I love the distortion on this album. It's warm, crunchy, and as to be one of my favorites. Havings said that, I had to dive in. Hope you enjoy.
On Blue, Rivers used Rick Ocasek’s (lead frontman for The Cars) Red 60's Fender Jaguar for most of the cleans, "59" Gibson Les Paul Junior Special Double Cutaway (said to have actually been a 1955) for most of the distorted tracks, and also another Les Paul Junior Special (Yellow).
The Accoustic recorded on "Jonas" and "In The Garage" was a 74 Gibson J-45 (or a 70's descendant of a J-45).
His infamous Blue strat came in after The Blue Album.
Rivers has always used GHS Boomer strings, size .10's. For Picks, he uses Jim Dunlop plain gray pics, the .73's from 1992-1999, and most recently the .60s. He started tuning down a 1/2 step when he was younger because it was easier to hit high notes, vocally (I think I should start tuning to drop C).
Rivers ran a 60-Watt Mesa Boogie Mark 1 Head (1977 or 1978) into a 1968 "mock 8x10's" Marshall Cab with equipped with four 12" Celestionm Greenbacks. This cabinet was from an old series that held four 12" speakers into a cab that was designed to fit 8 10" speakers. Also known as "mock 8x10's".
The legioned has it that Pete Townsend (from The Who) was the inspiration behind Marshall creating this cab. He liked the huge amp stack, but wanted the 4x12" speaker setup inside.
Recorded at Electric Lady Studios, most songs were recorded at low volumes, the opposite of how most get their tones.
It's widely documented that Rivers did not use any pedals on the album however, there is some documentation that for the "Garage" song he used a Tele (Jason Cropper's) through a Big Muff using Electric Lady's Fender Twin to get that tone.