****Russ Pahl - Playing outside of the box****

[Ken Byng]

Most of us steel players play with a clean tone and on the country side of music. Russ Pahl is one of the rare players who doesn't follow the mainstream. He plays great guitar and pedal steel, and has a Show Pro pedal steel that was built to his design. Here is part of a clinic that he put on in Nashville Tn, and you can hear an astounding array of different effects and unique sounds that show how versatile our instrument can be with an open mind.

Partway down this page is a video of Russ. Open your mind and be blown away.
https://www.mmmlearn.com/courses/21st-c ... eel-guitar

[Danny Mitchell]

He uses all those effects with taste, he's on a lot of great recordings. Although, I never knew you could use the steel as a vocoder, why I might be able to sing almost in tune one day!
As an aside......No Fingerpicks!!! Veeerrry interesting.

[Uncle Roy]

O yes, great stuff, really outside the box. Some player!

[Ken Byng]

If you enjoyed that brief clip of Russ above. here is over an hour of him playing and talking about his career and various stuff. Plenty of close-ups of that mystical Show Pro pedal steel that he helped to design.

[Haddock]

Thanks for posting this Ken, its very interesting. I’ll second his choice of the Strymon Iridium and its Fender setting though like Russ, if I want to go up to 11 the the Marshall has its place. I like his set of controls in front of the steel and this is something I’ve been considering too. At the moment I use a joystick which allows control of critical functions and has the advantage that you can use a looper and operate it in sync with a wrist flick while still playing. I prefer the volume pedal further up the chain though I understand why he’s putting it after all his eq and stuff. I tried that but found the Hilton couldn’t cope with the amount of boost from my Empress eq and I lost too much tone. Picture attached in case anyone is interested.
Somehow though, I think my tunes would be a little too far ‘out of the box’ for general consumption!
Cheers
Calum

[Ken Byng]

Lots of interesting toys there Calum. That would take me a month of Sundays to set up on gigs, but I expect you have it all weighed off now. Glad you enjoyed the clips of Russ.

[Danny Mitchell]

I finally got a clear window to watch this, and in the words of The Incredible String Band, 'Lord, how happy I am'.

Ken, that was one fascinating find he covers so much. Great interview, top post.
Calum, set those 'out of the box' tunes free, for the good of the land.

[Ken Byng]

I finally got a clear window to watch this, and in the words of The Incredible String Band, 'Lord, how happy I am'.........

You are easily pleased Danny

I met Russ Pahl at Jeff Surratt's place in Nashville once when he was playing guitar behind Lloyd on Venus Moon. He came across as a slightly shy individual - totally unlike the personality on the YouTube clip.

[Danny Mitchell]

Ken, what a pleasure that must've been. Venus Moon is one of my favourite Lloyd tunes, beautiful.
I found that first half of the interview illuminating, where
Mr Pahl explained his approach to being a sideman, keeping in the background, and only serving the song. Even the fact that the thing he enjoys most is playing rhythm guitar!
Mind you, when your first lesson is from Ralph Mooney, I suppose you're hitting the ground running.

[Gary James Peters]

Thanks Ken!! Superb video...such an inspirational guy! And his words in the last 2 minutes should be listened to carefully by all musicians!!

Gary