Читать книгу Making Poor Man's Guitars - Shane Speal - Страница 6

If I were to write just a book on building guitars, it would merely be an instruction in carpentry. If I were to add the rich history behind the instruments, the book would certainly have a bit more depth. However, I am neither a carpenter nor a professional historian; I am a musician who, to paraphrase the composer Harry Partch, was seduced into carpentry and history from searching for the sounds in my mind.

If I don’t talk about the music, then it is all a worthless quest.

It’s always about the music—a deeper music.

As I write this, my ears are still ringing and my voice is hoarse from attempting an old Cab Calloway song during band practice tonight. (Or was it the AC/DC cover?)

My band was at my place, running through a few song ideas. The mutant group, Shane Speal & the Snakes is built around cigar box guitars, washtub basses, homemade percussions, and a harmonica. All plugged into Spinal Tap amps and playing at breakneck speeds. In tonight’s practice, we experimented with a new sound by feeding the harmonica through a beer can microphone into a 1970s rotating Leslie organ speaker. It was fantastic!

When fans ask us about our genre, we usually just stand there and give them blank stares, because we have no clue. We’re a jug band that plays hard blues.

Or blues-meets-Motorhead on homemade instruments along with a toilet paper gun and confetti cannons.

Maybe the genre is “jug fusion” or “trash rock.” Regardless of a tidy name, we’re dangerous.

I believe music should be dangerous, on-the-edge, a little sloppy, and most of all, human. I attribute this philosophy to what I heard on a live, bootleg Sex Pistols cassette in 1982. I was twelve and just beginning to grow my mullet, cranking music on my stereo. To me, the Sex Pistols were the epitome of rock and roll with a jug band attitude. Sid couldn’t play bass, but he still did. Rotten couldn’t sing, but there he was, center stage, screaming with a beady-eyed glare. Jones and Cook were a freight train together. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

Cigar box guitars really shouldn’t work, but they do—magnificently. They’re the only instrument I use in my band.

Shane Speal & the Snakes plays mostly dive bars in rural Pennsylvania. Our fans follow us in hardcore devotion from show to show, because they never know what’s gonna happen at the next gig. When you play 100% homemade instruments, something is bound to get destroyed at any moment. There are always two rolls of duct tape on stage just in case a repair is needed.

Add the fact that we never use a set list. The entire three-hour concert is spent wrestling uncompromising instruments and feeding off the audience’s energy. Our shows sometimes contain reworked songs as diverse as Blind Willie Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Depeche Mode, and Led Zeppelin. Some nights our songs are developed on the spot.

And there’s always danger ahead. The gig is either a masterpiece or it’s a train wreck. One night, a bar had a blackboard in the bathroom where somebody scrawled: “This band is HORRIBLE!” Another person scratched out “HORRIBLE” and wrote “AWESOME.” And THAT completely sums up my music.

So what is this all about? Why cigar box guitars with their out-of-tune janglings? Why gutbucket basses and their warbling thuds?

As you dig into this book, you’ll realize it’s not a gimmick for me.

It’s my life.

There are two types of projects in this book. The first lists all the parts, tools, and instructions, along with photos. The second is Builders’ Diaries, which chronicle unique instruments that were created in the past, usually on a whim, and were designed without any structured plan. I include them here to inspire you to try your own inventions.