Over the weekend one of pro-wrestling’s greatest heels, Roddy Piper, died at 61. His obituary is here.
“Mr. Piper also had a brief acting career, starring in the 1988 film They Live, directed by John Carpenter, about a man who discovers, with the help of magic sunglasses, that the world is secretly ruled by aliens,” reads the Times obit.
It’ a bit dry, doing “Mr. Piper” and They Live some amount of disservice.
Carpenter’s They Live is the most prescient of movies on life in the American corporate dictatorship. Disguised as science-fiction.
Piper plays a semi-employed drifter named John Nada in a hot, dusty and bleak Los Angeles. He stumbles upon a pair of odd sunglasses, just like older people wear to reduce glare, and finds they turn the world gray. But they also reveal the ruling class, media personalities on tv, and bankers to be aliens who’ve infiltrated the country and taken over.
All for the sake of looting. Also revealed are subliminal messages embedded in every sign and print surface.
Obey!Consume!
The aliens have given the local oppressive police force little round aerial drones to spy on the populace, too! And, naturally, they’ve recruited the most amenable among the human herd to have a piece of the grift, too, as their well-compensated assistants in the creation of the movie’s vision of a predatory and poisoned concrete and asphalt Eden of capitalism where people have only the freedom to shop, languish and be indentured servants/sleepwalkers.
Wearing the sunglasses for too long gives Piper a blinding headache. Just like life in our rigged capitalist paradise. It was a nice touch.
They Live also has what feels like (if it isn’t) the longest fight scene in movie history, ever. Waged between Piper and Keith David in a Hollywood back alley lot you’ve seen in hundreds of movies, Piper as Nada discovers a box of the sunglasses and wants the David character, Frank Armitage, to try a pair on, to see the aliens.
Armitage refuses. It’s been another horrible day on the construction site and he just wants to give the lunatic wanted by the police, Nada, his last paycheck and get home.
The fight rolls on and on, the two men beating each other to swollen-faced black-and-blue pulps. And, surprisingly, it’s never boring.
In my homemade video for “Rumble,” made a few years back, I excerpted some of the scene at the garage tune’s climax. It begins at about one minute in.
Piper made his primary rep, certainly, as a pro wrestler, where I came to regularly know him in the Saturday tv slots for the bottom-out-of-sight crowd that advertisers shunned.
But which were adored by many young people, including me. And in future years that fan base and attraction would turn pro wrestling into huge money. But by 1988, the time of They Live, it still hadn’t quite arrived although pro-wrestling admiration was widespread in Pennsy’s Lehigh Valley.
“[John] Carpenter called Mr. Piper ‘an underrated actor,'” continued the Times.
That he was. In the long run, Piper’s legacy is as much a result of that one movie as his turn as star of pro-wrestling.
Shania Twain in Seattle on her “final tour.” Her comeback to the arena stage after a painful split with husband and producer, Mutt Lange, one that left her a shaken recluse for years.
“If You’re Not In It for Love (I’m Outta Here),” one of her most popular and my favorite. An anthemic song, boogie and pop at the same time, in C, with the guitars capoed at the first fret. With a bit of Spinal Tap staging thrown it at the end.
Try it. It makes the riff rock and roll. Take my word for it.
One of the songs of the corporate dictatorship, specifically the toxic vision of Jesus held by the alleged Christians of the GOP and old Dixie.
Jesus fed the poor with loaves and fishes; he liked the lepers, too.
Then he found the land of liberty; America told him what to do!
Wealthiness, just like Godliness, that’s what Jesus taught.
To tide you over, here’s Chris Hedges on the radio from Boston, talking about the moral imperative for revolt, also the title of his new book.
In the name of balance, the station’s host brings in one of the Clinton corporation’s multi-millionaire money flunkies to insist the system still works.
It’s the best part of the interview because it gives Hedges the opening to vigorously rebut the smug and condescending fellow with a raft of unpleasant facts from the first Clinton administration.
Summed up, the Clinton administration and its obsession with triangulation moved the Democratic Party to the center. This resulted in the GOP moving farther and farther to the right, until it became the insane tribe it is today.
Three girls in tutus and their platoon of pantywaists.
To understand the title, you gotta read the review:
Many years ago I used to pay attention to Japanese metal and pop music. It was worth minor laughs to hear how youth in the land of the rising sun would twist American rock styles …
Music review, something I still do orders of magnitude better than anyone you know.
And in California we’re not free from WhiteManistan, either. It’s just that they don’t run things anymore.
But DC still has Darrell Issa, singing this blog’s favorite tune:
Darrell Issa, the richest man in Congress, said America has made “our poor [are] somewhat the envy of the world.”
Issa’s personal wealth is by far the greatest of any congress member. His net worth in 2013 was $448.4 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and stems from a car alarm business he built.
“On song after song, Dick Destiny and drummer Mark Smollin
discover the joy in creating a racket, in the high hat, in song, in raising your voices,” said RockNYC about our first record – Loud Folk Live.
You and your friends are welcome to attend the Dick Destiny Band Spring Party at Artscape Gallery in Pasadena, Saturday, 16 May 2015 @ 7:30 – BYOB … Light refreshments will be provided. Special door-prize goes to the most progressive fan. Maybe their will be a bottle of Thunderbird with it. Or maybe not.
Here are some more pics from my restored Hiwatt DR504, taken at a session on Saturday.
It furnishes a loud, precise and high fidelity sound. My friend whimsically says it does a “clean distortion.”
In stark contrast with the latest e-mail adverts for guitar gear landing in my in inbox — 100 classic guitar amps digitally mimicked in hybrid computer power amps, slaved to a control panel on your iPhone and connected through Bluetooth — it’s simple, direct and old school.
One might say it restricts your choices in a good way.
Play or go home. Don’t twiddle. Everything is there: warm cleans, big jangle, chopping rock n roll rhythm, roaring rave-up into feedback. All of it at the twist of a volume knob on a one-pickup guitar.
Here’s the front end.
At then center, a Nick Greer Black Fuzz. There’s only one way to set it. It’s volume knob, on the left, on full. And the pedal is, generally, left on.
By rolling the volume knob back on the guitar, the fuzz/distortion cleans up into the front end of the Hiwatt. It allows you to transition from a clean warm sound with a little grit, to a chiming rhythm and then to hard rock fury.
To the right is an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 booster. When the fuzz is off it’s used to kick up the gain into a mild distortion on the Hiwatt.
And on the left is a cheap Danelectro Fish and Chips EQ that pushes up the signal at 800Hz while pulling everything above that down. It’s used to focus the Greer fuzz and add a bit more oomph for thickening as well as lead runs. It works great kicked for arpeggios and some rhythm lines. And by attenuating the highs when on it opens a bigger sonic space for vocals and the high end of the drum kit.
Stomping the LPB on when both fuzz and the EQ are already active pushes the Hiwatt into controllable feedback.
It’s a fairly simply setup and how many Hiwatts were used, with some variations, during the late Sixties and Seventies.
Pete Townshend, the most famous Hiwatt user, employed a set-all-the-way-on fuzz tones (a Univox Superfuzz) for many years. In 1979 he switched to an MXR compressor.
His philosophy was to match his guitar to the amplifier, adding that a Hiwatt made even a relatively simple guitar sound great. It helped to be able to play like him, too, one supposes.
Many years ago I wrote briefly about my Greer Black Fuzz here. This was at the beginning of the American-made artisan guitar pedal boom. Today, everyone makes a fuzz. The market is plagued by glut.
Regardless, his Black Fuzz is a great circuit. While I do not avoid digital processing for the guitar, there’s no way hundreds of choices, computing power, emulation or smartphone interfaces can do better in this matter.
With Greer’s Black Fuzz, you turn it all the way up. It’s a silicon transistor fuzz that hews more to the distortion side than brittle buzz but the distinction is moot if you play in the style of late-Sixties or early Seventies hard rock. The volume control on the guitar controls the amount of hair the fuzz gives you. Rolling it down cleans up the circuit while retaining brightness and a pleasant slight compression.
I also have Greer’s Razor Burn Fuzz, now about five years old and of similar hand-painted anti-style. It’s a higher gain unit described as a bit of a cross between an old Fuzz Face and a Tone Bender Fuzz. It runs as a hybrid circuit of two transistors, silicon and germanium.
It has more gain than the Black Fuzz. One might say it’s more greased while delivering a greater degree of the old school hairiness. But in the context of my rig it plays virtually the same role.
On Saturday, I started the session with it and pulled it out for the Black Fuzz because it was noisier in the warm weather here, edging into pulling in a radio station. In truth, sometimes that has its uses and I like it.
Finally, a good snapshot of my 1982 Hiwatt DR504 head. Looks to be in excellent shape for something made 33 years ago.
Used in countless dives and stages in southeastern Pennsylvania. Been on tour as far as Maine (woo) and now still amplifying the rock in southern California.
The Hiwatt’s recent restoration, after a sudden failure, the first ever, is written about here.
The engineer leading the project that’s restoring the old Rolling Stones Mobile recording truck fixed my 33-year old Hiwatt amplifier!
Absolutely true! DD’s usual bad luck in place of no luck at all went on holiday. Serendipity took a hand and the warm light of good fortune shined down on the studio in Pasadena.
A month ago my Hiwatt Custom 50 suddenly died while I was doing a session with my friend Mark. It was pretty discouraging.
This Hiwatt’s a 33-year old amp, originally made in England, by a company that went out of business in 1984. I thought an appropriate repair, one that restored it to original factory standard sound and capability, would be hard to find in southern California. If not (there are a good number of rock and roll amp repairmen still here as a result of the glory days of the industry in Hollywood), it would be prohibitively expensive.
I assumed the worst case after some reading.
An aged electrolytic capacitor in the power section blows a spoke at then end of its natural life and takes out a few things downstream in the circuit, including the amp’s heavy iron, its output transformer.
Mark was not as downbeat.
His old mates from his decades old cover band were getting together for a yearly week-long session during which they rehearse for an upcoming high school reunion ball.
Guess the short version. The amplifier was quickly restored.
Pictures were taken to provide a record.
Interior of Hiwatt DR504 OL (1982) during repair.Full size.
Looking into the guts of the Hiwatt, it was immediately seen that one component was gone, burned off the lower circuit board in the upper pic. This was what was assumed to have caused the failure. Since the part was in scorched fragments, it was impossible to tell what it had been on visual inspection.
Using Mark Huss’ Internet Hiwatt resource site, it was found to be a power resistor. (The replacement part is the small white ceramic axially-wired block on the lower PCB in the above photo. You can identify it by the small black lettering codes. It is very obvious and the upper photo shows the chassis after the replacement was installed. But this is not the whole story.)
Upon further checking Leimseider determined one of the Hiwatt’s large power supply regulating electrolytic capacitors had failed upstream from the incinerated part on the PCB board. And this probably resulted in the immediate overload burn that cooked the component into pieces, a secondary effect.
The electrolytic capacitor that failed was the big blue can on the lower left in the above photo.
The parts took a couple days to source and the next picture shows the complete refurbishing.
Refurb/repair: Black cans, one lower left, two on the right.Full size.
The original large blue capacitors (three of them) were rated at 350V. This Hiwatt, I was told, runs at three hundred. Exact replacements could not be found and Leimseider found an electrolytic capacitor rated at 400V, one assumed to furnish more tolerance, a good match in quality.
Three were purchased and replaced the original failed cap as well as two similar ones on the right side of the Hiwatt’s chassis. The photo shows the result. Gone with the blue, in with the new black. The black cans, smaller in diameter than the originals, did not precisely fit the old adjustable mounting clamps on the chassis.
Wrap-around shims were used to help anchor them securely.
And all the potentiometers, the amp’s volume and tone knobs, were cleaned.
The work was fantastic! Even with the exclamation, that doesn’t quite do it justice.
On Wednesday I fired up the thing. The Hiwatt roared into life, its electrified British glory restored. Mark often told me it was the best amp he’d ever heard. Hyperbole, for sure, but it is, again.
It sounded better, in fact, than before it died. The replacement capacitors reduced the noise floor of the Hiwatt at idle.
I can’t reliably say how it was when at rest in 1984 but it was a remarkably quiet heavyweight guitar amp at high power. Over the years, as its electric sinews tired, it lost a little of that. Now it’s back in the neighborhood where it belongs.
Tech specs on the snap in can capacitor replacements: Three L.C.R. 220 microF 350V capacitors came out. The L.C.R’s were made in the UK in 1982, the same year as the amplifier. One, as described, had blown, although there was nothing visible on the exterior . The two others were OK.
They were replaced with three Kemet 220 microF 400V aluminum caps bought from Digikey. Price: $6.12/piece.
Considering the superlative sound of the Hiwatt after repair, I’d be disinclined to spend more for capacitors said to be more higher end than Kemets or anything similar. F&Ts, from Germany, seem to also be a favorite.
Additional notes
My Hiwatt, a DR504OL model, was made in Surbiton, a part of greater London, in 1982. Its badge shows it was made by the Biacrown operation.
The original creator of Hiwatt amplification was Dave Reeves. He fell down a staircase and died in 1981. While he was alive all Hiwatts were badged with his company’s name, Hylight Electronics.
When he died things started to fall apart. The employees of Hiwatt soldiered on as Biacrown and this is when my amplifier was made.
Harry Joyce was the original expert wirer hired by Dave Reeves. His work was meticulous and virtually bullet-proof. Joyce became semi-famous in later years, specifically for his work wiring Hiwatts.
You can look at the photos and make your own calls. All the wiring connections are at neat and precise right angles. Braided wires are symmetric. There is no more or no less than the best fit wiring needed to make all visible connections.
The amplifier is a a hybrid of craftsman point-to-point wiring and two traced PCBs, populated with parts mounted using some of the same features from old electronic turret boards and strips. All the sockets for the Hiwatt’s pre-amp and output tubes are flush mounted and anchored to the chassis, separate from the PCBs.
Sidebar: Beware of concern trolls in vintage amp forums.
There will be someone who has just bought an old Hiwatt, either a Hylight Electronics or a Biacrown, and been thrilled to discover Harry Joyce’s signature on the internals.
Inevitably, a concern troll shows up to imply that Mr. Joyce maybe didn’t put that there. Another person working in the same room did. Yeah, sure.
Or that it is not a product of the Joyce wiring operation at all, a complete forgery. And that only the concern troll knows the proper parts of a bona fide Hiwatt and how it should be restored.
These people are trying to be f—-. Their opinions are purposely misleading trash.
I bought my Hiwatt in ’83 or ’84 from a small shop called Picker’s Delight in the Pennsy Dutch town of Emmaus. If as late as 1984, it was the year Biacrown Hiwatt was going under.
At the time, nobody wanted Hiwatts. The market was passing the company by. To be fair, market and changes in taste crushed other companies in the guitar amp business during the same period. Orange, another famous British amp company, went under even earlier. And Fender Musical Instruments almost died. (Actually, Fender was considered a clueless joke of a company when I bought the Biacrown Hiwatt.)
Today Orange has risen from the dead in a most remarkable way with a presence in show rooms all across the country. And Fender is once again almost at the very top of heap. But none are the same companies they were. In England, even Hiwatt is reborn.
But the early to mid-Eighties were nothing but a period of decline, especially for Hiwatt, ending in failure during the rise of hair and thrash metal. Everyone in the region was into Marshall JCMs and full stacks modified with extra gain stages and strange warping power tricks in the output section to copy the attack, density and style popularized by Eddie van Halen and his initially unique rig. (Never my thing, obviously, and not uncommon, I’ve found. Ask me about the times I was asked by visiting label guitarists how they regretted their faddy, modified Marshalls.)
Marshalls were higher gained amplifiers than Hiwatts, the latter which supply quite a lot of clean and loud headroom.
Reeves apparently saw the future coming, if imperfectly, and had redesigned his 504 models to have a little more extra saturation in their distortion through utilization of some extra unused capacity in the pre-amp tubes.
This resulted in the 504OL, of which mine was one.
Practically speaking, I didn’t notice and it didn’t matter. Mine was still really loud and clean when compared with any other similar big amps.
And that is the reputation of Hiwatts. Loud and fairly clean until the volume is turned up to scary levels. They force a technique in classic electric guitar rock upon you. A Hiwatt is unforgiving.
Play right or everyone in the room knows it.
But, if you want the big BRA-A-ANG, the element of sound Pete Townshend of the Who made famous on tours of America in the late-Sixties and Seventies, that’s the Hiwatt.
Or maybe you want to sound like Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd, another big and very famous Hiwatt user. Face it, though, even with Hiwatts, you’re not going to sound like Dave Gilmour, ever.
In eastern PA, and as far north as Maine, to NYC, and and well into New Jersey, now in southern California, my Hiwatt went a long time before its seniority caught up with it, slightly.
Who, on hit records, used Hiwatts? Pink Floyd, the ‘Oo, Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Alvin Lee & Ten Years After, Procol Harum, Robin Trower, the Faces, the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, the mighty Status Quo, Slade, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Jethro Tull, Rush, the Georgia Satellites …
Final notes
Picker’s Delight is long gone from Emmaus. Sadly, its owner died years ago.
I still have one sales slip from the place, the one for my Washburn guitar, written about here.
None of this write-up, indeed even the quick turn-around in the repair, would have been possible without the the web resource that is Mark Huss’ Hiwatt.Org. The picture of the DR504OL head at the top of the post is linked from it.
Wthout who and what not possible: John Leimseider, Mark and the Saturday night rock, roll and movie festival in Pasadena.
We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time …
We ended up at the Grand Hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside
Making our music there
— Smoke On the Water from Machine Head, Deep Purple
