I never told my CV story from back before NAMM...
you'll love and hate this...
Last two weeks of December I filled in for a Sunday night event that takes places about a block away from my Thursday/Saturday night gig. Sunday evening I go move my gear out of gig "A" a block away to gig "B". I have almost all my gear loaded in the back of a CRV. This is 2 QSC kSubs, 2K10s, 2K8 (all in bags ready to grab) 2 Technics, 57 and my backpack with laptop and my record bag. I turned my back for about 30 seconds on this rig as I grabbed the last load of lights and stands, and someone swiped my record bag. I didn't notice until I was unloading my rig a block and 5 minutes later that my record bag is gone.
Now I'm used to thinking that my records are the most valuable piece of kit from a while back. A couple crates of imports easily cost a couple grand 10 years ago, but as you can all imagine I had some gems in this thin bag that made it pretty special to me. I just couldn't get over the fact that someone actually swiped it AND that they took a bag of records that would be mostly useless to them, especially compared to the rest of the load. I was actually mostly concerned with the dubstep and reggae records in the bag as I had extras of most of the CVs.
So missing bag for sure, I drive home just to make sure I didn't space them (and grab some more CVs and slipmats), and on my way back I pull up to a cop who is standing out of the street. He actually took a police report as I sat in the driver seat. I drove off and proceeded to the gig, which was, again 1 block away.
I didn't even turn off the car before my phone rang with an unfamiliar number. I answered and it was the SGT. that took my report. "Mr. Cowboy, the case is solved we have your records." We're talking no more than 90 seconds later.
So, I backed up and drove the 3 one way streets to get back to where the report was taken and the officer is holding my bag. It was in the back of the vehicle he had been standing next to. I guess there were 2 men walking around town pretending like they had weapons and robbing people. I was almost lucky that I hadn't even confronted them, they just swiped from me and ran. They were joy riding around town (ridiculously small town on a Sunday night) and got caught. The police gave me my bag back and them came to my gig an hour later and had me sign the report. (Those guys got tazed and hauled off to jail, yikes!!!)
In the long run I didn't even have time to get upset about losing my records before I got them back. I looked in and they all appeared to be in there:
Here are the contents:
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2 Pink Susan Komen (used them for my NYE gig)
SSL Slipmats
1 SP-02 Quemest
2 Sa-Ra
2 Tittsworths
set of Stones Throws
2 Jazzman 7"s (used them at 12:01 on NYE, both sides)
in the UDG Sleeve
2 red
2 green
2 clear
2 white shibuyas
plus a mess of 7" dub and 12" Dubstep and a couple cool white house records
would have been a bummer to lose all that.
Now, here is where is gets GOOD>
About 3 days later I get a call from the same officer and he says that they found 3 more records in some bushes in the same area and they think they might have fallen out of my bag. He said, "one says 'Taboo' and two say Serato Scratch Live".
"Yep, those are mine." I replied. I got them a couple days later and I was just handed a paper bag with 3 records in it. I could not for the life of me figure out what was missing, but how many people are dropping CVs in my town, right? Plus, I'm sure I have a white label that just says 'Taboo' and maybe I didn't see it missing.
I get back in the car and open the bag and see the taboo record is some moldy thrift store junk and the 2 CVs are old school reds in sleeves, where my reds were just in the UDG sleeve. The crazy part is that they are some red I have never seen before. They both have white swirls in them and the color is transparent but very light like almost watermelon color. They are quite used but work just fine.
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So, lesson learned was lighten the load of super rare vinyl and don't turn my back even for a second.
Oh, and look out for Watermelon Red CVs.
