Some gear you sell and forget. This one kept finding me.
Through the mid-90s in Smile, I played an Acoustic 360, a vintage amp built somewhere between 1968 and 1971, paired with its 361 cabinet and a massive front-loaded 18-inch speaker. That amp was the sound under Jaco Pastorius, John Paul Jones, and Larry Graham. It was also the sound under every show I played for years, and I loved it.
Then 1997 or ’98 rolled around and I needed money more than I needed low end. I sold it to Guitar Oasis in Huntington Beach (RIP) for a few hundred bucks and tried not to think about it.
Almost 20 years later…
I was at a Fu Manchu show at the Anaheim House of Blues to see a Scott Reeder play drums. And I look up at the stage and there it was: an Acoustic 360, cranked and ripping. There weren’t many of those left in the wild, so after the set I found the bass player, Brad Davis, an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while, and asked where he got it.
“Guitar Oasis in the 1990s” He says.
That was my amp! Not one like it. The very one. And instead of stinging, it felt right. It was out there being put to work, making good music in the hands of a very good bass player.
Fast forward to 2013. Smile books its first reunion show, February 2 at the Casbah in San Diego, and I have no amp to play. I’m running through options when Scott says the obvious thing: play your old 360. Brad loaned it to me for the night without a second thought.
So fifteen years later I stood on stage rocking the same amp I’d played all those shows on. Some gear you sell. The good stuff comes back around.
- Weapon of choice for early arena rockers
- SN L1599 / M2094
- c.1970
- 1X18 cab with 300 watt power amp
- Preamp head with tuning fork & Fuzz bass
- As used by Jaco, Larry Graham and John Paul Jones
- Includes footswitch and cover for head
Aaron
