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the

Mountainview Publishing, LLC

TM

ReportThe Players Guide to Ultimate Tone

Guitare damour

INSIDEThinking

out of the box Our search foran affordable

&exceptionalGuitare damour

2007 MartinHD16R LSH

8Delta Moon Rising

How one topAtlanta band has

shaped their sound byavoiding the obvious

choices

11Our interviewwith Tom Gray,

Mark Johnson &Jeff Bakos

12Dont fear the drill!

On optimizinga keeper from

Nazareth

16Acoustic

PickupsA few among too manyin the quest to solve the

improbable

K&K Minibridgeplate transducers

Good if you canfind it The

Sunrise magneticsoundhole pickup

L.R. Baggs

Acoustic Para DIPreamp

19Acousticamplification?Why you probably dont

need an acoustic amp tojack up your favorite

acoustic guitar

$10.00 US, March 2012/VOL.13 NO.05

www.tonequest.com

I dont get the ToneQuest to read aboutacoostic guit-tars. Anonymous Voice Mail

Slow your roll now the title of this edition of the Quest is

no feeble appeal to the kind of effete snobbery that suggests

there must be genius at work behind the use of Francais onthe cover. We aint taking on no airs. However, you may be

interested to learn that a few hundred years ago an instrument

existed that was called the Arpeggione, or Guitar damour a

guitar-shaped 6-string violoncello with a fretted fingerboard,

played with a bow. We must assume that this fascinating instru-

ment was short-lived, as the complete repertory for the Guitar

damour consists of a lone sonata composed by Franz Peter

Schubert in 1824, and since there are no Guitar damours

in existence today (except yours), most often youll hear

Schuberts Sonata Arpeggione D.821 performed on recordings

with piano and cello. Among those, we love the vibran-

cy of Mischa Maiskys cello, but we must bow to

Mstislav Rostropovichs majestic tone coupled

with Benjamin Brittens winsome and flirta-

tious piano for the ultimate Sonata Arpegionne

(1968 Decca). We suggest you poke around a

little bit and find your favorite youll be glad

you did.

Schubert was a 19th century bluesman by the

way One of fourteen children and the son

of a Moravian sharecropper, he was argu-

ably the most melodic of the Romantic

composers, yet his work was ignored

for much of his short thirty two years

on earth to the extent that he once

resorted to self-publishing with the

financial assistance of one hundred

subscribers. If youre having trouble

with the ladies or have begun to

question your mojo in middle age,

just about anything composed by

Schubert will put things right, which is to

say that your odds of being loved will dra-

matically improve as you discover a calmer and


2/122

-continued-

TONEQUEST REPORT V.13 N.05 March 2012

more reassured inner you inspired by the soothing melodies of

Franz Peter Schubert. Indeed, a good friend who is schooled

in classical music refers to anything Schubert as panty

remover. But perhaps not in Brooklyn

Of course you know by

now that we have no inten-tion of featuring a roman-

tic composer as the focal

point of this issue, but we

have deliberately begun

our Quest with Frosty

Schubert and the long

forgotten Guitar damour

to illustrate three very dis-

tinct points for your con-

sideration as you turn the

pages within, those being:

dont assume that the most

inventive contemporary music being made today has already

fallen within your orbit you have to look for it; imagina-

tive tonefreaks have lived throughout history, and the choices

you may make today based on the most obvious, popular or

convenient solutions will often yield the most common and

ordinary results; and finally, the ability to create truly unique

sounds is often born from the desire to explore and con-

sider different sounds made by different instruments in the

hands of different players at different times in history. Yes,

we are suggesting that you maybe listen to a cello for clues

to what it can teach you about the tone of your guitar. Phil

Brown didnt just stumble onto the idea of a B-tuned guitar

on the frayed edges of dawn after a Sunset Strip coke binge

in 1984 he studied violin long before he ever picked up a

Stratocaster.

Our inspiration for what is about to unfold began with the

idea of finding, acquiring and optimizing an extraordinary

yet affordable acoustic guitar, amplified for your amusement.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, one worthy of the better

part of an issue having dutifully scoured the overgrown and

over-fertilized landscape of new and used acoustic guitars,

various pickup

schemes and

sources of

amplificationranging from

the obvious

preamp into a

house sound

system, to

amplifiers built

expressly for

the acoustic

guitar.

Our initial research proved

fruitful. In a few days we had

identified, found and acquired

a specific model within the vast

number that comprise the C.F.

Martin line a 2007 Martin

HD16R LSH which is Nazarethcode for a Sitka spruce and

Indian rosewood dreadnought

very much in the style of a D28,

but with a larger soundhole

measuring 4.5 inches (hence the

LSH designation). Much more

on that wonderful guitar will fol-

low. Once the guitar had arrived, we had a clear idea of how

it would be upgraded, but research into pickup systems and

potential sources of amplification left us feeling overwhelmed

and disheartened. The feeling intensified when we asked one

of our heroes who has made quite a splash with acoustic

sounding guitars, Adrian Legg, what he might recommend

to amplify and enhance the sound of our new Martin. His

reply was typically thoughtful, ending with the sentiment

that when it came to producing a realistic amplified acoustic

sound from an acoustic guitar. I am not of the faith. Well,

of course not. We had forgotten that he had forsaken playing

true acoustic boxes years ago!

More time passed as we

poured over a mind-numbing

number of solutions for a

problem that cant be solved:

How do you make an acous-

tic guitar sound like whats

actually coming out of the

hole on top with the volume

jacked up? The under-saddle

piezo is the most popular

compromise, the problem

being that the piezo picks up

the direct source of sound

from each string, but fails

miserably at picking up the

resonance and sympathetic overtones and harmonics produced

by the interaction of the strings with the soundboard (top), fret-

board and the body of the guitar (the acoustic part). Systemslike the Fishman Ellipse that add an internal microphone to the

under saddle pickup do a little better at adding a more ambient

sound to the mix, but does it sound the same as a great micro-

phone aimed at the guitar? No.

More time passed as we allowed the idea of acoustic amplifi-

cation to germinate in our mind like an endless loop playing

in the background as we devoted out attention to other things,

and then, one day, we were gifted with an epiphany, and his

cover story


3/12 3

-continued-


name is Tom Gray. Shit. We should have thought of this so

much sooner Well, sometimes we overlook what we already

know under the illusion that complicating matters with hard

work and self-doubt will always produce a better result.

We have

knownTom Gray

and Mark

Johnson,

founders of

the Atlanta

band Delta

Moon, for

ten years.

We have shot pictures at many of their shows, taken shots of

their gear on stage and at one of their many recording ses-

sions at Jeff Bakos studio, and interviewed Tom and Mark

for a planned article that always seemed to be postponed as

the composition of the band continued to evolve. In hindsight,

there are no mistakes, because as we fumbled with the idea of

producing an inspiring and inspired amplified acoustic sound

from a guitar, we realized that Tom and Mark had been there

and done that they just did it in a way that is seldom seen

and for some reason, rarely copied. And to the relief of those

among you whose interest in acoustic guitars and amplifica-

tion may be limited, youll be glad to know that the conver-

sations that follow are equally revealing when it comes to

electric instruments. There are tons of valid clues to be mined

from the experiences of the Delta Moon duo you need only

open your mind to possibilities that may not have occurred

to you, confident in the knowledge that all of this has been

tested and refined on stage and in studio by two very tal-

ented player-songwriters whose experiences, experiments

and passion are typical of a typical working band. Their

music, however, is refreshingly atypical of the usual blues/

roots/Americana genre you may be accustomed to. Their

most recent recording, Black Cat Oil, is no doubt a gui-

tar record, flush with fascinating tones and extraordinarily

potent vibrations. We invite you to log on to www.deltamoon.

com and Enjoy

Tom Gray is still remembered here in Atlanta and around

the southeast as a former member of the Brains in the 80s,

but he is also known by those in the know for having writtenMoney Changes Everything recorded by Cindy Lauper.

Delta Moon played that song last night and yes, Tom, you

deserved every penny of that mailbox money. In addition to

being a superb songwriter with a rough and tumble voice you

can believe in, he is also phenomenally talented on Hawaiian

guitars, Weissenborns and lapsteels, and his collection of

guitars, steels, dobros, amps and gizmos is vast and deep. In

other words, Tom is a guitar junkie.

TQR: You started out playing piano and picked up the

guitar later. How did that happen, Tom?

I started out playing

piano because there was

a piano in the house, but

I picked up a lot of themusic theory I learned

from guitar players and

playing in bands with

guitar players. I was

always very frustrated

too because guitar play-

ers could bend notes

and get those really cool

sounds that I couldnt

get with a keyboard.

I was working up in

Nashville and went into Gruhns, and at that time they had a

little room where you could try out amps and they had some

lapsteels in there as well. There was this one Supro lapsteel

that was really cool, and I woke up the next morning and just

had to go back and get it. I remember sitting around with that

Supro and a tweed Deluxe and it was like Christmas (laugh-

ing). Suddenly I was just having the best time.

TQR: And of course, you bought more

From there it became

absurd. There was a

little bit of a depres-

sion happening in themid 80s in Texas and

Oklahoma and my

wifes family couldnt

really understand

why we would take a

vacation there, but we

got in the car and did

a pawn shop tour of

Texas and Oklahoma buying lapsteels and Dobros. We filled

up a van and on the way home we stopped in Nashville and

sold maybe a third of it and I kept all the good stuff. I also left

some things on that tour that I wish I had bought, but when

I went back the next year it was all gone. There was an oldDobro player who told me that you dont call a plumber a

wrench collector just because he has a lot of wrenches. I was

buying a lot of guitars, but I remember talking to Jerry Doug-

las in Nashville and he told me he had a roomful of lapsteels,

and that sounded like a good idea to me.

TQR: So what are the pinnacles among vintage lapsteels?

The early pre-war bakelite Rickenbackers are really great,

cover story


4/12

-continued-


not so practical for use on stage

because of tuning issues under

hot lights, but they have just

the sweetest sound ever. The

aluminum frying pans were

really the first electric guitar

and I have three of those. Thepickups on them are way overkill

because the amps back then

were very under-powered, but

the frying pans have a wonder-

ful sound. The bakelites are still

around, but it is rare to see frying

pans anymore. The early Supro

lapsteels are cool, but the later

ones dont seem to have as much punch. I also have one Oahu

Tonemaster that I just love, but its the only one Ive ever

played that sounded good.

For acoustics,

the old Weis-

senborns have

a great sound,

and I like the

old Martin

Hawaiian

guitars. They

dont have as

much sustain as the Weissenborns, but I think they may have

a better tone, although a lot of them have been converted to

Spanish-style guitars over the years. My favorite Spanish-style

acoustic guitar is my Gibson Roy Smeck from the 30s. It was

the first Gibson with that body size. There were two models

mine is the Stage Deluxe model with mahogany back and

sides and a spruce top, and the RadioGram is the rosewood

model. I have recorded with the Smeck using a Sunrise pickup

and I have also just miked it acoustically. You can mike that

guitar with a live band and it stands right up.

TQR: I know you have played on the same club circuit as

Damon Fowler, and in addition to his old Gibson

lapsteel he plays an old Harmony Strat-o-tone that

is a formidable rumbler

Yeah, Ive got one of those thatI found in a little music store in

Westchester, North Carolina. He had

some lapsteels and an old brown

Princeton that didnt sound as good

as I had hoped. I bought an old

Fender Champ lapsteel, a bakelite

Rickenbacker and an old sheet metal

Rickenbacker, and as Im putting

them in the car the owner comes

out and says, I got this other guitar I want you to have!

No, I dont want anything else And he throws a Harmony

Strat-o-tone in the back window of the car. Its got a great

DeArmond pickup and I have the same pickup in a Harlin

Brothers steel guitar that sounds wonderful.

TQR: When I first saw Delta Moon youwere playing your Martins.

I have two of them one is an 0-18K

from 1927 or 28 that is all koa, and the

other guitar is an all-mahogany 0-17

from the mid 30s. I play both of those

with Sunrise soundhole pickups. When

we first got together Mark was play-

ing an 0-16NY and an 0-18 that wasnt

as old as mine and I liked to tease him

about that. He was never as comfortable

playing acoustics as I was and eventually

he began to sneak in a Stratocaster.

TQR: Perhaps your old Martins arent so unfamiliar to

you, but they will probably seem exceptionally rare

and unfamiliar to most players. Where did you find

them?

Well, they are factory Hawaiian set up with a high ebony

nut, the saddle is straight across rather than angled, and the

frets are just markers, really, flush with the fingerboard. Most

of the 0-18s were koa, and they built a fancier model with

binding, but they are all 0-size bodies. The first one I bought

in Nashville at Gruhns I bought another one as a player

that had been converted to a Spanish guitar and I converted it

back to a Hawaiian.

TQR: And you also ordered a couple of Weissenborn-

style guitars from David Dart. How did that come

about?

I have some old Weissenborns that are over 70 years old and

they are just so delicate.

The Martins are a little

tougher, but I wasnt that

easy on them either. Things

just happen to guitars onthe road, and I think I found

out about David Dart on

David Lindleys web site. I

ordered a mahogany and a

koa model, and I was really

surprised by how differ-

ent they sound. You would

think that with the Sunrise

pickup and the polepieces

cover story

4

Smeck


5/12

-continued-


being right beneath the strings that they wouldnt sound that

different, but the koa guitar is much brighter, while the ma-

hogany has a warmer, richer sound.

TQR: Do you play

one more than the

other, and howlong did it take

for them to begin

opening up?

Not really. I just keep one in D and one in G. I specifically

remember when they began opening up after a few months

and it was remarkable to hear.

TQR: And have you always used Sunrise pickups?

I experimented

with a lot of dif-

ferent pickups, but

when I hit the Sun-

rise that was it for

me. I tried differ-

ent bridge (piezo)

pickups and they

have a good attack,

but they dont have

the sustain of the

Sunrise. I never really felt like I needed anything else because

with the acoustic instruments Im really doing a hybrid thing

with Sunrise pickups going into an Avalon U5 preamp into a

guitar amplifier Fender amps like a Pro Reverb or Bassman

with a JBL-D130F 15. We played a club in Portland and the

backline guy had the coolest amp an old Silverface Fender

non-master Twin with two JBLs, but he said when he origi-

nally got the amp the speakers had red dust caps instead of the

usual aluminum, and that amp sounded incredibly good. If I

could have, Id have taken it home. I have also used a black-

face Vibroverb, but that amp became too valuable to take out

on the road, and I used a reissue Bassman that had been con-

verted to a 15" speaker when I bought it. Jeff Bakos installed a

Mercury Magnetics output transformer with multiple taps.

TQR: You have also used a cut-down blackface Pro

Reverb head with a single 15 cabinet

Yeah, I had two, but I lost one when our gear was stolen in

Florida. The first one I bought out of a guys car in the park-

ing lot of a music store, and it had been cut down to just a

head. Jeff went over that and once again installed a Mercury

with multiple taps, and I was using that with an old National

cabinet loaded with a JBL 15 until it was stolen. Then I began

using another cut down Pro Reverb head with the 1x15 pine

cabinet I bought from you.

TQR: What role does the Avalon preamp play in this set

up?

Well, I got that idea

from seeing Tony

Furtado using one.

I tried a lot of dif-ferent preamps, but

that Avalon really

seems to work well.

Im going from

the Sunrise pickup

into the Avalon because you have to go into some kind of

preamp to boost the signal before going into the amp. I use

the preamp to boost the signal and adjust EQ. Its easier to get

a sound when Im home using my own stuff, but on the road

you cant just use your normal settings and assume that will

work. You have to sweep the settings back and forth and get a

sound for every different room.

TQR: You have done something that is so unusual

playing acoustic Hawaiian style guitars through

standard Fender guitar amplifiers. Thats going to

come as a surprise to a lot of people

I know, and it

seems like Im

re-inventing

it every day

because I keep

failing. Some-

times I succeed,

and sometimes

I fail.

TQR: In the context of an otherwise electric band and

where you sit in the mix playing an acoustic instru-

ment, it seems as if you especially need to hear

yourself on stage, and that could be a challenge.

Thats why I like to have my amp right behind me and I use

tilt back legs on virtually every amp I own. Since Im playing

slide with a bar, I cant just do it visually I have to hear

what Im playing. When we first started playing as an acous-

tic band I was holding down the bass parts and Mark and Iwere playing complimentary parts, sometimes playing slide in

octaves. I would play very percussive parts on the low strings

with a thumb pick to hold down the bass, and when we added

bass and drums I had to completely change the way I play to

avoid muddying the bass and drums.

TQR: You also play a lot of festivals where there is typi-

cally no time to tweak or adjust anything before

going on stage. Its more than a little ironic that

cover story

5


6/126

your obsession with tone kinda flies out the window

for the gigs where you play in front of the biggest

crowds of the year

Yeah. We flew up to Michigan for a gig and the plane was

delayed two hours, so we barely had time to set up without

changing clothes, barely get tuned and go. It can be nervewracking sometimes. You might get your guitar out of the case

and the airline has banged the pickup out of the soundhole, and

instead of getting tuned up youre looking for a screwdriver.

TQR: Lets talk about tunings

I love to play in all

kinds of open tunings,

but in this band I just

kind of went with

what Mark was doing,

which is basically G

and D. We do a few

songs in DADGAD,

or sometimes well

play a song when he

is in G and Im in D,

or one of us will capo up and the other one wont. Mark writes

the sets and he does have to put some thought into what were

playing. And another thing is, since we are often playing in

open G and D, a lot of the songs wind up in the key of G and

D, so you need to pay attention to that (laughing). At home I

enjoy playing with a lot of the old steel guitar tunings like C6

or 8-string steel Jerry Byrd style or western swing stuff, but

that doesnt fit what we do in this band.

TQR: Describe some of the different paths you have taken

in the studio.

I have used the Roy Smeck guitar a lot in the past along

with the Rickenbacker bakelite lapsteels, and I pulled out a

chromatic dulcimer once for a track that needed something

different. Amps we have used a lot of different amps.

TQR: And a few years ago you discovered the VVT

Lindy Fralin 40 watt 1x15 combo amp we had here

for review.

Yeah, with a Weber

Classic Alnico 15"

speaker. That amp

works really well

and I have used it

a lot whenever we

could carry ourown gear. When we began to travel more often to Europe

the Weissenborns became too much to deal with flying, and

I started playing solidbody lapsteels because I could just put

them in a gig bag and carry them on the plane. We were play-

ing a festival in Denmark and the backline amp was a Fender

Custom Vibrolux Reverb 2x10 that just sounded great with

the lapsteels. The 15" speaker was right for the Weissenborns,

but it wasnt as good a match with the lapsteels, so when I got

home I bought a Custom Vibrolux Reverb. Playing gigs over

here, Id rather have something I can replace for under $1000,

and the Vibrolux sounds great.

TQR: What kinds of lapsteels are you playing now?

I have an Asher Electro Hawaiian Junior one of the early

models

made in

the USA.

I think

they may

be made

overseas now. Its a single humbucking pickup model, but I

really didnt like the sound of the original pickup, so I asked

Lindy Fralin to build a replacement that I like very much. Its

more of a P90-type that fits the original rout. Im also playing

the old Strat-o-tone I mentioned, a single pickup copper one

that weighs next to nothing. Its got the right vibe for what

were doing.

TQR: And youre using a bar with it, Hawaiian style.

What else?

Yeah, Im using a bar with the Strat-o-tone, and this year I

also discovered the Moog lapsteel. I saw a video on Youtube

by a Moog engineer named Cyril Lance who was describing

this guitar hed developed that looked very interesting. I actu-

ally knew Cyril Lance not as an engineer, but as a guitarist,

so I called him up and talked to him about it. He said it wasfunny that Id called because the Weissenborn-style body

shape for the Moog had been inspired by a Delta Moon show

he had seen where I was playing my David Dart guitars.

TQR: How does the Moog work?

It does a lot. In the two pickups you have 12 e-bows one on

each string for each pickup. The magnets cause the string to

vibrate like a bow, and between the two pickups it can vibrate

cover story

Asher


7/12

-continued-


7

in different ways bringing

out different harmonics. You

can keep the strings vibrating

endlessly, or you can kill the

sustain kind of like a banjo

by putting them out of phase.

The way Im playing it, Ivegot my basic guitar sound, and

I have the amount of sustain

assigned to a foot pedal so

you can bring the sustain in a

little or a lot. Its almost like

controlling feedback in a way,

because you can control it so the octave harmonic sustains

rather than the fundamental, and you can set it up so that only

the string you are playing sustains, or all 6 will sustain. I like

using that setting because Im also using hand muting tech-

niques that you would use on a normal lapsteel.

TQR: And youre using the Custom Vibrolux with the

Moog

Yeah, and the tilt back legs work like a 10 dB boost that only

I can hear.

TQR: You guys have access to a lot of guitars and amps

when you record so many that its almost cheatin.

Jeff Bakos has a lot of

heavily modified amps

in his studio and they all

have their own sound.

There is a little room

just off the control room

where Jeff keeps some

amps and Mark will often

use whatever he finds in

there. Ill tend to find a sound using two or three amps and

stick with it unless something isnt working. I have a range

of sounds I go for, but Im not as experimental as Mark is.

On the latest recording I used a little Supro Super and a

Gibson Skylark along with some other things that Jeff may

have pulled out. I used the Strat-o-tone a lot on this album,

and I think I played one

acoustic guitar track with anewer 0-16NY with a solid

headstock.

TQR: Marks Skylark is a

beast

Yeah, someone put a larger

output transformer in Marks

Skylark and it has a different

sound. One time

we A/Bd my Sky-

lark with Jeffs and

Marks and they all

sound good, but his

has a fatter sound.

Im a big believerin small amps in

the studio so everybody can get in the same room and play

together without the volume getting out of control.

TQR: And you like to record that way rather than laying

down bed tracks and doing a lot of single tracking.

We do some overdubbing, but so many times we have gone in

and I have just played what I thought was a too simple and too

stupid basic part just to stay out of the way and let the bass

and drums happen, and then we go back and we discover two

things: first, the simple and stupid approach was the right one

and I cant improve on it, and second, there is just a vibe that

happens when youre all playing together.

TQR: Trying too hard to make things perfect in the studio

rarely seems to work.

Yeah, you make things perfect until you just kill em. Its like

a butterfly pinned on the table. The next thing you know the

suns coming up and dogs are barkin and youre thinking,

What have I done? (laughing)

TQR: How would you describe the overall sound and feel

of your new album,Black Cat Oil?

Well, I think its the best weve ever done. I guess I would

describe it as having a more organic sound Our bass player

Frahner Joseph is playing upright on all but one track, and

that kind of sound typifies what were doing. I dont knowthat there is a name to describe it, but examples I can think of

are an album by the Blind Boys of Alabama titledSound of

the Century, and John Hammonds record produced by Tom

Waits calledWicked Grin T-Bone Burnett also goes for that

kind of sound

TQR: Mark mentioned that Jeff was using all his old

mikes and Ampex tube mic preamps during the

sessions.

cover story


8/12

-continued-


8

(Laughing) Yeah, we were talking to Jeff about what we wanted

to do and he said, OK, Im going to make a cut off at 1963 as

far as any of the gear we use. Jeff is a real student of old-school

recording using two mics on the drum kit and one on the kick.

He knows all about how all those old records were recorded.

TQR: So youre about to head overseas again and Europehas become pretty big for the band. What kinds of

challenges do you deal with overseas?

We fly over with our own

guitars and the drummer

will take his cymbals and

maybe a pedal, but we

never can be sure what

were going to get. In

Germany well have a

backline company and

use the same gear for that

tour, but every now and

then youll get something

that you didnt expect and

you just learn to deal with

it. Denmark was the same way. Were going to Italy in a couple

of weeks to do a club tour which weve never done before, and

our booking agent has told us that every club has their own gear,

so that should be interesting. a

TQR: What do you and Mark ask for?

We ask for Fender amps

because they are the most

universal. For me, if I can get

a Custom Vibrolux Reverb

like Im using here thats

great. My second choice

would be a blackface Deluxe,

and I think I have a Blues

Deluxe as a third choice. Any

of those will work because

were not really a loud band.

TQR: Do you still play

piano on stage?

Not lately, but if you can play piano its a great way to meet

people and make friends in the clubs and bars in Europe.

There is usually a piano around somewhere and the next

thing you know its late, the doors are locked, youre drinking

for free and having a great time. Weve got two trips already

scheduled this year that will take us to Germany, Italy, Austria,

Switzerland and the Netherlands, and well be going back for

a festival in France in July. We also have a tour this summer in

Canada, and of course well be playing here in the Southeast.

Mark Johnson grew up in Ohio, home to legendary guitarists

Joe Walsh and Glenn Schwartz. The Delta Moon bio makes

a point of pointing out that Mark also happened to grow up

in a trailer park, which isnt all that unusual in the Midwest.

Without trailer homes, where would the tornadoes go? Mark

is also a good friend and a member of our advisory board

who has always generously shared his ever-changing gear

stash with us for your amusement, and his deft, finger-picking

bottleneck slide style is deadly.

TQR: Lets talk about how you and Tom first got togeth-

er

We met in the parking lot

at Midtown Music. I think

Tom was going to sell a

Dobro to Dave Tiller and

as he was leaving I came

in and Dave said that Tom

was a guy I ought to get

to know since he was into

the same music I was. At

that time I was just getting

into lapsteel and I began

taking lessons from Tom. He lived in the same neighbor-

hood and before long we were getting together in the living

room just playing Blind Willie Johnson and Fred McDowell

songs, and we realized that we shared a common interestin all this old slide blues music from the 20s and 30s. I

hooked up with Jenna, our former vocalist, and the three of us

began playing as a trio in coffee shops. At that time it was all

acoustic I was playing an old Martin 0-16NY and Tom was

playing a couple of 20s Martin Hawaiian guitars.

TQR: Were you just miking the guitars through a house

PA?

No, we had both gotten turned

on to the Sunrise soundhole

pickups through David Lindley.

Tom was running through aninexpensive tube mic preamp

before he began using the Ava-

lon preamp, and from the pre-

amp he was going into a Peavey

Delta Blues 1x15 combo while

I was using a Pendulum preamp

into a blackface Princeton Re-

verb. The Pendulum was a real

high-end preamp and I really

interview

TQ

Slide On ThisSlide On This


9/12

-continued-


9

didnt use a lot of the features in it, just for the parametric EQ

and the notch to get rid of feedback.

TQR: How did things evolve from there?

We started playing Blind

Willies on Sundays and weeventually snuck in a little

jazz drum kit. I was also

playing my 1956 Martin

0-18, but I eventually

stopped taking that guitar

out for fear that it would get

damaged or stolen. It hap-

pens. As the volume of the

band slowly started to come up a little I saw a video of Light-

nin Hopkins playing his acoustic style on a Stratocaster and I

also read an article with David Hildago talking about playing

electric instruments in an acoustic style at low volume. Thats

when I decided to simplify my life and bring in electric

guitars. I used a variety of guitars and eventually discovered

a late 90s Jerry Jones 3-pickup guitar I call Old Red that just

sounds amazing. I went through a lot of amps and settled on

the Balls M18 2x12 combo that has great tremolo and breaks

up at a fairly low volume.

TQR: You dont seem to play Strats so much anymore.

Yeah, I started playing

Telecasters more. The

high E string on a Tele

doesnt seem to sustain

as much so you have to

work it a little bit, but

to me it seems to cut

through with a bolder

sound than a Stratocaster.

Its easier to find your

place in the band, and I usually stay on the bridge pickup. I

dont seem to like the sound of single coil pickups combined

all that much, and I dont use them in combination on the

Jerry Jones. I play a 63 Custom Shop Lake Placid Blue Tele

that has had a lot of things done to it, but if I had left it alone

it would have been just fine (laughing). I have Don Mare

pickups in it and I have replaced the bridge plate with a Glen-dale, but I think the Callaham bridge may have a fatter sound.

That guitar was built in the first year of the Custom Shop and

its just been great from day one. I also have a Custom Shop

Thinline Nocaster, and a Rick Kelly Carmine Street Tele made

from 100 year-old pine thats very cool, but I havent spent a

lot of time playing it yet.

TQR: You also pulled out a Jerry Jones mini 12 string last

night.

Yeah, Im all Jerry Jonesd

out. I have three of his gui-

tars and the mando guitar.

I have had several mando

guitars and very few people

are making them anymore.

Ive played a Vox mando, areissue Vox, and I think the

Jerry Jones is the best Ive

ever heard. I see them called

both mini 12s and mando

guitars, but its essentially a mini 12-string. I keep it tuned

to D, and I read an article on how Ry Cooder plays one but

only has the high E and the B strings doubled, so I ended up

doing the exact same thing. You still hear the chime on the top

and your ear still hears the sound of a mandolin, but the bass

strings are much easier to play without the octave strings.

TQR: How has your choice of instruments and amps

evolved in the studio?

I dont think I have ever

used a Stratocaster in the

studio or a Tele either. I

usually pull out different

guitars like a Historic

SG with two P90s that

have been changed to

Lollars, and a Historic

Les Paul Junior that is

stock. A lot of times Ill

use Gibson amps Ive

got two GA-20s, a GA9

1x10, and a Skylark with a beefed up output transformer.

I have also used a 60s Ampeg Gemeni I with the original

Jensen Concert 12 speaker. We didnt do it so much on this

latest recording, but we usually split our signal in the studio to

an amp and direct into the board and then take that direct re-

cording and run it through a re-amp box. It converts the direct

signal to the same impedance of a normal guitar signal and

from the box we will send the direct track to another amp and

combine it with the track we recorded through the original

amp. That really works well and allows you to concentrate on

the groove of the recording rather than spending a lot of time

cutting overdubs with different guitar sounds.

TQR: Yeah, re-amping. Kenny Greenberg talked a lot

about that when we interviewed him. What other

guitars have you used?

I have a Supro N-800, an early 60s two pickup Crucianelli

Elite, and various other weird guitars. Black Cat Oil is almost

all the red Jerry Jones. For amps I just peeked into the bath-

room next to the control room at Jeffs studio to see what he

interview


10/12

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10

had set up. He had his Gibson GA-40 amp in there and within

about a day we added a stock 63 Fender reissue reverb tank

and that was the sound with the Jerry Jones no pedals, but

we used the tremolo on the GA-40 a lot. The 5879 preamp

tube in the GA-40 also started to get microphonic and produce

some crazy overtones after wed had the amp on all day, which

added some cool sounds until we had to shut it down.

TQR: And more recently on stage youve been using the

Swart Atomic Space Tone.

A lot. Were getting

our stage volume

down because in

most of the places

we play were

miking the amps

and the Swart has

just a great, round

tone, great reverb

and tremolo. I will

still use the Balls

at Blind Willies, which is more of a raucous blues bar, but for

the most part its the Swart. Im also thinking about perhaps

getting a Swart AST Pro.

TQR: Do you have any difficulty making the adjustment

from the quieter listening room gigs to the louder

house rockin vibe at places like Blind Willies?

Not really.

I think the

more sub-

dued gigs

are actu-

ally more

difficult. At

Blind Willies we hit the dance factor right away and once you

have a few of the ladies up boogeying you know its just going

to be a party the rest of the night. Weve been doing a lot of

semi-acoustic, low volume shows like at Eddies Attic recently

that have been really successful, and the beauty of it is that

there are a lot of songs we have written that you just cant get

away with in a blues bar. We have one foot in Americana and

another in the blues, and in this country things seem to bedivided that way. In Europe, its just all American music.

TQR: Lets talk about effects, past and present.

I have always used a Klon just to fatten things up, and I have

used several tremolo pedals the Demeter Tremulator is

really good and Ive used it for years. Another good one is

the BFD that stands for blackface deluxe that was made

by BadCat. I dont think it is made anymore but its really

one of the swampiest

tremolo pedals I have

used and it doesnt

add any gain, so youll

either like that or you

wont. I also have one

of the first SwampThang tremolo ped-

als and thats really

good. More and more

lately Im experiment-

ing with fuzz and distortion because were playing at lower

volume levels. The Klon will overdrive the amp but it also

increases the volume, so Ive been using fuzz and overdriive

pedals set fairly clean. Last night I used the Jam Big Muck

overdrive and I was really digging that sound. Its a knockoff

of the original Big Muff.

TQR: So basically youve gone to fuzz and distortion

effects set so that when you need a little more dirt

and sustain, the volume of the guitar isnt jumping

up in the mix on stage.

Exactly.

TQR: And you use a tremolo pedal even with an amp that

has tremolo like the Swart so that you can have one

speed set on the amp and another on the pedal

otherwise youd have to change settings on stage or

rearrange your set list to do it on a break.

Yeah, thats it. The one problem with the Swart is that the

controls are in the back, and you dont want to be reaching

back there trying to change things during a song.

TQR: You were using an RMC Teese wah last night, too.

Yeah, I have a Teese

Wizard wah and the

RMC1 is my favorite.

It sounds rounder, but

Im always looking

for another wah.

I dont know how

familiar your readersmay be with Earl

Hooker, but there is a direct line from Tampa Red to Hooker,

to Mick Taylor. Thats where Mick Taylor got his vibrato, and

if youve ever heard Earl Hooker play slide with a wah its

just amazing. A lot of the sacred steel guys use wah pedals

mostly the Morley wah. People love the sound of a wah with

slide guitar, and Im, not just rocking it to the tempo of the

song. I kind of move it around the sweet spot in the notch to

create a vocal character to solos. Its a subtle thing.

interview


11/12

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11

TQR: Youre headed for Europe again soon. What will

you take?

Definitely the Jerry

Jones and probably

the 63 Tele. I think

Im getting a reissue

Bassman in Germany,

but Ill be asking

for something like

a Deluxe Reverb in

other places. Our

booking agent has a

tweed Bassman and

a Peavey Classic 30 so Tom and I will try to beat each other

to the best amp (laughing). Germany is our biggest market in

Europe, so whenever we get over there we try to branch out

into other countries. We have been selling CDs in Europe for

years through online music sites in Germany. The first time

we went there we were standing around outside a club trying to

decide where we were going to eat and a couple recognized us

and asked us to sign copies of our CDs. That was completely

unexpected. Traveling over there is something we always

look forward to, and we are really treated well, not as tourists,

because were there to work, but we do get to spend time with

people in their homes and enjoy the friendships weve made. In

some respects American music is in our DNA and perhaps its

taken for granted more here, but in Europe they are really very

passionate and knowledgeable about the kind of music we play.

TQR: And thats what you play for to make that magical

connection with your audience.

Yes, it is. What could possibly be better than traveling the

world playing the guitar?

Most of you are already familiar with Jeff Bakos and a lot of

you have sent amps to him for obedience training and charm

school. Yes, a bad sounding amp isnt so much different thana misbehaving dog both are hard to ignore until you either

get em fixed or pass them on. Jeff also operates a busy

recording studio that contains his extensive collection of clas-

sic amps, microphones and tube mic preamps from the 50s,

and hes a very experienced and accomplished bass player. A

lot of Sean Costellos recorded work (and the best of it) was

recorded here, and if you play the blues and dont own any

Sean Costello CDs, well, what are you doing? Delta Moon

has also recorded five albums with Jeff, and the verdict seems

to be universal Black Cat Oil is their best. We called Jeff

at 6:30 on a Friday and he was still in the shop working with

a headset on, so we asked him about the Delta sessions

TQR: I spoke with Mark and Tom and it sounds as if you

kept things very simple for theBlack Cat Oilses-sions

Yeah, Mark wound

up playing through

my old GA-40 for

most of the record.

You know that one

its a late 50s/early

60s tweed model.

I originally had the

chassis and Greg

Hopkins at Vintage

Amp Restorationbuilt a 1x12 cabinet for it. I had to replace the output trans-

former, so I used a Mercury Magnetics clone of an original,

and I used an original Jensen Vibranto, which is one of the

holy grail of guitar speakers. That amp is magic, and once

Mark started playing through it he couldnt stop.

TQR: He mentioned that as the amp stayed on all day the

5879 preamp tube began producing some very cool

harmonic overtones.

Oh, yeah (laughing). Those sessions wound up being all

Gibson amps. Mark also used the Big Daddy the Gibson

Medalist. Its a big, tall 2x12 with dual 7591s, the power ampis in the bottom and the controls are on top. Then we used the

GA-5 Skylark mostly for Tom, and he also used his 50s bay

window - the Gibson GA-79 Stereo amp. Im a big fan of

recording with Gibson amps. This is what the fifth record

weve made together, so we talked about how we were going

to do this. I mean, John Mellencamp recorded an entire album

using one mike in the room, right? Once source, Daniel La-

nois kind of recording So we decided to use all the old tube

mic preamps I have in that rack here 600s, 601s, 350s and

351s. I used the 351 on Marks tracks.

TQR: They men-

tioned that you used

three mikes on the

drum kit

Yeah, an overhead,

the kick drum and

a room. And we

decided to stay

with the upright

review

Bakos Ampworks & StudioREVIEW

Bakos Ampworks & Studio

TQ


12/12

-continued-


12

bass except for one

song. This is record

number three

with Tom playing

lapsteels instead of

the acoustic guitars,

and Tom is a greatsinger with so

much personality.

You just believe it,

and he can really

front a band. In the past with Jenna it got to be more about her,

and where they are now is just perfect. They can hold their

own with bands like the Black Keys and all the other bands

that work in that style. Hey, man, acoustic guitar amp? Run it

through a Twin Reverb. Mark and Tom are playing slide so you

need sustain, and with Toms sound we always played with it

to get some tone, feel and character into the sound of the guitar

instead of just this dry acoustic-electric sound. We would crank

up a tweed Deluxe sometimes, the Bassman or the blackface

Pro with the preamp and a 15" speaker and that was the sound.

Toms got it nailed. We always ran through an amp. He had

his Pro modified with a multi-tapped output transformer and

I got the big Mercury Magnetics Bassman version for more

headroom. But dont get me wrong the original Pro Reverb

style output transformer is a great sound, too. Some people dog

it, but you know as well as I do that the blackface Pro Reverb

is a very underrated amp.

Even during the late 60s and

early 70s when teen rock

bands were definitely not

playing the kind of music

usually associated with

Martin guitars, the Martin

print catalog was a thing of

mystery and intrigue that we

treated with deep reverence

and respect. A bandmate in 8thgrade actually owned a 60s

D18, but the closest any of us

ever got to the more expen-

sive dreadnoughts were the

pictures in the catalog, or from the wrong side of a velvet rope

that separated them from the unwashed and unworthy at Arthurs

Music on the southside, where the country pickers lived, worked

and played. To a couple of high school kids in a garage band in

Indiana, Nazareth, PA might as well have been Prague or Vienna.

Eventually we made our way to Atlanta, which encouraged

occasional road trips to Nashville to troll the music stores and

pawn shops around Broadway, where we acquired a late 60s

D28 at Huegleys Music Store in 1975. For the amusing full

story, see the TQR May 2001 cover story titled Frownin

Elvis Jimmy. In the world of 70s rock, Jimmy Page did a

lot to boost the popularity of Martin dreadnoughts, along withKeith Richards, Stephen Stills and of course, Neil Young. We

bought our D28 for $400, traded it down the line for some-

thing now forgotten, and bought a used 60s Martin 0-16NY

in the early 80s as a workout tool to fine tune our fingerpick-

ing skills. On the way home from Nashville one summer we

also scored a 1952 Gibson J45 at Chambers Music on the

southside of Chattanooga that we still own today. The point

is, while we have not routinely featured acoustic guitars in

TQR to the extent that we have covered electrics and all the

gear that they require, our appreciation for the sound of a

great acoustic guitar has never waned.

We also interviewed Dick

Boak, an employee at Martin

since 1976 who began his

career as a design draftsman.

Well, actually, Dick launched

his career opportunities at

Martin by dumpster-diving be-

hind the factory and building

dulcimers and other oddities

from a lot of high-dollar scrap

that was thrown out each

day. Eventually one of the

foremen began saving special

pieces for Dick, and when he

asked to see a few samples

of his work the foreman was

impressed enough to suggest

that he apply for a job. True

story. Over the years Dick has

also worked as a builder of

prototypes, manager of Martins in-house advertising depart-

ment and print shop, museum exhibits, and as the company

archivist before becoming manager of Artist Relations and

Publicity. Dick is also a charter member of our advisory

board, and he co-authored two essential references with

Richard Johnston in 2008 titled Martin Guitars: A History,and Martin Guitars: A Technical Reference. Both are highly

recommended.

TQR: Without referring to the two books you co-authored

on the technical specs and history of Martin gui-

tars, comprehending the nomenclature that has

developed over two centuries can be daunting.

Basically there are two things to consider, the first being the

guitars

TQ

The Long Road to NazarethREVIEW

The Long Road to Nazareth

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