THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
FENDER CHAMPION 600
Much to the chagrin of my good friend Rob, I have a new entry into the old blog. There was a short period of time recently that I owned absolutely zero guitar amplifiers. I live in a small place now and had sold my ridonkulously loud Rivera Hundred Duo Twelve. I'm not in a band that requires electric guitars. And lately I've been doing some recording in GarageBand with their all new guitar modeling that is really pretty amazing. Especially considering how cheap it is. So, I was out at my buddy Rob's house and he was thinking about parting with his little Fender Champion 600. He's got a sweet Vox AC30 and lots of room for loudness, so the Champion was really just more for fun for him. He sold it to me for $100 and I was happy to be back in the amp business, no matter how small.
So I had the Champion and was actually playing around with it quite a bit. Last weekend I went to the Swap Meet in Oceanside, CA and found a Korg Toneworks AX3000G modeling pedal thing for a mere $60. This thing is so much fun to play around with. But, again, not something I have a need for. Hence, the reason it is currently on eBay for a really good price. Maybe you might like to get it?
But all this amp playing made me really want to get something a tiny bit more substantial.
If you've read lots of the stories here on this blog you might remember that I'm a big fan of the Fender Blues Jr. amps...perfect combo of size, price, and sound. At least for me anyway. So, I decided to get myself back in the Blues Jr. business.
Just as I was deciding that's what I wanted to do, a guy ran an ad on Craigslist wanting to buy a Fender Champion 600. I emailed him and we struck a deal. I put the amp in a backpack and hopped on my Vespa and even delivered it to him. Voila! Now I have the seed money for a Blues Jr. Maybe once the Korg pedal sells I'll be able to come up with a few extra bucks and get one very soon. I do have to say though, I really like the lacquered tweed models I see pop up on eBay sometimes. However, they are a couple of hundred bucks more than the standard black. And now Fender seems to be putting out some special colored tolex models that match guitars. I've seen a surf green tolex and a red version. Interesting. I guess we'll have to see.