Crappy Lappy

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.