What a weird day.
So I meet David Nordschow (aka David Eden) while playing for community theatre in Buffalo, MN. Great guy. As we?re striking the show he asks me if I?d like to come out to the factory in Montrose to play with a prototype amp. Sounds like fun! We set it up for Tuesday after work.
Tuesday morning my wife is at the Target Corp HQ. She?s consulting on recipes for the Super Target delis and the web site. She tells me that the Brian Setzer Orchestra is going to a 30 minute concert for Target employees. Target is the lone distributor for Setzer?s new Christmas CD ?Dig That Crazy Christmas?. He?s also starting a tour the next day at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. I go over to Target?s HQ and the band is great. Really tight.
I get the idea to take the bass player out to the Eden factory that evening. I talk to him after the show, find out his name (John Hatten), he thinks it?s a great idea. I call out to Eden to make sure it?s cool. John brings his upright, which has two pickups (bridge and under the fingerboard for slap) and a stereo output jack. He says he?ll need a stereo guitar cable split out to two mono signals to make this work. Normally I?d suggest that we run out to guitar center on our way to the factory, but time is tight, I have some work I actually have to accomplish before I can leave for the day, and I carpool. (Explaining to my boss why I was leaving early for the 3rd day in a row was also interesting. ?You?re going where with who? To demo what??) So while my wife is loading John?s upright into her car (we?ll swap vehicles later) I?m running to radio shack to try an build a cable (Headphone extension cable ? mail ?? stereo to 2 x female RCA mono adapter ? 2 x RCA to RCA ? RCA to ?? male, a total of about $30).
I pick up John, drop off my car pool partner, and we arrive @ Eden about 5:00. I introduce John to Mr. Nordschow. He introduces us to Lane Baldwin (laneonbass.com) and David Grout, who is a designer for Eden, and a rocket scientist. Really. He used to work for NASA.
We go into the back where we?re shown the prototype amp. I apologize for not remembering what the model is. I dubbed it the Lease Breaker 3000, because you?re landlord will kick you out if you buy this amp, but that?s probably fine because you may not have any money left for rent. This amp is a 2-channel beast, about 1300 watts, running into a 6 x 10 cabinet. We hook John?s bass up (2 channels here was really nice) and they played with the controls until he had his tone dialed in. Then they turned it up. Those 6 10s can really move some air!
After a bit I plugged my Alembic in and proceeded to embarrass myself. Lane tried out my Alembic (as did John), then got out his 6-string Spectre. What a loud bass!! (Lane said, ?This one goes to 12?). We could not make that amp clip, and we really tried.
John then picked up a small combo amp to take home with him. We went to load gear and discovered 2? of snow on the truck.
We drove back to Minneapolis where John bought me dinner and arranged tickets to the show for my wife & me. The show was incredible, and we got to go backstage after the show for a few beers and schmoozed with the band. Brian came out just as we were leaving. I left John with some little airplane bottles of the Bushmills Millennium malt to be shared with Brian.
My coworkers are pissed that I didn?t get them tickets to the show. Donuts will have to suffice.
