A Day For A Black Heart & The Golden Shower

Well, typically, the courier did the no-show thing with aplomb yesterday, so today is going to be a bit more boring than expected.

However, in my defence, I have laid out all the underground parts for The Blue Moon One, and all it needs is a bit of steadified soldering. How hard can it be?

(The simple answer is that if it proves easy, you'll hear all about it today, otherwise you won't, I guess.)

Other things that may or may not happen today, are that my Blackheart Killer Ant could well turn-up (in which case I hope you'll realise that everything else goes out the window), and also I should be getting a bag of parts to finito The Beaton One.

Oh, and a battered old Strat that leapt at me from Ebay the other night. The body looked awful, but the neck was, well, sensual. I really shouldn't drink alone then hit the 'net. Gets me into all kinds of trouble.

I do seem to be collecting Strat parts at the moment. I haven't done one for a while, my move towards different shapes has worked and I think it has been three SGs, a couple of Jaguar/Jazzmaster sorts and an Explorer, oh and a Telecaster (Lulu, my Lulu) not forgetting of course, my Golden Shower Les Paul.

It was good to do, and I'll keep on doing the do, but maybe a couple or three Strats wouldn't be the end of anything round and sparkly.

I'm also dithering about the Charvette. It is in one piece again, I think I said, and plays amazingly well, even if I don't, and I was just going to shove it on Ebay...but I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe I should do something else with it. I am sorely tempted to try laminating it with some ridiculously OTT birds eye maple - not that I've ever done such a thing before, but it sounds fun, but then, I can't but help think that it would be a great one to do some sort of comic book thing. Marvel rather than  a Beano or Dandy, maybe Spiderman or Hulk, the Xmen or my fave of all time Captain America - with a healthy film tie-in. La la la.

Well, we'll see. I still have the problem about the pickups, but I guess I could replace them. Or is that all getting a bit predictably obvious. Maybe it is.

¬¬¬¬ Not Very Musical Interlude ¬¬¬¬¬

Well, the scratty Strat showed up, so the neck is off and I think I have got blood poisoning removing the rusted strings, but there we are. The neck is indeed beautiful under the silt. The body looks as though it has been attacked by a 6-month-old with a box of Crayola.

More importantly though, my little Blackheart Killer Ant just arrived too and it is already plumbed in and earning it's corn.

And I have to say I am very impressed. Only 1W but 1W thru the little speaker in the Blackstar is a helluva a lot quieter than 1W thru the Blackheart's Cab.

Ask the neighbour's three-week-old son.

Still it is very nice indeedy, and I have to say The Golden Shower One's P90s sound immense.

No reverb though, so I might just have to find a pedal, that's a shame...

So in summary, not a lot will get done today again I expect...

Clearing The Decks...

Well, it seems more comfortable to be back to the single-guitar-for-sale position we're used to here in Jookyland, but not as good as I feel when there are no-guitars-to-sell, as that gives me a kick and I go on and do, well, something.

Saying that, having three just feels wrong somehow. Not that I don't miss my little kiddies when they move on, but there we are. Who wants their kids stuck in a dark box and left to warp?

One to think about over the coming school holidays, I fear.

Blackheart Killer Ant -Actual Size?

As it happens I've been having a bit of a guitar related clearout in recent times, and my little Blackstar 1W amp is to be posted today to somebody new. No real reason other than I get itchy feet and need to try something else. No doubt I'll be buying it back before the summer is out.

To replace it I've got hold of another diminutive home-loud amp in the form of a Blackheart Killer Ant. This is still teeny weeny, 1W again, I think, but is a head plus a cab, so in reality will be louder than the Blackstar was, I think.

Quite looking forward to trying it anyway. One drawback compared to the Blackstar is that it doesn't have reverb - I'm addicted to reverb - so it is a good reason to go find a pedal. I used to have an EHX Holy Grail which was cool, so I might try one of those again, we'll see. Though I like the look of their Cathedral too. Maybe I should wait for The Vatican or Holy Lands or something bigger still.

What else? Well, the Shergold is off to a nice chap called Rob - who bought The Pretty In Pimp One aeons ago and seems to have similarly odd tastes to mine. And then there are some other things.

Guitar in need of a new home

I've also put together/fixed The Little Red Charvette I was talking about a while back, but like the Shergold, can't quite bring myself to change it enough to Jookify it, so that will probably be Ebay bound soon as well.

There are other things too, but this is getting tedious.

What is this all about? Well, I guess I'm clearing the decks a bit, although I haven't quite explained why to myself yet. Time will tell, no doubt.




Anyway, people seem to like special offers, so I'll do another one for The Red or Dead One later today. Not sure what it will be yet, but something good methinks.

More Fake Nostalgia - Coming Soonish

I mentioned a while back that I was planning on doing my best to make sure that we at any one time, have at least one of each of our things - Amy, Cheryl, Sophie and Leona - and with the school holibobs over, I figured I'd better get me finger out a wee bit and do something about it.

I also said, recently, that I'd got an idea for some 'classic' looking amps, effects etc. and well, basically, I figured I might as well use them as a way forward.

Where I'm going with this, is that I bought these tins a while back, with no real reason in mind, and so I'm going to turn them into either amps - Amy or Cheryl, or maybe a couple of each - and some into fuzz boxes.

There will still be only one of each design made, so I'm not selling out - man - and I won't sell all of them, as I quite fancy one or two around the house meself. But making them would be a step forward, lets face it.

Here's what I'm aiming for then:

1. The Beatles & The Stones:

I think Serge Pepper has to be an amp, and The Stones surely has to be a dirty little scrubber like our Sophie. That was easy to decide.
Free Mars bar if you buy these...
La la la




2. Pink Floyd and The Who:

Despite the fact that they are liars - I went to Yorkshire and looked all through the fone book for Townsend or Daltrey and I am positive that none of The Who, Live In Leeds - I've always had a sort of detached liking for them. Pink Floyd have grown on me over the years as well, and Dark Side of The Moon is still quality, apart from the shonky sound effects.

Not sure which will be the amp and which the fuzz here yet..though it is probably obvious in truth.


3. The Sex Pistols and The Clash:

Getting into things I really remember rather than have picked-up on later, I'm happy to say that 'Punk' infects this whole Jooky phenomena - ahem - with it's DIY principles, even if it never was like that really, but there we go. The Sixties was probably boring too outside of Woodstock.

Two Clash tins, for some reason, so overall I think two amps, and London Calling for our Sophie.



4. The Mini and The VW:

Last but not least, I really liked these Haynes manual tins, for some reason, maybe even because I grew up downwind of Longbridge and am quite keen on The Magic Bus.

Mini for a mini amp, and some Volkswagens can sound a bit fuzzy to me these days, so easie peasie.

So that is the wee plan. Haven't got a clue when I'll do them, and there will be some other, more Jookified, tins and cigar boxes on the horizon too, but there you go. Oh, I'll call these our Foney Nostalgic Collection...

Getting My Bobbins Together

Not a lot to report, other than that I have a few wee boxes I'm putting together at the moment.
Might even finish them if the school hollibobs ever end...

I've decided on a bit of a Rock 'n' Roll tribute theme - The Beatles, The Stones, The Pistols and The Clash, and maybe even The Floyd...we'll just have to see.

Oh, they will be pocket sized amps or maybe some of them will be fuzz boxes even.
Still working it out, to be honest.

Other than that, some of my bits and bobbins showed-up today - some faux suede in a nice gold colour, and then some other parts - a bridge and tailpiece, which I think will prove to be, err, golden. I also got a pickup at the weekend. Not the P90 I thought, instead a genuine 1970s Di Marzio pickup, which should be higher output - to help the sustainer - and yet quiet and hum-free.

Maybe.

Sold: The Pink Hephalump One

Picture the scene..

You wake-up one morning still walking,
yawning sounds of Amsterdam around you,
salty fragrance of a night's excess clinging to your hair,
your clothes.

You reach into  your pocket,
pat your jacket for the shake of a matchbox,
for the McGuinn jangle of your bordello-boarding house keys,
met only with a semi-solid thump of an unexpected
lump in your jeans
pocket.

Reaching in you look around,
stragglers still trying to wipe the condensation from windows,
trying to peep at long gone

girlza 

girlza 

girlza.

Sound like they are from Dublin;
party people.

You look down at the half-forgotten lump you are
grasping in tar-stained fingers and
see the glitter-sparkle of an elephant's arse.

Smell the faint traces of vanilla tobacco,
realise that it is a Jooky little amp you are holding -
neat, little thing, it raises a half smile.

Perhaps you could busk your way home,
that could be fun.

You look around for a long gone Rickie,
then remember Paula.







Unfortunately, you can’t buy The Pink Hephalump One, as somebody nice beat you to it.

Technical Stuff:
Amp Type: Amy-Tone
Output: ½-1 Watt
Box Type: Pink Elephant Cigarette Packet
Construction: Varnished Fag Packet
Dimensions 100mm x 48mm x 15mm
Power: 9V Battery
Input: ¼” Guitar Lead
Outputs: 8-Ohm Speaker
Controls: None
Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered
Serial Number: JGE#7
RSP: £500

This Gun For Hire

As the regular reader will know - just ask her - the Jooky way is a meandering little path, that tends to follow the muse rather than the cash register. As such, I seem to spend most of my time answering emails that ask -

'Will you make me...'
with my own that say
'Sorry, but no...'.
Not because I'm unhelpful, just that I do this for fun, have little time and lets face it, am hardly innit for the money, am I?

It came as quite a surprise the other week then, when I said 'Yes' and indeed offered.
Not sure what came over me,
but there we go.

Which brings me to something slightly new, which is making an amp out of a cigarette packet.
New to me, I mean, Smokey have been doing the same thing for a couple of decades, but new nonetheless.

And that is what I've started and I liked the packet, hence the post, although rather let down by the photography, I'm afraid.

What you can see there is one packet that has just been painted with some gubbins that will make the card go a bit more plasticcy, and the other that hadn't then but has now.

Hopefully, it will be done shortly - the amp, and I'll let you see what delights glitter so.

Oh, the amp will be called 'The Pink Hephalump One' though what the other box will be used for, I'm not sure right now.

La la..

Too much coffee today, I fear

And now..

Well, the Paisley One is there at last, and between tweaking it a wee bit and playing it a fair bit more, it has been quite nice to get to the end of that particular, err, 'journey'.

I am soooo very Generation Zzzzz.

But, that isn't the end of things and it is equally cute to get back on track with what I should have been doing in the first place, and building some amps and effects.

To set the ball-a-rolling then, I'm going to put together a couple of Sophie's and an Amy or two. Maybe even a Cheryl if I'm feeling adventurous. I'm also plotting something new for the Cigar Box Guitar on the horizon, which will be nice.

Oh, and there is also a little Pink Elephant or two that I've got to get my head around...next in fact, but more on that anon.

But it is late,
or early

it is all
about
perspex

nitey-nite

Sold: The Shakey Spear One

All that glisters isn't gold, now ain't that the truth, but The Shakey Spear One might just be the exception to Old Bill's favourite rule. Built from a slightly battered looking Romeo & Juliet box, The Shakey Spear One is an old Warwick Bear of an amp, and not too shy about getting a bit grizzly here and there.

Featuring a delightfully twisted Amy-tone amp housed in an England’s Glory matchbox (which itself proudly proclaims that it is made in Sweden for some reason), this baby goes crazy right from the off, like some kind of Stratford-upon-Avon based go-go dancer fresh from that nightclub over Argos just off the High Street that somebody must have mentioned to me somewhere down the line as I can’t otherwise possibly have any knowledge of it.

The amp though, it is carefully crafted, entirely hand-wired and is most definitely not made by Francis Bacon.

But don’t mistake the literary heritage for a lack of imagination, no, The Shakey Spear One has a touch of the sixties about it and perhaps never recovered from a psychedelic day trip to the Isle of Wight Festival that turned into a Hydroponics  episode of a couple of decades. This trippyness is hinted at by the paisley of the speaker covering and a touch of free love, depicted by the illustration, if only it wasn’t for the balcony. And poison, of course.

The Shakey Spear One is only the fifth ever Jooky Cigar Box Amp we have made available and comes with a 9V battery and the trademark Jooky wrapping service, for a quite incredible £29 delivered anywhere in the UK.

Just to be clear, this is our fifth ever Cigar Box Amp and it is marked with the Serial Number: Jge#5. More importantly it is brilliant fun and we are quite sure that whether you or the guitarist in your life plays a Cigar Box Guitar or even a guitar that is more mainstream like a Gibson Nighthawk or something else that happens to be quite pointy, it is the amp that will be reached for most often.

SORRY THIS HAS BEEN SOLD

Technical Stuff:
Amp Type: Amy-Tone
Output: ½-1 Watt
Box Type: Romeo & Juliet Cigar Box
Construction: Paper over Wood
Dimensions 260mm x 140mm x 45mm
Power: 9V Battery
Input: ¼” Guitar Lead
Outputs: 8-Ohm Speaker
Controls: None
Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered
Serial Number: JGE#5
RSP: £29

Oh Well

I know I promised to let you know about the other couple of amps I’ve been playing with over the weekend, but it snowed and there are sick kiddies to be tended and well, life ain’t always my own.

So sue me.

Anyway, as I said before, the Gonzo Gonzalez has gone to a new home (or will do tomorrow anyway), which left a couple of boxes to play with.

The first of these is a Romeo and Juliet box which I’ll tell you about tomorrow, but is basically another lovely fuzzy Amy-tone with a wee bit of a twist that amused me no end.

OK, I admit it, Amy-tones, I’ve fell in love with, as they are so cool to play thru.

I tuned my little cigar box guitar today using open G (I might have that wrong, G-D-G?), which sounded great and like a Harrier taking-off from the Ark Royal in a Typhoon when I put it thru the Gonzo.

And I could have stayed playing all day, which is going some, as I am truly hopeless when it comes to playing slide.

Bleeding awful,
I don’t mind admitting.

Saying that, I am rapidly falling in lust with slide guitar all over again since I built a CBG and Amy gives it a real hell-on-earth kind of noise that you just can’t get with a ‘real’ guitar. Amazing tone, and if you are a guitarist and have never played a CBG, you really owe it to yourself to try one. Most of them are pretty cheap – just check out eBay or Cigar Box Nation and you’ll find one easy enough, or better still build yourself one. It could be the best thing you ever do.

But I was talking about what I’ve been up to, and yes the R&J is cool, but it is the green Cano one that has really got me thinking. You see, much as I love the sound of authentic – Jook joint – delta blues, and much as I believe that CBGs are the closest you can get to that Robert Johnson sound. Much as all of that is true, I have to admit that Peter Green playing Black Magic Woman whilst a member of Fleetwood Mac, was my first and defining ‘Blues moment’.

There, out in the open.

And so, despite the fact that it is utterly meaningless, I wanted to do a none-signature, tribute model for our next Jooky little amp, and so the Green one will no doubt become The Greenie One and due entirely to the fella’s imagination and out-of-phase brilliance, I want to do something a bit different.

With this in mind then, I’ve been playing with the green box and have decided to do my own version of the classic BB King (OK, Gibson) Variotone, so that it will have a nice rotary switch that lets you instantly change the tone of the guitar (well, of the guitar’s sound as it trundles thru the amp) between a variety of presets.

What is taking so long? Well, rather than go with the basic Gibson settings I figured it would be nice to pick half-a-dozen of my favourite bluesy songs, and try and find tones that match each of them.

Which is tricky.

And takes a while, I’ve found.

But there we are, it is all
Good
Fun.

p.s. I'm also building a quite mad fuzz box at the moment, which is for the guitarist in a Bristol band. More about that if he doesn't think it is a pile of shonkiness, later on.

Another One Bites The Dust

Well, The Gonzo Gonzalez One didn't hang around. As I said, I have been a bizzy little chap this weekend, and Gonzo was one of the products of my labours, as it were. The rest I'll show you tomorrow or later anyway.

But Gonzo is done and gone now, gord bless him, destined to sit under a tree for a few days and hopefully bring a little cheer in the New Year.

It made me realise that I've not talked about our 'Trademark Jooky Wrapping' before now, so I guess this is as good a moment as any.

(I know I should probably claim that somebody has asked, but the truth of the matter is that nobody has, I just feel like telling you about it. Not the most interesting topic, to be honest, but there we are. It is snowing outside though, which is probably of more exciting relevence.)

But the wrapping. Well, as the foto on the left or right, depending on your perspective shows, we like to wrap our amps the old fashioned way. A nice bit of brown paper (bonded, I like a bit of bonding), with this being tied using good olde worlde twine or string or whatever you call it. With the finishing touch being a nice olde fasioned-e tag or label or whatever they are called.

You know,
the brown paper ones that you tie on with yet more string.

Why do we do this?
Well, I like how they look to be honest, and it does seem fitting that all of this filth be delivered in a plain covering.

Oh, and although nobody has asked this either, no, we don't post things out with no more protection than a few microns of brown paper, the brown paper wrapped parcel is put into something stronger that will hopefully help it survive being the football in a variety of sorting offices across the land.

And before an imaginary postie gets in touch and starts an argument I'll have to wage on the pages of this site/blog thing, I know you play football with the parcels as I used to work in a sorting office
so get lost gitski.

I think I'll go and watch the snow a while
Much calmer

nite nite

Sold: The Gonzo Gonzalez One

There ain't much fear & loathing when it comes to The Gonzo Gonzalez One, but we can safely say that Hunter S.T. would have been proud to call this little amp his own. For lets be straight about it without any need for prevarication or artifice; this is one crazy mother of an amp, and is as likely to run naked through the crematorium on the day of your Granny's funeral as it is to give you a smooth, MOR blues.

What makes this baby the ultimate in screw-ups, is that despite the lovingly designed and hand soldered Amy Tone amp, fitting snugly and gently into an England’s Glory matchbox, with it's clean-cut lines and tendency to get a little sniffy when the pressure is on. Despite all of the hand craftedness and feel good polish, and everything else that is good and sane. Despite all this tenderness, we decided to chuck a hairdryer in the bath and wallop a crazy speedball of a fuzz circuit into the same box for good measure. And man does it make a mess.

You could feel like you are waking in a desert, so be warned.
Don't mix it with too much tequila.

The Gonzo Gonzalez One is only the fourth ever Jooky Cigar Box Amp we have made available and comes with a 9V battery and the trademark Jooky wrapping service, for a quite incredible,  £29 delivered anywhere in the UK.

Just to be clear, this is our fourth ever Cigar Box Amp and it is marked with the Serial Number: Jge#4. More importantly it is brilliant fun and we are quite sure that whether you or the guitarist in your life plays a Danelectro or a White Falcon, it is the amp that will see hair greased to a quiff, lip curled and Gonzo thrown in the back of a Thunderbird, most often.

Just don't chew too many worms.
They bite, you know?

Unfortunately, you can’t buy The Gonzo Gonzalez One, as somebody beat you to it.

Technical Stuff:
Amp Type: Amy-Tone
Output: ½-1 Watt
Box Type: Flor De Rafael Gonzalez Cigar Box
Construction: Paper over Wood
Dimensions 260mm x 140mm x 45mm
Power: 9V Battery
Input: ¼” Guitar Lead
Outputs: 8-Ohm Speaker
Controls: None
Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered
Serial Number: JGE#4
RSP: £29

Izzy Wizzy

Well, looks like it is going to be a busy weekend, as I've kind of talked myself into building a couple or three amps, with Christmas and everything. No complaints though, don't get me wrong, after so much time spent thinking about it all and then trying a million variations, it feels good to be actually getting on with it.

Not that I expect to do too many builds as a rule. I'm thinking a couple each month will be as much as we do around here at the best of times.

Nope, I was talking to somebody who knows earlier, and it was good to see that his approach was pretty much the same as my own. This whole building thing is about doing it, rather than aiming for world domination.

So I won't be turning into Henry Ford just yet, and I'm afraid Jooky things will be available as and when.

OK, it might not be professional or the way to build a brand, company or pension fund, but it's enough to keep my brain active I guess, and while it is fun it is worth doing.

Simple as that.



I have got quite a lot of interesting tins right now though, and it would be a shame to waste them...

Have a fine weekend.

Don't worry about me getting wrecked on solder fumes.
No, really.
It's cool I tell you.
Honest.

Sold: The Snake Hipped One

There was a time when every popstar was a lizard skinned, bile spitting, static crackling, fakir swaying corrupter of adolescents.

There was a time when the dirt under the chewed fingernails glistened in spotlights as fiery fingertips pounded fretboards and Hepcat hillbillies stalked rough sawn stages, trousers of leather moulding around them, snake hipped, magnificent.

There was a time,
and then there wasn’t.

But maybe,
just maybe
it is time
for such a time
to return.

And if this is such a time-of-times, perhaps it is a good thing that The Jooky Guitar Emporium is proud to present only it’s third ever guitar amplifier, and that it happens to be known as The Snake Hipped One.

Like all of our products it is handmade and a complete one-off, and will make a fine gift for the guitarist in your life, even if that guitarist is you.

Especially if the guitarist is you.

The Snake Hipped One is built from a 1960s cigarette tin that has been covered with what we believe to be genuine Snake Skin. It boasts one of our dirty, spitting, most venomous Amy-Tone amps, housed lovingly in an England’s Glory matchbox, and plays it dirty from the off, unless you really start to make it angry, and you’d have to be a little mad to make a snake angry, in our opinion.

And we really have to say that this has got to be one of the most unusual guitar amps you’ll ever see, and as ever it is utterly unique even by our standards. To our knowledge there are only six of these tins anywhere in the world, and we have them all.

The Snake Hipped One is a perfect guitar case size and is a stripped down rocker of a practice amp, just plug in your guitar lead and play. It’s as simple as that.

The Snake Hipped One is only the third ever Jooky Cigar Box Amp we have made available and comes with a 9V battery and the trademark Jooky wrapping service, for a quite incredible,  £29 delivered anywhere in the UK for not a penny more.

Just to be clear, this is a unique, handmade guitar amplifier and only our third ever Guitar Amp and it is marked with the Serial Number: JGE#3, signed and dated by the maker and sure to be a collectors item. More importantly it is brilliant fun and we are quite sure that whether you or the guitarist in your life plays a Cigar Box Guitar or even something more mainstream like a Fender, Gibson or PRS, it is the amp that will be reached for most often.

To Become The Proud Owner of The Snake Hipped One visit our eBay Store - CLICK HERE.


Technical Stuff:
Amp Type: Amy-Tone
Output: ½-1 Watt
Box Type: Cigarette Tin Cylindrical
Construction: Leather and Snake Skin over Tin
Dimensions 85mm x 67mm x 67mm
Power: 9V Battery
Input: ¼” Guitar Lead
Outputs: 8-Ohm Speaker
Controls: None
Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered
Serial Number: JGE#3
RSP: SOLD

Sold: The Despotic One

The Jooky Guitar Emporium is proud to present only it’s second ever guitar amplifier, The Despotic One.

Like all of our products it is handmade and a complete one-off, and will make a fine gift for the guitarist in your life, especially if that guitarist is you.

Looking like it was the beloved of a South American Junta, The Despotic One is built in a vintage Bolivar Cuban Cigar box and is a super cool amp at low levels but a complete homicidal maniac once the chips are down.

The Despotic One boasts an Amy-Tone amp housed lovingly in a matchbox, and plays it dirty from the off, unless you really start to make it angry, when things can get particularly messy. It looks so respectable that you would never know that it is quite capable of burying your children in an unmarked grave in the middle of a forest alongside the rest of their schoolmates.

While you may not think that there will be any controlling this amp, the rather handy volume control on your guitar at least keeps it chained to planet reality. Just remember that it isn’t a fuzzbox. It won't take kindly to being stomped on, if you see what I mean. It isn't the natural order of things.

The Despotic One is a stripped down, no frills, dirty rocker of a practice amp, simply plug in your guitar lead and play. It’s as simple as that.

The Despotic One is only the second ever Jooky Cigar Box Amp we have made available and comes with a 9V battery and the trademark Jooky wrapping service, for a quite incredible,  £29.99 delivered anywhere in the UK, although the rest of the world will have to stump up for more postage and won't get the battery as we are allergic to controlled explosions and orange jumpsuits…


Just to be clear, this is a unique, handmade guitar amplifier and only our second ever Cigar Box Amp and it is marked with the Serial Number: JGE#2, signed and dated by the maker and sure to be a collectors item.

More importantly it is brilliant fun and we are quite sure that whether you or the guitarist in your life plays a Cigar Box Guitar or even something more mainstream like a Fender, Gibson or PRS, it is the amp that will be reached for most often.

Unfortunately, you can’t buy The Despotic One, as somebody beat you to it.

Technical Stuff:
Amp Type: Amy-Tone
Output: ½-1 Watt
Box Type: Bolivar Cigar Box
Construction: Paper over Wood
Dimensions 260mm x 140mm x 45mm
Power: 9V Battery
Input: ¼” Guitar Lead
Outputs: 8-Ohm Speaker
Controls: None
Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered
Serial Number: JGE#2
RSP: £29.99

Getting Side-tracked again

OK, I admit it.

As promised
I was getting our numero uno together,
and fixing the lights on our Cheryl-tone boxetta,
and I kinda started to daydream a bit
and then,
I started to mess around wth some bits and bobs
and then
thought
'Hang on a minute, couldn't I just...'
and then
did a bit of soldering
and then
I thought a bit more and figured
'If I just change that around I could make the Amy-tone even more filthy and fetid...'
and then

I did.

And so,
despite not having
quite finished
our very first little amp,

I've managed to
not quite 
finish our second
ever
amp.

More details tomorrow,
but man she is gorgeous in her
dirty
rotten
stinking
disgusting
scum
sucking
little way.

Gord love e'r.

Things to Make & Do

One of the fun things we do in Jookyland (?) is spend time trying to find interesting and unusual ‘enclosures’ for the amps or pedals.

(By enclosure, I mean the boxes you put the electronic gubbins in, by the way. New one on me too, to be honest, but there we are, every civilisation has it’s own alphabet.)

Now generally, if you are making guitar effects pedals, you will probably buy some metal boxes and either paint or powder coat them, and then screen print some kind of logo on the top. Doing this means that you can buy in bulk, and generally have a ‘product’ that is easily replicated, making you lots of money.

All good stuff.

As you know, our approach is a bit different, in that we are only ever really interested in making one of anything, and as a consequence probably never making enough to feed the termites.

So quite often we’ll be scurrying around and finding, for example a tobacco tin, and then try to decide what to do with it. Not a world of limitless opportunities, but the conversations tend to be along the lines of:

‘I just got a tin’
‘Cool, what shall we do with that?’
‘Dunno, maybe an amp?’
‘Nah, too small.’
‘A Pedal then?’
‘OK’.

And that is when I’m on me tod.

From there on in, we generally just play around until we find something we like. And as you will see over the next few months, we do quite like old (pre-WW2) tobacco tins, and Cigar Boxes, so you will see them pop up quite often.

We have also come across some modern, but fun tins that I think will either end-up as small amps or groovy effects, but basically anything goes and whatever we find is fair game.

The reason I mention this, is because I recently got hold of some wooden tobacco ‘pots’ (for want of a better name) that the seller tells me are from the Sixties. All very nice, but probably more interesting because they are each covered with genuine (apparently) snakeskin. This looks real to me, for what it is worth, and I’m thinking maybe a pair – an amp and a pedal of some kind. I'll put some fotos up sometime, about time we had some on this site.

Cool, cool & cool.

And me a vegetarian.


Still, I promise not to eat them.

Amy-Tone: Dirty Amps

Well, we spent all that time making the perfect little amp and our beautiful shiny-faced Cheryl-Tone finally came along, all pure (at least on the surface) and sure to make you proud.

And we should have been proud,
but at the back of our minds was a
lurking little boiling
hubble of a darkness
that we could never seem to
displace.

Oh, we tried to stay in the light, avoid the shadows and everything else, but we couldn’t resist the dank, dirty little charms of our Cheryl’s darker and more insidious big sister.

And so we finally just had to give in to the urge, accept that we can’t imagine a world of clean bright tones for every occasion, we have to accept that sometimes we all want a bit of filth right from the off.

With a heavy heart, although a racing of the pulse, I commend to you our ‘other’ type of amp I bring you Amy-Tone, and may God have mercy on all of our souls.

But what does she sound like?

Well, Amy-Tone is a dirty and fuzzy bitch right from the off. She is seedy, Lo-Fi in-excelsis but guaranteed to give you a good time just as soon as you plug in. A quick twizzle of your knob though, and she turns into a furious mess of fuzzy fury, biting spitting and encompassing you in her emaciated filth.

She is a dirty little secret that'll eat you for breakfast, but man it will be the ride of your life.

Cheryl-Tone: Tweedy Amps

When we decided to build some Jooky little amps, we were very keen to make them a wee bit special. All of them would be hand-made, we knew that, and all of them would be unique in some way (and we’re not just talking about the serial number.)

They would all run from a 9V battery, come in stoopendously imaginative and interesting boxes or tins, and generally would be pretty swish and special and excellent. Some would have mood lighting, others would have mad effects or crazy paint jobs. Whatever, they were all going to be good and we couldn’t wait to make them.

Of course, there was also the slight issue of what they would sound like, and so we put our thinking caps on.

First things first, they would be quiet. Not very quiet, but use-at-home quiet. They would be practice amps, with the added bonus of being able to drive a speaker cabinet if you wanted to. But generally around the ½ to 1 watt vicinity.

Next, they had to have some kind of clean tone to them. We always loved Smokies, but it has always been tricky to clean the sound up, and to be honest, we think that it’s good to have options. We like the idea of something that you can get clean tones out of, but that will break-up when things get a bit hotter. And do you know what? I think we got where we wanted to be, and are totally proud of our first, little amp.

But how to describe it? 

Well, suffice to say that our Cheryl-Tone circuit goes (and goes) from a tweedy sound to something more glam, at a twizzle of a knob.

But then things can start to go wrong. A bit of pressure or attack and everything gets as dark as coal and she turns into a hissing and spitting fishwife harridan of a nightmare.

So whether twang is your thang or you prefer something wrong in a thong, we call it Cheryl-Tone and hope you will want to make the lasses’ acquaintance.

I Think I'm Talking Siamese, I Really Think So.

Another day, and still I play. We’ve actually ended-up with two different types of amps – the relatively clean one, which we’ve been working hard on ‘finessing’, and a much more fuzzy experience that to be perfectly honest I quite like and stamped my little foot over keeping.

So one has become two.

So be it.

This has naturally meant that our ideas have all got disconocorated and generally messed up, as we were only going to have one option (any colour you want as long as it is black, like Harrison Ford), but there we go.

On the plus side, it means that we can actually start building some of these amps for proper-like, and that is the next step.

To actually put one up and for sale, and then I guess try to spread the word a bit and maybe even sell it for money.

Or swap it for something good, anyway.

We’ll see.

Next week
Rat-a-tat-taaaat.

Maybe a Time to Stop Digging

If you read earlier, I mentioned that we were still playing with our little amp - swapping a few components to see what happened and generally trying to make the design a lot neater and all that. This, we're still doing off and on, but I'm guessing that not for much longer. I think we're pretty much there.

For the record, the prototypes sound pretty cool - lovely clear 'tweedy' tones to start with, and responsively overdrivable as you increase the volume, all the way into fuzzy oblivion.

Or something like that.

We are chuffed though as what we really wanted to do was find a way to avoid the immediate fuzziness of some of the small amps - like the Smokey - which although great in their own right, are kind of one-trick-pony-limiting, especially if you want to plug something in with a piezo pickup, like a Cigar Box Guitar.

Close to our hearts and all that.

The next step though (once I finally accept that there isn't a better transistor or resistor to be used on the mush of the earth) is to put the little thing into a box and see how we go from there.

I think I said before that all of our amps will be numbered, and this will be numero uno, as it were, so it is going to be tricky to know whether we should try and sell it and break our duckbilled-cherry, or whether we keep it and move on to number two.

Other than the amps, the R&D continues in different directions. We have some fun/cool add-ons that will be scattered sparingly across the amps, and then we're looking at a pedal or two as well - again, unique in some way, and I really can't see them being in Hammonds etc. to start with anyway. There are also designs down for a piezo pickup/pre-amp that will be cool for the CBG builders too. So plenty to think about.

Still, just figured you might be interested, now that we're in a double-digit readership.