Over the past few years, Carr Amplification has enjoyed a staggering amount of high-profile patronage and praise for their '50s- and '60s-inspired circuits. Perhaps it's all that acclaim for those mid-century-style designs that drove founder Steve Carr to develop the Bloke, his tribute to that period in rock 'n' roll history where the pompadours and patchouli of decades past were ditched for sequined dragon suits.
Like any Carr, the Bloke is built with functionality as a primary concern: The 48-watt, EL34-driven 1x12 combo (which can also be ordered as a 2x12 or head) is ferocious sounding, but sensibly sized to meet the needs of modern players who are playing arenas less than they're working in smaller clubs and studios.
Bare Bones and Super Stylish
Like most Carr amps, the Bloke has a rather unconventional aesthetic to make it stand out under the spotlight. Clad in exotic faux gator-hide vinyl, the cabinet is dressed up in neo-classic, mid-century style—part hi-fi, part zoot suit, and part hot rod—that conceals a single 80-watt 12" Carr Elsinore speaker, custom crafted by Eminence.
In the event that you want to use an external cab, there's an output jack and 4, 8, 16 Ω impedance selector mounted next to the two EL34 power tubes. You may also order an optional effects loop, which situates the send and return between the four 12AX7s, so you'll want to take extra care when plugging in your leads to not ding up the tubes.
The main control panel is located on the top of the amp and easy to adjust if you leave the Bloke on the floor. A handful of black chicken-head knobs are arrayed on the white control plate, along a hot-rod script Bloke emblem. The low/hi toggle switch gives you access to the two different gain stages and is located between the two volume (or “loudness") controls.
The lead loudness only affects the lead channel, which can be engaged through the use of the footswitch or toggle, located by the input jack. Drive increases or decreases the preamp gain of the overall output, and will provide considerably more crunch in the hi-gain mode. The interactive treble and mid EQ carves up the tonal top end, while the bass control remains on an independent circuit giving you more control of the low end. Finally, Carr has added a polarity switch built into the on/off/on toggle—a welcome addition for those that have to play venues with suspect wiring.
White Knuckle Tones
The rowdy, whiskey gulpin' visual appeal of the Bloke sets up some pretty serious expectations. Fortunately, the Bloke walks it like it talks it. In low-gain mode, the amp starts to come alive when the gain hits 8 o'clock. If you're a clean freak, make a mental note: This position is about as close as you'll get to anything remotely crunch-free. Once you hit 9 o'clock, you're off to the races and the amp's bite becomes perceptible.
I was able to corner Metallica's opening-note gunfire of “One" with a set of 2k humbuckers on a DeArmond M-75. The low-gain mode seems very rooted in vintage Marshall voicing, and those attributes become more noticeable once you crank the gain knob into the upper regions. This is also where the bass control becomes important—beefing up the bottom end when things get hairy. Since this combo has an open back and a single 12", you'll lose some of the boxy output you get from the closed-back cabinet, where those vintage heads usually nest. But giving that bass a boost with a high dose of gain will give you plenty of compression, and with 48 watts available, you'll likely leave the cabinets at home for most gigs.
The lead channel has a somewhat fixed character, as its only control is loudness. And some players may have limited use for it in low-gain territory, because kicking into lead will give you a serious dose of gain that's glaring against the smooth, clean low-gain sounds. If you like your leads to be leads, however, you'll love the stark juxtaposition and the ability to shock a crowd. A booster pedal may be more appropriate for players who like things a little less dramatic. Though the fact is that you're most likely going to be keeping this thing dirty and the lead channel delivers an extra scoop of gain and sustain that can make your solo soar.
The hi-gain channel explodes from where the low-gain mode steps off, cascading into heavy, hard rock distortion with the gain around noon, which is perfect for Angus Young tones with humbuckers. The basic character remains very much British, but you start to hear the brighter traces of a hot-modded JCM800 or an AOR series Laney.
Ratings
Pros:
Wide range of gain control, unique looks, and a tight EQ.
Cons:
Definitely expensive. Clean headroom is limited.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$2450
Carr Amplification
carramps.com
Single-coils sound especially nasty, brandishing top-end teeth anchored in super-tight bass response—an excellent match for those royal Iron Maiden gallops. My Telecaster needed a bit of treble reduction to round out the output, and I fought like the devil with feedback if I got too close to the Bloke, but the way it hangs at the verge of feedback without squealing is delicious.
The upper-gain regions will get really distorted while allowing each string ample room to sing, and the amp never really lapses into the blocky compression that plagues many modern metal machines. Kicking on the lead channel here turns 20th-fret bends into fireballs. You can also get some mileage out of using the lead as your main output and turning off the footswitch to engage a cranked hi-gain channel. Just be sure to dial the loudness controls for a proper boost blend.
The Verdict
At the end of the day, the Bloke is a powerhouse amplifier that delivers sweet, nasty, and defined tones. All that precision and sweetness does come at a price: $2,450 on the street could get you a pretty nice vintage-voiced stack. But if big amps aren't your thing and very big sounds are, this little combo will be heaven-sent. It's chock full of lush overdrive, raunchy distortion, and a responsive EQ. The Bloke embodies the best bits of all Carr amps—especially creative approaches to better tailoring classic sounds. And now that Carr has ventured well beyond the realm of classic '60s tones, we're stoked to see what's next.
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Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.