If you haven’t been yet, I highly encourage a trip to the The Punk Rock Museum. It’s jam packed with memorabilia from all eras of punk. There’s an amazing list of tour guides from famous band members that helped shape what punk rock music is today. And there’s a bunch of other stuff to keep you occupied too. What really stood out to me, outside of getting to meet a hero of mine in the flesh, was the Jam Room. It’s a well maintained stockpile of real gear that bands used to play live and record with. And you can pick up and play these instruments too. Yes, you.
I’ve seen hands-on exhibits before. Where the artist wants you to interact with their installation, or being able to make your own art inspired by another artist’s work. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen an example of an artist giving you their tools for inspection, or to actually make your own art with. I immediately took advantage of the opportunity to play through a modded 1978 Marshall JMP 2203 MKII that belonged to Chett Lehrer of Wasted Youth, thanks Chett! I did not ask what mods were done on the amp, but it’s a master volume model and it was set up with the preamp gain cranked and the master volume slightly above bedroom practice level, just loud enough to fill your ears. There was a brightness that you could already hear would cut through a mix, but it wasn’t too harsh.
Sitting in a room and playing through a Marshall is something every guitar player needs to experience. There was obviously special significance with this one, it was one of the amps that inspired the music. This is exactly what the band heard back in the early 80’s, and what inspired countless songs that we consider punk rock gold today. And it goes on. The gear, the music, the personalities, the influences. It’s all right here. You can reach out and touch it. I played part of a song I wrote to see how it sounded through a piece of history. And it sounded great.
In 1978, Marshall was still stocking cabinets with 25W speakers from Celestion. It would be a few years before higher power experiments would pay off and the G12-65 would be introduced. It’s unclear why, despite being sold as a standard 25W speaker, Celestion was either forced to due to supply constraints, or decided to intentionally, change the speaker cone and the color of their magnet covers. The latter obviously has no impact on tone, but it does help with speaker dating. The result in 1978 was a “new” Celestion 25W speaker using an updated cone dubbed “Kurt Meuller” after the company who supplied them, with a black magnet cover as opposed to green. These new speakers were loud and in-your-face right out of the gate.
Preset: Fast n’ Loud
The aggressiveness of this speaker, the way it shapes the sound of a distorted guitar amp, played perfectly into the burgeoning style of music that would later be known as punk rock. Whether the music influenced the technology, or vice versa, or non of the above, it’s unclear. What is clear is that for a while, Marshalls saw new life in the punk rock scene. With this preset, we’ve assembled the core components of this sound in AmpStamp, and added some room resonance to put you in a similar space. While you should make the pilgrimage to hear this amp for yourself, now you can rock out any time you want, anywhere you want.
The Punk Rock Museum is a celebration of the history of punk rock, but it really feels like new history is being made. Taking part in documenting and sharing this history in a way that hasn’t been done before feels fresh, exciting, and certainly new. Is this really punk though? Who cares.
The Musicology Group 