I LEARNED FROM THAT
Big Head
Earlier This Year, Mick taylor of that Pedal show, Nev Marten of Guitar techniques and i took on the daunting but joyous challenge of performing Jimi hendrix’s debut album are you Experienced at the Bristol international Jazz & Blues Festival on the occasion of the album’s 50th anniversary. Obviously we were all going to play Marshall stacks and in fact i was lucky enough to be loaned an early 70s 100-watt JMP head and vintage basket-weave 4x12 that sounded fantastic. i’d originally sought them out purely because it seemed the only fitting kit to use for a Jimi tribute. But the more i played through this vintage stack, the more i enjoyed it. i’d not played a big, powerful amp through a 4x12 cab for a while and i suddenly remembered what was so good about them. the effortless power and rich harmonic overtones were exhilarating but the most remarkable thing was that the cab threw out such a big wall of sound that it seemed to make the guitar come alive more, as the instrument was hit by its own tidal wave of sound, teetering just at the edge of feedback. No, the big amp thing isn’t just about brute force. it’s also about headroom; an all-enveloping sonic experience that every guitarist should experience if they haven’t already. as someone once said, sometimes quantity has a quality all of its own.