Jefferson Hart: I’ve had the amp for two years and it's been a constant in our Secret Monkey Weekend shows, my family rock combo with my two daughters. I usually put it up on a road case to keep the volume at a reasonable level, but that said, if I really want to blast it and the FOH guy approves, I’ll just move the case and amp further away from where I’m singing!
This amp has the perfect blend of Fender styled cleans to slight breakup, and then onto a dirty ‘59 Bassman sound with a combination of tweeks to the gain and master volume. Though not a huge proponent of reverb, I find that the onboard reverb serves my purpose well for just a touch of it without being overly noticeable. I tend to use the 20, 30, and 40 watts settings the most. The one I use live is a light blue (in my part of the world, it’s Carolina Blue) combo, but my first California Tweed is a blond head with matching 2 x 12 Boogie speaker cabinet. That’s what I use at home. The blue one stays in the travel case between gigs so that it’s easy to roll it out the door, into the van and go.
Though I used a Supro Black Magick combo on our debut album at Mitch Easter’s Fidelitorium Studio with Don Dixon producing (the 2022 “All The Time In The World” - SMW-001 Secret Monkey Records, and streaming everywhere), I used this blue California Boogie for all of our new album “Lemon Drop Hammer” (Secret Monkey Records SMW-002, available and streaming as of June 6). Dixon also produced this one. The Supro has come out for a few shows here and there, but it was most notably used recently by Peter Holsapple at the end of 2024 when The dB’s played a series of shows to promote their “Repercussions” album re-release. He borrowed it and I was happy to hear him groove with it on his song “Amplifier”, and the entire set.
A video is below with the California Tweed in action live, and our debut single with me playing through it. I’ve also included a photo of it on stage.
Studio version of So Much Joy, the first single from Lemon Drop Hammer album [out June 6].
Photo by Daniel Coston
