Gearjoneser
Gear Ho
Today, I had a few hours to kill in the city next to UCLA, Westwood, Ca.
There's a great boutique music store there called Westwood Music, which has been a staple store for lots of classic artists like....well, all of them!
They have a big showroom of high end acoustics, which is their bread and butter, then as you walk into the big backroom, there's about one hundred boutique amps, and guitars you've never heard of...mostly small luthier companies.
I saw amps from Matchless, Badcat, Bogner, THD, Victoria, Belov, Diaz, Roccaforte, Budda, Alessandro, and Mojave. Fun Fun Fun!!!
I brought that Schecter Custom Shop Tele with me, since I was headed over to Revolutionguitar.com's Ebay Store Warehouse after spending a few hours at Westwood Music.
The first thing in the store that grabbed my eye was Home Brew Electronic's
(H.B.E.) Mudhoney. It's a fuzz pedal that I saw Scott Henderson using, and also has a good buzz on harmony. :wink: So, I plugged the Tele into the Mudhoney, into a Bogner Shiva 1-12 EL-34 combo. My heart started racing because I swear, I nailed the most awesome fuzz tone I'd ever heard. The Shiva, by itself, is an awesome tone, but with this Mudhoney, it was like a corpulent fuzz that blats out on just the right tones, giving that sludgy Hendrix tone, but better. Even the owner of the store, who was working in his office, came out to see what the hell he just heard. I was going through some Mark Knopfler/Hendrixy type licks, and the tone was just pure magic.
Anyway, moving along to the Matchless DC-30, probably the greatest EL-84 amp ever made. The glassy cleans just engulf the room, when you crank one of those up! Then, the THD Flexi 50. Just like a big Plexi with more grind, like the Shiva. The Mojave Coyote was what I'd expected, a grindier, bigger sounding JTM 45. Man, amps have come a long way, from the 40's till now.
Then, a trip over to Todd's revolutionguitar.com, and I got to talk about tube amps for an hour, while grabbing the Marshall heads in his collection onto a 4-12, and ripping into whatever riffs fit the sound of the Marshall. It's very telling of Marshalls to be able to swap them within minutes, and hear the nuances and best dialings of each type. He had a late Seventies 50W MKII, which had that 'in your face garage rock type tone, ala Ramones. Then, I put a heavily modded 70 Superlead through it's paces. Everything from AC/DC to G. Lynch. Then, his loud ass grandaddy, a stock 71 Superlead with new Teslas. That thing could rearrange furniture! I forgot that the original Superlead 100's are just as loud as new Plexi 100's, but a sweeter tone. After killing our ears for half an hour on the aptly named Superlouds, we moved down to the small 20 W Fargen Blackbirds? A far different animal...6V6 grindy blues tone is what those were about, or a sweet Deluxe Reverb type cleans, appropriate for roots rock.
It's been a pretty fun day in toyland. I went out shopping for a Tele switch tip, since mine was long gone, and ended up shopping in the best stores possible, just to find that $3 plastic part. Man, I feel like such a stroke! :laugh2:
There's a great boutique music store there called Westwood Music, which has been a staple store for lots of classic artists like....well, all of them!
They have a big showroom of high end acoustics, which is their bread and butter, then as you walk into the big backroom, there's about one hundred boutique amps, and guitars you've never heard of...mostly small luthier companies.
I saw amps from Matchless, Badcat, Bogner, THD, Victoria, Belov, Diaz, Roccaforte, Budda, Alessandro, and Mojave. Fun Fun Fun!!!
I brought that Schecter Custom Shop Tele with me, since I was headed over to Revolutionguitar.com's Ebay Store Warehouse after spending a few hours at Westwood Music.
The first thing in the store that grabbed my eye was Home Brew Electronic's
(H.B.E.) Mudhoney. It's a fuzz pedal that I saw Scott Henderson using, and also has a good buzz on harmony. :wink: So, I plugged the Tele into the Mudhoney, into a Bogner Shiva 1-12 EL-34 combo. My heart started racing because I swear, I nailed the most awesome fuzz tone I'd ever heard. The Shiva, by itself, is an awesome tone, but with this Mudhoney, it was like a corpulent fuzz that blats out on just the right tones, giving that sludgy Hendrix tone, but better. Even the owner of the store, who was working in his office, came out to see what the hell he just heard. I was going through some Mark Knopfler/Hendrixy type licks, and the tone was just pure magic.
Anyway, moving along to the Matchless DC-30, probably the greatest EL-84 amp ever made. The glassy cleans just engulf the room, when you crank one of those up! Then, the THD Flexi 50. Just like a big Plexi with more grind, like the Shiva. The Mojave Coyote was what I'd expected, a grindier, bigger sounding JTM 45. Man, amps have come a long way, from the 40's till now.
Then, a trip over to Todd's revolutionguitar.com, and I got to talk about tube amps for an hour, while grabbing the Marshall heads in his collection onto a 4-12, and ripping into whatever riffs fit the sound of the Marshall. It's very telling of Marshalls to be able to swap them within minutes, and hear the nuances and best dialings of each type. He had a late Seventies 50W MKII, which had that 'in your face garage rock type tone, ala Ramones. Then, I put a heavily modded 70 Superlead through it's paces. Everything from AC/DC to G. Lynch. Then, his loud ass grandaddy, a stock 71 Superlead with new Teslas. That thing could rearrange furniture! I forgot that the original Superlead 100's are just as loud as new Plexi 100's, but a sweeter tone. After killing our ears for half an hour on the aptly named Superlouds, we moved down to the small 20 W Fargen Blackbirds? A far different animal...6V6 grindy blues tone is what those were about, or a sweet Deluxe Reverb type cleans, appropriate for roots rock.
It's been a pretty fun day in toyland. I went out shopping for a Tele switch tip, since mine was long gone, and ended up shopping in the best stores possible, just to find that $3 plastic part. Man, I feel like such a stroke! :laugh2:
