Today, you can purchase Fender tweed reproductions from hundreds of small shop manufacturers. Most of these shops produce accurate reproductions using kits purchased from Mojotone, Weber, or others. But a select few have risen to the top of the tweed reproduction business: Collins, Victoria, Clark. Each of these top-shelf manufacturers have unique facets that have put them above the rest, but they all have one unifying characteristic: quality builds.

In searching for my tweed dream, I spoke with the owners of each of the aforementioned shops: Mark at Victoria, Craig at Collins, and Mike at Clark. This, in and of itself, is quite telling. In total, these shops might produce 500 amplifies a year - and that’s not just tweeds. That’s their entire line of silver face, black face, Marshall repros, their own custom models, etc. These are busy men. Surely, they have crews working on their products, but it’s nothing like what you’d see in a Fender or Mesa Boogie factory. These are small shops, yet each man was easy to get a hold of. Each man returned my emails, took my calls, spent time and energy answering my questions and helping me learn more about my eventual purchase.

Craig Collins is here to build you the amp you want. He’s not interested in churning out clones, unless of course, that’s what you want. Rather, he wants to know what your tone dream is. If you want that low powered sag, with the ability to bring some high wattage headroom, Craig is up to the challenge.

Mark Baier at Victoria builds clones. If you want historically accurate components, built by artisans whose attention to detail rivals that of NASA space ship builders, talk to Mark Baier. Victoria has built their business on quality, accurate reproductions and the finest customer service in the business. While Victoria will honor custom requests, it’s not their bread and butter - read: you will pay for it.

Michael Clark of Clark Amplification began with a desire to build the ultimate clone. Like Victoria, Clark Amplification begins with only the best components: copper foil paper and oil capacitors, Sprague Atoms, Switchcraft jacks, Weber speakers, solid pine, finger-joined cabinets, NOS tubes and tube plugs. But after building a couple, he noticed what he perceived to be a significant flaw in the clone build: power. U.S. power supplies have greatly increased since the 1950s, and throwing a vintage power transformer on these amps was inefficient: the amp would be swamped with too much power, capacitors would run hot and full on the time. Basically, if the power wasn’t conditioned correctly to handle the new voltage, the vintage components would be working twice as hard and twice as hot.

So, he made his own power transformer. This worked so well, and was so widely accepted, that he started looking for additional “upgrades” to the clone model. He made his own reverb tank, made his own power attenuator, made his own overdrive. The resulting amps are brilliantly designed, but not quite authentic reproductions. Many owners actually prefer Michael Clark’s builds to the original tweeds. Personally, I’ve found that the essence of tweed is there 110%: that beautiful, sparkling, overdriven breakup made famous by countless musicians spanning from Muddy Waters to Pete Townsend to Noel Gallagher - that’s is there in spades. If given the choice to play my Clark Tyger or a vintage Bandmaster, I’d take my Tyger.

The add-ons that are offered by Clark Amplification: the Clark reverb tank and the Clark Regulator attenuator, are bonuses. The reverb is pro. It’s brighter than your standard silver face tone, so it compliments the tweed breakup perfectly. The attenuator doesn’t see any work in the studio or on the stage, but most definitely can be utilized in the home.

That’s why I bought the Clark Tyger. And I couldn’t be happier. I offer now to you, dear reader, an inside look at the Clark Tyger guitar amplifier, by Clark Amplification:

http://howgoodisthat.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/and-other-useful-os-x-hidden-features/

Find a race near you: http://www.DirtonDirt.com

If you’re up to reading this book get settled in and just accept that you’re about to begin a very fruitful journey. Thoroughly researched and annotated, Waldo’s SACAJAWEA is a historical epic worthy of being studied in high school history classes. But don’t let that color your expectations, because this novel is also a sweeping tableaux of emotions and humanity.


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Thank goodness for artists like Amanda Palmer. Thank goodness for those bold souls who are willing to go out there for us. For if we can’t live the life; if we’re not strong enough or brave enough to be in it, then let us at least peer through the window a bit. Which is exactly what Ms. Palmer so graciously does in these seven videos. Though I understand that the images and themes portrayed in these videos are fiction; they are fantasy, we’re not really looking through a window, I don’t know if my mind really accepts the difference. I want the pictures and sounds to be true, and so they are…if only for the span of seven short videos.

INTRO

ASTRONAUT

AMPERSAND

RUNS IN THE FAMILY

THE POINT OF IT ALL

STRENGTH THROUGH MUSIC

GUITAR HERO

CREDITS/ANOTHER YEAR

At first listen, they felt like a polished version of Lucero: a downright honest, knock-about rock band, hell bent on giving their audiences their best. After spending time with “The 59 Sound,” their latest LP, I’ve come to hear so much more.

Raw and delicious, serving-up re-purposed lyrics from benefactors such as Counting Crows and Springsteen, the music is sharp, fun, well produced and above all: authentic.

I must say, I was a bit suspect about Sarah Bareilles. True, I’m a sucker for a bad ass chick singer (I’ve seen Ani three or four times, I love the Be Good Tanyas, and I had a secret mad crush on Tiffany in 4th grade), but it’s hard to trust anything popular these days (see: Britney Spears).

Yet, two songs into Bareilles’s album, Small Voice, I was hooked. The second half of the album kind of flails, but the first half is grrrrrreat. I want to date her and take her to Paris where we would eat strawberries with ghosts and heroine addicts, then drive our scooter around at top speed at 3 a.m. (of course, my wife’d be on my scooter, Sarah’d have her own).

See for yourself. Bareilles’s Love Song:

Of course, we shouldn’t confuse Bareilles’s Love Song with the original, one and only, Love Song, by the seminal 80s band, Tesla.

The Creepy Crawl was an excellent choice of venue for Lucero - who are the most perfect knock-about rock band I’ve seen in years. It was dark, hot, loud, woozy, boozy and teetering on the edge of calamity all night.

The crowd was wonderful. The room was filled with true fans - evident by their chanting nearly every lyric. There were a couple of fun bastards jumping around, attempting to start a mosh.

One little guy, this little rat faced, college dude, kept pushing the bigger guys into the smaller guys and chickas. This pissed me off; voyeurs are drips. I spit my gum across the room and smacked the rat right in the face! Ha! Lucky shot.

This was acceptable behavior. I felt right at home.

About the music…well, go see them. In my opinion, this is the most honest band to come around since Metallica , circa 1982. What’s better is that their lyrics are Faulkner-esque. Just wonderful southern gothic stories about small towns like the one you grew up in.

If you like Lucero, you should try to get a hold of a Jackhead CD. They’re a local band, very much the same feel.