# Robin Trower



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Listening to a Robin Trower concert I downloaded from the Sugarmegs site ( http://tela.sugarmegs.org/ ) and I can only describe his tone as marvelously "thick". Ridiculously thick. Like spoon stands up your oatmeal thick. Gotta love it. There is also an aspect to his playing and tone that every now and then sounds perilously close to Frank Zappa. Never really noticed it before.


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

I always found RT's tone to be perilously close to Hendrix's. Especially the Uni-Vibe drenched stuff. He seemes to lose his identity when playing the Hendrixy stuff in a way SRV, Jeff Beck and Roy Buchanan don't, to name a few. He's still a monster player though, and he knows his Strats as well as any tech.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

First time I heard Robin Trower I thought it _was_ a weird Hendrix recording. He's a big Hendrix nut right? 
What's he using these days for the vibe thing -- isn't it a Fulltone? 
The album he had out last year (or the year before?) with Jack Bruce was really good.
I'm going to have a dig around that site though - looks like lots of good stuff up there.


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

yeah- robin trower kicks ass.
not so much into it as i used to be, but im no longer into the later hendrix stuff either. small doses of effects laden guitar playing for me please.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Rugburn said:


> I always found RT's tone to be perilously close to Hendrix's. Especially the Uni-Vibe drenched stuff. He seemes to lose his identity when playing the Hendrixy stuff in a way SRV, Jeff Beck and Roy Buchanan don't, to name a few. He's still a monster player though, and he knows his Strats as well as any tech.


Last night I took a few minutes to plug in a Uni-Vibe like circuit I had (A Ross Phaser co-opted to produce Uni-Vibe tones via the appropriate component changes) into a Fuzz-Face-like pedal (Jack Orman's Mos-Face), and even *I* started playing that way. Not quite as good as either RT or JH, obviously, but in that vein. There's just something about that combination that evokes a certain style that's hard to escape. I remember some 38 years ago, going to a guy's house to try out a Firebird I was going to buy from him, and it had the same kind of effect. You couldn't pick it up and NOT play boogie of some type. Same thing 35 years ago when I dropped into the old Rufus' Guitar Shop in Montreal and picked up a 1934 Gibson L-5. I sat down with it, and Charlie Christian started oozing out of my fingers.

Some gear just has this way of coaxing certain styles out of the player, and nudging them away from other styles. Neither Beck nor Buchanan ever used a Uni-Vibe/Fuzzface combination to the best of my knowledge. Partly accounts for why they never got sucked into that vortex.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Listening to a Robin Trower concert I downloaded from the Sugarmegs site ( http://tela.sugarmegs.org/ ) and I can only describe his tone as marvelously "thick". Ridiculously thick. Like spoon stands up your oatmeal thick. Gotta love it. There is also an aspect to his playing and tone that every now and then sounds perilously close to Frank Zappa. Never really noticed it before.


Cool site! I could be on there for hours....and probably will be:smile:


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

Your absolutely right about Beck and Buchanan. I don't think those guys could sound like someone else if they tried. SRV used the Uni-Vibe to great effect for the song "Cold Shot". Dave Gilmour found his own voice with the Uni-Vibe. I'll admit there definetly is a JH vortex using those sounds. I have a Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe. and though I love it for jazz and Danny Gattonesque excursions, add a little hair to the signal and I get a pretty bad case of the
"Jimies".

Cheers Shawn.


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

man i saw him at the london blues fest a few years ago. 

his playing was just fine, and i enjoyed every minute of it. 

he had two old marshall halfstacks absolutely DIMED, and i have to say, that was the most incredible guitar tone i've heard in a very very long while. thick, syrupy, huge.


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2009)

Which show did you download? I feel the urge to undo my Robin Trower virginty.


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

Big fan of Robin Trower here - fantastic guitarist who never really escaped the title of Jimi Hendrix wannabe. For anyone who doesn't have it, I'd recommend picking up Bridge of Sighs. Great songs, great guitar playing and great singing by James Dewar (Scottish!).


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Rugburn said:


> SRV used the Uni-Vibe to great effect for the song "Cold Shot".


I thought that was an actual Leslie (or rather a Vibratone?) set pretty fast? I saw him in the 80s and the stage looked like a vintage amp showroom 

That's a great site - I spent most of last night listening to weird Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

devnulljp said:


> That's a great site - I spent most of last night listening to weird Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd


kkjwpw I recently watched a great documentary on VH1 called "Which One's Pink"?. I Highly recommend it!


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

You may be right dev. I know he loved using a Leslie in combination with his U-V pedal a la Jimi. Here's a few clips that always make me feel like I should go practice.


http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=xfBF4rr7FiA&feature=related

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=RyjtW-rvWoQ&feature=related

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vOuey2_h7oM&feature=related

Hope you like it.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Rugburn said:


> You may be right dev. I know he loved using a Leslie in combination with his U-V pedal a la Jimi. Here's a few clips that always make me feel like I should go practice.
> http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=xfBF4rr7FiA&feature=related
> http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=RyjtW-rvWoQ&feature=related
> http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vOuey2_h7oM&feature=related
> Hope you like it.


Exellent! Although sometimes clips like that make me think I should take up the tuba or something instead...
That slide thing is really wacky, then playing with a towel over the neck? That's not a guitar -- it's part of his body.
Does your microvibe do the leslie vibrato thing? I keep looking for a do-it-all vibe


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

It's OK for that, but IMO the best pedal for Leslie emulation is the Option 5 Destination Rotation. It's handbuilt in the U.S., all analog and priced accordingly.



http://www.option5-online.com/option5.html

Swirly goodness!!


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Rugburn said:


> It's OK for that, but IMO the best pedal for Leslie emulation is the Option 5 Destination Rotation. It's handbuilt in the U.S., all analog and priced accordingly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


IMO the best thing for Leslie emulation is, well, a Leslie 
...all 155lbs of it


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

OK guys - thread hijack warning. 
Leslie recommendations please (I hear one for Leslie 147). Where do you get them -- they're long out of production right? leslies have a power amp but no preamp ... so a lot of it is dead weight if you're using it with a guitar amp...is the vibratone worth hunting for?


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

Well fellas that goes without saying. Pedal EMULATION being the operative term, out of the all digital stuff I've farted around with, this little box smokes 'em. I don't own one, too many other pricey music toys kicking around to justify another....for now! It's actually modelled after the Fender Vibratone. So you only have one rotating speaker sound.


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

Not cheap is right!!


http://www.hammondorganworld.com/index.cfm?siteid=153&itemcategory=28552&priorId=0&ProductId=23528

I'll bet pedals are starting to look pretty good now.lol:smile:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

iaresee said:


> Which show did you download? I feel the urge to undo my Robin Trower virginty.


1986 show at My Father's Place.

When you're done with that, call up the Robben Ford tribute to Paul Butterfield.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

We've been down the Leslie emulation debate road before at the Stompbox forum. I have a Vibra-tone from an old Kawai organ, and I have a Line 6 Tone Core Roto Machine. There is very little in life that nails the swirl of an actual rotating speaker - it's not JUST about the notches, okay?

The Roto Machine is a decent pedal in mono. HOWEVER, when I take my Roto Machine and plug it into *two* amps so that I get the motion, it does a VERY nice job copping the Model 16 Vibratone. And I can say that because I have 'em both!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Incidentally, Derek and Ian, I thought I had fried all those lovely Line 6 pedals when we had our "pedal party". Turns out they are all okay. I had been dreading checking them until the other night, and finally bit the bullet. They were all AOK; it was the adaptor that was the problem.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Incidentally, Derek and Ian, *I thought I had fried all those lovely Line 6 pedals* when we had our "pedal party". Turns out they are all okay. I had been dreading checking them until the other night, and finally bit the bullet. *They were all AOK*; it was the adaptor that was the problem.


Better luck next time 

(BTW, just got my amps back from JC Maillet; looks like he's going to build me a univibe too -- thanks for the recommendation)


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2009)

mhammer said:


> Incidentally, Derek and Ian, I thought I had fried all those lovely Line 6 pedals when we had our "pedal party". Turns out they are all okay. I had been dreading checking them until the other night, and finally bit the bullet. They were all AOK; it was the adaptor that was the problem.





devnulljp said:


> Better luck next time
> 
> (BTW, just got my amps back from JC Maillet; looks like he's going to build me a univibe too -- thanks for the recommendation)


Mark: that's excellent news. Those pedals are very underrated. You'll have to show me the A->B input trick now.

I'll chime in here and say that, in mono, the ModFactor's univibe and leslie sims sound outrageously good. So good I went with the ModFactor instead of the DLS RotoSim or the Destination Rotation Single. Both fine pedals, but the ModFactor had the feel and you got a ton of other cool effects in it too boot.

And: ain't none of it sound as good as the real rotation speaker I heard at Mark's pedal party.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Here's another one of those streaming concert sites.
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/
Looks like a lot of good stuff up there too.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

mhammer said:


> We've been down the Leslie emulation debate road before at the Stompbox forum. I have a Vibra-tone from an old Kawai organ, and I have a Line 6 Tone Core Roto Machine. There is very little in life that nails the swirl of an actual rotating speaker - it's not JUST about the notches, okay?
> 
> The Roto Machine is a decent pedal in mono. HOWEVER, when I take my Roto Machine and plug it into *two* amps so that I get the motion, it does a VERY nice job copping the Model 16 Vibratone. And I can say that because I have 'em both!


I was getting very convincing Leslie tones out of my Foxrox TZF flanger the other night.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The Foxrox TZF is an *excellent* pedal, and kudos should be given to Dave Fox for being the first person (or at least first in a long time) to produce a commercial thru-zero flanger. The samples he sent me way back during development were absolutely delicious. Can't say enough good things about it, and I'm glad you're in the same boat.

Having said that, if you haven't played with a REAL rotating speaker, you're missing something. Tim Larwill, who makes the Retro-Sonic pedals, and whose CE-1 clone has been very well received, was over at my place a year or two back. I asked him if he had ever actually played through an actual rotating speaker, and the answer was "No". Now, Tim has a good ear for tone, so his products are well done. But when he finally played through a rotating speaker, I had to pick the pieces of brain tissue off the carpet after his mind was blown. He was entirely unprepared for the experience.

Mono does not do justice to these things, and anyone who regularly uses one will tell you (as some have here) that no solid-state simulator that puts out a signal you plug into ONE amp can do justice. Leslie's have a LOT more going on than mere Doppler effect, and ramp-up/ramp-down. As the rotor points away from you, there is a slight amplitude modulation and a slight lowpass filtering effect. And, of course, there is the spatial aspect as well. A good Leslie emulation will include ramp-up/ramp-down, and conceivably the filtering effect of the dual rotors and such. But unless you make use of the spatial aspect through dual amplifiers, it is - as they use to say about some things - like taking a bath with your socks on.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

mhammer said:


> The Foxrox TZF is an *excellent* pedal, and kudos should be given to Dave Fox for being the first person (or at least first in a long time) to produce a commercial thru-zero flanger. The samples he sent me way back during development were absolutely delicious. Can't say enough good things about it, and I'm glad you're in the same boat.
> 
> Having said that, if you haven't played with a REAL rotating speaker, you're missing something. Tim Larwill, who makes the Retro-Sonic pedals, and whose CE-1 clone has been very well received, was over at my place a year or two back. I asked him if he had ever actually played through an actual rotating speaker, and the answer was "No". Now, Tim has a good ear for tone, so his products are well done. But when he finally played through a rotating speaker, I had to pick the pieces of brain tissue off the carpet after his mind was blown. He was entirely unprepared for the experience.
> 
> Mono does not do justice to these things, and anyone who regularly uses one will tell you (as some have here) that no solid-state simulator that puts out a signal you plug into ONE amp can do justice. Leslie's have a LOT more going on than mere Doppler effect, and ramp-up/ramp-down. As the rotor points away from you, there is a slight amplitude modulation and a slight lowpass filtering effect. And, of course, there is the spatial aspect as well. A good Leslie emulation will include ramp-up/ramp-down, and conceivably the filtering effect of the dual rotors and such. But unless you make use of the spatial aspect through dual amplifiers, it is - as they use to say about some things - like taking a bath with your socks on.


True, There are just too many dimensions to the Leslie sound that make it impossible to reproduce. Remember that the Leslie sound source is not fixed...it's moving at all times therefore sound is not only flying around out of the horn and rotor, it's bouncing of walls, chairs, people etc etc so sound is hitting your ears at different rates...and what's even cooler is that if you move your position the overall sound will change too.
Unfortunately, all that is lost when the Leslie is up on stage and mic'd away from the audience....then it's more like a pedal although IMO still the best sounding one of the lot:smile:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

And to follow that, not all rotating speakers are the same either. The Vibra-tones rotate on the vertical plane (like a propeller facing you), where the larger dual-rotor units rotate on the horizontal plane (away from and towards you). I imagine the experience is different.

The other thing people forget is that a real Leslie is more or less a post-production effect. Where a flanger or simulator comes *before* your amp and speakers, a true Leslie takes the sound produced by a tube amp and speakers and THEN spins it around. So, where a true Leslie does something to/with all the natural output transformer and speaker coloration (just the way a producer might if they were superimposing an effect over top of a track already laid down), a simulator pedal creates the effect but is then altered by the amp itself, and anything else that might intervene between pedal and amp. There's a difference.

The Line 6 Roto-Machine comes with a Drive control that adds more grind as you crank it up, in an attempt to mimic what a true Leslie does. Unfortunately, it is tied to the actual output level so that you can't get more grind without getting more output. Dang.


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

How difficult can something like this be to build? It seems to me the motor that spins (rotor) would have to be rock solid, but otherwise it's just a cab and a speaker(s) right? I'm sure there must be some schematics on the net.
The price of a new production Leslie is a little prohibitive for me. 

Shawn.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Rugburn said:


> How difficult can something like this be to build? It seems to me the motor that spins (rotor) would have to be rock solid, but otherwise it's just a cab and a speaker(s) right? I'm sure there must be some schematics on the net.


I could be wrong, but I think you need to track down some of this too










(There are a whole squad of schematics here but they all look like random subway maps to me...if mhammer hasn't built one, damn sure I wouldn't even think about trying)


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Rugburn said:


> How difficult can something like this be to build? It seems to me the motor that spins (rotor) would have to be rock solid, but otherwise it's just a cab and a speaker(s) right? I'm sure there must be some schematics on the net.
> The price of a new production Leslie is a little prohibitive for me.
> 
> Shawn.


Shawn...

Here's a little secret for ya...ever look on buy and sell sites? Of course you do! Whenever you see one of those cheezy Lowery, Conn, Thomas, Hammond, Bladwin etc etc organs from the '60's or '70's...Some models have a built in Leslie!...If you're willing to deal with the other stuff and have a way of gettin it out of the persons house, you can get these babies cheap...
Then all you do is make a small cab to house it in as the Leslie in those organs comes out as an assembled unit.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

devnulljp said:


> I could be wrong, but I think you need to track down some of this too
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah yes Lars...a very good friend of mine and fellow Hammond disciple. He has THE best site on the net when it comes to Hammonds and Leslies.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

nonreverb said:


> Shawn...
> 
> Here's a little secret for ya...ever look on buy and sell sites? Of course you do! Whenever you see one of those cheezy Lowery, Conn, Thomas, Hammond, Bladwin etc etc organs from the '60's or '70's...Some models have a built in Leslie!...If you're willing to deal with the other stuff and have a way of gettin it out of the persons house, you can get these babies cheap...
> Then all you do is make a small cab to house it in as the Leslie in those organs comes out as an assembled unit.


Excellent advice. That's exactly what I did with the Vibra-tone I have. It came out of a Kawai organ (actually, it came out of Phil Bova's basement, but lived in a Kawai organ before that).

Type in "Build a rotating speaker" into Google and you'll find lots of ideas. Go here: http://hammer.ampage.org/?cmd=lt&xid=&fid=&ex=&pg=2 and you'll see two examples of small vibra-tone type rotating units, and two different types of moving baffle structures (you'll need to scroll down a bit).


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Incidentally, you do realize that what came to be the Uni-Vibe was initially intended to be a small more portable Leslie emulation?

The first incarnation was - please forgive me, this is NOT intended to be a cheap racist joke - the Shin-Ei Resley-Tone http://tix.gozaru.jp/shin-ei/rt-18.html followed by the Resly Machine http://tix.gozaru.jp/shin-ei/reslymachine.html (that looks conspicuously like the first 3-button Maestro Phase Shifter).


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

bagpipe said:


> Great songs, great guitar playing and great singing by James Dewar (*Scottish*!).


Wha's like us?
Damn few - And they're a' deid

[youtube=Option]5afCwO8JxP4[/youtube]


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Excellent advice. That's exactly what I did with the Vibra-tone I have. It came out of a Kawai organ (actually, it came out of Phil Bova's basement, but lived in a Kawai organ before that).


So, how do you know which ones to bother going to look at? I see a bunch of those things all the time on local CL for everything from free to several hundred $$ but I'd hate to go to the bother of getting a van to go pick it up and find out it's not got the goods inside.
And what do you do with the rest of the organ? Drive by the dump on your way home? Can you just pull out the leslie and plug it in? 
I'm guessing the deals are the "Old organ for sale $50. U-haul" while the ones with model Nos. that say"with leslie" know what they've got and sell for more (an informal scout around suggests this to be the case). 
I'd love to see someone's face when you turn up to buy a thing like that, hand them some cash, pull out a screwdriver (or a powersaw?) and walk away with the speaker...


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

devnulljp said:


> So, how do you know which ones to bother going to look at? I see a bunch of those things all the time on local CL for everything from free to several hundred $$ but I'd hate to go to the bother of getting a van to go pick it up and find out it's not got the goods inside.
> And what do you do with the rest of the organ? Drive by the dump on your way home? Can you just pull out the leslie and plug it in?
> I'm guessing the deals are the "Old organ for sale $50. U-haul" while the ones with model Nos. that say"with leslie" know what they've got and sell for more (an informal scout around suggests this to be the case).
> I'd love to see someone's face when you turn up to buy a thing like that, hand them some cash, pull out a screwdriver (or a powersaw?) and walk away with the speaker...


Well, That's where a little investigation begins. There are lots of places on the web to get info about organs. Of course some of it will be guess work.
My suggestion would be, pick the organs that are the cheapest and start calling the owners to get more information. When you fiind one that's got a Leslie in it, then you can make an appointment to see the organ and possibly make an offer.
Getting the Leslie out of the organ isn't hard. They were made by the Leslie factory as a stand alone unit that bolts into the organ. 
The next step is to make the connectors and the case to house it in. If you have some patience and time it can be done fairly easily....as for the rest of the organ, strip it of any useful parts and dump it:smile:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The Vibra-tone rotating baffle was part of the under-the-console cabinet structure. So, if the speakers are under the keyboard area, and the person says the cabinet is actually fairly deep, then there is a reasonable likelihood that it contains a rotating baffle. A shallow speaker cabinet would likely have the speaker/s facing outward or inward.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Here's a typical example in my area...this organ has been advertised on and off for about 3 months now. The price keeps falling and I'll bet it could be had for less as the current owner needs to get rid of it. This organ is also the last tonewheel type made...be worth keeping it in tact....IMO


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

http://ottawa.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-s...ORGAN-Hammond-Organ-T-582-A-W0QQAdIdZ99740554

here's the address


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Hey! How'd that ad get inserted into my post? (or do you folks not see that shopzilla thing?) I don't mind ads, but I do mind being portrayed as being associated with an ad.

Hmmm, it's gone now. How'd that happen?


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## Spikezone (Feb 2, 2006)

bagpipe said:


> Big fan of Robin Trower here - fantastic guitarist who never really escaped the title of Jimi Hendrix wannabe. For anyone who doesn't have it, I'd recommend picking up Bridge of Sighs. Great songs, great guitar playing and great singing by James Dewar (Scottish!).


One of my all-time favourite albums!
-Mikey


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