As usual, it's been a while and my memory is foggy so this may be disjointed and out of order (like a soda machine). The first thing that comes to mind is my amp. Years back, I bought this amp from my Mom's boyfriend at the time. He was a traveling musician and, if memory serves me, the first owner of this amp. A 1968 Fender Super Reverb. I used to play on it when he wasn't home. Eventually, I talked him out of it and bought it for 300 bucks. I used it for a good, long time but it developed this problem of popping fuses. I remember playing the Margaritaville in Key West for a weekend and popping a fuse every set. I eventually got it repaired and got some speakers replaced but I fell out of love with it and stuck it in a non-air conditioned storage unit where it picked up some mold. When I left Florida, I left it in the care of my friend John Tillman and I pretty much forgot about it until I moved back.
My bandmate Scott wanted a Super and I remembered I had one and I traded mine (non-working) for a 1973 Fender Deluxe Reverb he had. He reworked the thing and changed the grill cloth and got it to work. He used it on a few gigs and it sounded great. Some trading of equipment went on between him and a friend and I and eventually I got the Super back. I used it a lot (one recording session comes to mind; Fenders sound really great when you crank them up but I remember mine sounding shrill so I went with an overdrive pedal to get THAT sound) but I was never IN LOVE with it and would use other amps. I had a few speakers (the original ones were back in the amp) re-coned and did some tube changes and was pretty OK with it until a week or two ago. It just started to sound tired so I brought it in for a check up. I figured it was a speaker again or the tubes weren't properly biased or something. Today, I got a call and the first thing the tech said was "Have you ever been in love with this amp?" That got me thinking. Here's what happened. The mid '60's Super had a black control panel (mine was silver) and a different circuit design. The silverface models were never all that desirable once the circuits were changed. Mine was made in a transition period when they were introducing the new circuit. Many people have "blackface"d their silverfaces by cutting out some capacitors and resistors. That's what he did and my amp sounds INCREDIBLE!!!! I can't wait to play it on a gig. It really sings now and has lots of compressed sustain.
Last weekend, I went to my friend Steven's to give a drum lesson to Tess and that was a good time. We did a double drummer thing that sounded real good. Tess is really coming along and it sounds like she's really practicing (or i'm easily fooled or she's real talented or both). We practiced Ringo beats and Surf beats. I'm sure the whole neighborhood heard. And we made a trip to Rez Drums to get some sticks and such. They still have my drool-inducing Gretsch kit. WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I went to my friend John Tillman's house and came home with two new guitars to play with. This time it's a '66 Jazzmaster and a Firebird...both in beautiful sunburst. Weird how that works. He's got my Rickenbackers so it all works out. Tomorrow, we're going to see the Fab Four at the Kravis Center. We saw them last year and they were great. I'm sure Johanna will scream and mock-faint. Saturday, I've got a recording session at my friend Bob's place. Before the last election, we recorded a CD of original compositions that were of a protest nature called Wake Up! that was reviewed on NPR. We had a lot of fun making it and I contributed two songs and played a bunch of shit on it. Anyway, Bob wants to make a cover CD of the same nature before this election so that's what's gonna happen. I haven't made up my mind what i'm gonna do so I probably won't start mine Saturday. I know someone's gonna do Nowhere Man and someone else is going to do In The Year 2525. Charlie Pickett is gonna do a song so it'll be good to see him and Ed.
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