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Murphy Inspects . . .

July 28, 2013

jimpageadmin Family Fun, Guitars and Music, Pets , , , , , , 1 Comment

Tremolux & Barris Custom, Murphy

Murphy inspects my 1966 Fender Tremolux amp in its custom JD Newell cabinet with two Weber 12A125A speakers; the amp has been at Don Oliver’s studio for a couple of years and returned last evening.

Murphy hasn’t seen this amp before!

The Tremolux is not a Fender amp that’s often seen; they were only made for a couple of years. I had wanted one since I first saw the cover of the Blind Faith album; Clapton is shown here with that amp at the Rolling Stones December, 1968, Rock and Roll Circus event as a member of the one-shot Dirty Mac Band, consisting of Clapton, John Lennon, Keith RIchards on bass, and Mitch Mitchell on drums.

Clapton's Tremolux

I believe Clapton endorses a new Tremolux combo amp made by Fender nowadays, but I’m sure it isn’t much like the original ones. For one thing, they cost over two grand.

I have the original piggyback head cabinet for my Tremolux, restored by Rocco Egizio of Rockometer Amp Cabinets in Chicago, but I don’t have a proper speaker cabinet for that configuration, so it lives as a combo. One day I’ll find a speaker cabinet, but it has to be a 4-ohm one for the Tremolux.

The guitar is my Hallmark Barris Kustom, which sounds nice through the Tremolux. For you gearheads out there, the Barris Kustom has a single pickup with just a volume control; the pickup is Bob Shade’s recreation of the old Carvin AP-6 classic.

Murphy and His Toys

July 13, 2013

jimpageadmin Family Fun, Pets , 5 Comments

Our Boston terrier, Murphy, is quite a character, as all who know him will agree.

He is curious about many things. Shown here last year, he wonders about my grand-daughter Maddie’s toy laptop.

Murphy And Maddie

Murphy has strange beliefs. To you and me, who see with our eyes, this is an ordinary vacuum cleaner. To Murphy, who sees with his nose, this is a dog trapped in a cloth bag attached to a machine. Every evening, Murphy comes to me barking, and won’t stop until I’ve walked to the vacuum cleaner on the back porch and patted it and told him that all is well; there’s no dog inside the machine. He believes me for the next 24 hours, but then doubt sets in, and we go through the procedure another time. Every day!

Vacuum Or Dog?

Here’s Murphy in my bedroom with all his toys. He used to keep them in a group on the living-room couch, but he slowly began transferring them to my bedroom, one by one. He’ll take a toy downstairs to play with for a while, but he always brings it back to the bedroom upstairs when he’s done playing.

Murphy's Toys

I’ve numbered the toys so that you can easily identify them as you look at the photo. 1) A hard red rubber ball (Bostons are strong and determined chewers, so their toys must be durable). 2) Another hard red rubber ball. Murphy can tell them apart, but we can’t. 3) A JCrew tie I decided was too ugly to wear. Murphy has gone through four ties in the last year. This one is ready for the trash. 4) A tug-of-war rope. 5) A blue-and-white hard-plastic bone, also ready for replacement. 6) A ridged hard-plastic bone. 7) A red-and-beige hard-plastic bone. 8) A hard-plastic S-shaped object. 9) A hard-plastic propeller.

His favorite toy, not shown because it was in my bed when I took the photo, is a black Kong Extreme dog toy, shown here.

Black Kong Toy

Murphy thinks I love this toy as much as he does, and he wakes me in the morning by pushing it into my hand as I sleep. That means he’s decided it’s time to wake up and play!