Metal Sludge The Power and the Glory
BRET MICHAELS’ GUITAR STOLEN!
Jeff Pilson and Zakk Wylde aren’t the only rockers to have an instrument stolen from them in recent times. Now it’s happened to Poison’s Bret Michaels! Apparently, one of his guitars ‘disappeared’ after a recent show on his solo tour. Here’s an announcement that was e-mailed to us earlier today:
Bret’s Red Fender Strat was stolen during the last song of Bret’s set at McCools in Valparaiso, Indiana on Friday November 12, 2004. (Please visit www.bretmichaels.com/eletters/stolenguitar.htm to see a larger photo of the guitar.)
We are asking anyone and everyone who may know where it is to please return it to us. This guitar has a lot of sentimental value to Bret and we just want to get it back.
If you have any information about the whereabouts of this guitar, please email bmelist@yahoo.com immediately with your contact information.
As we have stated we just want the guitar back. Please contact us if you have any information.
Please post this on the sites or lists you may belong to, any and all help is very much appreciated.
"Bret would like his guitar back. It has sentimental value. There is no way you can sell it, because you will get caught. Bring it back to the next show or a show coming up and there will be no questions asked, no charges pressed."
Thank you,
Bret, Janna, Cris and the entire road crew and band
Valparaiso, Indiana just happens to be the town our 2001 Sludgeaholic of the Year Jim Bob Dwarf is from, so we thought we’d ask him if he happened to be there when this all went down. It took us 3 e-mails to get Jim Bob to admit that he actually went to a Bret Michaels show, but he affirmed the guitar-snatching occurence and summed it up in the following e-mail:
Yeah, that seems to have really happened. There was a pretty big crowd as the place was packed to capacity, so you’d think it would’ve been difficult not to be spotted stealing something as big as a guitar. I guess if someone were able to conceal it, like under a coat or something, they probably could’ve walked off with it. It would’ve been easy to blend into the crowd as a lot of people were moving away from the stage when Bret’s set was over. They did have a security call not long after that, and they stopped people from exiting the building. Security people walked through the remaining crowd to see if they could find it, but nothing turned up.
They did make an announcement from the stage describing the guitar, and that if it were returned, no charges would be filed against whoever took it. (Though I’ll bet Bret’s security guard "Big John" would’ve given them a good *talking to* out in the parking lot!)
It sucks hard for any musician or performer when one of their favorite insturments gets ganked. We’ve given Bret a lot of shit over the past few years, but theft of a valued and sentimental posession is no fun and games, so we’re gladly doing our part to help get the word out.
Update 11/14/04: Since this went up last night, we’ve gotten 2,459 individual e-mails telling us that the guitar in Bret’s picture is a Fender Telecaster, not a Strat as mentioned in the e-mail they sent out. Well, thanks for pointing that out, but we’re not messing with their official statement since we wanted to post it here exactly as received. Hey, at least they got ‘Fender’ right. It’s not like they’re calling a B.C. Rich Warlock a Kramer Vanguard Flying V, but unless you’re Les Paul himself, e-mail Bret’s people with the correction, not us.
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