Montgomery Appliances has unveiled two new fuzz stomps for 2010 – The Badlands and the No. 219. The Badlands is a thick fuzz with origins in the Big Muff circuit. The pedal is loaded with four NOS germanium transistors. The pedal’s Sustain control swings tones from lower-gain vintage fuzz to full-on devastation. The No. 219 is a Tonebender MKII-influenced silicon fuzz loaded with NOS Motorola transistors. It has controls for Volume and Sustain, as well as a Midrange control that allows users to dial in a scooped midrange or a fat boosted midrange as desired. The No. 219 cleans up well with the guitar’s volume knob. Check out some video demos after the jump!

Mike Piera over at AnalogMan has introduced his first new pedal of 2010 – the AstroTone fuzz. The AstroTone is somewhere between a fuzz and distortion, it acts differently into different amps. The pedal is based on the old mid-60s Astro Amp Astro Tone fuzz and uses the original 1966 Fairchild Silicon transistors, which are not affected by heat like a Germanium-based fuzz. According to Mike, the pedal’s sound is not as compressed as a Fuzz Face, not super thick and saturated, but it is closer to a fuzz than a pure distortion. The new stomp sports three knob controls – Volume, Fuzz and Tone. The AnalogMan AstroTone is available now for $185.

The crew at Music Gear Guys chimed into The Gear Page this week to let everyone know that it will be received the final ten Woofer Wailers to be made by Dr. Scientist. The Woofer Wailer is Tube Screamer-esque, but tweaking the knobs a bit can get you into other gain territories. According to Dr. Scientist, the Woofer Wailer is an analog overdrive unit that can take your guitar tone from gritty volume boost to fat, crunchy overdrive to loud, crispy distortion… with all kinds of awesome variations in between. Gregory at MGG expects these last stomps to go fast, so if you’re interest in one, shoot him an e-mail sooner rather than later.

Gov’t Mule brought their special brand of boogie blues and roots rock through Houston last weekend, the last stop on a winter tour in support of their latest CD – By A Thread. Warren Haynes and company played two sets and a pair of encores for a packed House of Blues. The band opened the evening with ‘Streamline Woman’ off of 2006’s High & Mighty. Songs played from the new album included ‘Broke Down on the Brazos’, ‘Steppin’ Lightly’, and ‘Railroad Boy’ – the last played with a capo’d Les Paul 12-string. Mule also reached back in their catalog to play tunes like ‘Lay Your Burden Down’ off 2000’s Life Before Insanity and ‘Rockin’ Horse’ from their 1996 debut.

Last week, Tom Dalton – the fuzz master of Fuzzhugger(fx) – tipped his plan to introduce a new fuzz pedal based on the his popular AB-Synth fuzz tones with no oscillation and more gain control. A few days later and behold the ‘pinnacle of FuzzHugger(fx) fuzz’ – the Chalice. As promised, this non-oscillating stomp delivers all of the AB-Synth fuzz tones and more. The AB-Synth itself evolved from the company’s 1134 fuzz. According to Tom, the Chalice fuzz captures all of the 1134 fuzz tones as well as all of the AB-Synth fuzz tones. The Chalice sports four knob controls – Level, Volt, Fuzz and Gain. Info on availability and pricing when we have it. Stay tuned!

Ben Fargen, of Fargen Amplification fame, has a new tone venture moving full speed ahead into the new year aimed at offering new guitar and bass effects and accessories. The new company – Sonic Edge Inc. – just released information on their first offering – the J&J Vintage Overdrive stomp. Designed by Ben himself, the J&J aims to give the players with a bent for retro-rock a tweakable, smooth, ’60s-style overdrive tone. No firm word on pricing or availability just yet, but Ben did upload a brief video demo of the new pedal to You Tube. We’ll pass along the other info when we get it, but for now you can check out the J&J in action after the jump!

Sweden’s The Soundtrack of Our Lives played in town this past weekend in support of their ambitious double-album Communion released last year. It marks the first time in a while the band has toured the states, and while the crowd was small, there was still plenty enthusiasm to go around from both the band and its fans. The group opened the show with the first single from Communion, ‘Babel On’ – an upbeat, retro guitar blitz. The band sprinkled in newer tunes like ‘Thrill Me’, the poppy ‘Flipside’ and the haunting ‘Second Life Replay’ into the 13-song set, which also included older songs like ‘Instant Repeater ‘99′ and ‘Big Time’.

The gurus at Strymon Engineering have launched the sale of its Ola Chorus/Vibrato pedal – the last of the four new Strymon’s shown off at the Winter NAMM show to hit the streets. Like the Orbit Flanger and Brigadier Delay, the Ola employs Strymon’s dBucket technology to bring a true analog feel to a digital pedal. The pedal boasts three modulation types (chorus, muti-mode chorus, vibrato) and three dynamic modes (normal, ramp, envelope). It has controls for ramp speed and envelope sensitivity, a global Tone control for the overall color of your modulation and a Mix control for dialing in various modulation intensities. The Ola is $299.

UK-based Flynn Amps has a new pedal – the FET Boost. The stomp is a straight signal boost with zero EQ coloration according to the company. It boasts high impedence FET input stage that won’t load your pickups. The true bypass, hand-wired pedal joins the Flynn family, which also consists of the Rory Gallagher Hawk boost and the Classic OC44 boost. The FET Boost is now for around $210. The crew at Flynn have also uploaded a demo video of the FET Boost pushing a vintage ’silverface’ Fender Twin Reverb with both clean boost and overdrive boost samples. See for yourself after the jump!

New York-based Cymbals Eat Guitars had a hit on their hands last year with the release of Why There Are Mountains – a nine-track sonic assault that garnered praise far and wide and landed on several critics’ best lists. It was released early in 2009, then re-released late in the year after the band was signed to Sister’s Den Records. The collection is filled with urgent pop swells and dives courtesy of singer/guitarist Joseph D’Agostino. WTDP? was able to track down Joseph and keyboardist Brian Hamilton recently for a little Q&A session. The boys chimed in from Italy, a stop on the current European tour, to talk about their music, their gear and Brian’s pedal company!

MI Effects chimed in on their facebook page to let the masses know that v2 of the company’s popular Neo Fuzz is only a couple of weeks away from the shop floor. According to the update, the company is just waiting on the PCBs to arrive. The Neo Fuzz v2 will have the same circuit and same sound as the original, but MI has an ‘improved control knob layout’ for the pedal. The company also said it sourced more superior components to withstand even greater wear and tear. No word on whether the price will change. The current Neo Fuzz retails for around $180. Stay tuned!

At our first New York Amp Show last year, we knew we’d miss some stuff bouncing from room to room, checking out all of the boutique amp goodness. When we returned to Houston and checked our show notes, there was one page that just said ‘Sommatone!’. We couldn’t quite recall the context of that scribbling, but we were obviously excited. When the Nashville Amp Expo rolled around a few months later, we made it a point to check in with Jimmy and Danny in an attempt to jog the memory of our previous exclamation. That trip laid the groundwork for the crew sending us their latest combo – the Overdrive 35 – to review. But would it inspire the same NYC excitement?

Brian at Farndurk has revealed the first of three new pedals coming soon from his desert oasis laboratory – the Joe booster. The pedal is a clean booster based on the compression tone right out of the Farndurk Model 9 stomp. At the heart of the Joe is a simple, single OpAmp design based on a standard, single gain stage pre-amp. The Joe will soon be joined by the Moe germanium distortion, and the Flo “three tranny” fuzz pedal. All three (Moe, Joe, Flo – get it?) will feature the same single Raven’s Head knob, a footswitch for true bypass, and an indicator LED. Each one will be offered at an introductory sale price, then they all will hit around $140. Stay tuned!

Here were a couple of tidbits that drifted my way recently that I did have time to follow up on, but I still want to pass them along. First, MI Audio is planning a limited edition distortion pedal ‘for a good cause’. Judging by the red cross on the enclosures, any guesses? Second, Xotic is releasing limited edition paint jobs for some their pedal line in 2010. Check with your local dealers soon for ‘glitter’ paint versions of the RC Booster (silver – 650 pcs), AC Booster (gold – 500 pcs) and BB Pre-Amp (orange – 650 pcs) stomps. Lastly, Tom at Fuzzhugger is working up a new fuzz based on the AB-Synth fuzz tones with no oscillation and more gain control. Interest piqued! Stay tuned…

The fine folks at Strymon Engineering are on a roll! First the Orbit Flanger earlier this month, followed by the Brigadier dBucket delay… and now the Blue Sky reverb pedal is ready to go. The Blue Sky Reverberator boasts high and low damping controls for uber-flexible reverb tone shaping, a Mod mode for a beautifully modulated spring, room or plate reverb and a Shimmer mode for infinite pitch effects in the tank. The Blue Sky retails for $299. The release of the Blue Sky means all the pedals revealed at Winter NAMM are out save the Ola chorus/vibrato. Given the company’s recent pace, that could be coming pretty darn quick! Stay tuned!