So it's been a number of years since we first came across these recordings on YouTube. Most everyone is familiar with Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog". Presley reworked the song, "Hound Dog", originally written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, into a song about an actual dog. Big Mama Thornton recorded the original version in Los Angeles on 13 Aug 1952! It's much darker, much rawer, and typically appeals to those who aren't satisfied with simple pop sensibilities.

Big Mama Thornton's version of "Hound Dog":

Presumably Jim Dunlop, the owner of the MXR and Way Huge line of pedals, was ok with this (since they reposted it in their twitter feed on 04 Mar 2015):

Westside MI in London spied this pedal in J. Bonamassa's Instagram feed and reposted it to Twitter. Jim Dunlop reposted it without incident... Apparently this is they way you leak your new product releases and get people to talk about it...

This just came through our feeds, but we're always excited when a band gets signed to a good label. So I listened to Blackwulf's latest release on their Blackwulf Bandcamp page. Was very impressed. In fact, I was so impressed, I messaged my buddy Timothy J, of The COAR Radio Show. Apparently, Tim already knew about Blackwulf and has been holding out on me. We'll see about that!

Guitargeek.com is, as its name suggests, one of the geekier sites on the internet with respect to documenting rock artists and what they do to get their sound. The archive claims to go back to 1993, when the author and originator, Adam Cooper, began the project. Unfortunately, as I recall there used to be a lot more information up on Guitargeek.com. It appears that despite logging material since 1993, the site only goes back a little over a year, to December (a few times, I've seen a few August, but not reliably) 2013.

We've been pretty clear, at least in an earlier article, about our feelings about Metallica, so we won't belabor them here. However, in order to be consistent with and to those feelings, it seems only fair to give credit where credit is due. Metallica is launching a reissue project where they're taking their cassette release from 1982, "No Life Till Leather", and remastering it and apparently a bunch of other material, and releasing it.

So Pat Furlan has a really great Youtube channel showing him repairing and modifying lower-power (and a few higher power) tube amps. This particular amp is a GREAT sounding Gibson GA-5T, also known as the "Skylark". Watch a very competent tech describe his troubleshooting and fixing of a tube amp:

Fans of old Orange and Matamp amplifiers rejoice!

Planet of the Amps has lots of old amps for you to drool over. Planet of the Amps was put up by Joel Wheeler, who owns Electric Amp Company, USA.

It just so happens that a lot of downtuned Fuzz/Doom bands (starting most famously, with Sleep and their crusade to get as many old Oranges as they could to revive them...) LOVE the sound of the amps that Planet of the Amps features.

Most of the metal that's up on Bandcamp is screetching banshee or growling cookie monster nonsense. My own belief, is that bands put out music like this because they can't get vocalists who are any good and end up doing the banshee/cookie monster stuff to cover up that fact. How these bands ever get listeners is beyond me. However, we've found a few gems to share with you and they will hopefully tide you over for the next few days...

Whether on purpose, or just by dint of fate and coincidence, you've probably heard of the Donovan song "Hurdy Gurdy Man", but you probably never learned what a Hurdy Gurdy is.

Check out this Turkish electric Hurdy Gurdy awesomeness:

If this isn't one of the coolest things you've seen in a while, please feel free to use the contact form to complain to me. :)

(Another long post...) So this is an amp we received at Thermionic Studios a few months back. We've finally had an opportunity to take a look at it. It was a "steal" off eBay at $150 + $30 shipping. It stank of stale cigarettes. The headshell was dinged quite badly. The tolex, while a cool pattern, was brittle, ratty, and tearing off in multiple spots. This amp had clearly been abused. Even the original Randall nameplate was trashed and had to be repainted.