San Diego music

TJ / THE PALACE BALLROOM

The Palace Ballroom: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bandcamp

1. Tell me about your rig?  Well, I’ve switched setups and rigs for most every band I’ve been in. So it’s safe to say I have quite a few guitars/amps/cabs/pedals and such. I like to experiment with different sounds to find the one that best suits the vibe of the songs I’m playing in any particular project. I’ve never really relied on pedals or effects to get my tone. I’m more of a traditionalist where I believe your tone should come from your playing, a quality amp and a clean signal chain.

For TPB,  I mainly play my ’98 G&L ASAT Special Telecaster. Guitar-wise, I’m a Fender guy through and through. I traded in a Les Paul I had for the ASAT at Buffalo Brothers sometime around 2001. I totally scored on that deal. I have had a few Fender Teles but when I picked the G&L up, it was automatically my new girlfriend. Chambered Swamp-Ash body, hand-wound single coil jumbo magnetic field pickups, saddle-lock bridge. It had a tone I’d never heard before. The chambered body gives it a ton of resonance so it sounds huge with open chords. I mean, it’s a Leo Fender-designed guitar. It’s everything he ever wanted the Telecaster to be. It’s one of the best sounding guitars I own, hands down. I think I would marry it if I could.

For amplification, I settled on a 1995 Fender Prosonic head with an open-back 2×12 Fender cab loaded with Celestion Rocket 50’s. My good friend O turned me on to the wonders of the Prosonic amp some time ago. It’s an incredibly versatile amp with loads of sparkle, plenty of low-end growl and that Fender clean punch you expect out of all the classic Fender models. The difference with the Prosonic is that it can be played Class A tube, solid state or a hybrid of the two in varying gain stages. In Palace, I always play it all tube. It’s a switchable two-channel amp with a whole shitload of gain potential and the 60 watts are more than enough to power through any size venue. A lot of my rhythm parts require body and punch to cut through, so I have the amp set on the clean channel as loud as it will go just before it breaks up. For choruses, leads or songs that need a more gainy (is that a word?) sound, I switch to the gain channel and it gets fatter and breaks up for a more growly, but still punchy, tone. So far, I’ve been really happy with the sound I’ve gotten out of it. The cabinet is a pretty standard open back box. It used to be Jason’s [Manuel, The Palace Ballroom’s lead guitarist] but I traded him for my Vox delay pedal. I like the Rocket 50’s sound. They aren’t the most expensive loudspeakers but they have a mid-range quality that just works with my setup. The amp/cab setup has been my standard since the band started. It’s whats on the record and what I play live.

As far as my pedalboard goes, I’m pretty much a minimalist and don’t use a whole lot of effects to alter my tone. The way my board is set up now with the two Radial Tonebone pedals, allows me to switch from electric to acoustic on stage. The Radial JX-2 pedal on the left is an A/B/both box with a great gain boost. I use the boost on this pedal quite a bit to get a bit more oomph when I need it during swells in songs. Since there’s no acoustic guitar on our most recent record, the Radial PZ-PRE acoustic DI doesn’t get used as much as when we were touring on our first record but we may start working some of those older songs back into our live sets here in the near future so I leave it in the signal chain. It’s a great sounding acoustic DI; live acoustic guitar sound can get pretty tricky in a lot of rooms and the Tonebone pedal had the most effective EQ I came across. Standard Boss Tuner of course. I think I’ve had that particular one about 14 years now, works like a Swiss clock. The little circular Fender switch switches between the clean and gain channels on the Prosonic, nothing fancy. Next to that is a classic Fender reverb pedal (the Prosonic is one of the few production amps they made without built-in classic Fender reverb). Sometimes you just need to make your sound a bit wet right? That little box reproduces Fender reverb pretty accurately. I use it sparingly but when I do, it sounds pretty rad.  Center front is my newest pedal. It was a gift from my friend Patrick, who’s out on tour pretty much most of the year. It’s made by Red Sun FX, a boutique pedal company out of Munich, Germany. It was originally designed for Flynn from the band The Picturebook, but they ended up doing a run of 25 of them.  I have #12. I’ve had a lot of boost/distortion pedals over the years and some work for some things better than others. But this thing has 35db’s of warm rich boost that doesn’t fuzz out your tone. It actually makes it fatter. I was blown away when I first plugged it in. Super warm analog boost sound and a shit-ton (that’s a metric unit of measurement) of power. It’s a no-frills, one knob pedal. Right up my alley. I added it to my chain right away and it’s become my secret weapon. Combined with the Radial boost or the gain channel on the Prosonic (or all 3 at once), I have lots of levels of varying tone from sparkling clean to fierce growl at my disposal. Linking the whole board together is my BBE Supa-Charger. In my opinion, the absolute best power supply for a pedalboard that’s made. No bullshit, compact and clean. It’s always reliable.

2. What song of yours do you feel is the best portrayal of the particular sound/style?  This is one of those questions where it’s really easy to sound like an asshole when you answer it. The truth is, when I write songs, I’m not after any particular sound or style. I think they evolve into what they are, based on my influences and what I’ve learned over the years playing in bands. We recorded our latest record live, in one take, playing together in the main room at Phaser Control. So the entire album is a pretty accurate representation of what we sound like live. I’m a big proponent of being able to reproduce your recorded material live all the way down to the tones and nuances of the songs on the album. I can’t count how many times I’ve been disappointed by a band I was excited to see because I liked their album and then their live show was incredibly shitty. At least enough times to know that I wouldn’t want that for anybody who came and saw us play. There’s something very disappointing about being let down by a band you have hope for. See? I told you I would probably sound like an asshole. Oh well… Since this piece is about the gear I use to get the sound I want for my music, I think I can provide a succinct answer to this question: For me, if there was one particular song on the new record that I think essentially captured the tone and essence of my guitar and amp, it would be the last track on the album, “Valve.” You can really hear the G&L’s resonance and the bite of the Prosonic on that song. It’s a slow-moving ballad, so most of the other instruments are lower in the mix and my guitar and voice are front and center. If you want to hear how my gear sounds at it’s basic level, that’s the song.

3. If money was no object, what’s the holy grail piece of gear you’d buy?  OOOOHHHH. I get all tickly in my special parts when I think about this kind of stuff. It’s like when I wished for the Hoth ice base for Christmas. There are so many answers to this question. Well, it’s hard for me to answer that one because I own a recording studio and I’m constantly buying gear. It’s hard to draw the line sometimes between what I need to get, and what I really want to get. But if we are strictly talking about musical gear, I would like a 1958 Fender Stratocaster. Last one I saw in good condition was going for $60,000. So, yeah. Not gonna come across that kind of dough unless I win the Publishers Clearing House drawing this year.

4. What is your current favorite piece of equipment and why?  My past, present and future favorite piece of gear will always be my 1964 Vox AC30 Supertwin head and cabinet. I got it in England in 1999. In a small town just outside of London. I found an ad for it in the ‘items for sale’ section in the back of a local English circular. It said: “FOR SALE: Vox Guitar Amplifier with slopey sides.” and nothing else. I called the number, rented a car and drove 45 minutes out of the city to some guy’s house where he had it in his garage. He said it was his uncle’s. He sold it to me for around $850. It’s an incredibly rare amp with trapezoidal / \ sides. I’ve only seen 1 or 2 others like it on the internet over the years. I’ve had it checked out by a few amp experts and the one I have is rumored (pretty accurately so) to have been Peter Green’s amp. I used to play it live but it’s just too rare and amazing to take anywhere anymore. I still use it for recordings but it rarely leaves the safety of it’s case. It sounds like every classic Beatles and Kinks record you’ve ever heard. Just 30 class-A watts of badassery. Yes, I said badassery. It’s a word, look it up. I also have a pretty amazing Satellite amp and cabinet that comes in second place on the favorite gear list. Satellite is a local amp company. If you don’t know them, check them out.

5. What do you have coming up that we should know about? Any shows?  Yes!! There are a few shows happening that you should be privy to:

Saturday, March 12th: The Palace Ballroom with Western Settings at The Pour House in Oceanside, CA. This show is presented by local hero Lou Niles of 91X, and should be a banger. Oceanside is developing into quite he scene nowadays and Lou has been putting on shows at Pour House to much success. Get on it! [Show info]

Saturday, April 30th: Buckfast Superbee / Furious IV / Diamond Lakes / UJBOD’s 3 Wood at The Casbah!!! Yes, it’s reunion time. BfSb hasn’t played a show in 6 years and I think for Furious IV it’s been even longer! It’s good to know that we have Diamond Lakes to keep it fresh up there 🙂 Also, if that’s not enough, Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver will be playing as a 3-piece in the Atari Lounge all night. Really looking forward to this one. I think tickets are onsale now [buy them here]. Get em’ quick, nostalgia is a hot commodity. 🙂 We’ll have to do another Gear and Loathing for Buckfast Superbee, I play a whole different rig in that band.

Photos generously taken by photographer, Tim Fears.

JOHN JOYCE / AJ FROMAN

AJ Froman: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bandcamp

1. Tell me about your current rig – what are your likes and dislikes? I use a Fender Jazz Bass. I’ve got a Gallien Krueger RB 1001 head unit with a Gallien Krueger 4×10 cabinet running through an MXR Bass Compressor, an Electro Harmonix Big Muff overdrive, a Behringer Ultra Shifter/Harmonist, a Boss Super Chorus, and an MXR Bass Envelope Filter. I’ve always been more interested in analog pedals rather than digital and am still playing around with my tone. It’s most definitely still a work in progress as I’m planning on purchasing another 15” cabinet to secure the low end and utilize the 4×10 cabinet for the hi and mid ranges. The Ultra Shifter is a lot of fun to play around with before big drops in our songs, it’s fun to dive bomb and drive the octave down a whole step. There’s a knob to control the speed of the drop so it can be fast or slow and it’s a lot of fun playing with that live. The Envelope Filter has given me a lot of enjoyment, as well as frustration. The decay is extremely sensitive so getting that “perfect” swell is challenging at times. Not sure if that pedal is going to stick around much longer.

2. What AJ Froman song do you feel is the best portrayal of your particular sound/style? “Stranger’s Nod” off our new album, Phoenix Syndrome, has a lot of dynamic to it. I feel our sound shines through in a variety of sections in this tune. Swirling through time-signature changes, to heavy half-time buildups, to faster skate/punk sections, to melodic breakdowns is all very enjoyable and I feel we capture a lot of our diverse sound within all of these sections. In softer ambient sections, I’ll use the chorus pedal and during heavier fast sections, I’ll switch to the overdrive. I especially enjoy the contrast between these two tones.

3. If money was no object, what’s the ‘holy grail’ piece of gear you’d buy? A ’67 Fender Jazz Bass. I like Washburns too, but the Jazz Bass has such a beautiful tone I can’t really get away from it. I’d definitely stick with the GK amps. It’d be nice to have 3 Gallien Krueger 2001 RB amps. One would control the other 2 as slaves and I’d have those running into three 4×10 cabinets and three 1×15 cabinets. That’s what Flea’s been doing for quite some time and I really appreciate his style.

4. Who is the musician you admire the most sound/gear-wise? Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is a musician I’ve admired since high school, when At the Drive-In was still together. He has a massive array of delays, trems, and expression pedals to control real-time rate adjustments and may I say, he’s quite good at it. The groups he’s put together have also influenced my rhythmic playing rather than just the sound and tonality he produces. Overall, he is a huge influence of mine in more ways than one.

5. What do you have coming up that we should know about? We are headlining the Belly Up for our first time on Thursday, March 10th. We just released our new album, Phoenix Syndrome, [listen/buy here] and we have a handful of new music we’re planning on recording very soon.

[Ed. note: I reviewed AJ Froman’s excellent new album for SoundDiego recently. Read it here.]

DAVID MEAD / DITCHES

Ditches: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp

1. Tell me about your current rig: These drums are Astros made in Japan in the late ’60s early ’70s. They sound old, beautiful, and perfect, both live and in the studio. I’ve been in the studio and at venues with other drums that I used to have, and it became standard to hit the drums and then wait while the engineer would trim out all the unwanted frequencies. These drums it’s like, “Check the kick”: BOOM. “Check the high tom”: BOOM. “Check the floor tom”: BOOM. “Check the snare”: CRACK. “OK, we’re done.” Afterward, the sound engineer always comes up and asks about them.

2. What is your favorite piece of gear and why? I got them in kind of an interesting way. I bought an 8-track reel-to-reel and a bunch of tapes off of Craigslist for I think $50, and then I brought it home and realized I wasn’t really going to use it. I put it back up on Craigslist and I mentioned that I would trade for something drum-related. My friend Gary Hankins from Scarlet Symphony/a billion other bands wrote me and said, “Hey I want to buy your reel-to-reel.” I saw it was him in the email and I was like, “Gary come over and grab this thing.” We hung out for a little while, I gave him the reel-to-reel, smacked him on the butt and he went on his way. Then I went upstairs and checked my email, and I had an email from an old man in all caps that read like it was the first time he had ever written an email. It was like, “HI I HAVE A SET OF ASTRO DRUMS I GOT NEW WHEN I WAS 13 THEIRR IN MY GAROGE I WANT YOUR TAPE MACHIN I CAN MEET TOMORROW LET ME KNOW MY NAME IS HAROLD GOD BLESS.” I was like “HOLY SHIT HAROLD GIVE ME THOSE DRUMS!!!!” So I wrote him and I was like “Hey Harold, I just sold the tape machine, is there anything else you need?” He said “WELL I COULD RELY USE A MIXER.” I had an old Mackie mixer and I dug it up. So we arrange for him to meet me at my old band’s practice space. Giving him directions there on the phone was a complete nightmare, and he pulls up in a PT Cruiser that seriously looked like he had driven over his own fence 1,000 times. Then he opened the lift gate, and they were in there glowing like when John Travolta opens that steel briefcase in Pulp Fiction. They had the original heads on them from the factory; they had almost never been played. Then Harold was like, “So do we have a deal?” I was like “Yeah, man!” The drums aren’t worth very much, maybe like $300 bucks, but I’d rather play them than pretty much any other set. I put on new heads and that was that – loves of my life.

3. What song of yours do you feel is the best portrayal of your particular style? We recorded our EP ourselves with these drums. We had some really good and pro stuff, and I really like it. I’ve been in big studios with a ton of mics on the drums, but I realized recording with these Astros that the more you like the sound of the actual drums, the less you have to search for tones in the studio. I really like how the song “Sucker” came out. My drumming used to be busier, but in Ditches I like playing more simple.

4. What’s the one “holy grail” piece of equipment (or kit) you’d buy if money was no object? I pretty much have everything I want. Maybe a set of ‘60s Round Badge Gretsch drums, but then if they’re too nice or valuable then you worry about them and can’t play them out and enjoy them. Actually, one day I would really like a set of Camco drums. When you play a set of Camco drums, it’s like putting on a pair of pants that used to belong to David Bowie. It’s definitely something special.

5. What do you have coming up that we should know about? We’re going to play with one of my favorite bands, Chastity Belt on 3/1 at the Continental Room in OC, and have some good prospects coming up. We’re in the midst of recording our follow-up EP right now. Super pumped for it to come out!

TIM FELTEN / THE SURE FIRE SOUL ENSEMBLE

 

The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp

1. What’s your favorite piece of gear? My favorite instrument is my 1964 Hammond A102 Organ paired with my Leslie 145. The combo just screams; no Nord, Korg, or whatever digital organ simulator can even come close. This instrument will probably last past my lifetime with very minimal upkeep; Hammond knew how to build them to last!

2. If money was no object, what’s the one piece of gear you’d buy? Probably a Steinway Grand Piano. I mean, c’mon that’s about as rich of a sound as you can get. I’d love to be able to write tunes on an instrument as majestic as that.

3. What song of yours (or your band’s) do you feel is the best portrayal of your sound/style? From the first Sure Fire Soul Ensemble album, I really like the organ tone we got for “IB Struttin’.” We pushed the tape a little bit to get a nice bright and gritty tone.

4. Who do you look up to the most sound/gear-wise? Money Mark!!! I love his playing on the Beastie Boys records and his first solo release, Mark’s Keyboard Repair. He’s just a lo-fi organ/keyboard wizard, bringing some of the funkiest, dirtiest sounds ever.

5. What do you have coming up? Sure Fire Soul Ensemble has our 2nd album, Out On The Coast, due out this Fall on Colemine Records. Expect lots of Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer Electric Piano, Hohner Clavinet, and Hammond and Farfisa Organs on that one. We’ll also have another 45 out this spring (our 4th), with a really cool cover of “Message From The Meters,” featuring Kelly Finnigan from Monophonics on vocals, and Sergio Rios from Orgone on some nasty guitar. We perform regionally pretty regularly, please keep up with our happenings on Facebook or Instagram.

See The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble at Winston’s Ocean Beach on Friday, Feb. 19, with Juice Box opening. Show starts at 9PM, and cover is $7.

DUSTIN LOTHSPEICH / OLD TIGER

Thank you for visiting Gear and Loathing in San Diego. As the guy behind the scenes of this whole thing, I figured I’d start the whole project off by sharing what musical equipment I use and get the ball rolling. I hope y’all enjoy the site and find some musical inspiration along the way. ~ Dustin

Old Tiger: Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

1. What is your favorite piece of gear? The JHS Colour Box. I’ve never been able to get the perfect light, full-bodied overdrive sound I’d always heard in my head until I played through that thing. It just purrs at all frequencies – and it’s great at doing a ton of other stuff (like crazy velcro fuzz noises). It’s pricey but worth it.

2. What song of yours (or your band’s) do you feel is the best portrayal of your particular sound/style? I think “Get Along,” off Old Tiger’s record, Love Have Mercy, is a good indication of what I try to do as a guitar player. That record has a lot of cool parts and different players, so while it’s not a great example of how I actually play live, that song has always been a nice one to listen to.

3. If money was no object, what’s the holy grail piece of gear you’d buy? Probably a vintage Gibson ES-355, ES-330 or Gibson Barney Kessel model – because vintage guitars (especially old Gibson semi-hollowbodies) have so much mojo, and they’re so comfortable to play.

4. What’s the worst or weirdest piece of gear you’ve ever bought or used? I have a weird Squier Bass VI that I still haven’t bonded with yet. It’s a cool instrument and has some funky sounds in it, but playing a bass with that many strings on a neck that thin has turned out to be a difficult task.

5. What do you have coming up that we should know about? Currently working on writing lots of music for Old Tiger’s next record. Hope to share some new stuff soon.