Postby twango the clown » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:32 pm
For the last year or so, the only guitars I have taken out for electric shows with my band were my two Hallmarks: a sunburst '60 custom and a white 'Road to Ruin' with Bob Shade's tremolo installed on it. The 60 Custom is currently wearing Thomastik-Infeld heavy gauge flatwounds, and is giving me a whole education about the old guitar sounds. The Mark II clone is my main stage guitar with normal strings (D'Addario Pure Nickel 11's) and I can make it do anything I want except correct my mistakes! On YouTube some folks just put up a bunch of video recordings of a live show of the Classic Ruins with me playing it in front of Ralph's Diner in Worcester beside a 1960 Ford Falcon like my dad's.
Amps? That's an easy one.
In 1995, I was playing in the Varmints with a blackface Princeton Reverb, when the other guy, Billy Borgioli went out and bought a Marshall 50-watt plexi.
I needed to tool up. I bought a used Fender tweed Blues Deluxe, regarded at the time as sort of a 'disposable' amp, and it worked great. After a few initial breakdowns and repairs, it's done the job for fifteen years with no complaints from me. Not very glamorous, but lots of soul.
BTW, Fender now markets a reissue at three times what I paid for it.
When the Classic Ruins play acoustic (sometimes it happens!) I use my Republic steel-body duolian or a Regal (China) tricone. (I play lots of slide.)
For solo "acoustic" at a club, lately I've been using my 1968 Gretsch Clipper, a hollow-body electric, and why not?
Virtually all of the pro folkies I see are playing, like, a Martin cutaway dreadnought with a transducer pickup and onboard electronics. That's an electric guitar from where I sit. Spruce top and rosewood back and sides do not an acoustic make. If I'm going to stand up there with no band, plugged into the board, I want an electric with a pedigree.
Well, anyhow, enough from me. That's what I use. Can't say enough about those Hallmarks, though.
