How do you melt a high-powered tube amp? Feed it high voltage drone metal from a detuned baritone Les Paul at high volume for two hours in a closed-door room. Make it 90 degrees out, possibly 92 in, one fan only. Create a puddle under yourself as you transfer what you have to the amp, the Blackheart, that’s how you know you’re getting somewhere good, by the millimeters of sweat gathering around your territory. Use a towel for your hands and Gibson’s neck and get the distortion gritty enough to shake a lamp. Find a tone that makes your chest pulsate, find a tightness that you can see in the air. Then let it go slow.

B, B#, B, F#, B. Keep it down there, somewhere.

Eventually the Blackheart will give its last crunch and crackle to you. Its last fuzz and pop will go to your axe, and its little red light will let you know when it’s over, when the tube slowly cools off for the last time.

Killed by high voltage guitar tone. The way it’s supposed to be.