Dr Z Route 66 Demo ( My first KT66 amp) from a VM fanatic

[frank9310]

Here's a clip of me doing a blues in G jam touring with "Git Shorty" one of James Brown's original sidemen guitar players and almost a clone of him to boot, At 75, he can still do splits and rock the roof off better than most cats in their 20s.

This was a real bucket of blood in Clarksburg, WV at their annual Italian Festival, the night before they were going to close this hole in the wall down because neither men or women's bathrooms worked so people were leaving and going outside in the alley in port-a-johns. There were literally beer bottles flying all night and had to duck several times. Also one guy broke his hand punching somebody, went to the hospital, comes back with a cast and they let him back in to start another fight which he broke his hand again!

Forget the white shirt which was my uniform for the tour (that's me behind Shorty). LOL Needless to say, we went our separate ways after several touring gigs but was fun for a minute.

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Demo I put together for Git Shorty - check him out!

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[surfnorthwest]

Great tone there Frank I like it, nice playing too. I kept waiting to see you duck a beer bottle. I sure do miss playing out live but do not miss bars, drunks, and bandmates at all.

[frank9310]

he-he thanks. Yeah that and sleeping on this cramped up tour bus got old real fast.

About the tone, It was just the Route 66 (30 watt) head going into an Avatar open back cab with a Vintage 30 and a Zvex Box of Rock. That amp really had great tone but finances caused me to sell it. It was really a one trick pony though with just a volume-tone and bass control with a single EF86 front end instead of the 3 tube preamp in a JTM45. Great dynamics and creamy, but no grit at all even dimed but took pedals great.

[slowpokerhino]

I saw Guitar Shorty a few years ago at a blues festival. He was the highlight of the day. Reminded me a lot of Buddy Guy.
Great playing Frank!

[frank9310]

I saw Guitar Shorty a few years ago at a blues festival. He was the highlight of the day. Reminded me a lot of Buddy Guy.
Great playing Frank!

Thanks man. Hey you might have seen the other Guitar Shorty (from Texas). There's 2 of them. The one from Texas, was married to Jimi Hendrix's step sister and claims to have taught Jimi everything he knows about the guitar http://www.guitarshorty.com/

Then there's Git Shorty (aka Guitar Shorty) one of James Brown's original sidemen whose stage persona is said to have been copied by Buddy Guy after Buddy saw him perform http://gitshorty.net/

Both of them have played here so there's always some confusion about it.

[slowpokerhino]

You're right Frank. It was the other one.

[frank9310]

ah ok. That's why the one changed his name to "Git" instead of "Guitar" to help avoid confusion but I don't think it helped much. LOL

[frank9310]

Killer tone. Man I love that Route 66 great job Frank. I like that Hendrix Strat you have too is that a Voodoo Strat?

Hey thanks! What kind of Z iand Strat s that you have there? Looks kind of like a Route 66 and a Voodoo?

My Strat is one of those 60's Reverse Strats that Musiciansfriend made a deal with Fender to make 800 of them and then they sold them all so you still see them floating around here and there for $5-700 on craigslist. It's MIM but the fastest and nicest neck of all my Strats. In fact, after I got it, I sold 6 other Strats because none of them had the feel of that neck which is 1 5/8ths, 7.25 radius. It has lefty reverse wound 68 pickups that sound better than 6 sets of custom shop 69 pickups and most other custom shop pups I have which is around 15 sets.

[frank9310]

Killer tone. Man I love that Route 66 great job Frank. I like that Hendrix Strat you have too is that a Voodoo Strat?

Hey thanks! What kind of Z iand Strat s that you have there? Looks kind of like a Route 66 and a Voodoo?

My Strat is one of those 60's Reverse Strats that Musiciansfriend made a deal with Fender to make 800 of them and then they sold them all so you still see them floating around here and there for $5-700 on craigslist. It's MIM but the fastest and nicest neck of all my Strats. In fact, after I got it, I sold 6 other Strats because none of them had the feel of that neck which is 1 5/8ths, 7.25 radius. It has lefty reverse wound 68 pickups that sound better than 6 sets of custom shop 69 pickups and most other custom shop pups I have which is around 15 sets.

Cool I know what you mean about those necks with the 7.25 radius all three of my guitars have the Hendrix reverse necks on them. My Puple guitar
is Hendrix Voodoo Strat that the Fender custom shop painted for me inspired by Hendrix's last album The first rays of the new rising sun.

The neck on that guitar which is rosewood came off of another Voodoo Strat I found off of E-Bay. The origional neck on that guitar was maple.
I found a Olympic White body off of E-bay and put some custom shop 69''s in it and built the Hendrix guitar in my avatar from parts it's the best sounding axe
I have it is very fat and warm sounding and it has some of the best clean tones I have ever been able to get from any other guitar i have owned.
I used that maple neck on it. I just actually got done fixing that guitar a few minutes ago my Volume pot was acting up
so i put new 250k pot in it. I also built another Blizzard Pearl Hendrix strat from parts. I just like those necks they just feel right.

The Z I have is the Remedy . I have been wanting to check out the route 66 that amp has a great sound too it and has been spoken highly about.

The Remedy has a real cool Marshall Plexi vibe too it. It gets great cleans and nasty crunch and lead tones. Pretty cool amp.

Awesome! Hey is that the purple Strat in your Avatar the one you had painted by the custom shop? Have a larger pic of it? Kind of looks like it was on fire on the pickguard which looks really slick! The necks you got, are those the maple capped ones or the skunk stripe ones? I wish mine was capped but it plays so nicely I don't really care. I've been trying to buy a reverse headstock maple board Vintage Modern neck with clear gloss and black abalone dots from Warmoth for about 8 months but the first one I custom ordered looked like a slab of plywood after a 6 week wait so I refused it. Now they haven't had any decent ones in their pre-made section for months and as much as they cost all said and done $300+ paying a luthier another $50-75 to put a decal on it and the cost of the decal, I'm almost better off buying another 60s Reverse Strat for an extra hundred with all the hardware and a genuine Fender neck.

I really like those new Fender American Special Series Strats with the big headstock neck, jumbo frets, really nice feel but I hate that dull, boring satin finish and I want abalone dots so there we go back up another couple hundred to get that added. There's a chop shop on ebay that sells just the neck for around $375 http://www.fender.com/products/search.p ... 0115602303

[frank9310]

Woah! Now there's some real beauties! I see on the white one how rounded the neck is. Do you have problems with fretting out on high bends? I usually keep my action pretty high anyway so I doubt I would fret out but nice!

I did get a couple of those reverse decals online I forget where and there were some instructions on his site but he didn't want it advertised. I'll probably get a Warmoth because I'm trying to finish my Trower Strat that has a custom 50s neck pup (56 relic), custom 60s middle (60s nocaster Strat) and Tex Mex bridge like the Trower Signature Strat. I just need the maple neck with abalone dots. It has a Callaham steel block trem assembly which kills the standard Fender bridge assembly for sustainm, etc. and need to add some Sperzels to complete the Trower sig model. Here's another one I made a while back with a classic 70s Strat http://areyouexperienced.net/fender_rob ... _Strat.htm

Also check this out after Trower signed it... http://areyouexperienced.net/robintrowe ... 3-2009.htm

[frank9310]

Right on! I know what you mean about the curved radius. I got my left index stuck in a door a while back and my knuckle hurt like hell for several months. When I would do a vibrato on a flatter neck, it would hurt like hell but on the curved it felt fine!

That was cool having Robin sign it. I usually have him sign a pedal but this time I too the Strat. Hey send me those instructions ok?