bapu


James,

Who in their right mind would want Depeche Mode cassettes?

Besides Jules.

I totally deserved that. ;)




(and hahahahaha, I'm listening to a Dave Gahan album as I read this)

Tough crowd!  Man I am SOOO not going to show anyone here my New Wave collection...

Sorry to hear about it Bill!

Dang that's so not fun....or cool. 

But it happens. 

I forgot to lock the side doors to my van one day while I was in school. I had the band PA system in the van along with amps and other stuff.... I came out after class to find my drivers door unlocked. I did remember to lock that when I went in to class..... it required a key to lock it.... none of those clickers like we have now.  
So the first thing I notice when I get in is the 8 track which I had hanging under the dash was gone. It was a piece of crap that was supposed to be installed in the dash but was for a different vehicle so I hung it under and wired it up. I yanked back the curtain I had behind the seats fearing to see an empty van...... panic..... but everything was there. I guess the PA was too big and heavy to mess with in the college parking lot with people coming and going. 

Lesson learned..... double check the doors next time. 


Over the years I've been in a few bands that had vehicles parked at gigs when people tried to do some B&E on us. Slight damage to the loading door on the rear of the truck.

Herb, similar story.

Back in 1973 on a Saturday night I had some musician friends over. One guitarist decides he wants to leave his Acoustic 2x12 amp and his SG at my apartment. I had a Acoustic 360 and an EB3 at the time. Since it was a one bedroom apartment our gear was in the living room. 

Monday comes and I go to work. As usual I get home before my (then) wife but I find the front door to our apartment wide open. Her car was not in her designated parking space so I know she's not home early. I fear the worst "My god, Mike's guitar and amp was stolen." then even worse "My bass and amp were stolen". All this in the 6 seconds since I see the door open to when I walk through the door.

Bottom line. Instruments and amps were untouched but the cheap azz TV and stereo were gone. They came and left at 12:14. How do I know this? They unplugged the clock that was on the TV and left it on the floor. Our front door was open for over four hours and NO ONE took the the musical instruments.

My SG was stolen twice. I've told this story before.... 

The first time was off of the Marine Corps base after a gig at 2nd area E-club.  I had to buy another guitar to keep playing the gigs we had.... but through the work of the NIS and the Philadelphia police dept, the guitar was recovered and since I had kept on the NIS officer and had given serial numbers to him, I got the guitar back after 4 months or so. The detective work on this case was amazing.... turned out the guy who stole it had a brother living in Philadelphia who was a fence. The PPD had him under surveillance and busted him recovering my guitar and returning it to NC and the NIS.  They called me and I could not believe it...I had chalked it up as gone. 

Second time..... I came home to find the door to my trailer ajar and the bottom glass broken out.  This time, I had the SG stolen from under the couch, my bass guitar, a small amp, and a Teac 4 track reel to reel were missing, but the TV & stereo near the door and money in the bedroom drawer were not touched. I figured it to be a musician. A neighbor saw a grey car around 2pm. Since 2 musicians in town that I knew had grey cars, and one was a rich kid... I went to see the other guy. Long story short, he did take the stuff, and after the police talked to him...I did the detective work on this one..then called the police who got pissed at me for delaying the call and "contaminating the scene" until I told them I think I have it all figured out and the guy is going to come see me later....... anyway, I got the call from the police next day to come and get my stuff.... all of it.  The guitar amp and bass were at his friends house and he threw the TEAC into a ditch...... it was a very expensive 4 track tape machine..... my first attempt at home recording.... 


add: I had a small quantity of herbal medication in the guitar case.....and I was hoping and praying that the thief had found it and removed it .....which he had.  Sweating bullets on that one as I walked into the police dept to ID my gear and claim it. 

END OF STORY:  the kid who swiped the gear was a really, really talented guitar player who had a crappy guitar..... not making excuses... he knew he did wrong. I called him a few years after this event and hired him to play guitar in a band I had. He was amazing...and after we had a little "man to man" discussion about things in the past... we moved on and he played in that band for 9 months and we got along well.