Big Gay Fuzz, built by Tom Dalton (fuzzhugger.com) and funded by Devi Ever (deviever.com)
I won this effects pedal the other day on eBay, and I should get it in the mail today! Built by Tom Dalton (of Fuzzhugger.com) as a clone of the Foxx Tone Machine (heavily modifed, however), it was sold as part of the Pedals for Peace project put into play by Devi Ever. The tagline for this collective of pedal builders is “Raising money for effective change,” and the emergence of this project over the past month or so has raised some intriguing questions for me about relationships between material culture as object-ive and politicized consciousness or social practice as subject-ive. No answers or nuancing of these questions yet, but I’m going to work though that soon…
I’ve been following the Pedals for Peace project, as well as the community of users and builders blossoming via Devi’s incredily active discussion boards/hosted blogs over at iLoveFuzz.com, for a bit over the past few years now as part of a research project into what I’m calling the culture of boutique pedal building. I’m hoping to pull together a publication of sorts on this during the summer, but will use this blog space to periodically sort out ideas. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic enagement with web-based communities, and my own gear-obsessed music making, I’m hoping that this project will contribute to a more nuanced analysis of intersections between musical technology, aesthetics, and creative practice.