Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

[Xplorer]

maybe a west coast amp ? i saw this one with big green screen résistors :

http://www.thegearpage.net/board//showt ... p=16530352


http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/130 ... before.jpg

http://www.marshallforum.com/marshall-a ... 976-a.html

[daveweyer]

Well great job on the calculations, now if you can just find some backstage audio from one of those performances where you can hear one of the band saying...." yeah we got this guy out in California who beefed up all the amps and they really sound groovy, blah blah, woof woof" , that would seal the deal.

One thing about the big green resistors and the big brown resistors, if they were hollow (not Dales), is that they made great roach holders. Those little joint ends were hard to finish, but if you just slipped one in the hollow tube of the resistor, it was the perfect size and you could smoke it all the way to ashes. We did that quite a bit in those days, and I noticed one time when I ran an amp real hard which had one of those resistors, it got hot and you could smell the pot fumes from the tar which was left on the surface of the resistor.
I saved one of those resistors from West Coast Organ and Amp Service. I have it here and you can still see the tar on the end. Don't need it anymore for that job, but it's fun to show people.

[Xplorer]

no much important, i suppose, but i think i saw one more amp, one more fuzz, one more wah , spares certainly, at Woodstock . you can see it if you zoom, on the bottom left. the golden grill .... i'm not sure what amp it is...

http://i.imgur.com/7phQpn3.jpg

i don't think it's the same as this other amp, on the floor, here ( with a west coast white sticker )


http://i.imgur.com/BzP7Suo.jpg

edit : no , it's the same lol. but there's this other red fuzz, and wah.

[frenchie]

Well great job on the calculations, now if you can just find some backstage audio from one of those performances where you can hear one of the band saying...." yeah we got this guy out in California who beefed up all the amps and they really sound groovy, blah blah, woof woof" , that would seal the deal.

thanks dave ....well you know you can still find nowadays people thinking the earth is flat or hollow despite the evidence orgy ... I don't think anything can convince these type of guys , it's hopeless ... I prefer to concentrate my efforts on reasonable people , besides now i'm out of reliable sources ( backstage recordings ? are there such ? i'd love to have the network , but here it's out of my reach ) or strategies to prove the obvious .... perhaps someone can clean up the backstage woodstock pics enough to see the power transformer end bell cover so we can determine the height of the stack , but that will be about it i think ....

[Xplorer]

this is the maximum i could get.

http://i.imgur.com/2A29Xh6.jpg

you can also compare the diameter of the voltage selector, which is about 3 cm.
so the tubes , compared to this, look about 4 cm large. so in the ball park of what you said.

[swankmotee]

You can see with the naked eye that they are big bulb glass but I'm glad to see the factual sizing to back it up.

[daveweyer]

Well we know there are many bootleg tapes because lots of folks dragged various reel to reel recorders to Jimi's gigs.
So somewhere there is likely plenty of audio and video which would answer many questions. The problem I have noticed is that these bits and pieces are secretly maintained in safe places by private collectors who have no intention on giving them over to the public record. Kind of like Jimi's amps.
This is partly because of the legal machine revved up by the Al Hendrix family to recover everything that Jimi ever said and did under the protection of some pretty generous interpretations of copyright law.
So if you do have some Hendrix material, you can't really do much with it except play it for your friends and keep it in your private museum.
I had some material here and had my attorney float the subject on some legal forums to see what would happen. He had a dozen lawyers contact him overnight, so it's pretty hotly contested stuff.
You just can't find any more by Google searches unless it's hiding under a different subject on some obscure amp forum or something like that.
A friend of mine sent me some web archives of some Fender bottoms which were sold at auction, and these had the West Coast Organ and Amp Service stickers on them. They were Jimi's.
But keep following the trail in various searches. You might find something.

[Xplorer]

one possible thing is to spread it on youtube or crosstowntorrent ( a collection of great very rare Hendrix records and bootlegs like you mentioned ) , then once spread, all that can happen is : youtube could remove the video, but that's all i guess. meanwhile, peoples at least heard it, and this is more interesting than staying in a safe forever like you said : some choosed to keep it only for them, some let us hear.
of course at some point, Jimi choosed what to offer to the public, and what to keep for him, and it could be disrespectful to him in some regards, but the Hendrix family and their millions ... i don't think of them much when i hear Hendrix ... they didn't create these musics ....
now, how jimi could have sounded in the futur, if he hadn't passed, and through the davophone, i find it really interesting on a more historic point of view, and this is something else than an album or a rare live recording , or studio sessions ...

do you mean that it could be possible to find some infos on these fenders on internet ?

[Tazin]

no much important, i suppose, but i think i saw one more amp, one more fuzz, one more wah , spares certainly, at Woodstock . you can see it if you zoom, on the bottom left. the golden grill .... i'm not sure what amp it is...

http://i.imgur.com/7phQpn3.jpg

i don't think it's the same as this other amp, on the floor, here ( with a west coast white sticker )


http://i.imgur.com/BzP7Suo.jpg

edit : no , it's the same lol. but there's this other red fuzz, and wah.

It is not the same amp. There are four 100w Marshall heads on Jimi's side of the stage. Two heads are on top of his stacks, one head is on the floor next to his stacks resting on its side, and the other is on the floor with his tech/roadie sitting on top of it. The one head that the tech/roadie is sitting on maybe SL/12361.

A while back George mentioned if anyone could find any evidence of Jimi using the Marshall Super Tremolo amp heads that were listed in book he posted a page from. Well, I looked around a bit and I didn't find any evidence of Jimi using Super Trems but I did find that Billy Cox started using them exclusively in mid-late April of 1970 right through to the death of Hendrix. Now, this would jive with the mfg date that I thought those Super Trems listed in the book should have. I think the misconception is that all the Marshall amps listed on that page are from March '69 and this not the case. The book says, "The SLAs (Super Lead Amplifiers) listed below were made in March 1969".....And those SLAs (Super Lead Amplifiers) were shipped over to West Coast Organ and Amp Service. Not the Super Tremolo's listed. And like I mentioned before, the one Super Lead (SL/A5273A) should not be included in the March 1969 set of amps either.

I did a bit of brain storming regarding the statement I made about Larry Lee using one of Jimi's 100w Marshall heads for the Woodstock gig. Here's the "pros" and "cons":

Pros: (Jimi's 100w head; not Billy's):
The amp is stenciled with the same stuff as Jimi's other gear.
None of Billy's other gear appears to be stenciled....Even after Woodstock.
The stenciling matches a supposed Hendrix amp.
The amp is a USA export amp and appears to be circa early 1969.
The "M" on the script Marshall logo is broken off (missing) on the amp Larry is using at Woodstock.
At the start of the 1970 tour you see Hendrix's using a Marshall head with the "M" missing from the script logo....He uses this amp until his death later that year. The amp also is a USA export type circa early 1969.
The odds of Billy purchasing an early 1969 100w Marshall head.
The odds of Billy using a 100w Marshall for bass verse some other brand prior to joining Hendrix.
Why would Billy use West Coast Amp Service since I'm sure he had other local techs to use.
Shipping things like amps was rather expensive back then and it took more time for a round trip compared to today.
Assuming Billy used the east coast branch of West Coast Organ and Amp Service, what are the
odds of the West Coast sticker being located in the same spot as Jimi's other amps.
Did the east coast branch even use West Coast stickers....
Noel's gear does not appear to have J.H. EXP. stenciled on it.
Interesting that Billy would have to lend Larry an amp since I'm sure Hendrix had plenty of spare amps.

Cons: (Billy's 100w head; not Jimi's):
The timeline for Billy joining Hendrix's band does allows for an amp to be shipped to West Coast Organ and Amp Service east coast branch.....I don't know if there would have been enough time to ship from coast to coast though.
The cabinets beneath Larry's 100w head have casters/wheels.
The cabinets appear to be rather new.
The cabinets appear to have BASS emblems in the corners just like Billy's 50w stacks do.
I don't see any stenciling on the cabinets.
Assuming the cabinets Larry is using are Billy's; what are the odds that the 100w head would be Jimi's.
Likewise, if the 100w head is Jimi's how come the cabinets don't appear to be Jimi's.

[Tone seaker]

no much important, i suppose, but i think i saw one more amp, one more fuzz, one more wah , spares certainly, at Woodstock . you can see it if you zoom, on the bottom left. the golden grill .... i'm not sure what amp it is...

http://i.imgur.com/7phQpn3.jpg

i don't think it's the same as this other amp, on the floor, here ( with a west coast white sticker )


http://i.imgur.com/BzP7Suo.jpg

edit : no , it's the same lol. but there's this other red fuzz, and wah.

It is not the same amp. There are four 100w Marshall heads on Jimi's side of the stage. Two heads are on top of his stacks, one head is on the floor next to his stacks resting on its side, and the other is on the floor with his tech/roadie sitting on top of it. The one head that the tech/roadie is sitting on maybe SL/12361.

A while back George mentioned if anyone could find any evidence of Jimi using the Marshall Super Tremolo amp heads that were listed in book he posted a page from. Well, I looked around a bit and I didn't find any evidence of Jimi using Super Trems but I did find that Billy Cox started using them exclusively in mid-late April of 1970 right through to the death of Hendrix. Now, this would jive with the mfg date that I thought those Super Trems listed in the book should have. I think the misconception is that all the Marshall amps listed on that page are from March '69 and this not the case. The book says, "The SLAs (Super Lead Amplifiers) listed below were made in March 1969".....And those SLAs (Super Lead Amplifiers) were shipped over to West Coast Organ and Amp Service. Not the Super Tremolo's listed. And like I mentioned before, the one Super Lead (SL/A5273A) should not be included in the March 1969 set of amps either.

I did a bit of brain storming regarding the statement I made about Larry Lee using one of Jimi's 100w Marshall heads for the Woodstock gig. Here's the "pros" and "cons":

Pros: (Jimi's 100w head; not Billy's):
The amp is stenciled with the same stuff as Jimi's other gear.
None of Billy's other gear appears to be stenciled....Even after Woodstock.
The stenciling matches a supposed Hendrix amp.
The amp is a USA export amp and appears to be circa early 1969.
The "M" on the script Marshall logo is broken off (missing) on the amp Larry is using at Woodstock.
At the start of the 1970 tour you see Hendrix's using a Marshall head with the "M" missing from the script logo....He uses this amp until his death later that year. The amp also is a USA export type circa early 1969.
The odds of Billy purchasing an early 1969 100w Marshall head.
The odds of Billy using a 100w Marshall for bass verse some other brand prior to joining Hendrix.
Why would Billy use West Coast Amp Service since I'm sure he had other local techs to use.
Shipping things like amps was rather expensive back then and it took more time for a round trip compared to today.
Assuming Billy used the east coast branch of West Coast Organ and Amp Service, what are the
odds of the West Coast sticker being located in the same spot as Jimi's other amps.
Did the east coast branch even use West Coast stickers....
Noel's gear does not appear to have J.H. EXP. stenciled on it.
Interesting that Billy would have to lend Larry an amp since I'm sure Hendrix had plenty of spare amps.

Cons: (Billy's 100w head; not Jimi's):
The timeline for Billy joining Hendrix's band does allows for an amp to be shipped to West Coast Organ and Amp Service east coast branch.....I don't know if there would have been enough time to ship from coast to coast though.
The cabinets beneath Larry's 100w head have casters/wheels.
The cabinets appear to be rather new.
The cabinets appear to have BASS emblems in the corners just like Billy's 50w stacks do.
I don't see any stenciling on the cabinets.
Assuming the cabinets Larry is using are Billy's; what are the odds that the 100w head would be Jimi's.
Likewise, if the 100w head is Jimi's how come the cabinets don't appear to be Jimi's.

Billy Cox told me he used the 50 watt stacks. That should be good enough unless you think he is mistaken or lying. The bass rigs might not be owned by Cox or Noel. They might be owned by the Experince and Management. I think the sighned BOG CD in my signature should prove I have met or know Billy Cox and Buddy Miles. I have actually played "Them Changes" with Buddy Miles

Super Trem bellow. Early but Super Trem

[Xplorer]

I have actually played "Them Changes" with Buddy Miles

i can't stop hearing super cool things these days , love it

[Tazin]

Tone seaker....I apologize if the way I phrased my "Pros and Cons" thing appeared like I was refuting your statement earlier about Billy owning the 100w head that Larry was using. My reply was more of a "thinking out loud" kinda thing more or less. Still, I must say for some reason unknown to me, I have this nagging intuition that is driving me to believe that the 100w head might have belonged to Jimi. I guess in the "big picture" of things it doesn't really matter who's 100w top it was.

[Tone seaker]

That's cool. I think it is highly possible that all the amps (bass and lead) belonged to Hendrix or "the experience" Not sure but "The Experience" and other huge acts might have been like mini corporations where all the gear was owned by the band or management. It seems to me unlikely that Cox or Noel would by multiple stacks for themselves to tour with but who knows

[Tone seaker]

I have actually played "Them Changes" with Buddy Miles

i can't stop hearing super cool things these days , love it

I use to gig regularly at this club he would hang out at and he signed the CD Below and would occasionally jam with people and I did the intro to "Them Changes" and he lit up and we got him up to play it with us. I had my 68 Marshall Super Trem on stage with me. Of course I did it BOG style . Got Billy's autograph also on that CD at another time.

[daveweyer]

Tone seaker,
One thing I have learned through all these years about the musicians playing these gigs, is that there are precious few who can actually remember what they were playing through, especially if it was a hurry up mix up kind of gig.
Case in point is the Olympic sessions in England which were done with Love as Jimi's backing group. My friend Gary Rowles, who was with Love at the time, played guitar on Easy rider with Jimi, and then did a 20 minute jam with him after the recording. Even to this day, nobody agrees on who was at the sessions, or what amps they played through. I've asked Gary many times about it and read all these interviews where folks are claiming this or that, all conflicting.
That 20 minute jam was on a 1/4" board tape which Gary kept for many years. The Hendrix estate bought it from him for a pretty good chunk of change a few years back, and now everyone has gotten to hear it.
Gary is one of the few who has a razor sharp memory. (My FET preamp system is on that recording, I had installed it on Gary's Strat some years before-- Strat 0007, can you believe that?--oh and Jimi didn't use his Marshalls on that tune.)

So with no disrespect in any form, I think it would at least be worth considering that perhaps he just forgot, or got it mixed up. It was a pretty chaotic moment after all. You should hear the backstage talk on the original Woodstock tapes, it's amazing there are even any recordings of the event.