Well the last couple of weeks have been kind of a blur...
Tuesday morning, the 1st of April (I know... April fool's!) I woke up and went outside around 7:30 to go unload my trailer and drop it off at the storage unit like I often do the morning after a gig.
Except this time there was nothing there... no truck, no trailer, no P/A or drumset in the trailer.
I called the police immediately and they came out and took statements... I called the insurance companies for my truck and my homeowner's policy.
The truck is covered to some degree (a 10 year old truck with nearly 100K miles isn't worth much anyway) my homeowner's insurance doesn't cover things that get used for commercial purposes and, let's face it, my commercial use of my gear isn't exactly a secret.
You might think I would have insurance on the gear, but in the past when I've looked into it the premiums would have paid for the gear several times over in the last 22 years that I've been doing this... it just didn't make economic sense.
Of course, in the back of my mind I knew that left me open to things like what happened and I knew that one day I might have to pay that bill... and April 1st was that day.
Furthermore, Chris had similar luck with his homeowner's insurance for his drums... if you use them to make even 1 dollar they won't help anymore... same situation.
Well within a couple of hours of the robbery Laura had posted pictures of the truck and trailer up on Facebook to start alerting our musician friends and family about this so they could keep an eye out for the gear and the vehicles.
Most people said, "The truck will probably turn up in a couple of days on the side of a road somewhere, but the trailer may be a few weeks or months before it turns up."
Well it's been 10 days and I've mailed the title and keys to the insurance company. I doubt anyone will see that Big Red Truck (we called it BeRT) around here ever again. I suppose I should be excited to go shop for a new truck, but I tend to bond with things and I don't like to replace them. Silly as it sounds I've had a lot of great adventures in that truck and I'll miss it very much.
Of course, the BGU community and the musicians, friends, and family on Facebook started sharing the post and it went crazy. Before I knew it, it had been shared thousands of times and literally the messages and emails and phone calls were coming in so fast I could barely keep up... everyone wanted to know what happened and offer their support and well wishes and it was really amazing.
But what happened after that we never imagined in a million years...
Several BGU members got together and started a gofundme campaign to allow people to donate and support our efforts to re-buy what we need to keep gigging and doing things like BGU Live.
I wasn't all that familiar with gofundme, and I didn't actually hear of it right away. So imagine my surprise when I saw it and noticed that there was already over $1000 in it!
Fast forward a few days and through the incredible support of our BGU family that campaign has raised over $24,000!
Because of that, and a really great rep at Guitar Center and Sweetwater, I was able to get about 90% of the PA re-bought... and should have enough here by next weekend that BGU Live will be largely unaffected (save the bags under my eyes
I know it might not seems like it should take a whole lot of gear to put on a blues show... but when you add in 3 horns and realize that you have to fill places like Downtown Disney and sometimes larger outdoor venues... and that we have to carry a spare of EVERYTHING (yes, I carry a spare mixer even,) then the amount of equipment approaches staggering pretty quickly.
There are still some things I haven't purchased and the time I'll have to put into putting it all back together will be substantial... but the fact that I've been able to do this much, this fast, is mind boggling.
Laura and I have spent several hours looking at the comments and the well wishes and just cannot believe how much love and support has been coming our way.
To say "Thank You" at this point seems so completely inadequate... and for a guy who talks for a living to not know what to say probably speaks louder than anything I could come up with...
But I want to say Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all that you have done and given for us.
It is never lost on me that I am where I am in this world because of all of you. My job is quite simply to serve my community of blues guitar players in the best way that I know how and that is the simple mission that I've always lived by.
I have never felt more humbled or inspired... nor have I ever felt so connected to such a large group. I will always be grateful and do my best to continue to serve this community the best way I can.
Thank you all so much,
Griff
Tuesday morning, the 1st of April (I know... April fool's!) I woke up and went outside around 7:30 to go unload my trailer and drop it off at the storage unit like I often do the morning after a gig.
Except this time there was nothing there... no truck, no trailer, no P/A or drumset in the trailer.
I called the police immediately and they came out and took statements... I called the insurance companies for my truck and my homeowner's policy.
The truck is covered to some degree (a 10 year old truck with nearly 100K miles isn't worth much anyway) my homeowner's insurance doesn't cover things that get used for commercial purposes and, let's face it, my commercial use of my gear isn't exactly a secret.
You might think I would have insurance on the gear, but in the past when I've looked into it the premiums would have paid for the gear several times over in the last 22 years that I've been doing this... it just didn't make economic sense.
Of course, in the back of my mind I knew that left me open to things like what happened and I knew that one day I might have to pay that bill... and April 1st was that day.
Furthermore, Chris had similar luck with his homeowner's insurance for his drums... if you use them to make even 1 dollar they won't help anymore... same situation.
Well within a couple of hours of the robbery Laura had posted pictures of the truck and trailer up on Facebook to start alerting our musician friends and family about this so they could keep an eye out for the gear and the vehicles.
Most people said, "The truck will probably turn up in a couple of days on the side of a road somewhere, but the trailer may be a few weeks or months before it turns up."
Well it's been 10 days and I've mailed the title and keys to the insurance company. I doubt anyone will see that Big Red Truck (we called it BeRT) around here ever again. I suppose I should be excited to go shop for a new truck, but I tend to bond with things and I don't like to replace them. Silly as it sounds I've had a lot of great adventures in that truck and I'll miss it very much.
Of course, the BGU community and the musicians, friends, and family on Facebook started sharing the post and it went crazy. Before I knew it, it had been shared thousands of times and literally the messages and emails and phone calls were coming in so fast I could barely keep up... everyone wanted to know what happened and offer their support and well wishes and it was really amazing.
But what happened after that we never imagined in a million years...
Several BGU members got together and started a gofundme campaign to allow people to donate and support our efforts to re-buy what we need to keep gigging and doing things like BGU Live.
I wasn't all that familiar with gofundme, and I didn't actually hear of it right away. So imagine my surprise when I saw it and noticed that there was already over $1000 in it!
Fast forward a few days and through the incredible support of our BGU family that campaign has raised over $24,000!
Because of that, and a really great rep at Guitar Center and Sweetwater, I was able to get about 90% of the PA re-bought... and should have enough here by next weekend that BGU Live will be largely unaffected (save the bags under my eyes
I know it might not seems like it should take a whole lot of gear to put on a blues show... but when you add in 3 horns and realize that you have to fill places like Downtown Disney and sometimes larger outdoor venues... and that we have to carry a spare of EVERYTHING (yes, I carry a spare mixer even,) then the amount of equipment approaches staggering pretty quickly.
There are still some things I haven't purchased and the time I'll have to put into putting it all back together will be substantial... but the fact that I've been able to do this much, this fast, is mind boggling.
Laura and I have spent several hours looking at the comments and the well wishes and just cannot believe how much love and support has been coming our way.
To say "Thank You" at this point seems so completely inadequate... and for a guy who talks for a living to not know what to say probably speaks louder than anything I could come up with...
But I want to say Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all that you have done and given for us.
It is never lost on me that I am where I am in this world because of all of you. My job is quite simply to serve my community of blues guitar players in the best way that I know how and that is the simple mission that I've always lived by.
I have never felt more humbled or inspired... nor have I ever felt so connected to such a large group. I will always be grateful and do my best to continue to serve this community the best way I can.
Thank you all so much,
Griff
