Last weekend I made the trek to the New York area to be part of the famed New York Amp Show. This is an event where lots of amplifier (and other guitar gear) manufacturers exhibit their goods. Being a total gear slut, I knew this’d be like a trip to Disney World for me, so I’d been anticipating the trip for quite a while.

The show ran Saturday and Sunday at the Embassy Suites in Piscataway New Jersey. I originally was slated to play both Saturday and Sunday but prior commitments meant I could only be there for Sunday. I had a gig Friday at the Hard Rock Cafe` in Myrtle Beach, SC, so I drove up on Saturday. Thankfully the traffic Gods were with me as the trip up took a bit less than ten hours. I arrived shortly before 10:00PM. As I was getting close to Piscataway I started receiving text messages from Trace Davis (owner and resident tone guru at Voodoo Amplification) checking on my status. Right about the time I arrived Trace texted that he and Alex (Perialas - producer extraordinaire) would be waiting for me down in the bar. Uh oh, LOL!

The Arrival - Night One

So I checked in, lugged my bundle of stuff up to my room (thank God for luggage carts) then headed down to find the guys. As I was going down in the elevator it dawned on me I’d never actually met Trace, or Alex, so I didn’t know who the heck I was looking for. Thankfully, though, the bar was populated by kind musicians who pointed Trace out to me. We shot the shit for a few then headed over to a table where Trace introduced me to Alex Perialas. For those of you who don’t know, Alex mastered my upcoming CD, recommended, of course, by Trace. The rest of the evening was spent just hanging, talking shop, and ragging on a really drunk younger dude named Mark. Lots of fun. Mark is a really cool guy though and took it all in stride!

Really drunk younger dude named Mark

Around 12:30 I headed up to my room to try & get some sleep. I was scheduled to play at 10:30AM so I wanted to be well rested. I got to the room and remembered a couple gear related things I had to do, so I did them, surfed the internet a little and went to bed. As it happens, Saturday turned out to be an insomnia night. Blaargh. I ended up falling asleep sometime around 7AM.

Sunday

9:00AM the alarm goes off, yanking me from a really deep sleep (those Embassy beds are kick ass). I got up, stumbled around the room for a minute, stubbed my toe on the same door twice, muttered some profanities, then showered and got ready. I wanted to get my stuff down to the Voodoo booth with time to spare so I could get it set up without cutting into my playing time.

I should mention that this convention was set up different from other musical equipment conventions I’ve attended. Instead of a bunch of booths in a big open area, the actual hotel rooms WERE the booths. This might seem a little strange at first, but it makes a lot of sense. This is an amp show. Amps are loud. Having them in individual hotel rooms made it possible to play through the amps, at a good volume (no volume restrictions - YES!) and really be able to check stuff out.

Voodoo Amps had two rooms/booths - one where they had a bunch of amps set up for people to try and one for performing endorsees. Voodoo was also the only company who had artist performances from start to finish. As a result, there was an ever present throng of people around Voodoo’s rooms, considerably more than any of the other manufacturers. As such, poor Trace was running his ass off from beginning to end. Additionally, the Voodoo Amps banner hung directly over the Marshall banner - which is fitting because Voodoo has modified literally thousands of Marshalls, to get them to sound how they should.

There was someone playing before my time slot, so when he finished I went in and set up my stuff through one of Trace’s excellent sounding Voodoo 4x12 boxes. I’d set up mixes of some of the songs from my CD without the lead guitar tracks so I could play along to them. Alex was set up in a small corner with a Pro Tools rig to record, and there was video constantly being shot. I ran the tracks from my iPod into the small sound system they had set up. It was a pretty relaxed environment, but a little nerve racking as playing in the hotel room with people watching from outside the room felt a little, as Jason Rowland put it, like playing in a fishbowl, LOL! But it was really fun, I had a blast. 30 minutes really went by fast. I hit a few bad notes, of course (hey, it was 10:30 in the freaking morning, LOL) but all in all it went pretty good.

After my performance I walked out and met a few people who’d watched the set, talked some guitar geek stuff, generally enjoying the camaraderie. I have to point out that EVERYONE associated with Voodoo was awesome - really cool people! And everyone who played is an outstanding guitarist - humbling to be sure! Some of Voodoo’s other players really went out of their way to reach out in friendship to me. Being kinda the “new guy” in the Voodoo family, this came across as REALLY cool. When I wanted to check out the V-Rock, Mike Kerr was playing through it. He stopped, unplugged and handed me the cable so I could check it out and, after giving me a chance to check it out, plugged in to another amp and initiated an impromptu jam session. Really cool guy and an amazing player!

Around this time I met with Dave from Warehouse Guitar Speakers. We’d made plans to meet up at the show & talk about some stuff. Additionally he had a set of speakers for me - it was cheaper to just grab ‘em while there than to have him ship them to me. And just as with the Voodoo people I was struck by how great of a guy Dave is! I really dug meeting and talking to him.

For those who are interested, the speakers are two Veteran 30’s (WGS’ take on Celestion’s Vintage 30 - with the high mids smoothed out) and two of their 75’s. I plan on loading these into one of my Marshall speaker cabinets (in an “X” pattern tomorrow. Superswamp’s playing in Clinton, SC so it’ll be the perfect time to get ‘em in the cab and give ‘em a whirl. The Voodoo cabinet I played through Sunday was loaded with the exact same speakers in the same “X” pattern and I LOVE how it sounded. So I should be really digging ‘em! I can’t wait!

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the hotel, checking out this and that from different manufactures, killing time till my next performance, which was at 3:30. When that time approached I headed back to Voodoo’s rooms. I wanted to get warmed up and had never really tried the actual Voodoo stuff (I’d only played my Voodoo modded Marshall) so this was a great opportunity for me. First off, lemme say these amps are amazing. Definitely not sissy amps, LOL! These amps are made for Metal. They oooooze crunch! Trace had suggested that the right amp for me would be their V-Rock Dual Lead. Trace was correct! The amp has tons of gain on tap, but it’s ALL usable. Even at high gain settings, it doesn’t flub out or get fuzzy. Just pure balls and crunch. Playing on this amp is effortless. I will DEFINITELY be finding a way to get one of these very soon - it’s definitely the Senes amp!

So at 3:30 I went over to the performance booth, plugged back in, and made some more noise. I guess because it was later in the day (I’m not a morning person) and because I was a little warmed up, this performance definitely went better. While there were still a bad note or three, all in all it went really well. My songs and playing were very well received and I had a really good time.

After my performance, it was time for a little jamming. Trace had brought 4 backing tracks for a few of us to play along to, trading off leads, etc. This was a little weird for me because I tune my guitars to E Flat. Meaning to play along to the tracks I had to improvise in what I call “off” keys - for example. One track was in E minor, a supreme shredding key. As I’m tuned a half step down, though, I had to play it in “F”, which for me is an off key. Nonetheless, it was really fun to trade off with the other guys, playing off of each other. The two cats I jammed with are Mike Kerr and a fellow who goes by the name of T-Sly. Both guys are consummate players, playing some really tasty stuff. It was going great……until..…..

A little into the third song, the volume on my amp dropped really low. So I turned it up. RIght after that, it just stopped working. Zilch, Zero, Nada! Apparently it was acting wonky before that because Alex had to go behind my amp to check all the connections. So I felt pretty stupid for a couple minutes, T-Sly and Mike riffed back and forth while the Voodoo guys hooked me up to another amp. This kind of killed my vibe, though, so after that I didn’t really play too well. I was worried about my amp….

After the jams were over, Trace gave the amp a quick look over (didn’t have tools to actually work on it) and determined that my HT fuse was blown, meaning that I probably had a bad output tube. When I got home I took the amp to Matt Garcia (another tone guru, here local) and he confirmed it was a tube. So after a retubing the amp’s working again, sounding killer!

After all the festivities of the show were over we headed downstairs to grab a bite to eat and hang out for a little while, after which a few of us convened to Alex’s room to hang & BS a bit. All in all it was a really fun evening for me. Both Trace and Alex are true guru’s of their respective crafts. I look forward to spending some time with Alex at his studio (Pyramid Studios in Ithica, NY) and seeing what we can crank out. My bet is it will be amazing!!!!!! And with a full compliment of Voodoo Amps for me to play through it could really turn out to be a cornucopia of guitar tone!

Monday I woke up around 10:30-ish, kinda reeling from a night of fellowship and beer, not at all looking forward to the 650+ mile drive home. All in all though, the trip home went smoothly, well, except for that time I got on the Jersey Turnpike headed in the wrong direction. Doh!!!!!!!!

It was a lot of driving for a very short time up there but I can honestly say it was more than worth it! This trip forged what I feel is going to be a long and fruitful working relationship and friendship between me and Voodoo, not to mention that I made some other super friends in the process. Trace Davis is THE Bishop of Tone. The dude just gets it! And Alex Perialas really is a genius, I see a project between he and I in the very near future.

Can’t wait till the next shindig, which will be the Southeast Amp Show, which’ll be at the Raleigh Convention Center on September 25th and 26th.