whipper-snappers! I do declare!!

For those of you that weren't hangin' 'round c/w music places during the big one, WWII, I'll happily explain:

Henry J. Kaiser, seemingly came out of nowhere. At a time when America was taking a real whipping by Japan, Germany and Italy,
Mr. Kaiser came up with a plan to build merchant marine ships by the hundreds in order to get supplies from the US of A over to Europe and other strategic places around the globe.

At one time, he was launching a new merchant ship and/or tanker each day!

Any way, AFTER the BIG WAR was over, he decided to take his wartime expertise and enter into the automobile market.

This was AFTER he successfully created and marketed a new line of construction equipment, most noted perhaps, the MIXER Mobile; a combination cement mix and elevator to take the product up to higher floors, etc.

His first automobile was the Kaiser which was an entirely new design; not quite as radical as the 46-48 Studebakers that folks had trouble figuring out the front end from the back end, but unique, none-the-less.

Shortly thereafter, he teamed with some guy named Frazer, and they combined their talents to make a single car, as I recall, known at the Kaiser/Fraser sedan. They are quite a collector's item these days.

Hope this helps fellows. Sorry about that. I jes' keep fergettin' how really old I actually am. Oh well.........

And........there was the time that I was guested on the Hawaiian Ocean Going Tug Boat called "ONO".

The crewman grabbed their ukes and slack string geetars.......and plunked me down on the mess hall's metal, picnic table benches.
I had metal cleats on the soles of my leather shoes and of course they were on the steel deck of the boat.

The crewman hit the power switch and my little Gibson amp litterally glowed, like it had a halow around it. I learned later, that I too, had a similar glow. Finally the crewman yelled out, "cut the power". It seems boats like that have DC current and I was getting the entire load, grounded out by the steel deck of the boat that was sitting in a huge, wet river.

After they did something technical to cut the power down, I was able to pick and grin for about four hours. Lot's of fun for a young teenager, wanna-be steel guitar picker.

I realize this is a shocking revelation and perhaps b0b might want to pull the plug on this thread by now. Ole SParky!

I would be curious to hear from any of our European steelers to see if they have had any shocking experiences. In Europe they don't use a grounded system which ironically seems safer than our grounded system. It would seem to me over there, if you come into contact with ground and voltage you would not get shocked. Am I right? Comments?

As a young boy growing up in a little community called Oregon City (you remember it don'tcha Ray?)my folks and I lived with my grandparents who had a 40 acre place with horses and electric fences. I can tell you from experience.......ya don't ever, ever wanna WHIZZZZ on an electric fence.

Best wishes to ya'll.
Clay

Gene and Ray: Thanks and Paul

Clay......while frying bacon on an electric range, you always want to make sure you have clothes on.......as it splatters painfully!!

Well, I guess we've pretty well beat up this thread and Ohms Law, as well.

It's been fun and electrifying, I must say.

Don't ever pass a beer can from one moving car to another,it's all you can do to keep from dropping the beer. What a bolt!!!
Ray

------------------
Steeling is still legal in Arizona

To Chris Schlotzhaver:- Yes the Europeans have grounded (earthed) systems, the U.K. has 240/250 volts while the rest of Europe have 220 volts.
240/250 volts around that kinda stuff in a persons wet mouth makes for "YEEEOOOWWW"!!

Bob Mainwaring. Z.Bs. and other weird things.

------------------

Ray Jenkins....

Boy,I thought I was the only one in the whole world that had ever done that !!

(and,yes,we both dropped the can. Tried it again,and re-descovered Ben Franklin's renound thoughts on electricty and lighting.)

Ray
Great thread,,,,I love electricity,,,,,

You Light Up My Life,,,,who said that??

Debbie Boone???

Daniel or Pats daughter????

I'll regret this post,,,I know I will ,,,,,,

edited as I put my finger in the wrong
outlet,,,,,,,<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jody Carver on 08 November 2001 at 12:09 PM.]</p></FONT>

I guess I'll drive the final spike into this topic: Ray M,
your bacon frying remark reminds me of a very stupid
thing I did as a youth.
While ironing my pants (in the nude) before a gig, I
stepped on the cord and branded myself on the butt.
It hurt for a week. If I had been facing in the other direction,
we're talkin pan-seared Jimmy Dean's Pure..well never mind!

I can't resist....remember those big boxes of kitchen matches, and remember those shrink-to-fit Levis we used to wear? I was a smoker when I was a teen-ager and I carried a hand-full of those matches in my pocket, and I once had a hand-full of those matches ignite by friction in my jeans in a public place! There was no acceptable solution to the emergency....I still have a scar on my right leg. www.genejones.com

Just a great thread Ray and everyone else.
I was just sitting back with a cocktail and reading all these hilarious posts.

I kid you not when I say I've been LOL.

Thanks Ya'll.

ChipsAhoy

I remember back in 1965 (it made the papers) when Mick Jagger walked up to a mike and when he touched it with his lips he got a shock that knocked him on his keester. He was out cold!

Once had a great vocalist/rythmn guitarist named Eddie Zunk, from Salem, OR, later Phoenix, AZ. He'd install one or more new strings and NEVER cut off the long whiskers that dangled out there about 8-10 inches off the end of his guitar.
One night he leaned over to whisper to me that he wanted me to kick off "Slowly" just like Bud Issacs did on the record (My pedal Bigsby was only about two weeks old).
With the first JOLT!...I couldn't figure out what had hit me. By the time that string brushed up and down my left cheek just below the eye, I felt like I had been machine gunned!!! What hot, searing pain and located in such a tiny, tiny spot of skin just the diameter of the end of the string.
On another occasion, he turned to tell me what to kick-off next, while he was standing behind the bandleader who was right in the middle of "Remember Me!" Those same pesky whisker-like strings poked the leader in the small of the back, each with their own JOLT of electricty attached. The leader instinctively tipped forward touching his nose to the mike which resulted in another BIG ZAPP! This time he hurriedly arched his back rearward until HIS own guitar strings hit the live/hot mike stand and Zing! POW! Bam! #@*+!!!!!! That action made a fabulous electrical arc that successfully blew out all the fuses in the building.
Those were the days!!!! Such fun.....
Needless to say, the crowd was electrified