The next significant change in Rivers's set up came when the band was signed to Geffen in the summer of '93. With the guidance of Jason, a new non-Fender Stratocaster copy was ordered as parts from the Warmoth catalog (still in buisness), in an effort to reconstruct a guitar similar to Jason's red one (by this time Jason had returned to playing electric guitar in the band, and besides, the red one was on its last legs). The parts and pickups were all custom selected, and the wiring was similar to the crazy red guitar's. (see below for details) This guitar was delayed in its arival, so the band went to New York to record the blue album without it, and would not see it till they were back in LA in October rehersing. So the red guitar made the trip to Electric Lady studios, but once Rivers got aquainted with Ric Ocasek's guitar collection, it was hardly needed.

The one thing Rivers did manage to select before they left for New York was a new Marshall speaker cabinet. Well, it wasn't "new", it was a very unusual 1968 Marshall. This cabinet was from a now-rare series that mounted the usual 4 12" speakers into a special cabinet that was designed to fit 8 10" speakers. These are known as "mock 8x10's". They originally were sold in sets with plexi 50w Tremolo amps. They were manufactured from 1967 till the early 70's, but apparently the later years are distinguished by cheaper materials, particularly particle board backing panels. ...Thanks to Jaques Stompboxes for info and assistance!


As can be seen above, Rivers's tall cabinet needs some help in the speaker department. The right speakers are (we think) original Celestion Sidewinders, whereas the left are replacement speakers (or its possible that the Celestions are the replacements). Also, the top left speaker has a big hole in it (caused by a particularly expressive moment on stage with Rivers in 1997) and does not work. Fortunately the guys arent using the tall cabinets these days...

Apparently, the story goes that Pete Townsend of the Who liked the new 8X10" "big tall super rock n roll" style, but insisted on retaining the 4x12" speaker setup he loved inside. Based on his request, Marshall ended up doing this variation for the general public, too, but it only lasted from 1967-69. Most of these cabinets you see today (when you in fact get a chance to see one) are the more common 8X10" inside. The amazing thing is that when we found this cabinet, it was part of a matched set of 4 of them! They were only $400 a piece, but we didnt have the budget to get the whole set. These 4 were apparently once owned by "the Mercinaries", as they all had "MERCINARIES" spray painted across the back. We selected one and sadly left the store. Unbeleivably, somehow our summer 2000 tour-mates Dynamite Hack ended up with one of the very same 3 cabinets we left behind that day. I nearly lost it when I saw the "MERCINARIES" across the back of their "Tall" Marshall, so I knew what lay inside...Who knows how it made its way to Texas in the intervening 7 years, but it did. The other two are still at large...(note Brians is also a "tall" 4x12", but was obtained later from a different source. More on that later)...

A note on strings and picks:
Rivers has always used GHS Boomer strings, size .10's, He has experimented with both TnT's and .11's at various times.

He has always used Jim Dunlop plain gray pics, the .73's from 1992-1999, and most recently uses the .60s.