Ep. 143: "The Girl Who Never Rained"

Summary

Podcast Summary: Ep. 143 - "The Girl Who Never Rained"

Introduction In Episode 143 of The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons, released on January 29, 2025, hosts Skip Simmons and Jason delve into a mix of personal anecdotes, community concerns, and a comprehensive recap of the recent Bay Area Guitar Show. This episode, titled "The Girl Who Never Rained," blends heartfelt discussions with technical insights, providing listeners both entertainment and valuable information.

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1. Navigating Recent Fires and Community Impact The episode opens with a candid conversation about the devastating fires affecting the community. Skip shares his personal ordeal during the evacuation, highlighting the resilience and humanity he witnessed amidst chaos.

• Skip (00:24): “I feel so sorry for people and there's so many things involved. I just would encourage people not to even pay attention for at least a week.”

• Jason (02:36): “Love it. There's so many musicians I know and friends of friends have lost their homes. It's crazy.”

Key Points:

• Evacuation Experience: Skip recounts the stress of evacuating his neighborhood, including a neighbor hiding from authorities and the communal experience of seeking refuge in a parking lot.

• Community Resilience: Despite the severity, Skip emphasizes that not everyone is affected by immense wealth, pointing out, “[...] some normal people. It isn't all just 25 million dollar mansions.”

• Impact on Events: The fires have complicated event planning, but Skip underscores the necessity to proceed with scheduled shows to maintain community spirit.

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2. Recap of the Bay Area Guitar Show The heart of the episode is a detailed recounting of the Bay Area Guitar Show, emphasizing its unique social dynamics over pure commerce.

• Skip (03:39): “We talked about guitar shows before. They don't. The business model is weird.”

• Key Interactions:

  • Connecting Enthusiasts: Skip describes facilitating connections between like-minded individuals, such as pairing two car enthusiasts who bonded over their love for racing and vintage cars.

  • Memorabilia and Stories: Discussions about rare recordings, like those from Aztec Recording Studio, and interactions with musicians who have deep-rooted histories in the local music scene.

Key Points:

• Social Networking: The show serves as a melting pot for networking, fostering friendships that extend beyond music into other shared interests.

• Sales Dynamics: While there were numerous guitars and overpriced items available, the actual transactions were minimal. Skip reflects, “But at the guitar show they always, you know, there's certain people that come over and say, did you bring any PA heads? Did you bring any preamps?”

• Atmosphere: The event was bustling on Saturday with over 25,000 attendees, contrasted by a mellow Sunday. Skip notes, “Saturday was just packed. Probably some of the most people I've seen coming in and paying the 20 bucks, 25 bucks going to the store. Ever beautiful weather, sunny blue skies.”

Notable Quote:

• Skip (08:05): “I sold a few of those things. It wasn't a complete financial wasteland. But even though it was packed on Saturday, at least at our booth, there wasn't a whole lot of buy in going on.”

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3. Navigating the Show's Unique Offerings Skip delves into the eclectic mix of items and services available at the show, highlighting innovative side ventures and unique finds.

• Photography Booth: A corner dedicated to guitar photography, allowing attendees to capture professional shots of their instruments.

• Unique Gear: Rare items like Travis Bean guitars and vintage Mackie preamp modules were showcased, appealing to niche collectors.

Key Points:

• Side Hustles: Innovative services like the photography booth add value to the show beyond traditional sales, though they didn't attract as much attention as expected.

• Unexpected Finds: Attendees brought unusual items, such as massive amounts of guitar wood for future projects, reflecting the diverse interests of the vintage amp community.

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4. Listener Questions and Technical Insights A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to addressing listener-submitted questions about vintage amp repair and maintenance, showcasing Skip's expertise.

Highlights:

• Gas Rectifiers and Vintage Components:

  • Listener Larry Chung (55:39): Inquired about funky British-made filter cap blocks and switchable battery wall-powered amps. Skip praises Larry's adventurous spirit in embracing pre-war components and integrating complex modifications.

  • Skip (55:39): “He likes a challenge and he's restored a bunch of early stuff and has shared it all with the keggers.”

• Amp Maintenance Tips:

  • Joe in Denver (58:07): Asked about connecting an extra speaker harness for amp maintenance. Skip advises against potential issues with output transformers and emphasizes the importance of using uniform speaker setups for accurate sound evaluation.

  • Frank in Germany (63:31): Presented a complex scenario involving a vintage Marshall amp affected by Hurricane Helene. Skip provides a comprehensive troubleshooting guide, emphasizing cautious drying methods and the use of variacs to prevent inrush current.

Notable Quote:

• Skip (58:45): “Don't put the old filter caps back in it. I'm just speculating. Done is done. But if you're a worrywart about reserving electronics, an affordable variac and the right mindset eliminates almost every problem that you could ever have.”

Technical Insights:

• Battery Wall-Powered Amps: Exploration of unconventional power sources and their implications on amp functionality.

• Proper Maintenance Practices: Importance of gradual warm-ups using variacs and avoiding modifications that could compromise amp integrity.

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5. Community and Sponsor Acknowledgments The episode acknowledges various sponsors and community members who contribute to the podcast’s success.

• Barry from Grez Guitars: Highlighted for his exquisite guitars like the Grand Tour model, which received high praise from both hosts and the community.

• Amplified Parts & Emerald City Guitars: Regular sponsors praised for their extensive range of amp parts and welcoming showrooms, respectively.

Key Points:

• Support and Collaboration: Emphasis on the collaborative nature of the vintage amp community, with sponsors playing a crucial role in maintaining the podcast’s quality and reach.

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6. Personal Stories and Reflections Beyond technical discussions, Skip and Jason share personal stories that humanize the hosts and build a deeper connection with listeners.

• Skip’s Brush with the Everglades: Recounts a story about a ferry crew member proposing, highlighting the unexpected moments of kindness and creativity within the community.

• Listener Gratitude: Jason shares a heartfelt voice memo from Dan, a 12th-grade literature teacher, who appreciates the podcast's impact on enthusiasts and educators alike.

Key Points:

• Human Connections: Stories of friendship, unexpected proposals, and listener appreciation underscore the podcast's role in fostering a supportive and engaged community.

• Cultural Reflections: Discussions about environmental conservation, such as the restoration of the San Francisco Bay estuary, illustrate the hosts' awareness of broader ecological issues affecting their community.

Notable Quote:

• Dan from Dakula (51:35): “...you guys bring so much joy. People want to hear what you have to say. Anyway, thanks for everything you do.”

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7. Conclusion and Forward Look As the episode wraps up, Skip and Jason reflect on the challenges and successes of hosting amidst personal and community upheavals, expressing optimism for future events and continued community engagement.

• Skip (88:03): “So Ghost. Go to a show, go to a guitar shop and we'll do it again apparently in another couple weeks.”

Key Points:

• Resilience and Continuity: Despite recent hardships, the hosts remain committed to their mission of connecting enthusiasts and preserving vintage amp culture.

• Upcoming Plans: Teasing future events and episodes, promising continued coverage of guitar shows and technical deep-dives.

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Final Thoughts Episode 143 of The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons masterfully balances personal narratives with technical expertise, offering listeners a holistic view of the vintage amp community. From navigating the aftermath of natural disasters to the intricate details of amp maintenance, Skip and Jason provide valuable insights wrapped in engaging storytelling. This episode not only celebrates the enduring passion for vintage gear but also underscores the importance of community and resilience in the face of adversity.

Notable Quotes:

• Skip (37:22): “I was amazed. And then of course, another Tava. You don't know jack. I called Lee Jeffries, who knows a lot about Standel, and he goes, those are plastic boxes that he used. I went, what?”
• Jason (12:37): “We had something like that at the last fretboard summit with Eleanor Jane who's like one of the. Or the, the guitar photographer based out of the UK.”

Timestamps Highlighted:

• 00:23 – 02:36: Discussion on the impact of recent fires.
• 03:08 – 08:05: Recap of the Bay Area Guitar Show.
• 58:07 – 67:52: Listener questions and technical answers.
• 51:35 – 54:46: Listener gratitude and personal stories.

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Join the Conversation Listeners are encouraged to submit their questions and voice memos to podcastritboardjournal.com to be featured in future episodes. The hosts express immense gratitude for the supportive community and look forward to continuing their mission of demystifying vintage amp maintenance and fostering connections among enthusiasts.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Skip]

Did I do it?

[Jason]

You did it. And you sound like the old days. I love it.

[Skip]

Wow. Throwback. Forced. Forced by a lack of technology to kick it old school.

[Jason]

Love it.

[Skip]

Right?

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

And. And when we first got the good microphone. Thank you. Our friends at Shure microphones. People thought it was someone else.

[Jason]

I know. What brand of phone are you using? We should give a thank shout out to that brand.

[Skip]

I use. So the home phone is. Isn't really a landline. It's like a home cell phone. Thing is, I gotta have a cordless phone because I walk. I walk around. Oh, that's a throwback. Can you hear a beep? Because somebody's calling me on the phone while we're.

[Jason]

Yeah, I love it.

[Skip]

We'll see how many of those there are. Time. Right. Well. Hi, Jason. How's your world?

[Jason]

My world is better than some people's worlds, but it's okay. The nearest. Yeah.

[Skip]

We only teased about our pre election edition episode and we're not going to do that about the fires. I feel so sorry for people and there's so many things involved. I just. I would encourage people not to even pay attention for at least a week. And I. I'll also throw out that I had about four, six, about six hours of that. It would have been a couple of days, except this neighbor lady of mine hid from the police when they came and evacuated everyone on my road. And so when we all left and went to this parking lot down in the valley which was filled with people who were coming from my town, she called us in the morning, like 6:00 in the morning and told us that the house was here. So not that that compares with anything that a lot of people are going through down there in la, but. And I might point out, seems impossible, but there are some normal people. It isn't all just 25 million dollar mansions.

[Jason]

Oh, yeah. No, I mean this is so widespread. There are so many musicians I know and friends of friends have lost their homes. It's crazy.

[Skip]

The guitar show must go on. I asked the promoter, Larry Briggs at our show yesterday and he said they already have my money. I can't cancel it. We have to just pretend it's on. That's in Costa Mesa, which I believe is quite a ways away, but still, you know, it all impacts everything. So. All right, enough of that. We have to.

[Jason]

Our hearts go out.

[Skip]

Yes.

[Listener]

If.

[Jason]

If we can provide you with some sort of distraction, the staring at your phone and reality of what you all are going through down there. I hope we help Skip you are on the old land line. This is a throwback episode by popular demand. I never really wanted to do it, but here we are, thanks to your Internet being down. You just got back from the Bay Area guitar show. Can we get the recap?

[Skip]

We've talked about guitar shows before. They don't. The business model is weird. You have to quote the great John Vander slice. Who pays to go into a store.

[Jason]

Yes.

[Skip]

But I think kind of like the summit. Bret More journal summit. The people thing is of a lot more. Has become a lot more of the value of it, you know. Yes. A lot of people brought guitars to sell. There were a lot of dealers with a bunch of overpriced stuff to sell. But everywhere was that guy talking to that guy. Yes. Mostly guys who hadn't seen each other for a few years or someone like me. I love to put that guy together with that guy. They both race cars. They fix up cars and. And. And go out to Infineon Raceway and just drive like, you know, like seriously for. But as a hobby. But they didn't know each other. But they met at the guitar show. Right. So we get the guy who recorded at Aztec Recording Studio in Little Marika, California. We get him introduced. Mojo Larry, one of our listeners who grew up on that band and played all their songs when they were kids. And you put those. And you put those two together and you go. So it's just. I found two old car guys, you know, that didn't know each other. And it just half an hour later they're still over on the side going, yeah, I brought my 61 Cadillac. It's out in the parking lot. Let's go look at it. So that aspect of it is pretty amazing. And Saturday was just packed. Probably some of the most people I've seen coming in and paying the 20 bucks, 25 bucks going to the store. Ever beautiful weather, sunny blue skies. Last couple of shows I had to drive in a tornado and a hurricane. So that part of it was easier. And Sunday was really mellow and slow. If I would have known. There are a lot of people that I think would love the guitar show on the Sunday who would just be ready to commit suicide on Saturday. Yeah, it was. It was something. Yeah. Dana Olson pretty well. I guess he must have been in some other band since. But he was in a band called the Ralph Shine Blues Band that we used to see about 1980 in Sacramento with Little Charlie and all those bands. And they were great. They're from Chico. That's the band that I got the Recorded somewhere in Loma Rica and Sylvia Massey did the COVID Like a groupie for the band that's a super famous pop in rock engineered lady, you know. So it was. There was a lot of little connections like that.

[Jason]

You talked to the guy who recorded in Loma Rica. Were you able to triangulate and figure out where the recording studio was?

[Skip]

I got to get it. He. He's moved back to Chico where he grew up. And I'm going to get him down to my house and we're going to get him liquored up and we're going to get him. We're going to try to drive them around in the truck and see who knows, he may. Man, that was a long time ago, right? And I had the. Well, I got the record. I can't remember how I heard about the recording studio, but Mrs. Simmons went out and bought the record. It wasn't real expensive, but the guy had lost it when his apartment burned up in 1983 or something. And when I talked to him on the phone and I told him I had the record, he just about flipped. So on Sunday I brought the record and he was there and I gave it to him. And there's, you know, picture of him on the back with like really long hair and 25 years old. And now he's, you know. It was recorded in 80, I think. Yeah, 1980.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

So it was just fun. Lots of people came up to say hi. You know, Jay brings the giant bag of his favorite tortilla chips and all three kinds of El pato. And since he's married, wife probably said, and some big bowls, he had like little plastic margarine tubs or something so everybody. So he could have a three way El pato paste off.

[Jason]

Okay, sure.

[Skip]

So I didn't. I took a bunch of stuff that belonged to other people to sell for them.

[Jason]

Yes.

[Skip]

Single thing. Oh, I didn't sell a single one of them really. I got that Charlie Christian Apple got a really nice trainer studio mate. There's an old national from the 40s, like a tweed national with a 12 or 10, like one knob, great heartband. A couple others. I did sell some of my own stuff, but that's mostly because people would come up and say, what did you bring? Like, I don't know why people won't call me and just say they want something. But at the guitar show they always, you know, there's certain people that come over and say, did you bring any PA heads? Did you bring any preamps? What did you bring? So I sold a Few of those things. It wasn't a complete financial wasteland. Right. But even though it was packed on Saturday, at least at our booth, there wasn't a whole lot of buy in going on. I'm not quite sure what that was all about, but there was some. Bill Kernard and Eli from two Rock were there for a while. Barry from Grez came booth squatter. Didn't even bring a guitar. Just hung out and ate our food and annoyed us. Just teasing. Danger uxb borrowed barbecued chicken and stuff. And you know, it's almost just like a big noisy party kind of thing. But it's really busy and Sunday is a lot more calm. You could hear some good guitar players around picking a little bit more of an acoustic flavor here and there. And it was cool. But you know, I drive two and a half hours in the morning and the night, in the morning and the night, because I cannot buy at a hotel. But nothing sold 50 yards away. I sold some stuff. Our booth sold a few things. Enough to keep it going. It's just overall, I don't talk to all the dealers, but it wasn't. There wasn't the commerce that you would have thought with the thousands of people that came in that day. It's sort of changed to just sort of like a show. I don't know. I think a lot of people came just to see their buddies and to hang out and talk about stuff and you know, look at guitars as opposed to I'm coming to buy a. Whatever. Right. And I'll tell you, there were. There were interesting. There were good deals. Our guy, one of our boothmates, had a Travis Bean guitar. Wow. For sale. When was the last time you saw that? And there was lots of inexpensive guitars, you know, modern stuff like some reissue strap that was 250 or whatever. Right. So it's not strictly a high priced vintage scene all the way around. Every way. It's. There's a lot. There was a lot of stuff there, you know, different kinds of stuff. There was a few people with parts and Steve Swan, a Bay Area guy who specializes more in arch tops and upright basses. He somehow. I'll have to get the story. He somehow had a massive amount of wood for guitars. I'm going out on a limb here and predicting that probably has something related to something, someone dying, Right. Somebody in the industry. I would say the dear. And so there were people wandering around with wood under their arm or a hand truck full of wood that they bought from him. Right. Which is something that you wouldn't expect to see at a guitar show. But they did. Yeah, but they did. So friend of mine had a little corner with a little like a little. It was a photography booth where you could go and have a picture taken of the guitar you bought, you know, so sell you a JPEG for whatever. And it looked, I mean these guys are, it was very professional. You know, they had this big, big screen that they could put it up on. And you know, if you, if you went and got a guitar, you could park it in front of like a tweed amp and take like a really fancy studio looking shot of the guitar or you holding it or something like that. Which I thought was an interesting side hustle to have down there.

[Jason]

We, we had something like that at the last fretboard summit with Eleanor Jane who's like one of the. Or the, the guitar photographer based out of the uk. And not a lot of people took her up on the offer, but I could see this being a thing I.

[Skip]

Say similarly when I went over and visited. That's Robert Sidwell, he was old friend, great guitar player and now he's into photography, both film and digital. And one of his buddies, and it was their idea to try it. It didn't have as many people as I thought.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

And I would say if I was going to say this something I would have said make it. If you're not going to hand the guy a piece of paper with the beautiful picture and you're just really going to give him a way to download the picture, it'd be pretty inexpensive. But I'd like to see him do 100 people and charge them 15 bucks instead of 50 people and charge them 30 bucks or whatever. And also another aspect is the dealers had an opportunity for some really flashy pictures of their junk that, that they could then put on their website or totally their online store. Yeah. So it was interesting. But I do have some stuff. I took four AB boxes and I also only sold one. I forgot them on Saturday, left them by the door. But not one single person asked me for one. Oh, fortunately.

[Jason]

Did you come home with anything that you did people give you amps to work on?

[Skip]

Oh, hell yeah. I always, I always take a bunch of repairs and bring home a bunch of repairs. There's Bay Area people, they're gonna go to the show. I bring you my ampeg reverb rocket and then drive up and come up and visit me because a few hours away from the Bay Area and I do that sort of stuff all the time. Or if somebody brings me a chassis, I'll fix it and ship it to them. And I brought quite a few repairs down there that I had done. People who were that live closer or were going to be at the show anyway so they could pick up. So I'm always walking out to the parking lot, going to the truck, but he's calling me. Some people don't want to pay to get in. They just want to do the. Do the drop off out in parking lot. So we do a lot of that sort of stuff too. I walked a lot. But thanks to Danger UXB and all my friends, we. We ate and drank it. Something brought me some good bourbon, some fancy rum and cookies. And George has a mandarin tree. California in the winter has intense citrus. If there are these old trees that were planted, most of them are like 50 years old in old neighborhoods or older in old neighborhoods in Sacramento. And in the winter with these oranges and mandarins. And he had a huge sack and we were giving them out to the staff and the crew and everybody because everybody needs a Mandarin. A little pick me up. Oh, and we had an early Yarrow memorial. We had four cup farberware percolator. And we made percolator coffee in old China cups for a couple of times during the day for people.

[Jason]

We just got an email from somebody who found out about Earl Yarrow's passing through our podcast.

[Skip]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not really in the fretboard journal world, except he is. And if any. If any of our fans had a chance to sit around and listen to him for an hour or two some afternoon and listen to some old western swing on whatever hi Fi amp he had working at the time and telling you about growing up, like, as a carny. Wow.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

A lot of life. A lot of life experiences. And he's the one that hipped everybody to these little vintage farberware tiny percolators. So percolator coffee stinks. And I say to ye. Sorry. A different style if you do it right, especially at something like that, you know where. And they go stand in line for some overpriced coffee nights. Make coffee right there at your table, right? Or if your traveler don't go down to the lobby, don't drink that piss in the hotel room. Bring your own little coffee rig.

[Jason]

So far, this sounds more like a. An eating show than a guitar show.

[Skip]

Well, we could. Well, there's like four people that are usually involved in this booth. Louie Garcia, his friend Peter, me and George. And George and I, we're homeboys. You know, we always think of stuff like, that Louie, like, lives on guitar on tortilla chips and stuff, right? But when we get it, we get down there. Mrs. Simmons used to make like six ham and cheese sandwiches or something. Because they're all guys, you know, most. A lot of single guys, and they didn't bring anything or, you know, so it's usually pretty popular with. What do you got here? Have a Mandarin. This is to, like, the guard who's supposed to be watching the door. Pretty soon we're sneaking in and out of the side door so we don't have to walk all the way around through the entrance. You know, you gotta lubricate these people or just show them that you're cool and you're not a jerk and, you know, sit and chit chat with people. Somebody came up to talk to me. I. As soon as I can, I listen to them full force, like I'm answering a question on the podcast.

[Jason]

I love it.

[Skip]

And we had. I had some PA heads for $400, which is rock, rock bottom. I didn't and I didn't sell them all. And I. I had a masco I wanted $1200 for. I had a Ducane 2.6v6. Those are intense. I had two. I didn't tell anybody I had to, but I sold one of those and some lunatic bought one of the distribution Preamps, which is 1 in and 4 outs, all tube with a level control for each one. And I've probably mentioned that as something that a customer asked me for and I refused to do it forever. And finally he talked me into it and it turned out to be kind of a genius thing, just very limited appeal. Not very many people need something that does that. I think I've only made maybe five of those. And remember after I ragged on the guy, he told me he was in a wheelchair and he had four amps and he wanted to sit in one spot and have them all on and be able to turn each one up and down from one spot. So I had to pull my foot out of my mouth and go, oh. Because he didn't tell me that. He just said, can you make a thing where I could plug my guitar in and it would go to blah, blah, blah, four different amps. And I'm going, dude, that's a stupid idea. But I've mentioned this before. A lot of times you need somebody else to tell you that it's something that they want, even though it doesn't seem like it's something anybody else would want. Vander Slice has one. There's A couple.

[Jason]

Sounds like the Neil Young, the wizard thing.

[Skip]

I guess if I had. If I could snap my fingers, I'd have, you know, Ry Cooter or Neil Young or somebody just say, well, try. Try it this way. I mean, there's other ways to do it. And I don't know, you know, me, I just sort of fix it, make like it ought to be, and then I give it to somebody and say, does this work? It works. Worked really. It worked really, really well. But again, how many people really need that? I sold a preamp that I consider to be a lot more useful. You could play a gig on guitar through a solid state bass amp or through the PA or anything, and it just sounds way more like an old amp. Way more. And if you were a recording dog, you could use it for recording, but signal direct to your recording device without an amp at all. It sounds super tubey. If you had a little mic transformer, you could use a good quality microphone into it for vocals and stuff. For home recording, of course, it has a big fat octal tube preamp circuit just like an old amp out of it. I sold that Steve Rinaldi, who bought one of the very first ones of those I ever made, like 25 years ago, and I haven't seen him in 10 years, but he emailed me a while back and said, hey, do you still make those preamps? I got in the mood and I sold it and I never should have. And I said, I do, but they're 500 bucks now. And then he showed up at the guitar show and said, give me that. That was kind of fun. Yeah, he already knew what it was. He'd had one before, but not the same thing. Now they're all in, enclosed in a box, so you can drop it. Heard it. The original ones just had a little tube and transformers just sitting there. And they're a lot. They work the same, but they weren't as, you know, road dog sturdy as the ones I'm making now.

[Jason]

Yeah. And was there one piece of gear that had some crazy value provenance that everyone was nerding out about? Hey, have you gone and looked at that?

[Skip]

Something in the show that everyone had to go and see?

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

No, I didn't. I mean, what, you know, pretty hard. I mean, I'm not gonna even look at tweets. I don't even care how mint or what rarity or whatever. I don't know. I was impressed by the odd stuff. Someone we were talking to for a good long time had a UK case. He opened it up. And it was a Martin uke from the 40s that he bought for like, I don't know, six or 700 bucks. I think that's below list. So if you're interested in something odd and you're patient, you just commit to hanging around and looking behind everybody's table for a few hours. You know, there's stuff. Oh, there was a Gibson uke like that that I wanted. Fancy one. And it was only $750 or something like that. There were mahogany old martins. There was a beautiful parlor guitar that the guy wanted $800 for. It was the rosewood teens. Small bodied, spruce top, all fixed up. Pyramid bridge. Didn't need a bunch of work under a grand. You know, these are the kind of guitars that talked about when Louie had last year. You could talk from across the room. And if you're holding the guitar, you could feel the vibrations of just that much air is so resonant. Neat. So I saw the only stuff that I dug was just oddball weirdo stuff. There were a couple duosonics like the one I bought recently. They were a lot more than $500, but that was fun to see. But I didn't really see anybody walking in with some. One of a kind. Lloyd. Lloyd. Crazy thing like that. Of course I might not have seen it on Saturday because it was just. There might have been something like that there. A lot of cool lap steals. There was a guy with a big aluminum upright base from that. From the old days.

[Jason]

Those are cool.

[Skip]

Keith Carey. Yeah, Keith Carey has one of those. And hear it in action on Dead Sea. Dead Slate Pacific. It's on a Vander Slice record and he plays this really wild. It was really written. Son of twenties or thirties aluminum upright bass that had a brief vogue. All one of those.

[Jason]

That's cool.

[Skip]

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Lots of trippy like Japanese guitars, you know, three pickup crazy Tyscos and stuff like that too. They have their. They have their fans.

[Jason]

Yeah. Nice.

[Skip]

I don't know for your average person. Larry, who's the promoter, says Sundays are always slower than Saturdays. And if you're not sure you can handle it, try it on a Sunday. There are people that brought dogs. Wow. Of course the kids. Sure, you can go, honey, but you have to take the kids. So I'm running out to the parking lot and there's a line of like 75 people waiting to get in. And the guy with one in his arm and one about five and they're both already burnt and they haven't even got in there yet. I mean, if you're not interested in that stuff, go somewhere else while you drop off person there and I can pick them up. Because I saw some people that just looked like they wanted to commit suicide.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

It can get really loud and oh.

[Jason]

Guitar shows are often horrible places.

[Skip]

Hey. But some people said, yeah, I'll take the kids, let's go. One of my friends, kids are used to it, so well behaved. They just, they made themselves a little place to sit down over in the corner. And they just sat there with their snacks and their video games and stuff while their dad wandered around looking at amps. So, yeah, I got a good Little Heartband Kalamazoo. $350. One of the best little amps if you're a beginning or small venue harp player, especially for 350. We had a bunch of amps for under a grand. I think there's a Guild 66J, that's 112, 266. That didn't sell. I think Louie's taken that to the Los Angeles show and it was like 700. Right. But I don't know why people wouldn't. Maybe it's because people didn't go expecting an opportunity to buy something that was fairly affordable. And at least at our booth, we're so slack, we barely have price tags on stuff. So it's not like we're trolling for somebody who just is there because they thought it was a dog show. They decided to go to the guitar show. We get, we used to get people like that. When I made the retropolitans, there'd be some guy that would just walk up and his wife would go, those are cute. Buy that. You know, and the guy was like, not really there to buy some old amp or something. It was just like something to do on a Saturday. But now most of the people that were there were pretty doggone serious about not just wandering by and happened to stumble in. Offer 25 bucks. I can remember 10. Okay. I know it's a lot, but imagine the expense. Marin County.

[Jason]

Well, I know firsthand.

[Skip]

Union Electricians. Yeah, Union Electricians on hand. A total lockout. Security for all that time from Friday night to Sunday night. Can't put up a sign that says this way to the guitar show because it's county.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

So it's almost impossible to find. And there's nothing the promoter can do about it. Oh, you can't have a food truck. No. You have to have this little vendor at this little counter over here who sells, you know, expensive hot dog. And some so. So coffee. I. I used to get a little annoyed with the promoter. But once I see that there's a lot of things you just can't do anymore down there. You can't put up little signs or anything.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

So it makes it harder for people who are going for. It was challenging to find if you've never been there before. How about that?

[Jason]

That's a great recap.

[Skip]

That's some recapping.

[Jason]

I saw some photos of you with. With Grez and a few other folks.

[Skip]

I got a haircut.

[Jason]

Nice.

[Skip]

Got my haircut whacked off fine, dude. Hopefully it didn't look completely burnt. Barry of course looked beautiful as usual.

[Jason]

He does just like his guitars.

[Skip]

But what? But without a guitar. What the hell? Side side travel note. I went from my house, I go across Highway 37 which goes across the northern part, San Pablo Bay, which is part of the San Francisco Bay. Apparently over the bajillions of years, probably partly due to hydraulic mining, that upper part of the bay is just silted over. And so it doesn't not connected with the bay anymore because these train trestles and the road across it. And now they've been doing this 10 year project to reconnect the outermost part of the bay, the actual tidal flow. And it's totally working. I've driven this road a jillion times. That's where Sears Point Raceway is. And it's just this big area of water about a foot deep. But now it's sandbars and mud flats and tons of wading birds, curlews, egrets, plovers, Avocets and I don't know. Sounds like. It seems like our government dollars actually doing something that seemed to be working great, which I found. Which I found interesting. And it's pretty obvious if you've driven over the road, you know, any length of time, it just looks different. That used to be water over there and now it's dry land and they're dredging. I always love to see a big barge with a dredge. I used to see those on down at the drawbridge sometimes. And it seems like it seems like it's working. They're basically restoring that part of the estuary which is traditionally like marshy. And by connecting it with the bay again when it had been really like silted up and kind of like disconnected from the rest of the bay through all the building, mostly a Road, Highway 37, which kind of separates that part of it from the rest of the bay. And it's beautiful. Oh man. Sunny Be nice. Last night, full moon. But the driving wasn't that bad. Even though my eyes aren't so good for night driving anymore.

[Jason]

Well, should we start?

[Skip]

I guess I better take a breath, right?

[Jason]

This is the 143rd episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps. Believe it or not, that's a lot. I know.

[Skip]

I met a guy and he was leaving, and I said, what do you do for money? He's a crew member on the. One of the ferries, the bay. The one that goes from Tiburon. The one you take to his San Francisco Giants game if you're really lucky. He was like on the crew. And I went, wow. I mean, that's pretty inside. But he had to go. I didn't get too much chance to talk to him, but he gave me this one story. Tiburon. That ferry leaves and goes down towards the Golden Gate. It goes right past the backside of San Quentin, which is built right on the water.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

So when you're leaving, if you look over to your left, there it is in a super old. And the basketball courts are out there. So they're leaving, and a lady walks up to the crew member and says, where's San Quentin? Goes, well, you're gonna see it on your left hand side in about five minutes. And five minutes later, they get up there and a bunch of. Bunch of guys in the basketball court had made a big sign that said, will you marry me? So and so. Right. But when she went past her, I imagine, soon to be married husband, who was obviously in San Quentin at the time, proposed by having him and his friends out on the basketball court make big sign that said, will you marry me?

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

If you're not. If you don't work on a ferry, you're just never gonna see that. And he gave. He gave me a baseball hat that the crew has that says like bay fairies on it. And I don't wear baseball hats, but Bill Kernard does. And he just flipped that thing. I think he wore it all day. So.

[Jason]

So get on the show. You'll be our next special guest.

[Skip]

Yeah. Yeah, that might be. Well, he was. He was interesting. Yeah, that's a. That's a gig. And you have to have some. You can't just do that. You have to have some credentials.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

And there's a union, and I'm sure he has to do a lot of safety stuff and. And like a drawbridge operator. It's boring as hell most of the time, but you can't just sit there with your feet up and snooze you know, you're like, it's a. It's a job like a lighthouse keeper. I don't think they have those anymore, but you know what I mean.

[Jason]

I do know what you mean.

[Skip]

You have to be on top of it, even though there's really nothing to do. And that's a certain kind of mentality that can do that sort of thing. I had it in a room for four hours. I have to doing apparently nothing. Yeah, the people connections. Pretty fun.

[Jason]

All right, do you want to field some amp questions?

[Skip]

Let's talk about our connections that help us. We'd probably do it even without sponsors, but it definitely helps.

[Jason]

Okay, so the aforementioned. Let's hear Barry from Grez Guitars. Not only looks beautiful, his guitars are absolutely stunning. He's got the 15 inch.

[Skip]

I didn't.

[Jason]

Because they're in such high demand, he doesn't have to go to a guitar show and sell them. I guess he's got the grand tour, the 15 inch carved arch top with the two P90s. He's got the Mendocino. Everybody please go follow the Barry at Grez Guitars. I. He's been there. I've been listening to a lot of guitar podcasts. There have been a lot of, like, gear of the year recaps and. And that grand tour has. Has gotten lots of accolades, not just from us. So go check that out. I actually have one coming my way soon. I think.

[Skip]

There were lots of people there that have 1, 2, 3 Graz guitars. So when he's there, there was somebody who had a grizz that hadn't actually met him.

[Jason]

That's cool talk.

[Skip]

I think he bought it secondhand maybe, or somehow or maybe through a dealer. He does have some dealers. I think so.

[Jason]

He does.

[Skip]

That was fun. Yeah. And of course, he's pretty personable.

[Jason]

Our friends at Amplified Parts, we talk about them every week. They've been with us for the long haul. They have almost everything new you would need to work on your amps. They've got the matching preamp tubes, the apex matching preamp tubes. They've got DIY amp kits that have the full instruction if you want to get a soldering iron and make your first tube amp and. And all points in between. So please, everybody, go to amplified parts. Mention Tava when you check out. And then last but not least, our friends Emerald City Guitars. I don't know that they were at the Bay Area show. I don't think they were. Continue to have.

[Skip]

I wouldn't have known on Saturday because I don't walk around I don't think so.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

But again, I say in support of our sponsor, Emerald City Guitars, there's nothing like going there and holding it.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

You think looking at Sweetwater is the same.

[Jason]

If you can ever get to Seattle, their showroom is something to behold. It's just room after room of vintage amps and vintage guitars. Everybody should go there. They've got a really welcoming staff. But if you can't get there. One thing I just spotted on their website, which was super cool, was They've got a 18 watt homebrew amp by Mark Sampson, who I think worked for Groove Tubes and Bad Cat and a bunch of other places.

[Skip]

Matchless and Matchless.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Yeah. That was his initial claim to fame.

[Jason]

Okay, so Mark Sampson. They did beautiful gut shots of this thing. And so you can. I mean, it's like seven, $8,000. It's not inexpensive, but you can at least see how a master like Mark or Skip or Bill Kernard, how they do their magic. And there's no gunk on it like a dumble. It's just a cool thing to check out. So go every go. Everybody look at that on their website.

[Skip]

I got a segue from gunk, if you'd like, go for it. Gunk. Segue, yeah. You think that's a new thing, that dumble thing? Which was basically, he was very protective of his circuits, and he didn't want people to just look in there and go, oh, I see how this works, by the way. There's never been a Fender that way. Right. Like, you could look in a Fender Tweed Deluxe and see everything there is about it instantly.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

Course, you can't build it because you ain't got the shit, don't have the ingredients. You only have the recipe. But there was a company called Standell, and he met. He made some really expensive handmade tube amps in the very beginning for all the country western stars like Joe Matthews and people like that, all Adam. And then he started making regular commercial stuff that were pretty popular, you know, especially with loud surf and rock bands, like big, loud amps. And there's a period of time where if you look inside of a Standell amp, you'll see all these wires, like, going from the pots, part tube, part solid state, these ones. And all these wires just go to these rectangular blobs and disappear in it, right? And you can't tell what's in there. You know, it's full of resistors and capacitors and transistors, but you don't know what it's like Modules. So some. One of my regular customers brought me one. And I'm not the guru of those at all, but I said I'd at least look at it. And I opened it up and it had those modules. What he did was he went and bought little plastic boxes about an inch by 2 inches. The kind with a little molded in clip, like you'd see a trout lure in or something, right? And that's what they were. I looked, I looked at this thing and I went, holy crap. This is a. This is just a little plastic box. You can still see the hinges where he disconnected the top of the box from the bottom. And he soldered up a bunch of crap and he squeezed a bunch of goo in it so that no one could see how it worked. 1963, 64. And I was amazed. And then of course, another tava. You don't know jack. I called Lee Jeffries, who knows a lot about Standel, and he goes, those are plastic boxes that he used. I went, what? He goes, yeah, they're all like that. Apparently there's some later ones that look a little bit different. But when he first started doing it, he just went down to the five and Dime and bought some little plastic boxes.

[Jason]

I love that.

[Skip]

Yeah, nothing new under the sun department, right? And as far as we know, just to hide the circuitry. I'd heard of these amps before. I thought they. I assumed that they use some kind of pre made module that big companies made. Like you could buy a part made by Sprague capacitors. That's like everything that would go between this tube and that tube in a radio or in an amplifier, it'll all be in this little chunk. And I like that weird part in the Falcons that people cut out to make it sound better. Yeah, it's like a network of resistors and capacitors and stuff. An early integrated circuit that you bought all completely put together and you just wired into your amp. But that's not what the Standel ones are. If he's buying plastic boxes at the five and Dime, he just twisted and soldered all those parts together and jammed him in the box and filled it full of some sort of like epoxy or whatever he had back then and all to get it. Now, of course, the tremolo on that amp doesn't work now. What are you supposed to do about that? Fortunately, Standel is popular enough that Lee says there's some freaks who figured out what are in all those things and maybe bashed them apart or soaked him in something and so officially, there's someone who will make you a new little module. We need the one that makes the tremolo go. And if we wire it up, I think it has, like, six wires coming out of it. If we wire it up, it should work. So Hope. Goo. You had to say Dumble Goo. And Mark Sampson and Matchless, one of the few companies that made an impact. You know, ultra high quality. Tons of pros used them for a while. They hold their value really well. And I got. I talked to him once on the phone for 20 minutes, and he could not answer my question because he didn't know. But because he's such a. Such a g. I couldn't quite get the. He couldn't say it. He kept his, like, veering off. I was asking him how to fix one of his amps that I'd gotten in, and I didn't want to know any sort of secret stuff about it, but Samson just operates on such a high level. Bill Kernard sometimes makes it hard to understand because he's Beta man. Hold on, hold on. Let me write that down. Are you saying because they. They just run them, they're just operating at a super high level, Whereas I'm going, huh?

[Jason]

You asked a yes or no question and you got a whole kind of tribe.

[Skip]

Yeah, kind of. But we have to have people like that and Mark Sampson and that stuff that he did, that's. That's quite an impact. You know, T Rock. Not to hype them. Not. Let's just say not that many modern companies are really. That really made an impact. And you know me, cheapskate. If the thing is worth a third right after you bought it, that's not good. But the good stuff holds its value really well. We won't want to talk about how the new Gibson Falcons are selling or how much you can get one of those for compared to. We won't talk about that, though.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Gonna make. If you're gonna make something, give me some lasting value.

[Jason]

Okay, you ready for that?

[Skip]

All the questions. Was that all the sponsors?

[Jason]

Yeah, I think we covered it all.

[Skip]

Okay, I'm ready.

[Jason]

Okay, folks, if you've made it this far, the. The gist of this show is that you actually submit questions for Skip, and he answers them about your amps. Sometimes it takes us a little while to get there. We had to do the recap on the guitar show, but here we are. And the way you can be a part of the show is by sending your question or voice memo to podcastritboardjournal.com you can also, we have a Patreon. You can submit it that way. Get to the front of the line. Patreon listener Lux wanted to say thanks to Skip and Jason for all the hard work and. And sacrifices made along the way. Hugely appreciated and inspirational. P.S. i'm binge listening from the beginning. And on one episode, Skip briefly mentions the death caps in his yard being red with white spots. Those are Amanita muscaria. The Amanita phalloids are the death cap mushroom. They are common here in Northern California, but they have a sort of light metallic green colored cap so Skip can rest easier. What was in his yard was magical solstice mushroom.

[Skip]

So that kind of Amanita is not poisonous.

[Jason]

I mean, I wouldn't know that. We don't know who this guy is. He's just on our Patreon.

[Skip]

I'm going out right now. Brian, some up. No, I only ever saw one once. And it was just so screamingly different looking. It was like seeing, I don't know, like a parrot in your yard in California. Yeah, I was just completely like, what in the hell is that? And it sure didn't look like something anybody would want to eat. But that. Thank you. Is that a mycologist who knows about mushrooms?

[Jason]

I don't know his credentials, but he.

[Skip]

Acted like he was among our listeners.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Yeah. Well, if I was out in the woods with somebody who I trusted, I would say, sure, I'll eat those morals or whatever, but I'm not. I'm not that hungry.

[Jason]

All right. Dan from Duckula. I don't know where Duckula is. It sort of looks like I don't either.

[Skip]

How do you spell that?

[Jason]

D, A, C, U, L, A?

[Skip]

No idea.

[Jason]

Okay, I'll keep this short. My eyesight isn't great. Glasses in this hobby, magnifying glasses help. And my back can be an issue. Surgery years ago. So your workbench setup, what's it like? Do you stand lean or sit on a stool? How big is your workbench? Any recommended lighting, especially for a basement area with limited natural lighting. P.S. tell us more about your duosonic. Are you a neck or a bridge pickup guy?

[Skip]

That's from Dan Inside, wherever Dakula is. Yeah, I work standing. And one reason for it was when I got that drawbridge job, which was part time, no benefits, didn't pay much, so I had to fix amps. Right. And those places, the drawbridges just had a desk and a chair. And I knew if I sat in a chair at a desk that I would be dead by now so I had a wooden box that was made to hold 5 gallon glass water jugs when they were, when they used to be glass, like a real sturdy solid wood box that would hold a water jug. And I carried tools and very. I carried my variac around in that thing. When I would move and I would take it out and I lay it sideways and I'd put it on the desk and I'd stand there. I gotta have bench height. If you sit, you're dead. Or it is just always stand. So even though I fix amps, I always, I'm always standing. Almost always, unless I have a tall stool where I'll stop and sit, you know, for a minute. But standing is where it's at. Older you get, the more light you need. I like a combination of incandescent and fluorescent or led, right. I like incandescent bulbs, especially in the winter. They heat the shop up a little tiny bit. And whatever your regular everyday reading glasses or whatever, just look at the pictures of Leo Fender and his music man days, you know, flip down magnifiers and you flip that thing down if you get the right one. It's more of a close up than you could see even when you were 20, right? What happened to me was about in my 50s and I need more light. Need more light. Need more light. No, I needed like 1.25 reading glasses, right? So the older you get, at some point you got to go for something that you don't look through all the time that you can just flip down for. When you really need to look up close at a soldering joint or something like that, which you have to be able to see. If you can't see it can't do a good job. Because this requires a close look, you know, a solder joint really should be done looked at really close. And then your needle nose, pliers in hand, every wire that goes to that solder joint should be gently tugged on and make sure that you really did do it. By the way, if you do it slowly like that, when you get done, that piece of junk will probably work instead of having to make you troubleshoot a bunch of stuff. When people bring me their projects from scratch, it's always something like that that they did wrong. The great August Gray Bosch Otis Amps. The first one he brought back, it was just like every ground connection was just like finger tight instead of being tightened up. Of course it didn't work. Of course that guy learned really fast. But the bottom line is got to be able to see it and try some Good old fashioned light bulbs. Habitat for Humanities. I don't know if there's a nationwide, but there are places that still have old fashioned light bulbs, you know, regular screw in ones even though we're not supposed to be using those for new construction. But they're, they're good. And avoid those fluorescent tube lights that go.

[Jason]

Those are the worst.

[Skip]

Those are the worst, you know. And Duosonic rocks. Slab board. The three I looked at that were right across the aisle from us, they all had curved boards like Rose, where the rosewood is a veneer that's curved. Whereas mine from apparently late 65, early 66, according to one of my friends, Ophir in New York city said that 24 inch scale guitars from just that little window had these big thick slab rosewood boards. And the one I bought just happened to have. That's a little bit more about it. I'm a neck pickup person all the way and I've owned lots of Fender guitars before I got married because I was a guitar dealer. But I haven't played any Fender guitars for all that time because I was too cheap and poor to ever buy anything good. And I'm kind of glad I did because my test guitar with the De Armand, I still use first. Okay, that's what I know. I know what it sounds like. But it's really fun to have a guitar that most people own, which is a Fender sounding guitar. I did a PA head two weeks ago. I was thinking about making it brighter. And when I played the Fender guitar into it, I said, no need for brighter. That's. That's sort of why I have it as more of a tool.

[Jason]

It's great. How do you feel about poetry?

[Skip]

I can appreciate it at times. I like a good verse. God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time. I like good writing that's distilled. And we probably should all. We probably all should read more poetry. That's from. That's from James Baldwin, a really wild black writer from the 60s. And that book is called the Fire Next time.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

So how do you feel about poetry?

[Jason]

Well, I feel great about it right now because listener Daniel sent us a voice memo and I think he's going to read us a poem.

[Skip]

Oh, I know.

[Jason]

This is from Dan.

[Listener]

Hey, Jason and Skip. This is Dan from Dakula. I don't have a question, but I wanted to wish you guys a happy holidays and I wanted to thank you on behalf of myself and I'm sure a lot of others for what you've done for us with this Podcast and with the Fretboard Journal and just the engagement and joy that so many of us get out of that. I teach 12th grade lit and so I have a poem that I think about all the time because it basically sums you guys up. Jason, it sums up what you do with Fretboard Journal and Skip. It sums up what you do with this podcast and the knowledge you're sharing and the passion you bring to all this stuff. Anyway, the poem is by a woman named Cole Swenson. She's from Kentfield, California, which Skip, I think is maybe close to San Francisco. Anyway, she went to San Francisco State and University of California. She's a great poet, born in 55. And her poem that I think about that pertains to you guys is a poem called the Girl who Never Rained. So it's pretty short. It says, the Girl who Never Rained by Cole Swenson. Oddly enough, there was always a city block of clear weather on every side of her, a space just large enough that the casual passerby simply thought, what an odd spot of calm. And often even people who knew her well never quite put it together as. After all, it's not that unusual to have a break in a storm. Though they develop after a while an odd inclination to be with her without really thinking out why. Other than that, her life was neither better nor worse than most. Except of course, for the crowds. So that's Cole Swenson. Anyway, you guys are the girl who Never Rained. You guys bring so much joy. People want to hear what you have to say. Anyway, thanks for everything you do.

[Jason]

You guys.

[Listener]

Have a happy holiday and talk to you later.

[Jason]

Wow, that's the same. The same person from that town. We couldn't figure out how to. Where it was.

[Skip]

Is it?

[Jason]

Yeah, same guy. Sorry about that.

[Skip]

I thought I just blabbed endlessly. I didn't know there was any lack of rain.

[Jason]

Now I know.

[Skip]

Well, poetry slam. There you go. Remember there early on a guy called who ran the largest Shakespeare library in the world? Yeah, Remember that?

[Jason]

What happened to that person? Guests who disappeared.

[Skip]

Oh, yes. I'm an expert on Shakespeare and that guy kind of. I mean that somebody thinks of this mess when they read some quality poetry. I'll try not to let my. Trying to not let that sink in too much. It might be a big head.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

I had a few people at the show say, well, you're so great, blah, blah, blah. You know what I always said? I said, it's Jason. The fretboard journal thing that you built from the beginning is why Anybody would know about it. Otherwise it would just be me rambling on all the time to my friends. There you go. That's a good one. Thanks for the poem. I appreciate it.

[Jason]

Frequent Tava community member Larry Chung Subject line, all original Setchel Carlson. Hey Skip and Jason. All original late 30s Satchel Carlson photos. I'll be sharing these on our Instagram and Facebook groups. Just like the one I restored from your shed now a couple years ago. Skip, have you ever seen these funky Fletch Time 2 microfarad British made filter cap blocks before? Always something new to experience. These switchable battery wall powered amps run fine from AC on either Oz 4 gas rectifier or a more conventional 6x5 rectifier. That's cool. Perhaps Tava worthy gas rectifiers type 83s. What do you want to say about these, Skip?

[Skip]

Remember, he's single and these things look dangerous. He's gotten farther out there than me in some ways in just. Well, I think, I think it's. I think this, this thing with Larry's. I think. I don't know if he worked on tube amps before. I think it was this thing that got him going. But, but through a lot of effort and work he has embraced the really early pre war stuff. That always scares me or it's too hard, you know, I'm kind of intrinsically lazy. But he likes, he likes a challenge and he's restored a bunch of early stuff and has shared it all with the keggers and yep, when you get back that far, you're gonna see parts that you don't even know what it is. It's still resistors and capacitors and stuff like that, but things just looked a lot different back then. I believe he's talking about filter capacitors that were in these little cardboard boxes with wire that came out of them and they strapped in there and that was a style you don't see after about the 30s. And then all that junk about rectifiers basically we're talking about at some point we have to convert AC to DC and that's called rectifying. And now most stuff uses diodes and solid state devices to do it. But in the ancient stuff, all tube and there's a bunch of really weird different ones that we don't see but are still useful if you know how they work. And he's added even more complexity by working on an amp that was made to either be plugged into the wall or connected with giant battery cable alligator clips to the battery in your 36 Hudson while you drive around selling ice cream out of it or something like that. Yeah, with a speaker on the roof like the Blues brothers. So hats off to Larry. And we'll just have to schedule our focus on gas rectifiers for sometime very soon. I'm a. I'm all a Twitter. Tell Larry to tell me something about gas rectifiers. That way I can sound smart.

[Jason]

I have so many questions about gas rectifiers, I can't visualize them. I wonder if they're a little. Do you fill it up with gas? Is it going to explode if you drop it? I know nothing.

[Skip]

Well, they were really expensive during the 70s because we had the gas shortage and all.

[Jason]

Yes, of course, of course.

[Skip]

Okay, next.

[Jason]

Joe in Denver. I have a bench amp that I use for guitar setups and maintenance, but I'm also doing quite a bit of maintenance on my vintage amps. My bench amp speaker has a second set of spade lugs. Is there any reason I should not connect an extra speaker harness to those lugs and use it as my cab for amp maintenance, Leaving both sets of speaker wires attached at all times? I would not have the amp on while I used it as a test cab. Thanks as always, Joe in Denver.

[Skip]

Did you understand that?

[Jason]

Yeah, I did. Somehow.

[Skip]

Well, tell. Tell me what he's. I.

[Jason]

So he's got an amp following. He's got just an amp that is working and fine and the speaker on the combo amp that he has has an extra set of lugs and he's wondering if he can alligator clip the amp he's working on to that speaker. And as long as he doesn't have both things going at the same time, is he going to be okay? I can't believe I knew that.

[Skip]

That is impressive. And you're just a fraction from the real question behind the question, which really is can a speaker still be hooked up to an amp that's not on and used with a second amp? Yeah. No. No. He needs to make a switch because the speed. Even though the. He's got a combo amp which is a head and a cabinet and that's all situated. The speakers got extra lugs because a lot of speakers will have two plus connections and two, two. So you can solder from one speaker to another in a multiple cabinet or something like that. But if you're going to use a speaker, if you're going to use a speaker as a test cabinet, it shouldn't have an output transformer of another amp hooked up to it. I would think that that could definitely affect the way the way the speaker works. If you try it and it sounds awesome and you can't tell the difference then I guess. But to me as a mechanical type person, I would want to disconnect the output transformer from my test speaker before I used that speaker to test another amp. Right. My speaker cabinet is just an open back 112 with a cord with a plug on the end of it. Right. So if he wants to use his combo amp as a test cabinet, I would just unplug the speaker and plug in the new amp. Maybe put a six foot long speaker cord on the speaker in your combo amp with a plug on it. And then when you want to use it as a test cabinet, just reach down there and yank it out of the amp. And now you've got a quarter inch plug in your hand, five feet long, bam. Into your test amp. But I just don't know about the effect of having two output transformers connected to the thing at the same time. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Probably wouldn't make anything blow up. But we'd be missing the point of trying to have a universal standard speaker for everything. Work on so that when you hear it, start to hear the differences between the amps, not just the effect of the speaker. That's a tea va thing right there. A combo is a head and a cabinet. You've never tried your Princeton Reverb or whatever into a different speaker. It's possible that you might be surprised about what it sounds like now because you, you're. You're always putting the same syrup on the pancakes. Try a different one. Not that it would be better or worse for sure. But the. But. But to separate it in your mind so that you can see how much of the sound you're hearing is from the speaker and how much is from the amp. And I could have never done what I do if I was constantly going through guitars and speaker cabinet. Fact that I used the same guitar and the same speaker cabinet for getting up to 40 years. Even though I did it because I was poor, it ended up being super, super valuable. It's one of my bedrock tenets of working on. Did you try another speaker? No. Somebody sends me a chassis, I go, you better get your blues, junior and hook it up to this speaker cabinet that's going to be at your house while I have the amp chassis. Because I don't want to fix the amp and send it back to you and have you say, well, sounds kind of this or it's sort of distorted because I'm going to say, did you try another speaker? Oh, there you go. Moving on. I've yelled at people a lot about that.

[Jason]

You're very lively without the zoom connection. It's, it's like total throwback.

[Skip]

I better. It's a fountain of you more comfortable chair.

[Jason]

There you go.

[Skip]

Sit on the couch looking out the window. Kevin in Ohio it's probably 15 degrees but it'll be 65. We've had a lot of good rain all already so I'm not freaking out about drought and, and I'm kind of dippy about a couple had a lot of coffee and then our Internet didn't work right before the, you know, we were scheduled. So that gives me a little adrenaline thing and hey, we're on a roll next.

[Jason]

Yeah, this is from Frank in Germany. A rare Marshall question for the Truth About Vinny Jams podcast. So they not, not a lot of these come in lately. I bought an old JMP50 from someone who had this amp sitting in the attic for 30 years. To revamp the electrolytic caps, I soldered an 80k resistor across the standby switch prior to turning it on for the first time using a Variac 2. I've read about that as being the Larry revival process. That was in quotes. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Now, with new non leaking electrolytic caps installed, this amp is healthy and performing as expected. I should say dreamed. Here's the question. Since this amp has the original but somewhat flawed hot switching standby circuit, it struck me as a good idea to simply leave the resistor soldered across the switch to prevent the brutal current inrush if someone accidentally engaged and disengaged standby. I'm no engineer and cannot think this through properly. Have I overseen something? Should that resistor be removed or the switch be bypassed altogether? Or is it still a good idea? Tell me what you think. Greetings from Leipzig, Germany. Frank.

[Skip]

You could probably answer this one. In some ways, I don't really know what he's talking about.82k resistor on the standby switch.

[Jason]

It's the Larry thing.

[Skip]

I would Never modify a JMP Marshall. That's an older one, a 70s one, you know, before the JCM 8 hundreds. They aren't as bulletproof and can take as much abuse as a fender. But we now have options unavailable to us in the past. Amazon is packed full of variacs for $70, right? You worried about your amp? You want to take good care of it? You Want to make sure that you don't have an inrush of current and blah blah, blah. Do what I do. Turn the frickin amp on, plug it into a variac, and take that knob in your hand and give yourself, come on, two, two minutes to go from zero to 110. Now you've eliminated the need for any of that stuff because you're gradually firing it up, which is the whole point. And I wouldn't have changed all the filter caps in a JMP either. Those old daily branded ones, they hang in there pretty doggone good. So hopefully Frank in Germany had some way to determine that those capacitors actually were bad. If I could snap my fingers, I'd say, yeah, okay, well put all those old caps back in it and the guy fires it up and it still sounds great. That happens with tubes a lot. I changed the tube and now it works. And I say, well take that tube and put it back in there. Well, it still works because cleaned the tube socket, not because you replaced a bad tube. So don't put the old filter caps back in it. I'm just speculating. Done is done. But if you're a worrywart about reserving electronics, an affordable variac and the right mindset eliminates almost every problem that you could ever have. Like amps that run super high voltage, you can run them a little lower and every single amp can get that nice slow warm up like where you lay in bed, have a half a cup of coffee before you even get up. I don't really see any reason anymore for a vintage type person that has a few amps that might sit for a while, or wants to ensure a slow warm up, or wants to run them on a lower voltage. No excuse not, not for that price. Kind I use cost hundreds and they're old and really cool and a little harder to find. But the new ones will do the job and I'm tired of talking about it. Next time you're gonna buy a stomp box. Bit of areac, learn how to use it next.

[Jason]

Okay, we got a couple more. Keep the Questions coming. Podcast fretboardjournal.com everybody. This one is from listener Bob.

[Greg]

Hey, Jason. Hey, Skip Bob and Bismarck here I have a 1971 Silver Face Champ that I got locally when I played it at the gentleman's house. It sounded awful, but I felt that I had the knowledge based off the podcast and all the submissions to fix it myself. So I paid the guy what he was asking, took it home, serviced it by cleaning tube sockets, checking grounds Cleaning pots, all the typical stuff, and it sounded great. Played it for a couple weeks and it started having a little bit of noise. So I pulled the guitar cable, cranked the volume, crank the treble, crank the bass, and the noise wasn't there. So I figured that it wasn't the preamp section, plugged it back in, clean the tubes, you know, perform the servicing again just to make sure that I crossed the T's, dotted the eyes and it was still there. So I pulled the chassis and started measuring all the values based off the schematic with my voltmeter. The power Transformer is measuring 380v AC off the red wires feeding the rectifier tube. I was wondering if that's pretty typical. The wall voltage here is 123. So is that an indication of a power transformer going bad? I plugged it into my Variac too. There's no excess current being drawn, but it took bringing the wall voltage down about 95 volts before I could achieve like 350 or 320 depending on which schematic I'm using. If it's blackface or Silver Face. Anyway, the next thing I was wondering about is the resistor that connects from the preamp. The 2700 ohm resistor that connects the preamp section to the output section. In circuit without a load, it's measuring 54 ohms. But if I pull a leg, it's measuring 2700 ohms. And I'm wondering why does it do that without a load? Would it change if I had a load on it while I was playing? I've never tested that or don't have the ability to do that. So if Skip could comment on that, that'd be great. Lastly, I checked all the capacitors with a capacitor wizard, made sure that that was calibrated. The can capacitor tested fine, but the electrolytics. So there's a 6 volt DC and two 25 volt DC 24.5microfarads. They all test bad. The blue molded cap and the two brown molded caps that are in circuit also test bad. But when I purchased replacements, I tested them and I haven't replaced them yet. But they also test the same value. So it makes me think that those molded caps are just fine and can stay in the circuit. I was wondering what Skip's thoughts are on that. And then lastly, there's two disc capacitors in this model and I'm wondering what the true values are for that. They're not necessarily listed in the schematics. And I can't pinpoint what their values are based off of the age and the wear of everything like that. So, Skip, if you could help me out with that, I'd appreciate it. And thanks for all that you guys do.

[Jason]

You followed all that, right?

[Skip]

Started yelling like five seconds into it. That's why sometimes I'm. I appear to be kind of rude, But a lot of people, like, they launch, and right away I go, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. What about this? Right? So I may have this wrong, but I believe he said his amp is making a noise. Whatever that is, he didn't really describe it. And if he unplugged the guitar from the amp, turn the amp up, doesn't make it. Yeah, that sounds what he said, right? That's what he said right at the very beginning. And we could just stop right there. The whole rest of it was just a bunch of. If you have a weird noise and you reach over and unplug your guitar from your amp and the noise goes away. Come on now, people. It's not the amp. It's noise that's entering your audio tube system from some outside source. Cell phone, a dimmer switch, fluorescent lighting, all sorts of crap. Cordless phones. So if I understood that part right, then his amp works perfectly fine. What's wrong is that he needs a power conditioner or he needs to turn off a fan in the bathroom, or some little thing like that is causing the noise. Take that amp over to your neighbor's house or your friend's house and plug it in. And it won't be there. It'll be fine. So that's the real answer to the question. And then there was about 20 more things after that. Blue molded aren't bad. Brown mallorys aren't bad. Disc capacitors aren't bad. There's no way. How could you not know what the value of it is? Look at the schematic. It says the value don't change them. He's trying to get this AC voltage to where he thinks it should be. But it's really the DC voltage that's important. Center top of the output transformer. The plates of the 6v6s on a silver face, champ. They can be up around 424, 30. I wouldn't be running them on 125v wall voltage. If you already own a variac, drop it down to 110. If you look at the schematics, they'll show 410v positive on the plates of a Silver Face Champ generally. But a lot of times it's higher. And be nice if it was lower. That's why some people put that cool Hammond Power transformer in their Silver Face Champs because it lowers the B in a real proper way down to a lot more of a tweed style voltage. And those amps sound way better if you do that. We've talked about this. Why does a Black Face Champ sound so much better than a Silver Face Champ, even though the schematics are exactly the same? Blackface Champs had cool blue moldeds and a few other little differences in the parts that the silver face ones don't have. But the main thing is they're way lower. B. They're usually less than 400, 380, 390. But the Silver Face champs are often way over 400 because they are using the Princeton Reverb Power transformer. By then, Fender was, you know, keeping it thrifty, I guess. So just lowering that B can make those Silver face ones sound a lot more like a blackface amp, because that's really the only difference between them. Yeah, Give me some beat. The key things would be high voltage, what you call the B, plus the plate voltage of the power tubes, cathode voltages. If your capacitor wizard is showing that this little capacitor is dead, change it. The case closed, right? It's bad. That's not why your amp was making noise. But it'll make the amp sound better if you have capacitors that are working and don't show dead on your capacitance meter. Lastly, he had a resistor in there that he was trying to measure. Every resistor has to be disconnected at one end. It can't be connected at both ends, or you may well not be able to read what it says. And that thing's hooked up to the output transformer, which is a coil, a wire that can show you all sorts of different kinds of readings. So any resistor needs to be disconnected before you can measure it. He did, and it measures dead on. And his question was, why doesn't it measure dead on when it's in the amp? And because it's connected to a bunch of other crap. So quit changing parts. Except the small electrolytics that your capacitor wizard shows as bad. And you're overthinking it. And if the. If your amp is stops making noise when you unplug the guitar, it's from the guitar. How's that?

[Jason]

That's great.

[Skip]

Throwing it down.

[Jason]

Yeah. We got a couple more.

[Skip]

You're welcome to call me. You're welcome to call me anytime in the day if you want me to yell at you in person.

[Jason]

It's a great offer. Marcus in Nashville. You know Marcus. He wants everybody to know that Mesa Boogie founder Randall Smith has a new YouTube channel where he's sharing stories. I'll include a link to that in the show. Notes.

[Skip]

That's cool. That's. There's a. There's what? My favorite rambles.

[Jason]

Yes.

[Skip]

When Keith Richards is on the phone saying, no, we don't buy stuff with a God dang Rolling Stones. And he goes, sorry, they're $2,000 a piece. You want them or you don't. To me is like, I hope that I do that. When Keith. Well, when someone call. Well, I am that way. I've had some well known people who thought that just. That I should just make them something cool because they're so cool. But not John Fogarty. He lives down there in that fire region. Oh, my God.

[Jason]

Anyway, and then Marcus wants to. He does have a question for you, which is.

[Skip]

He sent me a. I think. I think it said Marcus on the. On the Amazon or whatever. A really cool T shirt with the old fashioned Western Electric logo on the front.

[Jason]

Oh, that's cool.

[Skip]

But I do know other Marcuses, so whichever Marcus that was, thank you very much. Keep going.

[Jason]

This, Marcus asks, pulling the first position 12ax7 in a black panel. Fender is a trick to get more gain. What is actually happening when you pull the tube? Is it raising the voltage to the other tubes and yielding more amplification per tube? I'll measure my vibrlux and see if I can see what physically changes when I pull the V1 tube. That's Marcus's question.

[Skip]

That's a nice big softball. That's easy for me to understand, but not for every other person. So first two channel black face or silver face Fender amp. So deluxe reverb, not a Princeton. That's just a one channel amp. So we're talking about any of the classic fenders that have like a normal and a reverb or whatever. Right. V1 is the first preamp tube for the normal channel. If you're playing the reverb channel and I walk over there and I pull out v1, which is the preamp tube for the channel you're not using. Amp picks up a little volume and highs. Marcus's question is why? And the reason why is because E1 shares a cathode with V2. They're connected together, and when you pull one of them out, it Basically is leaving the cathode resistor that was designed for two tubes only connected to one tube, and that makes that tube run a little hotter and have a little bit more gain, and that's why it changes it. And if you never use the normal channel, which you should with a cool ab box or something, but if you never do, you can pull V1 and it'll make a big, loud fender, like a little gainier and a little brighter. And I like to take that 12ax7 you just took out, put it right next to the power tubes. That tube is normally a 12 at 7, which is lower gain. But if you take that 12ax7 out, stick it there next to the power tubes, you've done two little treble and gain boost things to a fender that when you come to your senses, back the way it was before, right. Instead of drilling holes and putting a Texas twister thing in it. How'd that.

[Jason]

That was great. We want one more.

[Skip]

I'm just sitting on the couch.

[Jason]

Okay, this one might be a long one. This one, this. Whoever this is, Greg, he's already apologized for rambling a bit, so we'll see what that means. This is our last voice memo. Again, be a part of the show, folks. Send us your short voice memo or question to podcast fretboardjournal.com and here's what Greg submitted.

[Listener]

Hey, Jason. Let's get Greg from Tampa calling in with Hurricane Helene amp damage. It's a mojo tone, f5, f2a. So certainly not a classic camp. Not anything besides the cost of it, not nothing disastrous. So I'll sort of be the spoiler for that right now. Anyway, when Helene came through, she was west of Tampa and the Atlantic hurricanes, the northeast side, the north is where all the. The rain and the water, the. The wind and a lot of the damage happens. So as she made her way by Tampa, it was high tide in Tampa at that time. So she pushed not just the high tide water, but more water into the bay. And obviously Clearwater, St. Pete, et cetera, got four feet or higher in storm, flood. I'm in South Tampa and about a mile from the bay and still got 15 inches of water in the house. So lost furniture and some clothes and some other things all replaceable. You know, it's a. It's a aggravating process to go through to get back in, you know, back in the swing of things. And in fact, I'm not even moved back in yet. Still a week or two away from that. But the. That Mojotone amp was on the floor. And so once the water is receded and everything, I really didn't see any signs of water damage on it. But given the rest of the house, I'm sure it got wet. So I simply took it and put it in storage and I intend to leave it there. A year and a half, two years, something like that. I'm not playing out much and I've got other amps if I need to. So it's not a, you know, a life, you know, critical thing obviously. So just remembering Skip stories about the Katrina amps and just let them sit for a few years. I'm just going to do the same, you know, year and a half, two years from now, I'll pull it out, pull the chassis out, take a look and just start going through it again and we'll see what happens. When it comes that time, I'll update you. I also have a book recommendation and Skip was talking about the book with the feathers and the guy that stole the feathers and there was a brief mention of the ladies hats from the late 1800s with the bird feathers. And a lot of those birds were killed in the Everglades in South Florida here. There was. There's a fascinating book out, it's called the Swamp, the Everglades and how they got to be that way. It's like 500 year history of the Everglades. And one of the sections talks about the hunters going in and killing every bird in a rookery. And a rookery is the breeding grounds, for lack of a better phrase, for the birds. So they just kill everything there. And in fact some birds are even extinct now because of that hunting. Definitely a sad, you know, part of history. But overall it's a fascinating book about how the Everglades got where they came from and the, the Seminoles, et cetera that were on there, on the there in the Everglades. There's some crime and nefarious stuff. There's even relation to, you know, talk about Walt Disney World and that. So it's a wide reaching history. So it's a highly recommended book. So that's it. Merry Christmas to both of you. Happy Holidays to people that aren't Christian, not celebrating Christmas, but Happy New Year to Everybody. I hope 2025 is a fantastic year. And turn it on and play. Take care.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Proof. Proof that. That it's. That it's live. No, you. You probably could guess that we don't edit these things. Okay, thank you. Meteorological. Meteorological updates from South Florida.

[Jason]

I'll include a link to the book.

[Skip]

If you Live next to the ocean. Two years of sitting in a storage shed, I can't recommend. Take the amp that maybe got wet, put it in the oven on the lowest it'll go, you know, 100 degrees or something for a couple of days, and get that thing fired back up. If you leave it in storage next to the ocean for two years, you're gonna have some rust issues. Right. I'd say just get cracking with that thing. All I. All you really have to do is eliminate any moisture that could be absorbed inside parts, inside transformers and things like that, and just keeping it. Getting it really, you know, if this ain't, you know, also might work. You could hook that thing up, not even to a speaker. Take the power tube out, and you wouldn't have to plug the speaker into it. And you could take. Turn your variac on up to, like 50, 60 volts, and just let that thing, like, kind of run, but not with the output stage connected. Let it get warm, you know, and leave it like that for a couple of days and then get. Get it fixed. I. I did base bins that were buried in salt water and mud. This doesn't sound quite like it was that bad, but if you can eliminate the moisture through careful, slow drying, don't wait another couple of years. Get cracking. However. Another tava thing.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Like me. You got to listen to me for, like, 20 minutes babble about something you don't give a shit about, and then I say something that. That rings the swamp first. I would have thought it was about Washington, D.C. but I wrote that down. I think I got to have a history of the swamp that sounds super interesting.

[Jason]

All right.

[Skip]

Yeah. There's logs those guys get that were sunk, you know, for 100 years that are real valuable. And of course, all kinds of outlaws and market hunting is what he's talking about. Where it wasn't illegal to go out with, like, a humongous shotgun or nets and just blow every. He's talking about egrets, the common and snowy egrets. Just blow every one of those out of the pile. And the Feather Thief book has pictures of guys, you know, standing there with, like, 400 dead birds, you know, for the ladies hat industry. And that bird. That bird came back. But there were birds. If you read the Feather Thief, there are lots of birds from all over the world that are pretty much extinct because people said, ooh, shiny, kill it. But you see egrets everywhere around, where I'm at especially. They definitely made a comeback, but they had plume that was worth killing a Million birds just so you could have, you know, a pound of these plumes that you could sell for the millinery industry in New York City. And of course that doesn't exist anymore. Don't see a guy with a hat, much less a gal with a hat very often. But thanks for that. And 12 inches of water in the house is no fun. That's for sure. That guy needs an editor. But I. But I appreciate his sentiments, that's for sure. Yeah, no kidding. I should talk.

[Jason]

I met me.

[Skip]

Yes. A forced throwback episodes. Let's just tell everyone we did it because we had a million requests and never tell them that it was because my Internet died. Right.

[Jason]

Okay. That sounds like a great idea.

[Skip]

No, if someone asks I'll just have to tell them. But it. We got through it. And thanks to everyone who came to the show and said they listened to the podcast. And I'm going to be getting to the 25,000 phone calls and emails from the last couple days here pretty quick. And there were some neat things that I brought back. You're in the mood for buying something and visit a shop. Get out there, talk to people. I tell you. How about this? Almost everyone was talking. Yes, people all had their phones except me and whipping them out. And mostly to show some other guy a picture. Something. Is there anything more boring than waiting for a guy to scroll through 300 pictures on his phone so he can show you the picture of I just go. Call me when you find it. Goodbye. But a giant room full of people who were talking to each other. There are value there. I think there is. Instead of just staring down and like that. So. So Ghost. Go to a show, go to a guitar shop and we'll do it again apparently in another couple weeks. Thanks Jason.

[Jason]

We will. I'll have some NAM recaps in on one of these episodes. I think I'm going so the fun.

[Skip]

Call me from the hotel room after your third brandy at 7:30. You never catch me dead at the NAMM show. Good God. Sounds just like hell on earth. It better. It better promote FJ or I would recommend Sting.

[Jason]

Would.

[Skip]

You're going to do it anyway.

[Jason]

I know. All right. Till next time.

[Skip]

Thanks Jason. Thanks everyone. Bye.