[Frankenstrat2]

Some of us started to get to know each other on another thread. I realized that most of the other Forums I belong to have a section for introductions. Usually the moderators and senior members will chime in and say hello and welcome the Newbies.
Over here, it seems we are all newbies.
So I'll take a shot at putting up a post where the few of us who hang out here can get better acquainted.
********************
My name is Barry.
I'm a slide-aholic. I can't ever seem to get enough. I used to be happy just with regular guitars, acoustics, electrics, 12-strings. I always liked to listen to slide players, and marveled at their singing. vocal quality compared to regular fretted playing.
I'm 53 years old and have played guitar most of my life. In my teens and twenties I always played in local bands.
Growing up and living on Long Island in the shadow of New York City I have had the great advantage of being able to attend many shows and to have seen almost every guitar hero and great band live at some point in their carreers.
I quit playing music as a business in my twenties, and 'retired' for more than ten years. Later on my wife insisted that I start to play again, for fun as a hobby.
Of course hobbies become obsessions.
I always loved Ry Cooder and traditional acoustic/electric blues/rock guitar. The Allman Bros and Southern Rock always appealed to me, as did the California sound of the Eagles, and of course all of the British Invasion groups- Beatles and Stones. Each of those genres featured a fair amount of slide guitar.
Somebody remind me to go back to the 50 Greatest thread and post George Harrison and Joe Walsh.
In my rebirth as a hobbyist guitar enthusiast I began to teach myself some slide. Warren Haynes emerged as a modern slide hero and I tought myself to slide on the electric guitar in natural tuning as Warren often does. I had played a fair amount of acoustic guitar during my 'sensitive singer-songwriter days' so I was also familiar with open G and drop D tunings and the various fingering possibilities.
Over time my slide abilities progressed (slowly) and at the same time I began to network with other players such as myself with careers and families. I began to accumulate guitars and amps and a small PA- all gear I bought second-hand, over time.
At this point I have a home studio in basement. I am fortunate to have built up a rotating group of musicians who come over regularly to play music.
We have a great time, there is no pressure, no equipment to move, no cigarette smoke, no 3rd set to play, no bar owners telling us to turn down or drunks making requests.
I am always trying to improve, reading practicing and playing. I have made friends all over the world thanks to Internet Forums such as this and others.
While I am far from a virtuoso slide player, I'm proud of what I have accomplished so far. I really enjoy the music, and as you guys probably realize, we slide guitar players have our own niche, which few regular players fully understand, but is universally admired.
Oh- my screen name refers to my two main guitars- both made from parts of various vintage stratocasters, but customized for my needs as a slide guy.
Thus Frankenstrat2.
But enough about me.....
Next?

[1four5]

It was actually Paul playing a uke at George's tribute concert that turned me on to ukulele in first place. 8)

[Kirk Lorange]

Welcome 1four5 ... good of you to join up.

Kirk

[LightninBoy]

Hi there i iv v.

[1four5]

Thanks for the welcome! I'm finding that the mechanics of playing clean slide is much harder than one would think at first, but the payoff is much greater than ripping out a bunch of random fretted notes like I have been doing. I'm getting cleaner with practice. One of these days I might record something.

[Plumber]

Hi, new member here. I play mostly (..or at least I'm trying to play ) traditional electric slideguitar in styles of Elmore james and Hound Dog Taylor etc. And sometimes also some downhome acoustic blues and some Ry Cooder kind of stuff (if someone happens to be interested, there is some soundclips on my website). Actually I'm here because I found this strange guitar i New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, and maybe someone here can help me find out what kind of guitar it is. But for some reason I can't find the pics of it :? , so I'll be back...

[allthumbs]

hi plumber. i found what i could about your guitar but, it looks like an orphan. Do you have clips of how it sounds?

[Skibumdog]

I'm Skibumdog, another senior citizen

I've been playing guitar for about 40 years, just jamming with friends, never been in a band except in high school.

About 20 years ago I started dealiing with GAS...guitar acquisition syndrome. This comes and goes with no real predictability. The result is a collection of off beat and some known guitars. My friend Rich up in Wyoming works on/rebuilds a lot of these. Next week I'm going to visit him and pick up a Harmony Rocket he is rebuilding. This is no ordinary Harmony Rocket. He has put new tuners on it, carved a bone nut and Rosewood bridge, put a Bigsby on it (my request) and is putting the original D'Armond pickkups (2) back in. I am so excited, I feel like a little kid at Christmas.

I have been playing slide a lot on acoustic resos, now I am trying to plug in and get great tone without a bunch of feedback from the amp. Mostly I play in open D, but am intrigued with Kirk's open D and also standard tuning.

The resos I plug in are:
Liberty Curly Oak.....National biscuit cone and McIntyre pu

Dobro Dobrolectric.....Like a thin line tele with a biscuit reso, P-90 and some kind of acoustic pu and a blender knob that lets you mix them

Dobro Squareneck....not sure of the model #, with the acoutic pu they put in

Larry Pogreba brazed aluminum reso....bone nut, new tail piece and Lindy Fralin reso pu added by my friend Rich. This guitar is truly cosmic. The sound bounces around in the body like a super ball on a handball court.

Anyway, enough rambling on about me. I mentioned these guitars because if anyone has experience with different amp settings and dealing with the feedback issue, I would be real interested in how you deal with it.

[allthumbs]

hi skibumdog. man you got the GAS bad. Can't help you with your questions but I am sure some of the folks here can.

[John]

Hello all! A quick intro--

I'm 41, and make my home just out side of Los Angeles, here in the States. I've been playing (more off than on) for about 30 years. I never made it out of the garage with my band, although I began with a background in formal music theory in college.

However, life makes two rights and a quick left, and all of a sudden you're not doing what you thought you'd be doing with your life. I spent time in the U.S. Marine Corps, then went in to law enforcement. Been there ever since. Instead of being a professional musician, I became a professional motorcyclist--I've spent 10 of my last 15 years riding police motors--first as an officer, now as a Sergeant.

Anyway, I grew up in the glam-rock 70's, and spent my summer job money on a long string of guitars (that I wish I still had now)! Having both a wife and kids, and therefore something to do with my money, I now own the famous Cheap Jazz Box, which is new in '02 Johnson f-hole that I bought for very little money on the internet. I run that through a mid-70's Fender Champ silverface tube amp. My reso is also a cheapie--75 U.S. dollars on E-bay for a Danville. The cool part is, both guitars play and sound great!

Oh, and my slide--its an 11/16" chromed steel deep well spark plug socket. It sounds great .

I'm a member of several other boards, and I even moderate the guitar section of another. I have been studying Kirk's method, and it's all coming together for me (I always was a poor theory student). Happy to be here, and looking forward to meeting you all!

John

[allthumbs]

Hi John, Hope the smog where you are is better than L.A., Riding in that all day could be a hard grind. I also study Kirks' P.T.. I have just ordered his dropped D brass slide which I have been waiting to do for a year, now that he is back home in Oz. I will post a review of it after I have had it a while. I got its' twin made in leaded glass by Diamond while I was waiting so judging by how well that sounds, the brass will be astounding. Always glad to see a new member. I think you will find this is one of the quietest forums you have ever seen, don't know why but, I am usually wondering around here along with a couple of other guys.

[Skibumdog]

I believe the socket wrench also worked well for the late great Lowell George of Little Feat.
On the album 'Hoy Hoy", they have him telling people to go to Sears and get a Craftsman socket.....

[Johnny Guitar]

Hello,

Nice place you got here!

My name is John and I've been playing guitar for 33 years (maybe a bit longer but that's when I bought my first guitar; a Teisco Del Ray electric). Roughly the same time as I bought my first guitar, I bought a couple of live albums which had a profound effect on me: Johnny Winter And Live, and The Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East. I fell in love with slide in addition to standard electric guitar. I especially liked the very aggressive electric slide players like Johnny, Larry "Rhino" Rheinhardt, Duane and Dickey. I started trying to play electric slide fairly early on while I was learning the guitar.

I mainly played electric guitar with a flat pick; sometimes acoustic with a pick. I tried to play slide with a pick as well, using the slide on my little finger.

As I got better at playing the guitar, my slide guitar didn't improve as much as my standard playing. I found myself playing less and less slide as it was painful to listen to. I've always practiced a lot and my musical interests expanded greatly as the years passed, and I would always find myself coming back to slide.

In the past twenty years or so, I've found myself more intersted in both acoustic slide (especially Delta style) and the slower more "greasy" slide playing I associate with Lowell George, Bonnie Raitt and Ry Cooder. I really love that very slow vibrato, but I'm still interested in that nasty aggressive style too. I'm now trying to play a lot more slide with my fingers (no picks or fingerpicks).

In the past few years I've been making a more concerted effort to learn some of the more difficult styles of guitar that have interested me. I've been buying books and instructional DVDs to motivate me, and explain more difficult concepts. The areas I've been interested in have been:
Django style gypsy jazz gutiar.
Fingerstyle guitar.
Flamenco guitar.
Jazz comping.
Bottleneck slide guitar. (I just got the Bob Brozman DVDs from Homespun and have already learned a lot from them)

So far I really like the instructional DVD route since I've never been good at reading tabs (I'm better with notation than tabs). It's not as good as a teacher of course, but better than not having anything.

Anyway, it's nice to see all the other sliders around here. I'll be posting soon.
J

[allthumbs]

Hi J.B. I just posted a slide thing. not sure what style you would call it. Glad to have a new member here, this place can be pretty quiet. Just got my recording software working so I will be driving everyone here nuts with my playing til I run out of host sites for my tunes. Looking forward to hearing something from you.

[Skibumdog]

Hey John

I like all the styles you mention, and have been influenced by some of the same people you mention.

I also like the most recent incarnation of the Allman Bros.
They have a fairly recent 2 disc live CD, and many of the Dickie Betts/Duane Allman duets you refer to are now being played by Derrick Trucks and Warren Haynes

[Johnny Guitar]

Thanks for the welcome allthumbs. I will need to check out the clips people have posted. You won't be hearing anything from me in the near future though. I'm not sure if I can make recordings and get them out, but in that regard my time would be better spent trying to get rid of all that fret noise and buzzing that is so annoying -- at least my pitch is getting better.

Hey Skibumdog, I think that new Allman Bros DVD may have been what motivated me to start playing slide a lot more recently. I got it knowing how much I liked Warren Haynes playing, and thinking I've always wanted to check out Derek Trucks since I've heard so much about him.

I was blown away by both these guys. Watching Derek actually got me thinking that I could do some of what he was doing. If I'd only heard him, I would have had no idea why he sounded so good; I would've gotten discouraged, and gotten drunk.

Those two are really honoring the Allman's sound/history but pushig it ahead new and interesting ways.