Episode 3 - Great Deals, Mesa Boogie & The Ones That Got Away

Join Fluff and Mike on this, the third episode of the Riffs, Beards & Gear podcast! In this episode they talk about the gear that got away, Fluff's relationship with Mesa Boogie and the best deals they have ever got on a gear purchase.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up everyone?

unknown 0:02

Whoa.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Now you can start. Oh now I'm ready. I didn't have the mic. I didn't have the mic. You started without me, pal.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Well, maybe I was talking to you. You're the only one here. Am I? Oh, this place is probably haunted. If you guys like it looks pretty sweet in here, right? It looks pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

This you know, this is showbiz. We've done a lot of work in this room.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Outside of this room, straight up looks like a Dexter Kill location.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

We are in a building that was built in the 20s, 1920s. Maybe 1820s. This is a very, very, very old building in downtown proper Seattle. And it's cold.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Have I taken you in the basement yet? Yes. Oh, it is.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

When I first got here, oh yeah. I was like, remember the breaker? Well, no, the breaker went. We were searching. The underside of this building is not scary. I would not ever hang down there.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Well, they they have installed all new lighting like they have in the out halls. Yeah, down there. Oh, they did. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. That was what made it so damn scary. One flickering light bulb in your eye.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, now you haven't seen this movie. Now all the scary shit is super well lit. Yeah. And efficiently, energy efficient. Scary lighting. Yeah. Great. Great. Really great. Uh Mike, it's good to see you. Nice to see you too. I feel like it's been, geez, almost a week.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

It's been almost a week. Um, we last had our boys in Fit for an Autopsy. Sorry, they're not on this episode. They had to keep playing.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

They can't be on every episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

They can't be on every episode. Although I wish they were. That would be a lot of fun. A couple of dudes. They're really great dudes. Um, so for this episode, we're gonna talk about a couple of different things gear-related. Yeah. Uh, we're gonna talk about the ones that got away. We're gonna talk about uh good deals that we've got over the years, uh, historically, which we've all gotten great deals, and I love well, I'll wait till we get there, but I love when when you're talking to someone and your common bond, if they're another player of like, oh dude, one time, and you kind of just see the energy crank up. And I love that when you're hanging with another musician. Um, I'm also gonna talk about um some of my videos and uh maze of boogie. We're gonna talk about maze of boogie in this episode.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Well, you're gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

I'm gonna talk about maze of boogie. Mike's not gonna really talk about maze of boogie. Mike doesn't really like maze of boogies, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I like them. I've never been able to do what I like to do and how I like to sound, I've not found that, but I've heard other people do like not outside of the heavy, heavy rock world. I've heard people do really great classic rock guitar sounds on those amps on a dual rec. And I can't figure out. Have you ever gigged with a rec? Surely I've had one as a background. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I've I've basically had the same experience more or less with most of the diesels. I've had a VH2, a VH4, very, very expensive amplifier, and I did like it. And you know, like I'm when I made the video about it, I said I love the amp, and that's true. I love the VH4. I don't get the tones that others get that make me go, ooh, I should get a VH4. I can't get those tones out of that thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

For a while I had the uh Engle E, what is it, a 535? It's a single space, it's called like modern rock preamp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the stereo 50 and 50, 50 watts aside. Great power power up. It was a it was really great. It was so gainy, I just didn't really understand how to run it. But by the time I got an I got another head after that, an angle head after that that I liked a lot better.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

The um Fireball. Fireball's cool. I had an Invader Mark II. It was it was great. It was pretty great.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Um, yeah, I don't know. I didn't I hadn't spent enough time with it. And that's the thing. You've gotta spend time with some things.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Yeah, yeah, fair. Also, a lot of amps like that, a lot of the high power amps, they have to be really loud in order to really open up an old Marshall. Has to be quite loud.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

What kind of asshole is gonna plug an electric guitar into a real guitar amp and not be like, Yeah, no one uses real amps. But if you're gonna plug into a real amp, sure, why bother being quiet? Like get a little combo or use a model or go use your headphone amp. If you want to play, play play loud.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

I agree. Uh speaking of angles, um, Croz and Conformity just started their tour at the time of we're filming this, and they just came out with a new record. Um I saw a live clip and I'm like, wow, what uh what is Woody using? Because historically speaking, for the last 30 years, he's used his old Rack Mount 2 channel rectifiers. I'm like, that sounds absolutely amazing. He's all angle.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Really? Isn't that interesting? What is he using?

SPEAKER_03 5:29

I couldn't make out what he's using.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Is he an ESP guy? Yep. Well, their ESP distributes angle.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Oh, I did not know that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Oh, so that make that makes sense. That's that makes sense for people who are listening or watching and don't, you know, aren't in that kind of deep.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

When did that happen? I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

That's like being a Jackson guy and using 5150, like those, like the guys on the episode uh yesterday, uh whatever, last week we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

I did not know that. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Angles are pretty sick. I should I should dive back into the angle world. I've always liked the tones out of those amplifiers. For one, at the time when I had the invader, um, it was so physically large, I had a real hard time. I didn't have my shelf yet. And so to really find anywhere to even stack upon real amps, it was just difficult.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

I had the one 1250 watt combo, I don't remember what that amp is called, something ball, hairy ball. And um, that thing was an absolute ripper, and definitely easier for me to just plug in and w wherever it was set worked for me. There was so much gain on tap.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Um I just don't I don't need all. I don't need it all.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah, I should, I should, I should find a contact for angle.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

They were cool. ESP. Let's get some in here.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Yeah, we should get some in here. I would like to I would like to go down that route again because I've always been such a fan. I just wasn't in a place, and again, they were so physically large at the time, so everything in my house, and it was cramped. I just we didn't I didn't have this space to really kind of open anything up with real cabs and throw a mic on and stuff like that. It was just kind of difficult. Um yeah, we'll get uh we'll get some more angle on here. Maybe ESP as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I would like that.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Uh did you see um you've seen Curogenic Conformity's old old uh SG The Viper? Yeah, but they're like pre-viper body, they're not offset or anything like that. Yeah. Um Woody just made a video about explaining, like, yeah, at the time ESP was just like, Yay, can we make you guys anything? And they were like, make us some SGs. And they were like, Oh, we can't really do that. And they're like, Well, we want SGs bodies, and they were just like, okay, we'll just make EDs for you. That's that's it.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

That's it. That's it. And then they offset it and called it the Viper. I had a couple of Vipers in Alien Crime Syndicate. Did you? I can imagine you playing a Viper, it's very metal looking. Oh I I like those guitars.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Oh, they're great guitars.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

I think they're really cool. I stripped the finish off of one of them and like Whoa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Um that's cool. So you left it natural?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, and oiled it. It was it was rad. Um actually, my one of my ESPs will come up later in great deals.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Oh, I can't wait for that. Um okay, so back to um, so we're talking about corrosion conformity. Angle used to be on Mesa. I wanted to take an opportunity to talk about, so I just put out the uh the rectifier video a couple of weeks ago, and people were like, Oh, you guys, I'm so I'm so happy that you guys are back together. Oh, this is so great. And I have always loved rectifiers. I've always been such a fan of Mesa Boogie stuff for a long time. I just was really they've always been voiced kind of how I think guitar tones should be in my head, um, especially the rectifier. It was pretty weird playing a rectifier, having not played one for literal years, almost three years, two years, two and a half years or something. Um, but that was for sweetwater guys. That wasn't, I'm not saying we're not cool with Mesa Boogie or Gibson or anything like that, but no, you wouldn't have a direct relationship with Mesa. No, I do not have a relationship with Mesa or Gibson in any way. Um, I'm still friendly with Trent the rep, my rep who lives near us, um, who lives out on on the peninsula. Shout out to Trent, he's a great guy.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

For people who don't know or didn't we?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

So a couple years ago, I was at Sweetwater, actually, here's what really happened with the Sweetwater maze boogie Gibson thing. I was at Sweetwater for guitar fest and we were filming, and someone came in and said, Oh my god, I just got off the phone with Randall. They Gibson fired him. And we were all shocked. We were all like, What? What are you waiting from his own company? How does that happen? It's like firing Eddie Van Halen. Right. Get out of here, Eddie. Eddie, you're fired. So I immediately call my contact at Boogie at the time. And he was like, How did you know about that? That just happened. I was like, uh I just hear things. Not me, I hear a lot of things. But the person who told us, who shall remain unnamed, was on the phone with Randall. He was personal friends with Randall. And uh, so I was asked to just not say anything. So then a few weeks goes by, and then the people in the factory start making posts, and there were some posts in this rectifier group on Facebook, and there were other people in there going, Yeah, he we were just told that he was let go. We don't know why, we don't know any details, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

And there were other people going, Oh, it's just a non-compete clause, and they just, you know, that was probably planned, they would never do that, and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Right, because people um sitting at home that don't have any contacts at the company probably know.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Right. And then my dumbass decides to chime in, and I just basically I leave a comment and I said, actually, he was fired, and there will be no statement. That's all I say. And basically, um, I go to bed. So that was that night, you know, I'm laying in bed or whatever, and um first thing in the morning I get a call from my guy at Boogie at the time, and he was like, Hey man, um, we saw your comment. Uh, can you delete that comment? Or actually, no, this was that same day. On the on it was a Friday. The only reason I remember it was a Friday is because he was like, Hey man, uh, it was like 30 minutes after I left. He says, Hey man, can you delete that comment? We'd really appreciate it if uh we didn't add any fuel to the fire. I was like, Oh, I didn't say anything wrong. I just but okay, I think that's stupid, but I'll delete it. So I delete it, and I say, I'll see you tomorrow at the Lamb of God show.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

See you next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

I'll see you tomorrow. And he was like, Great. The next day rolls around, and I wake up to like 200 text messages. I'm like, oh boy. Something awful happened or something, I don't know. Well, what had happened was Guitar Bomb took my comment, screenshotted it, and then wrote an article that then got picked up by Ultimate Guitar and Guitar World and all this kind of stuff, right? Citing my comment as confirmation because I I know people and it blew up. And this is after, this is by this time, this is a month or two after I got done filming the official rollout video for Sweetwater and Mesa Boogie for what was to be the reissue rectifier, which was still six months away, and the reissue Mark II C Plus, which the public did not know about at that time, or had just known about the Mark II C Plus, but they didn't know about the rectifier at the time. And they're like, it gets out, and so basically I get another call, and they're like, hey, listen, we will never work with you again. This is this relationship is effectively over. Um basically go fuck yourself.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Was that statement issued to you from people at Mesa or new people at Mesa that were from Gibson?

SPEAKER_03 13:34

New people at at Gibson at Mesa from Gibson.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

And I was like, but I didn't even say anything incorrect.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Like you didn't you didn't tell any lies.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

I should have kept my mouth shut.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Now what was what was the learnable experience?

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Well, the learnable experience is I need to stop in this context. You know me. I'm I've never think of myself as anything. I'm I'm on one big football team, right? I look at all musicians, we're all on a football team. Some of us are the quarterback, some of us are the catcher, some of us go get the Gatorade, which the players need and is just as crucial.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

You started as the guy putting the lines on the field.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

I never thought anyone would see my comment or care what I thought or said in the moment. I'm just a guy on Facebook. That was the lesson I learned. I am not a guy on Facebook in a guitar forum for rectifiers. Honestly, I swear to God, I was just like, no one's gonna even see this comment. Like, who cares? Like, whatever. Right. That was the learnable moment. I should have shut up. But it was my emotional side. It was my I was emotional because I knew all the guys at Mizaboogie before they were let go and after the Gibson acquisition. And you know, those were the loveliest humans ever that I worked with for a decade. And to see all of them gone, I don't know, the Randall thing I took personally, but then at the same time I had my lady going, Who cares? There's real problems in the world. Like, who cares? And I'm like, she has a point, like it's a gear company. I took it personally, and I felt offended on Randall's behalf.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Let me ask you a couple questions.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Please.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Since then, how has that experience affected the way you interact with other people's posts and people who comment on your own posts?

SPEAKER_03 15:28

It fundamentally changed everything. Right. So so at the time, I couldn't say I couldn't make some whiny video telling any of this stuff. So I have to wait for the gear to start coming out, and people are like, hey, where's your rectifier video? And I just make a statement on an FAQ Monday. I think I just said I won't be doing it because the cut ties with me because of this comment, and that's all I left it at.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I remember that.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

And then the the the YouTuber whose name escapes me right now made the video. This guy put it all together. I never talked to him. I got sent this video, and then all my friends start sending me the video going, Hey, is all that's is all this true, man?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

I love that there was like uh editorial, deep investigative YouTube journalism by one YouTuber about another YouTuber.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Well, what I didn't know is Randall had started his own YouTube channel, and he made an off-the-cuff comment when talking about an amplifier. He was talking about the Mark II C Plus, and he says off-handedly, before they fired me, and he basically confirmed everything that I had said. And because previous to that, everyone was like, Well, how the hell would he know? How would this idiot know? He doesn't know anyone at Mesa Blue. Yeah, the internet does what the internet does. But um, he basically unknowingly confirmed everything I said, and this wonderful YouTuber gentleman put the video together, the video goes hyper viral. At which point, I'm gearing up to go with Marshall to Nam, which was gonna happen anyways. It had nothing to do. That was in works way before any of the boogie stuff happened. And so then by the time we show up at NAM, everyone's coming up to me going, screw Mason, screw Gibson. And I was like, Well, I don't really feel that way. It's gear, like gear intrinsically is not a person, it doesn't have emotions. Yeah, was it weird for me to then plug into my collection of old rectifiers? Yeah, it made it pretty weird. Did it make it weird to plug into Les Paul's? Yeah, emotionally, like you know, it's an emotional instrument and stuff like that. Music is an emotional thing, but like the guitar didn't do anything. Who cares? At the end of the day, fast forward several years, and Sweetwater goes, Hey, we rebuilt our our builder for Boogie. Could you help us out? And I was like, Yeah, sure. I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Why not? You have a long you know, you have a long-standing public love for those amps.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

I do, I love those amplifiers. I helped, they helped build my career in a very literal sense. And also, Sweetwater wants some help promoting something, of course.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Look, I love the Smiths, I don't like Morrissey person, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Exactly right. So you know what? Same. So for me, I I'm not trying to carry around any boulders, and the older I get, I don't I don't care anymore. Who cares? But I'm not making boogie content to satisfy or make anyone at Boogie or Gibson happy. I don't really care about that. Right. I'm just gonna play what I want to play and just move past it because that's stupid anyway. There's actual problems in the world, and none of them pertain to Gibson or Mesa Boogie or guitars for that matter.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

What sort of comments will you reply to now? Almost none. I have seen you reply to things that I was like, well, that's a legitimate question.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

So if I see a legitimate question um that I didn't already answer in the video, I will try to get to it because it wasn't snarky and shitty. Yeah, that's the snarky and shitty ones.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I just Why don't you guys switch the tubes around and play musical tubes between five amps and then shoot them out in every possible like everyone knows the 60 the 1992 originals voiced way darker?

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Everyone knows that. I've seen this video a million times.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Um guess what? Any snarky comment you see, remark back to you. That's me, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

That's never ever me. Suck it. I don't do that. Um I've you'll get burned out maybe. Although maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Like as early as five years ago, I would see you coming commenting back at people like making mom jokes. I've I don't know what you're talking about. A lot of mom actions. There was a lot of mom action. A lot of mom action. And by the way, I'm old enough to be to like you are old enough to be these guys' parents. So when I make mom jokes at you, it's fucking funnier.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

It is funnier. Actually, what I what what I did do, so I will admit to this, I eventually got off the mom jokes and I just switched it to dad jokes. That's not what your dad said last night. Because that just got funnier, and then eventually it's like, you know what? I would do that for my own entertainment, but then people would start making like videos and posts about my comments back and see you're a child, you're a petulant child. Blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Or so what?

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Yeah. Or uh, you know, God, I used to get, let's talk about comments for a second. I used to get in the Wild West days, this is many years ago, this is over a decade ago, whatever. I used to get comments every time I would wear flannel.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Opposer probably want people to think you're from Seattle, fucking Northwest, go wanna be grunge kid, huh?

SPEAKER_03 20:51

I'm like, I grew up in the Northwest and was in fact a grunge kid, and we wear this shit because it's cold up here. Like, what what are you talking about? People, I mean I know people. But if you have your own YouTube channel, um know that people talking shit in the comments is good because that is confirmation your stuff is reaching new audiences and and new eyes, and that ultimately is the best possible scenario.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Occasionally, if someone makes a shitty enough comment on uh one of the videos on channel one or channel two, I'll go and I'll look and I'll be like, I'll click on their account because it'll tell you all of their interactions with you. But it never did before.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

That's new.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Right. So uh anyone that makes not anyone, 99 out of a hundred times anyone that makes a shitty comment has made a shitty comment on every video. They have like a long standing history of shitty comments.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Or they'll switch accounts and make the same comment. Seen that.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Anytime someone is actually interacting with you and talking any kind of shit back to you, that's me. Thank you for sharing your brave story.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

How have you found it? Let me ask you this. Speaking of the channels, how have you found it being on the channel now? It's been what almost a year. I was gonna say about a year, right? Because it was right after the last NAM that we kind of got rolling with you being on the channel. I think that's when I was on the channel. Or no, it's after the fire, it was when the fire happened. Right. Which is one year this month.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Almost a year. It's almost a year. Yeah. How have you found being on the channel?

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Well, it's interesting. No, it's awesome. It's awesome. And it's, you know, I think I've said this before. I'm not really employable.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Like, what am I gonna do? Like uh follow rules somewhere, or like go be barista. No, I could never I I was a a barista. I was a barista up at the lighthouse. And famously, I kicked someone out of the cafe for him and an hour for being too loud in line once, and they got all the way, and it was a long ass line. I made them wait all the way, and then they got up and they were like, they were gonna yell at me. There was because we had a like do you remember when Oddwalla um had the E. coli thing?

SPEAKER_03 23:31

The non-pasteurized, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

And so we had an Oddwala, we never dropped them. They never they never dropped Odwalla there. They might still carry it. And they had this Oddwalla refrigerator, and someone was just like, you know, going on, and it was a it was I was probably hungover. And I let this person complain all the way to the counter, and then they were like, and I go boom! I just slap my hand down on the counter and I go, shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here. What? And they were like, and I was like, everyone, the whole place that's like record drop or needle. Yeah, but it's like the saloon, you know, where the piano players topped. Like, um, he's like, you can't talk to me like that. And I was like, oh, wait a minute, let me check. Yeah, I can shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. You right out the door that you came in. So, anyway, the long and the short of it is not the greatest at customer service.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Okay, if you ever want a copy from Mike, don't do it, guys.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Well, don't complain about some bullshit.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Sure. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

You don't have to be a little bitch. Anyway, how have I found it to be Yeah?

SPEAKER_03 24:48

How does that lead into what you're talking about? I'm not employable. Oh, yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

This is like, this is a fucking great job. I've danced around this for a long time. Yeah, I don't have the a ton of experience. I'm learning a lot. You are teaching me a load of stuff. I mean, when we started doing this, uh turning CouchRiff's YouTube channel into channel two was never an idea or a part of the conversation. It was months in the making.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

You know.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

The reason the reason why the reason why you are the reason why you work on the channel and you are able to do all the things that you do is because your number one quality, in my opinion, and this is the only time I'm ever gonna compliment this asshole, um, is pretty eyes. Is yeah, he's not funny at all. Um no, you're you're never um very you're not one of those people that will go, well, how do I do this? No, that's not how I want to do it. Like you listen. You listen, and you're always open to other ideas and other ways to do things, which is a very unique quality in this space. Well, I have been Because I am not, I am very stubborn, and he kind of tries to, and I'm not sure. I can confirm. Terrible idea, Mike. Nope, we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Almost always. I'll always come up with some hare-brained idea.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah, hey, what if we do this and we have this and the stone garden cover on top of the space needle and we'll film the whole damn thing? Brother. Great idea.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Stop. No, that's no, that was an example of the kind of stuff that he thinks of.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I'm like, let's build a whole other set inside the podcast duty that looks like the gong show or something. Right. Like that. It'll look, you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

The Seinfeld episode where Kramer gets the set of of uh the Merv Griffin show or whatever. Didn't he remember? Come on out. What is is this your apartment? Yeah, I turned it into a TV set.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Um yeah, so the thing is I've been doing couch rifts since 2019.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

And God, has it been that long?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Yeah. Damn. And you know, the it's not um unsuccessful.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Not at all.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

I do it.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Well, you gotta do it because you love it.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

And it's gotten it's improved over time. It has um a lot.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

As have my videos.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Fluff sent me my first interface because I was using Oh my god. I just I wasn't, I don't know if I was using anything. I might have just been using the camera audio and I was playing playing along to records that were behind me. That's how CowTrift started. And that was the whole deal because I had a big record collection and I would play through an amp along to my stereo, and you were like, yo.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

What did I send you? I don't even remember sending you.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

I want to send you some stuff. And I was like, I'm unemployed right now. That's why I have time to make videos of me playing on the group. I don't remember what I sent you. I don't remember sending you.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

And I, in turn, gave that to someone else who needed it. I was like, pay this forward. Um, and I actually I liked that interface so much, and it was USB powered. It was great. Um, I bought the eight-channel one because they did the job. Where I I made a series of YouTube videos uh at NAM, Couch Rift Sings, where there were like three guitar players and bass player and vocals, and it was just like four wasn't gonna cut it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

That's funny. But you've yeah, I mean, you were always generous and cool, and you've and you are the tech support to many people, and so many, many people. This is like some IRL uh continuation of that. Yeah, it's good, but it's been awesome, and and hopefully some people will watch Cow Trip's videos now. Doubt it.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

You have killer guests on there, though. That's the thing. Like, I love the podcast, and it's always an interesting, it's not such a standard, I don't know, it's not a typical very formal thing, right? It always feels like a hang, which I would say those those podcasts always feel like when you actually hang with you in real life, right? It's an easy conversation.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

If I mean for some people it feels like some sort of like, you know, I've heard all kinds of NPR. This is bored. If I wanted to be fall asleep, I'd listen to NPR, right? This kind of shit. But it's like, you know what? Uh we're like, I'm not a comedian, I'm not trying to out like have a funny off with my guests. Like sometimes we get in the weeds. I've had people come out and talk about fucking all kinds of gnarly trauma that they dealt with as a kid or into adulthood, like all kinds of stuff. And so, you know, I want it to feel real and personal.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

That's a testament to how comfortable you make it, and so it's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Anyway, do you want to talk about good deals? Fuck yeah. Do you want to talk about good deals and the ones that got away?

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Yeah, we'll start with good deals because I feel like the good deals are even more rare these days, or even ever, than the ones that got away. I feel I feel like those happen more often than not. Um what was your good deal relating to ESP? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Viper? In 2000 or 2001, Marsh Gooch was the That's a name. Marsh Gooch worked out at Quimper Sound for a while. Oh, really? Marsh Gooch was the ESP artist rep. He's a Seattle guy and was living down there, and he hooked up Alien Crime Syndicate. And we all went down there and um and they gave, and it was a pretty sweet deal. It was like probably the sweetest artist deal I've ever had. No, it it was get three every year. Pick like any three guitars that they had in this sort of like, here's what we have in our inventory. And then there was another pile, and it was like, you can have one of if you want to dig through this whole section, here's a yeah, but there were real ESPs in there, and then we'll build you one custom uh every other year. Maybe it was every other year. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Yeah, and um Yeah, because they take a year to get anyway.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

For right, and so for whatever reason the other two guys, the other two string players in the band, were smart, and they picked like the most expensive stuff they could find because they were like, I don't know if I'm gonna like this. We didn't have an agreement or anything. There was no hang. Yeah. Um and I was like, Well, I I really like the Viper, I like that, and so I got like the nicest LTD viper they had. They didn't have any ESP vipers at the time. Um, and then I had two cheaper ones. I was like, I want all the same. Because for you know, I just always am backup guy.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

And so it turns out I didn't love those guitars. I love the way they look. Um, I love I didn't hate the way they sounded, but only one of them did I really like. The other two I like, huh?

SPEAKER_03 33:00

The nicer, more expensive one? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

The other two, I might have even had a bolt on one as my like number three backup.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Why didn't you get three of the nicer ones?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

I don't know if they had one. Oh, right. And they were like, we can ship it to you. And I was just like, mail a guitar? No way.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

I'll take whatever I can right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, totally. We were on tour, we were making a video. I think I use it in the Ozzy video. Oh, no kidding. I think so. I'm gonna go back and watch that. I think so. I thought it was Les Paul. We'll pop it up here. That's right. Um, so we're on tour. Um, I have that guitar as my backup. We're in Lincoln, Nebraska. I wake up super hungover, and I was, and someone was like, uh, our our tech Theo was like, oh, there's a guitar store down here, and they have a JCM 800, you should check it out. And I was like, I've been looking for one. So here so this is gonna be a great deal and one that got away. Okay. I go down there, I had bought a 5150 block letter for 250 bucks in Austin at a pawn shop. Wow. 250. It's 2001. I don't think I I don't know, did nobody care? It was Austin to be fair. I was gonna say not really the market, right? No, it was and it was out south by southwest. So I buy that for 250, and I have these what we we were affectionately calling free SPs.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

That's very clever.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

It's pretty funny. Um, and I go down there and they've got this JCM 800 50 watt um vertical input. Yummy. It's like 80.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

81, 82.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

I think it's 84.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

84 is when they went to the single channel.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

It's like the um, I'm colorblind, but it's the color of it is a little bit the of the cloth on the face is a little different.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

Okay. So oh, was it the brown?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

They wanted a, you know, they I think they wanted 700 bucks for it. And I was like, well, how about a 5150 and an ESP guitar? And they were like, if you toss in a hundred bucks, um it's yours. And I was like, I don't have a hundred bucks. I didn't have a hundred bucks. And um, I think Theo loaned me a hundred bucks. And so for basically 250 bucks, for 350 bucks, I got that JCM 800.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

You got it? Yeah. Did you use it on tour?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

I it was the backup to my SLO 100. Wow, cool. And um that was a great deal. I don't I'm not usually that clever of a horse trader. Like I'm you know, I just am not. But that's definitely the best deal I've ever gotten.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

I think I sold that amp for$700 in 2004, which I regret. You should be able to do that. That's that's one that got away. And the SLO 100 also one that got away.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Uh I have two best deals ever. Uh first one was when I was 16, and my friend Randy, uh, who went to church on the weekends, he had this bio go to his house, and uh he has this box and it was seven, eight, nine electroharmonics pedals. And some guy at church gave them to him, but none of them worked. He was like, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with these. And then so I'm like, oh, can I see them? I've been installing pickups in my guitars since I was 13 years old. I know how to solder since I was 13, my dad taught me all that stuff, and I was that guy that was taking apart everything and what and all that kind of stuff. So I was like, uh well, I mean, let me let me check one out. So I took the four bolts off the Big Muff and saw immediately, having never seen one before, that the uh the battery terminals used to attach directly to the breadboard. Yeah, and they would pull off. And I thought, I could probably solder that together. So I was like, well, I don't know. Uh are you looking to get rid of any of these? And he goes, You can take the box, just give me something for it. And I'm like, Well, what do you want? And he was like, I don't know. And I'm like, well, I have 20 bucks on me. 16 years old, I'm I'm 16-year-old rich.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

For real.

SPEAKER_03 37:48

Yeah. I have 20 bucks. Because I had a paper out at the time. And he was like, Great, give me 20 bucks. And I gave him 20 bucks, and I got an electric mistress, a V4 Big Muff, um, Dr. Q, a Badstone, a LPB1. All original. These are vintage 70s. At the time, they were about 20 years old. Right. Um, all in pretty good condition, too. They had just been played at church. Um, there was a clone theory, and then there was there was another pedal I can't remember. So anyway, I take them home, and my dad's like, oh, we can fix these. The big muff needed a pot. The pot was toast. The clone theory was actually toast. Someone put a put the wrong power adapter because it had been flipped and it'd been actually fried. That didn't work. Garbage that went. Uh, and then the rest of them we fixed. And the electric mistress and the bad stone and the big muffs were my favorite. Yeah. They were so sick. And I used them and we put them all on a tabletop coffee table, an old coffee table. We cut out and made a pedal board. No true bypass. So you turned it on, and it sounded like your tone was rolled all the way down, but I loved it because I just wanted to be Billy Gorgon. And my dad made me a custom power supply because Voodoo Lab's power supplies didn't exist at that time.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

What happened to that pedal board?

SPEAKER_03 39:11

Eventually, I wanted a what did I want?

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Were you running that into your PV back here? Yes. Your wall of PVs?

SPEAKER_03 39:23

Yes, I was. That's amazing. Um, oh, eventually I wanted a 212 Marshall valve state, which caught on fire after a month. Right. Um, that's a whole nother story. But um I brought all those pedals into Guitar Maniacs and Rick King, all I knew was that's where Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan got their big musk from and the Moserites from. So the very first time I go up to uh um Guitar Maniacs and Rick King is working at the counter and he was like, Listen, kid, I'm gonna give you what these are actually worth. Because I was like, I you know, Guitar Center offered me 20 bucks for each of these, and I feel like I can get more. And he goes, Listen, don't ever go to Guitar Center. If you have any more of this kind of stuff, come here. I'll give you 70 bucks a piece for these straight across the board. This is 1997, pretty great deal. And he didn't even plug them in or anything, it didn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

He's like, I'll give you 70 bucks a piece for these, which means he could sell them at that time for 200 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Yes, it was about that, right? Because you know, Siamese Dream had come out, everyone was looking for electroharmonics, everything. And electroharmonics was only made the Civil War green, Sovtec, Big Muff, and Bad Stones were the only things you could get new. Right. The reason the New York City reissues hadn't happened yet. Um, and I'll forever be thankful to Rick. Rick has no idea who I am, has never heard of me or this channel, but I will always be grateful for him because he did not screw me over as a 16, 17-year-old kid. And I bought I went promptly and bought a new Marshall with that money. It's pretty cool. That's my great deal. Oh, yeah, then the other great deal is I also got a JCM 800 on tour from John from the home team. Shout out to John. Um, he had a friend offer him an 84 JCM 800 2203 for 700 bucks because he needed to get MMA gear because he had just entered in and got accepted into some kind of MMA tournament and desperately needed gear. And so he had this 800 for 700 bucks. And John said, I don't have 700 bucks, but I'll call call someone who does. And we were on tour going through Texas, and it was we got I got the 2203, and it was the most beat. I made a video about it many, many years ago. The head shell was come the joints were completely falling apart. All I know it was it was on tour with Rancid in the 90s. Whoa. With the opening band that they took out a lot, an all-girl band. In that video, we figured out in the comments who it actually used to belong to, and I believe she even commented, but it had some weird mystery mod and was one of the best sounding marshals I've ever heard. I dearly regret getting rid of that. But there you go. 700 bucks I paid for that thing. It was awesome. Leave a comment down below on your great deals, guys. I love great deals and people getting great deals.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

I love a deal.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

A deal feels good emotionally, and if you know that if you should want to sell in the future, you can make money at it.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

I do a lot on marketplace. You sure do? I poke around on marketplace a lot. Yeah. And even if something is priced low, like if Are you the guy that's always off making an offer on anything, even if it's a great deal already? Yes. And and I sell a lot of things on marketplace and and I price them right down the middle. And I expect people, like if someone doesn't try to make an offer.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

I'm not the offer guy.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

I think um it's maybe a scam. Like this interesting. This might be a scam. Yeah. Oh, that's who doesn't want a deal? Like, I'm not this isn't Sears and Robuck. No, no, I'm not. Make an offer.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

I get it. I've I mean I sell tons of stuff on Reverb link down below. And and uh no, there's another person right now. But um No, but I have guys that love the art of the deal, so I get offers all the time that even uh even if I'm pricing stuff at crazy deals, I'll still accept the offers that you know the guys will offer five dollars less just to feel like they're getting a deal.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Fine. Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

What's five dollars between friends?

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Here's what I here's a little etiquette lesson for you. Now, I and I taught this lesson to A guy who was playing in the band at the show last weekend because he was making an offer on a um Gator guitar boat and it was priced at 300 bucks. Great deal. Okay. That's a good deal. It's a great deal. I think they're 450 bucks, right? And it was brand new. 500 bucks. Like a six-banger or seven banger. Cool. And he and he said, I don't know, this guy was a jerk. And all I did was make an offer. And I was like, well, let me ask you a question. Did you was did the entirety of your message involve just the number? Like your dollar amount? And he said, Yeah. And I was like, then you're a prick. Then you're a prick. Like, how about a little courtesy? Hey, Mike. I'm interested in your guitar rap.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Oh, oh, I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Hey, would you I've oh, you know. Of course. Would you be interested in this? Have a little conversation. No, this is social media.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

Oh, dude's just throwing out numbers? Hey, 650.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

No, people don't even say hey, they just put and they don't even put a dollar sign in front of it. People are so fucking lazy when they make an offer, they they uh they leave the dollar sign off.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

I don't even mess with marketplace at all.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Oh my god, it drives me that you're reinforcing and like why that feels like a get off my lawn moment, of course, but I don't care. Like, just be courteous. Like, what are you doing? Anyway, just be a dude.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

Just and prosper. That's what I say.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

That's right. Be a dude and prosper. Why not? There's it costs nothing to be nice to anybody. That's right. It costs nothing.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

That's correct. Yeah. Uh what about the ones that got away?

SPEAKER_03 45:56

I don't have very many of those stories. Uh the first one that comes to my mind now, my father has apologized for this a couple of different times on his own accord. But my very first guitar I bought, it was an electric kit guitar. It was a neck-through 70s kit guitar that looked like a Les Paul Jr. double cut.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

But it was a little bit bigger. It was the Metau?

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Mateo?

SPEAKER_03 46:24

No, it was a uh, it was basically he got it from the guy who was running Warmouth at the time. And it was like his own personal guitar that he built or something like that. Crazy. It was awesome. Brass bridge, um you know, um, neck through, brass nut, brass tuners. He got it in 1978. It was neck heavy as hell, but it was an awesome guitar. And I got my stickered strat that I still have for my 15th birthday party. Or my 15th birthday, but I bought that first guitar with my own paper out money from my uncle Dennis for$75 with the Dean Markley amp. Nice. I didn't get very good. I barely got past eighth grade. And as punishment, my dad took that guitar without telling me and sold it to one of his coworkers. And I never saw it again and kept the money. And I even years later, he actually made a concerted effort to track down that former co-worker who's long been retired to try to find that guitar. And he got a hold of him and he's like, nah, I sold that off a long time ago. Wow. I wish I had that that guitar. I had custom painted it. I put the jack on the front like a jag because Kurt Cobain had that, had it like that. It was an awesome guitar. It had cream super distortions.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Do you think that it's as I mean, if you had what if you got that guitar back and it wasn't as cool as you thought?

SPEAKER_03 47:58

I know it wouldn't be as cool because even at that time, I remember whenever I would move even just a little bit, the the pitch would go in and out. The net the neck truss rod was shot. Right. It was so shot.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

You could just barely It's crazy for a neck through.

SPEAKER_03 48:15

Yeah, the the wood was very all over the place. It wouldn't ever hold tune either, which is why they actually bought me the strata'cause because it would, but still, for sentimental reasons, I wish I still had that guitar, even just hanging on my wall. Um, I was never able to find it again. But the fact that he kept the money from that I earned, come on. Yeah, well, he was like, listen, I made mistakes, mistakes were made, and I am so, so sorry. Well, and he meant it, and it's fine. He's doing we do the best we can.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

You can't be great at everything.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Also, I might have deserved it at the time. I was smoking a lot of pot. I was kind of a rat bastard at the time. There's a lot of things happening. At the time. At the time, I was not a nice guy. Unlike now, I'm a very nice guy. I'm the nicest, that's right. Oh. Yep. What about you? One that got away.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Do I only get one? There's so many.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

No, no, we're gonna go back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Oh my god. My second, my um, my very first guitar was a PV Predator that I got here.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Um just looking at 90s PVs.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

This is 80s, baby. I got it at American Music here in Seattle. It came with a it was a package deal with that little battery-powered PV. And um I started playing and right away like really committed myself to it. It was the second time I started trying to play guitar. And uh the second time it really stuck. Like I was old enough, I could, you know, physically I could play the guitar. As a younger kid, it was a it was really hard. And so um, you know, I had a couple uncles who were super supportive, you know, as messed up as everything else was at home. There were two uncles that were really supportive. One in a let's jam kind of way, and one in a telling me I was good before I was good. That's cool though. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Really, really encouraging. By the way, huh? And one day he came home from one of his like uh Coke dealer buddies houses, and he goes, he's got this in this thing in a garbage bag, and he goes, Hey man, I I got you a guitar. Or maybe it was in a case, it was it was in a case. It was in a case.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

And the case was in a garbage bag?

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Y for sure. Yeah. There was a garbage bag involved. And uh, so I open this thing up, and there's a um a Les Paul custom. I think you've seen a photo of it. I have with me and my mullet. And it's um, you know, th whatever, three-piece neck, five-piece neck. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

It was a real Norlin era Les Paul custom.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What color was it? So much what? I don't remember what color it was in the photo. It was uh like a red yellow, it was like a uh burst red, like cloud like cloud burst, gold hardware, all messed up. The back was so chewed up. There were no strings on it, and I didn't know anything. Like I the other guitar I had was like a strat style bridge. I just if I broke a string- You never even seen this. No, I'd never I had no idea there was it was felt like so much contraption. Sure. You know, the tail piece, and like I was like, I don't like I didn't know which way to put the tail piece into the you know, I kind of looked at it and go, okay, well, this these notches go here, but which way? And then you know you try to put strings on it, you're like, oh well, no doubt it goes the other way because it's got to hold it on. Sure. But I remember putting the strings on there, and it, you know, the the adjustment was all the way down. So the strings just laid across the fret, and I was like, the guitar is broken, it doesn't work. I don't know. And so, you know, me and my uncle sat down with it, and he's like, Well, what if we raise this up? Would that would that make the strings go up? And I was like, Oh yeah. Anyway, I played that guitar. It was an uncool guitar. Oh, in the 80s? Yeah. Oh, but it was it was I wanted I wanted a Jackson Charvel or an I or an Ibanez. You know, like that's what I had an Ibanez shirt, you know. That's as close as I ever came to owning an Ibanez guitar. I still lust after, you know, an Iceman and a RG. But um I played that guitar and eventually like really loved it. And then a year later, Appetite came out. And who's playing a Les Paul? That's right. I was like, I knew it was cool all along, you know. It's a cool guy, see. And I knew that Jimmy Page played one, and I knew that Joe Perry played one, and I knew all these other players played a les Paul, but Ace Freely. It felt like my uncle's music or my, you know.

SPEAKER_03 53:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

And but Guns N' Roses was my music, and all of a sudden I was like, I'm just like Slash.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

So you played that for years?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Played it for years. Joined the Marine Corps, my mom pawned it. Stop when I was away, and I came home. I came home.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

What?

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

I didn't know this. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

I came home and she was like, I don't know, you, you know, your dad came over here and like maybe, you know, it was this a whole thing. Like, she tried to pawn it off on my life. She's lied about it. Yeah, straight up. So I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna go to the police because this is a stolen guitar. And she's like, I don't know. So I go down there and I um I start filling out a report, and they just quickly go into some weird blue screen computer thing because when something goes to a pawn shop, they have to register it, they have to register it. And you know, so it had been registered, you know, it was in her name. No, and I was like, and they were like, Do you want to press charges? And I was like, No, you know, it's all right. But I went to the pawn shop. And it was uh, I believe it was Anchor Lones and Everett. I went in and they were like, I don't know, kid, we get a lot of stuff in here. And I was like, listen, this is a you know, they had some really it wasn't just like any guitar, it had some really distinguishable things to it and the case as well. Sure. And so um they were like, well, that ended up at uh not Tommy's, but who was the dude who who was up there? There was a dude who was a vintage guitar dealer before Tommy's. I don't want to disparage Tommy's always been good to me. Um, Danny. Danny's music. Do you know Danny's music?

SPEAKER_03 55:45

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Well, they were like this and any guitars of value end up at Danny's. And I went to Danny's, I was home on Boot Camp Leave, and I was like, I went to Danny's and I was like, hey ma'am. Told him the whole story, and then I was like, I really like that guitar means a lot to me. And he was like, he looked me straight in the eye and said, I've never seen your guitar. I don't know if he was lying or not. But I wow. Well, maybe he wasn't, you know. Maybe the pawn shop was lying, but I worked in a pawn shop later and like they're smart enough to know, like, well, they know exactly what goes in and out.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

They have to.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Yeah, of course. And they know where something goes. Like, they're like, we'll sell this to a dealer, and we can always sell this stuff there. And that's a market that they deal in. We deal in low-end stuff and we charge premium price. Oh. Anyway, I never bought anything from Danny after that. I, you know. Oh just because I was I was pretty bummed, man. You know.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

What year of Les Paul would that have been? Was it some early 70s? Early 70s.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

Yeah. I mean, it had been played, and I got it in 1986, you know. Right. I got it in 86 or early 87, and it looked 50 years old then. Like and played. It looks like like buckle rash on the back, massive buckle rash, and like there was actually like a chip. If anyone is watching this, I'm still looking for this guitar. It you need a serial number. It could seriously, it could totally be a dog.

SPEAKER_03 57:37

Sure. But you know wish you had a serial number. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

No way. You know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:44

No, I mean, at the time, I I wish you would have had a kept it. Because you certainly certainly had it.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

The original case. It was in the original case. In that case, I had a chainsaw case? Uh no.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

The the the plastic? No. Oh no, that would have been before those.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

And uh there was a Jimi Hendrix sticker on it and a red-hot chili pepper sticker.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Wow. So the one that got away. Let's find uh Mike's Let's Paul.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

You don't let go of anything. I've been to your storage space.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Listen, pal, I let go of plenty of stuff. There has been some weird stuff that like I'm like, I shouldn't have I shouldn't have got rid of that. Oddly enough, um, I had a my first solo album when I was still learning how to really kind of record. I happened to stop by at a pawn shop in it, might have been Everett. I might have been in Everett as well. No, yeah. I was I was 11. It was like 1991 and uh no. Um I didn't I had never heard of them before. Um this was the dawn of the it wasn't the dawn of the internet, it was dawn of YouTube, certainly. Um PV6534 Plus, which is a 6505 plus, but it has EL34s from the factory, and it was brand new in this pawn exchange, and they wanted 500 bucks for it, and it still had the hang tags that someone I don't know if this thing was sold, it was all verified, it was a pawn exchange, it was a chain, so they'd already verified it was all good, and it still had the guitar center price tag for like$8.99 at the time, right? And the guy, I think they wanted$6.99, and I was like, listen, I have$500 cash money right now. And the guy was like, Oh, let me see. Yeah, okay, but we don't have the power cord with her, we don't come with anything and no warranty, you can't bring it back. And I was like, Great. And I recorded an entire record with that thing, and I still think about that damn amp.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

What happened to that?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:00

Eventually, I got rid of it. Just uh at one point I had a Rhodes Gemini, I had an uh an old 5150, I had a couple of other amps at this time, and I was like, Oh, I don't need a PV, I don't want a P. I have all this boutique, I have an old Mesa Boogie, and like I'm too good for this PV. And fucking choke. But I didn't know so. Then I subsequently I got other non-6534s, and I was like, wow, none of them sounded like this 6534, which is the best 5150 variant ever made. I will die on that hill. And uh John from PV uh and I have had this conversation, he also agrees with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

What do those go for now? Had version 1200 bucks. They make a 212 of it too, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Something like that, yeah. But I I've always I I mean I still have my uh reverb uh listing or my reverb set to uh for for the old USA ones, which I think they're they come up every once in a while, but no one cared about them when they came out. They only were made for like a year or two. Wow, what an amazing amplifier. Other than that, I don't have many regrets on gear. There's a gear to me, it's it's weird. Some of it's emotional, but a lot of it is a tool, practical thing. So if I'm not using it a lot, or if I don't have a use for it, I get rid of it for something that I will use a lot, right? That's that whole lean mentality of like when I was in the corporate Boeing world. If you don't use it, lose it, kind of thing. I don't know, it's hard to explain to some extent.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:33

Yes, I have 30 music bands, but but you also did your time as a mechanic, and if you don't use a certain thing, 100% like as soon as you're like, oh, I'm gonna loan this to Bob, right? You need it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Right. But if I'm not using this$350 specialty ratchet, I'm gonna fucking trade it in and get a rent set or something, right? Like, but it's that next week when you need it. I know, I know, but but but I'm now trying to I'm trying to actively downsize and take all of the stuff and just have a handful of really great stuff, whether it's amps, guitars, pedals, or whatever. I get stressed out by the amount of stuff I have. I mean, you've experienced some of it already of just like just stuff, stuff accumulates, pedals, guitars, demo stuff. I have a lot of weird stuff. You have a lot of weird stuff. So I don't know, man. Those are those those are the two things that uh that really got away, and I wish I still had.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Over the years, I've owned four Cole guitars. Saul Cole is uh one of the most veteran boutique guitar builders in America. Yeah. He's a an American treasure, he's a gentleman, plays in a punk rock band. He's and is in just a champion.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:02

You've owned four of his guitars?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

I've owned four. I started buying them in the 90s. That black one back there on the rack I got in 1998.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:11

Whoa, I didn't know that. That's a great guitar.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

It's a killer guitar. It's the second one I ever owned. The first one I bought from Harris Thurmond from Hammerbox, and it sounded like a fucking piano. It was incredible. It just rang and was clear and just unbelievable. Had three P90s in it and a Wilkinson tuning lockers, you know, locking tuner tuners, and uh it's just amazing. Really simple guitar. And you could flip the, you know, had some phase switching options on it. But that guitar I let go when I broke my leg and was living in Portland. That's a bummer. And I had him custom build me a telecaster, uh basically a Les Paul special in telecaster clothing, like a wolf in sheep's clothing. So it was a tell, set neck, all mahogany, angled headstock, Gibson scale. Angled headstock, angled headstock, angled telly headstock, and a Bigsby in 2P90s, and it was sick. It was such a great guitar. I actually I sold that one later, maybe when I was buying a house or something. Um I saw it at Emerald City for sale when I was visiting from New York, and I was like, oh my god, that's my guitar. And I almost bought it again.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

Because it's one of one.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

It's a special guitar. Some I think someone here, well, they might have sold it online. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:09

I hope you're posting pictures while we're uh while we're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Maybe I will.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

Maybe you will.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

That one got away. I really missed that one. But the blue duo glide superior is what the the it was like Chrysler Green, which I think is more of a blue. Yeah. And it had a natural maple neck. It was God, it was incredible.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:32

Sounds like a killer guitar. I'd love to see a photo.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

Ridiculous guitar. Okay. It got away.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

All right. Leave a comment down below with the one that you got away too. I want to read some stories, guys, because we all share the pain.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

We talked about this. I don't know if this is the right time to bring it up or not. But if anyone has listened this long if you're still here. They loved. We've talked about doing live things now. We've talked about doing a YouTube live thing in the past. What do we stream about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:13

Oh, I thought I meant well live. My brain went to the live show. I'm like, I don't remember. Don't remember that. Don't remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

You don't have any tunes, bro. Yeah. No. A live stream. Live stream, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

Sure, sure. Maybe a live rate of roasts or some other. I've long tried to do a live rater roast at NAM. No one ever, no one has the balls.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:35

I've tried.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:36

I've tried a couple of times.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

Yeah. So maybe we do a maybe let's let's try it. Let's try our first live stream rater roast. Can people drop images in? No. That's too people.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:52

No, we can still pull from the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

People start dropping dick pics in there. It can go sideways real quick.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:57

We can still pre-get. We can still do the same show we always do, just have it be live and be interactive. Yeah, for sure. I'll do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:07

I wish there was a way that people could drop photos of their gear and we'd just be like on Twitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:14

Um there might be a way, but I don't know. Do people still use Twitch? I think so. I think game gaming folk do.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

When are we gonna start a video game?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:25

I mean, I play video games almost every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

There's yeah, never mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

No, let's not get into that. No. Anyways, should we get out of here? Yeah. All right, let's get out of here. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening andor watching another episode of the Risk Beards in Gear podcast. Uh, you have been wonderful. I've been Fluff. I'm still your pal Mike. We'll see you next time.