Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

On a personal level, Dan was a very approachable person and all who knew him seem to agree that he was forever busy dreaming up & designing things. Steve Kubica states "Dan was interested in just about everything under the sun. He even helped work on a friends sports car at the back of the shop. He could never really focus on one thing for very long as he was always moving on. I remember always giving him a hard time by asking him what's the newest idea of the week? He would always just smile at me and not say anything."

Steve continues, adding "but his real love was music, and playing guitar. As a guitar player he had all the jazz chords and patterns down, but he had kind of a different sense of harmony when it came time to play a lead solo. His bass playing was out of this world - a fantastic bassist. I'd listen to him play against some of the most sophisiticated jazz chords and patterns & he would play the most elegant bass patterns in and around it all. On one occassion I remember stopping him by putting my hand on the neck of the bass and ask - what did you just play? And Dan would simply play the pattern again and ask - what.... this?"

Dan's biggest dream was to be a jazzmaster guitar player, but one day many years later he called up his former employee Eddie Diehl, who relates "after chatting for awhile and getting caught up on things, we got to talking guitar playing and Dan said when it came to being a jazzmaster 'I guess I will have to leave that title to you'." All of Dan's former employees agreed that he was a good friend to all he met, but also a man who stood up for what he believed in, regardless of the consequences.

But Dan was only human, and Steve Kubica makes note of the fact that "Although Dan was very nice, and a good friend, he could be short tempered at times. If you worked for him he came to expect a lot out of you. When it came to repairs he didn't like having to show you something twice. I remember working on a Gretsch guitar that had a bunch of loose frets as it had been re-fretted so many times. The slots were so loose that I had to glue many of the frets in place. When it came to levelling them Dan noticed I was using a 6 inch straight edge and said 'you're not going to get anywhere using that small straight edge.' From there he proceeded to a cabinet, took out a much longer straight edge and threw it on the counter top and said try using this."

Steve continues, adding "One guy who worked for Dan was from the midwest. He was a tall, lanky guy that Dan really seemed to like until one day he totally messed up a repair job on an acoustic guitar. It was going to take Dan a long time to fix it all back up, and Dan just told the guy to 'get out' and when he asked for his pay up to that point is when I saw Dan really blow his stack."

Some I have interviewed say that one bad trait Dan had was that he would get into a business deal with a company, and then sometimes change his mind after contracts were signed and production began. Once sales of a given product started to increase Dan would want to renegotiate his contract which usually meant asking for a larger percentage of royalties, something that businessmen will seldom, if ever, do. As such, they say, Dan would get upset and often times break his association with a company even if sales were doing good.

On the lighter side, Dan had a great sense of humor, and was not above telling a tall tale. Steve relates "Many times I had to go to the back room as I was about to laugh out loud as I listened to Dan totally lay out a tall tale to some customer that he thought was wasting his time, or otherwise just too ignorant." Apparently, Dan would often laugh at himself as Steve goes on to say "at Dan's shop in the Village and there was a flag that hung over the front entrance. It was a royal blue satin with gold fringe trim. It said "Dan Armstrong" in his Ampeg style logo and had a gold or yellow cartoon duck in the middle of it. Customers would sometimes ask about it, but mostly about the duck. I asked Dan a few times about the duck; once he told me it was a 'family crest' and another time he said 'it represented his ex-wife'. Over the years it got fairly weather-worn and tattered but I've always wondered about that duck." Note: When the duck flag got too tattered due to weather Dan replaced it with a flag that had a baroque frog.

And...Dan was just as good at 'taking it' as he was as 'dishing it out' too - which made him a lot of fun to be around. As Steve Kubica pointed out "If you wanted to know where party was - you'd just ask Dan. Towards the end of one week, Dan told me that he would meet up with me at a place called 'Club Cheetah'. We later left there and proceeded to a party which if I remember right was in So Ho - where we eventually noticed some stewardesses' having a good time. After chatting with them awhile, a friend of Dan's came up and apparently tried to impress the ladies by asking them if they knew who this guy was - (pointing to Dan). One of the ladies looked up at Dan and said 'oh I know who you are..... you're Harry Reems'. Later Dan said it "was one of my proudest moments."

Matt Umanov once described Dan as "A true pioneer, and visionary ahead of his time." Pressed to particularize, he pointed out that "first off he was the first to mass produce an acrylic instrument for the public, and even then he made matching guitars and basses. Secondly, he was among the first to tell his customers to hang onto their old guitar, as everyone always wanted to trade after a year or two. Dan saw value in older instruments long before there was a collectors market. Lastly, while everyone else was making a fuzz unit of one kind or another, Dan not only made a smooth distortion unit, but a series of some 5 or 6 matching units, all with different effects."

But here too, Matt also included that Dan was "fabulous with overall ideas, but always delegated out the taking care of the details of actually getting the job done to others. Sometimes, his choice of 'others' wasn't so good, which is what got him into business trouble so often over the years."

Others that knew him tend to agree that he was probably a bit too trusting, in that many times he wouldn't protect himself enough as he would come out with new ideas and concepts for musical products without first having made sure that he had a financial business contract in hand. As a result, business people sometimes took advantage of him, by taking his ideas and claiming credits, even royalties for themselves. As a result, Dan became what some might call 'disillusioned' with business practices on both sides of the Atlantic, and he tended to keep a lower profile, dealing with smaller businesses and shops in later years.

Dan was known as being a heavy smoker. Some mentioned he "smoked like a locomotive" - while others used the word "chimney". Steve Kubica relates an early time when Dan's store was still on 48^th St. stating "Dan had the usual smokers hack, From the time he arrived at the shop in the morning (which was early) until around 9am he would be constantly hacking. It always bugged me and I was always glad for 9am to roll around, for after that, he was good for the entire day. He continues with "Dan was a chain smoker who had ashtrays all over the store and he always had 3 or 4 cigarettes going at a time, one in his mouth and the rest burning away in ash trays that were on the counter tops, and most everywhere. Some days it got so bad in there that you just couldn't take it, and when he got nervous he would really smoke!"

Steve began to chuckle as he continued, adding "I used to follow along behind him and put out the cigarettes in the various ashtrays he had them burning in. For awhile there we actually got him talked into smoking outside because the shop we were in was old and had little, if any ventilation. I remember one day he was standing out in front of the store and I went out to talk to him. He lit up a cigarette, took a drag and went Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh very loudly and I remember telling him - man, you sound like you've just had a religious experience - to which Dan replied - well.... it's been a few minutes since I had one."

During this time Steve remembers Dan as "bright, fun and bigger than life and could change the tone of a room just by walking in. He was apparently quite the ladies man - as many times we had women come into the store looking for him, and we usually just tried to get rid of them so we could wait on our customers." Steve closes by adding "and if you ever needed to know where the party was on a given night - all you had to do was check with Dan."

Dan's friend Craig Buzzart states He was a "meat & potato eater - he hated vegtables". His favorite foods were a good bowl of chili or a well made pizza, and he was often overheard telling others how pizza was so much better on the east coast than the west coast. For recreation & enjoyment, when he wasn't designing things or playing guitar, he could often be found playing some form of pinball machine.

Later, from 1968 to 1971 the boys lived in NY with Dan who... in 68 was likely separated from Cynthia. Sometime in 1970 or later Dan's relationship with Carly Simon ran its course and in 71 Dan picked up the boys and moved to England where Dan went to work and the boys attended college. Money dried up fast however, and the boys soon had to find work in order to stay in school.

Dan had a favorite actress, and her name was Katherine Hepburn. Kent recalls a time "While living in England on a farm by Edinbridge in 1971-72. The farm property we were on was unique as it was split down the middle. Half of it was in Kent, while the other half was in Surrie. It was a Sunday, and back then when Sunday rolled around, everything closed up. There was absolutely nothing to do except ride around in a car, and even then you better hope that you don't run out of fuel as even the service stations were closed back then on Sundays."

"On this Sunday my father was sleeping in, and while Eric and I were watching TV I heard a noise and looked out the window. I said to Eric, look..... thats Katherine Hepburn! Eric quickly dismissed it all, and went back to watching TV. I said I know it's her. I went to wake up Dan, who was sleeping in, and sleeping rather soundly. I tried to wake him saying Katherine Hepburn is outside our house as I knew she was his favorite actress. But Dan just grumbled to be left alone. I continued to rouse him awake and finally got him to look out the window. When he did he said... Oh my God, it's Katherine Hepburn!"

"From there Dan asked her in and we learned that they were filming at, or near the next town which was also closed up on Sundays and apparently they were just out on a pleasure ride, taking in the sites as no scenes were being filmed that day. She was a lovely, kind lady - and she stayed and talked for something like 4 hours. Dan was in total heaven that day. I was glad that I woke him."

While still in England in the mid 1970^'s Dan met Vic O'casey and the two were married sometime later in California when they moved to the United States. As a result of his smoking, Dan was diagnosed with emphysema while in his 50^'s which slowed him down a bit, but certainly did not stop him. Relatives of Dan point out that due to his emphysema "just going for a walk or standing up from the seated position would often leave him winded", but he nevertheless enjoyed staying as active as he could. Many agree that years later he always looked somewhat unhealthy and that he often appeared tired or wore out a lot of the time.

As this site gained more in popularity, our relationship had grown from that of a mentor to a good friend, one that I often turned to many times for answers and, even though he lay in a hospital bed, he was always there for me. Later on we were more in email contact than over the phone, and we were talking about his Hot Cabs as well as his newly updated effects unit the Orange Crusher, when all of a sudden his email's stopped, and I feared something had happened to him.

On April 2, 2004 he confirmed my fears - writing the following email partially seen below:

He ended that email as usual - with just the letter D standing in for his name.

I had assumed that he had a laptop computer as his email's kept coming in again. In his last letter to me, dated May 8^th, just one month to the day before his passing, he closed his letter reminding me of just how bad
hospital food still is.