| Noel Gallagher of Oasis swears by
it. So do Pavement, The Melvins, Sonic Youth, along with the likes of
local luminaries Chris Knox, Neil Finn, and Dave Mitchell of the 3Ds.
So, what is it, exactly? It's the Hotcake. What? It's a mighty crunchy,
home grown distortion effects pedal that guitarists the world over swear
by. And they are as rare as hens teeth. Paul Crowther is the the ingenious chap behind this fine device. He started out in the music business as the drummer for an early incarnation of Split Enz, "back in the Jurassic era" as he puts it. He makes a crust these days as an audio engineer for local bands, most notably with the Muttonbirds. Why did he decide to make a distortion pedal? "I've always been quite fascinated by distortion. With distortion there's so many different kinds, so many different ways of distorting sound. There was something about distortion pedals I found fascinating. I'd made phasers and things like that, but, everyone makes phasers. When I was in England with Split Enz in 1976, I came up with the Hotcake idea. I came up with the circuit idea, and the first one I built into Noel Crombie's guitar. Noel used to crash around on stage with it just for a kind of novel effect at times. So I built it into that, and he said, 'oh, it sounds a bit too professional', I said alright, so I put a really ratty one back into his guitar, and I built one for Phil Judd, and then I think Tim felt that was it, enough was enough. So I got fired from the band." For making distortion pedals? "Yeah, probably for being a thinking drummer. No, that's another whole story, and you know, that's one of those things. but there's no regrets there." Where did the name come from?. "I was playing with a band, briefly, and we were talking about a name for the band, and someone said you need a name that sells. I think it might have been Doug Rogers from Harlequin studio, he said 'Hotcake', cos Hotcake is something that sells like Hotcakes, and I said, that's what I'll call my pedal. It was probably one of those ideas if you thought about it too much you wouldn't stick with it. but I thought no, that'l do." Paul has made about two thousand pedals over the years, including one thousand for someone in Japan who sells them there for some astronomical sum. They are all hand made. "At the moment I make them all myself, my wife loads the circuit boards, and I get the boxes printed and painted etc. and Iwire them up. Every ones been done by me. As a part-time thing its fine, but as a full-time thing it would drive me completely crazy." And why do musos like them? Chris Knox says it's brilliant. "The Hotcake has enabled me to go where a person who can ony play one barre chord shouldn't be able to go". Noel Gallagher says there is a lot of it on their new album. According to newspaper reports it was used extensively; "we put the drums through it and everything. Tell him (Paul) to send me some more!" Paul wanders into his workroom and fires up his computer, to hunt out a list of famous users. "Let's see, the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, He got one from Midge Marsden. Simple Minds, INXS, Straitjacket Fits, Thorazine Shuffle, Head Like A Hole; it's in their video, you see him turning knobs on a box, the Chills, Shayne Carter, Pavement use them. Dave Barraclough from the Exponents uses one. When the Exponents were supporting The Rolling Stones, their guitar tech, had a play on Dave's gear between their shows, and he got hold of me, and we did a deal, some cash and some tickets to the show. Henry Rollins Band bought a couple while they were here. The guitarist plugged it in and said 'Hey! Aerosmith in a box!' Melissa Etheridges guitarist bought one when they were over. Steve Albini's got one, I didn't know he had one, but when he was playing here, at the Powerstation he said 'I've got my Hotcake with me.' Once again, the Muttonbirds, were touring with the Violent Femmes. I showed one to their guitar tech, and Gordon, their guitarist was complaining about his sound, and one night, half way through their set, it might have been halfway through a song, the guitar tech ran out and unplugged his pedal and plugged a Hotcake in, and he's used one ever since. He just started playing with this big smile coming over his face. Alan Gregg from the Muttonbirds said to me jokingly last time they were back here, that if the band ever crapped out, he could become a Hotcake saleman. And I said well, why wait, how about you take some back to England with you. So he's been pushing them over there. It's quite interesting mentioning to people who does use them, but, I guess for really young players, it's a way of selling them, you know, 'you can sound like him if you buy it' but that's not the case at all. Especially if people have tried the box out, if it suits them, it suits them. But the list of people who use it is quite impressive. Sonic Youth were using one for a while I don't know if they still are. There's so many pedals around, that it's probably easy to get swamped amongst them. it wouldn't be hard to make a really bizarre sounding pedal. The Hotcake is designed to be kind of a nice distortion pedal. A lot of New Zealand grunge bands like them because they're quite easy to use, and they handle chords well. They're not really a metal pedal." Paul is currently working on a new pedal, called Prunes And Custard, which he says isn't so much a distortion pedal as a sound modulation device, especially good for bass frequencies. "I made one for Dave Dobbyn for his birthday. I don't know if he's managed to use it yet, but he calls his one Bubble and Squeak, which I think is an equally good name". Somewhere a purist shakes his head in disgust. Viva La Hotcake! By Peter Mclennan. (this article originally apeared in Pavement magazine 1998) © 1999 Peter McLennan |