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cronker

cronker

Feb 13, 2007
1,054
651
Australia
#1
Hey TBers!

I bought a MIJRI Jazz lefty in 2002, mint condition and a lovely player. It was just sitting there in a shop not known for lefties, or Fender for that matter. Plays like butter, beautiful instrument.

One night, one of my friends knocked it off the stand in her drunken stupor and gave it it's first ding. No biggie, but I want to hear tales of damage caused by you or your mates to your instruments.

Tell on...
 
#2
It depends, on this bad boy? Everything from running into a band mate wrong to dropping it to tripping to a beer bottle..... Let's retail the story of the drunken drummer!
Well one night in our own home Nolan, our drummer was jokingly pretending to "smash my bass" meanwhile he totally negated the fact there was a cross beam. That's the first one
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bullet belts on stage
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A run in with headstocks...
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So many more but let's see/hear about some others!
 
#5
My P has a cigarette burn on the headstock, holes in the finish from my thumb, holes in the finish from where I sometimes play with a pick, holes in the finish on the back of the neck, buckle rash, and some mysterious dents that happened sometime I don't know about. It started out life as a Road Worn, and now it's just beat up. The only other instrument I own that's been played as much over the last five years is the upright, and it has some battle scars on it. Singers and drummers are involved in some of those.
 
#7
I was leaving practice a few months back and neglected to zip up my gig bag like a bonehead. My SR300 fell out onto the concrete and made the most evil sound like a tree snapping, but it just has a slight ding and plays fine.

My other bass... maybe kind of alarming to some and a little embarrassing for me... when I was 17 (god this is now 22 years ago), I got in a fight with my dad and took a swing at him and he picked up my bass and hit me with it. It hit my hip and has a nice dent. It didn't really hurt me and it was a turning point with me and my dad. He stopped being so overbearing and we got along great from then on. I don't think I even had to adhere to a curfew following that, so winning (sorta)!
 
#8
My basses aren't too beat up actually. My forearm has rubbed through on my fretted Jazz bass, and my thumb has worn through the finish next to the neck pick up, but a new pick guard has covered that up. Maybe a ding here or there. My Victor Bailey (see the classifieds!) is pretty much immaculate, and Squarmoth is also in pretty good shape.

My upright is a different story. It did hard duty in a heavy-drinking country band and looks like it.
 
#9
I actually ran over my '78 StingRay.

It was 2:30 in the morning, after a long day, and a long gig. As I was loading up to go, I leaned the bass in a gig bag up against the rear passenger wheelwell of my SUV. I was halfway through the loading process when somebody came up to talk to me. That distraction, and my general fuzzy-headedness, was enough to make me forget to load the bass in.

I pulled out of the parking lot and got a couple of miles down the road when I got this horrible feeling that I'd forgotten something important. Immediately pulled over, looked in the back, and realized my error. The worst part of it? I remembered my rear wheel rolling over something when I first pulled out.

To my absolute amazement, the bass was still laying in the middle of the parking lot. I pulled it out of the bag, fearing the worst, but the only thing wrong with it was a broken nut.

I've been really lucky with that bass. One other time, I left it in a hotel room in Hot Springs and didn't realize it until I got to Texarkana. Once again, I was lucky. The hotel was holding it for me.

I did apologize to it, both times, so I don't think it holds these brain farts against me.
 
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#10
When my oldest kid was about 3, he knocked over my USA Lakland 494 Deluxe...fully face down and put a huge dimple in the quilted top. I honestly barely gave a crap. No real damage done, and it stayed in tune even!
 
#11
Carl Hillman said:
I actually ran over my '78 StingRay.

It was 2:30 in the morning, after a long day, and a long gig. As I was loading up to go, I leaned the bass in a gig bag up against the rear passenger wheelwell of my SUV. I was halfway through the loading process when somebody came up to talk to me. That distraction, and my general fuzzy-headedness, was enough to make me forget to load the bass in.

I pulled out of the parking lot and got a couple of miles down the road when I got this horrible feeling that I'd forgotten something important. Immediately pulled over, looked in the back, and realized my error. The worst part of it? I remembered my rear wheel rolling over something when I first pulled out.

To my absolute amazement, the bass was still laying in the middle of the parking lot. I pulled it out of the bag, fearing the worst, but the only thing wrong with it was a broken nut.

I've been really lucky with that bass. One other time, I left it in a hotel room in Hot Springs and didn't realize it until I got to Texarkana. Once again, I was lucky. The hotel was holding it for me.

I did apologize to it, both times, so I don't think it holds these brain farts against me.
Click to expand...

That's an absolutely terrible story...but a good ending thank goodness
 
#13
I left my alembic series 1 over night out of the case leaning up against a wall at my drummer's house with his young child there too.

I used to be more stupider like that. He had the headstock professionally repaired, really good guy considering it was my own stupid fault. A few months later I pawned the Bass.

I was still pretty stupider at that point.

Note: despite my depiction of the story.... It's 100% true. I grew up a lot after i got married (couple years later)
 
#14
I got a call from my drummer one night saying he found my bass case in his driveway after practice. It had a Ford F-150 (my guitarists truck) tire mark running smack down the middle of the entire length of the case. The Squier VMJ5 inside was fine. It was one of those semi soft Roadrunner cases and the inner hard styrofoam was cracked completely through right at the neck rest and just floating around under the lining. I couldn't beeline the bass survived. I actually wrote a letter to Roadrunner thanking them for the sturdy case, lol.

I still have it.
 
#16
I was playing guitar at a church and had bought a used ASAT about a month prior. I had it sitting on a 3-guitar stand, along with the other guitarist's axe. The guitar already had plenty of dings, but the second guitarist ended up knocking the stand over somehow (I didn't see it) and put a few more good dings in it, including a nice dent in the fretboard. He felt super bad about damaging what he thought was a new guitar. I didn't care because it was a guitar, and an old beat up one at that. Now if he'd have knocked one of my basses over, that'd be a whole other story...
 
#17
Que erie music . I had a washburn t24 taurus that was sitting on its stand . A friend and I were on the opposite side of the room when all of the sudden the guitar falls off its stand . I run over and lift it up and the control cavity was caved in . So I blame a ghost .
 
#20
My main P-Bass has had 2 significant "dings." At one event we played on stage on top of a balcony and one of the partygoers was more than drunk and stumbled into everyones gear. My P Bass and the guitarists strat shattered through the glass and fell onto the patio below. The neck snapped and yeah, it got a few dings. Later after a new neck and quite a large band disagreement my bass was subsequently thrown out of a moving van onto a highway. Surprisingly it remained playable but the back is very scratched up (we still remain mates so I guess it applies to this thread.) It's currently going through repairs but I'll post pictures on its arrival if the thread is still alive. It well and truly debunks the myth that poly doesn't relic...
 

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