Joe Bonamassa Plays Hendrix's "Band of Gypsys" Rig: For Real & For Less

Oh hey guys, Joe bamas here in Nerdville at the now Infamous Green Shag and we're doing something I've never done before thanks to reverb. We are setting up two different teams. We're setting up a Hendrix inspired rig with

real

stuff, Vox w a tao BR Octavia, an original 1970 fuzz face y a y a and a

real

viive univ and, uh, in mint condition, well this is part of a two stack set, but this it's just the Half Stack because we're in my living room again and I'd like to hear people post this video. This is a 1969 Super Lead that I bought from the original owner who went to see Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969 in August and I ordered them from uh I think Westberry Music and they were delivered in November of '69.

It's a super triem of 100 watts and a 100 watt super lead. This is the 100 watt super lead. um and the guy, uh, I went to his house and um. He had one of those Italian wine bottles and said that Eddie Van Halen stole all the Rifts from him. It was one of those crazy guitar stories, but I got the amps anyway, so here we go and this guitar is a 1969 maple top in blonde. Hendrick's Olympic White is the same damn thing so this is a $35 to $45,000 univ viibes guitar. he was buying them as a kid for 400 bucks now they probably added zero hairy faces.

I think they cost around $2000 and if you know if I'm trying one out in the store, just say there's something wrong with it, all you have to do is just press it, right there you have 200 dollars off. Octavia, I don't know, $3,000 and a Vox W that's on loan, so it was free for me, huh, but for everyone else it's probably a thousand dollars. I don't know, but this is the chain, this is the chain of gypsies with gangs and thank you, thank you to George Trips for his expertise in putting all this together in the right order, so it's loud, it's wild and there's no way way I'm Jimmy Andrick, but we'll get it, we'll get to the point, so check it out and it'll be loud. oh oh, can you believe he used to play so loud at the thousand square foot Ranch House on Campbell EV in New York and my parents didn't disown me?

That's how I learned to use it so again, a vintage set comes with some vintage uh quirks and you know no furry faces are the same so you have a silver one, you have the blue ones, you have the red ones, they're all different and it depends on the temperature. of the room, uh also because it's like a hot day. they'll sound different but we messed with this and got it pretty close and we also remembered Hendrick's tone trick it's like it was never on 10 the whole time you and I are going through the bright entrance um like HRI would do it but Daisy would change the batteries with curly wires and we can go down that rabbit hole too, but I don't want to get electrocuted, so we're using modern wires and electrical systems to get us through the day, so I'm going to pose. the question: can we get a Stratocaster Squire, a bunch of modern pedals and a classic 30 made by Heartley Peeve in the 9's to sound like all this, stay tuned ladies and that's okay, and we're back, this is the budget ? hrx team version all dun lot pedals we have a Jimmy Hendricks cryer uh we have an Octavia which is a copy of Roger Mayer's original Octavia we use the Tao bra which was a copy of the Roger Mayer but they made them in the 70's and it's old and expensive, a Jimmi Hendrick fuzz face that's basically Woodstock's, uh, with the white goatee, they exist.

A friend of mine has one and a mxr unive, you know, univi and this is a big Squire Strater headstock, still white. I have the tags um this is available at Norm's rare guitars for $319. I mean if you're nice it'll probably take 20 bucks off you so a $300 guitar and a $400 guitar. I know because I paid for it PV classic 30, which is uh. great amp now, perceptually, 100 watt super lead is going to be louder, but the concert soundman will like you a lot more with the classic 30. They'll throw you out of the place and tell you not to come back, your career would be over if you use that anyway, here we go, oh h, I think on a percentage basis, I think if you needed to get Hendrick's Vibe and again play in the style of Jimmy Hendrick, you know it helps when you play in the style of Jimmy.

Hendricks, I think you know we're about 85 to 90% at a $1,500 price point, you know, compared to something that's very, very expensive and very, very loud. You take this equipment to the studio. You wear this to any club or any other. On the spot, put a microphone in front of it and you know you're a bunch of gypsies and that was the point of the exercise, to see if you can do it with a cheap instrument and there's no such thing as a bad guitar, a bad amp, a bad pedal or a bad cable, maybe the cable is bad, but it doesn't matter, it just depends on how you handle it and, you know, if you just learn the techniques and how. him and how he made it and you know it and you know it again is a $300 square string that happens to look like the Woodstock guitar.

I'll turn it around, you know, for a lefty, he still has the tag, look. yeah, yeah, Hendrick relied a lot on the neck pickup, I mean, I would use the middle pickup, I would use the main pickup, but especially when you're dealing with the Octavia, they don't really track, if you notice, like with an Octavia, it's I like it, if you don't turn the volume down a little bit and play closer to the neck and play lightly, it will start to track much better and if you play too loud it will just ring. like a box of fluff now in reverse, so you know, I mean, I learned that when I got my first uh or Octavia type thing, I was like, man, this doesn't work and someone told me, oh, you have to bother with your neck. .

You have to go for real light almost like you're doing Lenny brother harmonics and I'm like, oh, it tracks instantly, so it's a quirk of the pedal, but it's a great sounding pedal and you know, fuzz faces again, You know? I like them, you can use them as a weapon if you hit the treble, so I'm both teams. I'm starting with a bit of a saturated signal, it's not completely clean, you know, because I just like it that way. As you know, you can use the vi and get some dynamics, but you can also solo with this Squire and it's $1,500 or

less

.

That was the goal of today's exercise and by the way, I've always wanted to do this, um, because It's proof that it doesn't take a million dollars and this is coming from a cork king, yeah.