Someone from my Tate Street days recently posted some videos of my old band Warehouse playing the last show of Hot Tamales. Hot Tamales was a Mexican restaurant in Greensboro, NC that had shows in the mid-late 1980s. I played with, and saw a lot of amazing bands there; bands like Token Entry, the Vandals, Flat Duo Jets, and even Gwar! Oh yeah… apparently I was pretty good drummer back in the day.
Samsara still resonates today
Some kind words about Catharsis from Brooklyn Vegan:
“North Carolina’s Catharsis released just two albums before breaking up in 2002 (they later reunited, but not for new music), 1997’s Samsara and 1999’s Passion. Both are great, genre-defying works with powerful lyricism that blends the personal and the political (Passion even dabbles in reggae), and either one could have made this list. I went with their debut, on which they knocked it out of the park on first try.” (sic)
Read the whole article, and listen to a ton of great 90s hardcore!
New switches for the MIG-100
Apparently my MIG-100 was all original. The plastic standby switch finally broke a few weeks ago, and I took it to Matt Weed of Atomium Amplification to replace both (the power switch was three-way for some reason). Here is what Matt has to say about them in his post.
Sovtek Mig-100, all original except for the new power/standby toggle switches I installed (the plastic originals are awful and break all the time). Not exactly a Marshall 2203 but very close. The distinctive sound of these amps mostly comes from the circuit tweaks Sovtek made to get more reliable operation from Russian military tetrodes – 2.2k screen resistors, for example, to limit screen dissipation. The B+ is 520V!
I love this amp, it’s loud, sounds great, and takes pedals well. Easily my favorite amp.