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..

January 31st, 2024

Homeskoolin’ Volume 271, Tom Bukovac “Orange County Blossom Special”

Chapters
00:00 - Intro playing
01:39 - Starship Trooper from Cleveland / Dan Auerbach / Thanks
03:03 - LA Duesenberg trip
04:25 - Shitty glasses
04:54 - Joey Landreth / Duesenberg Germans
06:00 - Rick Beato / Lovers and haters / Teddy Boy & Silviu
08:12 - Gibson Theodore
09:45 - VCB (Viewer Comment Bin) / Peavey Amps
10:20 - How loud do you like to play? / Tinnitus / 100W Marshalls (Valve Power)
11:15 - "Music sounded better when I was younger" / Shawn Colvin - Polaroids / Frank Zappa
13:07 - Pedal reviews / Hologram - Chroma Console
14:00 - Today's guitar player (need more rhythm and balls)


Notes
Uncle Larry takes you through the last week or so of life as a session man and makes a psychic prediction about the future value of the world’s latest “lawsuit guitar”….

so we have a lot of new viewers recently

here's the real inside shit folks...i NEVER ask anyone to subscribe or "smash that like button"....

if you do indeed learn a lot of stuff from this channel and feel like it is indeed helping you as a player, all i ask is that you just throw a little something in the tip jar...

i'm not gonna lie people, it helps pay for beer, food for me and the boys, bills, and old guitars...that is truly all i use it for....oh, and maybe the occasional football bet...

where is this tip jar you say???

You can make PayPal donations to this address:
tombukovac@gmail.com
You can make Venmo donations to this address:
@Tom-Bukovac-1

AND THERE'S MERCH TOO!!!!

a person could potentially purchase a myriad of Homeskoolin' related merch..including several different extremely comfortable and nice feeling T-shirts and some beautifully constructed coffee mugs for those afflicted with thin lips...i pride myself on having the comfiest t shirts on earth...no scratchy bad fitting horseshit here people.. check it out at
https://dvg-inc.shoplightspeed.com/merch/tom-bukovac/

AND....believe it or not....i have a new website people....an actual proper website.
https://thesessionman.com

You can see all kinds of weird old photos there, you can also purchase a download of the live concert i did last December if you like.

A lot of these very same new viewers don't seem to know that Uncle Larry made a couple records that they could potentially listen to... one is an instrumental solo record called "Plexi Soul" that is available here:
https://tombukovac.bandcamp.com/album/plexi-soul

another is an instrumental collaboration with his dear friend Dean Deleo (originally from the Stone Temple Pilots organization) that is available here:
https://tripthewitch.bandcamp.com/album/trip-the-witch