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The "Real" Story behind the "SMF" Name?

During interviews for my initial SC-site research I was given two explanations for the origin of the "SMF" name:

1. According to one former Sound City employee, upon first hearing the SMF Tour Series amp, Bob Eberline of Sound City exclaimed that it was "some motherfucker."

2. According to another former Sound City employee, Mountain's Leslie West was consulting on the original SMF design for a short while. When Leslie heard the first prototype of the SMF amp, he called it a "super motherfucker."

And here is some new information (another explanation, which I quoted here) that came to me only recently (July, 2007) from a SC site visitor and someone who visited the Mahwah-NJ plant back when and who is a friend of Charlie Knox, the developer of the Tour Series and SMF lines...

"Bill Eberline did the exterior SMF designs - sourcing the long-fingered speaker cab corners from a company in Connecticut - they are still available from Grangers.

The other person who did the USA Tour Series and SMF electronics development - as we all complained to him [including Leslie West] of the 'cleanness' of the Mk. IV - was Charlie Knox.

Charlie had presented John [Lee] and Bill the Tour Series / SMF amp guts - without the box.

They asked Charlie, 'What is it?' to which Charlie stated, 'a super mutha fukah.'

The [original] SMF head enclosure came from a 200-Watt Marshall Major that got hacked up to make a 'Prototype' SMF enclosure."

Regardless of who actually named this amp, the name stuck. Whether it's an appropriate moniker is in the ear of the user (and the audience).