Imagine the Giant

The band claims their debut EP to be “defining work” and a clear addition to the rich Seattle music scene. It is the accumulation of four people traveling, writing, playing and becoming friends over the course of a full year; truly making them a band, not simply a group of players sitting in the same room.

The record starts with the indie soul friendly song of “Sail Away” leading to the exceptionally sweet ballad of “I’ll Be That,” to the dark and moody trio of “Playground,” “Good Thing” and “Don’t Know.” The tracks are all based on ideas stemming from rock, both new and old, blues and the deep grooves of gritty soul. With the addition of their voice, Musicbox, who laid her honest self all over these tracks, they truly are creating their brand of rock and soul. The sounds mixed with their energy pulls on your curiosity, the songs demand your attention.

Imagine the Giant will be self-releasing to all digital mediums, as well as, a limited run of 12″ vinyl. They will be supporting the record with NW touring this summer and West Coast touring this fall.

In the studio, Imagine the Giant used a vintage Ampeg SVT stack and B-15 for bass. Guitarist and Ampeg employee, Larson Haakenstad, incorporated the Ampeg Heritage R-12R Reverberocket into his rig. 

- OFFER VALID FOR U.S. CUSTOMERS ONLY. IN CANADA? CLICK HERE - 

Download the Rebate Coupon

That’s right, homeboys and/or homegirls. During June, you can get serious cash back on a huge assortment of Ampeg SVT heads and cabinets. All you have to do is buy the qualifying gear during June from an authorized U.S. Ampeg dealer. Then just mail in the completed rebate coupon and you are golden. Here’s the gear up for rebate along with the rebate amounts.

• SVT-CL Bass Head ($200 rebate)
• SVT-4Pro Bass Head ($150 rebate)
• SVT-3Pro Bass Head ($100 rebate)
• SVT-810E Bass Cab ($100 rebate)
• SVT-610HLF Bass Cab ($100 rebate)
• SVT-410HLF Bass Cab ($75 rebate)

Click on the product links above to check out the gear.

To receive the rebate:

Purchase select SVT heads or cabs (listed above) from an authorized U.S. Ampeg dealer between June 1, 2013 and June 30, 2013 to qualify for a rebate. Your rebate must be postmarked no later than July 15, 2013 to be eligible. Download and mail this fully completed rebate coupon, correctly indicating which product(s) you bought, along with the original box UPC code(s) and a copy of your receipt (keep the original) to the address below. (If you bought floor demos, you must send a copy of a store-printed receipt that indicates “no box”)

Mail the fully completed rebate coupon to:

AMPEG REBATES – ATTN: Ampeg SVT Rebate
5235 Mission Oaks Blvd. #211
Camarillo, CA 93012

Questions about this or other Ampeg rebate?

Email rebatesupport@rebate-central.com

Live in Canada? Don’t feel left out. Click here for details.

 - OFFER VALID IN CANADA ONLY. IN THE US? CLICK HERE - 

 You may or may not have $100 bills that smell like Maple, so we wanted to celebrate. So, during June, you can get some serious savings on a selection of popular Ampeg SVT gear. This is an “at the register” discount. Make sure you talk about it with your store salesperson at the time of purchase. Offer valid between June 1, 2013 and June 30, 2013 from participating Canadian Ampeg dealers.

Here’s the list of qualifying gear and the instant savings you will receive.

SVT-CL Bass Head – $200
SVT-4PRO Bass Head – $150
SVT-3PRO Bass Head – $100
SVT-810E Bass Cab – $100
SVT-610HLF Bass Cab – $100
SVT-410HLF Bass Cab – $75

No other amps or cabs qualify. For complete details, speak with your local Ampeg dealer.

In the U.S.? Don’t feel left out. Click here for additional info.

Talk about prolific! Ampeg Artist Juan Alderete just announced his involvement in another sure-to-be-amazing band alongside Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Gregory Rogove and Dan Elkan.

The new band, ZAVALAZ have been recording for over a year and are about to start mixing their debut. In the meantime, you can attend one of the scheduled shows planned around Cali during June.

Here’s all the places to connect. Share this news with your friends and be sure to reach out to Juan and tell him you want to hear this band!

Website with tour dates
Facebook
Instagram
Tumblr
MySpace
Twitter

Also be sure to check out Juan’s own www.pedalsandeffects.com. You know that Juan is the pedal master and this site is dedicated to people who just gotta plug stuff in. Tons of reviews, demos and testimonials.

Dino Monoxelos is Ampeg’s Senior Product Specialist and has a long, long relationship with Ampeg. He is also an accomplished bassist and author of bass instruction books. You can read more about Dino at www.monotunesmusic.com

Trade shows are a bittersweet experience for me. Probably more sweet than bitter though. Sweet in the way that I get to meet so many great people and fans of Ampeg that I otherwise wouldn’t have met. So many people come up and introduce themselves and say thank you for the videos or the help that I might have offered through an email. Store owners and employees that I’ve met over the years coming in to see the latest and greatest gear from Ampeg. Friends that work in the industry that I only get to see and catch up with once or twice a year that come by the booth to say hello and, if I’m lucky, have time for dinner in the evening.

Tradeshows can be bitter in that they are a tremendous amount of work on everyone involved in attending, coordinating and setting up the show for Ampeg. Usually the ones attending are the ones setting up too. Not to mention the cost involved in attending one of these shows. There is an unfathomable amount of man-hours put into the months before, during and after one of these shows. Its mind boggling just what goes into it. On a personal note, these shows are some of the most physically demanding aspects of my gig as a product specialist. Picture having to un-box half a dozen SVT heads and half a dozen 810 cabs before a show and then box them back up after the show. This is on top of un-boxing and re-boxing all the other amazing gear that we present at a trade show. Just being on your feet 16 hours a day for four days straight is enough to cripple anyone.

I was just recently attending the 2013 Musik Messe in Frankfurt Germany when I was reminded of a couple of reasons why the sweet will always outweigh the bitter….

As I was walking toward the Ampeg display one morning to start my day, I noticed a young man facing me in the aisle just alongside the booth. As I got closer to this guy, I noticed he was beaming a smile from ear to ear. As soon as came into earshot of him, he simply smiled and asked (in very broken English) “Dino”? I answered… “Yep, that’s me.” As he held his hand out to shake mine he said how he very much wanted to meet me and thank me in person for all the videos that I’ve done for Ampeg and how owning an Ampeg amplifier has been a life-long dream for him. My videos gave him that little bit of faith that he would someday be able to own one. I can’t explain just how honored and humbled I was from this. Working for Ampeg, to me, is a dream come true. But being so close to it on a daily basis, sometimes I forget just how cool of a gig I’ve got and how, as a young bass player many years ago, I aspired to own a big SVT rig someday too! This meeting reminded me of that.

Second incident was when another bass player came in to the booth to try out a few things but couldn’t speak a lick of English. Unfortunately, I ONLY speak English, and sometimes not very good, with a thick Boston accent and all! However, even though we couldn’t communicate verbally, we were able to communicate through hand gestures and eventually, by playing together. This also reminded me of how even though two individuals who cannot communicate verbally together can still manage to communicate because of their mutual love of music and their instrument.

So, after all said and done, I have to say in my honest opinion that the sweet outweighs the bitter. I know there are some that might disagree with me on this. After all, historically, trade shows were designed for manufacturers to show off new gear in hopes of selling more of it to store owners and distributors. Hopefully the business that is written at these shows outweighs the expense in going to the show. However one really can’t dispute the sense of community and camaraderie felt at these events among their attendees.

- OFFER VALID FOR U.S. CUSTOMERS ONLY. IN CANADA? CLICK HERE - 

Holy Portaflex, Batman! During the month of May, you can get some serious cash back when purchasing any Ampeg Portaflex Series bass enclosures from an authorized U.S. Ampeg dealer. Just buy any or all of them and qualify for a cash back rebate of $50 per speaker, no limit.

The PF-210HE and PF-115HE feature the classic flip-top design. Just mount your Portaflex Series bass head to the lid and flip it for convenient storage during transport. You can even store your cables and stuff inside the cab. Nice, right?

Or, check out the PF-410HLF and PF-115LF. These designs are shelf-ported to hit hard and low and can handle some serious power.

The PF-350, PF-500 and new PF-800 love to have two of these cabs hooked up for max power, so be sure to grab a pair. Or don’t. Not sure if that’s legal in your state.

Download the rebate coupon

To receive the rebate:

Purchase an Ampeg Portaflex cabinet from an authorized U.S. Ampeg dealer between May 1, 2013 and May 31, 2013 to qualify for $50 rebate. Your rebate must be postmarked no later than June 15, 2013 to be eligible. Download and mail this fully completed rebate coupon, correctly indicating which product(s) you bought, along with the original box UPC code(s) and a copy of your receipt (keep the original) to the address below. (If you bought floor demos, you must send a copy of a store-printed receipt that indicates “no box”)

Mail the fully completed rebate coupon to:

AMPEG REBATES – ATTN: Ampeg Portaflex Rebate
5235 Mission Oaks Blvd. #211
Camarillo, CA 93012

Questions about this or other Ampeg rebate?

Email rebatesupport@rebate-central.com

Live in Canada? Don’t feel left out. Click here for details.

- OFFER VALID FOR CANADIAN CUSTOMERS ONLY. IN U.S.? CHECK IT - 

During May, you lucky Canadians can get some sweet instant savings on any Ampeg Portaflex Series bass cab. This includes the flip-top PF-210HE and PF-115HE along with the shelf-ported PF-410HLF and PF-115LF.

Check out the Portaflex Series site for full details.

Now get to your local Ampeg dealer to take advantage of this great deal.

Two names…. TONY LEVIN!!!!

Tony has been a long-time friend and endorser of Ampeg going back as far as I can remember. Whether he’s on a huge stadium tour with Peter Gabriel or touring the world with his own highly acclaimed Stick Men, Tony has relied on Ampeg to deliver the goods night after night. Not to mention he’s probably one of the coolest, and most gracious people one could ever meet. Let’s face it…. Tony is an icon in the

world of bass.

On March 5th, 2013, Tony was gracious enough to help us out with a request from Berklee College of Music’s Bass Department Chair, Steve Bailey. Steve is of course another friend of ours and being that I’m personally located just north of Boston, I get to pop in on Steve from time to time to say hello and check out Berklee. During a recent visit back in November while another Ampeg friend and endorser , Hutch Hutchinson was doing a clinic for Kala Basses, Steve had asked if we (Ampeg) would be able to sponsor something like this as it turned out to be such a great event.

One thing lead to another, dates and logistics were passed between all of us and before you knew it, we had a clinic scheduled.

Now, Tony will be the first to tell you that he’s not the type of “clinician” that’s going to sit in front of a bunch of bass players and play a gazillion notes using techniques only a skilled brain surgeon would be comfortable with. But, with Tony, he doesn’t have to do that! Honestly, Tony could sit and groove on an open E string for 20 minutes and we’d all be open-jawed and silent! In fact, I found it kind of funny when I looked out into the audience and saw John Patitucci, Victor Bailey, Bruce Gertz, Steve Bailey, as well as most of the Berklee bass faculty and students watching with content! Personally, I could sit and listen to him play Chapman Stick most of the day and would be content with just that.

Which is actually what he did, he just opened up playing a short piece on Chapman Stick and then opened the floor for discussions and questions. Of course this led to numerous questions and discussions about his work with John Lennon, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and King Crimson which then led to Tony demonstrating some of his most iconic bass lines as well as his now famous “Funk Fingers” where he attaches two modified drum sticks to the ends of his two right-hand plucking fingers.

After two full hours of listening to Tony, the questions were still coming in and he was still going. He never sat down once throughout the entire clinic. Finally, (basically because of scheduling with the room), we had to close out the clinic. But I would say that within those two hours, we had at least a couple of hundred students and faculty come in and hang out for their free time. We also had the opportunity to give away an Ampeg BA-110 bass combo to one lucky student was able to answer the following bass-related question: When Will Lee moved to NYC to fill the bass chair for the band “Dreams” which iconic bass player was he replacing?

Later that month, Tony and his group The Stick Men were touring through New England so I had the opportunity to go see Tony and his group in a very small and intimate venue called Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry NH. His “group” consists of Tony on Chapman Stick, Pat Mastelotto on drums, percussion and just about every form of looper and sequencer you can imagine, and Markus Reuter on “touch guitar”. I gotta tell you, I’ve always loved progressive rock stuff but I never really immersed myself into it. After seeing Stick Men live in such an intimate and awesome sounding room, I’ve been searching the internet for a used Chapman Stick. If you have the rare opportunity to go see Stick Men, go and see them! Even if you’re not a big “prog-rock” fan, you will have a complete appreciation for the musicianship and creativity these guys show. If not for anything, to witness the technical aspects of how three guys can make so much music is amazing in itself!

Now… anyone have a spare Chapman Stick I can borrow???