How Deke Dickerson and TK Smith changed my Guitar picking world.

Several yrs back I stumbled into a Guitar Geek Festival off site of the annual NAMM show I attend every winter, as I was already a fan of 
Deke Dickerson's music 
 http://dekedickerson.com/shopping/merch3.php 

and was hoping to catch him live. Walking into the joint, I suddenly realized what I was in for with the collection of odd man out guitars and amps, I was just slack jawed and smitten by the sheer history of it all.  It really was
a guitar geek festival and I drank up every bit of data I could, as my paradigm
of roots rock music shifted once again.

It was here at this Geek Fest that I discovered another musician that I had admired from the earlier days of the band, Big Sandy, was up to far more than
just pickin and grinning after leaving the Fly Rite Trio.  

TK Smith had a small Display Placard that caught my attention immediately with
its creative inlay on a bakelite back board, card holder. This hit me nostalgic as
I had run a sign and acrylic fabrication shop in the late 80s doing things like this for the medical industry. I was really interested to found out more about his stuff.

(couldnt find an early picture, this display of TK's is more recent pic, Geek Fest picts are courtesy of my friend Dolly therockabillysocialite.com )

After that show I wish I could say I immediately ran to discover the treasures awaiting me on Deke's blog "Musings of a Muleskinner" muleskinner.blogspot.com
..but I was knee deep in my own business building guitar preamps and amps with the Nocturne Brain Co. and at that time,focused primarily on the rockabilly
aspect head first with gretsch guitar artists. 
It was a few Geek Fests later that I started falling head over heels with the Bigsby guitars after purchasing the book about Paul A. Bigsby

which of course was so delicious a meal, I needed more and I jumped into
Deke Dickerson's The Bigsby Files . This website is something I just kept reading and studying over and over. It actually has some great rabbit holes, particularly the Jim Harvey stuff but I'll get to that later.  For me the story of Paul Bigsby being first a motorcycle mechanic here in my beloved Southern California back when my own folks were children, and meeting up with a favorite western picker and singer, Merle Travis was pure magic to me. Then creating a new tail piece for Merle's guitar, and ultimately making the first solid body electric guitar as well as just being a bonafide industrial artist, seriously impressed me. Not just casually either, I couldnt stop thinking about all the artists that he affected and how I could identify as a guitar gear tinker myself.

I guess where this goes next is more than coincidence because one day I found myself looking for hairpin legs to attach to an atomic era coffee table I had been building, as well as seeking out a good bullet planter ( I live in 55' post & beam Rancher and am also obsessed with all things Atomic era) searching the inner-nets when I stumbled on some Atomic Living site and found some amazing furniture pictures that turned out to be made by TK Smith as well as fascinating MCM concrete screens and metal work! 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tksmith/4160565184/in/faves-88017382@N00/
This led of course straight to TK's blog, a brand new rabbit hole.

I did want to find out about him first and foremost and the one thing that cemented a bromance with his industrial art side was that he is a lifer Buick automotive man like I am. He has a fantastic story on his site about his father's car that is now his by fate.

http://tksmith.net/2012/04/18/the-miraculous-story-of-my-53-buick/

My Grandpa Vega had a buick, My Dad had a buick and when he met my mom, she was stuck on the side of the road with a blown out tire on her BUICK! My dad was on the way to a gig with his band and the rest of that is a story for some other time, but I ended up happening 2yrs later.. 

All to say, TK Smith's story about his family buick history and his own 53' was near and dear to me, along with the fact that my own mama's maiden name is SMITH!! :) 
As I absorbed all the info on his blog about cars, and atomic lamps, atomic ranch house furniture, hand made cabinetry, carve kitchen serving trays, etc.. It was only natural to want to meet this character and buy some of his guitar pickups and a custom pickguard for my own 52' tele that I'd previously installed a Lollar CC in the neck with bigsby B-16 vibrato. 
     I wasnt prepared to find out that Mr. Smith shares a kindred spirit for keeping things handcrafted in America the old fashioned way, when I drove out to his shop an hr down the freeway towards Palm Desert. I probably scared him when I walked into his shop and started bubbling on and on about all his machinery being vintage american built, but it was so much like the Sign shop I had owned when I was a young guy. I was totally like a kid in a candy store.
     Despite my drool, he disassembled my telecaster, cut down the Bigsby and installed a set of his early Bigsby style Aluminum Pickups.

I dont remember why we ended up having to go over to his house during the install, but it involved a final soldering of the pickups into the control plate/pickup selector.

I cant even describe the fanboy wall of joy that over took me with my geeked out obsession for all things Atomic, but this McGiver of a man had completely remodeled a vintage Ranch house and his signature industrial artistry was all over this pad.  

Dude, I was floored. But this was all for divine circumstances to set a new course for me in my own journey as a musician and manufacturer of guitar electronics.

*You can get a quick tour of the Smith Ranch here on the brick house website

http://www.the-brick-house.com/2010/05/house-visit-2/

TK Smith is a purveyor of vintage gibson amplifiers and I'd never seen any before much less actually plug in and play them, but here they were and this guy loves them. 


That love is obviously infectious because once I got to fire up a Pre-war Gibson EH-185 with my first "bigsby-ized" telecaster, it was like being a kid again, kissing a girl for the first time in the school bus on the way to 1st grade (another story for another time). I couldnt think of anything else man, and when I latch onto something that is ALL I want to see, breathe, eat, and sleep until I have uncovered everything about it. 

The sound of a bigsby style guitar and that early 40s pre war tweed Class A amplifier had an elusive sound that I had been after for years!! I'm not a great guitar builder and actually at best an over the top guitar assembler, but I've got a penchant for design and a golden ear for guitar tone. I probably live for the "sound" of guitars and amps on recordings more than I do wanting to learn how to play what I hear..but thats what drives me, and Mr Smiths gibson amps made the lights come on to what I'd been scratching my head over to get such a dynamic old school picking response from clean and crisp to fully on reedy woolly overdrive with just your wrist and that pick. That raw sound of Charlie Christian attacking the notes, the twangy barrage Jr Barnard wrestled out of his amp, it was so unique. You would think it would be obvious with the resources on google but it just wasnt on my radar at that time even though I'd been wandering in the general direction of it for decades. Go figure.

TK Smith and Deke Dickerson are directly responsible for opening my world to a door to the past that is much farther down the hall from the rooms that I was raised knowing about and experiencing with my fathers rockabilly and my own neo-rockabilly history. Those brothers have given me a hands on lesson of american roots music, art and industry.  

oh and I should mention...

On Amazon.com you need to get a copy of Deke Dickersons " A Strat in the Attic" and sit down in a nice chair and eat that book up. It is really a great read front to back, and I am currently awaiting arrival of his new "A Strat in the attic 2" that just shipped yesterday to me. More unraveling is expected!

Also on TK Smith (be sure to visit tksmith.net btw)
Recently there have been some insightful articles written about him 
check these out:
Fretboard Journal #32, 

here's a snippet from their website:

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/features/magazine/tk-smith

and just out on gearphoria.com another great piece
http://gearphoria.com/e-mag/v3n2/#/34/

Ever wondered about Brian Setzer's tone?

GAD's take on Setzer's tone is quite interesting...   What is in his rig, is his amp stock, is
it modified??  well??  click and enjoy

http://www.gad.net/Blog/2011/06/07/how-to-capture-brian-setzers-tone/

I thought I'd revisit the Brian Setzer "brain seltzer" & "dyno brain" pedals I made for the man himself..

Had a flashback, thought I'd share it here..

some 3yrs back I had a life quaking experience getting to actually meet my guitar hero, Brian Setzer in person. It wasnt some random coincidence or side of the concert hall waving as his limo drove by. Rather I was personally invited to come meet him backstage after his concert in Palm Desert and it was there he handed me his 59' gretsch and said "play somethin". That moment has rocked my mind every day since and I still grin ear to ear thinking about it.

Whats even more near and dear to my heart is that he ordered my preamp pedals that I make, and paid for them! He has more Roland RE-301 space echo units than probably anyone on earth yet he decided
to give some rockabilly guy sitting in the shop behind his house making pedal box versions of the RE-301 space echo preamps, a bit of joy.
I felt like the silversmith to the King of Neo Rockabilly getting those two pedals ready for Brian Setzer, I was floating the entire week. I made him two, one was a lime gold Brain Seltzer and the other, totally new at the time a Dyno Brain in silver sparkle..

I dont know if he ever took them to a gig but he did let me know through a friend that he really liked
them and they sounded great. Thats more than enough for me and says much about Mr. Setzer's character. He didnt have to invite me and my wife back stage to hang out with him, or let me hold his
59' Gretsch, nor did he have to order a nocturne brain pedal.. but he's more that just a legendary grammy winning rock god, he a regular guy at heart and a fellow guitar freak that loves gear.
It was a privilege to create these two pedals for Brian Setzer.

Put together a 9 minute video regarding the new Nocturne BLONDESHELL 63 1x15 combo amp.
You can watch the video, or read the text below! Pick your poison :)

I have spent many yrs of research and development to create an amplifier that will play and perform and record (hear it on all the guitars on my album SURRENDER AT CARTERS GLEN, avail on itunes and amazon http://www.amazon.com/The-Surrender-At-Carters-Glen/dp/B004FX93OW  ) like the old original 1963 Fender Blonde Bassman 6G6-B I have gigged for the last decade and a half, I can thank Brian Setzer with his Stray Cats and Brian Setzer Orchestra for the inspirational love of this amp.  
The blondeshell while built of top shell, no compromise components to make a cork sniffer faint, is more about the sum of ALL components to give you an amp that actually responds and performs like a 50 year old Blonde 1963 Fender 6G6-B bassman's normal channel but with good tube spring verb..
That is why this blonde bassman was built. If it cant replace my 50 yr old blonde sweety, there is no reason for it to exist. ...but it does. I've had the sound of a bassman in my soul since the days of riding in the family's buick, as a kid, to pick my pops up from work at the Fullerton Fender Factory and then come home to watch him and my cousin plug their Fender guitars ( my dads Fender Coronado II and my cousins Fender P-bass) into a Fender Bassman amp head and 212 cab.

If you'd like the sound of Dick Dale rumblin with Brian Setzer and hanging out with Pete Townsend and Duane Eddy..you'll want this amp.

< I have no affiliation with Fender musical instruments, Dick Dale, Brian Setzer, Duane Eddie or Pete Townsend they are mentioned only for historic and educational research referential purposes>

THE SLEEPER.. 50s tweed flavored overdrive

 This Drive pedal, The Sleeper, has been made to afford a nice range of light to medium gain,colored overdrive texture that maintains the guitar's inherent sound. You play it, it doesnt play you. I wanted to keep the high side of the guitar clearly intelligible, the low mids full and its drive character had to be able to clean up to a fair degree when I dialed back the volume on my gretsch, tele or strat..( It does this particularly well if you have a treble bleed cap across your guitars volume pot. )
    The Sleeper Drive has both a "compressed feel" and "uncompressed feel" mode, as I dont think switching in and out clipping diodes merits me calling it a high powered or low powered tweed amp and no one else should use that hype either.  So, I can honestly say that when its in compressed mode (note" there is no discrete compressor circuit involved with this pedal, I'm merely using the term to describe the gain response/player feel) you are getting a mixed pair of Germanium and Silicon clipping diodes working with the unique high powered FET transistor.
Switch it to uncompressed mode and the circuit opens up in a nice, crisp bloom some breakup at higher gain levels. Single notes are juicy and chords break up evenly but with definition.
Other features include a presence cut switch that smooths out the high treble and is very useful for guitars w bright single coil pickups.
A second stomp switch on the left that defeats the drive knob and functions almost like a lead boost in the uncompressed mode, and more like an upper mids enhancer in the compressed setting if the gain control is set between 7 oclock and 1 oclock, good for bluesy solos.
This overdrive is a SLEEPER and has some power hiding under the hood, plus has some very nice componentry including Solen Fast caps from france (ooooh booteekery), xicon polystyrene film caps, metal film caps, switchcraft jacks and two really bright green LEDs. This pedal is one of my co-op builds involves 3 different independent craftsmen and the sum of all parts is the key to high quality and the finishing touch to a well built american product.

This is available for a limited run of 10 in cola sparkle (more cola than sparkle until direct light hits it) this will also include a crazy freebie, a Luchador bottle opener (colors vary but they are cool) 
introductory price is $SOLD-out

The NOCTURNE BLONDESHELL 63 Blonde Bassman welcomes De Lisle Amps!

What does the Nocturne Brain pedal and amp company have in common with De Lisle Amplification?? Not much... 

That is Until early this last summer when I asked De Lisle amps ( you know Jer D. as MUGSY on the GDP forum and G-T forums) if he would take over the responsibility of building the chassis for my Blondeshell 63' amps.

It actually starting rolling sooner than that when the review of my Blondeshell amp in Premier Guitar magazine didnt turn out like I hoped because there was a problem with the amp that must have occured in shipping that the reviewer wasnt aware of (wish I'd known before hand as the reviewer felt he needed the amp up at 7 and he should have had that same power at 4 on the volume)  This led me to ask for the amp to be send immediately over to my friend Jer De Lisle in the neighboring state of Indiana to see what was wrong with the amp. He found that the tubes were out of bias and said she was up to par.  I let the guys at Premier know about that situation and then the amp was ready for me to sell to a german customer.      This kind of response from Jer De Lisle in helping me solve the problem in the review, made it clear to me that I wanted to co-op with another american builder that is both gracious with his clients, knowledgeable, timely and dependable.  I need to insert that my time working with the last chassis builder came to a close because he is a full time IT guy and told me he didnt have the time to meet my needs in this season of his life.. All good, but I want to keep making my design of a hotrod Blonde bassman style amp.
The Nocturne Brain company will keep the Blondeshell 63 amp going and will be offering this 6G6-B style blonde amp now in both compact head version and a full size 1x15 combo.
If you havent heard about my Blondeshell amplifier, you can get the details at my website at the bottom of the Products page (site link is on the right of the GDP forum under sponsors) or email me through the GDP private message route.
The quick and deadly is this amp is based on the Normal channel of a 63 blonde fender bassman but its not a clone rather its built to sound and respond like a 50 yr old blonde amp does.
I personally wanted a top of the line amp that would give me ALL the sounds I've grown up hearing on  the Stray Cats albums and the more recent Brian Setzer Orchestra, in a nutshell Brian Setzer's Blonde 63 bassman rocking amp tone.  The sum of its parts creates its tonal and textural recipe so that it feels and behaves like only a 63 blonde bassman does.
     No baloney, just incredible quality parts and intensive american labor to yield an amp to my own gigging needs and to grab a hold of the rock'a hulabilly swingin surf'rod sounds I need from my gretsch and telecaster -ish guitar creations.
I'm very proud of this amp I have designed and more so to now co-op with Jer of De Lisle amps to keep the Nocturne Blondeshell amp going.

check it out here and see it in action on Buzz Campbell 's Video:
http://thenocturnebrain.com/blonde.htm

A colorful and rich textured Overdrive box based off a Greybox 250 preamp thats been hot rodded to drive any spring reverb amp or spring tank harder for more drip, sproing and over all twangy surf guitar intensity that a guitar alone generally cant afford.
Not really meant for the clean tone purist, unless they are looking for grindy switchable intensity available at their foot instead of walking back and moving the Tube Spring controls by hand( besides it should always be all controls straight up anyway)

What if you dont have spring reverb in your amp, let alone a vintage tube spring reverb tankl?? Remember the FEZ pedal still can rock the socks off a vintage greybox 250 Overdrive with a much greater range of EQ
control, its still all there if needed for a much better price compared to online auction prices for original grey box 250 pedals.

Okay whats on and in this Fez box:
This is based off the vintage Grey box 250 Overdrive Preamp's basic circuit. Liberties have been taken in adding a switchable low EQ and gain textures with additional presence cut control.
Hi quality components have been brought into this overdrive preamp circuit like metal film caps, xicon polystyrene fast caps, tantalum electrolytics. metal film & carbon comp resistors plus an  original Metal Can 741 op-amp. Long life true bypass stomp switch and dual LED indicator status on a powder coated cast aluminum heavy duty box with switchcraft jacks and alpha pots.

This Holiday run of THE FEZ is limited to 10 units in GOLDZILLA metal flake. Blinding sparkle gold flake sprayed over a black enamel base coat. BLING city!
THESE 10 GOLDEN FEZ overdrives
are AVAILABLE TO SHIP OUT WEDNESDAY DEC.19th, NO WAITING, these are ready to go..but when I run out they are gone.

Become a sworn member to the Order of the FEZ! 



check out a demo of this pedal in action with the Nocturne F-Bomb spring tube reverb tank!

http://youtu.be/uU0MZ0wKrjQ

$175.00