VAUGHN SKOW's blog

My New Girlfriend

My wife and I just celebrated 20 years of marital bliss ... so maybe I shouldn’t come out with this right now, but it’s true: I’ve fallen for another.  Folks, I’ve found my soul-mate.  Born in 1967, she’s just two years younger than me.  She responds to my touch like none other.  She inspires me; I’m in love!  The best part: my sweet little wife is totally okay with it.  Okay so maybe the new gal is made of wood, but hey, we all have our little faults, right?  So, let me tell you all about my new honey, read on!

As American as Baseball, Apple Pie, and a Fender Strat!

Happy 4^th of July everybody!!!  I was going to blog about the new guitar in my life ... she rocks my world like no other ... but then I realized that this blog was slated to come out on America’s "Independence Day"!  Shoot, what could I do OTHER than gush about the insane gratitude I feel to have been born in the USA?  Oh ye lovers of the United States,READ ON! (Oh, and please post your replies, too!)

Big Boy Amps

Soooo, my wife is a native Southern Tennessee Gal, and she has informed me that the proper southern way to say hello to all of you is as follows:  Hey y’all, whatchew doin? (Your proper response is: Not much, whatchew doin?).  So, Hey y’all, whatchew doin?  Me, I’m a blogging away.  As most of y'all know, many amp builders prefer WGS speakers, from established companies like Burriss, and Paul Reed Smith, down to Mom-n-Pop boutique builders who’s’ production output is only a handful of amps a year ... and, here at WGS, we love ‘em every one!  This week, I’m going to introduce y’all to a builder in the later category; Richard Gordon and his Big Boy Amplifiers.  Richard was kind enough to send me one of his newest designs to play around with, and so this blog will include a video review of the little 3-watt "Big Boy Pocket Rocket".  It’s a cool, and insanely innovative little critter, so READ ON!

Love in the Box - Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together! (Mixing speakers)

We WGS types just can’t ever leave well enough alone.  We love to tweak, re-tweak, and then tweak some more.  Our motto:  If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing!  That’s why we are sometimes not satisfied with simply loading up our 2x12 or 4x12 cab with a set of great sounding speakers; every now and then we tone tweak-heads like to do a little mix-n-matching.  We at WGS have long recommended the pairing of our ultra warm and smooth ET 65 with some of our more gutsy and/or touch-sensitive models.  I personally have gigged with a ET65-Vet 30 combo as well as a ET65-Retro 30 combo (my fav).  I decided it was time to put all of our favorite combos, and some experimental ones, to the test.  Video demos and comments follow.  Read on!

TOTALLY AWESOME! Ya gotta read this...

Hey everybody!  I just received an email from Chris Mahoney, who won my latest speaker giveaway contest.  Read his story HERE.  Anyway, Chris is awesome, and his email was such a blast that I just had to share it with you.  Read on baby, read on!

                    WGS  Speakers Saved My Life and Tone !!!  

TODAY (June 10, 2011) Is A Red-Letter Day!

I'm not talking about Les Paul's 96th birthday observance ... not even the 76th anniversary of the founding of AA.  Nope.  This is a red letter day for the guitar tone freaks of the world ... today is the day WGS begins taking orders for the new and totally awesome Liberator, and Invader!  Order away oh thou faithful!  I'll post video demos of these speakers on my blog soon!

Why Being a DJ Has Made Me A Better Band Leader

At the tender age of 15 I got my first real regular job, as a DJ at KKOJ, our little home-town radio station.  I worked three days a week after school and pulled two long week-end shifts; often I would sign the station on at 5:30am after having had a 9-1am band gig the night before.  I was young and it was awesome!  After graduation I worked another year or two as a DJ at several stations in Minnesota and Iowa.  I also started doing some mobile DJ gigs, mostly wedding dances.  In the last few years I have traveled back to the future, and through the purchase of a large mobile DJ company, Mobile DJ’ing is once again a part of the complex musical fabric that adds up to a living for me.  Lately I’ve been acutely aware of just how much being a DJ has made me a better musician and entertainer.  That’s what I’m going to talk about this week.  Read on!

More of What You Want - WGS comparisons v. 2.0!

Hey everybody!  This week I’m back to comparing some popular WGS models head-to-head.   For the set-up, see last week’s blog.  I sincerely hope these comparisons are a useful aid for all of you in choosing a speaker!  Okay, it’s time to get back to the comparisons!  This week I’ve got some awesome comparison videos on-tap (like the Vet 30/Retro30), Read on!

This week I start by comparing the WGS Reaper to the ET65.  Here’s the video (summery follows):

You Want it, You Got it - WGS speaker comparisons!

Hi yaall!  Okay, so for many months now I’ve been receiving requests to do some vids where I compare WGS models to other similar WGS models.  Some common requests have been "what’s the difference between a Retro 30 and a Veteran 30?", and "how does a Reaper compare to a Green Beret?"   Please dear readers do not for a second allow yourselves to feel as though your requests have been falling on deaf ears!  It’ all in the timing, and I had been kind of wearing the video speaker shoot out thing a little thin.  But now that we’ve taken a nice long break ... it’s time to get back to the comparisons! Read on!

The Numbers Are In!

Thanks to those of you who took the time to complete my little survey, 37 as of my writing this.  A results overview can be viewed here.  This survey asked a few questions about your age, gigs, gear, and level of satisfaction; what I was trying to determine is if there was a trend as far as who was satisfied and who was not; armed with this knowledge, we could all become a little more of the former, and less of the latter!  So what did we discover?  Well, READ ON!