| Hughes & Kettner Ships Switchblade Combo Amps
Switchblade guitar amps were introduced at this year's Winter NAMM Show and combine real tube tone with the sound flexibility of fully programmable amps. The new combos complete the Switchblade line-up with a 1x12 50W and a 2x12 100W model. Like the Switchblade head, the combos provide 4 fully programmable tube channels, on-board digital multi- FX and include a MIDI-board for instant access to 128 user presets. The combos' four channels are optimized to cover a wide range of tones from California clean to British crunch and classic rock to contemporary American nu metal. The FX-section provides considerable effects power and features three independent blocks that all work simultaneously (delay, modulation and reverb). The amps' front panels offer classic tube amp look & feel - but are fully programmable for a total of 128 different tube tones at the touch of a button.
Eaton Rapids man's amps music to a guitarist's ears
Tucked just off the beaten path in Eaton Rapids, Max Butler quietly has been developing a cult following in local music circles. Every now and then, his name shows up in silver script writing on the stage, attached to a key component for any guitar player - the amplifier. The 72-year-old has been making custom amps from his sound-proof basement since 1978. .
'Hillbilly rock stars' party in Tampa
The band launched into a full-throttle version of "Rock and Roll," the propulsive second track on Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album. The instantly recognizable guitar riff echoed across Raymond James Stadium in Tampa and the crowd of about 45,000 erupted in approval with decibel-defying screams. However, it wasn't Robert Plant singing the sex-crazed lyrics and offering the overheated panting in between verses - like he did in front of a record-setting Tampa Stadium crowd in 1973. No, it was good ol' girl Gretchen Wilson singing "I don't know what I've been told / But big-legged woman ain't got no soul" to the delight of thousands last Saturday. Before channeling Plant, Wilson offered an equally faithful and effective cover of Heart's roaring, classic rock staple "Barracuda." Wilson ended her set with an amps-turned-to-11 run through of her trailer girl anthem "Redneck Woman," which in terms of sound and style, owed more to the Heart and Zeppelin covers than anything recorded by Loretta Lynn or Patsy Cline.
Disposable Nation
In my teenage years, I was pretty handy with cars. Being decidedly working-class, we Jowerses favored used cars, somewhere between two and 10 years old. I did my own tune-ups, replaced my own rusted-out exhaust systems, stripped wrecked cars for parts and put those parts on my own cars. On any given day, I could fix just about any given car problem and get to where I wanted to go. But I felt the winds of change one day when my daddy, Jabo Jowers, pulled into the driveway with a lightly used 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire. Jabo opened the hood like men did in those days when they wanted to show off a car. “Look here, boy," he said. “They tell me this thing's got a turbocharger." I looked into the cramped little engine compartment, which had tubes and wires crammed together so tight that there was no room for human hands or Craftsman wrenches.
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