Am I an Asshole? (rant enclosed)

[DadHatter]

Simple fix: take something important to the operation of the amp. I always keep my bass, the speaker cable and the power cable for my rig when I leave practice. I actually do it more for power-surge issues than worrying about someone else using it, but still, it keeps it from happening. Yeah, he could conceivably bring his own power and speaker cables, but that would be a TOTAL dick move...

 

 

Bingo. Like, for drummers, they should take their snare. It's like taking the front wheel of a bicycle with you when you lock it up to a bike rack. Is your amp a combo or a head/cab? If it's a head, taking the head with you could work.

 

Mike

[georgestrings]

I disagree with the first paragraph above. What, he needs to check with someone before taking his own gear? No one (asshole or not) should use someone else's stuff without explicit permission from the owner. That's just common sense, courtesy and consideration. Period. End of discussion.

 

 

 

Agreed 100%...

 

 

 

- georgestrings

[BoundandBlocked]

My band practices in my basement and they leave all (most?) of their stuff there. I would never dream of messing around with there stuff let alone allowing someone else to do so.

[niomosy]

Nio's rehearsal rule. If the rehearsal place isn't mine, the gear isn't staying. If that means getting help to put the 95lb Bergantino in my car, so be it. Hell, I'm not even sure it'd fit in my car, though

[Perfessor]

Always take your gear home, if you care about it, because no one else cares about it as much as you.

[Kindness]

Always take your gear home, if you care about it, because no one else cares about it as much as you.

 

 

My bandmates leave their gear with me because I care more about it than they do. :poke:

 

I also play everything I get my hands on ever. The people and bands that share rehearsal spaces with me know this and know that if anything is left there, I will play it. Often they will bring things to the rehearsal space that they don't even use just for me to play.

 

It is all about communication. There are no hard and fast rules if you communicate, but I wholeheartedly agree that unless it has been cleared first, playing someone else's gear is the wrong move.

[t3ch]

Yeah, a crappy one... It's not uncommon to leave gear at a rehearsal space - I do it on a regular basis - that in no way excuses using said gear without atleast asking beforehand... I wouldn't be in a band with people that I couldn't trust enough to leave my gear with - and loaning out my gear without asking first is most definitely a no-no... - georgestrings

 

 

I just meant the point about being lazy, I thought it was pretty funny.

 

Don't get all ranty on me, I leave my gear over my drummers house all the time, as does my guitarist. We all trust each other though, and they all know they're free to play my rig if they'd like. If the drummer had a friend over I wouldn't care either; they'd be on the drummer's bass though. But that's just our specific group and of course it won't always be this way for me, let alone everyone else. It's different when it's another band planning to use it on a regular basis, I completely agree.

[PaulyWally]

 

I disagree with the first paragraph above. What, he needs to check with someone before taking his own gear?

 

 

You're confusing the issue.

 

I agree that it's HIS gear, and he can do whatever he wants with it. However, he removed his gear from the studio in direct retaliation for someone using it without asking. That's passive aggressive.

 

"Oh, I don't like the way you play! So I'm going to take my legos and go home!"

 

These are people that he is friends with... and also has to work with one on a more professional level. If he wants to take his gear home, fine. But the mature thing is to communicate that it wasn't cool of the guitarist to offer his gear up - especially considering that it doesn't fix the underlying problem. Because without that communication, the guitarist will just end up doing similar things over and over.

 

 

No one (asshole or not) should use someone else's stuff without explicit permission from the owner. That's just common sense, courtesy and consideration. Period. End of discussion.

 

 

I couldn't agree more. That's why I say that the guitarist needs to understand that as to avoid these problems in the future. If it's not communicated, that's like telling the guitarist that it's OK to pull that kinda of {censored}.

[t3ch]

My bandmates leave their gear with me because I care more about it than they do. :poke: I also play everything I get my hands on ever. The people and bands that share rehearsal spaces with me know this and know that if anything is left there, I will play it. Often they will bring things to the rehearsal space that they don't even use just for me to play. It is all about communication. There are no hard and fast rules if you communicate, but I wholeheartedly agree that unless it has been cleared first, playing someone else's gear is the wrong move.

 

I'd be pissed if you played my gear.

 

I'd accuse you of screwing up my setup and demand you put it back to the great way it played before

[txbass68]

I would be pissed. But if I leave it at the studio and another band practices there, I would assume that it would happen sooner or later. I would do like someone else said and take vital parts out.

[ThudMaker]

.........unless it has been cleared first, playing someone else's gear is the wrong move.

This is a theme that gets repeated over and over in this thread. They needed to ask first. It's bad form just to use other people's stuff without permission.

[eric.chambers]

Ypu know this exact thing happened to me about 15 years ago. I had two Peavy 4X10 cabs I was using and really didn't want to haul them back and forth twice a week every time we practiced, so the easiest thing to do was to just leave them at the jam space. One day I show up to practice and one of my speakers is making all kinds of noise, and is totally shot. I finally get the drummer to admit he was jamming with another bass player friend of mine and was using my rig without my permisssion a few days earlier. He said he was using all kinds of distortion and effects, but swore he didn't realize the speaker was fried. I called up the other bass player friend and comfronted him with the situation and he promised he'd pay for a new speaker and apologized all over the place and promised me the world. Of course he never payed for anything. What was I gonna do? Take him to court over $80? It just didn't seem worth it to me. So I was out the cash and the friendship never really recovered. Taking a big heavy bass rig with you every time you play isn't really something you should have to do, but that doesn't make it public property for everybody else to use. Now I just take my power cable, speaker cable, and instrument cable with me to prevent this from happening again. Never loan out someone else's property without permission. Period.

[bholder]

You had every right to pull your gear, that's absurd that they used your equipment without checking.

 

But you're still an asshole. We all are.

[wades_keys]

He said he was using all kinds of distortion and effects, but swore he didn't realize the speaker was fried. I called up the other bass player friend and comfronted him with the situation and he promised he'd pay for a new speaker and apologized all over the place and promised me the world. Of course he never payed for anything. What was I gonna do? Take him to court over $80? It just didn't seem worth it to me. So I was out the cash and the friendship never really recovered.

 

Exactly - this is pretty much how it goes down, every single time.

 

Ain't worth it.

[DadHatter]

I think I'm going to invent something that you can screw onto the back of a cabinet, where the inputs are. Like, a little metal plate with a lock of some type. Without the key, the door is shut, and the inputs are covered, and therefore, unusable.

 

Mike

[bholder]

I think I'm going to invent something that you can screw onto the back of a cabinet, where the inputs are. Like, a little metal plate with a lock of some type. Without the key, the door is shut, and the inputs are covered, and therefore, unusable. Mike

 

 

Not a bad idea, and there are readily available key switches that would do the trick. They could still bypass it by opening up the cab, but it certainly seems like would discourage most unapproved use.

[cwatson]

You said they are both good friends of yours. The guitarist probably just assumed it was all cool and said to the bassist, "yeah he's cool with it". So... you can't really blame the bassist. You probably should have said to the guitarist, "I'm sure you thought it was OK, but I wish you would have asked me".

 

 

 

This is the exact situation and I would imagine that is what happened.

I haven't actually removed my gear yet. I suggested to the guitarist when he told me that they'd had a few practices (and that they'd used my amp) that I wasn't really willing to let another band use my gear. He kinda flipped out a little hence the 'asshole' in the title lol. That did make me more inclined to take the gear home (I think taking speakon leads or whatever is childish and could be taken as passive aggressive more so than just taking the whole lot).

 

As for the lazy thing anyone who wants to lift two 85 lb warwick 4x10s and a rack case of simmilar weight into the back of my small hatchback 2-4 times a week, be my guest!

 

and a final thing I dunno if you were joking T3ch was it you i got with the kiss/rickroll thang a while back XD

[Guttermouth]

i didn't read anything in this thread but, i think it's safe to say yes, you are an asshole.

 

:poke:

 

 

 

.

[bassgirl9]

The same situation happened to me and this is how it played out.

 

 

BUDDY: "Hey, I have a side project coming in to use the rehearsal space"

 

ME: "Oh, I guess you want me to get my gear out of there."

 

BUDDY: "Or you can leave it and just let us use it"

 

ME: "Ha ha, not bloody likely! I'll be over in 15 mins to get it"

 

 

I'm with you. No one uses my gear. It's a lot to carry around for you though, how are going to work this out?

[bholder]

[PaulyWally]

This is the exact situation and I would imagine that is what happened. I haven't actually removed my gear yet. I suggested to the guitarist when he told me that they'd had a few practices (and that they'd used my amp) that I wasn't really willing to let another band use my gear. He kinda flipped out a little hence the 'asshole' in the title lol.

 

 

Then I think you did the mature, respectable thing. You talked to him about it, he freaked out... nothing is left on you.

 

I can't tell you how many times someone has freaked out at me cause I said "no" to borrowing my gear. F'k them. You paid good money for it... you can do whatever you want with it. Which, BTW, I didn't intend otherwise. I just meant that there's a difference between you taking your gear in silence... and you taking your gear after letting them know that it wasn't cool. In the case of the latter, maybe they won't be so assumptive next time.

[rpsands]

I have an electric fence around my {censored}, someone tries to mess with it and ZZZZZAP, 10000 volts bitch!

[willsellout]

No one uses my stuff but me. Nobody. If it breaks your stuck with it...very few people are going to go out of their way to pay for anything to get fixed.



Dan

[bholder]

I've both loaned and borrowed gear without problems a number of times, but I've also had some bad problems in cases where I really knew or should have known not to trust the person. One good indicator is how they treat their own equipment - if they treat it like crap, don't expect anything loaned to get much better. Of course, there's the particularly slimy kind who treat their own gear very carefully, but then feel free to abuse borrowed gear.

 

So I've kind of changed my position over the years. I won't say I'll absolutely never loan gear ever again, but I'll be a hell of a lot more particular than I used to be.

[walkerci]

Put a very low value fuse in your rig so the next time they use it they freak out thinking they broke your gear.

Pure, unadulterated genius!:)

OK, maybe not so pure.