Homegrown sounds propel Jug Fusion's career

The wicked acoustic guitar sound on Jug Fusion's "Jesus Is Comin' Soon" oozes out like the first menacing trickles of water from a just-broken dam.

The beautifully baneful plucks come from a dobro that was made out of a mailbox and fitted with a long guitar neck by its player and owner, 33-year-old Shane Speal of Dover. And Speal had the door of the mailbox signed by guitar monster B.B. King, so it looks like Speal stole the legend's letter receptacle.

Amazingly, this sound and twisted history aren't the only things that leap out at the listener on this and other tunes on Jug Fusion's "Box Set," the group's first album that has yet to find a record label. It can be purchased at Iko's Music in Springettsbury Township or online at http://www.somedarkholler.com.

The other real treat is Speal's raspy vocal, a howl that somehow blends Lemmy from Motorhead with Steve Earle and Tom Waits and makes the speakers smoke and shudder.

Speal, as many in York and its surrounding areas already know, is the self-proclaimed king of the cigar box guitar. He moved to York County five years ago from his native Greensburg, a town outside of Pittsburgh. He used to make and sell the guitars, but eventually pulled the plug on the side business because he got tired of making them and barely broke even.

He made his first cigar box guitar on July 4, 1993, using instructions that guitar great Carl Perkins laid out in a magazine article. And he's fascinated with the history of the cigar box guitar, so much so that he plans to open his own cigar box guitar museum right here in downtown York, possibly in the next year or so.

A whole army of cigar box guitars and other oddball instruments can be found on "Box Set," a smattering of Delta Blues-meets-trailer park twang that makes you stop what you're doing and pay attention.
And that's exactly what the tunes have been doing to folks at MTV, Fox and various record labels.

The album's eclectic nature is captured in the three-song run at its center: "These Frustrating Blues" (Earle-style rock), "Relaxing Music For Plucking A Chicken" (a speedy, chirpy instrumental) and "Take It Slow (Fall In Love)" (really weird cowpoke music featuring a kazoo).

Speal recorded most of "Box Set" at the now-defunct 60 Second Street Studios in York.
Engineer Mike Watert handled the Jug Fusion sessions, both at 60 Second Street and at Speal's home, where he recorded songs right onto a mobile computer studio.
"My album is so homemade it's not even funny," said Speal, who works in sales for WYCR-FM (98.5).

And, yes, the legend is true: Speal did buy recording time by doing work on jingles at 60 Second Street, Watert said. "The barter system, you know?" Watert said. "It's wonderful."

Watert said the inclusion of offbeat instruments such as a one-string, upright jazz bass, tin-can banjo and various cigar box guitars added to the album’s disarming sound. "It was creative. Extremely creative," Watert said. "He's motivated. He loves music. He's just totally behind the whole tradition of the cigar box guitar."

Mike Leash, former owner of 60 Second Street, would poke his head in on the recording sessions from time to time and dug what he heard.
"He's a pretty creative old dude," Leash said of Speal.

After finishing "Box Set," Speal started shopping the album to labels. He became online pals with Chris Bellew of the recently reformed Presidents of the United States, who had connections all over the place formed during his band's heyday in the early 1990s. Bellew tried to help Speal hook on with a label, but so far that hasn't worked out.

But Speal's music was passed around, from label reps to TV types and back again, and eventually television execs showed an interest.

One possibility is the new Fox reality show "The Simple Life," where hotel heiress Paris Hilton and pal Nicole Richie, daughter of Lionel Richie, were shipped off to a farm. Some of Jug Fusion's tunes could end up as background music for the show.

"They were looking for goofy, twangy music," said Speal, whose online shrine to the cigar box guitar can be found at http://www.geocities.com/cigarboxguitar.

Another possibility is MTV, which has shown interest in using Speal's music for its reality staples "The Real World" and "Road Rules."

Whether or not either scenario pans out is irrelevant to Speal.

He flat-out loves playing, making and hearing the cigar box guitar, so much so that he keeps a cigar box ukulele on his desk at work.
"I live, eat and breathe this stuff," Speal said. "It's almost like my full-time job is my side thing."
And with a newly formed live band about to start playing live dates, it sounds like Speal is going to start eating and breathing a lot more of this stuff.

Jug Fusion consists of Speal and a group of strictly heavy metal musicians, which should make for one wicked sound on stage.

The drummer, for example, is accustomed to huge, booming drum kits, but Speal plans to have him play plastic buckets and, eventually, a drum kit built exclusively out of trash. The band's guitar player is used to wailing on beefy electric axes. But Speal gave him a 1940s acoustic guitar to play along with a slide.

"The stuff he's coming up with is so good, and it's so out of his element,"Speal said. "That's part of it. I'm challenging these guys. And what's coming out of them is primal."

- Peter Bothum
- Tuesday, July 22, 2003