The Best Things in Life Are Free...

... but not this organ. As many of my constant readers know, I'm a big fan of that vintage Hammond organ sound. To that end, in the past I acquired two vintage organs for free I've been playing around on. The problem is getting that great sound out to the gig without getting a hernia in the process - these beasts weight 250# and up. To remedy that issue, I bought a "chopped" Hammond M2 from Ed, the keyboard player in local blues band Curtis and the Kicks (www.curtisbluz.com), for the princely sum of $100. A chopped organ has had most of its cabinet removed to save weight and space. As you'll see from the pics, this organ has been kicked around some. Ed told me this organ (the first one he ever owned) has been dropped down a flight of stairs, had beer poured on it, knocked off the stage, etc., and still keeps on working; it's living proof of the engineering that went in to these organs and that these old Hammonds are bullet-proof. I'd like to think that each nick, scratch and ruined corner has a story to tell (it has the chords to "Smoke on the Water" scratched into the cabinet, for God's sake!), so I'm not gonna pretty it up too much. It's just a basic spinet, 44 keys and 17 drawbars to color the tone - no power amp, vibrato, percussion, etc, but it still puts out great sound. And the sound I'm talking about is raw, bass heavy, overdriven - kind of like the Hammond sound in this Kingsmen record. It's a good thing they're lip-syncing to the original recording, as in concert they tended to use a Vox Continental, which is a poor substitute for the Hammond C3 shown in this video. Thanks again to Ed for the organ, and keep on rockin'!



Not too much "under the hood" here...



Been kicked around some...



... Still plays great (home made "Leslie" speaker switch shown at left)!