Hiya Roly,
I've got two pictures for you here, sorry they are not clearer but they're all I've got on two Aussie icons that deserve to be on your site.
First, The Atlantics in about 1961. Theo Penglis and myself are playing through my Melnik amp. Later on Theo had one of his own. Zenon Mielnik made these amps at his shop in Charing Cross, Sydney.
Ours had no name on them but he sold them under many names including ZJM and Challenge which was a name Nicholsons Music Store used for all sorts of stuff, not just his. My guitar in this picture is also an unbranded Mielnik.
The picture is: L to R Ed Matzenik, Theo Penglis, Bosco Boscanac, Peter Hood and Ed Staines at the piano.
The other gear on the stage is not ours, but I should point out that the pedal steel you can just see [right, behind drums] was made by Sydney guitarist Jack Richards who, despite any other claims I can assure you, built the world's first pedal steel guitar, in 1947.
Second picture, taken in Walgett 1963, shows bass player Ben Hay with a Moody Amp, drummer Fred LaBessa, George Day with a Jansen White Swan guitar made in NZ, a fantastic-sounding thing and myself with a '59 Gretsch.
George and I are both playing through my amp which was the first ever Fi-Sonic. [right; the amp on the left is a Moody BA40. Note the flying-V badge on the cabinet]
In fact Phil Dreoni originally built this amp for a business he was going into to be called Soundmaster. But he fell out with the partner before they actually got started - so he took the amp back from me and rebadged it Fi-Sonic No.1. I also had the first Fi-Sonic reverb, built originally for Norm Day of the JoyBoys.
Hope you can use this info, Love the site, I'll be exploring it for many days to come.
Ed Matzenik
