2017 is Laney’s 50th year in business and the West Midlands company is celebrating in real style – Black Country style with Black Country Customs.
It was in 1970 that Tony Iommi recorded the first Black Sabbath album and in doing so more or less invented Heavy Metal music. Celebrating the fact that Iommi used (and still does) Laney amps, the Midlands company has decided to recreate the original amp and cab in all their satanic glory – and has devised a unique signature pedal, too.
Production is limited to just 50 sets for the entire world and each set will come with a certificate signed by both Tony Iommi and Lyndon Laney.
As Laney’s Simon Fraser-Clark says: ‘The LA100BL & LA412 are a faithful, hand-built, point-to-point wired, re-issue of the original amp and cab Tony used at the beginning of his Black Sabbath career. Everything in the amp is as it was in the original; from the hand-drilled turret board, the parts list, the authentic hand-wiring process and the original box-frame styled output transformer. It is as close to the real thing as buying an original LA100B.
‘When we began to discuss the possibility of building a replica of Tony’s original 1969 LA100BL we realised quite quickly that we’d need something to push the front end of the amp harder. So, in conjunction with the design work on the NEW LA100BL, we started working on a boost pedal for Tony to use in the same way he used his Range Master . . .The result is the TI-BOOST.’
There is a lot of fascinating detail to this story, including much about the detective work undertaken by Laney and Tony Iommi in their quest for the original sound. The link will reveal all…