Mule Resophonic Guitars

I wish I could tell 16 year old me, jamming to I Am Trying to Break Your Heart in his parents’ minivan that 25 years later he’d be in the fantastic city of New Orleans watching Nels Cline play it on a guitar he made right next to another Mule player with his hands in the air- Jeff Tweedy.

It’s a story I get to tell until I hang up my chisels and you’re a part of it.

If you’ve followed since the garage in Minnesota or the basement in Michigan or Mule HQ in Saginaw- if you’re a customer or admirer, if you’re a professional or a weekend picker, or youre one of the 100 people I’ve met this week with some connection to Saginaw, you’re part of the story. That’s what music does - connects people in a way nothing else can. “New Orleans is an endless string of moments,” my local friend Ben told me when I got here. The night before I was listening to Cyrille Neville belt Hey Pocky Way in a venue made of musical treehouses with a completely transfixed group of humans. All facing the same direction, everyone being easy.

“I am an American aquarium drinker,” all of us now middle aged high schoolers are chanting in the theater, connected to this moment and to the past simultaneously. Theres a word that doesn’t translate well into English to describe the feeling of watching someone play music on something you’ve made. Something they hear helps them express something differently. You see their brain click off and they get carried along. It’s a connection to an expression that isn’t yours but everyone understands. Nels used his Mavis all over Cruel Country and found it feedbacks in B. So now he finishes this iconic song accessing the third dimension. Using a resonator guitar made in Michigan by a fan like a tool, like a door. It’s science but it’s nothing less than magic.

Jazz Fest Day 4. Come see some guitars in tent H.

-Matt