Wednesday, June 15, 2011

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)!

2 comments:

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

Now wait just one minute. Are you trying to tell me that Charlie Mac spent ... money on ... something ... cool?

I'm having a hard time processing this -- this irresponsible and -- and ... RECKLESS splurge!

Aren't there some old widows in North Dakota or someplace who you could sweet talk into letting you take their Hammond off their hands for ... you know, FREE?

But OK, I'll forgive you just this ONE time on just ONE condition -- please post a video of yon Hammond in action: raw, bass heavy, overdriven! :-)

And in all seriousness, Great Post, Mr. Mac -- & great photos & vid to boot!

Charlie_Mac said...

Yeah, had to do it, this thing was too cool - there was talk of a free Hammond in Washington, IL, where I'll be on 7-1, jammin' with my college bud Bob at Merkel's, but I'd rather not haul that thing home (there was no guarantee that it actually worked, either). Hey, I understand that you and Mrs. Who sold your humble abode - way to go! On the other hand, that's one step closer to you all vacating the premises...:<(