a picture of a minuteman amp taken by a minuteman!
guitar safari proprietor dirk vandenberg holding a mid-60s gibson ga-20rvt “minuteman” guitar amp at his shoppe in san pedro earlier today. he was w/me in the fuckin’ 80s when I found it (only one real reason I was attracted: the amp’s name!) at the harbor college swap meet in nextdoor wilmington for very tiny dinero but damn if I ever even tried to turn it on and it got buried by crap in my prac pad ’til just found and so I made a donate to the man most deserving of it in my life: dirk. so the circle remains unbroken even though the amp might be just that: broken. no worry the man is gonna find out… and he gets shit happening, believe you me! I can’t tell how many things he’s gotten together for me! but this amp is for him and speaking of photos – remember dirk is the cat who took the “double nickels on the dime” cover shot, respect.
meanwhile, down the street and across the channel on terminal island…
the ‘pert-near empty tanker “mindoro star” has arrived to “protect the environment” (ignore that bilge you think you’ve spotted, thank you) so please don’t smoke. I saw this baby moved up the channel backwards by two tractor tugs (amazing technique, using their horn toots to work together) while I was paddling my kayak yesterday at the crack of dawn, crimony!
photos by mike watt
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