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- [00:11]
A
Welcome to the 156th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps, our 2025 Thanksgiving Spectacular. We have a very special guest who'll be joining us in just a couple of minutes. Jack Weston, an expert on the Allman Brothers and a lot more. How are you doing, Skip?
- [00:29]
B
I'm groovy.
- [00:30]
A
You're groovy. What's on your bench?
- [00:33]
B
I have it all. I have hopefulness, I have despair. I've got a cooking baffler on the bench. Did I talk last time about an amp, a Fender amp, where the input jacks had been removed and then reversed?
- [00:55]
A
No.
- [00:55]
B
So that. Okay, I said, this is. This is pretty good. This is a brown Princeton, so 61, 62 chocolate brown Princeton amp, right? And I've mentioned before on the podcast that strange as it seems, I've seen five or ten of those amps that had the wrong value volume pot factory 250k instead of 1meg. Now you go into a fender and replace the 1meg volume pot with the 250k, and that thing is just not the same. Not as loud, just. Just not right. But I've seen it so many times that I always look. And of course, it had that. And I serviced it had one little bad bypass cap was all. All the rest, even the filter caps were fine. And I lit it up, and it wasn't as loud and it wasn't as bright as it should be. Now there I admit I cheat because I've had, you know, I could instantly tell it didn't sound, you know, quite right. Now, your average person who hadn't had a bunch of old amps might go, you know, what's the big deal about these things? It doesn't sound all that great. Well, thank goodness it only took me maybe 10 minutes and I didn't start replacing tubes and recapping and a bunch of crap. I looked down there and I realized that someone had taken the input jacks, which are soldered together. If you undid those nuts, they'd come out as a unit, maybe to clean the control panel. And then when they put them back in there, they flipped them. So I was plugged into the number two jack instead of the number one jack. Jack. Thanks for listening, Jack. So. And that was it, right? I just unplugged the thing. I went over to the number two jack, which of course you guys know is the one that no one uses because it sounds funky, and there it was. So I just undid them and flipped them over. And I thought, and I wonder how many people would have started really tearing their hair out. You could have, as always, a smart tech, you could have put an ohmmeter on each input jack and you would have seen that the high one is on the low one and vice versa. But that was a good one and that was what was on the bench.
- [03:11]
A
Wow. And did the customer who sent it to you complain about this?
- [03:18]
B
No, he didn't know really. But I know he had a heart attack when he got it back because, you know, 250k volume pot and you're playing it on the number two jack all the time. Most people would never. Yeah, I had no idea what it would really sound like. That reminds me, remember there's Tweed Deluxe's where all the input jacks are, the low one. So if you ever get a tweed deluxe, that's 54, 55 and it doesn't howl, you better call me up. We'll check it out, fix it for free over the phone.
- [03:50]
A
Well, the way this show works is you all send us questions podcastretboardjournal.com Sometimes you send us family recipes, sometimes you ask for relationship or job advice. We fielded it all over the years. And we do have one Thanksgiving recipe today that I'll be sharing later. Before we get to all that and our special guest, we have some sponsors, Amplified Parts. I know a bunch of you have been asking, when is our sponsor Amplified Parts going to have another sale? Right now they have a 10 off pretty much everything sale going through I believe the 1st of December 2025. So head on over there. We're also brought to you by Grez Guitars, our friend Barry down in Petaluma, California, the proprietor of Grez Guitars, making just the coolest instruments. He's, he's got these like just a couple of models. They're all very classic looking. And then from there you can go anywhere. You can do a five string grand tour bass. You can get a Mendocino with a baritone neck. You can do whatever your heart desires. Or just get a typical six string guitar that looks beautiful and plays incredibly well and has the reclaimed redwood. It's a beautiful thing. GRE guitars follow them. And then last but not least, our friends here in Seattle at Emerald City Guitars have just the coolest collection of vintage gear coming through their store at any point right now. They got a 66 Esquire. I'm looking at a 59 Fender Pro amp. They've got the new Benson amps. We're going to have Chris Benson on this show in just a couple of weeks. And then on the more Budget end, a Silvertone 1434 and all points in between. So go over to Emerald City Guitars, come to Seattle, say hi to me, go to their showroom down in Pioneer Square and they'll let you try everything out. They'd let you try out a Dumble if they have a Dumble in stock. They're just cool like that. So thank you to Emerald City Guitars and thank you to our Patreon patrons. Some of you fielded some questions. We actually have a couple of questions for today's guest specifically related to the Allman Brothers Band. So we're going to introduce our special guest, Jack Weston right now. Jack, are you still with us?
- [05:55]
B
Still here.
- [05:56]
A
All right. So you doing. We're doing great. You co authored the book the Allman Brothers Band Classic Memorabilia. I also know you're based somewhere in the Midwest. And then I read somewhere that you're like a wildlife photographer. So why don't you just give us the lowdown on who you are and why you're obsessed with the Allman Brothers Band.
- [06:17]
C
Well, you know, it. It started back when I heard the Live at Film Orease album back in 1971. I was just mesmerized by it because it's just.
- [06:25]
B
That'll do.
- [06:26]
C
Just, you know, an infusion of blues, rock, country, a little bit of folk. Just so unique. It's almost like its own genre. So that's where it started. And Dwayne was still alive, unfortunately, I never saw him perform here in Minneapolis, but I wish I had but just a big fan and listened to their music, brothers and sisters, you know, in the 72, 73 era. And they pretty much all folded up in 1976, reformed in 1980. That wasn't the best. That was like the Brothers of the Road era. And then they did solo projects, you know, Greg did a solo project. Willie Perkins, who was their manager from my co author from 69 to 76, became Greg Allman's solo manager in the early 80s, all the way up until 1989 when the band reformed to support their Dreams Box compilation, which I'm sure you've probably got or heard. And you know, I was a big fan all the way through then. And so how I. I'll try to put everything together in perspective as far as the amplifier we're going to be talking about in about 1985. You've heard of the. Certainly heard of the publication Relics magazine, Right. So a buddy of mine who was a big time Deadhead, I was over at his house one time and I was thumbing through Some of the issues and looked in the back and they had a tape trader section. And I was just fascinated. So I became a tape trader. I started trading tapes, just cassettes back then, all over the world. And then I bought a couple digital processors in 1989. 90, actually. It's a Sony PCM601. I bought two of them and I only needed one. I sold one to a local guy here in Minneapolis. As it turned out, he was patching into boards in various venues around here. And he started turning me on digitally. We're using these processors with Betamaxes. So these were the forerunners of the Das, right? And I started trading all over the world. And in 1992, I subscribed to the Allman Brothers fanzine, Hitting the Note. Kirk west was the publisher, also was the archivist for the Allman Brothers Band and. And their road tour manager. And I got in contact with him. We started trading tapes. And that's how I got kind of my foot in the door, I guess, accidentally, really, because that was never my intention. With the band started, I had the ability to watch them from the stage and got to know the roadies and Kirk and other people and other traders. And that's how I got into collecting Allman Brothers memorabilia. So as that carried on, we'll go to, like, way forward to like 2008. And there was an online auction for 1968. Silver face basement. And I was looking at it, and they said this might have been owned by the band. There was white inscriptions on the back, the back panel and part of the front panel. And at that time, I had actually been collecting checks from the Allman Brothers when they first started that were printed and drafted and used in 1970. 71. And twigs Linden, who was their original road manager. I already knew what his handwriting looked like. And sure enough, to me, it looked like it was his handwriting on the amplifier. Although they claim that they couldn't prove it was the Allman Brothers amp. So anyway, I bought it and when it arrived, I mean, the particle board, you know, in the front panel, that's made out of particle board. And back of the fabric, sure it was. It had disintegrated. So the box is full of particle board. And as they represented, it didn't work. And at that point I recruited Skip. I went online, found that he was considered to be probably the best Fender amp restoration repair guy probably in the world, definitely in the country. And he and I talked on the phone. And so I sent him the. I took out the amplifier from the chassis And I sent him the amp. And then I made mistake. Yeah.
- [11:05]
B
Are we missing a step in this story?
- [11:08]
C
Yeah, go ahead.
- [11:10]
B
I thought. I thought by the time I heard about this amp, it was already somewhere else. At a repair shop.
- [11:15]
C
No, no. So what happened was I contacted you because I wanted to get the amplifier to work again. And I wanted to do. You'll remember this part, Skip. I wanted to do a historical restoration. And you said, jack, I know exactly what to do. You know, if we have to replace any caps, take the paper sleeves off and we'll put brand new caps in front of the original OEM paper sleeves. And that's what you did. The power supply had to be replaced. Do you remember that part? We're talking 11 years ago now.
- [11:54]
B
Oh, no, it was way longer than that, Jack, because I've lived here for almost 12 and I was living in Dixon at the time. But I would just have to say, being me, if you had asked me to tell the story, it wouldn't have sounded like this at all. But I may be unmistakable. Right.
- [12:14]
C
Well, the amplifier, the chassis was a basket case. One of the feet was broken off and the tolex was peeling off and it was missing a lot of its original hardware. The amplifier didn't work at all. I acquired the amp for the records. I just went over last night in 2008. So theoretically, you and I got together in around 2009, but it doesn't matter. That's my recollection. I shipped you the amp and you did a marvelous job of restoring it. And the chassis went to a place in the Bay Area and some of the parts, including the original LIP M Music badge, did not come back to me. Do you remember that part?
- [12:59]
B
How would that. That have happened after I had it? No, that happened before. I had.
- [13:06]
C
Probably may have. You might be right. It might have been shortly before you had it.
- [13:10]
B
There we go.
- [13:11]
C
But anyway, we got everything put back together. A friend of mine who did chassis repairs down in. In Florida, he ended up. I ended up getting another original 68 front plate. And we transferred the cloth from the disintegrating front plate of this amp to. To the original OEM front plate. And the badge and the badges, everything went back together. I put it back in the chassis, I took it to. It was missing a lot of hardware. The hardware, you know, where the amplifier hangs from the top of the chassis, it didn't have its original hardware. Was missing an original foot. I just wanted to make everything original oem, so I took it to a place called Savage Amps. And they had a lot of parts and they sold me all the parts I needed just to make it original. And still at that point, I, I didn't have verification. The amplifier was originally owned by the Allman Brothers Band. But I told the story to, at the time, curator of the Allman Brothers Museum in Macon, Georgia, called the Big House Museum EJ Devocators. I said, hey guys, they just opened up the. They turned the Allman Brothers house there, which they lived in in the late 60s and early 70s, into a museum in 2009. And they were interested in putting this app on exhibit. And I told him the story. I said, I think it was owned by the band, but I'm not sure. He said, hey, ship it. Ship it over to us. Let's do it. So he received it. I got a call one night about 10:30, about three or four days after I shipped it to him via FedEx. And he was all nervous and I was thinking, oh my God, it got damaged in shipment or something like that. And he said, no, no, no, hey, I just want to tell you, I went through the archives. I pulled out a copy of the original Lipham Music Company and that's where the Allman Brothers bought it from in 1969. And he said the stamped serial number in the back of the chassis matches the serial number on the original invoice. It's 100% verified. This was owned and used by the Allman Brothers Band and it was purchased in April 1969. Sorry for all the extra verbiage there, but I just wanted to put it in context how it all happened.
- [15:39]
B
No, we love the verbiage. We need more verbiage. Tell people about the Lipham Music Store. Custom made badges that were on all this gear.
- [15:49]
C
Good question. So those badges. So I talked to Buster Lipam, who was the. He didn't own it at this time, his father did, but he ultimately ended up owning the store. He was there at the time, worked the deal with the Almond Brothers, actually fronted them gear from April 1969 until the first payment was made in February 1, 1970. I have one of the checks, one of the first checks in my collection that was used to make the first payment signed by Duane Allman. So it's a cool story. And the fact that he advanced the band for almost a full year free of charge, no interest, nothing, gear, so they could get their, their feet moving. And, and he really. He's actually tributed in the film or east album. He's actually on the credits of the film or album on the back cover. If you look there, Buster, lip him. But.
- [16:53]
B
So the talking about the badges.
- [16:56]
C
The badges per. Per Buster were made in Japan. They'd have them on these sheets, and you just move them apart and they'd break apart. They're about probably two and a half inches by three and a half inches. And they just bought them in bulk like that. And they had Lip M Music Company, Gainesville, Florida on them. If you look at photos of a lot of the early amplifiers cabinets used by the Allman Brothers Band, you'll see these badges in the lower right hand corner, not only of head units. They started out primarily using Fender, but they migrated to marshalls in 1970. But you'll even see it on the Marshalls as well. But they're hard to find, but that's what they were using back then, and they came from Japan.
- [17:53]
B
So what about your lip and badge? Tell that part of the story.
- [17:58]
C
Well, my lip and badge went missing in action when I made the unfortunate decision to send the chassis to be renovated by a company in, I'll just say in the Bay Area. I won't mention the name of the company, but when they returned it to me, the badge was missing. So they had actually sent me an email confirming that they had received the cabinet and the badge, which I unscrewed from the cabinet. And that was probably my mistake to make sure it didn't get cracked in shipment, because it's made out of plastic. So anyway, I remember talking to Red, Red Dog Campbell, who was one of the original founding roadies, about it, and he said, jack, he said, the odds you find in another one of those badges is one in a million. But, you know, go at it. See what you can do. I talked to Johnny Sandlin about it, too, who was one of the recording engineers, and he said the same thing. Said, good luck, buddy, but I don't think you're going to be able to find one. So I just said to myself, you know what. What do I got to do to find an original badge? There has to be a number of these still on vintage gear. So I put ads in Craigslist and I kept rotating them throughout Florida. I put them in Gainesville, I put them in Miami, I put them in Bradenton, Tampa, up on the Panhandle. And finally I got a bite. Somebody in Miami had one and they sold it to me for $150. This just for a piece of plastic. Under 50 bucks, including the original screws. They took it off a cabinet and it. It dropped in, it worked and everything but it didn't have quite the wear of the original. I'm a little anally retentive, so I wanted to see if I could get something closer, so I put the ad back in. Two months later, I got another taker, and he had it on an old box amplifier, sold it to me, and it was. It was like a perfect match drop in replacement. After I received that, then I sent it down to Kurt Sousa in Port Richie, Florida, and he did the transfer onto the original front panel that I. I got from a different amp. So it just. It really turned out good. You know, not only did it work, it looked correct. Savage amps provided me with the hardware that was missing, and we ended up with a really nice artifact because, you know, I. I just figured at some point I'm going to be gone. This might be in a museum. It has already been in two museums. But at some point, future generations can appreciate this for what it is.
- [20:44]
B
We call that passionate here.
- [20:45]
A
Yeah.
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B
You know, we call that dedicated. We. We don't. We don't say anal retentive.
- [20:50]
C
Okay.
- [20:51]
B
I might say okay. I might say okay, you're a weirdo or you need a hobby or. One of my most common questions is, so are you single? Right. No, we. We celebrate. We celebrate that kind of dedication. And that's just a cool story. I told you. Jason.
- [21:10]
A
Yeah, I'm still. I'm still caught up on your collect. You were collecting their checks? Like, how many checks from the Allman Brothers do you have?
- [21:19]
C
Oh, I have. I have a lot. How many pills does Carter have?
- [21:25]
B
Something like that?
- [21:26]
C
Well, that's a good question. So remember I. I got introduced to Kirk west, who was the road manager for the Almonds when they reformed after the Dreams album came out in 1989. I met Kirk in. Or hooked up with him in 1992. We started trading tapes. We started trading memorabilia. He was. He was a huge Allman Brothers fan back in the day. You know, back in the. In the 70s and 80s. He'd been collecting memorabilia for years. He and his wife Kirsten bought the big house, which is where the Allman brothers live from 69 to 73. They bought that in 1993. It's basically a old antebellum mansion. And he'd already had a substantial Almond Brothers collection at that time. And it was just amazing. And a friend of mine, Bill Leiden, and I went down there in 1998 and hung out with Kirk for about five days while his wife was out of town. So we had a lot of fun. Took us to The Rose Hill Cemetery, where the. You know, where Dwayne and Barry Oakley. Dwayne Almond, Barry Oakley are buried and checked out his collection. And, you know, I was just completely in awe at that. I'm still in awe after looking at. But ultimately, Kirk and his wife sold it to a foundation in around 2008, I believe, and that's. That became the. The foundation that runs the current museum there. They renovated the entire structure, made it museum grade, humidity control, did a lot of upgrades on it. And, you know, if anybody's really into the Allman Brothers Band, they'd want to go down to Macon, Georgia and visit the Big House Museum in Macon. It's amazing. But to answer your question on the checks, when I was down there in 89. Not 89, I'm sorry, in 1998, when I met for the first time in person, Kirk west, he introduced me to Willie Perkins, who. Who was their road manager from 1969 until 1976. So Willie and I became good friends as I was continuing my collecting hobby. I would occasionally call him on the phone. He'd help me verify artifacts. He sold me a number of their checks that he had stashed away for many years. Check signed by Dwayne Allman, by Barry Oakley, by Dickey Betts, by Greg Allman, by Chuck Lavelle, who of course became part of the Rolling Stones and other people in the band. And one day must have been in 2013, I was talking to Willie on the phone. We were just kind of joking around, and I was. I said, willie, gosh, someday you and I should write a book. And he said, let's do that. And it kind of scared me. At first I was thinking, this guy is serious. I was just kind of like, I wasn't totally serious, but in a way I was. And ultimately that became the. We decided to do a book which got published by Mercer University Press in 2015. So we did a memorabilia book. It's entitled the Allman Brothers band classic memorabilia 1969-1976. So that's how that all happened. There's a lot of those checks shown in the book. Plus, we not only have artifacts from my collection, we have a number of artifacts in there from private collectors and the Big House Museum itself, including some checks.
- [25:06]
A
What's the most ridiculous check expense that you've found so far?
- [25:17]
C
I don't know if there's any ridiculous ones per se. I mean. Well, you know, that. Actually, that's a good question. There are checks that were made out by Willie Perkins to pay for The Allman Brothers Band going through drug rehabilitation.
- [25:33]
A
Well, that's. Yeah. Not, not ridiculous.
- [25:37]
C
It's needed. Yeah. Another one I have, that's really interesting, a couple checks I have for Chuck Lavelle. I have his first. I have an advance that, the, that the band gave him. $25,000 in 1973 for Chuck and his wife to buy their first home. I, I have another one for Chuck Lavelle, which is a pretty decent sized payment. I think it's 3, $4,000 for a record. Maybe it wasn't that much, but it's, it's in the thousands for recording on the Greg Allman Laid Back album.
- [26:18]
B
Oh, that was a good one. I have to jump in here for our listeners who are not several centuries old. It used to be that in the mail, in your mail and your mail too, there'd be this big fat envelope and in it would be all the checks you wrote, the actual checks, they sent them back to you. And so I thought I'd jump in there as all the young people are going, what the hell? Why are there checks? What it was in the check writing days and, and all the cancelled checks would come back to you. And I could see that that would be the initial source of where this, like serious unobtainium might occasionally be found. Continue.
- [26:56]
C
Yes, yes, that's, that's a good point. I really wasn't thinking about that. Kind of assuming that they'd know that. But that's, that's a good point. They're not going to typically know that.
- [27:05]
B
But a lot of my customers don't have checks.
- [27:08]
C
Right, exactly. So, so, but Willie, being the road manager, handled their finances and he kept everything. He kept all records. He kept the ledgers for everything for all their shows, how much they were paid, and that's by the way, there are ledgers in our book showing, you know, where they were playing, what the venue was, what, what the approximate count was for the venue, what they got paid, all that information. But he kept all the checks, too. He had them all stashed away in a crawl space underneath his house while he was renting his house and he was in Augusta, Georgia, doing other things there. And, and he had. And when he came back to macon in the mid-90s, went down, his call in his crawl space, contracts, checks, all kinds of stuff was still stashed away down there in great condition. Had it been up here in Minnesota, it would be destroyed from all the contrast in the weather, hot and cold, humidity. But getting back to the amplifier, what's really interesting about this amplifier to me is that it was used by all three guitarists of the Allman Brothers, not just one. So when they purchased it in 1969, in April, they bought another 1968 silver bass amplifier at the same time. And they were used by all three members of the band. So they were used by Duane Alvin, this amplifier that I have, and it was used by Barry Oakley, their bass guitarist, and Dickey Betts lead guitarist. So, for example, some of the guitars that were highly likely used by. In this amp, plugged into this amp in 1969 and 70. And by the way, this amplifier, and I can get into this later, was sold back to Lipam use. It was traded back to lipam according to Buster Lipam, back in the latter part of 1970. So in 1969 and 1970, this amplifier was highly likely used by the following guitars. It would have been used by Duane's 1957 Gibson Les Paul Gold top. His Fender Stratocaster, which was a 1964 Sunburst model. Also, let's go into Barry Oakley Back in 1969, in 1970, Barry Oakley was playing a modified Fender jazz bass nicknamed. You may have heard of this before, maybe not. It was called the Tractor or the Tractor Bass. He had added a Hagstrom Bisonic pickup, which is also referred to as a Dark Star pickup. Have you ever heard of that one, Jason?
- [30:06]
A
Okay.
- [30:08]
C
Which gave him three pickups and five controls total. He also reportedly used flatwood strings on this base during that period. So. And then. And then let's get to Dickey Betts. In 1969, Dickey Betts primarily played a Gibson ES345 and a 68 Gibson SG. He also was playing a 57 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top. And then in 1970, Dickey was for some periods was playing primarily a 1961 Gibson SG, which he eventually gave to Dwayne Allman. He didn't sell it to him. He didn't trade it to him. He gave it to him. And Dwayne used that extensively for slide, I know, in 1971, up until when he passed in in 71. So those are the guitars that.
- [31:06]
B
All.
- [31:07]
C
Highly likely were used, plugged into this amplifier. So it really makes it historic. Now, the amplifier ultimately was relegated to Dickey. And. And then Dwayne was getting into Marshalls. Dickey ultimately got into Marshall, like 100 watt heads. And so it ended up being Dickey was using a couple of these basements for a while. And that's why it's got dick inscribed on the case. Itself. So it was Dickey Betts amplifier for a while towards the very end. And as Buster Lipam told me, the Allman Brothers traded it back in the middle to the latter part of 1970 on other gear. Then after that it was sold to a church in the Gainesville, Florida area where it remained likely up until when I acquired it in 2008. And at that point it was pretty much all trash. It was starting to become cannibalized, didn't work cabinet, the front panel was starting to fall apart and it was given to a gentleman in the church who brought it in to Gainesville and had a guy that was a guitar instructor and, and sold and bought, sold equipment on the side and he put an online auction up and that's how I acquired the amp from him. Coincidentally that gentleman was originally from Minnesota and went to the same high school as my wife. So. Talk about a coincidence.
- [32:42]
D
Wow.
- [32:43]
A
We have a couple of Allman Brothers amp related questions that don't deal with your specific amp. I don't know how if you want to try to tackle.
- [32:52]
C
Not probably not. That would be more Skip Skips expertise.
- [32:57]
B
But maybe I don't, I don't know what the guys used. I'm not good on that. I believe it's one of our listeners, Marcus, who wanted to know a bunch of inside gear stuff about them. No, if you wanted to talk about the circuit of a basement or why they liked it better than a band master, I might be able to say something. But as far as what they were using. Jack, it's all on you, baby.
- [33:22]
A
Okay, I'm. I'm gonna read this. Let me read this question and you, you know, if this is a dud, we'll edit it out. But Marcus is a huge Almonds fan. He's born in Jacksonville, both his parents grew up there and they were fans of the band as well. And he says I've seen photos where Dwayne had a slant cab with jbls and the back was removed. Was that standard? It was an outdoor gig. Earlier in his era I also read that Dwayne Allman progressed from Celestians to Serwin Ve speakers in his bottom cab. Also heard a rumor that his 50 watt Marshall Bass amp was rebiased with 7027 tubes. Please riff away. Do you have any insights into any of that?
- [34:05]
C
Not really. Other than it's pretty common knowledge amongst people that know about their, their amplifiers and their. Especially their cabinets that they. That Dwayne took the backs off. I. I guess maybe Skip could talk about this to get better tone. That's about the drummers.
- [34:25]
B
So the drummers could hear just sound coming off the back. So the open back cabinet is less efficient, but it. It's more surround sound. Maybe it had something to do with that. And the only other thing I have is a 7027 is a big power tube and you could convert a Marshall to use it, but I have no idea if anybody ever did. So back to you.
- [34:46]
C
I. I have no idea. Another thing I. So I can't really answer Jason, the other questions, unfortunately. But one thing I wanted while we got Skip here. And Skip may or may not remember this, but I do remember this. When I was talking to Skip on the phone probably in 2016, I. I said to him, I said, is this amplifier that you worked on, this basement, was it a black face or. It was a silver face circuitry? And Skip said, you said, I can't say 100%, Jack, but as I recall, you had one of the more rare blackface circuits now, I guess. And you can answer this, skip. The 1968 silver face basements were made both in blackface and in silver face from Fullerton. Right? In both. Both configurations.
- [35:45]
B
That's an era where you pretty much have to look inside the thing to know. You can't even trust the tube chart. But as I recall, schematic dorks will know what I'm saying. When that One was an AB165, which is the same schematic as used on the earlier ones. But there are silver panel ones that use the same circuit as well as silver panel ones that don't. But I'm pretty sure that the. Yeah, I'm not the best note taker. Some people would have made a big point and taken a million pictures and really archived it, but I'm just not that guy. But I. I'm almost certain that it was what's called an AB165 stock. Totally, totally bone stock, which I've always said is a fantastic guitar amp.
- [36:33]
C
Yeah, that's. That's guy. That's what I hear is the best.
- [36:37]
B
Not the best, but one of the.
- [36:39]
C
Best or one of the best. Yeah, I guess it just depends what you. What you're after. But. So another thing I wanted to mention about the amplifier is so I lent it to the Big House Museum on. In Macon, Georgia, on two separate occasions. So it was there from most of the time from 2009 up until this year in. In June. I really wanted to get more people to maybe a broader audience, broader spectrum of audience to See it. So I approached the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona to see if there was some interest there. And I kind of thought it was a long shot, to be honest, when I approached them. And as it turned out, they were very interested. They just wanted to make sure that from a provenance standpoint, it was a real deal. And, you know, I gave them all the documentation and they were. They were on board within. Within 48 hours and wanted to. Wanted me to loan it to them. So it's been there since June of this year. What I'd like to do is I'd like to expand the exhibit down there. And, you know, I've got like. I've got like a platinum record award that was presented to Phil Walden and Associates. Phil Walden was the. The manager of the Allman Brothers Band in Macon. And it's a platinum record award for the Live at the Fillmore race. I'd like to maybe include that in there. And I got a couple signed Jim Marshall photos. One of Dwayne playing in the bathroom at the. At the Holiday Inn in 1971, shortly before he passed away. And then another one is the. The COVID of Live with Phil Maurice signed by Jim Marshall to a couple. Just a few things like that to add to the exhibit so that they had expressed some interest. But I've got to get back in contact with them. I'd like to expand the exhibit if I could.
- [38:32]
A
So cool. Jack, we have one. We have one more question that you may not be able to answer, but it came with a really cool photo I want to share on the Instagram page, so I'm going to play it anyways. This is. This from our friend Bruce on Orcas island here in Washington State.
- [38:48]
E
Hey, Jason and Skip, this is Bruce on Orcas Island, Washington. And yeah, I heard you had an Allman Brothers expert there. So I. I got a story for you here. I was going to School at UC Riverside, this is January 26th, to be exact, of 1970, and the Allman Brothers came and played at our college for free. They just set up that on the. Out on the lawn there. And at the end of the set, Duane came up and said, anybody want to come up and jam? And I went up and played Dwayne's gold top. And I'll send you a picture, too, so you can. Didn't happen unless there's photos, right?
- [39:37]
B
That's awesome.
- [39:39]
E
Anyway, my question for your Allman Brothers expert there is what the hell was I playing through? It was a Marshall and I. I guess Dwayne is famous for playing 50 watt marshals compared to Dickie's Hundred Watt Marshals. I do remember a Y cord was involved, possibly one end of the Y cord going, one going into each channel. But I've always wondered what exactly what amp was I playing through that day? Sounded really good except for the playing itself. Anyway, love the podcast. I've learned so much and thanks and keep it up.
- [40:28]
C
Okay, so I would just guess it was a 50 watt Marshall head in the book that I co wrote with Willie Perkins. We do have a 50 watt Marshall hat in the book. Derek Trucks was kind enough to provide us with images to put in our book. I believe that app is still on exhibit at the Big House Museum in Macon. Whether or not it was that actual app or not, I don't know. But I have to profess I'm not really an expert on all these other amplifiers. They were using so many different configurations, cable hookups and all that. It's just, it's just way over my head. I'm more. More in tune with what I. What I have just the one amplifier, but I would guess it was a 50 watt head. It's amazing gear that, that comes out of nowhere that all of a sudden it just comes out of the woodwork and all sudden it's, it's, it's available for sale, it hits the collector market. So there's, there's still gear out there that we still may find down the road. The amplifier I have, it was very close to going to the landfill. I remember the guy that I ultimately bought it from told me if he hadn't found a buyer online, he was going to give it back to the owner that got it for free from the church, and the owner was going to likely trash it. So I got to take my hat off to Skip for just the amazing job he did in restoring the amplifier section of it and just did a splendid job. And maybe, Skip, maybe I'll find another one for you someday. That's my goal.
- [42:09]
B
I say I was. It was great to hear from you again a while back. And then of course I thought, well, this guy, we gotta, we gotta tell this story. And so thanks very much for taking the time to tell the story. And I knew the significance of it, but. But, but I just. It's all I do is fix stuff that already worked. And, and if anything, all I added was to be very, very, very loath to change anything that we didn't have to. And so I can't take any credit. There's a good amp. They can survive a Lot of abuse and sitting around in old musty church basements for decades. And the whole thread of it from beginning to end. I like. You know, it's one thing to read about a rare old guitar, but my favorite part of the article is always about the story of the thing, like where it was and how it got here now. So we sure appreciate you telling it.
- [43:09]
A
Yeah.
- [43:10]
C
Oh, you bet. You bet. Yeah, it's. It's been a lot of fun Just. Just all the people that I ended up meeting just doing the book and, you know, the amplifiers in the. In the chapter on equipment and gear, of course. But it was really, really fun to do, meeting people like you, Skip, and it's just been a. An amazing ride. And I still talk to Willie sometimes on a weekly basis, so just. Just those friendships, they're. They're just immeasurable.
- [43:47]
A
I love it. And let's get a plug in before we send you off on your book.
- [43:50]
B
Where.
- [43:51]
A
What's it called again? And where should folks buy it from?
- [43:54]
C
Oh, thank you, Jason. Yes, the title of the book again is the Allman Brothers band classic memorabilia 1969-1976. It's available on Amazon. It's available also from the publisher, Mercer University. I'm sorry? Mercer University Press of Macon, Georgia. You can get it there. You can get it in Barnes and Noble. Other booksellers have it, and it's. It's an. It's a. You know, you can order it today. It's in plentiful supply out there, but it's been out again for 10 years. We sold a lot of copies of it, and that's basically it in a nutshell. But it's. It's. It's a. It's an interesting book. We. We still may try to expand it someday. We've. We've contemplated doing an expanded edition. So maybe someday we'll do an expanded edition of the book.
- [44:54]
A
Love it. Well, Jack, thank you for being on the show.
- [44:59]
C
Gosh, thanks for having me, Jason. I mean, it's amazing. You have an amazing publication and Fretboard Journal, it's one of the best ones out there as far as beauty, as far as graphics. The pictures you guys take and the articles you write and how deep you go into the various pieces of gear is just amazing.
- [45:21]
A
Oh, thank you. Well, we'll send you on your way, but Skip's gonna answer some more amp questions here, I think.
- [45:30]
C
Okay.
- [45:30]
B
Thanks, Jack. Wow. I don't know. Might take me a while to recover from that.
- [45:40]
A
Really?
- [45:43]
B
No, I just, you know, we. We like the Fire.
- [45:46]
A
No, of course. That was great.
- [45:48]
B
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. There was some. I would have told the story a little bit differently, but how it goes, right?
- [45:56]
A
Yeah, it's like Rashomon. Everyone's got a different perspective on stuff.
- [46:00]
B
Yeah, you remember stuff differently. So what do you want to do now?
- [46:03]
A
Well, we have many amp questions. We have a couple Thanksgiving recipes. We could talk about movies or music you've been watching or listening to, books, whatever you want. Whip out some personal updates, whatever.
- [46:17]
B
Listener Mike Black. Is that a cool name? A Standel and Bigsby guru. A few weeks back, we had questions about ultralinear output stage. And I said not too many amps that had ever had the Magnetone Triplex, which had like a 15 and an 8, and it was in the early 50s, and there was a lot of steel players that used them then. And there were Fender tweed amps at the same time, and they were even more powerful and clean sounding. And I forgot about them, but Mike Black wouldn't let me forget. So the Magnetone Triplex, if you look that schematic up, you'll see it's ultralinear. And those amps sound really good. Of course.
- [47:00]
A
Yeah.
- [47:01]
B
And listener Woody sent me amp customer. There's all these Bob Wills records that were done reissued on this small label, I think, sometime in the 80s called the Tiffany Transcriptions.
- [47:14]
A
Yeah.
- [47:15]
B
Well, he'd owned a set forever, and he found a set at a yard sale for cheap bottom and sent them to me. And that's some stuff. You see a lot of pictures of the band from the late 40s. And there's all those Woody Fenders, like that one from the barn we talked about in all the pictures. So that's a couple thank yous right there.
- [47:35]
A
Well, follow up from, I guess our. Our last episode. Mikey, who was trying to figure out how to raise kids and run a small business, wanted to update us that he's a farmer. We are farmers. He says we grow vegetables and raise cattle on a small scale. The plan is to carry the baby around with me in the field and to market, as you said. But I worry about all the work and no play for him. I want to make sure time spent on him and each other is both something we can prioritize and enriching. But as Skip suggested, just doing whatever my wife says is probably a good answer. So that is from Mikey in Eminence, Kentucky. And good luck with your farm.
- [48:17]
B
A million years ago, a kid would be excited because someone brought him a hoop and a stick that you rolled on the ground and Hit with a stick.
- [48:25]
A
Yeah.
- [48:25]
B
I'm just saying, even if you're way out in the boondocks, off the grid living the good life, raising cattle, there's still so much to occupy a mind. Oh, yeah, and that reminds me. Shop class as soulcraft. I saw an interview with the CEO of Ford Motor Company who says they have over 5,000 unfilled mechanic jobs that pay $120,000 a year.
- [48:56]
A
Sure.
- [48:58]
B
So, kids, there are other things to do or the value of some trades is I never made both of us come. Well, that's. I guess unless you live in California, that's a pretty good chunk of change, especially if you were a young person. So. Just saying.
- [49:15]
A
I am less worried about Mikey's kid now that I know that they're farmers. If they were both, like, running a web design firm or something, I'd be a little worried, but.
- [49:25]
B
And think of all the negative things that can happen to young people that won't be happening out on the farm so much. You know, maybe that's simplistic.
- [49:34]
A
Although we. We have received an inordinate amount of emails worried about you driving that old tractor, including many pictures of tractors that have rolled over. I didn't thought this was like a isolated thing, but this must happen on a daily basis.
- [49:50]
B
Well, they've had tractors like that from the, you know, dawn of time.
- [49:55]
A
Yeah.
- [49:56]
B
Modern ones aren't nearly as dangerous because of all sorts of safety junk they built into them. But remember, we did. People did stuff like that all the time. It's just kind of like the death cap or the two two prong cord. I mean, yeah, you can get shocked, but. So that's something to do with personal responsibility now. We have to be protected from ourselves all the time. You just pay attention and you go really slowly and you know what you're doing. And everybody driving a big truck. Well, how about this? You're on the freeway. You could just veer over into the other lane, but you don't. Right. So everything can be kind of dangerous. It's just that thing. I laid it on thick because, I mean, it's interesting to me that the technology is so different and that it can use less gas than my lawnmower and be this big, gigantic thing. But at the same time, you better have your wits about you, baby. So don't worry. Besides, mowing season's over for a few months anyway.
- [51:00]
A
That's true. You get to relax a little bit.
- [51:02]
B
Yeah.
- [51:03]
A
All right, well, we have lots of amp questions. We have a recipe or two. I don't Know, where do you want to begin?
- [51:10]
B
Here's a cooking baffler.
- [51:12]
A
Okay, let's go with that.
- [51:14]
B
And the ant. Well, you can read about it. You might not have it, but your parents have it. Joy of cooking. It's ubiquitous. I mean, this is billions and billions of copies. Well, in there is potatoes cooked in resin. Huh? Like pine pitch, you know, like £25 in this big, giant kettle around a big, giant fire. And you put potatoes in there, and it's supposed to be the best potato ever. It finishes with cold ale. Makes the best of chasers. So what I want to know is, is that true? Can you really do that? Is anybody up there in, you know, maple syrup country or wherever the hell ever even heard of that or done that? I Wish I had 25 pounds of resin so I could get a big pot and build a fire under it and try to do that. Just sounds great. Says, and you just hand them to people on a big piece of paper with, like, a bunch of butter and salt and pepper and stuff and eat it.
- [52:17]
A
Wow. Sounds.
- [52:18]
B
There's my cooking baffler next.
- [52:21]
A
Well, we could go right into the recipe corner, I guess. But let's. Let's start with a relatively easy question. You brought up the. The death cap here for our friend Bozo, who lives in the greater Sun Valley, Idaho, area. Says, I stumbled across an airline 9,003 in marginally functioning condition. Looking online, it looks like it's actually a hazardous design. People have modded them to be usable and safe. Could you ask Skip about this? Let's start there. Beginner's corner. Then he has his ski gear because he knows I'm a skier. But we're gonna go with this.
- [52:58]
B
Yeah, Getting that season. In a perfect world, we would look that schematic up. But I don't have all those schematics sitting here. But I think we can deduce this. We've answered this question before. The smallest cool amps have a 6V6 or an EL84 or 6BQ5. But below that are all these amps that use tubes that have high numbers. 25L6, 50C5, 35W4. And they don't have the traditional power transformer that the bigger amps have. And they really can't be grounded because of the fact that the chassis is kind of part of the circuit, not just the ground. And obviously, they won't kill you because the largest retailer in the world, say, for instance, Sears, sold billions of those things. And where's the dead guys? Right? Then your modernistic Guys want to tell you that you need an isolation transformer. And if you plug the amp into an isolation transformer and then that thing into the wall, that now you're safe. I'd rather spend that money on something else. Don't play it barefoot on a concrete floor. You know, pay attention to how it works. Don't touch other amps when you're playing that amp and you'll be fine. Or get that thing and build a cool amp in the little case using the right type of circuit. How's that?
- [54:30]
A
That was great.
- [54:31]
B
Yeah, they sound okay. They're not really. They don't really grab you very often, with a few exceptions. The little amp, in case, you know, ones that went in the Silvertone amps with a little amp that was built into the guitar case, they're better than nothing, but barely. So don't expect a ton from those.
- [54:52]
A
Yeah, and. And what I've Learned from doing 155of these podcasts is you. You gotta. If you see the two transformers poking out, that's a good sign that it's not one of these quirky oddball on ground.
- [55:04]
B
Look for 5Y3, 6, V6, that kind of stuff and you'll be fine. And let's go to the other end of the scale real quick.
- [55:11]
A
Okay.
- [55:12]
B
Big old trainer YGL3A. That's four EL34s. Big old head. If you already own it, don't listen to those people telling you how crappy it is. There's the connection to the amp we were just talking about. Just live with it. And I plugged that thing into my little 12 inch cabinet. It sounded awesome. And the reverb, by the way, we can veer into circuit corner. Y' all check out the reverb on the YGL3A. It is capacitor coupled to the tank, not through a reverb transformer, but the tube that drives the tank is a power tube, an EL84, and it is very unusual circuit. And the reverb just knocked me out. So if you have an amp that everyone says is a logging truck, like this one, or everyone says is a widowmaker, like that other one, just tell them to stuff it. And there are cool sounds to be had from all of that stuff. If you already own it, just don't go out and spend a bunch of money on something that's not what you want. How's that?
- [56:25]
A
That was great. Our next voice memo is sent to us from listener Dave, and he recommends a book that I believe you actually sent him originally. But you all can be a part of the show by sending your own voice memo or question to podcast fretboardjournal.com this is from listener Dave hi Jason hi Skip.
- [56:45]
D
This is Dave Siegel calling from Sacramento and I got two questions for you from the beginner's corner. The first one is is it possible for a fuse to blow when there isn't anything wrong with an amp? And the second question is we've heard a million times that Fender output transformers can handle a hundred percent mismatch either direction. Is there a direction that is better for the amp? So some context for these two questions. First has to do with a 1968 Deluxe Reverb. I was playing a gig on just about the hottest day of the summer in downtown Roseville and I had a big old what I've heard called a squirrel cage fan or construction fan that had a really robust power cord and had two outlets on it. And that was what I was using for an extension cord. My amp was plugged into that thing. It had its own circuit breaker which never blew. But at the peak of some soul searing solo my amp went dead and I checked the fuse holder and sure enough the fuse had blown. Luckily there was an ace hardware two blocks away and I, you know, hot footed it over there and back in the short break that we had plugged it back in once the fuse was replaced and played the rest of the gig without incident. So I got home kind of wondering is there something wrong with my amp or is it possible that it could have been an original fuse from the 60s that just got tired over time? So that's question number one. Is it possible for a fuse to blow when there's nothing wrong with an amp? And then question number two comes from a 59 Tweed Pro that I'm going to replace the baffle in with a 210 baffle instead of the single 15. And I have eight Ohm speakers that I can put in there, which means that I can wire them up either in series or parallel for a 4 ohm load or a 16 ohm load. And I know that output transformer wants to. I know it can handle it in either direction. But the question is, is there a direction that's better or healthier for the amp? If I have to pick between 4 and 16, is there a preferable version for an 8 ohm transformer? Last thing is a book recommendation. Jerry Portnoy, who was a harmonica player that did time in Muddy Waters Band and released some really cool solo stuff, put out an autobiography called Dancing with Muddy. And the first few chapters are about this guy's wild life, including growing up working with his dad in a store that sold carpets on Maxwell street in Chicago, becoming a paratrooper in Vietnam, and becoming a pool hustler. All well before you get anywhere near his history with Muddy Waters Band. It's a fascinating read. He's a great writer and is really funny and highly recommended. Oh, and I guess a music wreck too. Jerry Portnoy put out a great album called down in the Mood Room that he recorded with Duke Robill that includes a bunch of really cool stuff, including his cover of some jazz standards, including a great version of Stormy Weather. Anyway, thank you guys very much for the great podcast. Thank you for the answer to the questions and keep up the good work.
- [59:58]
A
Wow.
- [59:58]
B
So lots of our callers sound like a DJ, but how many of them actually are a DJ?
- [60:04]
A
Is Dave a DJ?
- [60:06]
B
That guy? Yes. Saturday or Sunday morning at 6. 00am KDVS. That's the UCD station. And I'm sure you could, you know, they probably archive that stuff. He does a 22 hour blue show and he knows all the new bands that play old style, and he also likes the new bands that play the new style. He's not like pipe smoking, tweed jacket kind of dude, you know, he plays all sorts of stuff and he's a gig dog and plays a lot and can play with the big boys. Which brings me to my first part. Dude, if you play for money, you should have A, a spare amp and B, a spare fuse inside the amp, you know? Right. So have a spare fuse if you're a gig dog. Okay, two fuses blow when the amp is flipping out, but they can also blow when your wall voltage is flipping out, surging up and down. So the answer is yes, a fuse can blow when there's nothing wrong with the amp. And it sounds like he was plugged into some gigantic industrial fan that also had outlets on it. Well, that sounds like a rustic kegger in the woods. Right? I mean, that could have. That sounds like a rough situation. Also, blazing hot. Also one of the hottest run amps Leo ever got away with. The deluxe reverb. Right? Those things just are just hammering those 6v6s lately, I told you, I've been, I've been suggesting the little military 70s 80s American made short, stubby 6L6 for those amps because 6V6s are tough to find and tough to keep in those amps. So fuse, what else? Oh, that book is great by Port Noise.
- [62:02]
A
And then if you got A mismatch the impedance. Do you go up or you go down?
- [62:07]
B
There isn't a better way. But the thing I would suggest is that almost all fenders have an extension speaker jack. Think Leo approved of that. Right. And when you use that extension speaker jack to drive an extra speaker cabinet that he would have glad to sold you, you're going down in in ohms. So in the case of his. How many guys could get a Tweed Pro? And now he's going to make a new baffle so he can put tens in it which will make it like a Tweed super. You'd want to wire those in parallel for forums because that's just like a Tweed pro with an extension cabinet. That's what I would say. If you have a hyper efficient speaker, some of those bolt 16ohm JBLs, they can be way louder than an 8ohm speaker in an 8ohm amp. So there isn't really a hard and fast rule. But I'd go down in the case that he's talking about.
- [63:02]
A
Perfect movie recommendation. If anybody has Apple tv, there's a documentary on the late poet Andrea Gibson called Come See me in the Good Light that will make you cry. It's beautiful. Go watch that.
- [63:17]
B
Wow.
- [63:18]
C
Yeah.
- [63:20]
B
Also make you cry for another reason that the Hollywood movie about the Paradise California fire is out. The lost bus. Yeah. I had to step away for a while because I know people who drove through the tunnel of flame. Your movie sounds more inspirational, but if you are interested, it is well done. It has an extra, you know, side story that doesn't really have anything to do with it, but it definitely, it's. It's good.
- [63:50]
A
Okay.
- [63:50]
B
Of course, me, you know, I'm a student, so it's not quite a student. I'm interested in forest fire prevention in Northern California. And that thing, that thing that happened there was. You just hope something like that could never happen again. But if it all interests you, it's worthwhile. It's very authentic. All full of PG&E truck. PG&E is not exactly exalted. Right in the middle of one of the big planning sessions with all these fire chief guys at the big table, some dork walks in and like the turtleneck going, hi, I'm so and so from PG and E. I just want to let you know that we're like, what are you gonna do, guy? All they wanted him to do is turn the electricity off. But lots of PG&E trucks, lots of great footage of helicopters and airplanes and pretty wild.
- [64:39]
A
Where is this? Where can one Stream this movie. I.
- [64:42]
B
It must be free.
- [64:43]
A
Okay.
- [64:45]
B
And it's, you know, it's big time. It must have been on. I don't think it was on the one that we pay for.
- [64:51]
A
Okay.
- [64:51]
B
I think that's only English cop shows. Slow Horses is the latest one. Have you seen that?
- [64:58]
A
I have seen the ad for that. I have not watched it.
- [65:00]
B
Yeah, it's. There's and says is an odious, odious character. Character who's a good guy and he's just so unlovable. But he's really smart. So. Yeah, that's pretty good. Of course they run out of gas in the later seasons. The first ones are always better, but. And if you dare, the one about paradise is. Is pretty intense. If you live around here, I would say it's probably, you know, must viewing.
- [65:26]
A
Okay.
- [65:27]
B
There you go.
- [65:29]
A
We have. I mean, we have so many questions, but we also have a Thanksgiving recipe from listener Brian is the same listener Brian who supplied the vintage amp room at the 2025 Fretboard Summit in Chicago. The 2026 Fretboard Summit, I might as well plug. Is taking place August 20th to 22nd in Chicago. Skip, of course you are welcome to come. Probably can't. It's fire season. I know. Brian wants to thank Chuck Wedrick, Henriksen Amplifiers and Lucas Janicki for their amp contributions, as well as to Barry from Grez and local luthier David Showalter from Mock Machines Guitars for supplying that room with all the fun stuff. And now here is Brian's world famous secret recipe for the greatest Thanksgiving side dish of all time. Write this down, everybody. Eight ounces of sour cream, one can of creamed corn, 16 ounces, one can of regular corn, 16 ounces drained. Two eggs beaten, one stick of butter melted and one box of Jiffy corn muffin mix. Pour in a bowl, pour into a casserole, Mix in a bowl, pour into a casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. So simple, so good. Just how we like it. As Brian who is on Instagram at Vintage Tube Amplifiers. That's his handle. And so what do we have here? We have corn muffin.
- [66:56]
B
Cornbread with corn in it. With this stuff? Yeah, yeah, it's corn in it. No, it's good. And I remember seeing that as a kid. Kid and thinking. But now of course, it sounds groovy. It's like, you know, cornbread with corn and plus it's getting into cornbread and soup season anyway, so that's a good one. Absolutely. Thank you.
- [67:16]
A
Thanks, Brian. I think with that, I think the Tava cookbook from the height of the COVID era still is floating around on the Internet. If anybody needs that, I'll include a link in the Dropbox or I'll include the Dropbox link in the show. Show description. Let's see what else we have here. Chris has a voice memo for us. You can be a part of the show podcast fretboardjournal.com hey, skip and Jason.
- [67:39]
F
This is Chris from Deluxe Amplification in Dayton, Tennessee. And I was calling in the spirit of Good Goo based on a conversation you guys had last episode. The first one is oxalic acid, and it comes in a powder form. It's cheap on Amazon and they call it wood bleach, too. It was designed originally to if you had rust stains on your wooden porch, you could mix this stuff up with water and put it on there and make the stains disappear. But I found it because I saw that people who collected like, old beer cans and things in the woods would pull them out and they'd look all rusty and they look ruined. But you could use this stuff on it and actually reveal that most of it was just staining. And all that stain is would come out and not injure the paint. And so you can use oxalic acid, not too caustic, so you don't have to wear a Hazmat suit. And anyway, it's cheap and it's great. And that brings me to the second Good Goo, which is a product called Permalac and Permalac, P E R M A L A C. It is a sealer that was designed for outdoor art installations. You know, if you have something that's got a certain look and you don't want it to degrade more, you don't want people to rub against it and get rust stains on their clothes, you can seal it. And this stuff is great. It's available in a matte, a satin and a gloss finish. And I found it because I have a 1949 Ford pickup truck I rescued from a junkyard. That's my shop truck. And believe it or not, there is more good steel in even a rusted original flared Ford fender from the 40s than there is in a flimsy, stamped out replacement panel. So I used Permalac to seal it in and to protect it, and so it doesn't get worse. Now, I realize that patina is a controversial subject, so I, you know, I'm not, I'm not endorsing it or not. I'm just saying that these Products are great. And on that note, I'm going to leave you with what every old timer says to me when they see me in my shop truck with the patina. That'll look good when you get done with it. You guys have a good one.
- [70:00]
C
See ya.
- [70:02]
B
I didn't know about either of those things.
- [70:05]
A
Yeah, Chris famously is the guy who made all the El Pado tone amps, right Deluxe.
- [70:12]
B
If you, you know, had a vintage Schwinn bike that still had a bunch of old paint on it, you know, you don't have to sand it all down and paint it again. You could just put some cool goo on it. We used to just use wax, you know, in a situation like that and lots of it. But this sounds like a definite possibility. And I had no idea about. I remember oxalic acid for lightning wood. Old time wood finishing guys would know about that. But I hadn't thought of any current uses. So that's a thumbs up there.
- [70:42]
A
Okay. Our friend Marcus writes subject line using a 6 SL7 as a long tail pair. I'm working on an RCA PA head that has 12AX7, A6AV6, 6SL7, 2 6L6GCs and A5Y3. The 6SL7 is the phase inverter. Is in the phase inverter inverter spot. It seems like older amps use a paraphrase phase inverter. But I want to build a long tail pair like a tweed baseman. Besides knowing the plate resistance on the 6sl7 is less than a 12ax7, do you know of anything else that would make this work or not work, which is the current case? I know the mantra, restore it first, but ah, who has time to wait? That guy, I don't even know what I just read.
- [71:32]
B
Has kids, he has animals. He's the guy that bought the tube for a million dollars. Didn't he go back to Harvard to school or something?
- [71:41]
A
I think he can't go back to Harvard.
- [71:43]
B
He said don't do anything like that. Just leave it alone if you want to. So basically what he wants to do is change the phase inverter in an amp that was designed by re RCA engineers to some other thing. Go for it, but have fun. And I don't. I wouldn't expect or predict some certain outcome. Right. That's a pretty significant change to an amp. Different phase inverters have different amounts of signal that they need to develop a certain amount of output. Blah, blah, blah. So it's true that a 6 SL7 is basically a 12 at 7 in octal form. But unless you're on a desert island with nothing to do, I can't think of anything less fun than changing a carefully designed by the pros phase inverter to some other one. Even though the other one is carefully designed by the pro pros too. But not in that amp. So Marcus, God's sake, I need to find him a new project. Those are really cool.
- [72:48]
A
Guitar magazine for a while or something in his spare time. I can give him work.
- [72:51]
B
Yeah, those are really cool amps. Old RCAs. I have some of the two 6L6 ones that I'd sure like to work on. I need somebody that wants something that's powerful, powerful, powerful.
- [73:04]
A
All right, Christian writes, thanks for the show. Oh, this is humor. But Skip should have put a three prong chord on that woody amp and a quarter inch jack on the steel guitar when he had a chance. Just kidding, of course. My question does Skip have an opinion about a guitar amp made with 6N 2P tubes for preamp and 6N 6P for power amp? Are you familiar with these tubes and the potential character of an amp that uses them? I'm asking because there's a lesser known maker called Ashimp that does use them for a low power class A amp that is hand wired with a custom made cabinet at a surprisingly affordable price. That is Christian with the plug for Ashin amps. And the question.
- [73:48]
B
Those are. I believe those are an attempt at the Russian tube designation that 6 NP thing. But I don't know what those tubes are. So our baffler can be Would somebody tell me what those tubes really are? Because I don't know what those numbers are. And they what was it again? Six. What?
- [74:12]
A
We've got a 6N 2P for the preamp and a 6N 6P for the power.
- [74:19]
B
Don't know what that is, but I bet you that some smart guy has figured out a way to use some tubes that he got for a dollar each so he can keep the price of his amp down, which I'm all for. But I don't know what that tube actually is. You'd have to say, well, it's really a blah blah blah with a 12 volt filament or something. Then I could say something, but I don't really know what it is. 2. That was two different ones too, right? So assuming one's a preamp tube and one's a power tube. Well, if we have any listeners in the SO in the former Soviet Union, they can tell us what that is. Now a tube dealer that knew a lot about offshore stuff would probably be able to tell us. And maybe there's even a cool tube substitution worldwide manual out that would list all those numbers. The Russian six L6s have a number on there like that with the cyrillic writing and A6N something or other. So next.
- [75:14]
A
Okay, well we'll keep it overseas. Kiwi Jared here from Melbourne, Australia getting in touch for two reasons. One is to say how epic the podcast is. Thank you Jared.
- [75:26]
B
They could never come to multi.
- [75:27]
A
To give you the lowdown on a recent development with Golden Toe and Amps here. You may or may not know this. I don't think we do. There has been a trend down here in the last we wall of rights to brands that used to be great producers of high end gear amps particularly being bought by big companies and gear being reissued under that name. In my book, that's fine if it's going to be great gear in line with the original, but in unfortunately is often mass produced substandard gear made in a far away place, which is saddening to say the least. This is where Golden Tone comes in. Golden Tone hasn't made any musical gear for a fair while, but amps are often up for sale at pretty decent prices. A maid of mine named Colin Ledbetter and then he adds sick name who has his fingers in many musical pies from retail repair to mixing, mastering and playing. 18 months or so ago saw a listing on Facebook Marketplace for the rights to Golden Tone amps. Essentially the opportunity to buy a piece of Australian audio history. Seems crazy, but that's the start of a new chapter in the story. A Facebook Marketplace listing. He purchased it and is now in the throes of making these wonderful amps again here in Melbourne, using as much of the original parts as he can source. Beautiful hand wired beasts. There's obviously more to the story, but I thought this could be of interest in the wheelhouse of Tava listeners and a potential interview or something. I don't know, but I think it's refreshing to see folks taking the risk to preserve awesome things and not just let these small, small cool companies wander into the void of the generic. Anyhow, back to the grind. You guys are freaking sweet ass ass. I don't know what he's saying there. That's Jared.
- [77:07]
B
Well, we normally don't allow a whole ton of self promotion, but we can definitely, we could definitely hype that stuff a little bit, right? Yeah, that's definitely a groovy story. The real ones. Yeah, the real ones were super kind of like Dan Electro stuff, you know, they didn't spend any money on stuff they didn't have to. They're not ultra, ultra sturdy, but they had some good circuits. How do I know? Because I bet that's the guy that sent me the book about the original vintage amps. Right? So he's a cool guy and that sounds fun. And maybe that'll be a source for something down in Australia that can kind of be like a silver face champ here for 700 bucks.
- [77:51]
A
Yeah.
- [77:51]
B
You know, so I say go, man.
- [77:53]
A
It'd be cool to see if they. If they stick with the. Weren't those made from like, suitcase vinyl?
- [78:00]
B
They were just pretty light duty overall.
- [78:04]
A
Yeah.
- [78:05]
B
If you're asking specifically about the covering, I've never actually seen one in person.
- [78:09]
A
No.
- [78:09]
B
But, you know, the cheaper cover, bring the thinner wood. But that's okay. I mean, something I tried to Dan Electro documentary. I wonder if that'll ever come out. But something I tried to say on the Dan Electro documentary was not everything has to be really expensive. There's a place for something that is affordable, that works, even if a lot of it is made kind of junky compared to some other things. You just have to know what you're getting.
- [78:36]
A
Right? Yeah, of course.
- [78:38]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [78:40]
A
All right, Bruce, subject line. What do I do with this? Bruce is a Patreon member. Thank you, Bruce. He's from Nashville. Still loving the podcast. Every episode is like taking a mini vacation to a realistic carnival. Nice little tag to the last episode. I have an ongoing. I have a suggestion for an ongoing segment titled what do I do with this? I have a basement full of what would I do with this? If we're not to leave our stuff to our loved ones, as you freely admonish, then we need some answers. The guilt is palpable with this one. And it's getting worse because I'm aging fast. About 20 years ago, I found a West Mini IR combo amp sitting in a corner of a forgotten pawn shop in Rockwood, Tennessee. I'm old enough to know that west was the amp of choice of Grand Funk Railroad. 2650550. Power tubes, two big heavy square magnet, 12 inch speakers, a Fendery reverb circuit, and appearing to be a factory housed in a Appearing to be factory housed in a fender twin reverb cabinet on casters. I bought it for $70. As soon as I got it onto the street and tried to lift it, I knew I was in trouble. I had to wait around until a big burly man wandered down the Sidewalk. In desperation I begged him mister, can you please help me lift this up into my Buick Roadmaster station wagon. Back home I rounded up some neighbors to help me get it into the basement. Anyway, what I have here is the ultimate, very rare. Built like a tank, bulletproof logging truck. Wes are rare and unloved, if not forgotten. I think my example with reverb in a combo cabinet is a real rare bird. This amp is based on The Dynaco Mark 3 monoblock hi fi amp and was handwired with quality Dynaco parts and big heavy transformers. Mine sounds great, but it's chest thumping, china breaking, Shea stadium loud. It's 55 years old and good as new. What the hell do I do with this thing?
- [80:41]
B
What do I do with this?
- [80:42]
A
Rare yet worthless. High quality but useless. A fine example, but who cares. Sounds great but I can't lift it. What say ye Skipper? Help. I'm going under. That's Bruce from Nashville.
- [80:55]
B
That's a good one. West amps. Yeah, they made some like called the Fillmore and stuff like that. I'm not sure I've ever actually seen one or worked on one in person. Didn't he say something? That it was in a Fender twin cabinet?
- [81:12]
A
Well appearing to be in a fact appearing to be factory housed in a Fender twin reverb cabinet on casters. But maybe that's just they were copying it.
- [81:22]
B
If it really is a Fender twin cabinet then you could just. Well, you got some more options. I mean I would say something that came would come to mind would be to make it a head because at least then you could lift it. Right. 265 50s right. So and if it was the factory cabinet then you wouldn't be helping your value much by take cutting it into a head. But if it's just a Fender twin cabinet, you could take it out of there, make a head cabinet for it. Use it as a cool loud bass amp. I didn't know they had Dynaco stuff in there. That's. I associate that with Sun S U N N amplifiers. I'm kind of surprised that west amps used Dynaco transformers. But if they did, they're worth some money and you might end up just parting that thing out, you know. So if you're a real guy with nothing to do. Marcus, he's not.
- [82:23]
A
Aren't they both in that. Are they both in Nashville? We.
- [82:27]
B
I think somewhere out there. I don't know.
- [82:30]
A
I mean you could change.
- [82:31]
B
You could change it. You know you could put a smaller power transformer in there. And make it run on six L6s or all sorts of crazy techno junk if you ran that way. But otherwise, if somebody's going to give you $500 or even $400, depending on. Maybe it has valuable speakers. It might have some old real Tung Sol or American made 6,550s. Those are worth like 100 bucks apiece, so check around a little for that. And. And maybe just hearing about it on Tava, somebody will say, oh, that I'll be over in two hours.
- [83:06]
A
Just put it out till it's light enough that you can take it out of your basement.
- [83:10]
B
Yeah, a head cabinet would be a thought. That'll make it. I mean, even a. That's a 50, 60 watt head. But you could lift it. If it was just a head, he.
- [83:19]
A
Could turn it back into a Dynaco Mark III there.
- [83:25]
B
Anybody knows if Westamps actually use those. Those transformers, let me know.
- [83:30]
A
Okay, we have a couple more. Do you have any updates on your end that we should share before we field any more questions?
- [83:37]
B
I mentioned. What did I mention? Hopefulness and despair. How about both in one? This is just yesterday. I spent 45 minutes telling a guy about his 65 twin reverb that he called to ask me about and how sturdy it was and how I'd fixed him that had been in floods and fires and all this stuff and how cool it was and how he didn't need to go buy tubes because the tubes were probably fine. And on and on. He shows up a couple Hours later, reissue 65 Twin Reef. Oh, I need the sad trombones with the wa. And he popped the trunk and there it was, you know, a reissue twin reverb, which. And he was ultimately fairly disappointed. He knew that it wasn't made in 1965, but he didn't realize that it. Somehow he thought it really was like a real one. Right? Which was the, you know, the sad part, but on the hopeful side, because he drove all that way and he lives here. I said, don't tell. You're going to meet somebody someday who knows me. You tell them I worked on this, they'll think you're lying, right? Because if I had known, I would have. I would have sent him to Patrick. But anyway, I took it apart. And Fender has learned some lessons. All of the tube sockets, all of them are mounted on the chassis and they're hardwired to the little printed circuit board, right? Just like Marshalls have been since 1975. And I think that somewhere over the last few years somebody said, yes, I know it's going to cost more. But we can't have all these amps with such a limited lifespan, which you get when you put tube sockets on the printed circuit board. So this was a reissue twin reverb. It had a small printed circuit board. It had a small printed circuit board behind all the pots. A separate one. And if anyone at Fender ever listens to me, if they would just do the same thing with the quarter inch input jacks and not have them be plastic boxes on a printed circuit board, those amps would last a lot longer. Way longer. Well, they wouldn't have such a limited lifespan. So I was surprised, and it was a lot better than I thought. And it does kind of sound pretty much like a twin reverb. But I was a little surprised that the guy who's like, that should be some sort of, like, false advertising. And I'm thinking, bro, you go buy a J thing that says JBL on it. Now. Do you think it's going to be like a 1959 JBL speaker that was made in Southern California? No, it's just so. It's kind of interesting. And I got it going for them for cheap. And it's really good that those things are being made with tube sockets that are wired and mounted on the chassis, because it's going to make that stuff last a lot longer. There's. There's hope for you if you have something like that.
- [86:43]
A
Okay. I wonder if anybody who works for Fender actually does listen to this podcast. Send me an email. It can be anonymous.
- [86:50]
B
And here's some pure despair listener. He didn't even want me to tell him, but this is just this morning. Didn't want me to say. And he didn't want me to name the shop, but he sent me a repair tag. 3, 3.75 hours labor, $250 parts for a total of $625. 1972 Silver Face Champ.
- [87:20]
A
What's that all about?
- [87:23]
B
There's still people that just change millions of parts. They don't have to charge 2, 3.75 hours a silver face Champ. People out there, Yeah, I can see hands going up across the room. I bet we have some flash guys who could build that thing if they had all the parts sitting there in 3.75 hours. Right. It's just. And you don't have to be an amp expert to know when things start getting really, really expensive. Put the brakes on. Call me. Because, I mean, I understand a shop that has to pay thousands and thousands of dollars a month just to stay open but when you break it down like that. 3.7, $250 in parts. I couldn't quite read the tiny little fine writing of this, you know, manifesto that was on the repair tag. But I don't know, I mean, maybe if he sold him $150 rare speaker or something, but I didn't see anything like that in there. So if something seems really weird, it might be really weird. And I've seen that happen on Champs before. The same company that lost the badge from the Almond Brothers amp lost, quote, unquote. I've seen stuff from there where they're at $400 on a champ. And, you know, we haven't checked the tubes. We might need to replace those still. I'm going, what the hell? That's when that's one thing the guy didn't tell me or didn't mention in the story. I get a call. The way it is is I get a call from some guy who says, I sent this super rare thing to these guys and they're telling me it's going to cost all this money. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. All those guys have them send it to me, pay them whatever they want. And that was kind of the first step. Things were going south on that Allman Brothers amp in a hurry. And then when I got it, lo and behold, the LIPA Music badge was just a stained, unbleached area on the grill cloth where you could clearly see where it had been in the little two holes. But. But no badge. People do stuff and just call me if you think something's going wrong. It doesn't have to be as cheap as me. I can understand that. Total shop, right? I mean. Oh, by the way, the only thing on the reissue twin that was wrong with it. Never seen this before. There's a little 1.5k resistors that your signal goes through to get to the power tubes. They're mounted right on the tube sockets. They don't really handle any major current. I've never seen any vintage ones that were bad ever. But I've seen a lot of idiots replace them because somebody told them to replace the resistors on the tube socket. So they did. But this thing had a tube die in such a way that that resistor opened up. So not only did no signal get to that tube, but no bias voltage, that negative voltage that a big twin has on every power tube, that was gone too. So the end result was every time the guy turned it on, one of the tubes would immediately start glowing like an atom. Bomb because it didn't have any bias because that little resistor was burned up, which I have never seen in an amp. Yeah, quarter watt. Yeah. Fender could take a tip and use half watt as the smallest ones. Only half a cent more, you know. All right, I've railed enough.
- [90:54]
A
You have? Well, from the sublime to the ridiculous subject line, Wilcox Gay Recordio this is from Greg in Knoxville, Tennessee. We've got a lot of Tennessee listeners today. I've been listening to the podcast every day that I drive into work. I'm on episode 75 currently got 90 to go. Thank you for all your time and effort. I've learned so much. I've played with repairing some old all American five radios, common term for transformer less radio circuits because they mostly all use five tubes and a Webster PA amp that I used for a harmonica amp for a bit. After listening to the podcast, I got excited and bought a Wilcox Gay Recordio tape recorder for $15. The previous owner that's not what the.
- [91:41]
B
Podcast is supposed to excite you to do, but keep going.
- [91:45]
A
Yeah, you're supposed to be purging. Once you get to episode 155, Skip tells you not to fill your basement. Okay. The previous owner bought it strictly for the speakers, so I have no speakers or cabinet with it. It uses a 12AY7 for a bias oscillator and microphone preamp, a 12AX7 for preamp and phase inverter, and finally a pair of six AQ5 power tubes. The bias oscillator, I am assuming from staring at the schematic is used to record on the magnetic tape using half the 12A Y7 and the other half is the mic preamp. It looks pretty easy to eliminate the oscillator circuit and use the mic input for guitar. Phew. This thing has a divorced power transformer connected to the chassis by a multi pin plug. The on off record functions are all routed through this plug due to the construction of the chassis, which is basically an aluminum oddly shaped box. I hope to place the amp controls on a separate panel so that it resembles a more conventional amplifier. I will place the power transformer at the bottom of the new cabinet to the side of the SPE and will run remote power, volume and tone controls via wiring to the new control panel. Here's my question. Will I get into trouble by connecting the volume and tone controls by wire less than a foot from the chassis? I'm thinking there could be a possibility of noise or hum. Yeah, you think That's Greg in Knoxville.
- [93:13]
B
What should I do with this. That's our second installment. What I would do with that now is I would be thinking, God, they got a 12A Y7, that's a really cool rare tube and a 12AX7 for 15 bucks. But the rest of it I'd give to somebody with a lot of time on their hands. It's like the thing where people wanted to get cheap mic preamps so they bought like tape recorders because there is a mic preamp in there, but there's a lot of other junk in there. And this thing has all sorts of stuff in there that doesn't have anything to do with the amp. So if you want to have fun with that, go ahead. But you're compared to a small 10 watt pa amp, say for instance, you're adding just oceans of work. But go ahead, have fun. Six aq five Rock. A lot of the Hepcat amp builders are using those. They sound really good. And vintage ones are really affordable.
- [94:14]
A
And.
- [94:16]
B
I could do it if I had to if I had a gun to my head. But even if I did it, I wouldn't be certain if it would really sound all that great without a bunch of experimentation. And yes, layout matters. You might find that you can't have big, gigantic 6, 8, 10 inch long wires coming off a grid of a tube without having it cause all kinds of noise. There were little inexpensive amps combos where the amp sat in the bottom and the volume and tone were up at the top with no tubes or anything. And they go back and forth with shielded wire. And it can work, but it's clunky. So I might suggest some shielded wire. If you're going to try to have volume and tone controls away from the chassis. But you're getting ahead of yourself. Forget about how to mount it and all that crap. See if you can get the thing to work and sound okay, then move on.
- [95:16]
A
Okay.
- [95:17]
B
It'll be challenging.
- [95:18]
A
All right, we. Between now and the end of the year, I think we're going to have Chris Benson and our friend Brian from Sour Sound back on the show. They have a new project that is equally ridiculous and we're going to talk about that.
- [95:32]
B
Cool.
- [95:33]
A
And then what other updates can I share with you all? Our friend Jeff Chicatano has a voice memo that I guess can we can end on. No, I know.
- [95:45]
B
No, I. I love the chicken. He's a. He's been a great customer. How many he's been here. And even though he lives in Philadelphia or Pennsylvania or someplace like that, I forget. So, yeah, he's a. He's a cool guy. And I have a customer who's getting the sour sound guy to make him another one of those crazy giant Alpha transformers that I put on the Monster Champ that I built a while back.
- [96:11]
A
I'm looking at my Champ, and we'll send it to you shortly.
- [96:14]
B
You don't need the monster Alpha transformer, but you do need the cool.
- [96:17]
A
All right, this the.
- [96:20]
B
I have a better way of doing something than all the fenders. Isn't that amazing? I can't. I still can't even believe it, but it's because we're not doing the same thing with the amps and input one, input two, Every Fender amp. Almost every other amp. Not every, but most. There's a loud one and a quiet one, and they wanted it that way on purpose. But after many, many years of asking people, no one uses the quiet one. When I plugged into that brown Princeton and I was plugged into the number two jack, I thought the amp was broken.
- [96:55]
A
Right? Sure.
- [96:56]
B
I mean, it just sounds crappy, but that way I've been talking about with everyone about disconnecting that cathode bypass cap via a groovy circuit I stole from an old VM amp is just. Everybody who's heard is they're using the number two input jack when no one ever would before. Don't go rushing out and doing it to every single amp. But if you got a little silver face thing going on or if you're building your own amp, think about it.
- [97:23]
A
Yeah. What's Thanksgiving like in Loma Rica?
- [97:30]
B
Hopefully colder than very temperate. We need some snow in the mountains, but it will be mellow around my place. You know, all my family live pretty close by, so they'll probably be a little bit of road trip in and. But not too much. You know, maybe just more binge watching slow horses and gotta make soup and cornbread. Put the canned corn in there. Right. Was that cream cheese in that thing, too?
- [97:56]
A
No, it had sour cream, I believe.
- [97:57]
B
Sour cream. Oh, my God. I have a heart attack.
- [98:00]
A
Not very healthy. No.
- [98:01]
B
Yeah. But that's okay.
- [98:02]
A
Yeah.
- [98:04]
C
All right.
- [98:04]
A
We will end with Jeff Chicatano. And if Jeff can do it, you can send us your own voice memos or amp questions to podcastritboardjournal.com and this one is subject line California SP 30 and Chili. And then he used the little emoji for a chili pepper. So just so. Just so you all can see what I'm seeing. And there we go.
- [98:32]
G
Skip Jason, Jeff Chicatano here. How are you guess we're coming upon the holidays, so happy holidays. Okay, Skip, I think I might have mentioned this one to you in a phone call. Californe, right? That company out of Hollywood, California that made, I don't know, maybe record players and speakers for classrooms back in the day. Well, I came across a model SP30 powered speaker. Kind of cool little guy. If you put a pedal in front of it, even by itself, it doesn't get too super loud because I think it lacks a preamp section. But, man, it's awesome, right? And the design's cool. I sent you a picture. It's in a box with kind of a cool front red handle, but you open the thing up and it's got a pretty beefy transformer in it and schematics on the inside. Sent you a picture of that as well. First two positions is 7199, and then a 6973. And then according to the schematic, the rectifier should be a 6x5. But mine has an old beautiful 5y3 in it, so maybe they changed it. But boy, I'll tell you, with an upgraded speaker, 1961 Jensen C8R. This baby. Baby really hums, man. Good little harp amp. But I put your pedal in front of it, Skip. Preamp. And man, oh man, it's a cool little champ. Killer, I would say. Just wonder if you've ever heard of this thing before and. And whether or not switching out that rectifier tube makes a big difference. I know you're a big fan, 5y3, but I'm curious. Maybe it was a change because the schematic doesn't show the 5y3. Yeah, let me know what you think on that bad boy and the pictures I sent. Also, it's that time of year again, right? And I've got a pretty basic but excellent chili recipe. You know, you could say 45 minutes of cook time, but I like to let this stuff simmer for hours. Right, but let's go. Two tablespoons of olive oil, a yellow onion, two cloves of garlic, a pound of ground beef. Get some can of kidney beans, can of black beans, can of diced tomatoes, one small can of tomato paste, and a cup of water. And then for the seasoning, tablespoon of chili powder, teaspoon of cumin, quarter teaspoon of cayenne, quarter teaspoon of garlic powder, half a teaspoon onion powder, half a tablespoon of brown sugar. Ooh, One teaspoon salt, and some black Pepper freshly cracked to the taste, probably half teaspoon, but pretty easy to cook, man. You just dice up the onion, mince the garlic, add it to a large pot with the olive oil and cover over medium heat until they're, you know, soft, translucent, as they say. Add that ground beef to the pot and continue to saute it until the beef is nice and brown. Drain the beans, add them to the pot along the tomatoes, tomato paste, the water, and all the seasoning, all the ingredients. Right, Skip. Stir until well combined. Put a lid on that bad boy and just let it simmer away. You'll have yourself some good chili for the, for the cold weather season upon us here in the Northeast. But any event, thank you, keggers. Thank you, Skip and Jason Tava. Happy holidays from Jeff Schick here. And FYI, made a stop to the Don Pepino factory. More to come on that one. Over and out.
- [102:20]
A
Oh, cliffhanger.
- [102:22]
B
Cliffhanger with the shick. Well, that's the way. That's a classic way to make chili right there. I would say rinse the beans and of course, you don't have to have any meat, Jason, or turkey or something if you're not into hamburger. But yeah, you can't go, you really can't go wrong on that. Hardcores would soak their, their beans. I killed all those real fast. What are those called? El Gordo.
- [102:45]
A
Gordo Rancho Gordo.
- [102:47]
B
Thank you. If you got time, you know it's going to be even, even better. But can't go wrong with that recipe. That sounds like he got it from his mom, right? So I say, I say, great. And in the olden days, a lot of the small pa, a lot of the PA companies made small stuff like for classrooms, phonographs. And one thing a lot of them made was basically a powered speaker. Nukem was well known for these and Californ. And they're pretty light duty. And you look at them, they might have a 10 or 12 or an oval speaker and they got a little amp in there, tube amps, but they need a line level signal. They're made to be driven from another part of the setup that you were supposed to have if you were a serious, like square dance caller, Dig. But if you can add a gain stage in front of them, they sound fantastic. He has a tube preamp that I built that he put in front of him. But I used to take the nukem ones and change the first tube, which was a single triode, to a dual triode. And that gave you enough tubes that you could build a simple preamp in there and then they kill. And his sounds late 6973 is a very late, late 50s hi Fi power tube. Expensive as all get out. So that's kind of like a later 50s, into the 60s tube. And five Y3s and 6x5s do the same thing, but one needs 5 volt filament. One needs a 6.3 volt filament. I would sure hope that his chassis says 6x5 and not 5y3. But I think we know that he's got the right tube because I believe it would. I think the pin out is so different that it would blow up if you put the wrong tube in there. So. But little powered monitors, Newcomb made them. I can't say as I've ever seen a Masco one. But Calphone, the companies that made the square dance stuff especially made them. And you might see something like that for really cheap, like, you know, $150 or something. And if you do, it will be a lot easier than making a guitar amp out of a Wilcox Gay wire recorder. Is that what that guy had?
- [105:09]
A
Something like that?
- [105:09]
B
Is it a wire recorder or a tape recorder?
- [105:12]
A
It was a Recordio, I think.
- [105:14]
B
Recordio.
- [105:16]
A
It was tape. Yeah.
- [105:18]
B
Sometimes they have an eye tube, right, that glows. You could fix the eye tube up to pulse in time with the tremolo circuit you built. So call me when you're done with that. No, what you could do. There's always stuff you could do. I just have to juggle again how much time it might take. And a lot of these things that we're talking about people doing, you absolutely wouldn't want to pay someone to do. You have to want to do it. And then, then it starts sounding like a decent idea. And don't forget, if you already own it, don't listen to those people. Play that 100 watt trainer app. I was digging that thing. It sounded great. So, yeah, it was loud, but I didn't play it loud. I just kind of cracked it on, played it, you know. So, yeah, let the good times roll.
- [106:08]
A
I love it. Well, Skip, we did it. Thanks to Jack, our special guest. Thank you, Skip. Thanks to all our listeners.
- [106:19]
B
We'll have fun in a few more weeks. And you can still use Jason Goes to a Retreat as a tease.
- [106:27]
A
Oh, yeah. We didn't even talk.
- [106:28]
B
I've had a million jokes. I thought about that, but I haven't told you any of them.
- [106:32]
A
I can take them.
- [106:34]
B
I know you can. It was good. All right, well, thanks, everyone. And thanks to all our sponsors and all the people that keep bugging me. It'll be great.