{"id":11263,"date":"2023-04-25T20:24:01","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T00:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/?p=11263"},"modified":"2023-04-26T23:56:35","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T03:56:35","slug":"just-a-doin-my-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/just-a-doin-my-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Just a-doin&#8217; my job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m the Highway Patrol.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2un_jJMD4lI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s guitar-pickin&#8217; legend Junior Brown, working out on his classic &#8220;Highway Patrol.\u201d Brown is surely one shit-hot <em>guitarro<\/em>, one of the best there is, in fact. Some background on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Junior_Brown\">that peculiar-looking git-fiddle <\/a>he&#8217;s wailing away on.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>In 1985, Brown created a new type of double-neck guitar, with some assistance from Michael Stevens (former Fender Custom Shop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stevensguitars.com\/history\/the-fender-years\/\">designer and luthier<\/a>\u2014<em>M<\/em>). Brown called the instrument his &#8220;guit-steel&#8221;. When performing, Brown plays the guitar by standing behind it, while it rests on a small music stand. The top neck on the guit-steel is a traditional six-string guitar, while the lower neck is a full-size lap steel guitar for slide playing. Brown has two guit-steels for recording and live work. The original instrument, dubbed &#8220;Old Yeller&#8221;, has as its standard six-string guitar portion the neck and pickups from Brown&#8217;s previous stage guitar, a Fender Bullet. The second guit-steel, named &#8220;Big Red&#8221;, has a neck laser-copied from the Bullet neck; but in addition to electric guitar pickups, both the standard and lap-steel necks use identical Sho-Bud lap-steel pickups. There is a pocket in the upper bout of the guitar to hold the slide bar when it is not in use. Brown also commissioned a &#8220;pedal guit-steel&#8221; which adds pedals to the instrument for more musical control. Brown has stated that the invention of the guit-steel was always a matter of convenience so that he could play both lap steel and lead guitar during live performances and not directly motivated by a desire to be a &#8220;one man band&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A danged Fender Bullet, of all things\u2014an <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fender_Bullet\">el-cheapo piece of junk<\/a> if ever there was one, but somehow Junior makes that humble plank sound awful good, which is the mark of a seriously outstanding player.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, the BPs did a show with Brown once\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.last.fm\/event\/4355349+Horton%E2%80%99s+Holiday+Hayride\/lineup\">Horton\u2019s Holiday Hayride<\/a>, early in Dec of 2017 (Christ, has it really been that long since I last set foot on a stage?!? That can\u2019t <em>possibly<\/em> be right, can it?)\u2014a performance that turned out to be our farewell show, although we hadn\u2019t actually planned or announced it that way beforehand. All in all, it was a fantastic night; the Playboys dug down deep and just positively <strong><em>killed<\/em><\/strong> it, as did everybody else on the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what really frosts my nuts about that night, though: <em>I did not see one single damned note of Brown\u2019s set<\/em>, dammit. I was hanging out in the green room chatting away the whole while with Horton Heat and Big Sandy, both of whom are dear old friends I hadn\u2019t seen in a good, long while. The green room at <a href=\"https:\/\/neighborhoodtheatre.com\/venue\/\">Neighborhood Theater<\/a> was situated far enough from the main stage and insulated thoroughly enough that I couldn\u2019t even hear the other bands from in there.<\/p>\n<p>Can\u2019t honestly say I much regret taking the opportunity to catch up with those guys, but still.<\/p>\n<p>Ah well. Don\u2019t know what got me to thinking about Junior Brown earlier today, but something or other did. That\u2019s okay, now y\u2019all get to reap the benefits of my earlier unfocused mental meandering.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Update!<\/strong><\/em> It only just occurred to me that I really should\u2019ve appended a Horton\u2019s Holiday Hayride post-show pic to this post. Ah well, better late than never, right?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"HortonHoliday2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/HortonHoliday2.jpg\" alt=\"HortonHoliday2\" width=\"549\" height=\"412\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And to think, you assholes just assumed I was making the whole thing up. <em>Ahem<\/em>. Pictured, from left: <em>moi<\/em>, Big Sandy, Jim Heath a\/k\/a the Reverend Horton Heat. Foreground, a chick I pest-listed for the show. Can\u2019t recall her name, but she was a bartender at my erstwhile CLT haunt, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thediamondrestaurant.com\/\">The Diamond<\/a>. Told me she really wanted to go one night at the D, so I fixed things up for her so&#8217;s she could, <em>gratis<\/em>. As you can see, she was quite the happy girl when she got to hang out with the Boys In The Band <i>apr\u00e8s les festivit\u00e9s<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Good times, good times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m the Highway Patrol. That&#8217;s guitar-pickin&#8217; legend Junior Brown, working out on his classic &#8220;Highway Patrol.\u201d Brown is surely one shit-hot guitarro, one of the best there is, in fact. Some background on that peculiar-looking git-fiddle he&#8217;s wailing away on. In 1985, Brown created a&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"easywp-readmore\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/just-a-doin-my-job\/\">Would you like to know more?<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Just a-doin&#8217; my job<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,186,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brilliant","category-country","category-guitars-and-those-who-sling","wpcat-20-id","wpcat-186-id","wpcat-118-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11263"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11320,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11263\/revisions\/11320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}