How It Looks, How It Is

Look her over:

Isn't she a beaut?

That, my friends, is a Vox ToneLab ST, purchased for fifty bucks off Craig's List, literally 1/4th what they retail for new. It's a digital amp simulator and multi-effects pedal with an actual 12AX7 tube preamp. Which means nothing to non-guitarists, I know. But this compact beauty accurately reproduces the sound of my old Marshall JCM800 50-watt amp I played through The Hormones. Hence, I'll be using this as a pre-amp and my new Fender SuperChamp X2 head as a tube power amp, and I have my old classic tone back! Which I have missed! Which means I'll be roaring, as The Hormones ATX (which the 2013 Hormones will now have to be called, just to avoid being the asshole who sics lawyers on punk bands) come back to life in the coming weeks. I'll be announcing a new lineup soon. Stay tuned.

Meantime, after my big fucking announcement a few weeks back I was starting a new online fanzine through Your Favorite Blog, I now can see I was overly ambitious, as always. I really have no time to add to my current project load, as cool as this idea is. I simply can't even do a quick-and-dirty layout, as shitty as I am with art programs. (I use GIMP2, because it's free, unlike Photoshop. Maybe that's the problem?) It's easiest just to treat my blog as my fanzine, on occasion, and post my non-publication reviews here. So, tomorrow, I will post the guts of what was to be The Toxic Narcotic right here. After all, a man has to know and respect his limits.

BTW, did you see my Willie Nelson piece in this week's Austin Chronicle? It was the cover story (as you can see below), and I think she turned out well. Read it by clicking on all this different-colored shit.

Finally, I got interviewed by a pretty cool Greek website called Think Baby Music. You can find the interview at all THIS different-colored shit.

Alright, I have to tune out and work on a Moving Sidewalks piece for The Austin Chronicle. (By the way, this would be a good cue for you to check out the smokin' Moving Sidewalks box set, out now.) I'll leave you with a photo chief Sidewalk Billy Gibbons hisself emailed me, of the current Moving Sidewalks backline! Drool, gearheads, at all that Magnatone goodness, not to mention the digital lava lamp Telecaster bass and guitar! Dig!

(pic: Sandrine Lee)