I ’ m using , no flavor all-original . But on the Tele especially I like the strings to be real dead , and light ones so it ’ s changier sounding .
[ CG ] What about your latest guitar acquisition ?
[ J . D .] The Tiesco Kingston ? I had started looking when we were on our last European tour right before the end of the year , because I really wanted one . I was wanting the four pickup one like Hound Dog Taylor once used . I didn ’ t find one , but when we got home I saw one on Reverb exactly like what I was looking for . It was at Fanny ’ s House of Music over on the East Side . I ’ ve got the Kingston tuned low and it has real heavy flatwounds on it , like 13 gauge . I wanted it to be kind of like a Pop Staples sounding guitar .
[ CG ] What acoustic guitars are you using currently ?
[ J . D .] I kept running into the Waterloo ’ s out on the road , and I didn ’ t realize that they were Collings guitars initially . I thought they were just some new brand , and I thought they were great . I ended up picking this WL14 guitar out of a whole bunch of them and it has been all over the world with me . It ’ s kind of modeled off of an old Gibson pre-war L00 , or an old Kalamazoo . They ’ re probably the best acoustic being made right now , and they ’ ve got so much character . I have an old DeArmond soundhole pickup from the 50 ’ s that I put in that and I run it through the amps . I gotta ChapStick those strings , they ’ re too bright . I ’ ve gotta Burt ’ s Bees that thing up . ( laughing )
[ CG ] What are your go to amps and pedals now ?
[ J . D .] I ’ m playing through old Super Reverbs ’ these days . It suits me . I use the reverb and the tremolo , and I turn them on and off a lot . The majority of the time it ’ s just straight in . The other two amplifiers in the amp booth are the Epiphone Futura , which is an early 60 ’ s amplifier that I fell in love with ; they ’ re great with a very unique sound . They are over compressed and don ’ t have much projection , but for certain things I think that ’ s cool . I ’ ve got a little 50 ’ s Fender Harvard in there that I ’ m going to use some . On tour I ’ m using black face Super Reverbs because they do what I want . My footswitch is like the most important part of the rig really . Pedal wise I ’ ve got a Wah Wah that I use frequently … a Clyde McCoy that Dunlop is making now . I always used old ones , then the pots in them become microphonic like a pickup . My friend Bryan at Dunlop hipped me to Dunlop reissuing the Clyde McCoy and the thing sounds great . I ’ m also using a 70 ’ s Jax fuzz , which is an old fuzz wah , but I don ’ t use the Wah Wah in it , just the fuzz . I ’ m obsessed with Isaac Hayes album “ Hot Buttered Soul .” Michael Toles , the guitar player on there , has become a hero of mine . The Jax fuzz sounds like him . The other pedal is the Bass Microsynth . I like the bass one because it tracks for bass frequencies , so if you ’ re putting guitar sounds through it , it kind of sputters . Then there ’ s a latency problem because the frequencies aren ’ t set for it , but I like that .
[ CG ] Did plugging straight into your amp and using onboard effects develop because of your Lower Broadway gigs ?
[ J . D .] The easy answer to that is yes . When I was playing with Don , that was when I became more of a minimalist , and it happened over time . When I first started with him I had a board as big as a coffee table , and then I got smaller and smaller , then it got to two or three things . Then one night I wondered , “ What if I use nothing for the whole night … what would that be like ?” After that , I never really went back , because I liked it so much . I liked the way it sounded .
continued on page 22
20 Mar � Apr 2017 CollectibleGuitar . com