My baby's gone

When I first heard the overdrive on this amp, I thought, "It's like the finger of God." The thunder rolled, and rolled, and rolled. Nice and creamy overdrive. At the time it belonged to a friend of mine, Erick, who's now the guitar player for Hey Hollywood. I loved this amp... especially when he played it. It's a Crate Vintage Club 50 (VC-5310, for those keeping score).

Around 1999 or 2000 I started playing the electric guitar again (thanks Chris W.). Around that time I started to have a vision about putting together the rock band that became se7en. To make the endeavor work, I needed a real amp. With tubes. Around that time, Erick graduated high school and enrolled in a Master's Commission program, which is an intense 1-year discipleship thing. During that time, he was nice enough to let me borrow (and eventually buy) his amp. I used the amp to get some sounds that were close to the modern rock sound that I wanted (but it's more of a blues/classic rock amp). It wasn't until later that I understood what sort of tone I was going for. It was still fun to turn it up, though. And I made lot's of use of the effect loop insert to put my wah, chorus, and delay after the overdrive.

Se7en lasted about 2 or 3 years. We all learned a lot and enjoyed making music together. We even played at The Door once. We broke up as friends after coming to the conclusion that we wouldn't ever be able to achieve our goals.

It wasn't until 2006 that the amp saw real action again when I joined the band at New Hope. As it happens though, it's 50W glory fell pray to the stage loudness wars. ("Turn that thing down!") After a month or two, I borrowed Steve's Line 6 POD on a full time basis (going direct to the PA — without an amp). Then I bought my own POD. The amp spent a lot of time in the closet.

While posting it on craigslist, I started looking in to the specs. The amp was originally a 3x10, but had been modified to a 2x10 with Eminence speakers. (For you non-guitar players, that means that the amp had 3 speakers that measure 10" in diameter. Someone converted the amp to have 2 speakers that measure 12" in diameter. The larger speakers give you more bass and tone, and Eminence are top-of-the-line speakers.) They did such a good job in the conversion, I never really knew.

Well, I watched my baby leave tonight. My first real rock'n'roll tube amp. I sold it to the guy that owns the tattoo parlor in Wylie. A really nice guy who slings some tasty blues licks. It's sad to see her go, and it brings back lots of memories. At least she's going to a good home.

*sniff*