At the time I was

October 05, 2003

At the time I was slave to what was available. Everyone was using. You could always find one and you felt somehow modern. Yes . . . the Roland JC-120. Arguably this was one of the lowest points in guitar amplification. Just as dubious 80’s fashion is poking its head from the sphincter of the fashion industry in the all to predictable “twenty year come around” some things will reappear for no reason other than they look new in the eyes of those who haven’t seen them before. As kids romanticize “Spandau Ballet” and “the Fix” as purveyors of cool then the Roland JC-120 returns as a “classic”. E-bay clogs with wise 30 somethings unloading their worthless crap for inflated prices to the next generation.
Last night I was returned to the point in history when I was given a chance to escape this cycle. For those of you who know nothing about guitar amplifiers I will provide some back story. Nothing much has changed with guitar amplifiers that can improve on the basic technological ideas that founded the species. The tube amps that Leo Fender designed and made in the 50’s are still operational, sought after and their circuits are the heart of most every other good sounding rig. Still we tinker and meddle. In the 60’s the vacuum tube was dying as a concept. The transistor revolution would obviously chase this warm old dog out of town. So many bad amplifiers were designed and marketed before anybody realized that the old school was still winning the battle. To this day the tube amp remains the way to go. That’s it in a nutshell. The Roland JC-120 was one of the most popular transistor amps of the 80’s. It had a built in “stereo chorus” effect that was all the rage at the time. It didn’t matter that it sounded brittle and sterile in an era where brittle and sterile ruled the pop airwaves. I was suckered and bought one. I couldn’t make it produce anything resembling the sound that I had in my head. I had owned tube amps prior to this and had produced plenty of sounds that came close but what I was truly looking for kept alluding me. I was certainly getting nowhere with this piece of shit. Was it the guitar? I had recently narrowed my sights on the Fender Telecaster as my main squeeze. It had a pedigree among the players I admired -- Keith Richards, Billy Bremner, Steve Cropper, George Harrison, Muddy Waters, Jeff Beck, ...they all used one. It was the simplest guitar. The neck fit my hand perfectly. The body felt right as part of my body and the sound . . .it could bite through anything if need be (me playing mine with Colin James Band...mine eyes are red...picture#6 far right side of page).
The band I was in had scored a couple of opening spots with a then little known Australian band called “Hunters & Collectors”. The band was great but my mind was for a very specific reason. The guitar player/singer Mark Seymour had the exact sound I was looking for. A white telecaster plugged straight into a beautiful old Vox AC-30. I was curious as to why his tele had no volume or tone knob on the top. He told me they just got in the way and he didn’t need them because the guitar was always turned all the way up anyway. Made sense. This was the sound I imagined coming from me when I played. It was all knuckles. Each note and chord seemed rich and fat and the feedback flew off all the right notes. A significant amount of top end never hit you like a dentist drill as it did with other amps. It spoke to me directly. It was the sound I had heard in all the records I loved. It was no coincidence that just about every Beatles, Yardbirds or Kinks track exploded out of an AC-30. The next morning I started looking for one. No luck. They didn’t import them or make them at that low point in the 80’s. I put out a wanted add in the Buy & Sell and got a call the day after the issue came out. “Wanted: Vox AC30, will trade Roland JC-120”. I remember carrying the amp out of the guy’s living room thinking I was doing something wrong. He was probably thinking, “I can’t believe my luck! Now I am finally living in the 80’s!”. I suppose the modern equivalent might be trading your new Toyota Matrix straight across for an Austin Healey Mark 3. Its a matter of how you see the world. The AC-30 is about as easy to maintain as an old British sports car but provides all the feel sound and fury of one as well. I had found the sound I would pretty much stick to for the next decade. I’ve since had 4 of them and a few other Vox models as well.
By 1996 I had blown up my AC-30s at least twenty times on the road. Each one had its own particular achilles heal and it was getting hard to rely on them performing faithfully each night. These little monsters have some serious ventilation and heat issues compounded by their aging components. I decided to try to find my sound in the guts of Fender and Marshall amps while on the road. Since the Odds “Nest” tours I’ve used Marshall “plexi” re-issues and with Sharkskin and Colin James I favour old “black faced” Fender combos or tweed re-issues. I used the AC-30s less and less and never live until . . .Regina wrecked it all.
Last week the Colin James band played a couple of shows in Regina with rented backline. This is usually how we do it when there isn’t a full tour going on. The crew arranges rented amps and drums that meet our ever broader specifications. I got a note from our tour manager a day or two before we left asking me if a Vox AC-30 would be OK to use in Regina because that was what was available. I replied to the affirmative and said, “I have some experience with those”. On the very first note of the first soundcheck I was instantly tele ported to my “happy place”. Each note that followed leapt and cavorted out of those bulldog speakers as if a genie were being released from years of slumber. All my guitars relaxed into my hands and did things they would never do with another amp. Dirty dirty guitars. The old flame had returned and made paltry all the lovemaking skills of every amp that had replaced her. My body turned with the guitar in all the ways it used to in order to make each note feedback at all the right times. Muscle memory returns. I didn’t have to think about it at all. The smell of the tubes getting hot leveled my blood pressure like the smell of mom’s cooking. I whispered, “you complete me” as Colin walked over to politely ask if I could turn down a hair. I smiled and said “sure” but didn’t really turn down too much. I could not be denied.