Vintage Amp Aquisition

I've come into possession of a new amplifier. (Sorry Mom)

Its a cheap amp from 1966, a Sears Silvertone 1484. Most people have no idea what it is or how good it sounds. It looks cheap, it was cheap, and gets beat up easily. So most people write it off as a crap amp.

That is - until Jack White started using Silvertone 1485s in the White Stripes to get his gigantic, crunchy, blow-the-top-of-your-head-off sound. Suddenly, the market for Silvertone amps exploded and more than just the amp junkies realized that the Silvertone amps WERE cheap, but also had KILLER tone. They just don't look like much. Now - its tough to find a Sears Silvertone in decent condition. I've wanted one for a few years now - been looking at craigslist about once a week. A long story very short - a friend of mine found one and then realized he didn't really need it.

It also gave me a good reason to finally sell off all the random guitars and parts of guitars I had laying around not getting used which would more than pay for the amp. (Yes mother, I'll put the extra $$ left over into savings.) I'd like to end up with just two eletrics - a strat and a my epiphone - and one acoustic.

Anyways - I don't have any good pictures of it yet, but here's what a Sears Silvertone 1484 "Twin Twelve" looks like. This one is a little bit cleaner than mine, but I'll eventually get mine cleaned up and checked out by an amp tech.

Getting the message across

I guess the Governator is getting fed up with the bills coming to his desk. His posisition is that there are SERIOUS problems in California that the legislature can't seem to come to a consensus on and fix. They send him bills to fund more projects on the San Fransico waterfront. Apparently the author of this bill had shouted some obscene things at Arnold once, and the Governor's veto statement sounded innocuous when read aloud, but when seen on paper, an entirely different (read: more blunt) message appears.

Here's the .pdf of the veto statement.

Methinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much...

I love Obama. And the Obama administration. Not just for their policy, but for not beating around the bush.

They haven't minced words about FOXnooze, refusing to give interviews and the like. Somebody finally came out this weekend and stated the obvious - something that even FOXnews viewers who call themselves 'independent' or 'impartial' don't seem to understand. That FOXnews is just a shill for the republican party.

The best part is how FOX came back with, "whaaaaat?!?!?" Please, FOX - don't. Don't even.

Their official response was that people are confusing their news coverage with their opinion pieces. To which I respond: Bullshit. FOXnews deliberately splices parts of their incendiary commentors (opinion) into parts of the news (fact?) coverage in an attempt to make the conservative opinions sound more grounded and commonplace than they really are. FOX's ticker (the text at the bottom of the screen) is enough to make me sick to my stomach sometimes. Only FOX can stir up a tea-party protest (organized by affliates of FOXnews) then organize a rally for their 'news' program where they call the protesters "patriots." These patriots just happen to be carrying signs showing Obama as Hitler, and others with signs morphing Obama into Iran's president and text saying, "Death to the Dictator." But that didn't make it on TV, of course.

Smart conservatives everywhere are using this attack to compare Obama's administration with Nixon's - complaining that ONE network doesn't like him. Oh wait - did you just OPENLY ADMIT THAT YOU DON'T LIKE HIM?!? THEN STOP PRETENDING THAT YOU'RE NOT BIASED. Nobody is saying you should close your doors, FOXnews - its just people saying, "you're not fooling us into thinking you're a non-biased news source so we're not going to treat you like one." Quit acting like you've just been wronged. You chose your format - now live with it.

Headphones

I recently had a discussion about what made good headphones good headphones. Then I came across these two articles today, breaking down exactly that. These are specific to "in-ear" headphones, not the bulkier over-the-ear headphones.

This one talks about why there is such a difference between $20 and $100 headphones.

This one has a great table display of what one reviewer thought after testing several brands, models, and price ranges.

Still - I tried Dr. Dre's new over the ear headphones (basically DJ headphones) at the Apple store and they were pretty damn fantastic.

"...this is the only guitar the band owns"

If you read my blog, you already know how excited I was to see "It Might Get Loud." I won't repost everything I've already posted - but I wanted to talk about a few of the cooler points of the movie.

-The movie starts out with Jack White on a farm, pounding two nails into a 2x4. He then nails a single guitar pickup to the wood. Then he wraps a piece of steel wire around the nails, making it taut. He inserts a glass bottle on one side to act as a bridge and then plugs the rig into one of his Silvertone amps sitting on the porch. Then starts ripping out a slide guitar riff on his homemade 'guitar.' The whole thing took about 4mins. No words. Ends with Jack taking a drag off a cigarette, "...ya know? Who says you need to buy a guitar?"

-Watching Jack White, The Edge, and Jimmy Page all sitting in THEIR music rooms, listening to THEIR records, talking about what THEIR influences were. It was a surreal experience to watch Jimmy Page listening to music. The guy on the top of most "Greatest Living Guitarist" lists, the guitarist for Led Zeppelin - even HE plays air guitar when listening to his favorite guitarists. Turns out its not just me. Really brought home the fact that these guys are just normal dudes.

-There's actually clips of the lutheire making the 2nd of Jack White's custom "Triple Jet" Gretsches. Not the copper one I blogged about 2 posts below, but the one with the Green Bullet microphone on the body. That was pretty sweet.

-The drastically different approaches of each player. Page was a session guitarist playing other people's music before deciding to go a completely different direction and change the way electric guitar was played forever. The Edge is very into effects processing and getting the most out of dozens of pedals and amps in his chain, getting the most precise sound to match whats in his head. Jack White is a minimalist guitarist - cheap plastic guitars, 3 effects, and straight blues riffs backed by as much energy and raw power as he can muster.

-There was a funny quote from The Edge talking about their first serious recording session w/ Steve Lillywhite. After they'd recorded all the main parts, Steve wanted to overdub different guitar parts on top of Edge's original riffs with a different guitar (to make the tone fuller, a common trick). This was so early in U2's career, The Edge looks at Bono, looks at his brown Explorer and says, "...this is all I have. This is the only guitar the band owns."

-There's a clip of Jack White talking about the blues and while he's talking there is a clip of him playing "Blue Veins" with the Raconteurs. He's playing so hard that his hand is bleeding all over his guitar body. He sets the Gretsch down, the camera zooms in, and there's red smears all over the finish.