Playing Out - Blues Jams

Let's face it, not many of us guitarist have the privilege of performing out in public with any degree of regularity. We all start at home, practicing in the bedroom, and few of us graduate to playing out. It is truly a blessing and we should be grateful every time we get to perform out. If people actually show up, that's a bonus. But by playing out, you develop your chops and learn a thing or two you wouldn't have at home.

I started playing guitar when I was 15 and have played in rock and country bands in college as well as youth groups and church services throughout my life. But I didn't start playing blues seriously until a few years ago. My first experience at a jam reads like out of a bad movie...

An older friend and fellow musician had been bugging me and a buddy(a harmonica player) about hitting up the local blues joints. He's a seasoned player and co-leads a blues band in the area. But I wanted nothing to do with it. Truthfully I was terrified. I had been to Cafe Bugaloo in Hermosa Beach often and JJ's here in the bay area and knew how good, how great, some of the players are whom you've never heard of. And I knew I had no business being on the same stage as them, even during an amateur night jam. But this guy is persistent. Week in and week out he is bugging us. Finally one day he tells us he is going out to JJ's the following Tuesday night to hang promotional signs for his upcoming gig on Friday and that we should come along...there was an amateur jam. He counters our immediate apprehension with, "There's going to be no one there, it's a Tuesday!" So we decide to go. We are to meet him there at 9pm. And we are scared.

That night before the jam, my buddy and I are eating dinner. And he looks over at me and says, "We're playing JJ's tonight, like in an hour." And my stomach just tightens up. I am really nervous. To make things worse, we haven't even been given the songs we're playing that night. But we are reassured by the fact that it's a week night and the club should be dead. We head over.

When we drive up, it's like something out of bad movie. It's packed. There are bikers outside. The crowd is a mix, but looks pretty rough. We are thinking, "What are we doing here!" Mark comes up and says we're on "The List." Then we see the calendar sheet...it's Fat Tuesday, and it's a pro jam. My buddy and I look at each other and say, "Mark, this is a pro jam! We're not pros! We need to get out of here!" He says, "Pro is a relative term...come on. It will be fine...we'll pray before we go up." At this point, I'm just laughing. I don't even look the part with my surf shirt, jeans, Chinese made Vox AC30 and a cheap Epiphone Dot. I mean this is just ridiculous.

Then this big African American gentleman comes up to the house band and says he wants to play. The band tells him, "You want to play, get on the list." He yells, "I'm T-Bone something something, I don't wait on no F#*%-ing list." The band tells him, "This is a pro jam, you have to get on the list or you don't play." Mr. T-Bone comes back with a big "F%$# You!" The band says, "Would you like to say that to everyone" and hands him the mic. "F&$# YOU!" The club goes quiet. And good old T-Bone walks on out. We're hoping he won't be returning with a gun. Next thing we hear is the band on the mic calling out our names...we're up next!! Are you kidding me? We have to follow that?

We head outside, say a quick prayer, and jump up on stage. Trust me, that prayer helped a lot.

Well things went fine, actually they went great. We were given a fourth song, instead of the standard three songs and off, and people were up, dancing, and applauding. I was so nervous my legs and fingers were shaking. And my solos definitely showed it! But man, what a rush. I was flying high! I had just played on a stage that legends like John Lee Hooker and BB King had graced...and wasn't been booed off!

That was the first of many more times playing out at blues jams. I now perform in a local gospel blues outfit.My point in this post is to encourage players to just get out there and play. The first time you do, it's not going to be comfortable. And you're probably not going to impress anyone. But you will improve. In time, you'll get over those nerves and be able to just relax and have fun. And the improvement you'll see will be light years ahead of what you could have achieved by sitting at home and running through your scales or jamming along to your favorite Zep song. There's nothing wrong with that of course...we all started there. But there comes a point in every musician's journey when it's time to man up and play out.Trust me, you won't regret it!

Guitar Center Hollywood - Vintage Room

One needs to remind themselves once in a while what the original iconic guitars and amplifiers sounded like, what they were meant to sound like, and what they felt like to hold in your hand. Each has gone through numerous incarnations, some for better and some for worse. But one thing is for certain, what is being produced today by the major manufacturers bears little resemblance in tone and quality to what was being hand built five decades ago under the original owners.

So finding myself in Southern California this past weekend I decided to make the trip out to some of the vintage stores on Sunset. I tried Vintage Gear of Hollywood, but found the store had sadly shut its doors. Per Yelp, I checked their new location only to find a gas station there instead. So my only other option due to time constraints was to check out the vintage room at Guitar Center Hollywood. If you have not yet checked this place out, I highly recommend dropping by and test driving a few guitars.

As I've stated in the past, I'm not the biggest fan of GC. And my feelings were once again reinforced by the end of my visit. But I'll get to that later. So, one of the very few reasons to visit a GC would be to test drive gear...either for the purpose of trying something you will later buy online or to play gear you can't afford in the hopes of someday... Well this visit was the latter. And if there is one GC you should visit, the Hollywood or NYC stores are as good as it gets...for Guitar Center. At the Sunset store, located right next to the "Sunset Grille" I might add (Don Henley anyone?), there is quite a healthily stocked vintage room. The girl with a Russian accent makes a mean fried egg sandwich by the way. And yes it's just like the song describes, I once saw a drunk, mumbling homeless lady lying on the ground get picked up by angry EMT's as a crowd tried to forece-feed her water. Lots of street kids hanging around, it's the reality of Hollywood and very sad. If you go, be on your guard as it's a seedy neighborhood with lots of addicts walking around scrounging for money. For those who believe, the neighborhood could use some prayer.

But anyway on to the guitars...walking in, you are surrounded by every guitar or amp you've ever wanted, some you didn't know you wanted until now. Directly in front of you is a 20 foot wall of vintage Fender Strats, Teles, Gibson SG's, Les Pauls, and ES335s. Scanning the room you see early 60s vox, late 50s Fender Tweed, 70s Marshall heads lying around, Epiphone Rivieras, early Gibson L5's, '59 Strats. This is not to mention the wall of traditional acoustics by Martin, Gibson, and Epiphone and another wall papered with lap steels. Shoved off in a corner are Airlines, Nationals, and Silvertones. They are all available for test drive. And they encourage you to crank. I only planned to stay there 30 minutes and ended up there an hour and a half.

For me, the first thing I notice upon entering are these Voxy ladies, pictured on the left...I see an AC30, then another, two AC50 heads, an AC30 head and cab, and finally an AC10...all early 60s, all in very good shape. So having played through a few 60s AC30s in my time and owning a '67 AC50 recently with mixed results, I opted for the AC10. I thought it would be a good idea to compare it to my current UK made JMI 4 which is the supposed to be modeled after the AC10, but with a single 10" blue bell rather than the twin set up. I was surprised to find the AC10 to be extremely warm. It took on an early 80s Les Paul beautifully and broke up just like a classic Vox. Let me just say, first...I need this amp...second, my JMI sounds nothing like it. I do really like the sound of my JMI, but I have to admit, it's just not close. It's still worlds closer than current Vietnam made Vox amps. Really Vox, Vietnam? The trem on the AC10 was quite subtle however. Almost not noticeable. I have seen this on another vintage AC30 at a shop here in the Bay Area and wonder if something has worn out in the circuit.

 Next I migrate towards the Fender Tweeds. And wow do they have a lot of classics. A quick walk through yields a '49 - '51 Champion 600, several tweed deluxes, late 50s bassman and twins, TV fronts, and several more I'm sure I missed. There were probably Princetons or Harvards in the mix but I didn't look at everything. Pictured on the left is only part of the collection to put things in perspective. So I end up A/B'ing two Fender Tweed Deluxes, one early TV version and one later 50s. To run through these beauties I grab a 1959 Sunburst Fender Strat. Here is where things get interesting. The tone is everything I've ever dreamed a strat should sound like. I don't mean to get overly sentimental, but it's the kind of tone that brings you back to why you started playing guitar in the first place. As a tech recently told me at Guitar Showcase, Leo had it right the first time. He really did. And once again I am surprised, the earlier TV is much more musical and pleasant than the later deluxe. After a little Lay Down Sally and some blues, I run a mid 60s Gibson SG through the deluxe...wow! I know Clapton used Marshalls in the Cream days, but this was pretty darn close. Perfect tone for British blues.

By this point I am starting to run out of time...I still have to drive five and a half hours back to the Bay Area and it's 8pm! Next on deck is an early Fender Champ 600. And I am so glad I did not pass up the opportunity. This little cub of an amp was a tone machine. First with a 1971 Strat it was warm, full, and had plenty of drive and bottom end. No glassy ice pick tone here. How I have no idea. Next I tried a late 60's or early 70s Black Les Paul Deluxe. What filled the air were gobs and gobs of creamy overdrive goodness. I immediately went into a Badfinger Baby Blue riff and it was "that sound." Just gorgeous. It would have been perfect for I've Got a Feeling if I had thought of it. I topped it off with a 1963 Gibson ES335. BB King tone just flows out of this thing on the neck and middle positions. And the bridge pickup was a little rocker. Remember, the pickups in these things were pretty much the same PAF pickups they used in the '58 - '62 Les Pauls of lore, but of course by this time they had a patent number. I've never been one to compare guitar tone to wine because it just sounds snobby and seems to represent everything collectors stand for and players do not. But dare I say the tone was complex? I just loved the breakup of this little Champ 600! The new Champ 600's have a terrible raspy speaker...but given a nice jensen or weber, you have yourself a perfectly giggable(given a PA) little amp that comes somewhat close to the originals. But really, I need one of these too!

I finished the Champ off with Gibson's version of the Epiphone Sorrento. I think it was called an ES295 but I could be wrong. It only had a neck p90, a single cutaway, and was light as a feather. It was a nice jazzer to finish things off with from an electric standpoint.

Knowing I really should be running to the car and speeding down the freeway, I went upstairs to play a few acoustics. I played a beautiful pre-pickup Gibson L5 Archtop for a few minutes noodling my best butchering of jazz and old time blues. It was such a sweet mellow tone. I imagine Les Paul plucking one of these next to a big band in Chicago. These early guitars make you feel like you're playing what a guitar was intended to sound like in days gone by.

Next to it was a beautiful blonde Gibson Super Archtop. One I wish I had played, but sadly did not. But what a gorgeous guitar to look at. The wave in the grain of the guitar just speaks class. I guess I will have to save her for next time, if she's still on the wall.

There were quite a few archtops hanging in the upstairs area I wished I had taken the time to look at. It really makes one wish they were a jazz player so they properly give these a run through. I challenge any shredder to listen to How High the Moon by Les Paul and Mary Ford and not have their jaw drop open. He was the shredder of his day, but in a classy and musically pleasing way. It was about crafting a song people would like to listen to rather than simply to show off one's technique...kids these days, get off my lawn! But I guess that's for another blog post.



I ended the night with a nice Epiphone acoustic. I looked for a Texan but sadly found none. This showroom was missing a 60's Casino as well which is inexcusable. But we'll let them slide. So I opted for an old Epiphone Frontier. Yes Epiphone was once made in the USA before Gibson destroyed them by outsourcing their soul. The Frontier is a really nice guitar in it's own right. It sounded like a Texan but with a little but of J45 mixed in. Blackbird and Jenny Wren just sounded right on this beauty. And it had a very cool country western look to it as well. I think I might have to start hunting around for one of these. Hard to believe GC had this listed for $6000 though. $1500 would have felt better.

Which brings me to my one negative of the night. I go up to the sales guy who has been helping me all night to ask him if there was anything in the showroom he has been trying to move, hoping he might deal on something. I wasn't really looking for a 1959 Les Paul for $500 or anything. But I saw a few Silvertone amps on the floor that were just ugly enough to hint there might be wiggle room on the price. The sales guy, who by the way has been extremely cool, helpful, and knowledgeable, goes on to tell me that entire room has been repriced to be more in line with the current market and that 70 - 80% of the room is listed a their cost. Really? I was having such a good night until I heard this. Apparently every price I had looked at was part of the other 30%. Because I saw Vox AC50 heads for $2500...they go for $1000 - $1500. And $6000 for the Frontier? The Champion 600 was $900. Seriously? And you can only imagine what the Fender and Gibson guitars were going for...tens of thousands of dollars beyond what one would expect. And yeah right, Guitar Center paid those prices for the gear. Don't make me laugh. Maybe I just getting too many of my prices  from ebay auctions, but these just seemed way out of the ball park of reality. Of course who am I to say people aren't walking in and paying those prices?

So overall it was an incredible night. How often does one have the opportunity to play the gear their heroes recorded with? It was truly a joy. And I will have to give credit to Guitar Center for having these vintage rooms open to the public, giving players the opportunity to take vintage gear for a drive. I recommend dropping in to anyone who is in the Southern California area. You won't regret it.

I'll leave you now with a few additional pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Marshall Class 5, Voodoo Lab Super Fuzz - Great Sounds...Poor Quality

Today I will be reviewing two pieces of gear I picked up in the past few years. Both have a few things in common, some good and some bad. First let's start with the bad...because this blog is about honestly and not false promotion. And I want to start by saying I absolute hate it when people bash things or people. I am a positive guy and always try to have positive encouraging things comes out of my mouth. So writing negative things about something people have put hard work into building doesn't feel good to me. I do this only to inform other players out there so they can know what they're getting into if they choose to pull the trigger on either of these. I also hope each company receives this feedback somehow and makes the appropriate improvements. But we as players deserve better workmanship bottom line.

The Bad...

Both the Super Fuzz and the Marshall Class 5 were purchased at Guitar Center, which in itself is bad. Does anyone ever have a positive experience at this store? They are the worst of the worst. I've been on the verge of banning this place at least half a dozen times but failed to pull the trigger because they are close and have competitive prices. But I want to and have chosen to pay more at local shops just out of principle.But I'll save my Guitar Center rant for another day.

So getting back on track...both this pedal and amp were simply not built well.

The Marshall's control panel looks and feels really cheap. You can easily imagine breaking a knob off in your hand. The power light looks like a square lego a child in a sweatshop attached. There is also a well documented design flaw on the Class 5 which causes it to have a rattle. And it's not just a slight rattle. It's bad...you can't really ignore it. And contacting Marshall yields a multi piece replacement backing which does nothing to fix the problem. This amp rattles so much you don't want to use the thing. The problem sounds like it's coming from the chasis, which obviously a new back is not going to help. And you can't even just pull the back off and play it openback because the chasis is suspended midway. According to Marshall this issue one only on the 1st rendition of the amplifier and has been fixed on later releases. Read any forum, it's clearly still an issue. How this poor of quality came out of the UK I have no idea. Maybe they have begun building them out of Vietnam without telling us like Vox has with their ac15 and ac30s. Sad a company with the rich history of Marshall would put their name on such garbage. I recently ran into a guy who worked in the Marshall factory in England back in the day and he spoke of them personally signing the inside of every amp so you would know who built your amp that day. Sounds a lot like how Mesa Boogie up here in Northern California was and still is.

The Super Fuzz likewise has poorly put together internals. Now I do not beat on my pedals. But after only a year or so this stompbox started petering out. At first I thought it was just a dirty pot. But over time the volume would cut out when the volume or gain was touched. Now a knob has fallen off, with more I'm sure to follow, and the stomp button to activate the pedal works about 50% of the time. The other half of the time it cuts out altogether or you get a severe volume drop. This pedal also colors your tone way too much when bypassed. Some coloring is fine because it's a vintage design. But Cutting off all the highs is unacceptable. Now I could just have a lemon, but given how this thing has held up, I'm not sure I would buy another and I certain would not trust it out on tour without a couple backups. It's too bad...it's such a great sounding pedal.

The Good!

Both the Marshall and the Super Fuzz SOUND AMAZING!

The Marshall Class 5 is the only amp I've owned that literally sounds great regardless of the guitar I'm running through it. And it is the only amp I currently own through which my 2002 Fender American Telecaster sounds good! It is a non master volume 5 watt mini bluesbreaker. That's the best way to describe this little tone machine. And it is really loud. I have gigged it unmiked at clubs running full out and it was enough. Run a strat though it at low volume and you have 70s Clapton tweed. Push it and you have Jimi or Stevie. With a decent Les Paul you have beano. I LOVE this amp! I just got an old National Town and Country which looks cool but sounds way too bassy and lacking in high end. And this guitar absolutely shines through the Class 5. The controls are very interactive and provide a wide range of sounds. Oh, and if you want AC/DC or Zep, it's right here too. Also, a solution to get rid of the rattle is to use the line out and run through a cab. I was using a 2x12 Vox cab with vintage 30s and the amp projected even better and sounded fuller. I am seriously considering doing a conversion to make this a head and just running it through a 1x12 Mesa Subway cab. Even with the annoying rattle and cheap looking controls, I would still buy this amp again because the tone is that good. I recently had a guy come up to me out at a blues jam saying my Class 5 sounded better than his bluesbreaker reissue. What else can be said?

The Super Fuzz also sounds great as well! It's a VERY usable fuzz pedal. You can get a 60s saturated psychodelic fuzz, or a chunky George Thorogood blues sound. The controls have a vary wide variance and are easy to dial in. Even the colored bypass tone sounds pretty darn good. This is more of a rock and roll vox tonebender fuzz than a thin 60 maestro fuzz. If you are ok with chancing the above issues of it breaking down, I totally recommend this pedal. And the many other Voodoo Lab pedals like their univibe clone and their sparkle drive are mind blowing. Great great great sounding effects...too bad they may not be built to last.

If anyone knows of amp builders that do combo to head conversions please let me know in the comments below. I'm serious about the Class 5 :)

http://www.marshallamps.com/

http://www.voodoolab.com/

Made In Japan - Tokai, Greco, and Burny/Fernandes of the 1970s and 1980s

Today let's talk about Japanese "Lawsuit" guitars...

A friend and fellow musician once said to me, "Life's too short to play poor quality guitars. If you need to save up money for a long time to get something that's plays well and sounds really good, just do it." He made this comment right after I had been raving about how great my $400 Chinese made Epiphone Dot with Gibson 57's pickups sounded. After years of using nothing but USA made Fender Strats and Teles with Fender tube amps, I thought I had stumbled upon a secret treasure. I had fixed up two entry level guitars with proper top of the line electronics and given them a good setup.

The first was the mentioned Epi Dot. It did and still does sound great, sort of like a Gibson 335 but rough around the edges sound wise. I've had more than one guy at JJs Blues here in San Jose come up to compliment the tone, then discover in shock it's an Epiphone. Very good sound, but plays just OK.

The second guitar was a bottom of the barrel Fender Squier Bullet, made in Indonesia. This thing was an absolute piece. I could literally hold the neck up by the headstock and bend the guitar back and forth. And the electronics were just plain harsh sounding. But I was on a mission to make a cheapo sound as good as my American Standard from the 90s. So I threw Lindy Fralin Blue pickups in it(left off the base plate) and WOW, what a huge improvement. But the thin neck still had major tuning and intonation problems. New tuners did not help. So I acquired a Mexi neck from craigslist.org. After all this, I had just a classic sounding strat. But I soon realized the tremolo was even less usable than the USA strats. But tightened into a hard tail, it was very functional blues and country strat. The sound was full, round, and rich...but still a bit modern for my tastes.

So up to this point, my experiences with Asian made guitars were mixed at best. I looked at them as budget players that could achieve great things with enough money thrown at them.

And then one day I was at a friend's house whose dad is a guitarist. In fact, the guy has quite the "guitarsenal." So he's showing me around proudly giving me the history of each of his treasured axes and then he comes to his vintage strat. But it's not a Fender. It's an early Tokai from the 1980s. He tells me the Japanese were making these copies back in his day and that they actually sound really good. With major skepticism and a little guilt for betraying Fender, I strap on the abomination and plug it into his Fender Blues Deville. With shock I hear the best strat tone ever to grace my ears. At first I can't understand or believe my ears. I keep playing. And keep playing. And keep...you get it. It sounded like amazing! And not just on the neck pickup and the in-between 4th position. Every position sounded playable! More than playable! They all sounded really good! Bell-like tone, strat "quack," almost compressed, and like all the classic rock recordings of vintage strats I had grown up with.

This experience stuck with me for a few years. I started putting 80s Japan made Tokai's in my watch list on ebay, or fee-bay, or flee-bay, depending on you feeling about the company. I saw many Tokai Goldstar and Silverstar Sound strats go for under $500. I then noticed they also made Gibson Les Paul knockoffs called "Les Paul Reborn" and "Love Rock." Cheesy right? But people claimed online in places like Harmony Central and some of the forums these were every bit as good as Gibson Les Pauls, especially some of the higher models like LS80s and above. The higher models being nitro finished and the lesser LS50s and 60s being poly finished.

Around this time I noticed other Japanese brands of the same era that had cloned major US guitar brands like Greco, Burny, Fernandes, Bauchus, etc. They all looked like Fenders, Gibsons, Gretschs, Rickenbackers, and Danelectros. Even their logos would use font and funny shaped lettering to look like the real thing from far away.

These are the infamous "Lawsuit" guitars you read so much about. Although it seems some of the legal action supposedly taken has been hyped by dealers. The best story I've been able to glean was that Gibson sent cease and desist letters to one or more of the Japanese manufactures and Fender bought Greco's strat making arm making it "Fender Japan." Feel free to fill in any details below in the comments that I've missed.

After much research, saving, and deliberation, I finally settled on a 1979 Greco EG900 Les Paul which I picked up for around $650 after shipping from Japan and a 1980 SE800 Strat which was about $1000. EG850s and higher supposedly had nitro finishes, solid bodies, and good pickups. The EG900 came with stock USA Dimarzio PAF pickups which have largely been panned as poor quality and muddy. I think this helped in the low bid price. The SE800 Strat was pretty expensive in my book...but it did have great reviews, good sounding youtube demos, and a beautiful sunburst in nitro finish. So I pulled the trigger.

Let me tell you...I have played many $5000 custom shop Gibson and Fenders and even a true vintage 1958 Fender Strat, and I would put these two guitars right up in sound and playability. I know that's a big claim and some will roll their eyes. But I challenge anyone to do it. I've had some of the JJ's Blues old timers come up to me after an open jam and tell me the Les Paul is THE SOUND, then look at the headstock and get this awkward look on their face and say "Greco?" I did swap in some Japanese made Dry Z and PU2 pickups for a try in the Les Paul, but have always gone back to the Dimarzio's. They were doing something special in the 70s apparently.

The Greco SE800 Strat I will admit was a little dark for my tastes. It sounded great with the stock Excel pickups, but I put in some 80s Tokai pickups to brighten things up just a big. I can honestly say I would take this Strat over anything Fenders custom shop is putting out these days. I have A/B'd this guitar with quite a few custom shop strats though old Fender Tweeds, Silverface Deluxes, and an old Vox AC30 in the vintage room at Guitar Showcase and the Greco is right there in tone and playability. And even if the custom shop guitars do edge it out a little in those categories, we are talking about spending $1000 and getting true vintage aged wood versus $5000 or more for a new "relic'd" guitar. Just a note, the SE800 does have a pretty hard V neck however. So if that's not your thing, go for the SE600 or SE1000 which I believe are more C shaped necks. But trust me, these 70s and 80s Greco strats sound like Eric Clapton in Derek and the Dominos playing Lay Down Sally in spades...something I could never achieve with my 90s USA Fender Strat.

So the moral of the story - In the 80s, not only were the Japanese kicking out butts in car manufacturing, they were killing Fender and Gibson in guitar building as well. My advice is to do some research first and pick up a Japanese clone from this era. It will probably become your go-to.

For more information on "Lawsuit" era Japanese guitars, check out the Tokai Forum: http://www.tokaiforum.com/