Luis and the Amazing Exploding Amp

With pure AWESOMENESS, dammit!! Ha, well, that's only partly true. It was in the middle of a set at the Jester in Ojai, CA. Far away from any of my resources where I could find a quick amp substitution. We were jamming along with Cliff Beach. It was on the last song. It was my turn to solo so of course I turn crank it up to cut through the madness. Thing is, one of my effects is a bit out of control and pushes the sound beyond acceptable limits. At first it sounds like my amp has been smoking cigars for 70 years and just cleaned his throat with sandpaper. It cuts out. Cuts in. Flutters a bit. Then absolute silence. What. the. hell.

At this point I feel like an amateur: back turned to the audience, crouched over my amp, fiddling with the volume, on off switch, and the input jack. I check each over a dozen times like it's going to make a difference. Somehow I'm not all that upset about the amp crapping out on me. I mean, I've had that thing since I was 15! It was a junker practice amp. If anything I'm impressed it lasted this long! It's taken tumbles down stairs, numerous kicks, and various beverages spilling over it. I was, however, nervous about how we were going to play the next 2 hours of music we were booked for. We scrambled talking to people who may have a connection to an amp we could use for the night. Luckily, it was Ruben's hometown so he knew people. After a few minutes he came up to me and said, "I got us an amp! It's a half stack." At this point my eyes widen remembering how much fun it is to play out of those amps.  10 minutes to go we dove into a car, flew over to this dudes place, hauled the half stack into the car and got back on the dot. The rest of the night, you can imagine I was pretty stoked to be jamming on some great sound equipment.

As it is now, I've been on a bad streak of breaking things: A recording mic, a mic stand, foot petal, a little handle on my guitar, and now my amp. I won't even get started on my car. Anyhow, it's not that I don't take care of my stuff, it's just that 1 little slip and it all goes to hell. Well, we'll see if I can manage to rig this amp back together. Frankenstein-style.