Zander's blog

Report: Los Angeles Amp Show, October 1 & 2, Part I

So we went to the Los Angeles Amp Show in Van Nuys. My main reason for going was to attend the "Tone Wizards" panel where the discussion of vacuum tube amplifiers went into some interesting, if depressing, directions.

Sorry for the late posting - we were waiting for the Tone Wizards posting to go up - which it did a week ago. If you're interested in some opinions as to what's going on in amplifiers today, give this a watch.

Ampshow Tone Wizards Bogner Selfridge Heistand Demeter Gallo Rose
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John Garcia of Kyuss Interviewed by VICE

So we were listening to Bandcamp, going through different heavy bands, trying to find some good material for a heavy music show. You may or may not know that we've been working a long-time plan for throwing a heavy music festival here in Long Beach, California. Part of getting that happening has been driving around and looking for places to actually host the event (we're thinking a warehouse somewhere).

John Garcia interviewed by VICE
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1971 Traynor YBA-1 arrives at Thermionic Studios

It's been a while since we've posted here. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the matter is that we've gotten involved in a community radio project. The hope of which is to give ourselves a radio presence locally here in Long Beach, California, and also with the audio stream that will be flowing online from the station. Unfortunately, there's been some legal developments, which naturally are taking our time instead of working on actually building new content and building the business here for Thermionic Studios.

Thermionic Studios taking receipt of 1971 Traynor YBA-1 Image 1
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Iron Maiden Trooper Beer

So I went to Beverages and More last Sunday. Not being a religious man, Sunday is a "sacred" day for me. It's a "me" day for me, and exactly the kind of day I want to be buying liquor. While I was wandering around in BevMo, I saw this 4-pack of 16-oz cans of "Iron Maiden Trooper" beer. At first I thought, "Hmmm... Is that cool? I guess that's cool. I'll give it a try..."

Trooper Beer before the opening with vintage church key!
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Instruments and Gear of Lemmy Kilmister - Motorhead

Hello everyone! This is a new sort of article for us here at Thermionic Studios. We've joined in collaboration with http://www.onlinebassguitar.com. We welcome them to Thermionic Studios and are excited to be able to provide a much longer, and we hope, a much more meaningful presentation of style, technique, and setup information.

Lemmy's Gibson Thunderbird, Hawkwind, circa 1971
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Guitar-making and the State of Ebony in our World's Forests Today

Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars made a video back in 2012 - we just found it at Reverb.com.

If you have 15 minutes available, please take a look at the video made by Bob Taylor and listen about the use of ebony and the changes that humanity has made of the earth.

History of the ProCo Rat

Everybody seems to know about the KitRae Big Muff Pi Page, which, admittedly, is probably the most authoritative page on the internet about the history of the Electro Harmonix Big Muff distortion pedal .

It includes all the different versions, and each of the permutations of parts within each version.

What we didn't think there was an equivalent for, as the title of this article makes clear, was the same kind of page exulting the ProCo Rat... But there is!

1984 Whiteface ProCo Rat Pedal
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