What kind of guitar did Mark Robinson play when he was in Unrest?

January 4, 2015 6:18 AM

I'm curious what kind of guitar Mark played on Unrest's albums Imperial f.f.r.r. and Perfect Teeth.

He mentioned in this article that they used no guitar effects on Perfect Teeth which gives it a nice clean sound, although I'm wondering how they got the distortion on the song Cath Carroll -- by overloading the amp?

There's a video for Cherry Cream On and another one for Make Out Club that show him playing guitar, but they're both low res and I'm not familiar enough with guitars to know the make and model with a few glances.

Can anybody tell me for sure?

posted by topsykretts to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Response by poster: There's also the cover of their BPM album which shows the guitar neck. And here's a pretty good one from their 2005 reunion show.
posted by topsykretts at 6:30 AM on January 4, 2015

Best answer: This interview says he got an Epiphone Genesis as a teenager, and from the pictures you linked to, it looks like maybe he's still using that or similar.
posted by dayintoday at 6:38 AM on January 4, 2015

Response by poster: Yup, that seems correct. It looks like he might have had the Standard model during the early Unrest days and upgraded to the Deluxe by the time they had the 2005 reunion (based on the simpler fretboard design in the early 90s photos and videos).

Thanks!
posted by topsykretts at 6:47 AM on January 4, 2015

Genesis in the Cherry Cream On video, but looks like something more along the lines of a Dot or ES-335 in the Make Out Club Video. Cutaways look bigger to me than a Genesis.
posted by puritycontrol at 7:08 AM on January 4, 2015

Distortion is a natural effect you can create with most amps by turning the volume down and cranking the gain way up (and fiddling with the tone knobs to get the right amount of buzz/crunch). You can also get it by jamming a screwdriver through the speaker but that's more of a 50s r&b thing.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:26 AM on January 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

although I'm wondering how they got the distortion on the song Cath Carroll -- by overloading the amp?

Probably.

Potomac Avenue's explanation is true for guitar amps that have multiple controllable gain stages, where turning up the first "volume" control - usually called "gain" - overdrives the preamp section while the "volume" control after the tone controls sets the actual loudness of the amp and can, for some amp circuits, overdrive the output circuitry and/or the speakers.

But lots of amps don't have that separate first "gain" control, especially amps from the '70's and earlier. They only have the one volume control. They might have two different places to plug in instruments, with one of the plugs using resistors to drop the input level of the instrument before it hits the rest of the amp, which means the other plug is "higher gain", which means you can possibly distort the preamp section somewhat by using a guitar with loud pickups.

And in the interview you linked to Robinson says they used Silvertone amps, which as far as I can tell mostly did not have a separate preamp gain control. Although, depending on the model of amp, some of the circuits do put the "volume" control before or in the middle of the preamp circuit.

So, yeah, if they didn't use any effects, they got distortion by cranking the volume all the way up, thereby possibly overloading the preamp tubes, and definitely overloading the output tubes and/or output transformer and/or speakers.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:53 AM on January 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: i shot mark an email this morning with a link to this thread, here's his reply-

Hey Ned

That's pretty cool.

This part is dead on:
Yup, that seems correct. It looks like he might have had the Standard model during the early Unrest days and upgraded to the Deluxe by the time they had the 2005 reunion (based on the simpler fretboard design in the early 90s photos and videos).

Thanks!
posted by topsykretts at 6:47 AM on January 4

That was pretty much the only guitar I've ever used in the studio. The guitar in the Make Out Club video was probably just for aesthetic reasons to match the feel of the video. I did have a Epiphone Les Paul at some point and a hollow body (probably Epiphone too and probably the one in the video) but never liked them too much and didn't use them very long. I also had a heavy Les Paul "Recording" model at some point.

I always used my Sears Silvertone tube amp with matching 2 x 10" cabinet (on the cover of Imperial. I believe I used a Marshall on a few songs on Kustom Karnal Blackxploutation. A photo from the Perfect Teeth sessions shows the same Silvertone tube amp in use.

At some point I bought a 150 watt solid state Silvertone and used that with a 2 x 12" black padded Kustom cabinet. That thing was super loud and I would sometimes have to face the amp to the wall instead of the audience. This was used on the Air Miami album.

BTW no effects on the Imperial LP either. Just the guitar going through the Silvertone tube.
posted by noloveforned at 11:06 AM on January 4, 2015 [9 favorites]

Those are two of the best records ever, and I'll never be cooler than I was the day I saw them play in a record shop in Yonkers when I was in 8th grade.
posted by waterisfinite at 6:51 PM on January 4, 2015

Response by poster: Yet again, Metafilter is absolutely incredible. Not only did I get an answer directly from Mark himself -- thanks Ned! -- but I also learned that "When It All Comes Down" is a cover of a song by a band -- Miaow -- that I have never heard of which Cath Carroll was the lead singer. Wow. Kind of like the day I realized that "Folklore" is a cover of a James song (favorite band ever covers other favorite band ever).

I met Mark once, at Lollapalooza Atlanta 1995, for 10 seconds when I bought a CD from him and probably only had the star-struck guts to say "I like your records". Hard to believe that was just shy of 20 years ago.
posted by topsykretts at 5:14 PM on January 8, 2015