Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Inside the World’s Most Extensive Marshall Amplifier Collection [Episode 366]

Transcript

Inside the World’s Most Extensive Marshall Amplifier Collection [Episode 366] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Marshall Amps were in the seventies is when I grew up.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: They were the rock and roll amplifier.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: And it was in junior high, I think in the
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: ninth grade that somebody said, hey, you got to listen
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: to this Robin Trauer record. He's playing at the Long
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Beach Arena.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: We should go. It was this fuzzed, soaked.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Sound with four or six fon Marshall cabinets behind him
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: and Marshall heads and he's playing this white early seventies
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: strat and I looked at it and I went, that's it.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm gonna do. That's the look. We're totally
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: bumming rock and roll.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'll leave you.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: You're reading. Little Hans says it's time to rock and
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: roll record. Roll up, we are totally booked.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: Welcome back to Booked on Rock the podcast for those
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: about to read and rock on Eric Sinach before we
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: get started. If you want to hear these episodes commercial free,
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: you can grab the backstage pass on Patreon for just
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: five dollars a month link in the show notes, or
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: you can go to Booked on rock dot com. Now
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: onto our guests this episode, Peter Margolis and Brian Ranks.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: They are the authors of Collecting Loud History, a comprehensive
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: six hundred page hardcover book that chronicles the history of
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: Marshall amplifiers from nineteen sixty four to nineteen eighty. The
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: book serves as both a photographic history and a technical
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: reference for one of the world's most extensive collections of
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: vintage Marshall equipment. Guys, welcome to the podcast. It is
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: great to meet you.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Nice to me, Thank you, thank you, nice to thank you.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: This is a project that evolved over six years. From
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: what I understand, you've worked together since nineteen ninety four.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: What was the moment that you realized that the Marshall
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: story hadn't fully been documented and you needed a book
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: like this.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I think both of us can answer. I'll start,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and then Ran will probably agree with me. We met
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: one another in nineteen ninety four after the big earthquake
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: that we had in Los Angeles, and I had a
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: house in Studio City at the time. That was the
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: back house was filled with Marshall amplifiers and cabinets and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: records and magazines and baseball cards and then a studio
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff, and the earthquake really rocked our
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: house literally off the foundation, and the contents of this
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: room basically carved in. The doors couldn't be opened, the
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: window couldn't be open, and it was floor to ceiling,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: you know, parts and guitar necks and speakers and tubes
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and stuff everywhere. And in the process of going through
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: everything and finally getting the door open and trying to
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: straighten everything out, I noticed that the marshals had been damaged,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: grills had been ripped, and you know, things had been
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: dented and vinyl covering torn and things like that. I
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: wanted to get everything fixed up eventually, and I didn't
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: know anybody that took care of this sort of stuff.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: So I went to a guy named Bob Bradshaw who
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: was out in North Hollywood at the time, and he was,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: you know, building pedal boards and things for studio guys,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and he was the guy who would fix my stuff.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: And so I said to him, Hey, you know, we
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: just had this big earthquake and I need to get
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: this stuff fixed. And he said, I got your guy,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: and he said, you know, a couple of doors down
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: there's a guy who does nothing but cosmetic repairs on
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: old vintage Marshall lamps, and it was like image my luck.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And so I met Brian and we struck up a
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: fast friendship. I had a lot of the stuff that
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: he not only repaired, but coveted and collected himself, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: so we found mutual ground pretty quickly and we started
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: working together. First, Brian went through my collection and told
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: me what things work, because I really had no idea.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I knew I had a lot of Marshals,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: but I didn't know what they were specifically. So Brian
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: started to educate me about what I had, and we
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: went through each piece systematically, and there were things that
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: were wrong with them, you know, speakers weren't correct or
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: you know, parts were missing, logos were broken, girls were torn,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: things like that. And he went through them one by
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: one and got them looking like they looked when they
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: left the Marshall factory. And as we were going through
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: them and fixing them up, and I was starting to
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: learn Brian, you know, both both of us have other careers.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Brian was on going on the road with various you know, uh,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: rock stars and pop stars and and you know, as
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a guitar tech, and so he would be out in
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the road somewhere and he'd you know, have a day
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: off and end up in a music store and call
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: me and go, hey, they have this and this. I mean,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: I'm going to pick this up. I think you should this.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And we did that times one hundred and then you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Brian would you know, there'd be a guitar player, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: in the band and he'd say, hey, Brian, I want
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: to get rid of this Marshall. Do you know anybody
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: who wants it? And he would call me up and say,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I already have this one. I think you should pick
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: this up. It's a good price. And then so I
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: started developing, as did Brian, a pretty extensive collection, even
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: beyond what I already had, which was, you know, by
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: most standards, a lot. I think I had at the
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: time Brian, I had twenty cabinets and twenty heads. That
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: collection is now, you know, seven or eight times larger
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: than it was when we met.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: And then along the.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Way I met some other guys who were collectors and
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: started selling me stuff when they didn't want things anymore.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: And so what started out for Brian and I as
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: a business relationship ended up as a very close friendship.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: And we realized after doing this for thirty years and
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: acquiring these marshals and restoring the marshals and repairing the marshals,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: and you know, sometimes we would buy stuff and go, yeah,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: this isn't really great. Let's off this one and get
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: you know, we're missing this year, this color, this model,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: this whatever. We realized somewhere around twenty seventeen twenty eighteen
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: that we needed to document what we were doing and
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: what we had acquired. And there is really nothing.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Like our book.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: There are other books about Marshall amplifiers and speaker cabinets,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Marshall products that are great for what they are, Michael
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Doyle's books The History of Marshall. There's a number of
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: books and they're wonderful, and Brian and I own them
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: and they're great reference manuals, but they were lacking certain
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: things and we just felt like this information was nowhere
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: in the world. And what really cemented it for both
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: of us is and we would send each other like
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: links to you know, Craigslist ads or reverb ads or
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: eBay at you know, auctions, and Brian would send me
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: the Lincoln and I'd look at it and he go,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: what's wrong with this? And I go, well, the guy
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: says it's a seventy one, and it's not a seventy one.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: How can you tell, Well, look at the rivets on
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the handles, that's how you can tell. And so we
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: started to see all these auctions and advertisements that were incorrect,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and the big one was, you know, selling a plexi,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: selling a nineteen seventy three Marshall Plexi. Well, no you're not,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: because the last Plexi was made in the middlest of
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine. So we would see all these auctions
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: that people were selling their stuff and marking it incorrectly,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: and based on what you have and what year it is,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: and what color it is, and what model it is,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: and whether it's a Plexi or not radically alters the
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: price and the value and whether the transformers are real
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: and you know or and so all of this changes
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: the value you the price, how much you should sell
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: something for. And nothing was out there to tell anybody
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: not only what they had, but what it was worth,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: how to list it, how to identify it. So you
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: don't walk in a guitar center off the street and go, hey,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: I'll take that Marshall cabinet and the thing says, you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine Marshall Cabinet, and you know you're none
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: the wiser and you buy something that they say is
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the sixty nine and it's not.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: So you're keeping them honest and making sure that the
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: people are getting.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: The good and the bad is that it tells people
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: exactly what they have and if they're going to buy something,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: exactly what they're going to buy. The bad news is
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: for us is we can no longer go and buy
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: something and go, hey, this is a great deal. The
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: guy doesn't know what he has because now it's out there,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: you know, it's out there for everybody to find. This
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: is what I have, and this is what it's really worth.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: And so that was that was part of the reason
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: for it, But it was really we were We got
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: frustrated in that none of the information that we had
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: acquired over the years by having our hands in hundreds
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: and hundreds of these things, the information just wasn't there.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: There were bits and pieces if you hunted for it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: There's a website that talks about old Celestian speakers and
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: their frame numbers and cone numbers and things like that,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: but that site is dedicated to just that It doesn't
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: talk about, you know, what's inside a Marshall amplifier, doesn't
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: talk about how they are constructed and what screws were
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: used and rivets were used and staples were used and
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: what you know. Our book talks about all that, how
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: to identify what you have, and we systematically.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Go through year by year by year.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: From the first piece that we both have, which is
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four up to nineteen eighty. Brian and I
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: both have pieces after eighty. But we kind of felt
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: like that was a good place to stop.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: Because that's a question I'm sure you get asked a lot.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: It was six hundred pages at that point, and it
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: was like, you know, we can't really make anything much
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: bigger than that. And so after eighty a section of
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the book is devoted to we call it the Parts Section,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the Parts Reference. And this was really Brian's baby, because
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you know, he is the keeper of all the martial
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: parts and knows how to identify every single thing they
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: ever made, and so it was his idea to like,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: let's put a page of every single wheel and every
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: single handle, and every logo and every grill type and
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: what screw was used on the back cover. And what
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: screws or rivets were used on the handles, and talk
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: about the tea nuts, and talk about all these things.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: So there's page after page after page of description of
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: parts that really separates our book from anything else, because
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: that's never been talked about.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: It was very important to you, guys. I'm assuming to
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: have this packaged in the way that it is. It's
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: a beautifully packaged book.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I started doing this stuff in the early eighties, and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: it was fortunate enough to get hooked up with the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Marshall Law artist relations people and took care of a
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: lot of well known guitar players stuff and restored things
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: for them, so I managed to get into the fold.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: But what I realized after while I was doing a
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: lot of this stuff for people, as I would disassemble things,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: because there were no reference manuals or anything that even
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Marshall could pass on to me to tell me the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: difference between one year's things and another year's things or whatever.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I had to write copious notes for years, and after
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: years and years of writing all kinds of notes for
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: myself about all the details, paragraphs full of details about
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: all these cabinets and heads that would come through the shop,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I eventually began to realize, probably by the late eighties,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I started to see patterns, and I could then start
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: to identify where things in the production line at a company,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: which is like cars would change for the following year,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: sometimes only just slightly, but eventually the pieces of the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: puzzle would come together, and with enough notes you could
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: figure out, oh, okay, here's the line. As the sequence
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: went as they changed things in production. And therefore, once
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you realize that sequence, you can identify what years or
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: even what half years certain things were made. Because Marshall
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: never kept notes on anything other than the amplifier heads,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and those are dated by a chassis number, which is
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: easily discernible, and it's in lots and lots of books.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: But all the cabinets and their serial numbers, and what
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: was in certain cabinets versus other cabinets. Uh, that information
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: was never divulged really by Marshall, and so it was
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: anybody's guest whatever, whatever the best story was on a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: piece of gear and what you were logically able to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: believe were it. And so I want I wanted to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: do like a reference manual for years kind of showing
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the information that I had come across and and figured
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: out and wrote down and so forth. And then I
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: met Peter and we started working on his collection, and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: one thing came together after another, and eventually we decided,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you know, let's let's do a little bit more than
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: just a reference manual. Let's uh, you know, put together
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: some stories and some history and and uh, you know,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: try to get as much information out there, because as
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: us older folks go, there's no new young fellas coming
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: along that are learning this stuff, and they'll never live
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: long enough to figure it out because the price of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: this stuff has gotten to be such that you basically
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: need a stock market investment to go buy things to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: start to learn about them.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Sure, And the website collecting loudhistory dot com is
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: a good place for people to go to just to
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: get an example and see what this book looks like.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: You've got pictures from the book on the website as well.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I actually have one in front of me immediately, so
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: it looks like this. Well, let me get rid of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the glare like that. And as you can see, it's
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: very large. It's you know, about an inch and a
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: half thick, and a couple of things that you know
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to to follow through with what Brian said. So somewhere
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: in the late you know, twenty seventeen eighteen, and we
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: realized that, you know, Brian initially said, let's let's put
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a catalog together. And I had been involved in several
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: books prior to this one, and I knew what by
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: virtue of you know, putting these out and making mistakes.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I knew what worked and what didn't work. And I
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: knew what would sell and what wouldn't sell. And on
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the last couple of books that I did, I have
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: found a book designer and his name is Denny Anderson.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: And Denny is very responsible for the way that this
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: book looks, which is really significantly different than any book
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: that we've ever seen on amplifiers or guitars. I mean,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the photographs in this thing and the layout is you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: staggeringly beautiful.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: I mean the word stunning on the website is.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Brian will tell you, you know, really something far more than
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: we had ever bargained for. And Denny is really reponsible
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: for the way this book looks. We Brian and I
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: gave him, we would say, okay, let's start with you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. We would give him the images from
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. We would give him, you know, descriptions,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: and we would say, you know, like I'm going to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: write two paragraphs about this head. It's probably going to
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: take up about three inches. You know, here's sort of
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the mock up, and we would write a story. There's
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: a story for each year at the front of each year,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: which basically says, here's what was going on in the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: world in nineteen sixty four, Here's what was going on
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: in music in nineteen sixty four, Here's what was happening
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: at the Marshall factory, and how Marshall was being affected
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: by what was happening in the world and what was
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: happening in music. And now let's take a look at
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the products from nineteen sixty four. And that's sort of
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: how we put the book together. I mean, the beginning
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of book. Beginning of the book, there's a you know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: a bit of history about me, a bit of a
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: history about Brian, how we got together, the story of
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the earthquake, and how we formed our friendship and our
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: working relationship, and then we go into you know, the
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: years and systematically go through them. But it it took
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: us as we started in late twenty nineteen. We had,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: you know, bandied about the conversation for a couple of years,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: and we kept saying to you know, each other, we
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: really need to we really need to get this started.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: We're not getting any younger. And the pandemic of twenty
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: twenty really sort of helped us because I was out
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: of work for six months and on top of which,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I lost a family member and so.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: I was down for a.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Very long time, and writing the book and working on
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: it really became you know, I had a lot of
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: time to deal with it, and it just it sort
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: of helped me get through, you know, this period of time.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: And then once we got off the ground, and I think,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: you know, Brian and I think we actually started with
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a later chapter. I want to say we started with
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty or nineteen seventy nine. It was something that
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: we had a lot of and we gave all the
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: material to Denny, and Denny gave us a mock up
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: of this chapter. He sent us a PDF of what
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: he felt like it should look like, and when we
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: saw the PDF, we really knew at that point that
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: we had something. Now, I should say, prior to that,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: from twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. We didn't do
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: anything other than photographs, and it took us the better
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: part of two years to get all of this stuff photographed.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: We started out with one photographer and did a bunch
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: of shoots and I said, Brian, this isn't working it
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: it just doesn't look right. And then we found a
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: guy who lives in Prague and he shoots for a
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: couple of local stores here, and then we had some
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: discussions with him and he came out and he did
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: two sessions here and he shot about half and it
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: was just it just didn't work. He was too far away,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: his schedule didn't work with our schedule, and we needed
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: to get the rest of the stuff shot. But we
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: had enough with what he did to start cobbling the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: chapters together, so we would we would we would do
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: chapters and sort of and random in no particular order.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: We jumped around, and you know, let's say we had
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: all the nineteen seventy one shot out with this photographer,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: so we could work on nineteen seventy one, or if
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: we were missing some we would put a placeholder there.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And then we found another photographer who happened to be
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: somebody that Brian and I. He used to own a
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: store call the Guitars are Us, and Brian and I
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: in the eighties would purchase from him. His name was
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Albert Molnaro. Brian somehow reconnected with him. In the middle
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: of this project. We had a phone call the three
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: of us one night went on for hours and hours,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: and you know, he said, look, guys, I have a
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: photo studio in my house and I'd love to help
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: you guys get the book done, but everything has to
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: come to me. And it was like, okay, well, we
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: still had fifty Marshall cabinets to shoot of the one
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: hundred plus that we shot, and fifty heads, which which
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: meant one by one they had to go in my
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: car to his house, get the photograph, pick him up,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: back to the house, get the next one in the car.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And we did that for another two years to get
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: the rest of it shot. And this is photo studio
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: was up a flight of stairs, so you know, oh,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: and in my house we're all you know, all all
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: of the Marshals resided at the time that we shot
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: the book.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: They were all upstairs, so we.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Were you know, we spent days and days and days
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: and Brian and I lost, you know, a good deal
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: of wait and we did it in the summer of
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: just you know. We would pull a cabinet out down
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the stairs, tear it apart, put it up on the jig,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: shoot it, and while the photographer was shooting at the
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: one that was shot here, Brian was getting another one.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And we you know, we had people helping us. And
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: then to do the rest of it. It was literally
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: one piece at a time in my car over to
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Albert's house. He would call me in a week and say,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: come get this one and bring me another one. And
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: this went on and on and on and on.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: Wow, that is unbelievable. I know, Brian, you've you've worked,
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: you know, on the road as a guitar check for
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: forty years. Bon Jovi, Michael Bolton, pep Penatorial, Giraldo Uh Peter.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: You worked in the you look in the television industry
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: as and also a stage manager. And you have a
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: famous relative, right, did I see a video where you
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: were talking about that?
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I have, and I have a couple famous relatives. My
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: mother's brother was a game show host of Let's Make
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: a Deal. His name is Monty Hall. Oh yeah, Rest
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: and peace, and my brother was a famous TV director
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: named Jeff margol Is who directed the Academy Awards and
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Miss America, Emmy Awards and American Music Awards and all
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: these big event live television shows. He passed last year
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and straight oddly, and Brian can tell you, because Brian
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: was at my house at the time. The book was
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: delivered to our house, my house here, and a very
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: large truck with on palettes of you know, boxes of
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: seven books per box and after box after box, and
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: it was delivered the day that my brother died. So
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: it was seven thirty in the morning and Brian and
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I were up and I get a text and you know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: two hours after I get this text, and now now
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the phone's ringing in the texts are coming in the
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: emails and everything else about my famous brother passing. You know,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: knock at the door, Hey, your books are here. So
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: it was a really weird day.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my condolences, man, I didn't know that.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for everybody.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: So I'm Los Angeles. I don't know if you mentioned it,
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: but you are in LA right, yeah.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm in LA and my wife and I
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: have a house here and then we have a house
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: up north and then Brian lives sort of in between
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: you know, the two houses Sacramento.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: It sounds Lake Taho.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Gotcha? Okay, Brian, your years on the road, How did
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: that shape the way you approached documenting these artifacts so
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: you call them for the book.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know how it shaped me documenting so much
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: as it exposed me the availability to travel around the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: country and on days off and the old days anyways,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: not so much these days, but years ago when all
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the mom and pop music stores were all that there
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: was across the country, well, on days off, you could
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: go into those places and you could find used musical equipment,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: specifically old marshals people had traded in on something new.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And so as you traveled around here and there, you
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: would acquire a few things or run into various musicians
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: who just got some new endorsement of some you know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: cool product and they got a pickup truckload of it
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: for free, and they won't be needing those old marshals anymore.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Do you know anybody that could use those? And I was,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you know, rating the the catbird seat on a lot
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of things like that, where some well known people decided
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to get rid of certain things or a whole bunch
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of things. There were times where I was in a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: position where I find out a band was going to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: get rid of all of their marshals, like a whole
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: back line's worth, and I would make arrangements to buy
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: as much of it as I could.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: What is it about the marshal lnts that you love
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: so much?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: What is it what draws you to it?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: There sound, the differences that they have. They're so versatile
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in that they make a lot of different products that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: are specifically geared for certain things. A lot of people
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: don't realize that about them until you get start to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: get deep in the weeds with them. But yeah, they
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: make a lot of amplifiers that aren't necessarily just rock
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and roll amplifiers or whatever. And the rock and roll amplifiers,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: there are varying tonal qualities and sweet spots in our
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: industry for the sound of certain amplifiers. If you're going
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to do certain things, well, then one particular marshallhead is
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you know traditionally what everybody uses, Or if you're going
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to do something else, well, there's a different model that
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: does that particular thing.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: You.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Defenders have their There's certain sounds too, and there again,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: they have a variety of different models and they're all
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: slightly different in some way, but it's uh. You know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the Marshall Amps were in the seventies is when I
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: grew up. They were the rock and roll amplifier. People played.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: All the big rock and roll bands played Marshals and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: some of them played some high watts.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: I've read that the story began with British guitars like
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: Pete Towns and Richie Blackmore. They wanted something louder, something thicker,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: more distorted.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so it all evolved in the in the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: in the mid sixties. This way is as performers played
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in venues larger amounts of people, they had trouble hearing themselves,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: so they would need, you know, a little bit louder amplifier.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, different people went to Jim Marshall and said,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: you know, can you custom make me something? And he
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: had a couple of engineers working with him, and he
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: was gamed for, you know, playing experiment with different folks
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and and try to have his amp guys design something
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: that would make them happy. And when they'd get somebody
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that would be happy, well then they'd take the notes
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: of what all those components were and how they were
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: laid out, and you know, see about making more of
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: them for somebody else.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: What is Jim Marshall's backstory.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: He was a drummer, drummer, jazz drummer.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: He was a drummer, and he had a music school.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a store that was you know, right location,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: right time, and you know the right people like you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: clapped in and Jeff back in Townsend.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Frequent snore at the right time and history. Nobody else
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: specifically was making stuff. People asked him and he just went, hey,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I know some engineers, and let me try to help
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: you out. Maybe I can make something for you. And
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it just, you know, his offering to help people turned
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: into one of the world's most famous amp companies.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: My first experience with these was, you know, as a
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: young kid fourteen fifteen, and somebody from school had a
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Robin Trauer record and it was really my first experience
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: with rock and roll. I was not raised with rock
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: and roll. My dad was a stand up jazz big
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: band bass player and exposed me to big band music.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: And my mother was a classical music and opera freak.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: So that's all we ever had. And it was in
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: junior high. I think in the ninth grade that, you know,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: somebody said, hey, you got to listen to this Robin
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Trauer records. He's playing at the Long Beach Arena. We
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: should go, And so I went to go see him.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I think I was fifteen at the time. I tell
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the story in the book, and we walked in right
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: as he was, you know, playing the opening song, which
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: was called Long Misty Days, and it was this sort
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: of I think it was one of the only times,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: if not the only time, he ever used a fuzz pedal,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: and it was this fuzzed, soaked, you know sound, with
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: I think four or six fond Marshall cabinets behind him
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: and Marshall heads and he's playing this white strat, early
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: seventies strat, and I looked at it and I went,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: that's it. That's what I'm going to do. That's the look. Instant,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: and you know, it just it hit me, and you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I just loved what I saw. I loved the music,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I love the sound, I love the look of it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: And then spent my entire life pursuing that. At a
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: certain point, not as a performer anymore, but you know,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: the more or you know about the Marshall Amps. You know,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: the more you realize you don't know, the more you
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: want to learn, at least for me. And you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: thankfully I met Briant at the right time, and it
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: sort of you know, my belief is everything happens for
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a reason, and the universe hands people certain situations at
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: certain times for whatever the reason was. It took the
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: earthquake for me to meet Brian. But if I didn't
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: know Bob Bradshaw, I never.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Would have met Brian. I wouldn't have known about it.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: I probably still have twenty Marshall cabinets with holes in
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: the grills, you know, or I would have just eventually
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: sold all of them, not knowing what I had. And
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: it was just because you know, the universe put him
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: and he and I together and we had this mutual
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: we're basically the same age, and we had this you know,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: mutual affection for these things. And his experience seeing the
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: first time is a little bit different from my experience.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: But then you know, he was around them all the
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: time and learn to appreciate what these things were. And I,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: you know, there's several people that make things that look
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: like them or sound similar to them or you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: give you the same presentation, but really they were the
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: first and there is no replicating some of their sounds.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: You can get really close by modeling, you know, the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: fractals and the ax effects and all that can.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Get really close.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: But if you've ever been on stage like I have
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and stood in front of them, there's nothing like it.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: There's just isn't.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: I hate to throw that word around genius a lot,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: but Jim Marshall seems like he was a genius.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Well not only was, he was a marketing genius, and
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: he knew how to deliver what people wanted, and he
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: was a really affable guy. People loved him, and he
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: listened to what the artist said, and you know, he
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: had the right product at the right time, and and
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: sort of went along with the times. And when you know,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: things in the seventies, you know, uh started to get larger,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: and heels got bigger, and bell bottoms got bigger, his
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: logos got bigger, and the colors, you know, sort of
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: got more wild, and the oranges and you know, and
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: and the yellows and the and you know that sort
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: of went along.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: With that time.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: He listened to people and he sort of followed the
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: trends a little bit, but stayed true to.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: What he had.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: You know, he knew that what he had was popular.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: He was helped along the way by Clapton and by Hendrix,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: and you know, Hendricks probably more so than anybody, helped
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: push Jim, you know, out into the world. Really but
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Jim had a product that you know, they're still making.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: You know, not a lot of companies that were in
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: business in nineteen sixty three, you know, are still really
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: successful and still making great sounding stuff.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: One of the interesting things of the seventies that Jim
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: was doing was was all the different colors. They started
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: becoming available in sixty eight, roughly sixty late sixty seven,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: sixty eight, but they really kind of caught on in
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the seventies, and a lot of people they see the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: book and they don't realize that in the old days
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of colored amplifiers. And that's because
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we're going back again to the days of the mom
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and pop music stores in America, and a colored amplifier
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in those days was like ordering a colored Fender stratocaster.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: There was a little bit of an up charge forgetting,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: you know, something that wasn't you know, a black amp.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: And so your mom and pop muse stores typically were
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: not ordering any of the colored amplifiers in to have
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: for sale on the on the floor because they were
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: going to be more expensive and they weren't sure that
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: they were going to sell them. And at the time,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: there were very few stores that you could walk into
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: that even had a brochure or a catalog. You just
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: went with whatever the store people told you. And so
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: only your big stores like Manny's and sam Ash in
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: New York City, those kind of places in America were
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the ones that sold a lot of the colored amplifiers
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: in the late sixties in the first few years of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the seventies, because you know, they could they had the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: volume of business to order in a few stacks or
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: a few pieces of different colors and you know, not
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: be upset if they didn't sell for a couple of months.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And so, but they've always kind of been available for
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: years and years, but you kind of had to know
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: where to go or who to talk to to get
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: hold of the colored stuff.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: The primary color though, is gold and beige yellow that
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: seemed to be.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: The standard covering is the is the black vinyl covering
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the grill cloth depending on the year. You know, went
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: from the pin stripe of the sixties into the basket
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: weave of the you know, later sixties, early seventies, and
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: that became the larger checkerboard, which became the smaller checkerboard, which.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Became the black.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: When you look at them, they can be depending on
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: how much sunlight they've seen, they can be various stages
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: of you know, brown. The grills they're typically gray, sort
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: of gray in color, but you know, when they see
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: some sun they turn brown pretty quickly. And then you know,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: the standard color that you see most of the time
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: as black, because like Brian was saying, that's typically what's available,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: the reds and the and the yellows and blues, and
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: you know, the fawns were made in much smaller quantity,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: and you know, like Brian was saying, they went to
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: the bigger stores, you know, the sam Ashes and the
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Mannies and eventually the guitar centers, but you know, they
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: just weren't They didn't really catch on until later and
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: they became more popular. And then, like like Fender stratocasters
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: that are anything but sunbursts, there's a markup form significantly.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Now when you're able to find an older you know,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: red stack or orange or white or whatever, you're going
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: to pay a premium form because they're just aren't as many.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: What may have been ten percent up charge back when
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: it was made is way way more than ten percent
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: difference in price over a black amplifier today, right.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: One thing that helped Brian and I in our search
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: for collecting these. They were very, very popular in the
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: eighties with the hair metal bands. You know, you'd see
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: the old MTV videos and there was you know, all
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the Warrant and Winger and you know, all the bands
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: with the stacks that you know, Judas Priest, stacks of
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: marshals behind them. That sort of went by the wayside.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: When Nirvana came on and you know, changed music in
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: the nineties, everybody was getting rid of their marshals and
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: they were getting you know, Fender jazz corps sorry, rolling
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: jazz choruses and smaller amplifiers.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Brian and I would go to like black Market music
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: in LA at this time and there'd be stacks and
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: stacks and stacks and marshals there endless because people had
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: turned them in, you know, for their Fender amps or
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: their you know, their vox Ac thirties became really popular,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: and there was a time where we were buying these
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: things like crazy because people were unloading them, and you know,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: both of us just realized that at one some point
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: in time, this is going to turn around.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: And it did.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: And when was that early two.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Thousands, Yeah, I think, I don't know, maybe a little
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: bit before the time reverb started to become popular, but yeah,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: somewhere around the two thousands, early two thousands we started.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: So there's a funny story. Brian and I we were
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: together in the late nineties and there was a music
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: store out in Studio City and we'd driven by and
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: we saw a couple of Marshall cabinets and pulled over
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: and went inside the store and they had two late
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: sixties basket weave cabinets with the original speakers, and they
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: had a nine hundred dollars price tag on them. We
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: looked at each other and it was like, nine hundred dollars,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's ridiculous.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: That was the high water mark in those days.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: And we didn't buy them because it was just, you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: it was too expensive. You can't get a speaker from
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: those cabinets now, for nine hundred dollars let alone, all
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: four let alone. Inside of original cabinet, that nine hundred
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: dollars has become four and five and six thousand, and
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: so it's you know it and Brian can talk about this.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: It's it's supply and demand. And as we have these
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: natural disasters, and we have earthquakes, and we have specifically floods,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: and we have fires like we had you know, the
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Palisades and in Altadena last year. These are areas of
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: very large homes and guys who collect guitars and cars
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: and amplifiers and baseball cards and all sorts of things.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: People with money in these homes. And every time these
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: fires take out thousands of homes or floods take out
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: you know, you see these pictures of these houses that
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: are you know, up to the roofline and water well,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: they're filled with ac thirty's and they're filled with marshals
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: and they're filled with fender strats and they're destroyed. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: so as time moves on, there's les and less and
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: less and less of these things. So you know that
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: you laws a supply and demand. Greater demand, lesser supply,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: you know, equals you know the price going up. And
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: that's also what has happened with this. So whereas you know,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: you would see something that was a couple thousand dollars
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: a few years ago. With Brian and I talk about
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: this all the time. We're constantly sending each other things
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that we've seen and go, can you believe this? You
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: know you and I paid, we paid one thousand dollars
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: for this, it's now, you know, seven thousand dollars. And
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: you know it's it's like buying Apple stock in the
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: early days or Starbucks.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: It just it was really dumb luck for us that
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: this stuff took off the way it did.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: In the old the older Marshall stuff, the older and
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: further back, you get the scarcer the production was. At
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: the beginning, things were made by hand to order. There
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: were no amplifiers built sitting on the shelf waiting for
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: somebody to come along, go, hey, you want to try
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: this thing we built for you. No, everything was built
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: as an order for the first couple three years, and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: then by the late sixties it was getting into what
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: we call batch production, where they would take a specific
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: model number and let's say, make a batch of twenty
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of them that they had orders for and then make
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: a batch of like a dozen or fifteen of another
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: model number, and eventually they'd come around after three four
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: model numbers, they'd come back around to the first model
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: number and then make another batch of those. And so
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of component changes sometimes with some
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: of these amplifiers in the batch made and one or
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: two off made amplifiers, And so you can get an
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: amplifier where there may have only been you know, fifteen
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: or twenty amplifiers that share the identical oponents that yours did,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and the next batch of them that was made has
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: two or three components that are different, but yet it's
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: kind of the same amp. And so as you realize this,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and with the natural disasters and the rarity of these
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: amplifiers and stuff, as time goes on, some of this stuff,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: even the early seventies stuff, they started making them by
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the fifties and the one hundreds instead of the dozens,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: but they were still not really really mass produced until
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties when the JCM made hundred series came along.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: And that's why those particular amplifiers in that series, other
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: than a few specific specialty ones, they don't have a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: huge huge value to them because whatever you might like,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: trust me, they made thousands upon thousands of them, not dozens.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: They only made the handful of what you see there,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and that's what creates the price today.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: If there was a complaint about our book, you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: it's that, you know, why didn't you guys talk about
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: the JCM eight hundreds of the nine hundreds or you know,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: these other later models, And it was like, well, number one,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: they were, like Brian just said, mass produced, and we
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: don't own any of them because what we're interested in
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: is the stuff that wasn't mass produced. And you know
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: from sixty four through eighty where you know, they were
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: still like Brian said, sort of batch making them. And
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: it wasn't really until that, you know, late late seventies,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: early eighties, into the into the eighties with the j
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: C eight hundred, nine hundred and you know, and onward
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: where they were just you know there they sound great,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: they're interesting, they're great products, and there's no slide on them.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: They're just not what we're into. And so we didn't
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: want to talk about something in a book for you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: just to talk about you know, we don't own them,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: so to say, you know, to have a chapter on
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the JCMA eight hundred or nine hundred. It just we
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: felt like it was disingenuous, you know what, might why
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: do it when we don't have them?
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Find the Bookdo on Rock website at booked on Rock
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: of the show, the latest episode in video and audio,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: links to all of the platforms where you can listen
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: to the podcast, plus all the social media platforms were
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and x. Also check
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: out the Booked on Rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: find out all the latest hot rockbook releases, and before
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: you go, check out the Booked on Rock online store.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: Pick up some Booked on Rock merch. It's all at
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: booked on Rock dot com. Peter Margolas Brian Ranks, authors
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: of Collecting loud History. What's the rarest marshal that you encounter?
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you asked, and it's strangely the most recent
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: one that I'm going to say, and I think Brian's
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: going to agree. So along the way in this evolution
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: of collecting and and you know, my relationship with Brian
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: and you know, starting to get to the point where
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: I would get calls from certain stores that would get
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: a piece of gear and they would call Brian, go, hey,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: this Marshall just walked in the door before we put
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: a price tag on it. Let me send you some
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: pictures and see if you're interested. Because they knew that
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Brian and I were buying lots of stuff. So it's like,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: why make it hard on yourself and put it out
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: on the floor and wait for it to sell or
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: hope it sells and hope you don't have to drop
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: the price when I can just pick up the phone
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: and call Peter or Brian and odds are they're going
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: to want to buy it, or and or know somebody
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: that's that's looking for it. So I don't know. A
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: decade or so ago, I get a phone call from
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the guy who owns a store called Killer Vintage and
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: he says, hey, I have a have a client and
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: he's got a Marshall combo and he thinks that it's
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: it's real and it's rare, but he really would like
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: you guys to confirm it. You know, he knows that
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: you know, I know you guys. I've sold you some stuff.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Would you mind doing that? So I said no, and
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: so they sent it and I pulled it apart, and
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: you know, as I think I was on with Brian,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: or Brian was, I don't remember, but we took it down.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: We took staples out, literally one or two, and we
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: looked at the patina on the staples and the type
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: of staples that were used. Then we open it up
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: and we took you know, the chassis apartment and got
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: out a magnifying glass and started to look at these
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: part numbers on you know, the capacitors and the resistors,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: and looked at the solder joints and really took this
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: thing to task. And it was a real marshal. It
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: was not the year that the proprietor that sold it
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: to this guy. It was not killer vintage. It was
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: another store sold it to this client, said it's in
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. We took it apart and determine it
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: wasn't a sixty four. It was a real marshal, but
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: it was a sixty seven. Well there's a big difference
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: in price between those two. And so we got it
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: buttoned up, took a bunch of pictures of it. I
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: called the store. We packed it back up somebody came,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: collected it, sent it back off to Texas, which is
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: where one of their stores is. And a couple of
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: days later I get a call saying, hey, thank you
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: very much. The guy who owns this wants to send
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: you a check and I said, not necessary. You know,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: this was fun for us. And I tell him thank you,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: but no thanks, but no thanks, and he said, okay, well,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: he'd like to at least call you and say thank
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: you and talk to you. You know, I said, great,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: haven't give me a call. And a couple of minutes
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: later I answered the phone and I hear, hey, Peter,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: this is Eric Johnson. And you know, I don't know
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: for your.
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: Eric Johnson were talking about the guitarist.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, yes, who might not know Eric Johnson is probably
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: one of the most well known guitar players alive.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: Cliffs of Dover was played on my rate local rock station.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Incredible musician, incredible writer, incredible player, incredible singer, recording artist,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: and equally nice human being. And we ended up on
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the phone for a couple hours talking about the amp
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: and amplifiers in general. And you're recording it on and
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: on and on, and you know, I couldn't believe it was.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: You know, it'd be like Jimi Hendrix calling, you know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: and the equivalent. And he said, listen, you know I'm
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: coming to town. I'm playing at this place out in
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: the valley, and I'd like to at least send you
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: some tickets or put you on the list, you and
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: your wife, and I said, yeah, you know, we would
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: love to come down and see you. So my wife
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: and I went to see him, and he sent me
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: his guitar tech's phone number and he said, text him
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: after the show. He'll open the door and take you
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: into the dressing room. And I want to say hi
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: to you and you know whatever. So I did, and
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: we're in there with Eric and he goes, hey, listen,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be presumptuous, but I put an
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: amp in the bus that I'm not using anymore, and
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: I just want you to take it home and see
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: if you like it. And I'm thinking to myself, I
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: just met you, like we had one phone conversation and
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I saw one show, and you want me to take
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: an amplifier home And I was like, okay. So his
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: tech goes to the bus, he gets his amplifier, and
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: he comes back with a late nineteen sixty seven, Marshall
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: one hundred. It's called a black flag. And as Brian
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: can testify, these amps were made maybe six weeks Brian
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: maybe eight weeks in late sixty seven. I don't know
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: if they made two dozen of them.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, the Samplifire walks in and
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: I immediately noticed the little, you know, telltale sign and
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: he goes, I just you know, this is one from
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: my collection. I'm just not using anymore. And he hands
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: this thing over and it's pristine, and and he said
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: take it home. And I went take it home. He said, yeah,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: take it home and play it and when I'm off,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: when i'm off the road, i'll give you a call
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and we.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: Can talk about it.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, So I put it in the car,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: take it home. Brian was in town. We took this
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: thing apart. We could not believe what we were looking at,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: and you know, plugged it in, turned it up and
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: you know, it's sounded like Eric Johnson man. And it
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, okay, well, clearly I don't own one
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: of these. I'm absolutely going to take it. And then
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: he gets off the road and he said, what do
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: you think, and I said it, you know, it's unbelievable,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: and he said, okay, send me, you know, a check
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: for X. And I'm thinking, well, that's like way less
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: than what this is worth. And he goes, you know,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: well I just what I paid for it, and.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Are you sure?
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm positive, So okay, So I sent him a
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: check and that began a friendship with Eric that's still
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: to this day. You know, I've probably bought twenty eight
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: twenty five pieces Brian's bought stuff from him. And so,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: to answer your question, most recently, he called a couple
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: months ago and he said, hey, I've got this amp.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: It's a sixty five or sixty six JTM forty five
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: tremolo and I went JTAM forty five tremolo. Boy, those
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: don't exist. Those are only in combo form blues breakers.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I've never seen one in a head ever.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: So I call it.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Brian, ago you ever seen He goes, nope, sure enough,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: box arrives, We pull it out and Brian and I
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: are absolutely dumbfounded. We know a lot about these amps,
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: we have never seen this and it is one hundred
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: bone stock. And Eric wrote me a note and said,
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: this is the amplifier that I've used for all my
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: recording and touring for the last seven or eight years.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: Selling it to Peter Margolis blah blah blah date amount,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: and we were just like, we didn't know that this existed,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: because you know these plenty of JTA and forty five
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: is made button with a tremolo circuit in it, only
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: ever in a blues breaker combo.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: The issue was made in a very limited run for
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: extra money.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: So as with Indiana Jones moment right there and.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: You asked about rarity, that's one Eric sold me during COVID.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: He was cleaning out of his closet and he sold
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: me another JTM forty five that was only made for
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: the German market, so it didn't have this traditional Marshal
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: logo on it. It has a logo that says the
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Big M. Because I guess when Jim sold stuff to Germany,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: there was already a product there with a called Marshall,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: so we had to rename it and called it the
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Big M. So I've seen now one other piece of
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Big M, you know, Brian, and I just saw another
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: collector that's got one. So probably my rarest stuff has
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: come from Eric Johnson, and there are number of cabinets
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: that Brian and I purchased from him, and a lot
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: of speakers. And I don't know what else is in
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: this guy's closet, but I have bought a lot of
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: stuff from him.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
• 54:12
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• 54:15
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• 54:17
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• 54:21
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• 54:23
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• 54:26
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• 54:33
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• 54:36
  Speaker 4: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: to the show. Somebody finds a Marshall. You know, they
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: go in their basement and say, oh, I've got this
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: Marshall app We've head it's for a year, for years.
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: What should they check for? Is there something or do
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: they have to take it to somebody like like yourselves,
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: to open it up to determine whether it's something rare
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: or not.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing they do is buy the book,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: because odds are that what they have is going to
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: be in this book okay, made from nineteen sixty four
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: through nineteen eighty, it's going to be in here or
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: something very close to it. So that's how they identify
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: it first. If they don't have the book or they
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: don't know about the book, you know, generally people would
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: start to ask around does anybody know what these are?
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: And they'll wind up in a store and the store
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: will try to buy it from them. If it's something
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: that's got any value.
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: But nothing like the naked eye could see like you
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: mentioned the staples or anything that might look it.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, if it's an amplifier and you turn it on
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: the back, there's going to be a series of numbers
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: and a letter. That letter will tell you what year
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: it is, so they could at least get it.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Down to that.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I take the back off and get in there
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: just right with a flashlight. There'll be a white tag
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: on the corner of the chassis, and if you can
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: still read, you know, what's the ink stamp and the
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: signatures and what was written there. You can you can
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: find out the date that it was made, although in
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: England they reverse the month and the day, so don't
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: confuse yourself if you see, you know, one to eleven
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: versus eleven one, it's you know, November first versus January eleventh.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: But you sometimes you'll be able to read the person's
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: handwriting and you'll see it was made, you know, November first,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: you know, nineteen seventy three, whatever it says, and that
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: would be a letter E, so you would be able
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: to identify it that way. Sometimes those tags don't exist,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: or they've you know, the glues got eaten up and
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: they've fallen off, or you can't read them anymore. So,
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: and if it's a cabinet, very difficult, very difficult to
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: unless you really know what you have, very difficult to
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: identify because the serial numbers on cabinets are not nearly
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: as consistent as they were on heads, and there are
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: certain years where they repeated numbers. And with the cabinets,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: even if the speakers date you to a certain date,
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean those are original speakers.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: To that cabinet.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: They may have been replaced so you really have to
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: get into the weeds with these things and get down
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: to what rivets were used or were their rivets, are
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: their plastic parts on them or their metal parts? And
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: are there screws, what kind, how many threads, what's the
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: pitch of the thread, tea nuts, rivets, you know, and
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: you have to know the hardware to really know what
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: you have. And that's where our book is helpful because
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: you can go to the back and go, I've got
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: this thing a rivet on it.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: What is it?
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a domeed drivet. Well, then it falls into
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: this year flat rivet. Then it's this year no rivet, screw,
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: no plastic, plastic you know it'll our book tells you
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: all that. So that's will help people identify what they have.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: There's publications in the past and with the lettering code
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: on for serial number stuff. With amplifiers, it's really really simple.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: You can just go right on the internet look it
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: up and it'll tell you everything. But for speaker cabinets
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: there is no such thing. If you were to go
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: to Google and type in Google images and punch in
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: what does the nineteen seventy two Marshall Slant cabinet look like, well,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: you're going to get a shock because you're going to
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: get about six different looks of a cabinet, all claiming
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: to be in nineteen seventy two. And that's because the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Internet doesn't determine whether somebody's selling information is correct or incorrect.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: It just goes by what they claim it to be.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: So if somebody is selling a nineteen eighty five cabinet
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: and claiming it as a nineteen seventy two, Google shows
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: it as a nineteen seventy two, very confusing for everybody
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: on the internet. So our book is, you know, clearing
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: up all that. And this is the reason that in
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the eighties that I started collecting all the data and
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: writing down vast batches of information so that I myself
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: could tell, you know, this year, what I'm looking at,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: how does that compare with the stuff I've seen in
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: the last four or five years.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Here's an example. So this is from the parts section
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: of our book, and this is showing screws and ribbts
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: and tea nuts and different things of and identifying if
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: you see something that looks like this, odds are you
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: have a nineteen seventy one or seventy two and if
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: it looks like this second photo, then it's from seventy
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: four to seventy five. So it really tells you like,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: this is all the you know, plastic mounting hardware. And
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: then there's pages on wheels and pages on like different
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: corners that would have been on the cabinets, and you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: know it's a page that'll look like that.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: So this book really.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: Helps you identify what you have, and that was part
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: of the purpose of it. The other part was to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: talk about our collection and all the various models and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: show people pictures. The beauty of the book is anybody
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: can look at a picture online of a Marshall head
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: or a Marshall cabinet. What you don't see is we
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: took ours the chassis out of the box. We had
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: a jig built to hold the chassis, and then we
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: flipped it upside down and we shot the circuit boards
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: in this particular jig, and then once we had all
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: the photos, our book designer painted the jig out of
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: every single photo, so it looks like the chassis is
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: sort of floating in the air and you can see
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: you can really get in and see all the components,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: and we point everything out that because there's a lot
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: of stuff that's been changed, altered, replaced, you know, parts
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: not available anymore.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Like there are.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Certain capacitors you just can't get, so when your filter
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: caps go, you can't get the original eeries. You know,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: you can get close, but you can't get the originals.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: They're just not made anymore. So we are really honest
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: with every single thing in these heads and cabinets that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: have been changed. Here's what should have been there, Here's
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: what's there now. But here is an example of one
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: that is untouched, unmolested, every part, and it's correct. May
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: not sound as good as the one that's been fixed,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: but here here is an example. It's one hundred percent original.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: So all of that is in the book. So you
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: can look at a circuit board and go, aha, I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: have this version, you know, like, for example, in nineteen
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: sixty seven, there are many different versions of circuit boards
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: that were used because they were experimenting, you know, what
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: sounds the best, what do we like. Well, let's put
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: this batch out, and then let's make some adjustments and
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: put this next one out. Let's change the transformers, and
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: so in sixty seven you could have seven or eight
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: different heads. None of them will have the exact same components,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: and so a lot of those versions we have a
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: lot of changes. In seventy three we have all of them,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of changes. In nineteen seventy six we have
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: all of them. So you can really see get down
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: in the weeds and see, well what do I have?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: The book? Down Rock Podcast is part of the Bonus
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: Podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock, classic
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable dot
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: app to find over twenty great shows there. That's Boneless
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: dot lovable dot app. Or just go to booked on
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: rock dot com the Boneless podcasting network. It is what
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: you want to be listen with confidence. To get the book,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: they should they well they have they have to go
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: to collecting loudhistory dot com right, that is the place
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: to purchase the book.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: There's one other place we made.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: We made a deal with Chicago Music Exchange. They are
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: the only brick and mortar store that carries our book
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: and they carry autographed books, signed books. They are the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: only ones that carry those sign books. So that's how
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: we sort of separated our website from Chicago Music Exchange.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: If you want to book a first edition book signed
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: by the authors. Go to Chicago Music Exchange if you
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: want one and you don't care that it's signed or not,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: and you just want to get it off the website.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: That's great too.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: We periodically once a month, usually for one or two days,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: have sales on our website. I think we have one
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: coming up in a couple of days for March Madness,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: where we're offering it the book at one hundred and
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: seventy five dollars twenty five dollars off from what we
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: normally sell it for. Chicago Music Exchange sells it for
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: the same thing that we sell it for on the website.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: You know, we don't want to undercut them, obviously, but
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: they're aware that when we have these one or two
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: day sales to offer, you know, just it helps us,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: you know, boost morale a little bit. And sometimes if
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: people are really cost conscious, they can wait for these
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: one or two day sales that we have every month
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: and they can buy the book at that time.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: Cool. We're recording on March sixteen. I hope to get
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: this up a few days after record, so people should
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: check the website for those.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: And we have a sale every every month so they
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: don't make it by March. We'll have you know, Easter
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: sale for April, and we'll have you know, a fourth
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: of July sale, and we'll you know, we'll have Jim
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: Marshall's Birthday sale, and we'll have you know, different things.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: We had February was Valentine's Day, and you know, so
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: we we always you know, are trying to be conscious
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: of people's wallets. And you know, one of the questions
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: is that we've been asked. It's funny. We've been asked,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: why is the book so expensive? And other people have
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: said you're not charging enough. And one of the things
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: that's important about books, and I know that, you know,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: you're a website that deals with books. Some people are
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: sending their books to China to be printed, you know,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: which is great because China you can get your books
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: printed for you know, considerably less than you can in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: the United States. However, you're not there at the printer
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: when the books are being printed, so you don't know
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: what type of paper. You know, you can specify, I
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: want this particular you know, bond, and I want this
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: cover and I want this But we went to the printer,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Brian and I many times. And when they were running this,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: we went and then when they're making the cover, we
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: went and looking, talking about the gloss, and talking about
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: the page stock, and talking about the buying. We went
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: through a whole thing with the stitching and the binding,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: and I want to see examples what we didn't want
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: the book to fall apart.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: What kind of.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: Glue are you using, How is the cover being put together?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: And we were there every single step of the way.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: You can't do that when you send your book off
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: to China, but when you have it printed here, it's
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: going to be way more expensive to have it printed
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: in Los Angeles versus to have it printed overseas. So
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: part of the cost of the book is, you know,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Brian and I laid out you know, well over one
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars to have these books printed and to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: pay for the photographers and to pay for the you know,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: our designer, and to pay for our you know, web designer,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: and to pay all of that. And so we're not
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: in this for profit. We're in this to try to
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: make our money back, you know, and break even if
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: we can, and get this information out there.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: It's a passion project and you wanted it done right.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: I mean there was myself and Brian and Denny. We're there,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: you know, basically the three. Then the two photographers, you know,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Pete and Albert Kaylee was the web designer who designed
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: collecting loudhistory dot com. And Paul owned you know, the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: printing company or as you know, one of the owners
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: or I don't. I don't know his position there, but
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: you know, Paul was the printer essentially, and that's it.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: That's everybody that worked on the book and when we
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: shot photographs here and we were here for extended periods
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: of time. My wife was the doing craft service and
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: feeding us, and that's really that's everybody. It's it was
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: a grassroots you know, pull your bootstraps up, you know,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: kid up in the morning, lift these Marshall cabinets, get
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: them to an apart, you know, get ready for the photographer.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Work all day long, you know, and try to get
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: everything outside for magic hour at the end of the
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: day to get the beautiful outdoor shots that we got.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Then you know, everybody would leave and Brian and I
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: would be left to put these things back together and
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: get them back up and then you know, work until
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: midnight to get the ones ready for the next morning.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: And if you don't love it, if this is not
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: a passion project for you, this is not I mean,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Norm Harris at Orange Fair Guitars said to me, you know,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: you got to be out of your mind to do this,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: and it just was like, you know, Brian and I
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: aren't getting any younger, and we didn't want to die
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: with this information, you know, we wanted it out there,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: and so that that was the point of doing it.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: One of the other things too that Eric did We
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: we had realized is that Peter's collection has grown to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: be rather large. My collection has got, you know, well
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: over one hundred pieces of Marshall gear in it, and
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: our dear friend Dave Motto has like one hundred and
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: fifty or one hundred and sixty Marshalls in his collection.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: And while the three of us friends still have all
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: this stuff, now was the time to do a book,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: get the photos of stuff, because as we age a
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: few more years and it's already kind of starting, we're
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: getting to the retirement age where we're going to start
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: thinning out these things, and this quantity of five hundred
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: plus pieces of Marshal gear between us will be in
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: the hands of fifty or sixty different individuals and be
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: spread all over the world and instead of being in
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: one location where we can kind of sort of put
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: together photo shoots and make a book come together with
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: it all.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: When we were trying to come up with a title,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: and I give all credit to Brian, because Brian is
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: the one who suggests it collecting Loud History. Our company
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: is called the Loud Brothers. It was Brian's suggestion. But
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: while we were trying to come up with the title,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: one of my suggestions was only for the curious, because
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: it really is a niche market. You know, not everybody
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: knows what these things are. Not everybody can walk into
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: a store and identify them, and it is really for
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: the curious. It's for it's for collectors who are really interested.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: It's also an art book and the photographs are really
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: really stunning. Absolutely, yes, so I think, you know, for
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: people who are book collectors and people who you know
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: might enjoy your podcast being that it's about books. We
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: ran fifteen hundred of these. There is probably never going
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: to be another run. There are no softcover copies of these,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: other than the couple of prototypes that we did just
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: for us. So it's a first edition hardcover copy and
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: it will probably never be replicated. And you know, for
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: for book collectors, this is really something that you know
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: you should have in your.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: Collection collecting loudhistory dot com again is the website, all right, guys,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: Peter Margolis and Brian Ranks, thank you so much for
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: coming on.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: Eric, thank you. That's it. It's in the books.