Defending your equipment from the well intentioned

[Raskolnikov]

We've all alteast heard of drinks being poored into boards, speakers being knocked over, and then of course we have the people who want to play your stuff. Hell, my five string and amp currently sport a nice layer of dried out beer slime. Any pointers, horror stories, or thoughts on this subject?

[loner92]

Get a stun gun. One with about 200,000 volts should suffice. After getting shoked by that, no one will even think about coming near your gear again.

[Raskolnikov]

actually, I have a friend, we call him "Ug," he usually does a pretty good job. Actually, I should make it a little clearer, I could put a "Violators will be Ugged" sign on my cab...

[JoeyLibby]

Only people i let touch my stuff is people with their own gear of equal or greater value that i can take if they break my stuff :)

Also i ususally dont let non-musicians play my guitar cause they usually end up breaking strings, and i hate breaking a set of 27 dollar elixirs :P

[James]

Elixers are great strings...

[zepo]

You know what a good method for keeping morons away from gear???? A good old fashioned foot in the face it usually detures most people for the ones that need more of a reason not to touch your stuff you pull a keith richards and hit them on their head with a friggin guitar (preferably a lesser P.O.S guitar one of your "friends" owns)

[Christoph]

Most people would probably prefer a more diplomatic approach than a foot in the face.

[Fender Man]

Some people just won't listen, and that is about what it takes-a foot in the face. Just the other day someone tried to slam my guitar, OOOOOOOOOOOOOh no, that ain't going to happen. You just got to put your foot down.

[Raskolnikov]

A good glare always helps. I've found that sometimes you just have to go right up to somebody and say "GET THE HELL OFF OF THE STAGE!" Otherwise, they'll be up on stage doing "guest vocals" or something every time you turn your back.

[Christoph]

Originally posted by Fender Man
Just the other day someone tried to slam my guitar . . .

What do you mean? Somebody just grabbed it and was going to smash it over the bar?

[zepo]

Ras I'm telling you foot in the face, FOOT-IN-THE-FACE!!! It always stops them.

[Raskolnikov]

yes, but why put the effort into kicking somebody when I can calmly walk to the mic and say "Ug, please report to the stage and kindly remove this... person from my sight." A good "Ugging" is far more severe than any "foot in the face" I could deliver.

[Fender Man]

yeah, A dude picked it up, and almost slammed it on the ground. Wasn't going to let that happen. Would you?

[jake sommers]

That's definately foot-in-tha-faceable.

[Raskolnikov]

If someone tried to do that to one of my basses... well, I really don't like to think about that sort of thing. I'm not a violent man by nature, but I will make exceptions if I have to.

[Christoph]

Nope, I definitely wouldn't let that happen to my beloved guitar. I'd have to seriously bust some heads.

[Fender1165]

ok, since this is about defending your stuff I've just got to post this. On Monday night I played an acoustic set at a Bar/Grill thing. It was a really good set and the people liked it a lot. Yet..... during my last song I saw this frail little Chinese man eyeing me oddly on the side of the stage. When I finished and said my closing thing, the guy walked onstage and up to me. "Ya mi chi chu" he rambled some chinese. "Excuse me?" I replied. "Ya mi chi chu" "Ok... i said. I have to go" So i stood up and the guy grabbed my guitar and sat on the stool. Then he put out his hand requesting my pick! AH!!!!! It was my brand new Taylor 614ce. He was about to die!!! Luckily, the guy in charge of the mixer kicked him out because he started arguing in chinese.... apparently he didn't even know how to speak english. And even better, my baby was not scratched by his button down shirt or huge beltbuckle. Phew!

-Evan

[Raskolnikov]

One time at an open mic a guy wandered onto stage and ripped my mic off of my stand (as in every part of the stand moved from him taking the mic out the wrong way). Luckily, nothing was damaged, even the clippy thing, however I was especially not happy because I had the tube for my talk box carefully arranged (some of you know what I'm talking about). But anyway, I was too far away at the time to do anything but watch in horror with the host drummer (wasn't our turn to be up). The guy who did it was a regular; when I went and put the mic back on the stand I gave him a look which said "it's ok this time, but you know better now, so next time you're a dead man. He hasn't bothered since.

[Martin Spaans]

Especially for that kind of people I have a very special extra guitar, look out says a button "I'm electric."
Yeh that's what they want I think. The next moment you get a very special effect, every show a different effect and no extra costs.
I love it....

[Kirk Hammett is God]

One time, I let one of my friends play one of my acoustics, and had stupidly let him have a can of coke earlier. Well, being the dumb@$$ that he is, he says, "I wonder what would happen if I poured some soda in this little hole right here." And he pours half of the damn soda into the sound hole. Quickly after this, he got a relatively large can of whoop-ass opened upon him. I haven't really seen him since then....

[jake sommers]

now people like that you gotta whoop they butt, every chance you get...every..chance you get. So they kooky arse don't even think about doing anything like that again. bet that guitar attracts ants and bugs in the summertime?

[Joseph]

Originally posted by loner92
Get a stun gun. One with about 200,000 volts should suffice. After getting shoked by that, no one will even think about coming near your gear again.

To be honest, Ive always been very metivculous with my instruments. There was one occasion where our drummer snuck a few beers behind his stack, (not to mention the fact that he had been drinking prior to that. We should have noticed being that he was a little late before the show, and a bit shaky, but despite the fact that he had one beer too many, his playing that night was quite good. And he surprised us all, but then again he left a nice surprise on my Prized amp, when he tossed his cookies. No one saw, and it was all over but the screaming, (on my behalf.) Never bring beer to a show, and never bring your problems, leave em at home and be prepared to rock out..

-Joseph

[Christoph]

Yuk . . . he barfed on your amp?

I hope you made him clean it up.

[Joseph]

It really bothers me wen people refuse to keep a healthy train of thoughts before going on stage, because although we get nervous before each show, its those butterflys in our stomach that gets us through the show. We need a strong mind on stage to play sufficiently, and there should be no excuse...

-Joseph

[Christoph]

I think most people will have a few beers before the show to ease the butterflys. It usually ends up making them lose their focus though.

But all this has nothing to do with defending equipment. Keep those jokers away from your stuff!

[Code_Monk]

Two of the bands I was in...
One, we played hard rock/metal. Mostly Sabbath/ACDC/Rush etc. tunes. We had a few big bad biker "roadies" that watched over our gear. No one came near any of it.
If you have someone wearing a Hell's Angels vest, watching your gear, it tends to keep people away from your stuff (and yes he was really in the Hell's Angels, but he was very nice and polite to those he liked :)).

Two...the hispanic band I was in, our keyboardist/rhythm guitarist weighed about 300 lbs.

[Raskolnikov]

I think every band needs an Ug, 300 lbs keyboardist/rythm guitarist, or a Hell's Angel. Big people who like to look imposing seem to be the best defense against the overly enthusiastic.

[Kirk Hammett is God]

I'm thinking about making a guitar where you can press a button, and it'll send 1,000 volts of electricity in into whoever's holding it. That'll keep the little bastards away.....

[James Hetfield Is Jesus]

One time I let my friend kirk hammett is god barrow my wah peddle and he gave it to a mexican and the mexican ran away with it and we never saw teh mexican again. or my wah peddle.. he still owes me 100 bucks.

[Kirk Hammett is God]

Shut the hell up! And I didn't give it to a mexican... I provided it to the mexican.

[Raskolnikov]

Yet another way a "Kirk Hammett" made someone stop using their wah. :D