Goddamnit I hate that word. ‘Boogie.’ Yuck. Instantly brings to mind brain-dead root-fifth/root-sixth endless nonsense non-songs. Really sounds like s$%t. And you do know that boogie-riff inventor chuck berry was later famous for… NSFW) Eii Yii Yii. I wonder if Mesa Engineering would sell more units if they dropped that word. Cause they sure ain’t bad amps. But boogie! No thank you! Never!
Three years before he would buy his first electric bass, and then go on to pretty much define the vocabulary of that instrument, James Jamerson poses with his first bandleader Washboard Willie. You can keep yr Jimi, yr Page, EVH, all those wheedley-wheedley motherfuckers, I’ll take JJ over him any day of the ever. The fkkn best ever, a true innovator with a genius instinct for both rhythmic drive and counterpoint.
Also see: here.
Sansui’s late-70’s line of hi-fi equipment is fairly collectible; I’ve had several of them over the years, and they generally sell for good money. My last pair, a tuner and integrated amp, actually went to a prop stylist for a film… I wish I could remember the name of the picture. Anyhow, aside from the usual amps, preamps, tuners, and integrated amps, Sansui also made this very unusual device during the ‘first-wave’ of home-music-production: The AX-7 ‘Audio Mixer.’ A four-input HI-Z mixer, the AX-7 was designed to allow the user more easily use multiple stereo tape decks to ping-pong tracks into a layered production. It also offered global spring reverb!
There is a good-looking example on eBay right now for $99 BIN, which is a great value just for the spring reverb!
Sometimes it’s the right move. Also if yr gonna rock a shirt like that, might be best to stay in for the day. whoa.
Moog? Arp 2600? Let us know…
1978: The HIWATT 100-watt Bulldog combo amp offers a challenge to Mesa/Boogie in 1978. These must have been very rare; I can’t find a single one online. Read all about them at this link. The ‘mini-monster’ hi-powered-combo concept was introduced by Mesa/Boogie in the late 60s when Randall Smith modded a Fender Princeton by adding the power supply and output section from a Bassman, essentially making a little tiny (but heavy!) 50-watt combo amp. Curious about exactly how much of a ‘feat’ this was, I actually did this very thing many years ago to my brother’s Silverface Princeton. A decade on, the thing is still cooking. The perfect ‘vintage’ amp for NYC, or any city where you’ve gotta share a taxi to the gig!
Holy WTF. Also, it’s basically a filter with an envelope follower. But WTF. Read all about at this dude’s website. Watch the video. And yea it sounds pretty neat. Only 100 ever made, apparently. And unsurprisingly. And goodnight.
Several years ago I posted some of my collection of vintage Polyfusion documentation. Although Polyfusion did frequently run small adverts in trade publications, I had never seen this full-page advert before. Apparently, P/F also made guitar and bass preamps. Wild, man. Any Polyfusion users out there? Drop us a line!
“Acoustic”-brand Amplifiers advert c. 1978. What was I saying the other day about “stick a Porsche next to pretty much anything?”
“The 911 can trace its roots back to sketches drawn by Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche in 1959.[6] The Porsche 911 classic was developed as a much more powerful, larger, more comfortable replacement for the Porsche 356, the company’s first model. The new car made its public debut at the 1963[1] Frankfurt Motor Show (German: Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung).[7] The car presented at the auto show had a non-operational mockup of the 901 engine, receiving a working one in February 1964.[6]
It originally was designated as the “Porsche 901” (901 being its internal project number). 82 cars were built as 901s.[6] However, Peugeot protested on the grounds that in France it had exclusive rights to car names formed by three numbers with a zero in the middle. So, instead of selling the new model with another name in France, Porsche changed the name to 911. Internally, the cars’ part numbers carried on the prefix 901 for years.[6] Production began in September 1964,[7] the first 911s reached the US in February 1965 with a price tag of US$6,500.[6]” (SOURCE)
How y’all doin out there in the internets… had a pretty good AM at the F.M., having a George Crumb marathon on the ole’ 1500 right now, man is my wife ever patient. Anyhow, managed to find a pile of old 70’s musician mags that I was lacking, here are some weird+wild highlights of those that faded, those who never made the grade…
Starting out with: the TMB “Wells floor bass.” Holy shit this is cool. Unlike a Moog Taurus or the dozens of other ‘bass pedal synths’ out there, this unit was made with gtr-player-logic in mind. fkkn hell. Want it. Read more here!