Dave Kauffroath

Bio Basics

Born 1950, Longmont Colorado - in the dead of winter – must explain my thinking!
Present location: Cow Town – Greeley Colorado – The smell you smell is the smell of MONEY – or so they say – I’m pretty sure it’s Cow Crap!
3 Children – all wonderful!
Hobbies – Rock and Roll and working with POWER TOOLS

Musical influences

Beatles, Mary Jane Bann’d (Ah to be young and stupid again), Astronauts (Boulder – they had such bitching equipment – all vintage Fender and matching!!!), Moonrakers– Denver, Pete Fenner, Chuck Ditmer, Dip Conley, some loony keyboard player – Duck, and a little kid drummer - Animal.

Favorite radio station

The one in my head – must be that metal plate in there

Car Stuff

First: 1957 Chevy Wagon – soon traded it for a 1961 Corvair that I had forever until it was accordioned by some dumb ass who ran a stoplight and hit me doing 50 on Main Street in Longmont. I still have the hood emblem

Favorite — 1956 Chevy 2 door hardtop – got it from Kevin Coleman. It did its share of river diving and ditch hunting. Sold it when I went on my Senior Trip to Vietnam in the Navy in 1969. (Strange, I was silly enough to go back into the Navy 10 years later and finish my career of 20 years) My 40th birthday present from the Navy was an all expense paid trip to the Gulf in support of Desert Storm. We should have kicked Saddam’s ass then. The Brits were right.

Gear Stuff

First Instrument - Blue single pickup Silvertone and a Fender VibroChamp amp. Then a Fender Musicmaster and a Deluxe Reverb – blackface of course, then we moved uptown to Fender Bandmasters and a plethora of guitars from Gibson SGs to Rickys and of course the Fender Esquire that I traded Pete Fenner for his Ricky. Of course that Fender Esquire was to become infamous with Pete installing a Fuzztone in it and putting a paisley cloth under a clear pickguard – Pete – what did you do with that – it would have been worth millions!

We were all too poor to buy hot equipment back then and always ended up with used stuff in our high school years. Mary Jane Bann’d proved you could borrow a ton of equipment and set it up on stage to make a wall of Fender Amps that would kill your ears – long live the Memorial Building in Longmont and the Battle of the Bands that took place there as well as the TAC dances every Friday night.

Present Gear - As we got older, we could afford the stuff we couldn’t as a kid. Most of my equipment ended up coming out of pawns shops, courtesy of the now younger generation who could not appreciate musical instruments for what they are and who live for the moment, selling stuff off for quick cash. The rest ended up coming off E-Bay.

I found wonderful Japanese gear while stationed in Japan in the Navy– Fernandes and Burny – hot, exact and such quality that they made crap out of Fender and Gibson guitars and were super buys.

Old Fender Amps though, cannot be mimicked no matter what. I have my share of them and I play them, not store them. These amps were made to have the crap kicked out of them, turned up to 10 and driven like a mad man. Leo – you did good.

My gigging setup is a hotrodded 1967 Bandmaster (4 6L6s) – 100 watts with a 67 Bandmaster bottom and a Blues DeVille with 15” Electrovoice.

Guitars: Frankenstein Strat - Tele configuration, Modded Jay Turser SG with 3 p-90s and a Danny 12 string for those jangly 1960’s songs.