TCB day.

Dropped Triniti off at Spellbound Studio for her weekly Reiki trade with Karen Slafter. Picked up a consignment check for some furniture and went to drop off my JCM800 for a much-needed retube and do some gear-hunting. More like recon. Need to replace the rackmount Fender TB-600 with somthing that won't blow the speakers clean out of my cabinets.

At South Austin Music where I dropped my 800 off was going to buy a shirt when Billy the owner said "Take it." That was fucking awesome, made my day! Caught up with Billy in the office to thank him. I got my 800 there 10 years ago, have sold several pedal boards I built as well. Guess he was saying thanks in return. You don't get that kinda service at Guitar Center.

Talked to Ray Hennig for a bit trying to find out a little about my Dietz 2x15, if I could research the serial number and find out when it was made, as Heart of Texas Music has been making Dietz since the late 60's. Damn interesting conversation, tho I didn't really get my question answered, heh.

Didn't really see any promising bass gear there, at South Austin or at Austin Vintage. That TB-600 is a damn good amp so don't want to replace with something that I wouldn't mind gigging with. But rackmountable-ness is high on my priority list for a backup amp. Hmmm...

Picked Triniti up and we went to take pics at Wire Recording, where Tim Abbott's album is being mastered and Matt Smith was overseeing as producer. Awesome getting to hang out with him and Stuart. Turns out I've been there few years back, Shandon was doing a late-nite session and I played acoustic guitar on a few tunes. Anyway, awesome non-descript place. Gold records on the wall from the albums Sublime and Meat Puppets did there. But alas our stay was brief as we had lots of other shit to do.

Looking around on the Bass Emporium website (ATX music shop) I came across the SVT-IIP rackmount tube preamp, basically the pre-amp circuit of my stricken SVT-II... all i'd need is a tube (or gasp, solid state) power amp and I'd have quite a mean backup. Something to look into.

Something else I need to look into is my overdrawn Bank of America account. Seems McAfee active shield decided to renew itself without my consent, which put my checking into the negative. Gee thanks, guys.