Keyboard damage...share your horror stories

[eric]

I don't know if this has been covered before, but I was just thinking about a couple of bad gear incidents. I am sure someone can top these.

 

There is an urban myth about a band loading gear onto a cruise ship and actually dropping a B3 into the water. I have no idea if it is true, but I heard divers retrieved it and after a day in the sun it still worked. True? I don't know.

 

I have a true story similar to this when a friend of mine was involved in a video shoot on a boat. The band was set up and lip syncing for effect (think of the Duran Rio video). Anyways, something went wrong and my friend's D-50 toppled overboard into the bay. He jumped in (not terribly deep water) and fetched it quickly. He was able to salvage it but the keys never worked again. He could access the brain via MIDI. At gigs he had the skeleton D-50 sitting off to the side of the stage with no keys.

 

Here are a couple of my horror stories:

 

When I was in high school and had my first real keyboard rig (Roland JX-8P, Peavey KB-300 and Ultimate Support A-frame stand), I was setting up for a musical on a wooden stage. I had assembled my A-frame stand but apparently did not tighten down the knobs very well or forgot completely. The JX was sitting there, balanced ok. I plugged in the patch cord and sustain pedal and walked away to get something else. Next thing you know, everyone is hollering, "Catch the keyboard!" but it was too late. The crossbar on the stand had come loose and swiveled forward since the knobs were not tight. The JX fell about 4' onto its back where the cords were plugged into it. There was (and still is) a gigantic dent in the steel chassis where the patch and sustain plugs gouged up into it. This was a cosmetic problem but did not stop the JX from working fine. I still have it and it never needed repair!

 

Another horror story was once on a gig, the guitar player took a big swig from a Sam Adams that had a cigarette butt in it (he was standing right by my rig). When he realized the nasty butt was in his mouth, his gut reaction was to spew all of the sticky beer in his mouth all over the keys of my Hammond XB-2. It was probably about 1/3 of the bottle of Sam Adams sprayed down in between my keys. I panicked but it seemed to be working ok. I dried it up and continued with the gig. Within about 10 minutes, it started freezing up and hanging notes everywhere. I barely made it. Took it home and disassembled it to clean all the goop out of there. It came back to life but never was quite the same.

 

Does anyone else have good horror stories about damage you or others have inflicted on your keyboards?

 

Regards,

Eric

[Krakit]

I have a DX100 that I used exclusively for the thunder effect in Riders On The Storm. I don't know how it happened, but the keyboard fell off its stand and made it passed the stage and down to the dance floor.

 

I'll never forget how pissed I was at the lead singer for caring more about his bloody mic stand (which wasn't broken, just loosened) than about my keyboard. He threw a fit onstage and flung it into a speaker. Meanwhile, my keyboard is being trampled, so I got off the stage to retrieve it. He had the audacity to start giving me lip about proffesionalism and never leaving the stage in the middle of a set. Not a song mind you, I waited till that was over, but the set. This is AFTER he threw a mic stand over the heads of the audience into a speaker! Just the beginning of the end on that chapter really.

 

The damage to the DX100 was relatively negligable. The line out was toast. I've had to use the headphone out ever since and as anyone will tell you, that really isn't going to cut it. I suppose I'll get around to repairing it one day.

 

Horror story number two involves not only my Vox Jaguar, but also my Rhodes Piano bass.

 

I was getting both keyboards ready to sell and had the covers off of the Jaguar and the Rhodes because I was tweaking and tuning them. I left them like this while I went to work thinking nothing of it. This is in the basement of my parents house. Now, it's winter and the hot water heater in this house requires refilling now and again. My father, started the process, but forgot to shut the water off. Then, my parents went out of town for the week. I got a call from my wife to come home right away because there was water spurting out of all the radiators in literal fountains. Fountains!

 

I told my wife to shut all the radiator valves in the entire house (we rent an apartment in my parent's two family) and to go to my parent's part of the house and shut those radiators off too. Then I rushed home as fast as I could (an hour commute at 80mph) and assessed the damage. Everthing below hip level near a radiator in my apartment was soaked and the water was about a half an inch deep everywhere. Broke out the wet/dry shopvac and started my wife working on the carpet. I went to check the rest of the house. My parent's part of the house actually suffered little damage because they turned the radiators completely off on account of leaving for the week.

 

When I got to the basement I saw that the water was still flowing, not from any radiators, but from the ceiling!!! My Vox and Rhodes were situated under an actual waterfall for untold hours. The water was four inches deep throughout the entire basement.

 

I shut off the still flowing water heater valve and moved the keyboards out of harms way waiting for the water to subside. That took about another hour.

 

After everything had been resonably dried out and I could finally take stock in my waterlogged gear, I was actually astonished. The flake board cabinet of the Vox remained intact (I was sure it would simply fall to peices) and after completely drying off I was able to tune it. It worked just fine no worse for wear really.

 

The piano bass did not fair quite so well. The keys had warped and the felt hammers were swollen to three time's their normal size. It took months of tender loving care to restore the Piano bass to its near former glory. The Vox? That I sold about a week later.

 

Carl

[Superbobus]

My horror stories aren't that big. Just once my, at that time brand new, Yam P120S fell down almost a meter because I didn't set up my, also new, Quiklok stand properly. I had the piano one day and there was already a dent in it!

I remember a gig where the drummer had borrowed a cheap drum set. He brought his own cymbals but the stands were f**ked up. At the end of the 3rd tune or so, I hear this weird cymbal sound and as soon as I turned around I saw the cymbal flying into the audience! The top of the stand had broken off while he hit the cymbal, that's why.

A story of the same drummer is the light pole story. He was playing with a terrible sax player at a christmas gig when suddenly the christmas tree starts tipping over. In its fall it takes a light pole with him. The sax player thinks it's really funny, turns around and before he knew it, the light pole breaks his horn in two pieces! I think that guy was still damn lucky because if he wouldn't have moved he would be dead.

Okay, that's slightly OT. Maybe I should start a thread about gig accidents.

[Botch.]

A rather rough-looking group came into a large country-music dance hall we were playing at south of Albuquerque. Several couples actually left, and I soon learned they were all prison guards at the state pen. Sure enough, soon there was a free-for-all over by the pool tables, then it worked its way out on the dance floor, then up against the stage. We're talking people swinging pool cues, broken beer bottles, and one guy a stool. My Ultimate A-frame was soon tipped backwards and I managed to catch both my Roland A-80 and DX-7 simultaneously with my arms. I was scared shitless about my great-grandfather's fiddle sitting to the side all naked, but it wasn't harmed. I was able to repair the damage to the A-frame. I packed my gear then and there, told the guys goodbye, and never played live in New Mexico again.

[LarsHarner]

i'll shareone- my friend Catfish borrowed my DX7 and put it on the trunk of the car- and went into to get a beer, meanwhile- Dave his brother backed the car out of the driveway cause his mom was coming. the keyboard slid off the car into a pile of mud (it was raining)

 

Catfish had been fighting with his girlfriend all day, had a few more beers and forgot about my DX7!

 

there was so much mud on the DX it was ruined!

 

I ended up suing Catfish and he finally replaced the Dx7 with a Korg n364

[Mike Martin]

Years ago, I it was "mug night" at the bar where my band was playing. When our band started playing our first set, there was a lone dancer...drunk guy who had easily been there for many hours pounding away those 32 ounce beers.

 

Needless to say he was dancing close to the stage and tripped over the stage monitor...pouring his entire beer into my PC88. When he realized what happened he stumbled out of the bar as quickly as he could.

 

I shut the keyboard down, opened it up and cleaned up everything I could. The PC88 performed great the rest of the night. The next day however it was a stickly mess. Many of the front panel buttons didn't work along with 2 octaves of keys. It wasn't that difficult to get fixed up but I thought it would be much worse than that.

 

Here is a story...not about keyboard damage but player damage (from a keyboard).

Before the PC88, I used to gig with a KX88. I used it on a Ultimate Apex stand with the larger clamp and arms. One night the clamp failed and the KX88 dropped towards the floor catching me in the shin on the way down. Somehow it put a large puncture wound in my leg which sent me to the ER for stitches...weird by true.

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by eric:

I don't know if this has been covered before, but I was just thinking about a couple of bad gear incidents. I am sure someone can top these.

 

I wish I couldn't.

 

A friend many years ago had a drunk pour a beer into his sax. Had to have the whole bottom end repadded.

 

Some years ago the crew of a cruise ship in New Zealand managed to run up onto some rocks and sink the ship. I think everyone got off but the band lost all their gear and their professionally written arrangements. Don't know if they ever were recompensed - they took the Cruise Line to court but I don't remember the outcome.

 

But that's not the worst. An aquaintance whose band I almost joined was playing in the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in Brisbane when it was fire bombed. He was almost out but went back for his brand new sax. He never made it out.