It’s only gear, right?
cabinet received its first of what will more than likely be many battle
scars this Sunday. *Sigh* It’s just gear, it’s just gear….that’s what I
keep telling myself. And the looks do nothing for the sound, I know. And
usually I’m really good at this. I almost always buy things for their sound,
and couldn’t care any less about their looks….provided it’s not a bright
pink ’80’s glamrock BC Rich Warlock or something….nothing’ll take a
congregation out of worship faster than the sight of a glammed-up BC
Rich, no matter how it sounds. And I’ve gotten so much great-sounding
ugly stuff over the years, that I’ve come to love the beat-up look.
But then, something like this will happen:
Now, that may not be your cup o’ tea in a guitar cab, but for me, it just
happened to be my exact taste in looks. And when I say, ‘just happened’,
that’s exactly what I mean. That’s how I fall hopelessly and stupidly in
love with some of my gear, is because……it just happens.
I was searching for a solid ply, Baltic Birch 2×12 cab, with a Celestion
Blue paired with a Celestion G12H30, constructed in such a way that the
speakers are not ’sitting’ at the bottom of the cab. And I found this one,
and it totally fit the bill. But see, the pictures weren’t much to speak
about….maybe the guy I bought it from had a cheap camera, or maybe I
just glossed over them in my exuberance to actually find a cab secondhand
that was exactly what I wanted. Either way, I had no idea I would fall in
love with the classic, yet just clean/modern enough, & original, but not
overly busy, type of design and looks this thing sports. So when UPS left
it on my porch, I opened it up, took it out, saw it, and was like, “Blast.
I’m going to have a problem acting like an overprotective gear freak while
gigging this.” And so I did.
I know, I know, I’m dumb. Gear is for me what cars are for most guys. So
for me, this is one of those things that I ask God to scratch or dent for me
so that I stop obsessing over a chunk of wood with some tolex. And what
does God usually do when we pray things we’d rather not pray? Ya…..
Big old smash right at the top middle of the amp. It actually hurts my
body physically to look at it. See, in order to lower stage volume, but still
keep tube-goodness in tone, we run our amp heads on stage with 50 foot
speaker cables to our cabs in closets, and mic our cabs there. The problem
arises when you try to explain to the youth pastor why you need a 20×10
closet kept empty for your guitar cab……which I probably don’t, but think
I do, because then the mic can pick up the ambient space, and of course
the whole congregation can tell the difference when there is ambient
space being mic’d and when there are storage boxes in the room. Right.
The youth pastors and stage managers and the like don’t buy that…….
and they’re probably right. However, the storage room in which we place
our cabs has fast become waaaay above capacity….and no matter how
many times I clean it out and re-organize, people go in and say, ‘Cool!
More space for my ministry’s other stuff!’…..and they’re right, the closet
if for storage. But it’s pretty bad…….monitors are on top of stools
stacked on boxes sitting on more stools piled on more monitors and
barrels of coffee…..ya, I’m serious.
So I meticulously set my rig up Saturday afternoon, turn my amp off of
stand-by, dig into a chord, and there’s some ambient noise coming from
the closet, but nothing in the house. So I check all the microphone cable
connections on our two 50 foot mic cables connected together so they
can reach into the closet, everything’s good…..check the board, everything’s good…..everyone else has sound in their instruments…..
I open the closet, and find my cab lying on its back on a now bent
speaker cable, with the microphone stand lying on its side a few feet
away, and a stage monitor splat on the ground right in the middle of them.
(I’m going to choose to say that it wasn’t my rig being inordinately loud
that caused sound vibrations to rumble all the stored stuff and cause it
to crash down upon my cab. You may think differently.) So it was pretty
bad. I’m lucky it didn’t break my speaker cable jack, or cause the speaker
cable to come disconnected, which could have then blown my amp. But
I set it all back up, and everything worked, and all was right with the world.
It wasn’t until I tore my rig down after the services on Sunday that I
noticed the large dent, not just in the tolex, but in the wood itself. It
might not look that big, but it’s huge to me. Sorry, sweet cab; I should
have taken better care of you. I’m hopeful, though, that it will scab
over and heal itself in a couple weeks.
So God does answer our prayers. And now that it has a battle scar,
I am free from being a jerk about who carries it and free from gazing
it at in my office with the lights on at an ambient glow. Maybe. But
in all seriousness, it is freeing when these pieces of wood and metal
that we value so highly stop weighing us down. My 65 Amps London
cab will not be in Heaven with me. I know that sounds cheesey, but
that’s the long and the short of it.
But cheer up, beloved cab. You’ve got a long way to go before you
reach this hallowed ground:
I have never had a pedal with more mojo. This thing actually worked,
despite it having seen both World Wars, and probably serving on a
submarine for one of them. I sold it, stupidly, so if you ever see it on
e-bay, let me know.
Splendid.
Karl
