Nigel,
What does that brunette think about good looking, blond haired, blue eyed, Cajun Tenor Sax players?

Please don't tell her I'm a Jazzer, OK? Tell her I play whatever genre' of music it is that you guys are playing, PLEASE?
Thanks good old buddy, friend, great guy that you are!!!! I hope it ain't your wife. I don't care about the other guys.

Sorry, Ian, you asked about what amp I used. I had a brand new Vox AC30 which, at the time, cost the princely sum of 122 pounds sterling. I see them now, with a few bells and whistles, around the $1300 mark!

Wow! That must have been a "downer"...that song still gets played a lot...your situation was not uncommon, as there were a lot of unscrupulous agents/managers...makes me think of Hunter S. Thompson's quote..."The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

The Vox AC Amps were very popular, and became more so here in Canada during the Beatles takeover. I used a 60's Fender Bassman 100 Piggyback “Blackface” with black Tolex amplifier and matching black Tolex 4X10" speaker cabinet...not sure of the wattage, but it worked pretty good up until I got a second hand Leslie 122, and eventually a Hammond M-3 to go with it. I even mic'd the 122 through a Marshall stack at one point. Ahhh...the days of experimentation that preceded the first synths.

Combo organs made a comeback with groups like Elvis Costello, but Hammond really ruled the roost and were what we all aspired to eventually, despite the transportation problems.

A friend had an L102...nice, especially since it had presets and drawbars, the M-3 only having the latter, but they had essentially the same sound and same size keyboards, although the M-3's were closer in size and shape to the B's.

This is a good thread...lots of cool and interesting stuff...the historical aspect of SZ.

Ian

The Vox AC30 is an absolutely classic tube amp that will always be in demand.

Yep, the AC30 was and is right up there with the Fender Twin, and the Roland JC-120, depending on what flavor you wanted...the best of the Brits, the USA, and Japan.

Although I had experience with the Fender and JC-120, I was never fortunate enough to play a keyboard through a Vox AC30...they were hard to find and were usually grabbed up by the guitar players.

Many years ago, early 90's, whilst working in Newfoundland, one of my band mates in the Ducats, was in on the discovery of a bunch of instruments stored away in a old house outside of the capital city of St.John's. The house used to be a nightclub, and when the owner died, his wife took all the gear, which he had bought for the use of any bands playing there, and put everything in the attic, and remodeled the house. The club had only been active for about a year.

Besides a complete set of Rogers Drums, vintage Fender PA system with two speaker towers, two vintage Fender guitars, one a Tele and the other a Precision Bass, there was a red Fender Contempo Combo Organ, that only needed contact cleaner and some other minor things, to get it up to playing condition. I got to play it, because the guy who discovered knew I had some experience with combo organs, and wanted to know if it was working correctly.

http://www.combo-organ.com/Fender/fender.htm

Man, that sound brought back a lot of memories...we played it through one of the Twin Reverbs also stored away...quite a find. Lou Skinner, our guitar player, and the guy who acquired it, eventually sold it to someone in the US for an undisclosed amount, but I think he did quite well on it.

That's why I asked 124 about his instrument...some collectors will pay top dollar for these old organs.

Ian

This is around '57-'59. We won two battle of the bands against the top teen age groups of the day. Lee Allen, Red Tyler, Herbert Hardesty, Allen Toussaint, etc were older than us and was making money with Fats and the gang. They weren't in the battle of the bands. Ha ha!
I propose a "Who's the band on this post with the best looking members contest?" Female's do not count.

I vote for my band IMHO!!!!!!!!!!

The bottom pic is me sitting in with the band that was playing for my Baby Sister's wedding. Maybe around '74-'76. If you notice like Donnie, I too did not follow the crowd. I still wore a hair cut. How could you guys stand all of the hair hanging and getting in you ears. Do you still think that was cool? Ha ha!

Wow, you just never know. You gotta go with how you feel though. That's life.
It sounds like you had a very interesting musical career back then. That clip you posted is truly wonderful.

I co-wrote and recorded a song that had Colin Haye from Men At Work sing the opening verse and harmonies. You may recognize his voice as it is quite distinctive.

A very interesting musical life indeed, Nigel.

London, in the mid-60's, was everything you heard about it, and more. I can't imagine being involved in a better scene anywhere at any time. No words can describe it, really. It's as though everything came together at that moment, and I don't think it'll ever come again.

The Vox AC30 was a very favoured amp with guitarists and keyboard players alike. For a compact unit, it packed a lot of punch with its two 12" Celestion speakers. You also saw a lot of Fender Twins, Bassmans, and a lot of Selmer amps. Watkins, the maker of the Telstar organ, also made some good amps. Vox certainly weren't without competition.

Ian: I took a look at that vintage organ website. Very absorbing. Even though there's reference to it being related to the Teischord, it certainly looked nothing like one. It's difficult to see much detail in that photo, but the Telstar was a well made unit - Rexine-covered plywood on chrome fold-up legs. The tabs were a bit on the small side and were of the push-in/pull-out variety. It even had percussion, something similar to the third harmonic on a Hammond which is what attracted me to it in the first place. As you say, very rare. Not many were made, and I've never seen one since.

Nigel: Thanks for another excellent vid. Oz certainly had its share of some great bands. It's a shame, the shemozzle Men at Work got into over Down Under. Ian's quote from Hunter S. Thompson certainly rings true.

Donny,

And a few thousand McDonalds later