Such a blast last night with my uncle, being gear nerds. He’s always been a utilitarian/minimalist with gear and to his credit, his hands did PLENTY of talking that I don’t think anyone has ever seen him play and questioned his gear choice. To us here, that translates to “boring”
He’s got a Peavey Classic 20 mini head and a 1x12, he’s owned some amazing Mesa Marks in the past and has plenty of experience growing up with tube amps, but he hasn’t gotten to play a ‘big iron’ amp in years and went nuts last night with the Electra Dyne and Shiva. We didn’t even get to the EVH.
Highlights were when he picked up my Orville after asking me which of my guitars sounded the best, I told him I wanted to see if he’d find it on his own and come to the same conclusions I did. Maybe 5 seconds after he had the Orville in his hands, “This is it!! Holy fuck!!!” He didn’t put it down the rest of the night.
The other one was when he heard some drop A riffs and finally, drop tuned heavy guitars clicked for him. Alice In Chains is about as heavy as he gets before he taps out, he’s thought the majority of 7-string/drop tuning has been silly for the last 30 years. I told him I have the 7-string in drop A and he just laughed, “Like A = 440 but an octave lower? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA” and then I plugged it in and played some riffs with it, “That doesn’t sound like mush! That’s fuckin MEAN!!! Damn!!! I wouldn’t know what to do with it but I bet that’s a fucking blast!”
Even if I never use any of that gear for anything legit, it was worth buying just to see him trip out on it for a few hours. That guy is such a huge reason I play like I do or even think of music in the way that I do, I really gotta find something I can get him that he’ll really dig. I just worry he’ll sell it for something cheap, he’s very much like our former buddy Bob Zoud.
