KR Musical Products

Hi-I'm Kevin Randall and I'd like to talk about my musical interest and how I got into making pedals. When I was a kid in the 60's my older brothers were always playing all the Beatles,Rolling Stones,Jimi Hendrix,Who,Led Zepplin records as they came out so I was lucky in the sense that I was exposed to such great music when it came out groups from the first and second British invasion-I remember liking the Beatles 'Rubber Soul' lp and 'Revolver' and really liked 'Abby road' but I still can remember riding in the car with my mom in 67 hearing the Beatles'A day in the life' on the radio and it was just mezmerizing!-this was when it was am radio long before fm radio came into being. I remember always liking the Rolling Stones-one of my all time favorite bands-I always loved hearing 'Aftermath & Through the past, darkly' albums by the Rolling Stones. In 1968 I saw Iron Butterfly rehearing on a flatbed truck by my grade school in may of 68-they played at Miami Pop Festival at Gulf Stream park in may of 68-they were the only band that I saw in the 60's!-My older brother Scott went to the Miami pop festival and told me years later that Jimi Hendrix made the guitar talk when he seen Jimi at the Miami pop festival-I have never forgiven him for not taking me to see Jimi(grins).. I still can remember hearing Jimi Hendrix stuff back then around 68-70 and it was totally mezmering-hearing 'Crosstown traffic' and things like the 'Star Spangled Banner' blew me away. I still can remember playing in a sandbox at a park in 71 around the age of 10 and the music playing thru my head was the Who-'Live at leeds'-talk about great sandbox music! -I won't get into the early 70's bubblegum rock(grins) or the Disco era of the mid 70's-sure the 70's was campy but there was some great music throughout the 70's. In 1974 my older brother Mark gave me 3 cassette tapes-The Rolling Stones-'More hot rocks big hits & fazed cookies',Rare Earth'-'Get Ready'(live album)and The plastic ono band 'Live peace in Toronto' -talk about variety!  I loved '2000 light years from home'(all time favorite stones song) that featured Brian Jones haunting otherworldly surreal space-like quality sounds on Mellotron organ on 2000 Light years from home.. In 78 my other oldest brother Tom gave me his 60's Rolling Stones lp's-I was totally hooked on the Rolling Stones and had to have all of their albums- Brian Jones-he was the first rockstar guitarist who I wanted to be like-I later learned how Brian's talents & musicianship is what helped make the Rolling Stones songs become the classics that they became. Having always been a big Stones fan since the early 70's I had joined Brian's fan club last year and my membership number was #1393 and l since found out where Brian is buried in Cheltenham,England that he's buried in the V section and get this; his grave plot number is 11393-how errie is this! I told a few musician friend's about this & they didn't buy it & thought that I was making it up & said get outta here-spooky! I really got into Jimi Hendrix around 77-I had to have everything by him. While everyone was into the disco music,glam rock & stuff like that from the 70's I was skipping school(grins) sneaking to the record store to buy all the records by jimi & everyone else that i was fortunately exposed to in the 60's as a kid & the 70's. I do like alot of 70's bands like Kiss,Black Sabbath,Uriah Heep.Led Zeppelin-when I think of Led Zeppelin I think of their first 2 albums.  I got into electronics in 1976 and had a class in junior high learning about electronics-If I remember correctly I believe that I got a F plus in that class(lol)-man if my electronics teacher could see me today(grins)-growing up I had always wondered how things worked-I fixed a record player in 76 and been into electronics ever since. In 1977 I also got into the guitar and wanted to be like Brian Jones & Jimi Hendrix and I was reading in some Rolling Stones book how Brian had coverted a tape recorder into an amplifier-that got me to thinking even more about electronics(thanks for helping me there Brian)and then I got my first electric guitar a strat copy around 81 and was playing thru this pedal and that pedal wishing I could sound like Jimi but phase shifter pedals of the 70's just didn't sound like that elusive underwater sound that jimi had at Woodstock and the Band of Gypsies much less a typical distortion pedal of the late 70's-I was yet to discover the Fuzz face & Univox Uni-vibe. The first pedal I ever got was a early 70's Thomas Organ Cry Baby wah wah pedal that had the red TDK inductor and a MXR distortion plus-the first vintage fuzz I got was a vintage Maestro fuzz-tone(first model)around 1982-It however wasn't working right and I couldn't get no satisfaction from the pedal(pun intended)and it was the first pedal I fixed and the bug bit me! I since then got more into vintage pedals more than just playing the guitar-I spent the 80's learning everything I could about wiring guitars & making pedals &  Many musician's didn't really know about a Uni-vibe intil the late 80's-early 90's. In 1990 I started fixing vintage pedals for a few vintage guitar stores in Washington state and in 1991 I got to see & hear a vintage Univox Uni-vibe-I could not wait to make one which I did and I fixed pedals throught the 90's for stores-getting by and honing my craft-I've fixed just about every vintage pedal you can think of-everything from a Ibanez Flying Pan to a JAX Vibra-Chorus to many original Univox Uni-vibes- My mom used to say that I should have been born 20 years earlier and here I am now making recreation of vintage pedals but I would have never thought that I would ever meet Jimi's dad & get to know him. In 1994 I met a guy in his 50's named Herb Johnson jr. who liked the way I played a few Jimi licks here & there & liked the sound of my prototypes of my Jimi type pedals-Herb also knew Jimi Hendrix dad 'James' -Mr. Hendrix-he'd be called Al too-anyways Herb knew Mr. Hendrix since 1977 and thru Herb I got to meet Mr.Hendrix on Oct 5th 1995 when Herb took me over to Mr. Hendrix's house to meet him. We'd call Mr. Hendrix Mr. H (for short). I knew Mr. Hendrix  for 7 years from 1995 till he passed away in 2002. Mr. Hendrix was such a very nice down to earth person-Today I miss his friendship.(more on next page).

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