The Velvet Forum

I have been on and off this forum for some time now (opening new names when I loose passwords or user names). I remember there being discussions about the the distortion and fuzz that they use for the first two records. I remember reading about some of their stuff used as well (vox stuff mostly). On the new reissue of WL/WH I heard a full revealing of the tremolo and fuzz that is used by Lou during "The Gift". I know that Vox made some built in effects in their guitars (see Spaceman 3's "Playing With Fire" to hear a whole lp based on one)- I am wondering since they had a sponsorship from Vox if they were also using some of those guitars - The Gift makes is sound like it. Some of those guitars had fuzz, tone boosters and repeaters built into them and if you listen to the first feedback solo on the live version it comes in with some knob tweaking and speed switching of the the repeater. Anyone else have an opinion about this?

hi - haven't been by here for a while. Pretty sure it's all here somewhere. Info is mostly from the Up-tight book and Jamie Klimek's observations. Lou used the new-in-1966 Vox plugin devices Distortion Sustainer and Repeat Percussuion (a choppy trem), that he (or maybe Dan Armstrong) stuck inside a hollow body Gretsch (Country Gent I think?) along with at least one added strat pickup, maybe more, for stereo operation - you can hear these on the Gymnasium tape, on Sister Ray. The gtr was stolen in '68 - there are a pics of it, but none are v clear.

Is this the same " Jamie Klimek" from Mirrors and The Styrenes? Is his observations included in Uptight? If so, I never knew and am excited to hear- Thanks!

Yep - same Jamie Klimek - he saw the band in Cleveland many times and he taped then - the info is from his sleeve notes to the orig Live '68 bootleg, and there is more info/corroboration in Uptight, from Sterling I think. Klimek isn't in Uptight.

here is the gtr, pics from 1967 at the Boston Tea Party, in the first one it looks like he could be adjusting a pedal, but you can't really see it.