Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: cozmik_cowboy on May 12, 2017, 05:23:28 AM
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In Grateful Dead Gear (a must-read for anyone interested in the Dead and/or the development of modern musical equipment) Blair Jackson tells of Pigpen playing a Vox Continental or a Hammond B-3, and there is much photographic evidence for both. But hold the presses! I just found a pic of him on a Kustom organ!
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIKNFsEAh6azqNE&cid=2A0A7644FA51B725&id=2A0A7644FA51B725%21203&parId=2A0A7644FA51B725%21126&o=OneUp (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIKNFsEAh6azqNE&cid=2A0A7644FA51B725&id=2A0A7644FA51B725%21203&parId=2A0A7644FA51B725%21126&o=OneUp)
I've seen one of these once before this picture; don't remember the band's name, but they were active in NW Illinois in the mid-'70s.
Peter
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Are you sure that's Pig's rig? Drinking a Coors?!!!!
hehehehe
Bill, tgo
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For some reason if you lived outside Colorado in the 60s-70s Coors was considered to be a "holy grail" beer. When I finally got to taste some in 1974 it was obvious that it was garbage and I could never understand the allure.
Lots of Kustom gear visible in the shot below from Menlo Park in 1967. The Kustom organ is sure a formidable looking piece of gear. I don't remember ever seeing anyone play one.
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Oh wow... I had a pair of Kustom speaker cabinets with that rib-padded foam covering, and the Kustom head we used for PA back then. That wretched thing had a spring reverb in it that rattled this awful 'sproing-ey' sound constantly with every bumpy mile in the old van we traveled to gigs in. Sounded like the most obnoxiously loud bed-spings you ever heard. :P
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The organ I saw in person was white sparkle; tres groovy! No B-3, but no Farfisa Combo either.
In SE OH in the early-mid '70s, every guitarist ached to dump their Silvertone amps & get a Kustom, or, failing that, a Fender. Rhythm player in my HS bands had a gold-sparkle Kustom 100 - well, a series of them - they were good enough to have an unlimited lifetime warranty to the original owner, but he still blew up at least 2. He always put a purple jewel light on them.
Peter (Who has a Silvertone Twin Twelve 1484 sitting on top of his filing cabinets as he types - and would trade it for a Kustom or Fender in a heartbeat!)
ps - I will concur on discovering the truth behind the Coors myth..........
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When I was in high school, there was a small music store a few towns away that carried a knock-off of Kustom called Plush (https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1112&bih=697&q=plush+amps+speakers&btnG=Search+by+image&oq=&gs_l=); and somehow the guy that ran the store let us use a couple of those heads and cabs. They looked really cool on stage, and were better than anything we owned personally.
I also somehow knew somebody who loaned me two Silvertone heads and cabs, both of which I blew up.
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Those Plushes look like a fairly straight-forward rip-off - but they're tube! Kustoms were SS. I'd like to hear a Plush sometime.
Peter
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Coors was, indeed, "legendary" in NY in the early 70's. Twelve days after seeing The Band open for the Dead at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on Jerry's 31st birthday, (8/1/73), I moved to California. I flew back to NY that xmas and brought a six pack of Coors talls with me to share with my NY friends. The next morning my mom told me that she had used 2 or 3 cans to wash her hair and she would give money to buy some more. I was PISSED! Of course I was 18, young and dumb, and had no idea what good beer was.
And I always thought the Kustom Tuck 'n Roll cabs were tres cool, certainly much groovier than my Heathkit!
Bill, tgo (the grandfatherly one?)
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Mid 80s, Kustom roll'n'tuck PA - uh, a powered mixer and column speakers - grounding issues and vocal mics - bad memories, but good times. 8)
Don't mention the beer, though.
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I went to Sam Ash in 1968 to buy a Marshall guitar amp and the salesperson kept trying to talk me into buying a Kustom amp instead. Happy that I stuck with my original purchase plan since I didn't like the sound of any of the Kustom amps I later got to play through. Not a fan of solid state guitar amps. Sure wish I had held on to the Marshall, though, guessing the 60s models are worth a lot of money now.
In October of the same year I was hanging at a friend's house who had spent summer of 68 at Kesey's place in Oregon. Her father was a college professor and friend of Kesey's. While we were musing the origins of the cosmos someone knocked on the door and since I was closest I answered the knock. George Walker (Merry Prankster) was standing there. He had come to Long Island to try and get Katie to go to Tahiti with him and Ken on Kesey's sailboat. Katie laughed and told him she needed to finish her last year of high school. George had driven cross-country in his Lotus Elan convertible which was painted in psychedelic colors. The seats looked like sparkly versions of the Kustom tuck and roll cabinets... car was way cool and the seats way more impressive than any Kustom amp. Good use of tuck and roll...
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Tony K. had a red Kustom cabinet and head and a REAL Fender stratocaster. He was sought after in high school and ended up in Assassin with me in the late 70's. We were'nt really good, but Tony and his amp were the schnizzel. ;D
Best part of that band was the leader, Eric, a giant round guy with an infectious laugh - he was into everything from the Dixie Dregs to The Ramone's, dude played every note like he felt it. Leukemia took him just after high school - I still wonder what my musical trajectory would have been if he didn't pass. . . .
The band name changed to Special E (speaking of bad beer) and we played at his funeral, most awkward gig ever, but his parents "got it" they understood how important music was to Eric.
Paul (who appreciates the therapy session and realizes that after 35 years I still love that guy :'( )
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:)
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Bill, tgo (the grandfatherly one?)
Any news you want to share?
Peter (Awaiting grandson #4 in August)
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Funny how an odd piece of gear brings out so many memorable stories. :)
Those Kustom speaker towers (and 4-channel powered head) I want to say were a grayish sparkle. And I was mistaken about the *sproing* reverb... that was in an old Shure Vocalmaster head. Which also had some tubes in it. ;)
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Shure being in next-door Evanston, almost every club in Chicago has (or had in my day) a Vocalmaster installed; my impression? Shure had a great sales staff.......
Peter
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No, Peter, no new rugrats on the immediate horizon. After writing about concerts, beer, and Kustom cabs from 40-45 years ago, I just felt a little creaky, that's all. Congrats on yours! I figure (hope) we're still a few years away!
Bill, tgo
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I used to have a black Kustom 200 with a huge matching cab when I was a teenager (2X15s with horns?). I was playing it with my guitar once while my mom was baking a cake. She left the house and I cranked the amp way up. The cake was starting to rise and the loud volume killed it; it just flopped over and died!
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All I remember about the bands in which I've played in that used Kustom cabs was that there was often more duct tape on the cab than original ribbed padding. These guys always seemed to forget to bring cabinet covers and the padded covering stuff just got torn up something awful. In one band in which I played, an 8-piece ensemble with horns, the horn players jointly owned the P.A. Unlike other bands in which the duct tape put on the padded cover tears seemed to stay forever, in this case it always looked like there was someone peeling or attempting to peel it off. A ways down the road I found out why...it served as the stash for the horn section.
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I played through a 3X15 Kustom with an old Silvertone head in my very early years of playing. They had replaced a 1X15 Univox combo and I thought I had hit the holly grail of being able to be heard (tone didn't matter in those days). I also owned a PA consisting of Vox Grenadier columns and Vox PA head. When I compare all of that to what I own today and the phenomenal improvement in tone of the newer stuff all I can do is say thank goodness.
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In the early '80s I used to see the late, great Aron Burton frequently, and did his sound occasionally; he had a Kustom 200 that had been in a club fire. All the tuck-and-roll was burned off, and the wood was charred, but it worked like a dream.
Peter
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For some reason if you lived outside Colorado in the 60s-70s Coors was considered to be a "holy grail" beer. When I finally got to taste some in 1974 it was obvious that it was garbage and I could never understand the allure.
Lots of Kustom gear visible in the shot below from Menlo Park in 1967. The Kustom organ is sure a formidable looking piece of gear. I don't remember ever seeing anyone play one.
My understanding was that this picture was from Denver, leading me to believe that this might have been rented gear.
http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1967-09-24-city-park-denver-co-usa/
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Hmmm: In one shot Jer's playing his '56 Les Paul Custom, but in the other it looks like a LP Jr. Only shot I've seen of that, too.
Peter
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My understanding was that this picture was from Denver, leading me to believe that this might have been rented gear.
http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1967-09-24-city-park-denver-co-usa/ (http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1967-09-24-city-park-denver-co-usa/)
Think you are right about the date and location, thanks for the correction. I had the image stashed and it was likely mislabeled when I got it. For some reason I always thought it was from the 7/2/67 El Camino Park gig. Despite having seen other shots of some Kustom gear on stage with the Dead in the early years the fact that pretty much all the equipment in the picture is Kustom does seem to indicate they were on the road and everything was rented.
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My understanding was that this picture was from Denver, leading me to believe that this might have been rented gear.
http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1967-09-24-city-park-denver-co-usa/ (http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1967-09-24-city-park-denver-co-usa/)
Think you are right about the date and location, thanks for the correction. I had the image stashed and it was likely mislabeled when I got it. For some reason I always thought it was from the 7/2/67 El Camino Park gig. Despite having seen other shots of some Kustom gear on stage with the Dead in the early years the fact that pretty much all the equipment in the picture is Kustom does seem to indicate they were on the road and everything was rented.
Maybe this was also the trip where Jerry picked up his pedal steel in Boulder.
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I note also that Bobby's playing a red 345 instead of his fabled sunburst '58 one.
Peter
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The best part is that Pig's got his iPhone sitting on top of that organ, and his earbuds are wrapped around his mic stand!
:o :o :o
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Geez, I thought I was impressed when I learned that Trump invented the phrase "prime the pump" last week, but Pig invented the iPhone in the 1960's! WOW!!!!
hehehehe
Bill, tgo