Amp options in the early 70s for a teen were, well, crap if you were lucky but mostly non existent. There was no chance in hell of owning any top branded valve stuff - Selmer, Wem, HiWatt, Marshall, Fender, Vox. In fact even the branded trannie stuff of the day was pretty shit and rare. You expected to hear hum, hiss and wasp-in-a-can Zizzzz and even if was loud, it was nasty loud.
Mostly gear got handed around 'on a borrow', exchanged hands endlessly (as guys couldn't pay the HP, or needed a car or HAD to get married!) and consequently became battered, mistreated and never serviced - was nowhere to go to anyway so if needed a repair we would all have a bash!.
Still we all tried to sound like the greats with our Kimbaras, Avons, Shaftesburys and Zizzzzer-hum amps (often made worse by the ultra treble shrill pedals of the day).
In fairness, my Audition amp from Woolies has stood the test of time but only mainly cos it has just done that - stood.
There was an occasion I nearly, very nearly bought a Marshall - around 1975 - was a 5212 Master Lead Combo 50w twin on castors. Was on sale in ABC Music in Addlestone for £99. Was the first ever in the flesh Marshall I had seen in a shop. I used to go and crouch down and stroke it, daydreaming at how super-God-like I would sound through this instead of the Woolies amp... and how the girls would swoon cos had Marshall emblazoned. Sadly my Mother was horrified at the prospect of such a big loud amp coming into the home and refused to let me buy it.
Just as well probably cos was bound to have been a right old pile of crap...
<Vintage BOSS Upgrades>
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The first proper Marshall I saw anyone I knew using was the much-underrated Club & Country combo - which was a tasteful shade of shit brown, but actually sounded very good.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
My first electric was in 1982 (after saving up pocket money and earnings from Saturday jobs) was a Hondo Les Paul with some no-name amp with a 6" speaker. Another year and another round of saving bought me a Fender Sidekick 15w tranny amp. I don't have the Les Paul, that got traded for my G&L SC3 in around 1987/88, but I do have the Sidekick. It's in my garage and does sterling work when I am fettling guitars and need to hear them.
People either forget (or never knew about) the dire quality of 1970's and 80's "name" gear. That's why the asian guitars took off, and why G&L were able to get a start.
They're a really poor hybrid design with a crude transistor preamp and a single EL84 mounted directly on (and under) the PCB and with no ventilation at all, so they cook the board and eventually burn right through it. And even when they're working they sound shit - the transformers are the wrong spec, left-overs from a different design, and the rectifier is a crude single diode so they hum badly. They were apparently intended for the mail-order catalogue market - presumably so no-one could try one in a shop before NOT buying it . Not much in the way of Distance Selling Regulations in those days.
I had one which I paid £25 for in the early 90s, not working - thinking it was something rare and worth fixing - but the PCB was so badly fried that I just gutted it and built a simple valve amp circuit into it instead.
You still see optimists trying to sell them for as much as £250, but they're really almost worthless unless completely rebuilt.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
We were getting £50 each every night in a three-piece and I never paid more than £120 for a head, so the bassist and I had a couple of half stacks each.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Thank goodness, in 1972, my paper Round money help me upgrade to a, Freemans catalogue, 'Leo' 5w combo... with tremolo. That 8" egg shaped speaker was my passport to sonic heaven. Laid flat on the floor over a feather pillow gave me instant 'T-Rex Get it on' tone. Until my Dad came in complaining "Barney Kessel don't make a row like that!"
I also remember a set of instructional cassettes - was it Fastfingers? Anybody remember those?
I traded the Jedson for a Harmony Les Paul shaped thing which was still crap, but at least playable.