New York Amp Show 2012 "Tone Wizards" Panel
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NY AMPSHOW 2012 “tone wizards” panel
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Article 8
Blackie has re-done three amps for me. A Pro, a Deluxe and an old 50’s Gibson that GE Smith tried to buy while it was in the shop. His repairs are legit. Took the silverface 70’s Pro and made it rage like a 60’s Blackface Twin…..Thanks Blackie, wish I still lived in NYC…
todd ahrens
ny, ny
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The Audiophiliac
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the wild magazine
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Video Profile – nyorkers.com
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The Atlantic Magazine
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PREMIER GUITAR MAGAZINE: The Guitar as Cultural Icon
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Stereolith
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STEREOPHILE MAGAZINE…THE PERFECT STORM BASS PREAMP
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THE PERFECT STORM BASS PREAMP
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Article 9
Blackie, the amp sings more than it ever has–you’re a legend!
Woody Nitibon
BY, NY
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NY AMPSHOW 2012 “tone wizards” panel
New York Amp Show 2012 "Tone Wizards" Panel
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Article 8
Blackie has re-done three amps for me. A Pro, a Deluxe and an old 50’s Gibson that GE Smith tried to buy while it was in the shop. His repairs are legit. Took the silverface 70’s Pro and made it rage like a 60’s Blackface Twin…..Thanks Blackie, wish I still lived in NYC…
todd ahrens
ny, ny
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The Audiophiliac
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The Wild Magazine – Blackie Pagano Profile
the wild magazine erasing borders, categories and limitations
the wild magazine / erasing borders, categories, and limitations on the web (click here)
What’s on his mind today:
Today… that’s a huge time frame in my mind when I’m not actually working on something with my hands. My mind seems to run in two predominant modes. There’s a very focused and intuitive mindzone when I’m building, repairing a piece of audio gear, playing music or writing where an entire day can fly by in a moment, but my hands have to be in on that game. When I’m done there’s something really concrete and satisfying at the other end, something that feels like it might last forever. In the other mode, I’m gathering, social, drifting through very tangential topics in long conversations, making odd connections while staring into space walking down the street, looking at everything and seeking details, art, music, people, materials, places, Facebook; finding maximum stimulation everywhere. It’s more like, “What’s on your mind this moment?”
What he is currently working on:
A really over-the-top ukelele amplifier build named “Lolitacore.” Initially inspired by a former girlfriend in Los Angeles, Heidi Core, this build was brought into focus by a chance meeting and conversation in a Brooklyn DIY venue with a New York musician, Rachel Trachtenburg, who has a band named SUPERCUTE!. Design elements include candy apple pink paint, candy wrappers, jewels, gold lame’, plexiglas, and a one-off screen printed fabric by a brilliant new fabric designer, Ashley Strout. My favorite builds all embody a tension of stark opposites.
Beneath the style it’s form-follows-function as all good industrial design must be. I don’t make things for attics or landfills. There are also a number of vintage amps and hi-fis in my repair queue.
What he thinks there is too much of, and too little of:
There isn’t too much or too little of anything. That’s a foolproof law of nature, no matter what I think.
With whom he would like most to go on a ” tête à tête”:
Trick question! With social networks, I have access to almost anyone alive. I’ll pick a dead person… J.G. Ballard.
His most striking moment:
That’s a hell of a thing to try to answer. I’ve been a street junkie, father, touring rock musician, mechanic, adored, villianized, electrocuted, wooed. Hopefully my most striking moment hasn’t happened yet and won’t result in death.
What he considers a fashion “faux-pas”:
Letting your clothes wear you. Everything else works. Style is one of the deepest and most accessible personal expressions. Don’t waste it, say something real!
What kind of movement he would like to start:
A movement that has no rules, that allows complete personal freedom. An anarchy of expression. Everyone’s a genius at something.
Blackie Pagano’s WILD Wish:
To erase borders, categories, and limitations.
text by: teena kang
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Video Profile – nyorkers.com
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The Atlantic Magazine
click image for web link
“They turn music into fire and back into music again,” Blackie Pagano says, quoting The Cramps’ Lux Interior on vacuum tube amplifiers. Pagano, who has spent his life dismantling and restoring gadgets, describes his work in this short documentary from New Yorkers. His client list, available on his website, includes everyone from David Bowie to the Jonas Brothers. However, the celebrity clientele “does NOT mean I am rich, snotty, over-priced, or inaccessible,” Pagano says. “Most clients are working or practicing musicians or audiophiles.”
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PREMIER GUITAR MAGAZINE: The Guitar as Cultural Icon
click image for web link
Reflecting on the guitar’s enduring ability to speak for new generations, amp builder and restorer Blackie Pagano points out that, “When you look at a Fender Stratocaster, which was designed in the 1950s, it still looks modern.” For young artists, it may also be a connection to the past. By strapping on a guitar—and thus donning an iconic musical costume—they can conjure up some vintage mojo.
Pagano sees the guitar’s innate ability to channel the performer’s personality as its strength. “In the end, it’s what you can get out of it, and I’ve seen guys do amazing things with stuff you’d pull out of the trash.” When pressed to explain why the guitar remains popular today, even with tech-savvy young artists, Pagano says with a laugh, “Even the junk of yesterday is more interesting to use than today’s best technology.”
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Stereolith
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STEREOPHILE MAGAZINE…THE PERFECT STORM BASS PREAMP
My friend and renowned tube polymath J.C Morrison says, “Blackie Pagano is sweet, smart, and has a devious sense of humor . . . (that I love). His work is reliable and he has years of experience keeping every imaginable band functioning in the gutted rock holes of NYC. Not only all that, but he is also a musician . . .”
1992: Back in the days of Don Garber’s “Fi” at 30 Watts Street in New York, there existed a loose conglomerate of scruffy solderers that outsiders called “The New York Triode Mafia.” They built experimental directly heated triode amps coupled to unconventional tapered-pipe, horn-loaded or open-baffle speakers. The inner circle “Scruffies” consisted of Garber, J.C. Morrison, Noriyasu Komuro, Tadataka Uchida, Steve Berger, myself, and Blackie Pagano (who we had to keep on the fringe because he had so much un-scruffy Lower East Side tattooed fashion).
When Fi closed, this little scene evolved into these international, annually convened, conventions of independent amp designers, called “New York Noise.” Blackie (who had more of a Neat intelligence) was an important force in NY Noise. He brought a refined bespoke audio mindset to a group that fared better with steampunk soldering irons than steam laundry irons.
1996: What was NY Noise? Just imagine Japanese women in Kimonos playing music on cell phones driving walls of Marshall amps. Picture 3-watt amplifiers with six tubes and no chassis! Imagine a former Stanton Street bodega named Arlene’s Grocery filled with oscilloscope readers and profligate hipsters giving each amp builder his (or her) 15 minutes of fame. As long as I can remember Blackie has been the New York tube audio equivalent of Jim Jarmusch or William Burroughs.
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