Last night me and Rachael and Jesse had dinner at La Feria with Brian ‘Dr. Mojo’ Robertson and his delightful spice Melanie.

I met them out in the parking lot, and he pulled this thing out of the back seat and gave it to me. I was stunned, to say the least. It may well be the coolest musical instrument I’ve ever owned. Or seen, for that matter. It’s effing gorgeous; my pics don’t come close to doing it justice. You can click on them to see larger versions.

It’s a personally autographed cigar-box slide guitar, made by the man hisself. It’s got three strings, and is tuned E – B – E. It’s got the coolest acoustic on-the-porch blues tone imaginable. And it’s also electric – has a piezoelectric pickup, a $2.99 special ripped from the Radio Shack. The mahogany neck goes all the way through the body, and the amplified sound will cut your head off. Gen-u-wine Macanudo wooden box, for the resonator.

Pure blues perfection. I was going to record a few licks and post them tonight, but – Ghod, I suck at playing this thing. I’m going to have to learn slide all over again.

Brian was casually tearing off licks on it at the restaurant, and we ended up having a bunch of people wander over and talk with us about it, including a couple of sweet little hippies who had a gig that night at Ruta Maya. The young lady was into making cookie-tin banjos, which is another fascinating subject for another time.

Here’s his website on the subject: www.3stringmojo.com. He just got it up, so it’s only got a few tunes on it, including a re-recording of his hit, ‘Big Ass Buick’. ‘Long Distance Call’ does have more of that killer slide featured on it, though.

Like us, Brian gets obsessed with the damnedest things, and this is a neat one. The one he gifted me was the sixth that he did, and he said it was the one where he first got everything right. It’s sweet. I’m humbled and grateful. Not to advertise or anything, but people are actually paying him to make them now, in case you’re interested. Jesse, who’s mostly into Black Metal, was apparently hypnotized by it, and is saving his pennies for one as we speak.

It was a most excellent evening – great company, great TexMex, and great cigar-box guitar.

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There’s a whole sub-culture around cigar-box guitars. Here’s one place to check out. And another. Oh, and another one. And another one. And here’s a MySpace with a lot of CBG songs. Some of these guys get pretty exotic and up-scale.

I’m going to add some links and more info here later. But, frankly, though I had a wonderful weekend with loved ones, after those hours on my bike back and forth between College Station and Austin, I’m completely deep-fried right now. Gonna go soak in the tub and read some gritty urban fantasy and ponder the things I’ll need to do to not suck when playing this cool new instrument.

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