Pedal Power

Today I took myself down to the Swap Shop and braved the guitar nerds to lay claim to my own slice of this orange-bellied baby, the worlds most common-as-muck distortion pedal.

I thought these badmuthas were all much of a muchness but was set straight by a helpful but shy indie-boy customer. Peering from behind his improbable fringe he pointed to two seemingly identical DS1 pedals and asked which one I was plumping for. One of them was missing a dial so I was making a red-hot beeline for the other one.

That's when he told me: ''this one (missing dial) is three years older, it's better cos it was made in Japan. By the time the other one came out, production had shifted to Taiwan." He kinda spat out "Taiwan" with a note of disgust.

I said, "do they sound any different?" and he said "not really, this one's just cooler." They certainly looked identical.

Tending more towards tightarse than audiophile I opted for the $10 cheaper Taiwanese model.

I say, go for it Taiwanese people, only by taking over the manufacturing of cheap electronics from Japan could you protect yourselves from the evil Communist powers that covet your tiny island. And it has all three nobs!

I plugged it in and I sound less like my old self. Which is to say, better. Can't wait till Friday...