Doug Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 A friend of mine tore out this story on the history of the RAT pedal - made at ProCo in Kalamazoo. Pretty interesting stuff, and I believe they are still located in the building adjacent to 225 Parsons. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/magazine/who-made-that-rat-distortion-pedal.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 Very cool! I think Brent has or had one of these... Vintage models are supposed to be worth some bucks now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genericmusic Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 http://www.nytimes.c...tion-pedal.html I own one just like this. I rarely use distortion, but when I do I use a RAT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 I still have two original Rats that I've had for years! They are my slide guitar pedal of choice! I have two old Webster 166 phonograph amplifiers that I used to record slide guitar parts. An old Rat in front of one of those is magic!!! And the Rat was the only pedal I liked with my old TOPHAT Club Royale combo Here's a clip with one of those Rats in front of the TopHat (guitar was a LP Special with SHED P90's). http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=6608365 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 I still have two original Rats that I've had for years! They are my slide guitar pedal of choice! I have two old Webster 166 phonograph amplifiers that I used to record slide guitar parts. An old Rat in front of one of those is magic!!! And the Rat was the only pedal I liked with my old TOPHAT Club Royale combo Here's a clip with one of those Rats in front of the TopHat (guitar was a LP Special with SHED P90's). http://soundclick.co....cfm?id=6608365 Slide guitar? Awesome! I've been dabbling in it for a little while now... Hard to do right, but it sounds so cool! Any lesson/video demo's of what you play???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 Here's a song from my first CD featuring the Rat through one of the Webster Turntable Amps (Model 166-1), it is the amp is the background of this pic... The solo is at the end of the song, and is a 1983 Squier Strat (SD Alnico II pickups)! http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=6629114 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 DB, I just listen to Joe Walsh and Duane Allman till I could emulate them, then I developed my own style. I don't really know anything about making videos. Here's a video of me sliding on a National that someone uploaded to youtube.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skydog52 Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 You are like a modern day John Lee Hooker with that stomp board. Nice work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 You are like a modern day John Lee Hooker with that stomp board. Nice work! Well I do like the blues:) And John Lee Hooker he's one of the kings!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 What kind of slide is that? I love that National Resonator! Great tune too! What tuninga do you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 What kind of slide is that? I love that National Resonator! Great tune too! What tuninga do you use? It came from Starz guitars in Colorado, he has them custom made. That is Open D but I use many tunings, some that I made up just for me based around 5 chords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 It came from Starz guitars in Colorado, he has them custom made. That is Open D but I use many tunings, some that I made up just for me based around 5 chords. Wow, that's really cool. Create your own tunings too? Amazing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bolero Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 woah, you are THE MAN....that was awesome!! I was wondering what that piece of wood with the 1/4" jack coming out of it was, in the other thread that is really cool do you have that tune recorded on any of your CD's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 It's a really cool style. One man band is always fun to watch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 woah, you are THE MAN....that was awesome!! I was wondering what that piece of wood with the 1/4" jack coming out of it was, in the other thread that is really cool do you have that tune recorded on any of your CD's? My CD's sound more like what I've been posting, Here's the second song from that medley "Cadillac Car"with my partner Brad Wheeler on harp! http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=6629217 The board with the jack is called a porchboard bass, if you want one contact Nadene at http://porchboard.com/ Tell them that you know me (Dan Weldon) and I sent you their way, she'll probably set you up with a little discount:) I can't make promises, but they've been very good in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Great song. I love it... You did the harp work too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 No, I have a Duet called "The Legendary Porch Pounders" and my partner, Brad Wheeler, played that part. Harmonica is his first instrument, but he now is quite the lap steel player. Our duet has made some waves in the blues world, by winning the best blues band in Utah three years in a row, and we also won the Showdown to South By Southwest, which sent us to Austin to do an original music showcase. That was a fun deal as a very famous guitarist "Bill Kirchin" (of commander cody fame), played lead guitar with us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bolero Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 man I can't get enough of the first tune in that youtube clip...the echo really fills it out & gives it an otherworldy feel I can see it being used in a soundtrack to something....I see an old blue '69 chevelle driving across the desert. guy is eaither leaving his girl, or on the way to see her *edit* well, based on the lyrics of #2 maybe it should be a cadillac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 That's funny cause that PA was a tiny small Kustom Profile rig. My main acoustic PA blew up that weekend and a friend loaned it to me to cover the gig. I thought the echo in it sounded pretty good and it was easy to lock to the tempo of my songs. It was so cool sounding I used it on a TV show not long after and had the crew mic up the speakers (I made them use two of my Senhiesser MD421 mics) and they thought I was crazy:) The mics cost more than the PA! Whatever works!!! Here's some pics from that TV show ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hfan Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 No, I have a Duet called "The Legendary Porch Pounders" and my partner, Brad Wheeler, played that part. Harmonica is his first instrument, but he now is quite the lap steel player. Our duet has made some waves in the blues world, by winning the best blues band in Utah three years in a row, and we also won the Showdown to South By Southwest, which sent us to Austin to do an original music showcase. That was a fun deal as a very famous guitarist "Bill Kirchin" (of commander cody fame), played lead guitar with us! Great clips rockabilly69. I'd love to get a National one day. And I am very impressed you got to play with Bill, one of my favs. And a nice guy, got to meet him once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Great clips rockabilly69. I'd love to get a National one day. And I am very impressed you got to play with Bill, one of my favs. And a nice guy, got to meet him once. Bill is a cool dude, when I first met him in Sun Valley Idaho, he heard our sound check and asked (after he introduced himself to me, which I couldn't believe) if he could sit in with us (he was already a friend of my partner Brad Wheeler as Brad used to book him into a bar that he used to run). That's when he taught me a trick where we both play the same guitar at once. He reaches around me and plays the top three strings, and I play the bottom three strings. We call it the two headed guitar monster. It's a sight to see, and he called me up on stage for his showcase to do the trick with him, people couldn't believe their eyes:) After that, we entered Utah's Showdown to SXSW contest for original bands, just so we could go hang out with him in Austin. Well, we won an all expense trip to Austin, and a showcase at the SXSW festival so we invited him to play with us. He accepted the invitation and played with us for the whole set. No rehearsal, so the set was looser than normal, but there were some good licks going down. I just googled the event and found this article.... http://archive.sltrib.com/printfriendly.php?id=2612642&itype=NGPSID Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bolero Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 yippee kay yay...that is frickin' great!! I'm out of superlatives....awesome, killer, fantastic....whatever. somebody get me a thesaurus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockabilly69 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 that's how I felt Bolero:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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