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I got to play one of these on Saturday. All I have to say is WOW!!! OK. You know me better than that. I have LOTS more to say but that was pretty much it for the first few minutes while playing it.

50 watts of tube power! It is loud and punchy or growly as needed. The amp is plenty loud to use in a band setting unless you play with a caveman drummer. The tone is quintessential old school rock tone….think ‘Peg B15 with a slight update. Perfect for Americana, Alt-Country stuff as well as stuff you would expect like Motown and old R&B.

BTW, I was using a passive Lakland bass with it and…well, that worked great. I am not sure how it would fare with an active bass but….isn’t that a little wrong anyway?

Happy to report nothing but 15″ of goodness in the speaker cab. No tweeters allowed on tube heads!!! It should be a law. Maybe we can get congress to pass a comprehensive bass amp reform bill too.

Play one if you get a chance. Worth it!

Shout out to John Suhr and his team at Suhr Guitars. What a fine piece of custom building. Thanks to them and Mojo’s Music (in beautiful downtown Edwardsville, IL) for getting this guitar to me. It looks JUST like one I designed when I was about 18 years old.

I can remember a point in time when EVERY new piece of musical gear that came out caught my eye. I was interested in the neon green bass, the matching cable and an amp stack that looked like Stonehenge. I thought it was all cool.

Today, I got an email that included a picture of a set of EMG pickups in Camouflage….and my first thought was “HUH?”

Somewhere in all this, I have become a utilitarian player. It is all about the sound. I don’t care if it look silly but….OK, yeah, I can’t even go with it looking silly anymore. Even more…I see these and can only see fingerprints.

Here is a round of recent pics of our new church. Dan Thornton took all of them. He is an awesome photographer. I did the collage.

I recently sold a few guitars that were not getting any play time and bought this one. It is a Rickenbacker 660/12 string. I have never had much luck playing the 360/12 because of the narrow neck. This one has a little wider string spacing. Wish me luck. It should arrive in a week or so.

I recently bought a THD BiValve 30 amp. Besides being crazy cool looking (kinda Art Deco), it will take nearly every octal-based tube on the market. I frankly don’t have a clue how many tube combinations it will allow but I suspect I should have a nice ‘project’ amp for the winter months.

I don’t see it ever replacing my Orange Rockerverb 50 (unless it is for a grab and go….the Orange is not light) but it is a really fun toy.

I love my computers, TiVo and digitally enhanced stuff but when it comes to music, I am becoming more and more decidedly analog. I want my gear to be free of USB connections. Don’t get me wrong, I think the editing capability of the Line6 POD is really cool but the sound leaves something to be desired. OK, my iPod can keep it’s USB connection but that is where I draw the line.

I have been playing an Orange Rockerverb. Sold off my high tech guitars for things like the Duesenberg and ESP Vintage Plus guitars. We even found a 1964 Hammond B3 to add to the stable. There is nothing like it on the planet. The stars align when you get a read drum set, a nice guitar with a tube amp, an old P-bass and a Hammond all rockin’ together.

So, for now, you will still find me online and I am still the old .tom but…..musicially, I am a Luddite.

If he sings one more song about hope or change, I am going to lose my mind. Sing something depressing….please.

OK, regular readers of the blog will see that I have a horrible track record picking winners of reality shows. I intend to keep my streak alive. OK, here goes….Carly and Brooke need to go home as does Syesha. I could do without David Archuleta. David Cook is cool. Jason Castro is cool but not for this competition.

• Carly gets a bar gig and lots more tattoos.
• Brooke is a singer/songwriter and picks up where Jewel left of when she ran off with that bull rider.
• David Archuleta needs to be the next Josh Groban.
• Syesha will work on Broadway (or at least Off Broadway).
• Jason Castro has a career if he stays true to himself and writes well.
• David Cook wins it all!!!!

Sorry David, I am sure I just killed your chances.

My Duesenberg Mike Campbell came in on Monday and WOW. Gotta go play it but will write more soon.

I started out being OK with the TV Writer’s strike. Maybe it was my entry into the Kübler-Ross model of Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Sure, there were plenty of shows left in the can. I got to see Heroes so I was a happy camper. Then I moved quickly through Anger, Bargaining and Depression. I have come ’round to Acceptance. I have found myself wandering up the dial and spending an unhealthy amount of time with Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) and the guys from Mythbusters. Lucky for me the Speed Channel has been airing the Barrett-Jackson auto auctions. And what would we all do without Howie Mandel?

I initially thought maybe my guitar skills would improve with all this extra practice time on my hands. Ha….fat chance of that. Luckily, a fellow Acoustic Guitar Forum member created a new forum for those of us involved in leading music at church. Developing Worship has taken a bit of my time and it is a lot of fun. I think we are in the first 3 weeks or so of existence and it is growing quickly. Should turn out to be a great community of leaders and I think fills a much needed hole in the web.

So, back to the TV writers. I am not at all against them getting a cut of the DVD and online revenue. I think everyone needs to re-consider what it means to monetize services in today’s cyber-world. The real question for me is….after the strike, will we get better content? Please, oh please……. Oh great, I am back to the bargaining phase of the model. J