"Mark Tucker" (markbt73)
09/16/2020 at 14:39 • Filed to: None
13
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"Mark Tucker" (markbt73)
09/16/2020 at 14:39 • Filed to: None | 13
| 16 |
I don’t see a lot of longer text posts on here, but I like telling stories, so I’ll try a few here and there, see how it goes...
In the spring of 1994, while I was busy flunking out of college, I lived with my then-girlfriend in a row house in Duluth, Minnesota. Our next-door neighbor was quite a character; he was one of those guys who came home from Vietnam, started smoking weed, and never stopped. His receding hairline, grizzled beard, and aviator sunglasses led us to give him the nickname Johnny Fever, after Howard Hessman’s character on
WKRP
. I don’t remember his real name, if I ever even knew it.
Johnny was a nice enough guy; he helped us recover one of our cats after it got out, and jump-started my girlfriend’s old Chrysler Newport a couple of times. He was happy to do it; Johnny was a Mopar guy, you see, and had a very cool car of his own: a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, wine red with a cream-colored interior.
We never saw him drive it more than 100 feet. On nice days, he would start it up, pull out of his garage in the alley, drive up onto his front yard, wash it, carefully dry it off with cloth diapers, then sit in a lawn chair drinking a beer and admiring it for a while, and then put it right back in the garage. He did this at least a couple of times a week when the weather allowed.
One warm spring day, I had some time to kill before work, and decided to noodle around on the guitar a bit.
At the time I had a monster of an old amp, an Ampeg G-410 combo (4 10" speakers and the amp head, all in one cabinet). I had had it a couple of years, and got it cheap, because it was in terrible condition. It had two nice Celestion speakers, one cheap Radio Shack speaker, and one gaping hole where a speaker should be. The wiring behind the back cover was a rat’s nest of splices and crimp connectors, and it always smelled a little hot after it was on for a while, but it was loud and I was young and stupid, so I just played through it anyway.
On this day, however, the old Ampeg had had enough. I switched it on, heard a loud popping sound, and smoke started wafting out of the back. I peeked inside the back, and saw smoldering wire insulation just starting to catch. I unplugged the amp, but it was too late; the smoke kept coming.
It was around this time that it occurred to me that we didn’t have renter’s insurance. So I did the only thing I could think of: I got the amp the hell out of the house, banging the heavy awkward thing against the bannister as I went, trying not to burn my hands. I got it as far as the front porch, and heaved it down the steps into the front lawn, just as the grille cloth caught fire.
Johnny Fever was out, just finishing up with his Barracuda, and I shouted to him, “Lemme see your hose!” He obliged, and I doused the amp before it could
do any more damage.
We stood there, Johnny Fever and I, looking down at the smoking ruins of the amp, and then he looked up at me wide-eyed, almost reverently, and asked, in a perfect stoner deadpan...
“God
damn
, man. What were you
playing
?”
Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 14:09 |
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I don’t see a lot of longer text posts on here, but I like telling stories, so I’ll try a few here and there, see how it goes...
Too bad this line probably saw 60% of clicks stop reading because that was quite a story. Now that’s a one liner right there.
ranwhenparked
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 14:14 |
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Is it me, or does the headline read like a Johnny Carson bit?
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Mark Tucker
> ranwhenparked
09/21/2020 at 14:18 |
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Not my intention, but yeah, kinda...
PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 14:20 |
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Great story!
So, what song were you playing?
ClassicDatsunDebate
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 14:21 |
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Great story! Thanks for posting.
I saw an interview with Jay Bentley, who ran Ampeg for years. The interviewer asked why he switched from Ampeg to Orange. His response was something along the lines of “I need an amp that actually works all the time”
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Mark Tucker
> PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
09/21/2020 at 14:43 |
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I hadn’t even plugged in the guitar yet...
But the reason I bought that monstrosity in the first place was that I was trying to keep up volume-wise with some guys I jammed with, who both had Crate half-stacks. We’d sit in the dorms and pound out Metallica and Black Sabbath
covers until the RAs yelled at us to stop. Nobody else wanted to play bass, so I grabbed it. I actually thought the Ampeg
was
a bass amp when I bought it
; I didn’t realize they made guitar amps.
Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
> PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
09/21/2020 at 14:57 |
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Love that movie. Love that gif.
“ Spaulding, get your foot off the boat !!”
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Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 14:57 |
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I’ve owned a bunch of amps over the last 30 years, but never burned one up like that. That is SO rock & roll!!
Taylor Martin
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 15:08 |
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I came for the one liner, and I wasn’t disappointed
. Awesome story, pal.
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Mark Tucker
> Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
09/21/2020 at 15:13 |
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Oh, this thing was SCARY, in retrospect. Smelled funny, had a bad hum, and someone had “modded” something in the preamp circuit. It looked like they tried to add some effect
by soldering in the guts of a
pedal.
It was bad. But it only cost me (if I recall) $110
.
At the time, I was really mad about the waste of money. But these days, I realize that no money is wasted if you get a good story out of it.
My bird IS the word
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 16:22 |
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“ I don’t see a lot of longer text posts on here,”
Be the change you want to see! I try to post as much of my wrenching in here as I can, but not in as much detail as I would like. Hopefully some more "adventure" stuff soon.
onlytwowheels
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 18:18 |
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Rock on.
John Norris (AngryDrifter)
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 18:53 |
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Definitely worth every bit of that $110!!!
If you ever get coaxed by your friends into doing an amateur night stand-up just tell that story, just how you told it here. Then hop off the stage. You'll win the night.
jeepoftheseus
> Mark Tucker
09/21/2020 at 19:00 |
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Well told man!
BaconSandwich is tasty.
> Mark Tucker
09/22/2020 at 00:02 |
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Ha ha! That honestly made me laugh out loud. Mrs. BaconSandwich had to ask what was so funny, so I showed her, and she chuckled.
Jayvincent
> Mark Tucker
09/22/2020 at 07:19 |
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except for a well placed comma, I thought your girl friend’s cat kept getting out and jump-starting the Chrysler Newport... good times; good story, thanks!