So my band was playing 3 gigs one weekend - friday, saturday, and sunday. we were all excited for it, it was over winter break so those of us in school were out, and it was our first glimpse at what "touring" would be like.
The first night we were playing at a fairgrounds arena, it was literally 20 degrees indoors, and we had lots of time to kill backstage. Now, I had always been a fan of the old-fashioned guitar swing. You know, where you throw it over your shoulder and it flies around and you catch it? bands like Underoath do it every 10 seconds or so these days... but anyways. I had always wanted to do it, but just never had the balls. So I'm hanging around backstage and I finally get the courage to swing my recently purchased off of ebay MusicMan bass. I hold by breath, swing, and it works perfectly! I was super excited so I yelled over to my drummer, "Hey! check this out!" and did it again...
Now, to do this trick, you NEED strap locks. Which I had! But... they were cheap little plastic attachments that were built into the strap- like this one... http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ssibVrNOYOf5NM:http://www.guitarandampshop.co.uk/acatalog/planet_lock.JPGNOT the high quality stuff you would actually trust your good gear with. And lo and behold, on the way around, my "strap lock" virtually exploded under the weight and momentum of the bass. So my bass slammed into the ground and slid a few feet across the ice cold pavement, shattering the end of my strap while taking a HUGE chip out of my bass. probably about 4 inches long, slightly deeper than the paint - not noticeable from a front view, but shocking once you turn the bass around. So I bit my lip, grabbed some duct-tape, and played an otherwise great show amidst the freezing weather.
SECOND DAY OF "TOUR!" I learned my lesson that night, so I went to a music store the next day to get some REAL strap locks. They were almost exactly like this one...http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:3g8TduLVJuIKTM:http://www.bill-lewington.com/qparts/images/qp_susplo_c.jpg
Metal? right?! That means durable! So we were good to go. Having been shaken up by my recent bass-dropping incident, I vowed to never repeat the stunt until I had more practice. But as we took the stage that night, the crowd was good, we were rocking hard, and I felt the urge to end the song with a bang! So woohoo! I did it! ........ and the motherf---er shattered, sending my bass flying into the ground. Again. I was literally speechless. What had happened was, since it was not a solid washer that was holding the strap on, but rather a stupid little sun design, the stupid little sun flare thingies snapped right off once there was enough weight put against them, therefor my strap came right out of the locking system.
fortunately, this second time, the lord had mercy and spared me the shame of even more damage being inflicted on my bass, and it managed to survive without any noticeable damage this time. Since then, I have replaced the stupid tribal "straplock" with a couple of heavy duty washers that should hold very nicely. However, don't expect to see me throwing it around any time soon. I don't think it can take any more serious abuse...

Hi, Alan

Seems that Your MM baby is quite a piece of engineering to withstand such a handling. Not that I would recommend it though ;)

Straplocks are IMHO a sad thing. Schallers that I use have so short threads that almost no leather strap can be used without modifications. Also You should by Your strap without the holes, because even with the original washers, there's a possibility that they work their way trough the hole. Also they rattle sometimes with certain frequencies if You don't use dampers. But I don't even dream playing any of my basses (or guitars :hiding: ) without them.

A soundman told me once a related story from the 80's.

A local guitar hero was doing the soundcheck. He'd seen Steve Vai do the swing thing and did the same at the end of the soundcheck, with every other guitardist that played at that festival watching. Steve used wireless, the hero didn't. The soundman told that it was like the Vulcan neck pinch, as the cable was tied around the guitardists neck and he was out like a Lucas electrical system on a foggy morning. Don't know if this is true, but the soundman swore that he was behind the monitor desk when it happened. The hero lived, of course. Didn't do the swing in the end of their set though, I was told. :D :D

Regards
Sam

I'll give you a cast of characters here.

:hyper: - A friend of mine around 7 years ago.
:eyebrow: - Me

-My spare bedroom which is a horrible place to rehearse-

:hyper: 'Hey look I've just bought a bass and a plastic locking strap! can I join the band you are putting together?!'
:eyebrow: 'Sure, after all I'm just learning to play guitar myself and I'll be telling you what to play anyway'
:hyper: 'Ok that is awesome, I'm going to jump all over the place instead of learning how to play though, K!?'
:eyebrow: 'Sounds great, but you might want to practice that outside'

-some time passes, we watch the garden from the window-

:hyper: 'Check this out! *spreads-legs-wide-headbanging-downstroke-bassline*'
:eyebrow: 'Ok'

At this point he swings the bass around his head, it comes around full circle, and plants itself headstock first into the ground, like sticking bolt upright out of the ground, there is a noise that sounds like a truss rod clanging around inside the neck.

:hyper: *turns into* :eek:
:eyebrow: *turns into* :rollno:

Within a week he has a fairly large portion of a tattoo sleeve finished, a pink mohawk and both ears stretching. If instead he'd spent a week learning to play the oh so simple songs we'd not have had to get a slightly less entertaining but capable bassist in.

Hi, stz

Your friend sounds like quite a character, LMAO. If You'd kept him, You might have written a bookful of those stories from the road and made a million bucks :D :D :D

Regards
Sam

I would change name from Alanthewise to Alandoesntlearnfromhismistakes, don't throw your bass around!

I think about the weight of MM basses and what it must be like slinging one of those around and think if you'd hit anyone with that the story would have taken a darker turn.

i did learn from my mistake! i went out and bought real straplocks... then i learned from ANOTHER mistake- buying BAD real straplocks....


okay, i'll admit, it was the same mistake. but since then, you should be glad to know that i haven't attempted it again. when i do, i'll post here to tell the story about how my MM is now missing a neck.

It's called a b****toss. It was invented by Cinderella in the 80's then made popular by Chad Ginsburg of CKY.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/61/Volume1CKY.jpg/200px-Volume1CKY.jpg
I've done plenty of them, but never with a $1000 bass. Straplocks don't mean anything. Even if your strap button is part of the strap it's still only held in by a single screw. The only way to do it and make sure it wont come apart is by taking duct tape and literally strapping each end of your strap to the guitar with layers and wraps of tape. so that the weight is put on the horn and body.

I use schallers which are pretty good, but wouldnt spin something on them!

The problem with the metal strap locks ist there is some movement in them, which can give rise to then falling apart if you do silly things like that! And stingrays arent exactly the lightest of basses!

http://www.guitar.co.uk/documents/994/994-large.jpg

Straplocks like that work surprisingly well :)

Still wouldnt catch me chucking an expensive bass around!

However, as this is talkbass, no chip no bass, lets see a picture!

Dunlops FTW