Marshall Amps

I mentioned earlier about Les Paul “inventing” the solid-body guitar, recognizing that since electric guitars depend on the pickups and amplifier (“amp”) for sound, a hollow body was no longer necessary.  Clearly, then, the amplifier is a crucial part of the guitar’s sound – you won’t have a sound without it.

 Since the mid-60s, the top choice of amplifiers among professional musicians is clearly Marshall.  Although Fender and Gibson make their own amps (Fender’s being more popular by far), as do many other companies – Laney, Mesa-Boogie, Orange, etc. - far and away the most popular are Marshall.  

Back in January 1990, I joined the ranks and bought my own, a humble little combo, the 25^th Anniversary (1962-1987) Jubilee edition, 50 watts, with one 12” Celestion speaker and an overdrive switch.  This series was a favorite of Slash, of Guns N’Roses, so much so that his own signature series amp was modeled after this one.  

In April 2010, I finally managed to get a half-stack, a JCM900 100 watt Dual Reverb head with a 4x12" 1960AV slanted (top) cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30s.  It's VERY LOUD.

 The Stack.  In the mid 60s, Pete Townshend of The Who was looking for more power and bigger amps.  After his roadies bitched at him that the 8x12” cabinets Marshall made for him were too big and heavy, Marshall compromised by cutting the 8x12” cabinets in half, creating the stack: a separate “head” for the amplifier itself, and two cabinets, each with 4 12” speakers (4x12”).  Add more stacks for more power, and collect a wall of them.  Blue Cheer blew their advance from Phillips on their stacks; and KISS, when starting out, used empty cabinets to give the illusion of a full wall of amps. 

            By contrast, the Beatles had been using much smaller amps (Vox combos), without even a P.A., in huge stadiums – no wonder they couldn’t hear themselves play.  Maybe if they had invested in some quality ampage and power, and some decent monitors, they’d have enjoyed the live experience much more, and not have given up in 1966 to focus only on records.  Paul McCartney isn’t scraping by in concert these days with a single AC30 behind him – but since he switches from bass to guitar by song, he needs both types of amp.  Even so, he doesn’t have a full wall of amps the way most rock bands do, more like a few half-stacks (head with one 4x12” angled cabinet).

 Tubes vs. Solid-state. My first amp was a solid-state Peavey Studio Pro 50, a 1x12” combo, which came on immediately after being turned on, and had terrible distortion.  I had to use an MXR Distortion pedal to approximate a decent distortion sound.  When I got the all-tube Marshall, I was able to sell the pedal back to my guitar teacher, Joel, who had sold it to me at cost, and simply use a footswitch and the amp’s effects loop.  The tube distortion sound was warm, thick, with lots of body and midrange.  Joel explained that the “tube vs. solid-state” debate was “sound vs. reliability”, tube amps having the sound advantage and solid states having the edge on reliability, no pesky tubes to replace or burn out.  But in all the years I’ve had this Marshall, I’ve replaced the tubes and had them biased once.  Moreover, if reliability was such a huge factor, why do professional musicians – whose livelihoods depend on reliable amps and have to cart them from venue to venue, handled by clumsy roadies and suffering trucks and planes across continents - use tube Marshalls?  There’s the proof.  

 Having said that, Marshall does make solid-state and hybrid amps, and they cost much less than the full tube versions and sound almost the same.  And many other tube amps sound like a Marshall, more or less.  When I was looking for amps in January 1990, various salesmen steered me to other brands: Laney, Mesa-Boogie, etc., always promising that they were either “as good” or “almost as good” as a Marshall.  Well, if I could afford a Marshall, why not buy a Marshall?  And so I did. 

 By the way, despite being the most popular amp (or perhaps because it is) Marshall does not give away its amps to professionals for endorsements.  Jim Marshall’s reasoning: “if you’re professional enough to endorse the product, you can afford it.  Amateur musicians shouldn’t be subsidizing you.” 

 Distortion.  In the late 60s, guitarists were learning the limitations of the stock amps – as noted above with the Beatles.  What they also learned was that many amps when cranked up high enough, started distorting.  To most amp manufacturers, this was a BAD thing.  I recall asking Joel, way back when, why we couldn’t plug the guitar into a stereo.  He explained that stereos are designed to play back with high fidelity (“hi-fi”) and minimum distortion, whereas (knowing the kind of music I liked and was asking him to teach me) that what we want from amps is maximum distortion.  Tony Iommi recalls an amp company reacting with horror when he asked if they could make an amp with MORE distortion.  They didn’t get it.  And their ads – promising NO DISTORTION – showed how clueless they were, even Marshall (someone commented about such a Marshall ad, “thank God for false advertising!”).  Eventually Marshall, and later other companies, wised up, listened to the guitarists, and began designing amps with the appropriate “dirty” channels and putting in speakers which sounded good when distorted.     

 Models. Since 1962, Marshall has put out a bewildering array of models with confusing numbers, special editions, signature editions, etc. sometimes in blue, purple, red, or even silver.  The most common and important models, however, are: the original JTM45 100 watt heads, to go with the 4x12” cabinets in the stack; then the 1959 SLP (Super Lead Plexiglas, often just called the “Plexi”); followed by the JCM800 (2204 50 watt and 2203 100 watt) models.  More recently came the JCM900 (Master Volume and Dual Reverb), DSL (Dual Super Lead) and TSL (Triple Super Lead) models, and the Mode 4 350 watt head.

Cell Phones

The other day I was in the elevator, switching background pics on my cell phone, when an older man – who can obviously remember rotary phones – remarked how we take them for granted these days.  In fact, we can’t live without them, yet they are fairly recent.

 My brother and my secretary both have iPhones, while I still have the Sharp TM150 I bought in 2005 shortly after returning from Rio, where my POS Nokia didn’t work – it was a two-band phone, not a three band phone, and of course in Rio they use the one band this phone couldn’t use.  Anyhow.  At the time it was fancy and snazzy, the most advanced phone T-Mobile sold.  Now?  I have to admit the iPhone is much nicer, but I’d have to actually own one to get used to its unique touch-screen format.  Recall Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) shrugging off somone’s iPhone when trying to reach the alarmingly absent-for-his-own-wedding Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in the “Sex & The City” movie (thanks to Miranda’s ever-so-helpful advice to him at the rehearsal dinner the night before).  For the time being I mess around with my secretary’s phone – much to her annoyance. 

 I can remember rotary phones and black and white TVs.  I first got a cell phone in 1998, some rather large Motorola thing scarcely smaller than the typical cordless phone.  At the time I still had a landline – which I’ve now gotten rid of.  I really think cell phones have made home phones obsolete, assuming you have reliable coverage with your cell; land lines are 99% reliable, so it takes an impressive cell network to beat them.

 History.  0G, 1G, 2G, 3G.  0G starts from the 1940s, with car phones using vacuum tube technology developing in the 1950s.  The 1G era began in Japan in 1981, with Motorola selling the first handheld cell phones in the US in 1983 (above second from left).  These phones were large and bulky – and certainly a novelty at that time.  2G technology dates from 1991, about which time cell phones seemed to appear with any meaningful frequency.  The 90s is when I started seeing them around in any numbers, but far from the frequency you see today.  3G dates from 1999.  

 Nowadays it seems everyone has one.  My mom has one, but she rarely brings it with her or uses it, and still relies on her landline.  My friends Dave and Ken have yet to get them.  In Ken’s case it seems to be anti-Yuppie deal, like his aversion to BMWs - in this respect he’s back in the Reagan ‘80s.

 T-Mobile.  This is my carrier.  I can’t remember why I chose them, most likely because, at the time, they had the nicest phone.  Their coverage in Europe was stunning: I had better reception in Bucharest than at Dulles Airport.  Likewise, equipped with a tri-band phone in Rio, I had no trouble.  Here the coverage stinks around Dulles Airport, in Centreville (where my brother lives), and all but the 5^th floor of the Fairfax County Courthouse.  In a small town in Minas Gerais, Brazil, the only good cell phone reception is at the cemetery, of all places (!!!).  Not quite that bad, but similar issues.

 Sharp TM150.  See above, next to the Motorola dinosaur. T-Mobile no longer supports this phone.  They have their own version of the iPhone, but my impression is that it lacks many of the features of the iPhone.  Mine has a small disc drive that fits a 32 MB minidisk, a camera which takes mediocre pictures and 8 second video clips, and a very high resolution screen (something in the mexapixel range).  The ringtones are fantastic: at a time at which most cell phones had a polyphone tone, this one had real tones: actual words and lyrics (e.g. “Office Space” Bill Lumbergh: “That would be great, m’kay?”).  It’s a flip-open design very similar to the Star Trek communicators – hell, I even downloaded the appropriate ringtone for that, so I can reply, “Kirk here.  Beam me up.”

 Text Messaging.  My Romanian woman-from-hell taught me this.  I’d text her when the cab arrived in her neighborhood, and she’d get in.  So date my TM days from April 2006.  Text messaging is best for small, short, simple messages, especially when you’re in a noisy environment (e.g. a rock concert) where a normal phone call would be impractical.  It’s difficult to text while driving – not recommended! – and not well suited for elaborate discussions or phone sex.  The key is to recognize its strengths and avoid its weaknesses.

 Etiquette.  We’ve all seen idiots, assholes, and bitches yakking on their cell phones:  driving their SUVs into someone’s poor car, interrupting movies, taking calls at inappropriate moments (e.g. in the middle of a date), arguing in public, etc.  At the courthouse, assuming your phone isn’t taken from you at security, you will be warned to turn it off before court, as the judges hate them going off in court and the bailiffs are happy to oblige. The other deal is the earpiece phone, when your viewpoint is the ear WITHOUT the earpiece, so it looks as though the person is an unusually articulate schizophrenic having a conversation with an imaginary friend. 

            Aside from cell phones going off in court, the most egregious breach was when we had the Buddhist monks from Tibet (dark red robes, shaved heads, etc.) blessing our humble office.  This involved ringing bells and chanting in Tibetan for about 30 minutes.  An unidentified Vietnamese male, probably a former client, was sitting in on this, obviously hoping the blessing would include him.  And in the middle, his cell phone kept going off.  Not once.  Not twice.  But at least three times.  Instead of putting it on mute or turning it off, he simply acknowledged that it was from his (apparently difficult and jealous) wife, and let it ring.  And let it ring again when he didn’t pick up the first and second times.  I’m neither Buddhist nor Tibetan, but I at least turned my own cell phone off and respected the ceremony.   When I go to mass at the Cathedral, I leave my cell phone in the car, and to the credit of the Catholics at my church, I have NEVER heard a cell phone go off in mass.  They might sit tight and not get Communion (God knows why…literally) but they won’t take a cell phone call in church.  I have to wonder what a ceremony at a Buddhist temple must be like.  

Don Martin

Enough about poison gas.  It’s time for …the Arts.  Sometime recently my brother got me a unique present, a heavy hardbound collection of Don Martin cartoons from Mad Magazine.  His work featured there from 1956 to 1988; he drew for Cracked from 1988 to 1993; and he died in 2000.  In school I was very much into art and doodles, and shamelessly expropriated his technique for my own – up until high school, when I started developing my own style, such as it is, nowhere near Martin’s.

 His style was… unique to say the least.  Strange eyes, huge chins, protruding pinkies big toes, and comic sound effects.  No one else is like him, yet anyone claiming to be influenced by him, rather than copying his own style, managed to develop their own unique style, e.g. Peter Bagge, who draws for Reason Magazine. 

 Those who met him were also surprised: expecting someone looking like Curly from the Three Stooges, in fact they found probably the most handsome of the Mad magazine staffers. 

 Mad Magazine.  I don’t really want to devote an entire blog to this, so it’s best to include it here.  We used to read this religiously as kids (though never subscribed).  Don Martin, of course, was my favorite cartoonist.  The humor was OK, but as I grew older I chucked it aside, probably a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else.  Reading it again much later, I’m struck by how adult the humor really is.  Dave Berg cartoon: Woman tells man, “You only give me love because you want sex.”  Man replies, “You only give me sex because you want love.” Both together, rushing into each other’s arms: “USE ME!!”  Al Jaffee’s stuff was incredibly cynical, especially his “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” and fold-in back covers.  I was never much impressed by Alfred E. Neuman.

 Mad TV.  I didn’t expect to be impressed by this, but it turned out to be good: and MUCH better than Saturday Night Live, its closest competitor.  The recurring characters, though, aren’t that great: the snotty, tactless, politically incorrect woman played by Nicole Sullivan; the embarrassingly physically mature but emotionally retarded Michael McDonald (though he’s good at most other roles); or the annoyingly vague and inarticulate Asian woman played by Alex Borstein.  Phil Lamarr’s UPS guy was the only one that had any charm. 

 A picture is worth a thousand words – so enjoy above, a small but representative sample of his work.

Poison Gas

I mentioned this briefly in my WWI blog, but now I’ll address it in more detail.  Far more so than machine guns, artillery, rifles, grenades, mortars, or even airplanes, poison gas had a psychological effect far beyond its military usefulness.  Both sides used it, even US forces, and both sides suffered as a result.  It was used on the Italian Front, on the Eastern Front, in Gaza, and even against the Bolsheviks in 1919.  Even civilians and rear echelon troops were affected.  The gas masks necessary to protect against it gave the soldiers a disturbing, inhuman appearance.  By the end of the war, just under 90,000 fatalities were caused by poison gas (56,000 incurred by the Russians alone), and over a million non-fatal casualties.  

 Three basic types of gas were used in WWI.

Chlorine.  This gas kills by irritating the lungs so much that they drown in their own fluids  - the gas reacts to form hydrochloric acid in the lungs.  It has a smell like pepper or pineapple, and forms a yellowish/greenish cloud which tended to settle in the deeper parts of the trench.  Water-soaked pads were initially used to combat it, as well as pads soaked in bicarbonate, or even urine.  On one hand, its visibility made it easier to detect, so that masks could be put on, but on the other hand, that same visibility made it that much more terrifying.

 Phosgene.  Ten times more toxic than chlorine.  Unlike chlorine, phosgene is colorless, but has a smell like moldy hay.  It was more difficult to detect, but its effects took longer to kill – but by the time symptoms arose, it was too late to do anything about it.  Estimates that 85% of the fatalities caused by poison gas were from phosgene.

 Mustard Gas. First used by the Germans in 1917.  This gas tended to deny areas to the enemy, but still produced painful effects: blisters on the skin, pain in the lungs, and it caused eyes to puff up, thus temporary blindness.  Since it reacted to skin, rather than merely being breathed in, it bypassed gas masks.  Adolf Hitler was blinded by gas, which experience traumatized him and convinced him not to allow German forces to use poison gas against the Allies in WWII – even on the Eastern Front.

 Hydrogen cyanide was used occasionally by the French, but neither the Germans nor the British considered it to be effective.  The Germans later used this gas, better known by its IG Farben trade name Zyklon B, during the Holocaust.

 Part of the horror of gas is that the effects permanently ruined the lungs of many soldiers, long after the war – without killing them. 

 Projection.  Three basic ways of projecting the gas were used.

Cylinders/gas cloud.  Vast numbers of cylinders brought to the front trenches with manifolds, hoses, pipes, and other accessories, to disperse a vast cloud of gas to the enemy trenches – provided the wind cooperated, a factor which tended to favor the Allies over the Germans, as the prevailing winds in France generally blew eastwards.  Considerable casualties resulted when the wind blew gas back at the attackers.  This was the most terrifying method, but it was also the least reliable.

 Shells.  This allowed the attackers to deliver the gas to the enemy trenches, but a sizable amount of shells were required to achieve a meaningful concentration.

 Projectors.  Here they found a better trade-off, as these mortar-like tubes managed to project a larger volume of gas than the shelling could handle, while still projecting the gas well into enemy territory and away from friendly trenches.

 Protection.  Initially the solution was gauze pads wrapped around the mouth, soaked in water, bicarbonate, or even urine, combined with goggles to protect the eyes.  The British and French developed “gas helmets” which gave the user a particularly bizarre appearance, e.g. the French M2, the British PH helmet, and the Russian variant; these were hoods impregnated with the reaction chemical and integral goggles.  The Germans quickly developed what we normally think of as “gas masks”; these required soldiers to shave their beards and wear special glasses.  Eventually the French and British (plus Americans) developed their own versions, the ARS (French) and small box respirator (US/UK).  None of these were entirely effective against mustard gas.

 Since both sides used animals extensively, they had to develop protection for them as well – special masks for dogs, horses and mules, though the larger animals were less subceptible to gas than humans and required less effective filtration, whereas dogs were worse off.  The Germans used filters on carrier pigeon boxes.  There were also special masks for wounded soldiers lying on stretchers: since gases tended to settle closer to the ground, anyone closer to the ground was even more at risk than soldiers standing, and soldiers up on the parapet of the trenches were actually the least at risk.

 The major problems with gas warfare were (A) your own side needed masks too, which lessened the practicality, (B) it really wasn’t suited for mobile warfare – as soon as the front started moving consistently, you couldn’t project gas, as you’d be moving through it yourself if you broke through the enemy lines, (C) it didn’t kill enough enemy soldiers compared to the effort involved, since the enemy can and did take countermeasures, and (D) the enemy was liable to – and did – respond in kind, making both sides worse off.  Although gas has been used since WWI – mainly in the Iran-Iraq War – its use has been the exception rather than the rule, and more often against unprotected civilians.  Its primary effect seemed to be to dramatically amplify the horror of an already horrifying war without achieving any strategic results.