Fender '65 Twin Resissue, Dual Showman And '66 Pro Reverb; Sunn Amps Scepter: The Black Angles Know Their Vintage Amps

May 06, 2008
The Fender Amps of Austin's Black Angels

Christian Bland (his real name) and Kyle Hunt (obviously not his real name) of the Austin, TX band The Black Angels were more than happy to show off their amp collection to GW's Patrick Ogle. The Black Angels' sound is dark, psychedelic and spooky, so it's no wonder they favor lush-sounding late 60s Fender tube combos like Kyle's 66 Pro Reverb.

Kyle's also got a sweet 2x12 cabinet that he, apparently, pilfered, using as a getaway vehicle his skateboard. I'm guessing he stole it from some Foot Clan warriors who don't know a THING about rock!

Visit The Black Angels' official MySpace for more information

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CHRISTIAN BLAND: Oh yeah. That's my Twin. It's a '65 Reissue Twin with some secret modifications.

PATRICK OGLE: Oh that's some [INDISCERNIBLE] [OVERLAPPING]

CHRISTIAN BLAND: That's yeah. [LAUGHS]

PATRICK OGLE: [OVERLAPPING] this stuff for anything.

CHRISTIAN BLAND: Well but I mean you know, one thing that I've done is I've put in two 80-watt speakers. I think they come with. What do they come with?

KYLE HUNT: The Celestions or the Jensens are like 50 watts and you blew those...

CHRISTIAN BLAND: Blew those like...

KYLE HUNT: ...like every two months.

CHRISTIAN BLAND: Yeah.

PATRICK OGLE: So basically, you don't want to blow them every two months or [OVERLAPPING]

CHRISTIAN BLAND: Exactly.

KYLE HUNT: Yeah.

PATRICK OGLE: And that I mean there's no way you're going to blow 80's with this amp.

CHRISTIAN BLAND: Yeah, probably not.

PATRICK OGLE: Yeah.

CHRISTIAN BLAND: Yeah. I mean I don't know. Once I turn all of my fuzzes on the max. Yeah.

KYLE HUNT: That's a '66 Pro Reverb, that's been my main amp for a long time.

PATRICK OGLE: And that is not a reissue.

KYLE HUNT: No. That's original. All original. It's got Jensen speakers in it but that's just because the original Oxford shredded to the point of dust, so --

PATRICK OGLE: That means is that that amp is as old as me, so 'we re good.

KYLE HUNT: Yeah. They're --

PATRICK OGLE: It looks in better shape than me too.

KYLE HUNT: It's -- I mean that's -- it's been around the country several times, lots of times, and it's had its issues but all old amps do.

PATRICK OGLE: Do you use that for your guitar?

KYLE HUNT: I do everything --

PATRICK OGLE: [SOUNDS LIKE] Every [OVERLAPPING] instrument?

KYLE HUNT: Typically, that's my main amp. This mystery Fender over there is a Dual Showman. The year is yet to be determined, I have to figure out. The transformer dates a '67, the box's date says '64, the face plate is late 70s, so I have no --

PATRICK OGLE: So it's a Frankenstein somebody [OVERLAPPING]?

KYLE HUNT: Yeah. I need to take it. I'm taking it out. Actually, I'm going to pull it in tomorrow to get it checked out, and then the cab was like this box living in someone's shed that I stumbled upon, and I literally wheeled it home to my house on a skateboard, and the recount [OVERLAPPING] --

PATRICK OGLE: [LAUGHS] And you have to see the size of this to appreciate the difficulty of wheeling that home on a skateboard.

KYLE HUNT: I had Harper too with me, so I had --

PATRICK OGLE: So you were driving a baby carriage and an amplifier on a skateboard.

KYLE HUNT: It was quite a sight, and the original Oxfords from the Pro Reverbs are now in a Bandmaster cab. I'm breaking them in because they sound a little just not forgiving yet, not squishy enough yet so I've got to play on them really hard for a while and then they'll be good. Other than that, I mean there's a Nate's old reliable Sunn Scepter head. It's probably late 60s also. It's -- Velvet Underground used to use the old Sunn heads a lot. He's also got a Bandmaster cab there.

PATRICK OGLE: Which he presumably didn't -- you know, wield home on a skateboard.

KYLE HUNT: No. No. I think he took that home in car like a sane person. But yeah, he used to have the big Sunn cabinet that had four 12's in it, and one day while moving it, we figured out that one of the 12's was just like hanging in there, and we opened up the back of the cab and it was like some Radio Shack speakers, some mismatched speakers, half of them were in, half of them were wired so I told him to go try out one of the old Bandmaster cabs because they're relatively affordable and dependable and you can put anything in them and they sound great.

Harper is really big on the Bandmaster cabinets.

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