Junior, Hi

Welcome the new member of the family.

Say "Hi" to Junior!

The Fender Blues Junior amp, that is.

With the prospect of more gigs on the horizon, I needed a better amp than the little 30-watt Traynor practice amp I had. And even though Junior is only a 15-watt amp, that's 15 watts of tube-powered sound, which makes him a lot louder than you'd think. It's plenty loud for playing clubs, where it'll be miked anyway, and it's actually better for my apartment-dwelling needs. The Traynor, which is a solid state amp, needs to be played at a certain volume level to really get a vibe going (and even then I didn't really like the sound of the overdrive channel or the cheap-sounding reverb), and the amount of volume required pretty much makes it an eviction box. The Blues Junior, on the other hand, sounds nice even at relatively low volume, thanks to the warmth of the tubes and the natural overdrive. So it really represented the best amp for my needs: enough power for gigging -- not too heavy -- but not too loud for apartment-dwelling realities.

And the sound is wonderful. I've never had a tube amp before (never owned a Fender amp before, either), but I've always read and heard about that "classic tube sound", "warmth" and "tone", and I gotta say, I'm now a tube convert. It's perfect for the kind of music I play, and will be playing with Boag: blues, soul, country, vintage rock. I tested it at the store (Ring Music on Harbord near Spadina), playing it through a nice, warm-sounding Gretsch Country Gentleman (the closest thing they had to my Epiphone, though not exactly the same sound) and with a spanky Telecaster, and it sounded great with both. When I brought it home and plugged my Epi into it, I was not disappointed. Beautiful ringing overdrive, just enough nastiness around the edges, nice clean tone, warm. Dial in just the right anount of reverb and you're smack dab in the middle of that classic, bluesy-rock guitar sweet spot.

I'm one happy tube-head.

And get this: all the dials go to 12! Take that Nigel!