August 5th, 2025

Homeskoolin’ Volume 481, Tom Bukovac, “The Mind Of The Musician”

Chapters
00:00 - Peavey amp
02:15 - Bench video


Notes
Uncle Larry...aka "the hornswaggler"...delves into the ancient psychology that bounces around inside the mind of the average working musician.
He discusses the paranoia of work scheduling…and even sheds some light on the up and down rollercoaster of emotions that are always at play during the many seasons of the typical lifer musician’s career…all whilst putting some brand new D'Addario 013s on a 64 j-50

My dear Grandma used to always say "The Lord loves a good old Peavey amp"...

these old Mace 320T's are not easy to find...these were purportedly the ACTUAL models that the Lynyrd Skynyrd boys REALLY used in their heyday....six power tubes delivering 160 watts of bone crushing Mississippi Marshall tone.

this particular example is barely limping along and definitely needs some love, but even considering all that it STILL sounds damn good.

i would bet this amp has never even been serviced one time in these first 50 years of its life... but the thing still runs, and even the reverb and tremolo effects still work.

i have said this many times in the past and i will say it again...Hartley Peavey was DEFINITELY the Leo Fender of his day, making affordable "field replaceable" gear that the common man could fucking COUNT on every night, no matter what the gig or the conditions were like.

i would like to personally thank a Homeskooler named Christopher Kueffler for dragging this beast down from the snowy north.

I've been listening to these old Skynyrd records RELIGIOUSLY since i was a boy....i always wanted to mess with one of these amps just to see if there was any of "that Skynyrd magic" in them, even though i always suspected it was just their hands making those tones, and not that particular amp....

however, to my amazement, in just a brief amount of time messing around with one, i can already immediately tell that these amps REALLY ARE responsible for delivering a large part of that legendary tone.

on several old Skynyrd tracks, i always thought Gary was getting what i picture in my mind as a "straw" tone...
there's a fizziness to the distortion on a lot of his sounds that reminds me somehow of a distorted guitar sound coming through a straw...follow me on this friends.
there's like a reediness to the distortion that makes it unique.

this particular lead break on "saturday night special" is one many examples of that "straw tone" in my humble opinion.
i also would bet my bottom dollar that Gary was using the neck pickup of "Bernice" on this solo, with the treble on the amp cranked.
you can hear it if you listen REALLY close...it's a neck pickup, not the bridge

prove me wrong friends..