An open letter to those who knocked over my gear

[ZACH ATTACK]

Upon hearing that you had the thread sent to you I decided to edit this because most of it is crass and unnesscary. The point of this was to let you know that when you knocked my amp over on to my guitar you busted one of the knobs, one of the pick ups, put a crack in the front, an other crack in the back and took a bunch of chunks out of the wood. This is going to be expensive to fix, and since you didn't appologize to me or anything, I'm kind of annoyed.

[ZACH ATTACK]

And to everyone else, I don't want this to come across as some "woe is me I'm soo poor" sob story. I'm not asking for any handouts or sympathy, that's not my style. I'll deal with this the same way I deal with everything else: suck it up and figure it out. I'm just really fucking angry about this and this is the best way I know how to make sure that these girls are away of the consequences to their actions.

[grind/bro]

[Jordan f.]

the girl who knocked over your shit should help pay to fix it. Plain and simple. A accident is an accident but you still have to fix it.

[AC]

the girl who knocked over your shit should help pay to fix it. Plain and simple. A accident is an accident but you still have to fix it.

does zach know who it is?

[Hollow]

Yeah, it was some drunk chicks that are friends of friends. They leaned against the mattress sound proofing the hallway and it knocked over all our gear. You may have heard me lose my shit at them when it happened.

[AC]

Yeah, it was some drunk chicks that are friends of friends. They leaned against the mattress sound proofing the hallway and it knocked over all our gear. You may have heard me lose my shit at them when it happened.

maybe? i dunno i was outside the whole time other than when bands were playing

[Hollow]

Yeah, it was some drunk chicks that are friends of friends. They leaned against the mattress sound proofing the hallway and it knocked over all our gear. You may have heard me lose my shit at them when it happened.

maybe? i dunno i was outside the whole time other than when bands were playing

Eh. Either way, it sucked.

[ZACH ATTACK]

the girl who knocked over your shit should help pay to fix it. Plain and simple. A accident is an accident but you still have to fix it.

If anybody knows who she is I'd be happy to send her a bill.

[dalamar501]

i was walkign to the front door when it happend and her words were as she came in

"oh padded walls, thats weird" or somethign to that extent then went against it.

not cluing in on that it was a mattress etc,
So future shows here.

BIG MASSIVE MOTHER FUCKING SIGNS>

or some dude that just stands there..
and yells at people who get close

[keith.]

at least she was cute right

[JRIA]

HOUSE JUSTICE!

[tylerp]

not saying that I'm defending the act of wrecking a guitar, or that I saw the situation, but I heard about it. here's my perspective on things.

the girl who did this is named kelly. she was with another girl named jordon and they're friends with my new girlfriend becky. these girls came to the house, SOBER, having never been to it before. when you walk through the front door and the mattress is up, it's very dark, because the mattress blocks the light switch and the only light source to the front hallway. these girls were VERY intimidated. they weren't even going to come. I think it took some convincing from becky to get company. also, they're becoming my friends too, in the way that relationships kind of introduce you to new people. so anyway, they get inside, they sort of want to assess the situation and regroup before jumping socially into a visually intimidating pack of dudes with patches and tattoos. kelly leans against the mattress, thinking it was just propped against a wall, which is what it looks like. it starts to fall through, a very weird response, and she just goes with it, having no idea that there's a band on the other side. these girls had been at the house a total of maybe a minute and a half at that point.

anyway, so their first impression of the whole thing is that they just knocked a shitload of stuff over and had a large angry tattooed man scream "fuck you" at them. somehow, they managed to work up the ability to stick around a bit longer and try to meet some people. jordon and kelly were very embarrassed about the whole situation and told me how bad they felt, how awkward and accidental the whole thing was. they sort of felt a little alienated from everyone else and hung out in my bedroom a lot. they felt really guilty and didn't even know who to apologize to or what exactly the damage they caused was. they ended up leaving early because of how intimidated they felt. I felt really bad for them and for putting them in that situation.

the whole thing was a giant accident. these girls had never been to a house show before, nor had they been to my house, nor were they alerted about the concept of a mattress for sound dampening. they came uncomfortable and left extremely so. we were talking in the other thread about trying to welcome people to the scene. I know these girls enough to know that they're very well-meaning, very smart, critical thinkers, and open-minded. I'm an okay judge of character. I know when someone is devoid of reasoning, a total air-head, and these girls are nothing like that. I've had conversations about politics and social values with jordon. they could have had a really good time. to my knowledge, they don't have rich parents or an excessively privileged lifestyle. one of them works in retail and they're both students, which generally means that they're both very poor or owe a lot of money. I think the mattress incident is probably enough to scare them from coming to any future hardcore shows.

I'm not saying that it's cool that they did that. it really, REALLY sucks that that's happened to your guitar. I've had gear break on me in the past. troy had an acoustic guitar get its headstock smashed off once. and we've had things go wrong at our house (remember that ipod video and $200 getting stolen from troy's bedroom?). I just don't think anyone is directly responsible for it. it was an accident. nothing really could have prevented it, other than a sign on the door that says "don't touch the mattress" or something. once I accidentally spilled coffee on meaghan kidd's laptop and it pretty much killed it. she understood that the situation was out of my hands and forgave me. these girls had no clue that what they were doing was the least bit dangerous or damaging. please forgive them.

fuck, it really sucks what happened to your guitar. your guitar is better than any guitar I've owned. hell, it's better than any piece of gear I own. I would be really frustrated if I were in your position.

[keith.]

so she single?

[tylerp]

yeah, kelly's single. suggested revenge tactic:

wait a couple of years. randomly run into her at the Starbucks across town. make small talk, appear genuinely happy to see her again. share a small laugh at the serendipity of meeting like this again. stop her outside the Starbucks as she leaves and explain that you would really like to see her again but were afraid to ask because you weren't sure how she would respond. get her number, promise to call on Friday to make plans. go out that weekend. "fall" in "love" with her. 3 years in, propose. get married. have a kid or two, maybe pick up an adorable mutt from the spca. buy a second house at the beach. then, on your 25th anniversary, burn all the clothes in her closet. bam.

[dalamar501]

i am kind of surprised no one noticed the damage to the guitar later in the night? as you guys hadn't evenplayed yet when the mattress fell.. and all those other random cover songs got played later as well.
i guess it was just a quick inspection then.

[tylerp]

is it possible that whoever handled the guitar after the mattress incident mistreated it? I played it in dark cloud but I was very careful with it, I promise. I know gray played it a little. what about whoever put it away? I know it wasn't handled once it was stored in our laundry room. I didn't see the mattress thing but it seems like a lot of damage for a giant falling padded surface and a carpeted floor.

[Hollow]

No, it had to be the mattress falling over. The cab and head fell on the guitar. We were all pretty drunk/high when and after it happened, and then Zach left it at your house for a week. Yesterday was the first day we had a chance to look at the guitar seriously. When people were playing it it would have had to have been thrown around to do the kind of damage it has now.

[grind/bro]

yeah, kelly's single. suggested revenge tactic:

wait a couple of years. randomly run into her at the Starbucks across town. make small talk, appear genuinely happy to see her again. share a small laugh at the serendipity of meeting like this again. stop her outside the Starbucks as she leaves and explain that you would really like to see her again but were afraid to ask because you weren't sure how she would respond. get her number, promise to call on Friday to make plans. go out that weekend. "fall" in "love" with her. 3 years in, propose. get married. have a kid or two, maybe pick up an adorable mutt from the spca. buy a second house at the beach. then, on your 25th anniversary, burn all the clothes in her closet. bam.

Zach I'll take that revenge tactic for you. It's the least I can do...

[tylerp]

sending her the thread

super stoked for the first possibility of message board drama on vihc.net!

but not really because it involves two of my friends.