Psychedelic speakers
4 min read
WHEN YOU THINK of marijuana and rock ‘n’ roll, chances are your head may fill with images of pot smoke in backstage dressing rooms or clouds of pungent sinsemilla rising from the crowd at a Grateful Dead concert.
But now, processed as hemp, good old grass has another new, inventive and legal use in rock music.
A San Rafael company is marketing an ingenious new speaker, called a Tone Tubby, featuring cones made of hemp — as a substitute for paper — for guitar and bass amplifiers.
The cones are the vibrating part of a speaker, and Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Jimmy Herring, Los Lonely Boys, ZZ Top and Warren Haynes are among the rock stars who
use them and swear by their sweet sound.
In a testimonial, R.E.M.’s Pete Buck says they’ve given him “the coolest, most authentic early ’60s garage band tone. I’m definitely a convert.”
John Harrison, a veteran Marin rock musician and speaker repair man, hit on the idea for hemp cones for speakers in guitar and bass amps a decade ago, but they are just now coming into national music industry consciousness.
He swears his invention was inspired by his understanding that the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper, but he also admits there may have been some hemp smoke involved in his brainstorm.
“I was coming home from a Tubes gig, and I thought, ‘Hemp has been around for 200 years,
and, man, I’d like to try it for a cone,” he recalled.
To test his hemp theory, he had some prototype speakers manufactured. To see if they worked, he needed someone to test them. He turned to none other than Santana, who had been bringing his stage amps and speakers to Harrison to repair for years at A Brown Soun, the oddly spelled speaker re-coning company Harrison started in 1974.
Santana, an icon of the peace and love generation, was happy to try something new to improve his distinctive guitar sound, especially if it was made of a hippie-era substance dear to his heart.
“Carlos was the first guy in the world to play through hemp and he immediately loved it,” Harrison, wearing a pink Santana T-shirt in the showroom of his Hempcone Speaker Technology company in Terra Linda, remembered proudly. “And he proved how much he loved it when he went on the road with it.” Then the ebullient Harrison threw back his head and laughed at the cosmic significance of it all, shouting, “What a great first customer! Eight years later, Carlos is still using the originals.”
In the early days, the company’s speakers were objects of derision outside of the West Coast.
“People would say, ‘Oh, those hippies from California, using pot for their cones,’ Harrison said. “But I never bothered with them because we have a superior product, a better mousetrap.”
Over the years, Tone Tubbys have become a cult item among serious guitar players. They’ve also earned a niche in Marin rock lore. Marin Rocks, the proposed San Rafael rock museum, is designing a front desk in the shape of a Tone Tubby.
“We’ve always had the reputation of being a boutique company, an underground secret among guitar players,” said Terry Morton, newly hired director of sales and marketing. “Until now, we’ve never come out with a big marketing strategy and pushed our product into the mainstream.”
As an additional selling point, Hempcone is playing what Harrison calls “the green card.”
“I’m not a tree hugger, but not one tree has been cut down to make our cones,” he said. “I’m really proud of that.”
In addition to its amplifier speakers, the company has launched a line of speakers for car stereos, called Hemp Hop, and others for home sound systems.
Earlier this month, Morton represented the company at the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) trade show in Anaheim.
“We got a lot of respect,” he said. “People knew who we are. We got incredible response.”
As a first step, the little company recently sold hemp cones to Eminence, a giant in the speaker industry that has dubbed its hemp cone model Eminence Patriot Cannabis Rex.
As part of its growth strategy, Harrison has taken on a partner as chief financial officer — Thom Brown, former manager of a prestigious Burbank recording studio. Together, they’re looking at several avenues for expansion.
“We’re being patient,” Harrison said. “It’s like God didn’t let me have a recording contract, but he told me, ‘John, distribute Tone Tubbys to the masses.’ This whole trip has been magic.
Source: Marinij
