Submarines and eBay
Sunday, 12 February 2006
If nothing else, things have been fairly entertaining over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes productive, sometimes frustrating, but always entertaining.
Since moving into this smaller house, I have lost my studio space. It now shares space with my bedroom as it did about 10 years ago. It’s not the best setup, but it works. One of the many things that I no longer have room for is my guitar amp half-stack. As much as I love the sound of that amp, I just simply don’t have the space for it right now. I had been looking for a while on eBay for something smaller, and had pretty much settled on the idea of a small foot pedal preamp. Wanting to stay with a tube sound, I decided on a Digitech RP7. They have some great sounding effects and, most importantly, a 12AX7 preamp vacuum tube. I found several of them over the course of a couple of weeks of looking, but every time I bid on one someone would run the price up beyond what I thought this unit was worth.
I finally got one for $150, which was the maximum I was willing to pay. It came from a place in Syracuse, NY called HugeMikesInc, an online business I assume. Somehow I ended up sending a double payment through PayPal, which they refunded to me almost immediately - like within about 30 minutes. Sweet. I like doing business with honest people, and this was going well. The package arrived about three days later and the unit looked exactly as it did in the auction photos. When I plugged it in later that evening to get a feel for what it could do for me, everything started going south. None of the six foot switches worked. Everything else seemed to work OK, but I couldn’t change channels or effects settings unless I used the small touch switches at the top. This is very difficult to accomplish when you have size 11 feet.
I took it apart a couple of days later and found that the switches were indeed worn out. Having years of experience building and repairing electronics, I knew this would be an easy fix. I went to the Digitech website, found the parts (which were about 34 cents each), and ordered them from LS Electronics in Florissant, MO...along with a new preamp tube for good measure. The next day I sent an email to the seller to let them know what I had found, and that I was not too happy about receiving something that didn’t work as advertised. I never did receive any response from them. After checking their feedback, I found that three other people recently had similar problems with no response from them. Losers. Every eBay experience I’ve had to this point has been positive. I guess it was only a matter of time until I encountered someone like this. They still haven’t left me any feedback for this transaction. Oh, well...enough about them.
On the bright side, I got the unit repaired and it is functioning as it should. I am very happy with the sounds I’m getting out of it and its ease of use. Plus, it only takes up the space of a notebook on the floor next to my recorder and keyboards.
In the midst of the dreariness around the recent death of Dixie Lee Bedoya, mother of BenWahBob guitarist Carlos Bedoya, there was another highly entertaining moment. After the memorial service for her, many people where invited back to the Bedoya home for a party to celebrate her life. They live in a nice suburb in the area of North St. Louis County known as Old Jamestown. As Dawna and I were driving to the house, we were admiring some of the nice homes in the area. One in particular had two massive multi-car garages built just away from the house. In front of one of the garages was parked an old tour bus, which of course elicited some jibes from me...complete with “rock-n-roll” hand gestures. As we passed further along and I got a look at the area between the two garage buildings, I got a glimpse of something that didn’t register in my mind for a couple of seconds. It was a small gray submarine...sitting on a low dry dock...in the yard of an upscale North St. Louis home. I say “small”...but it is actually a little bigger than the bus. I think Dawna didn’t believe me until we saw it again on the way out of the neighborhood. We actually turned around to drive by and look at it again. Amazing what you will see sometimes if you only look.
So now we get to the continuing adventures of BenWahBob. We were scheduled to play Saturday night at Baha Rock Club in St. Charles, MO, and so we did. I arrived around 20:30 already tired. I didn’t get my Saturday afternoon nap because I had spent the day helping Carlos get caught up at LS Electronics. He has a new tech working there now, and the old one left a rather substantial backlog of amps, mixers, and keyboards awaiting repair. So, we were both tired, as he had stayed long after I left and had come to the gig straight from work. Setup and sound check went quickly, and before we knew it we were starting the first set. Within the first couple of songs, we were already taking shots at Dale about his choices for the set list. He took these jests pretty well. Everyone seemed to be in a pretty good mood. We had an exceptionally good crowd for the beginning of the night, and they seemed to like what was pouring out of the PA system. Dale had brought his wireless microphone, for the first time in a long time, and actually went out amongst the natives. The dance floor was packed with attractive ladies most of the night. This is always a good sign.
I wasn’t particularly happy with my overall performance for the evening. It was quite evident that I had not played some of these songs for some time. Judging by the reactions of the other band members, they weren’t having the best night either. I won’t go so far as to say that we were awful - although I think I did use that word when talking with Bobby during teardown - but it definitely wasn’t the best night we’ve ever had. Oh, well...Jim still paid us at the end of the night, so I guess it wasn’t as bad as it seemed to me.
I had a couple of “sightings” at the end of the night as well. One young lady asked me if I played in Knucklehead, and another guy asked me about the future of that band. I wasn’t sure how to answer that one, as I have not talked with them for a while and don’t know where that stands. Another young lady said she knew Rusty Churchman and use to come see Those1Guys when we played at Stevie Ray’s just down the street from Baha. As I was tearing down my equipment, I was approached by a rather attractive young lady who wanted to know if I played in Wyle E. Huh? This is like the guy who years ago said I looked like the bass player for Iron Butterfly. As I started to tell her no, she interrupted by saying that I looked familiar. After I told her that I had been around for a long time, she told me that she was 32 and had been seeing bands in bars for a long time, too. When I remarked that she was probably too young to remember the heydays of Stages and Granny’s Rocker, her face lit up and she started gushing about how much she missed those rock bar days. She then reached over and gave me a big hug and walked away. The guys in the band razzed me a bit about it, but hey - they didn’t get a hug, did they? It’s good to be the king...even if I am getting old.
I loaded my van and headed home. I recently picked up a couple of Enchant CDs from LaserCD.com, and had Tug of War in the CD player. So, that was my soundtrack for the drive home.
If nothing else, things have been fairly entertaining over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes productive, sometimes frustrating, but always entertaining.
Since moving into this smaller house, I have lost my studio space. It now shares space with my bedroom as it did about 10 years ago. It’s not the best setup, but it works. One of the many things that I no longer have room for is my guitar amp half-stack. As much as I love the sound of that amp, I just simply don’t have the space for it right now. I had been looking for a while on eBay for something smaller, and had pretty much settled on the idea of a small foot pedal preamp. Wanting to stay with a tube sound, I decided on a Digitech RP7. They have some great sounding effects and, most importantly, a 12AX7 preamp vacuum tube. I found several of them over the course of a couple of weeks of looking, but every time I bid on one someone would run the price up beyond what I thought this unit was worth.
I finally got one for $150, which was the maximum I was willing to pay. It came from a place in Syracuse, NY called HugeMikesInc, an online business I assume. Somehow I ended up sending a double payment through PayPal, which they refunded to me almost immediately - like within about 30 minutes. Sweet. I like doing business with honest people, and this was going well. The package arrived about three days later and the unit looked exactly as it did in the auction photos. When I plugged it in later that evening to get a feel for what it could do for me, everything started going south. None of the six foot switches worked. Everything else seemed to work OK, but I couldn’t change channels or effects settings unless I used the small touch switches at the top. This is very difficult to accomplish when you have size 11 feet.
I took it apart a couple of days later and found that the switches were indeed worn out. Having years of experience building and repairing electronics, I knew this would be an easy fix. I went to the Digitech website, found the parts (which were about 34 cents each), and ordered them from LS Electronics in Florissant, MO...along with a new preamp tube for good measure. The next day I sent an email to the seller to let them know what I had found, and that I was not too happy about receiving something that didn’t work as advertised. I never did receive any response from them. After checking their feedback, I found that three other people recently had similar problems with no response from them. Losers. Every eBay experience I’ve had to this point has been positive. I guess it was only a matter of time until I encountered someone like this. They still haven’t left me any feedback for this transaction. Oh, well...enough about them.
On the bright side, I got the unit repaired and it is functioning as it should. I am very happy with the sounds I’m getting out of it and its ease of use. Plus, it only takes up the space of a notebook on the floor next to my recorder and keyboards.
In the midst of the dreariness around the recent death of Dixie Lee Bedoya, mother of BenWahBob guitarist Carlos Bedoya, there was another highly entertaining moment. After the memorial service for her, many people where invited back to the Bedoya home for a party to celebrate her life. They live in a nice suburb in the area of North St. Louis County known as Old Jamestown. As Dawna and I were driving to the house, we were admiring some of the nice homes in the area. One in particular had two massive multi-car garages built just away from the house. In front of one of the garages was parked an old tour bus, which of course elicited some jibes from me...complete with “rock-n-roll” hand gestures. As we passed further along and I got a look at the area between the two garage buildings, I got a glimpse of something that didn’t register in my mind for a couple of seconds. It was a small gray submarine...sitting on a low dry dock...in the yard of an upscale North St. Louis home. I say “small”...but it is actually a little bigger than the bus. I think Dawna didn’t believe me until we saw it again on the way out of the neighborhood. We actually turned around to drive by and look at it again. Amazing what you will see sometimes if you only look.
So now we get to the continuing adventures of BenWahBob. We were scheduled to play Saturday night at Baha Rock Club in St. Charles, MO, and so we did. I arrived around 20:30 already tired. I didn’t get my Saturday afternoon nap because I had spent the day helping Carlos get caught up at LS Electronics. He has a new tech working there now, and the old one left a rather substantial backlog of amps, mixers, and keyboards awaiting repair. So, we were both tired, as he had stayed long after I left and had come to the gig straight from work. Setup and sound check went quickly, and before we knew it we were starting the first set. Within the first couple of songs, we were already taking shots at Dale about his choices for the set list. He took these jests pretty well. Everyone seemed to be in a pretty good mood. We had an exceptionally good crowd for the beginning of the night, and they seemed to like what was pouring out of the PA system. Dale had brought his wireless microphone, for the first time in a long time, and actually went out amongst the natives. The dance floor was packed with attractive ladies most of the night. This is always a good sign.
I wasn’t particularly happy with my overall performance for the evening. It was quite evident that I had not played some of these songs for some time. Judging by the reactions of the other band members, they weren’t having the best night either. I won’t go so far as to say that we were awful - although I think I did use that word when talking with Bobby during teardown - but it definitely wasn’t the best night we’ve ever had. Oh, well...Jim still paid us at the end of the night, so I guess it wasn’t as bad as it seemed to me.
I had a couple of “sightings” at the end of the night as well. One young lady asked me if I played in Knucklehead, and another guy asked me about the future of that band. I wasn’t sure how to answer that one, as I have not talked with them for a while and don’t know where that stands. Another young lady said she knew Rusty Churchman and use to come see Those1Guys when we played at Stevie Ray’s just down the street from Baha. As I was tearing down my equipment, I was approached by a rather attractive young lady who wanted to know if I played in Wyle E. Huh? This is like the guy who years ago said I looked like the bass player for Iron Butterfly. As I started to tell her no, she interrupted by saying that I looked familiar. After I told her that I had been around for a long time, she told me that she was 32 and had been seeing bands in bars for a long time, too. When I remarked that she was probably too young to remember the heydays of Stages and Granny’s Rocker, her face lit up and she started gushing about how much she missed those rock bar days. She then reached over and gave me a big hug and walked away. The guys in the band razzed me a bit about it, but hey - they didn’t get a hug, did they? It’s good to be the king...even if I am getting old.
I loaded my van and headed home. I recently picked up a couple of Enchant CDs from LaserCD.com, and had Tug of War in the CD player. So, that was my soundtrack for the drive home.
posted by Paul J. Smith | 12:03
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