A long time ago, in a New York that seems a galaxy away, I found myself stum­bling out into Times Square in the rain-drenched, pre-dawn hours from a friend’s record­ing stu­dio, and stum­bling into a dis­card­ed Ampeg Jet J12, a vin­tage gui­tar amp pow­ered by tubes (or as the Brits say, valves). Some­one had aban­doned this beau­ti­ful rel­ic on the curb. I dragged the filthy thing into a cab home to Brook­lyn, cleaned it up as best I could, and went to sleep. The next day, I pow­ered it up (it worked!), plugged in my gui­tar, and entered the world of vin­tage tube amps. I would nev­er be the same again.

The gui­tar amplifier—perfected, some would say in the 1950s by Leo Fend­er—ini­tial­ly pro­vid­ed jazz gui­tarists a way to project over horn sec­tions in the big-band era. They even­tu­al­ly became instru­ments in their own right with the rise of Dick Dale’s surf rock sound and the advent of elec­tric blues and rock and roll. But, in the ’80s, vac­u­um tubes gave way to sol­id-state tran­sis­tors, then dig­i­tal, and tubes fell by the way­side. How­ev­er, since grunge and the garage rock revival, tube amp tones have once again become the stan­dard for most rock gui­tarists, even if they’re now often dig­i­tal copies.

But some die-hards nev­er gave up on tubes, and one of those, fea­tured above, is Black­ie Pagano, who has spent his days repair­ing and main­tain­ing vin­tage vac­u­um tube gui­tar amps and “all man­ner of audio mad­ness.” In the short doc above—part of a series of pro­files of New York­ers—Black­ie shows us Djan­go Reinhardt’s orig­i­nal amp and quotes Lux Inte­ri­or, singer of psy­chobil­ly punk band The Cramps, who once said that tube amps “turn music into fire and then back into music.” In just under three min­utes, the soli­tary, tat­tooed Pagano may con­vince you that vin­tage tube gui­tar amps are tru­ly mag­i­cal things, whether you find one on eBay, at Gui­tar Cen­ter, or on an NYC street­corner at four in the morn­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jazz ‘Hot’: The Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Leg­end Djan­go Rein­hardt

The Sto­ry of the Gui­tar: The Com­plete Three-Part Doc­u­men­tary

A Young Eric Clap­ton Demon­strates the Ele­ments of His Gui­tar Sound

Adri­an Belew Presents the Fine Art of Mak­ing Gui­tar Noise — Past, Present, and Future

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

It’s good to be Dave Grohl these days. One day you get to ser­e­nade Paul McCart­ney; the next, Sir Paul jams with you and the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of Nir­vana; and then it’s off to play with the Rolling Stones. The 50 & Count­ing Tour passed through Ana­heim last week, and Grohl shared the stage with Mick, Kei­th, Ron­nie and Char­lie, throw­ing him­self into a rous­ing ver­sion of “Bitch,” the clas­sic song record­ed back in 1971. By the 2:48 mark, as one YouTu­ber noticed, Kei­th Richards prac­ti­cal­ly stops play­ing and just stares in won­der.

Oth­er guest per­for­mances on the tour have includ­ed Tom Waits singing “Lit­tle Red Roost­er” in Oak­land (below); Bon­nie Raitt join­ing in on “Let it Bleed” in San Jose (I got to catch that live); John Foger­ty singing parts of “It’s All Over Now” also in San Jose; and then, in a nod to the younger crowd, we have per­for­mances by Katy Per­ry (“Beast of Bur­den”) and Gwen Ste­fani (“Wild Hors­es”). Old timers will enjoy watch­ing Mick Tay­lor join his for­mer band­mates for ver­sions of “Mid­night Ram­bler” and “Sat­is­fac­tion”.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Rolling Stones Live in Hyde Park, 1969: The Com­plete Film

Jean-Luc Godard Films The Rolling Stones Record­ing “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il” (1968)

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial (1964)

To help cel­e­brate YouTube’s first Com­e­dy Week, Ricky Ger­vais has revived David Brent, the bum­bling “Region­al Man­ag­er” that ran the Wern­ham Hogg Paper Com­pa­ny in the UK ver­sion of The Office. Although the sit­com pre­sent­ed him as the ‘boss from hell,’ Brent fan­cied him­self “a philoso­pher to rival Descartes, a musi­cian to rival Texas, a dancer to rival MC Ham­mer.” And a “bril­liant singer-song­writer” too. Per­haps you’ll remem­ber a favorite moment from the show, when Brent led his staff in a sing-a-long to Free Love Free­way? (If not, we have it below, and you can find the chords and lyrics here.) Any­way, Brent is back, and he’s now offer­ing gui­tar lessons on YouTube — lessons guar­an­teed to teach you absolute­ly noth­ing about play­ing gui­tar. If you want real lessons, James Tay­lor has you cov­ered here.

You can find the first les­son above; the sec­ond les­son will hit Ricky Ger­vais’ YouTube Chan­nel on June 3.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Learn Eng­lish With Ricky Ger­vais,” A New Pod­cast Debuts (NSFW)

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

Ray Man­zarek of the Doors died Mon­day of can­cer. He was 74. Man­zarek’s jazz-inflect­ed, clas­si­cal­ly influ­enced key­board play­ing, woven togeth­er with Jim Mor­rison’s bari­tone vocals, helped define the sound of the 1960s.

Man­zarek and Mor­ri­son were both recent grad­u­ates of the UCLA film school in 1965 when they had a chance encounter on Venice Beach. Mor­ri­son sang a few songs for Man­zarek, and the two decid­ed right then and there to start a band. Drum­mer John Dens­more and gui­tarist Rob­by Krieger soon joined, and the Doors were born.

From the begin­ning, the clas­si­cal­ly trained Man­zarek played musi­cal foil to Mor­rison’s poet­ic wild­man per­sona. “We just com­bined the Apol­lon­ian and the Dionysian,” Man­zarek said of the band in 1997. “The Dionysian side is the blues, and the Apol­lon­ian side is clas­si­cal music. The prop­er artist com­bines Apol­lon­ian rig­or and cor­rect­ness with Dionysian fren­zy, pas­sion and excite­ment. You blend those two togeth­er, and you have the com­plete, whole artist.”

For a fas­ci­nat­ing look at just how beau­ti­ful­ly things blend­ed togeth­er with the Doors, watch above as Man­zarek tells the sto­ry of the band’s clas­sic 1971 sin­gle, “Rid­ers on the Storm.” The scene is from the 2011 doc­u­men­tary Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Sto­ry of L.A. Woman, which chron­i­cles the mak­ing of the Doors’ sixth and final stu­dio album. The band record­ed “Rid­ers on the Storm” in Decem­ber of 1970. By the time L.A. Woman was released in April of 1971, Mor­ri­son had already moved to Paris, where he died a few months lat­er. “Rid­ers on the Storm” reached num­ber 14 on the Bill­board charts in Amer­i­ca. You can hear the fin­ished record­ing below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Young, Clean Cut Jim Mor­ri­son Appears in a 1962 Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­mo Film

Ani­ma­tions Revive Lost Inter­views with David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck