The Soul of Tone

"The Soul of Tone - Celebrating 60 Years of Fender Amps" by Tom Wheeler, published by Hal Leonard.


If you have any interest in guitars this book is a must have. Tom Wheeler, who spent 14 years at Guitar Player Magazine is an amazing writer and historian and has done a terrific job on this book. Over 500 pages and crammed with pictures and history. It's a great reference, only today I was flipping through it looking for some obscure bit of Fender history.

I met Tom on one one or two occasions, the first being on our "Tone Quest" trip to New York during the development of the award winning Cyber-Twin. Here is a picture I took while working at the secret underground Manhattan location of "Tone Quest". This picture is not in the book.



That's Jimmy Vivino from Conan O'Brian's Tonight Show band on guitar in the center. Tom is holding up the metal column in the background.

What's even cooler is that there is a picture of me in the book, yes little insignificant me is in a book whose forward was written by Keith Richards.



They say I am part of the brain trust. Maybe. There always has been a lot of brainy people at Fender, I am more like one of the synapses, an annoying one that flashes for no apparent reason.

Tom's book does a very good job of covering Fender Amp history over the last 60 years all the way up to some of the latest models with a ton of insight into how things got to be the way they are.

You can find it in most good bookstores or at Amazon.

Mad Men

My wife and I started watching the first disk of "Mad Men" last night. We were up till 1:30AM, could not stop. The feel of the thing is very good. I am old enough to remember those times as a young child, not old enough to have drank hard, smoked like a barbecue, and womanized. If you are up for a very realistic look at a very different world you might check it out. Created, produced and written by Mathew Weiner. One guys vision, probably why it rocks. MadMen Site

928 back on the road

New X-pipe installl

After 6 months of just sitting in the garage I've finally got around to having the 928 repaired and upgraded. Water pump was out and I found it all to easy to ignore this winter. I was going to fix it myself but finally broke down and had my mechanic do the work. Probably the better way to go since he's the best. Also had him install a new X-PIPE. It rocks. Just in time for the 110 to 115 degree weather. Short video of the 112-113 degree drive to the Scottsdale car show this weekend

Outsourcing your own Job

I love it. Must try to set something up this week.

Built my own death Ray - Yeah death ray

While waiting for the new JJ Abrams version of Star Trek I spent a little time creating something I had wanted ever since I was kid. A Phaser/Laser that would actually do more than nothing. Nothing is what most lasers do, this one's a bit more than nothing.


YouTube Laser Video