"I had one back in the early 60s and always had trouble with the short cable. When I'd play guitar behind my head like T-Bone Walker - which was all the rage with with East Coast R&B beach bands - the thing would be swinging around about a foot off the ground and even in normal playing circumstances which included dance steps and choreography I'd be dragging it around the stage. I finally cut off the cable and added a female 1/4" jack but my less than stellar soldering skills produced an occasionally intermittant circuit.Later in 1966 when my band opened for the Yardbirds at the Peninsula Auditorium in Hampton,Virginia,Jeff Beck asked to play thru my rig which was the Maestro going thru a Fender reverb unit into a pair of Fender Bandmasters. All went well until the middle of "Heart Full Of Soul" when it cut out completely and he unplugged it and kicked it into the audience - never to be seen again. True story. Throughout the late 60s I tried Mosrite and Vox fuzztones among others without much joy. Then I saw Hendrix play an Arbiter Fuzzface and thought it sounded pretty good so I used one of those till about 1970 when I finally got off the fuzztone kick."
Re: 1960s Sounds of the Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1 FZ-1A Fuzz Tone
Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2020 12:13 pm
by simonm
Love the Jeff Beck story! Some fan probably treasured it for years: Jeff Beck's Fuzz!
Dance steps, choreography and behind-the-head playing also raised a chuckle. I wish more bands these days had more moves/ showbiz*- it's the reason I love the MC5 so much!
*and more fuzz, of course