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Love and Loss (of gear)


Misowaki
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A post on here led me to thinking... of all the "look out for XYZ that got stolen from a gig/car/back of my bicycle/my drunken hands" posts I see on F******k and the like, it's never  rarely bass gear.

So, at the risk of perpetuating the divide between band members and the reviving the old singer/drummer/bassist joke type thing, why is it seemingly only drummers and guitarists that get their stuff nicked?  Or, as is the case with 2 of my band members, leave their gear places and forget about it, never to be seen again? 🤔

Any of you ever left your gear in a car overnight or left unattended whilst you've gone to get whizzed?


p.s. I also drum and play guitar in other bands so not ragging, I'm just really anal about my gear and it astounds me how little others care for theirs.

Edited by Misowaki
I have been shown the error of my ways =D
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2 hours ago, Misowaki said:

why is it seemingly only drummers and guitarists that get their stuff nicked?

Whatever impression you may have garnered from social media, it is certainly the case that Bass players' gear gets nicked.

Also, any number of people here have been scammed out of instruments and other stuff. And they've usually experienced difficulty getting their stuff back. One BC-er is currently participating in a police enquiry into a repeat scammer and there's a crowdfund to help cover his (and another BC-ers) losses.

 

Edited by skankdelvar
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Ah, scams are a different thing though, I've narrowly escaped a couple by the skin of my teeth.  I'm talking about the myriad "my stuff got stolen from my car" posts I come across.  The 'ah that suuuuucks" reaction is quickly superseded by "WHY DID YOU LEAVE ALL THAT IN YOUR CAR OVERNIGHT?!"

Didn't mean to rub it in to anyone that is going through a loss of their own, sorry chaps and chapettes!

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31 minutes ago, BassBod said:

Even though I’m generally careful, working as a musician makes it inevitable that some gear gets left in vehicles, sometimes overnight. I always take instruments into hotels..but moving amps at 3am..no way.  

Aside from my 410 speaker cab I`m pretty much the same, even when staying overnight at hotels it all comes in with me.

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1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

How did you avoid Scott Devine’s theft? I couldn’t escape reading about it at one point!

Yeah I did hear about that actually. I guess because the link wasnt as immediate I didn't acknowledge it in the same way. But he got it back, didn't he! I gues the moral is if you're gonna have shizz nicked, make sure you're famous first? =D

Edited by Misowaki
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12 hours ago, gjones said:

I had my bass nicked after, yes you guessed, leaving it in the car overnight.

 

Luckily I found it again, a year later, in my local pawnshop.

Glad to hear you got it back! 

One of my bands, one guitarist left his guitar at a gig. A week later asked us "has anyone seen my guitar?"  6 months later he returns to the venue and his guitar is still on stage exactly where he left it. Luckily it was a favour playing at his step dad's churchy thing. Still... WTF?!  No idea how it took him so long to connect the dots.

Another, in the same band, left a super rare Japanese strat from the 80s I think at a function he thinks. Years ago. Swears he knows exactly where he left it. Didn't do anything about it at the time, now laments its loss.

I drum in that band. Often the guitarists will ask if I have a spare lead or plectrums.  😒

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30 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

Impossible..! Musicians never visit forums. Fact. :|

I'm having a dry summer, all my students are on holiday and played my last gig til September on Wednesday so I've nothing better to do right now =D

 

Also, I have severe GAS

Edited by Misowaki
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6 hours ago, bazzbass said:

quite clearly you are wrong, why are you visiting drum and guitar forums?

You can't be a real bass player, you must be one of them musicians I keep reading about :)

It's all on facebook, man. I swear, I never see posts about bassists losing their gear. I might make a few screenshots to show I'm not crazy. I mean, I know that obviously we're not immune I just never hear of it.

Started on guitar, preferred the sound and feel of bass, always wanted to play drums but never allowed a kit when younger but eventually ended up drumming in a band I bassed in because he was sh!t (and a massive silly billy) and ended up getting more gigs on drums so stuck with that a few years before now being mainly on bass again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

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Bassists do indeed, also get their gear nicked - It's not just drummers or guitarists
I've known of a few incidents over the years, including a pal of mine

Re leaving gear in a car overnight, I'd never do that. I've known people do it and get away with it
But I suspect if your car got broken in to, and gear stolen from the car - you probably wouldn't do it again
I wouldn't even leave a cheapo / bitsa / backup bass in my car, as much as anything, to avoid the thieves damaging my car

EDIT: That said, I do leave gear out of sight, in the boot of my car, but rarely overnight... just in case...

Edited by Marc S
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We did a wedding in a marquee in a field recently. I slept with my stuff in the tent with me. The only options were to leave it in the car or in the (unattended) marquee overnight. Neither was going to happen. 

The guitarist in a band I was in years ago had his guitar nicked when we were loading out after a pub gig. No one’s going to question a bloke walking out of a pub with a guitar case under his arm. The thing was, the case was empty as the guitar was still on it’s stand... 

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I never leave a bass in the car overnight, but I have left the rest of my gear on occasion -- in such cases, I always back my car up till it's 6" from the garage wall, so there's no way the tailgate can be opened. The gear is all out of sight in the boot under the tonneau cover, so it's not visible from the outside of the car.

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Yeah, I have also left stuff in the car tbh but only ever in my drive way with bits out of sight and the boot backed up like you say.  But I also live in the burbs.  But I teach from my house so people can hear bass and drums so I'm an obvious target...

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In the interest of balance, I played a gig at a biker rally a few weeks ago where the bass player from the band on before us left his American Elite Jazz at the venue.  Fortunately the organisers took charge of it and he got it back.  

So, not every bass player is as organised as some of us.  Personally I count the number of bags/cases going into my car when I leave home, and count them all back in at the end of the gig (usually between 10 and 12 depending on whether we take lights) and the only thing I’ve ever mislaid is a mic stand, which I’d taken as a spare at the last minute - I don’t even sing!   And for even more balance, on that occasion our guitarist spotted it and took it home for me.

I will admit to occasionally leaving my cabs in the car overnight after a gig, but they’re home built so apart from my time the actual investment in them is relatively low.  Everything else comes into the house.

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