Thermionic Studios

(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.

This article is more for humor's sake than anything else... However, that doesn't mean that the opportunity still cannot be taken advantage of. When I get myself a new band together, I have a feeling that I'll be giving this a shot, if only for the fun of it.

I had a great time sitting in with Tim at The COAR Radio show, on Thursday Feb 19th. I was invited to come back on the 20th, but was unable to do so. I came to San Jose to help my mom with an eye surgery. She had to be seen for her post-operation check exactly the same time that I would have gone in on Friday, the 20th. So unfortunately I wasn't able to join him again. Fortunately, and more importantly, my Mom's eye surgery procedure was successful...

Hello! I have come up to the San Jose area for a few days and have met with an old radio broadcasting friend, Timothy J. Tim and I used to have a show on KFJC (89.7 FM, Foothill Junior College, Los Altos Hills) called the Tuesday Radio Tabloids where we would get a bunch of ridiculous tabloid stories on the air and take phone calls on them. (I also worked on the air at a commercial radio station called KSJO, before it got sold off and went Spanish-language, but that's another story...) As happens, our careers took different directions, and I moved to Long Beach.

Per Doom In June's facebook page, there will be no Doom in June 2015. The organizer for Doom In June will be attending the PsychoCA Festival in May. It is sad that there is no Doom in June, but, of course, we can't force people to put on shows.

With the nature of the Internet being what it is, a site like The Metal Archives has been around for a long long TIME - since 2002. It is a resource for metal music, the likes of which, I don't believe has been created for any other form of music. Right now, there are over 100,000 metal bands listed in its searchable database. There are over 25,000 independent record labels listed as well.

Per the latest note on Electric Magma's Website, the band has recorded, and is currently mixing for release, their latest album, "Silverball". Release is slated for March 2015. Their previous album was "Canadian Samurai", released in 2012.

Forty-five years ago today, Black Sabbath released their first album to the world. The band was even so generous as to upload a video of their performance live at L'Olympia Bruno Coquatrix in Paris performing songs from the first album and Paranoid on 20 December 1970:

We've all watched this a few times at various places on YouTube. It's awesome to see a Black Sabbath-sanctioned version!

Garnet Amplification is a company that we doubt most people have heard of, but Garnet amps have DEFINITELY made music that most people (at least in our western culture) have heard. Fender and Marshall are the big names in electric amplification. Of course, there are other names you're probably familiar with: Ampeg, Peavey, Line 6, Randall, Crate, Ampeg, Roland, etc... The reasons you haven't heard of Garnet Amps are numerous:

Proto-metal aficionados rejoice! (Long post follows)

So I went looking for some deep tracks - the kind that you rarely ever hear of. THEY ARE OUT THERE. In fact, it's amazing just how much material is available now through YouTube and other places that simply was never available on a mass-market basis before. The real challenge is cataloging it and separating the wheat from the chaff. I believe we have just such a find today.