I live in a very quaint little town called Noblesville which is about 25 miles from the very center of the city of Indianapolis. After living here for several years, it sometimes seems as though the old downtown hasn't changed over the last one hundred years or so (even though the surrounding area is being developed at a rapid rate).
There are train tracks that cut right down the middle of a main street which are actually used by a passenger train that runs throughout the summer. There's an old fashioned ice cream shop, a hardware store that sells things that you can't get anymore, there's a sketchy bar with the worlds largest shuffleboard table and a pinball game, a few antique stores, and some great restaurants.
And then there is a grand old courthouse/clock tower a la "Back to the Future" standing in the middle of it all. Sometimes I feel like I'm living on the set of Mayberry RFD or maybe like I'm in the middle of a Mellencamp song if that's even possible.
To further corroborate the anachronistic look and feel of Noblesville, a fleet of classic cars drive to the old courthouse square faithfully every Saturday throughout the summer. The owners of the cars usually pop open the trunks and the hoods in order to let casual strollers admire the design, handiwork, restoration prowess, mechanical marvelry, and the overall beauty of their classic automobiles. Personally I've really never been the mechanical handy type, and know absolutely nothing about car repair/maintenance, but I just can't seem to get over the design of these great cars. Heck, I don't even remember the make or models of most of the cars, but I do have at least a hundred snapshots of some of the fantastic details of these classics. The cars themselves are a work of art. I thought I'd share a few of my favorite pics.
So if you ever find yourself in Noblesville on a Saturday evening, make sure you head over to the courthouse square for a little peak at some old fashioned living. And make sure you come look for me, I'm about a block and a half away from it all and love to have company.
Click on the photos if you'd like to see them full size.
I've loved the sound of a pedal steel for years. Always a bit mystified by the instrument. There are so many levers and switches, strings, pedals, weird tunings etc. that I think I was a bit intimidated.
The instrument is not just for country music either. One of my most favorite surprises was to hear some pedal steel on a Bad Religion (punk) song. I can also recall hearing some great work on a Cake record (alternative rock) a while back.
Anyway, I finally talked my good friend Brandon into digging his out from underneath his pool table which was blocked by a sea of guitar cases. I've know him for about three years and been to his place to jam too many times to count, but he never got out the ol' Showbud Pedal Steel. To much to mess around with to get it out and set up I guess. I've asked him about it on and off, but to no avail.
Well for some reason I brought it up again and his fiance, Brooke, said "Get it out!" and I said "Yeah! do that!" And he kind of sounded like he was maybe possibly thinking about it (but not really). After about five minutes of dawdling Brooke said "Get it out!" and I said "Yeah! do that!" once again and then the magic happened. We pulled it out and put it together and plugged it in.
Man, oh man. What an amazing instrument. I thought that the accordion was complicated. It's got nothin on the pedal steel. I felt like a moron trying to play it. However, I got inspired and decided to take one of my junker guitars and turn it into a poor man's lap steel. I got the fancy nut that you slip over the top of the original nut and the Shubb Pearse brand SP2 slide. I suppose that I'm hoping that I'll take some baby steps on a lap and work my way up to a pedal someday.
I've never really taken to playing bottleneck slide style, but I think I might really like the lap style. So here are a few pics of the stuff I bought and a video of my poor skills as a first day lap player.
Here it is, my first blog post. Why am I blogging? Well, two reasons I suppose. My lovely wife Amy put the bug in my ear to blog (she recently started her own with a much cooler name than mine). Secondly I have a notoriously bad memory, and I need an additional storage facility.
I hope to document the past, present and future on a regular basis, complete with photos, audio & video. We'll see though. I'm pretty sure I'll be enthusiastic at first and then forget about it after a while. I'm kind of like that. Dinner calls...
