GEAR TALKIN'™️ #18: Rickenbacker M-30 Ek-O-Sound

+ Heroes (Single Version) [David Bowie cover]

You’re in for a treat today! I’m gonna re-share this post the next time someone asks me what it’s like to spend a day at The Loft. It goes a little like this…

Walk away from a conversation with Mark thinking, “Is this a joke or are you serious?” to run into Jeff playing/singing something impossibly beautiful. Send an email. Repeat. It’s a lot of fun.

BTW, I will be with the band in Tulsa this week, and, no promises, but I’m going to try to put together another video diary, so let me know in the comments if there are tour-specific things you’d like to see, or questions you’d like to ask, I’ll try my best! —Crystal!!

It’s interesting when certain sounds become synonymous with a certain genre of music. Like the strummy/noodle-y mandolin in Bluegrass… the blazing Roland 808 drum machine in Trap… the shrill screeching bird sounds in Beakcore… and for our purposes today, the slapback delay sound in Rockabilly and early Rock and Roll. It’s the sound you get with a quick single repeat/delay, most often created by a magnetic tape loop that replays what’s been played or sung a split second after the original sound occurs, giving it a hard, reflective sound. Think Eddie Cochran or Gene Vincent’s vocal sound. SLAP! Think Les Paul or Scotty Moore’s guitar sound. SLAP! And think of even later artists who started from that same roux like the Poison Ivy from The Cramps or X’s Billy Zoom. SLAP!

Jeff’s rare Rickenbacker M-30 Ek-O-Sound amplifier.

This effect started as a studio trick using playback from a different recorder head and the sound was so sexy and visceral that those who heard it couldn’t do without it. Try pointing to a recording on Sun Records that doesn’t use some form of slapback. Bet you five doll-hairs you can’t! When artists started to want to reproduce this effect on stage and needed a portable slapback machine, electronic tinkerers like Cairo, IL’s Ray Butts went to work. Ray thought it would be smart to include a tape loop mechanism INSIDE a guitar amplifier and for some reason, nobody told him that was nuts. So he did it.

Enter his EchoSonic amplifier. The big hitters of the day all lined up. Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Sam Phillips, Scotty Moore, and Carl Perkins… All folks that would help make slapback a household… um… sound. Butts handmade and hardwired around 70 of these slap-in-the-box EchoSonics before practically losing the feeling in his fingertips so he licensed the idea to Rickenbacker who produced their own production model, the M-30 Ek-O-Sound. I read that the company manufactured fewer than 200 of these amps before other portable tape delay options (the Echoplex and Binson Echorec among others) became more available making this big and heavy, all-in-one amplifier a bit impractical for weak-backed guitarists. So here it sits on the ever-growing pile of antiquated yet amazing sound-makers, rarities, and holy grails lost to time and practicality, yet retaining their unique place, sound and moment… and whose rarity draws collectors like flies to… I dunno… delicious well-prepared fly food, I guess.

We salute Ray Butts who, by the way, never rested on his laurels (yeah, that’s as close as I’ll get to making a funny-haha on his last name) and went on to invent what many call the very first humbucker pickup.

Jeff got his 1960 Rickenbacker M-30 Ek-O-Sound years ago, checking off a very large box on his dream list. It’s not in the best shape, and even though we’ve had two very detail-oriented amp techs work on it, I’m still not sure it would pass a field sobriety test in its current state. That said, the sounds that come out of this amp are like no other. So, it’s got that going for it, for better or worse.

This Week in Wilco, Etc.

2015 / December 5: Jeff is a special guest of Dinosaur Jr. at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. He joins in for the Neil Young song “Cortez the Killer” and Dinosaur Jr.’s own “Tarpit.”

1993 / December 8: Uncle Tupelo plays an 18-song set at the Born to Choose Benefit organized by Rykodisc at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston along with the Blood Oranges and Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow.

2022 / December 9: Jeff, Glenn, and John appear on Carpool Karaoke with Nikki Glaser on Apple TV.

2006 / December 12: At a Letters to Santa show at Second City in Chicago, Jeff plays “Passenger Side” and “What Light.” Other performers that evening include Robbie Fulks, Jon Langford, Sally Timms, and The Blisters.

1991 / December 14: Uncle Tupelo opens for Danny Gatton with a 13-song set at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC.

Heroes (Single Version) [David Bowie cover]

You may remember Jeff’s version of “Heroes” from a few years back. Here’s a newly recorded version based on Bowie’s single!