Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

[Gearjoneser]

I want you to recall older players and friend's rigs that made a big impressions on you as a kid. I mean people you met and heard up close, like in their house or rehearsal space.

I remember a guy with a mid 70's Marshall halfstack and a Charvel Star w/59B. Also, a bass player with Rick 4001 and a Cerwin Vega wall of cabs. I remember a friend with a Marshall 6X10 cab and Marshall Mosfet SS head. Also, a friend with a blue Jackson Rhoads and 79 black strat into a 410 Yamaha SS combo.
A guy up the street had a 71 Mustang Mach I, a Kramer Pacer, and Peavey Deuce 212 combo.

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

Had a mate in the early 70's with a fender 80 Watt head and a 6 x 10 cabinet, great amp setup.

 

[d1dsj]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My current guitarist bandmate had a very early block logo JTM 45 with a really crap homemade vertical 2 x 12, but it sounded great with his white Washburn Eagle. I knew a guy who had a HH 100 watt combo pretty much the same as Wilko Johnson uses and I always hated that amp and then there was another had a OHM 1 x 15 bass combo that always sounded great with his black 70's Precision.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

In the late Seventies, for a long time, the local music shop in my town had a Park 50w 2x12 combo. Essentially, a non-MV Marshall but with the Channel II volume control positioned between the four input sockets.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

Felt covered Fenders.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

A friend of mine in high school, who I just so happened to have purchased my first Duncan pickup from, had a band that rehearsed down the street from me at the drummer's house. I knew the drummer already, not because I played with him but just living down the street from me. He's older than me. Anyway, my friend had a Marshall JCM800 50 watt head, Marshall 4x10 cab, Boss Digital Metalizer pedal and his main guitar was a Kramer Focus 1000 painted like Lynch's bengal burst. The other guitar player had a Carvin 100 watt head and Carvin 4x12 cab. Can't remember the exact model, late 80's for sure. His guitar was even a Carvin I think, or a Jackson. Actually, he had both. They had the same pickup configurations (HSS), just different switching (blade vs toggles). I had just starting playing when I was hanging out at their rehearsals. Even recorded a few for them.

 

[Rand-O-Monium]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

A friend's step-brother played a Black LP Custom thru a Hiwatt 1/2 stack...

This was around Jr High,late 70's

Scarred for life!

 

[Lucy Diamond]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

I grew up in a local hardcore punk scene in Northern New Jersey and back then in my older cousin's friends had a big influence on me.

For starters, the Marshall 2204 (That's the 50 watt JCM 800 for the uninitiated) was the stable of sound and if you used pedals with it you were considered a complete D!ck.

I can remember Mike Palm of Agent Orange warming up in one of the local basement shows and showing me his greenback speakers which I thought were so awesome because they were green. (I was 13).

My very first guitar teacher played a Newburgh Steinberger that appeals to me more now than it did then.

There was a cop that used to come into my dad's store and he had that really cool Boss pedalboard with that red power pedal.

Other than that, I was always big into the Musiciansfriend and the Carvin catalog.

 

[Liam1963]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

Back in the mid-'70's had a neighbor who had a Randall Commander VI, heavy and loud, and he played country music....

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

Battered '70s Laney Klipp 60W half-stacks and Tesla tubes were totally mean and all the rage when I was a kid. I can recall cool Ibanez Artist and Roadstar axes. Shadow electric guitars were really affordable with great hardware and craftmanship. Budget Charvels and Jacksons. Lawsuit Ibanez and Hohner Les Pauls (I still have one). Dead wrong sounding small Crate solid state amps and East German Regent amps, not much better. I can recall a guy around who had a beautiful red Fender Strat.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My high school best friend used to play an old Memphis bass through an old reel to reel with a 6" oval speaker.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

There was a loner dude at high school that one day showed up with a full Marshall stack and a white 70's big head stock Strat, and knew how to play the hell out of it all. After suffering at the time with a Sears strat and battery practice amps and what-not, that experience stuck in the back of my mind - you need the named gear to get that sound out of it.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

I graduated high school in '68. A couple of classmates had pre-CBS sunburst strats and BF Super Reverbs. Their families were very well off...mine was not. ("Thall shalt not covet...") Yeah, right... lol! Several friends had Martin D-28 acoustics. And another friend had a Gretsch Country Club. Incredible guitar, should have bought it when he sold it. Never seen another one like it.

Off to college...and some of the local bands had great gear. One guy played in a seven-piece horn band using a Strat and a Fender Super Six amp. Quad Reverbs were also popular, as were the Acoustic 150 heads with the 610 cabs.

Another favorite band's guitarist used a vintage gold-top Les Paul thru a pair of 1963 brown Fender Concert 410 amps with an Echoplex. Killer tone. Another guitarist used his newish '68 P-90 gold top through the first Marshall full stack I'd ever seen. He had a beautiful singing voice, but stuttered terribly when speaking. Great tone, and another great player.

It was common to see bands with all the same brand of gear, often all Fender. One band used all Ampegs; a V-2, V-4 stack for the lead guitar and a V-4B for bass. Another went all Acoustic Control, with 260 heads and 412 cabs for the guitarists and a 270 rig for bass. At one festival a backline of solid-state VOX amps was provided, but one of the local bands brought in their SUNN 100S and 200S and just SMOKED the crappy VOX Super Beatles.

And one of my other favorite guitarists used a Gibson Barney Kessler Standard in dark green through a Music Man 210 HD-65. Another great rig with killer tone.

And going back to my high school days, I used to do the bookings for our school dances. One of the local bands had a very, very pretty singer who could really belt it out. She went to a rival school in the area. Her band was nearly as hot as she was and they always drew a crowd. Her guitar player had a brand new SF Fender Pro Reverb with JBL D-120s sitting on top of a matching new Dual Showman large 215 D-130 cab. I think he used a Les Paul at that time, and he would crank that amp up to 8. Amazing player, amazing tone.

Oh, the singer? Her name was Ann Wilson, and that band eventually became known as HEART.

Good times.

Bill

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My Uncle in the 80's-early 90's had a US Jackson RR V and a killer Laney half stack. A kid I went to high school with had a top of the line Ibanez Jem and a 5150 half stack. And my sister's ex-husband had a Marshall 2210

 

[Securb]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My old guitar teacher Matt Mackay had an old Silverface Bassman and a B.C. Rich. He got tone for days with that rig. When he left his band Adrenalin they eventually changed the band name to Extreme and added Nuno.

 

[Shooter.556]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My father in law has a 1965 ES335 and a mint old Peavey Mace from the 70s as well as a Gibson Hummingbird.
I jam on those every time he brings em out. He's singer but he bought them for cowboy chording..
I rip some BB and Skynyrd at the same time.. I love that ES and the Mace..

 

[Surgeon]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

Nobody had good/cool gear around here. The punk scene was littered with Crate amps and Marshall valvestates.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

back when i had a squier II strat and peavey bandit this guy i knew had a snake skin soldano slo100 with two vertical ampeg 2x12 cabs loaded with v30's and great mia floyd rose strat with duncan sh6b, he could also play his ass off. i lusted after that rig for a long time. he still has the head, not sure of the guitar. this was an epic rig back then and listening to it with the lexicon and eventide stuff in the loop will still make me drool even if that is nothing like what i play any more

 

[Artie]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My high school best friend used to play an old Memphis bass through an old reel to reel with a 6" oval speaker.

That was my first "amp". It was an old Akai with "sound-on-sound", as they called it. You could have one channel playing while the other channel recorded. The distance between the heads created a silky smooth delay. You could vary the delay time by setting the speed to either 3.75 or 7.5 inches per second. It was a cool sound.

And going back to my high school days, I used to do the bookings for our school dances. One of the local bands had a very, very pretty singer who could really belt it out. She went to a rival school in the area. Her band was nearly as hot as she was and they always drew a crowd. Her guitar player had a brand new SF Fender Pro Reverb with JBL D-120s sitting on top of a matching new Dual Showman large 215 D-130 cab. I think he used a Les Paul at that time, and he would crank that amp up to 8. Amazing player, amazing tone.

Oh, the singer? Her name was Ann Wilson, and that band eventually became known as HEART.

Good times.

Bill

Cool old story.

The first real amp I can remember was a friend's dad had one of these old VOX's:



I never actually heard it. It just looked cool. Then, when I was in the Army, in SE Asia, the community center had one of these old Yammy's, that I got to play through fairly often.



I remember it as sounding amazing, but that was over 40 years ago.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Older friend's rigs you remember as a kid.

My "mentor" as a teen, young twenty something was a guy I met through my work. He was 10 years older than me or so, and when he was my age he was hit by a car and disabled. He got a big settlement and had to live at home with his Dad.

He was a "collector" when it wasnt in vogue. He had several Marshalls from the60s, 70s, old hiwatts, fenders from every decade through the 70s, some old60s vox amps..and several holy grail guitars..57 and 58 les pauls..a 61, I think, 335, earlg 60s SG, and some mid and late 60s fenders. I had the luxury of playing all this stuff...toiugh at the time, the amps were considered old junk by the mainstream...the guitars were a little more well thought of, but it was the boom age of superstrats, floyds and rack gear.

My best memories are of his superbass, a major, and a tweed bassman,which I think was a 58, iirc. Those amps and guitars , along with some 70s and 80s Marshalls of my own really helped me figure out where I wanted to be in the general sense. Though it would take me a long time to come around.

Unfortunately, his problems got the better of him and he essentialy killed bimself with booze and coke. At that point I had got married to my 1st wife and moved further away. I believe much of his gear was just pawned or sold to dealers in the DC metro area like Southworth or Chuck Levins.