The worst screwups related to music

[LiveMusic]

What's the most revolting screwup you know of relating to anything music? topper74, in another post, said his mom, in a cleaning frenzy, inadvertently threw away his two tickets to a James Taylor concert. That must mean his room looked like a pig sty. ;) A girlfriend of mine, her mom recently threw out two giant boxes of her collection of highschool days LPs, complete with liner notes. And another box of Beatles memorabilia, worth thousands! Just "cleaning up" the closet in her old room. (She doesn't need the room; the kids are long gone.) Just put it all out on the curb for the garbage man. I wonder if he even opened the boxes to see what was in them. Or if he even had a clue of their value? Man, that just makes me sick. She's still p.o.'d at Mom. Her brother, too. They were his, too. They could have killed her. It could be anything. A guitar you COULD have bought but DIDN'T. etc. I guess it's not an actual screwup like something lost or something but I could have seen Elvis live way back when but didn't have enough sense to realize his place in music. I've always wished I had seen him.

[FoxTick]

i don't think i will ever forgive myself for leaving my whole record collection in my storage area during the summer. MOST EVERYTHING GOT WARPED!!!! I WAS SOOOO PISSED!!! I am such a DUMBASS!!!! other than that, i had a chance to pick up a Studer 2" 16 track for $800 and didn't take it - (even if the heads were worn, i still should've got it) - arg!! DUMBASS!!!! "you're dumb and you're an ass, which makes you a dumbass" -Red Foreman

[Steve LeBlanc]

HAHA, I know what you mean Popmusic...I was pissed that I missed Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell 2" tour...I was thinking to myself one day...man I'd love to see him when he comes to town...checked the paper and found I'd just missed it. DOH!! Worst personal musical screwup...hmmm...probably selling my Sequential Circuits Prophet 600 to pay for a Roland D50...I made a lot of good music with the D50 but I should have NEVER sold my Prophet. I miss that synth A LOT and haven't been able to find one to replace it (mine was in super mint condition).

[strat0124]

uh.....leaving a girlfriend alone with Dguass?????

[Lee Flier]

When I was about 15 one of my mom's coworkers found a vintage Rickenbacker guitar in the dumpster of his apartment complex. Somebody had moved out and thrown away almost everything. He knew my mom had a daughter who played so he asked her to take it to me and ask me if it worked and was playable. It had one bent machinehead and that was it. I put new strings on it and it played like a dream. Of course being young and stupid I reported the truth... and the guy asked for the guitar back saying he was going to sell it - for more than I could afford. He should've just given it to me. Bastard. I also had a pair of fingerless gloves that were custom made for the Rolling Stones (and had their logo on it). Only 3 pairs were made and I kept one and personally delivered the other 2 to Keith Richards and Ron Wood at a rehearsal, which was a real thrill of course. My pair was in a bag that was stolen a few years later. There was no money in the bag or anything of real monetary worth, but I can't believe I no longer have those gloves. :( I do have several photos of Keith on tour wearing his. --Lee

[fantasticsound]

Wow! This is NOT a fun thread! :eek: In a twisted series of events, I left a Lotus strat copy in my Peavey T-60 hardcase on a downtown Chicago street at 10pm, in the rain. My 1987 Dodge Omni had succumbed to a common problem. The windshield seal failed, causing a bad leak when it rained. I had gerry-rigged a large plastic garbage bag, laid across the roof/windshield and and stuck in the locked doors. I came out of a recording class, only to find the plastic had directed the water [i]in[/i] to the leak, instead of away from it. I put the case next to the driver's side, rear tire, while I wrestled with the plastic and attempted to cover the soaked driver's seat. It was dark, still dizzling, and the case was black. I threw my bookbag into the car, mashed the garbage bag and tossed it in, and entered the car, in a huff. I drove [i]3[/i] blocks and spent half the night recording and experimenting in my buddy's dad's studio. At approx. 4am, I'm just about home (25 miles away) when I realize I don't have the guitar, and I don't remember having it at the studio. I called my friend, who was none too happy to get a call a 1/2 hour after falling asleep, but the guitar wasn't there. I drove back to my parking spot from earlier that night, but.. imagine this.. it was gone! (Duh! :eek: ) Now I really liked that cheap guitar, and I'd customized it a bit. But the truly sad part, that warrants this whole tirade is: I'd just bought a then brand new, Zoom 9002, which I'd been playing the Lotus through between classes. Over $400 bucks worth of gear gone, 'cause of my own stupidity. :( . Never found any of it. So if anyone knows of a white Lotus Strat, with several neon colored, square stickers with identifying codes for pipes in a factory on the body, it's mine. I'd still like it back. :) On a less personal note, the biggest musical screwup I've [i]heard[/i] of has to be the story from Japan, a few years back, when whole side of PA came crashing down between soundcheck and show. Thank goodness no one was there yet. If I remember correctly, it was an Aerosmith show. I mixed a show at Opryland, where the empty brains in Productions hired one of the finest R&R and comedy acts, to do his comedy show (Not just music), for a trickle in audience at 6am! No breakfast, just businessmen sitting down to wait for the keynote address. Big surprise, nobody paid attention to a thing he said. One guy, up front early, had his head buried in the Wall Street Journal. The entertainer ended up telling inside jokes for 15-20 min. to the band & me. That's the musical screwup. I'm not going to elaborate on the pyro fiasco that cost the hotel.. er.. [i]Productions[/i], the entire entertainment fee for that meeting. I'll only mention it didn't end in fire.. Just fizz.z..z..zzled... out........... :eek:

[D. Gauss]

<> "dude, i thought you said put gas in the plane!"- pilot of lynyrd skynrd's doomed flight "um, i don't hear any hits, we'll have to pass."- numerous record label folks who turned down the beatles "anybody want anything? I'm going out to get more beer"- motley crue's vince neil before he killed two people while driving drunk "maybe i should put out a new solo record called 'goddess in the doorway', it'll sell like hotcakes!" -mick jagger -d. gauss

[D. Gauss]

oops left this one out: "it'll be great, we'll sell hotdogs for 15 dollars and bottles of water for 6 dollars and we'll make a fortune off them dirtbag kids!" -vendors at the woodstock riot/fire fiasco -d. gauss

[LiveMusic]

[quote]Originally posted by d gauss: [b]"dude, i thought you said put gas in the plane!"- pilot of lynyrd skynrd's doomed flight[/b][/quote] d gauss, what do you mean by the quote above? I mean, what's the story about that flight?

[ABECK]

[quote]Originally posted by LiveMusic: [b] d gauss, what do you mean by the quote above? I mean, what's the story about that flight?[/b][/quote] I think the fuel meter in the jet was defective, and reading more fuel than they actually had. Piolets are supposed to manually check the feul levels just in case those meters are wrong. They didn't in this case and the plane went down.

[not coaster MODERATOR]

If you think the loved my "Comes Alive" album wait'll they hear the new one! PF hey, speaking of PF, did anybody else see him at NAMM last winter? He did a little impromptu thing right in a little aisle booth. I was right there when he started. I didn't even see it coming. He played Show me the Way.

[Hippie]

If you watch Purple Rain as a comedy it IS quite good.

[Magical Pig]

How about that Aaliyah plane crash were the baggage handlers warned them that the plane was dangerously overloaded but because the pilot was new he was pressured by the passengers to take off anyway. The plane crashed 200 feet after taking off, killing all 9 people. I bet they were all like, whoops, my bad!

[THE wesus stalker...]

OK, I have this info third-hand, but I have heard this story recounted several times over the last six or seven years... There is a fairly well known and highly respected NYC jazz bassist. Said bassist was once on his way out of his apartment for a gig. For some reason he left his prized upright somewhere in the vicinty of his buildings garbage cans while he went back to his apartment to retrieve some forgotten item. He returned just in time to see his instrument being literally crushed to bits in the back of a NYC garbage truck.

[jackpine]

So ... its the mid seventies and I live in the Chicago burbs. I score a couple of tickets to see Zepplin and at the last minute balk on going in for the show 'cause my "girlfriend" didn't want to go. I showed her. I got drunk and fell down. whew.

[aeon]

In 1959 my dad received a Gibson ES-335 and Vox AC30 for his birthday. Just imagine, a vintage sunburst 335 with PAFs...and a Vox AC30, which was quite rare in ’59 (or so I have read)... I am sure my dad does not see it as a mistake, but in the mid 60s he traded them both for a (very nice) Gibson acoustic... Ouch! :( [ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: aeon ]

[thisDude]

top ten music related screw-ups (1) gansta rap (2) david hasselhoff (3) milli vanilli's sound guy (4) 8-tracks (5) kiss doing pepsi commercials (6) bill shatner (7) roseanne (superbowl) (8) yoko ono (9) muzak (10) flying v's (sorry, they look stupid!)

[videoeditor1]

Hi. I know in advance that I shouldn't talk about this on the forums, and I MAY get calls like crazy from the exposed, affected people, but I figure that Dan South is due for another good story...or two. :) ---------- I'm doing a nice short 3 week tour last year. Japan. Blue Note clubs. Fukuoka, Osaka, Tokyo. Nice enough gig (although we came [i]this close[/i] to Marcus Miller in Osaka, but didn't get to see him.....). Here are a few "events" that transpired... "[b]The SCARE[/b]" 1. I have a Kurzweil K2500XS. We decided to use it on the tour. Through one week of rehearsal, it never glitches. The last day of rehearsal, correction, the night b4 we leave, the keyboard player is doing some last minute stuff...and the display goes blank, power cycle, it comes back up...coughs and dies. This is at about 1 am in the morning. The flight is @ 1pm, the gear has to be @ JFK by 10am so I can do the song & dance.... I find a replacement an hour later (don't ask, don't tell!) with the KDFX card, and 128Mb RAM. Great! I fire it up, but it only had 16Mb RAM. My guy needs 128Mb. Back to my unit to do a memory transplant. The damn thing has a gazillion screws, and the whole thing has to be dis-assembled to get to the memory bank.... Generally, I like to travel with the back line I use in rehearsals, (keys, drum machines, bass head, my rack of efx...),,,just because then, I am already exposed to what I'll be using. -------------------------- "[b]The INSULT[/b]" One small crisis averted. Travel day. People coming in from all over to JFK. The Mgmt company arranged for vans to pick everyone up (Bklyn, Queens, NYC) ,I'm taking the car service to JFK (from Westchester). On a hunch, I call the van service to confirm that my "people" are en route to the airport in the three vans. One of the pickups (NYC) was not in the logs. There are no cars available. I have to curse a blue streak, swear, and act pretty bad. Eventually, the van is dispatched. Most are late. I have a total of 36 bags. (number derived from list/polling everyone). Before boarding, I check the tags. I have 34 tags. Fortunately, the act flew out 2 days prior. UNFORTUNATELY, I have 90% of her stuff. I ask the airline to pull each and every single piece of my bags & gear off the plane. bad idea. Not gonna happen. I get reassurances from the airline peeps that all is well. Get to Japan: Two bags are missing. They belong to one of the background singers. All she has are the size 6 drawers on her ass, and her knapsack. Now I'm shelling out money over a span of a few days so she can have clothes for on & off stage. The bags can't be found ANYWHERE. I pull in favors from friends at JFK, The Port Authority, Japan Air, the keyboardist is burning up the midnite oil, his room mate in NY works at American....nothing. I call the van service that picked them up in NYC...maybe the bags never left the van. Ne-ga-to-ry. Now the Blue Note is getting involved on our behalf. They Japanese is much better than my 3 word Japanese vocabulary. Still nothing. Without the tags, I have little or nothing to fall back on. (For the record, I've been on Japan Air over 50...maybe 80 times, and they have never lost a single piece for any of my crews over the years...) During all of this time, I'm getting MAJOR abuse from the poor clothes-less lady. It's my fault, I'm wearing too many caps, I'm an incompetent, I'm a fuckup, she wants to scrape me off her heel, fuck me, screw me. Then she calls NY. The management company. The booking agent. Her family in Jamaica (where her trip started, then rehearsals in NY, then off to far east). Nobody cares, she's naked (I wish :D ), I'm a complete fuckup (even though I've done this specific run about 5 or 7 times now...) I'm ready to "go to the tape" ...which is to have the Port Authority review the tapes for that day for that terminal @ JFK. I'm having a conversation with THE ARTISTE's assistant and she says... "XXXXX" must be so happy they found the bags..." I go huh??????? She repeats it. I dig deeper. The bags have been found. I am relieved. The said assistant tells me... "yeah" they were found yesterday...all the girls know (artiste, back singers, herself). Yup. All the "girls" know. The artiste thought I had been informed, the other background singers were telling the affected lady to tell me....I heard nothing. So do you want to hear which entity located the bags? Or should I make ya wait? The bags never left the ([b]insert_expletive_here[/b]) hotel in NY! The staff got concerned after a few hours with them being in the lobby, and put them in a secure location. We had traveled on ..Saturday? The back singer found out...Wednesday? Finally, piece and quiet. I am hopping mad. I refuse to air freight them over. I refuse to give her any additional $$$. The $$$ I already gave her, I took back out of her remaining per diem. BTW, nothing in the form of an apology from the young lady (I didn't expect one). ------------ "[b]The INJURY[/b]" Peace, at last on the tour. All is well (relatively). We are in Fukuoka. It's between sets, almost dinner time. My laptop is setup on a table in a hallway. The band is eyeballing some pics I've taken with the digi camera over the past few days. Our hosts indicate that our meal is ready. The usual mad stampede. Eight people blow past me. The laptop hits the ground, hard drive is chattering, touch pad dead, casing is broken. In addition to the pics, I'm advancing production for other acts as well as this act on the same machine. Had to get a new HD. Warranty is now voided. PIII/650Mhz/256Mb RAM/CD-RW/ 13.3"/ 4.5lb machine is a paperweight. Acer tells me it will take $900 to "fix" it and maintain the warranty. Oh, as it turns out, the perp, the artiste, the mgmt co - they all gracefully decline to cover or chip in on the cost of the repair. It was the same chick that lost her bags that hit the laptop. She has a long string of mishaps. I should have known better. Now I do. No more stories. I'm still pissed off. NYC Drew

[D. Gauss]

"hey guys, let's take off the makeup from now on." - Gene Simmons of Kiss "Now that people are used to Sammy, let's kick him out of the band and get that Gary dude from Extreme." -eddie van halen "you can't shoot me, i'm your son!" - marvin gaye "i'd look much better with lighter skin and a smaller nose." -michael jackson -d. gauss

[Botch.]

This isn't as bad as some of the horror stories on this thread, but I once got run over by the same car I was sitting in! We were driving cross-country in a station wagon to some gig in South Dakota, the whole band was in one station wagon being driven by one of the member's Dad or Grampa, can't quite remember. We had stopped to "water the ditch" (it was a long trip) and were climbing back into the car and Grampa starts driving off, but I'm still not all the way in the car. My left leg was in place and I was seated, but I hadn't yet gotten my right leg into the vehicle (I'm 6'5" and all legs, it takes me awhile) so I holler to Gramps to hold on a second. Well, Gramps can't hear so well and keeps going, then I feel the right rear tire grab my heel and start riding up my foot, I start SCREAMING LOUDLY, and the tire had gone completely over my foot by the time Grampa stopped the car. Fortunately nothing was broken, but I played sitting down and used the sustain with my left foot (that's hard to do the first time!) I sat in the front seat on the return trip! :D

[fantasticsound]

[quote]Originally posted by botch@netutah.net: [b]This isn't as bad as some of the horror stories on this thread, but I once got run over by the same car I was sitting in![/b][/quote] I'm guessing you're.... an optimist! :D ;) ([i]"...isn't as bad as some of the horror stories..." I mean, your foot was run over for #$@%$ sakes! :D I need musicians like that in MY band![/i])

[fantasticsound]

Hey NYC Drew... That trip was an all around classic! Ahhh... the joy of touring. I haven't had to fly gear international. I understand it's a wonderful :rolleyes: experience, normally! :D

[Magpel]

My two most idotic gear moves: --Trading a Les Paul for an Alesis Quadraverb GT. The Les Paul had been modified out of all vintage value by my mad scientist brother, but it was a nice guitar, and the GT is a total piece of crap. My Freind Anthony of ADL Labs was trying to sell a compressor to Daryl Hall, who lives in our region. Daryl gave Anthony some old outdated Roland drum machine, which Anthony passed on to me. I tinkered with it for about 15 minutes, decided I had no use for it (I had, after all, an HR-16 in my rig...) and left it on the steps of the local Salvation Army. Turns out it was an 808. I didn't know this till I had my first look at the soft synth Rebirth. "Hey," I said. "That looks familiar." Many of these "worst" stories have their "best" corrolaries that we're not hearing, for instance, the budding young electronica artist who found an 808 lying around the New Paltz Salvation Army one day. Here's to you, kid.

[D. Gauss]

"this band ain't doing it for me anymore, i can do much better out on my own." -mick taylor of the rolling stones "hey baby let's smoke more crack and tie this young, naked girl up to a chair...what's the worst that could happen?" - rick james "it's way too cold to ride in the bus, let's charter a plane." -buddy holly, big bopper and richie valens "...and we'll hire two models to lip sync our songs instead of us." -producers of milli vanilli -d. gauss

[henryrobinett]

NYC Drew: That story still pisses ME off! Man! Nothing like getting totally pissed off about a situation that happened years ago, to somebody else, who I don't know, with people I don't even know, half way across the world. Hope thins are going better. Hope that was that backup singers last gig.

[D. Gauss]

"i'll take off my hat, put on a wig, change my name to chris gaines and make a rock record." -garth brooks -d. gauss

[The Bear Jew]

"Hmmm... this looks like a fake bat. I think I'll bite it." --Ozzy Ozbourne "I don't see how anyone could take this lyric the wrong way." --Ian MackAye (after writing "Guilty Of Being White") "Power of attorney? Nah, we don't need that." --Everyone in the Jimi Hendrix Experience "Sure, I'll have another deep-fried peanut-butter sandwich. What's it gonna do, kill me?" --Elvis Presley

[Dylan]

Damn, these are some real tragic stories. My biggest mistake was selling a mint silver face Fender Princeton Reverb back to the store where I bought it from previously for a measly $225.I was in college and needed the money at the time, but still, I can't get over loosing such a smooth, warm sounding amp that now sells for several hundred dollars. D'oh!

[Arjay]

In the late seventies, I had the opportunity to jam with the late Roy Buchanan one night, before and after a show he played in Hartford, CT. He wanted to try out my (then new) '76 Telecaster, saying he never got the chance to play new ones, and he let me use the modified '55 Esquire he was touring with. So we swapped axes for awhile, and it was grand, the whole experience. Years later, fed up with trying to "make it," I got rid of my amps, and traded a (by then) very beat '76 Tele for an Ibanez Lonestar acoustic. Looking back, all the Tele really needed was a level & redress job. I was very young, very ignorant of the care and feeding of my chosen instrument, and I traded away some very serious mojo. Last year, I finally got another Telecaster. I hope that Roy finally stopped spinning in his grave.

[fantasticsound]

[quote]Originally posted by Magpel: [b]...left it on the steps of the local Salvation Army. Turns out it was an 808... ...Many of these "worst" stories have their "best" corrolaries that we're not hearing, for instance, the budding young electronica artist who found an 808 lying around the New Paltz Salvation Army one day. Here's to you, kid.[/b][/quote] Now that's classy, Magpel. Of course, the "kid" probably found the 808, decided to drop out of school to be a musician, couldn't cut it, and now [i]lives[/i] in the Salvation Army lodge. Thanks for nothing! :mad: ;) ;) ;) ;) (Bugs Bunny voice :) I'm.. a.. stinker..... :D