Go Commando!

Rare, weird, and awesome.

Hmmm…a little tough, this one. This amp, it’s something special. It has a sound all its own, and it’s a damn good one at that. It came out in the fifties, eight speakers, each being eight inches in diameter. Talk about wild! It opens up like a suitcase, with four speakers in each half. You can separate the halves and put them wherever you want with enough cord between them to place them at opposite ends of the stage. Craziness.

It sounds pretty fantabulous with that Astatic Velvet Voice microphone that’s sitting on top of it. Yep, real good. I can make that thing *honk* and positively *squall!!!!* But still, I don’t use it much, just not much at all. It should be getting used, or at least be getting passed around so that other people can get to play with it, enjoy it, and then send it on to someone else. I’ve had some fun with it. Now I have some very important interests and need money for other things, things that seem to be leading me in a pretty incredible direction. Might be time to let this go and pursue those other things. This may be holding me back more than it’s helping me. I had a friend come over and try this tonight, and he really liked it. He can take good care of it, and he appreciates it for what it is, a unique piece of sound equipment with a storied past.

Commando Tubes

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Ah, the legendary Danelectro Commando 88 – or part of it, anyway. This is a lesser known vintage amplifier, but really huge in harmonica circles. It has a reputation, part of which is that Chicago harmonica master Little Walter played one back in the day when he was making mind-blowing records with Chess up north and basically doing for harp what Hendrix did for guitar. I have one, which is kind of amazing. I got lucky and found it at a guitar show years ago. I honestly don’t play it that much…so…I dunno…it might be time to allow it to move on into some other player’s hands who will give it a good workout. Maybe.