From here to obscurity, or the story of the Zonk set. The Zonk Machine, and its partner in tone; the matching Treble Booster, were made in Leeds England; 1967 to 1969, by John Hornby Skewes Ltd. That's our best information on origin.
How many effects come to mind, where a company issues a second pedal, to boost the performance of the original effect? Its pretty unusual...OK; "it's stange as all get-out", (a friend used to say), but the matching Treble Booster adds a lot to the Zonk Machine. As a matter of fact: twisting the Swell control without the Treble Booster is nearly a waste of time. Maybe the HS engineers put the Booster in a separate box to improve signal to noise ratio. Maybe they had a load of Zonkers made when they discovered the "Swell" function, and couldn't live without it?---who knows?
It's a fact though, that the Treble Booster not only add highs, but enables a significant expansion of the Swell function. It makes all the difference! This effect has other mysteries too: The tone is somewhat similar to a Foxx Tone Machine, without the octave. Is it a coincidence, or did one borrow from the other? It would also be neat to know if the makers of the PE "Experience Pedal" were inspired by this strong fuzz with additional Swell effect?
One mystery we can solve is how you find stuff like this. You run into Canadian guys on the Net, it's all their fault. The particularly guilty party is: Scott Hagar, of Paris Canada. He and his friend "Duckboy" inhabit two bands together: "Nasty Phlegm Build-up", & "Satan's Backhoe". Though a college educated engineer/consultant by day, Mr. Hager reverts to "punk, rock, metal, garage" music at night and weekends. Yes friends, our neighbors to the North are proud, brave, friendly, thirsty, and.these fellows in particular, enjoy a well spun musical yarn about bodily functions.
There's so much more to this story than we can share here, like:
threatened grudge sale of bodily organs, Midnight on the roof, boy's
night at the "Ballet". It must be all that fresh air Scott, there's
a similar "high spiritedness" in Alaska. People: why not confound
all attempts to maintain man-made boundaries, and "honk the boys"
at: sh333@hotmail.com . OH,
CANADA!
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