Blog
May 20 2011
Fifty-Five Years, Six Feet Under the Cumberland, and the '56 Tremolux Works
At nineteen I find an all-original ‘55/’56 tweed Tremolux in a small local music store on a visit back home. I borrow the money to buy it, because it’s the best amp I’ve ever heard. The next day I get the number of an amp tech in Seattle named T. Warren who begs me to drive from Olympia to Seattle so he can just see the thing. The Tremolux rides in the back of a white Ford Contour (better than the stigma of a white Ford Bronco I suppose). The Beatles make an appearance with “A Day In the Life” around 7:00 PM on KZOK. “I read the news today oh boy…” I park on a side-street and take the amplifier in T. Warren’s humble abode, aglow with the TV screen in the aftermath of Perry Mason re-runs. “OMG it has the original handle,” he exclaims and flips it over before adding “and the original feet.” “IT’S A SMALL BOX!!!” he can hardly contain his exuberance. “They only made these in ’55 and the early part of ’56,” Then Leo went to the larger cabinet.” We talk about Jeff Beck for a while. “I’ll call you. We’ll get this son of a bitch sounding REALLY good” he yells after me from behind his screen door when, me halfway to my car already.
A week or so later it’s ready. “Just replaced a few caps and biased the tubes. That thing sounds GREAT. You really should replace the rectifier tube though.” Dad Weaver has a spare one that he gives me so that “you’ll always have a part of me.” Over the years, it’s with me on some very crappy gigs, some considerably better ones, and a lot of living quarters, where a noise complaint comes from the downstairs neighbor on campus housing. Try as I may she doesn’t care for a re-creation of the entire “Sticky Fingers” album, Telecaster tuned to open G and pretending to be Keith Richards. Maybe she’ll feel different about Exile On Main Street, but however much her lack of appreciation for “Tumbling Dice” is (manifesting itself in yet another noise complaint), my musical brethren are another story altogether. It turns many heads and ears over the years, teaching me a considerable amount about tone and the potential of a well maintained vintage amplifier. Which comes in handy when I hear what Louis Rosano has been up to in Bergenfield NJ. We hit it off. I drive from Nashville to Boston, spending time in Greenwich Village and stopping at Lou’s on the way back. He flips out. As T. Warren had. As Todd Sharp had. As anyone who’d ever heard it had.
Enter May 2010. For five days it’s submerged at Soundcheck Nashville beneath the Cumberland River. But going thru it with a dear pal provides no small amount of consolation...who says “you really ought to try to see what Todd thinks about that one,” but as far as I’m concerned it’s toast and I’d rather not prolong the pain, so it goes to Mike Voltz’ garage where it will sit untouched for a year. Out of sight out of mind. As a coping mechanism more than anything.
In Mike’s garage it stays. I track down a blonde piggyback ’61 head and 2x10” closed back cabinet that I settle on Celestion Greenbacks in. But the ’61, try as it may be, can’t compare to the irreplaceable qualities and associations the tweed one had (or as Cusack shouts out in High Fidelity, “If you really wanted to screw me up, you should’ve gotten to me earlier!”)
May 2011 appears. What would happen if we plugged that amp in? We get some contact cleaner. The tubes are still there, so I take them out and put them back in, reconnect the speaker cable and we plug it in. Pilot light lights up. Wow. Oh wait. There’s a crackling thru the speaker. Amazing. But it probably sounds terrible if we grab a guitar. That speaker AT THE VERY LEAST has to be shot, right? Mike goes and grabs a Les Paul anyways. I hit one note and hear “that’s the best amp I’ve ever heard” coming back at me from Mike. Right on right on.
Two days later I take a Stratocaster over there in the evening to make sure it wasn’t a dream. I document it on a short iPhone video. No post-flood rescue mission. 55 years old. And this is going to sound crazy, but…it’s better than it was. Dirtier. Fatter. More guts. Or maybe after all it’s been thru, much like people, there’s just more of interest in its individual voice and expression. Go figure. Leo Fender was a genius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JQLqk4F-Q4w
-Sean
