I had put a deposit on a Lazy J20 combo way back in April ’12 and had been patiently waiting my turn for it to be built. Jesse finally got around to building it at the start of October; I picked it up later that month and I’ve been playing quite a bit with it. I had been gigging it a bit too, alternating with my Vox AC15. It has been an interesting experience and this will be my review of it.
My Lazy J 20 came with Reverb, Tremolo and the ‘VAC’ (Jesse’s power scaling feature). Additionally, it also had the push-pull for the Tone control activating a ‘mid-boost’ and a ‘Bass shift’ switch at the back, not unlike the one on my Vox AC15 Heritage’s EF86 channel but a lot more subtle. I also had a chance to demo the same J 20 combo with both the Celestion Alnico Blue and the Tayden Ace 25, and I chose to have the Tayden instead of the Celestion.
What struck me when I first laid eyes on my J20 at Jesse’s workshop (and indeed when I chanced upon another at Charlie’s Chandlers to demo) was the laquered tweed of this thing. Attracts you immediately like a 5A quilted maple top on a Les Paul. At that time, I had been looking at a Cornell Plexi to demo and possibly buy. UnFortunately, it wasn’t available at Charlie’s Chandlers, and fortuitously, the only Lazy J 20 combo doing the rounds at various places as a demo unit, just happened to be there. I had my £70 Crafter ‘Curry Strat’ with me (loaded with the GFS lil killer set at the time), and I duly plugged in as I had heard about this little combo. Suffice it to say, it completely blew me away! I simply could not believe how amazing my beginner’s strat sounded through it. It was love. Never had anything responded to my touch so well. It was like I had discovered ‘another plane’ of guitar playing nirvana. Surely, if it can make this guitar sound that good, the sky is the limit, I reasoned. Deposit was duly placed and the wait began.
Before the order was completed, I spoke at length with Jesse about speaker choices and was able to demo the Tayden Ace 25 and Celestion Blue at a certain Phil Harris’ place to confirm my own speaker choice. I was curious about the Tayden, as although I was happy about the Celestion Blue when I demo’d it originally, when given the choice, why go for the default? When played side-by-side, the Tayden appealed to me more compared to the Celestion (by this time, I had got my ESP LTD tele with Creamery Pickups). When playing cranked, the Blue kind of sounded like it was freaking out, whereas the Tayden was taking everything in its stride, keeping everything under control. It was a smoother speaker compared to the Blue, but I determined that it had enough treble to cut through on stage. When the order was completed, I couldn’t wait to pick it up, so I drove to Jesse’s place to pick it up in person which was pretty cool.
My Lazy J in it’s natural environment where it gets gigged at least twice a month.
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