6STRINGS 9LIVES
March 13th, 2007, 06:24 AM
About two months ago I got a call from a young guy in my area who was interested in buying a vintage amp . I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that he had done his homework and had a good idea of what he was looking for , he was looking for a bassman, a blackface bassman to be exact. We talked on the phone for about an hour and arranged for him to drop by and check out one of my amps . I was honestly amazed that he was so into vintage gear given his age, 23 . Turns out the kid is a pretty good song writer and has a unique style of playing , he brought along a self made ep of his tunes and I was very impressed , he has a definite Dylanesque vibe and a real honesty to his writing and performing . I was expecting more of a punk, metal, grunge thing but here was a kid who was doing nice straight foreward stuff more in the style of David Grey and dare I say John Mayer, and interested in vintage tones . When he got to my place and saw the amp collection he lit up like a xmas tree and I could tell that here was a toltal gear head in the making . He had never plugged into a vintage amp before , his current rig was a blues deluxe and a mexi strat . He was amazed at the sound of the old bassman and spent the next two hours playing and drooling , he made me an offer on the spot and I said I’d give it some thought . Over the course of the next few weeks we got together a couple of times and talked music and gear , he also decided he wanted one of my guitars and a Fender reverb unit to complete his setup . This kid had been bitten by the vintage bug in a big way and ended up buying a 64 Fender blonde reverb unit and a 68 leslie ( like a fender vibratone ) and a 1962 blonde tremoluxe and cab ..his sound is now absolutely killer . I guess the point of my post is that young players do have an appreciation for vintage tone and that blew me away , it was so unexpected . I’m gonna check with him to see if he would mind my putting a couple of his tunes up here for you all to hear . I have since brought him to the studio a couple of times to meet the guys and hang out , and we are working on doing a decent recording for him and supplying some supporting players , he’s loving it , at 23 years old he is definitely going in the right direction and it’s a blast to help him out and feed off of his enthusiasm. I guess Townshend got it right ..”THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT “ . ...6S9L
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