Accidents caused by instruments

Eriks

New member
Hi Friends, I'm a writer searching for inspiration in stories about instruments causing accidents. I've heard about pianos falling on people, and lung diseases caused by mold in bagpipes. Do you know a instrument/accident story? Please share. Thank you :)
 

John Watt

Member
When rock bands began using exterior television antenna structures,
those three pipe, strap-riveted types, only forty to fifty feet long,
of course, other American acts such as r'n'b used them for outdoor concert stages,
to hold the lighting for the stage and audience.

When I first got into Jimi Hendrix, he talked about Curtis Mayfield as a rhythm guitar influence.
Curtis Mayfield was already in a wheelchair, a previous problem,
when he was onstage, I think for a sound check, a lighting structure collapsed on him, killing him.
That's not my first recommendation for a killer genre.

Here in Ontario, when bar bands were over 5,000 watts of power,
and roadies were shoving wires into the 220 voltage feeds for venue power,
for P.A.s and lighting,
having equipment plugged in to sockets on both sides of the stage,
created horrible ground problems, that electrocuted many musicians.
A sub-category would be drummers, starting to sing or talk through their mike,
flying backwards off their seat, hitting the back wall or stage, dead.

Don't ask me to get into the teslant, no, please... don't...

A drummer I was playing and myself were back in our home town,
and he wanted me to meet a guitarist friend of his, who had a '58 Les Paul.
I took my '64 Stratocaster, and we went to a downtown park to jam,
sitting along the Welland Canal, now bypassed with no lake or ocean boats.
As we were jamming,
a seagull came along and splat, right in the midde of his pickups, all over the strings.
After we got that cleaned up, we moved to another parkette, with more shade.
As we began to jam again, splat, right in the middle of my pick-guard.
That's the only time I've seen a seagull do that.
 

bob32116

New member
I'm pretty sure there are several cases where people got electrocuted from an electric guitar, but i can't quote actual examples.

I guess Joshua making the walls of Jericho fall down by playing his trumpet doesn't qualify, since that happened by design rather than accident.
 

Eriks

New member
You're right, there are several cases of guitar players being electrocuted. The story of Joshua playing his trumpet absolutely qualifies. Very interresting. Thanks for telling it.
 

Eriks

New member
When rock bands began using exterior television antenna structures,
those three pipe, strap-riveted types, only forty to fifty feet long,
of course, other American acts such as r'n'b used them for outdoor concert stages,
to hold the lighting for the stage and audience.

When I first got into Jimi Hendrix, he talked about Curtis Mayfield as a rhythm guitar influence.
Curtis Mayfield was already in a wheelchair, a previous problem,
when he was onstage, I think for a sound check, a lighting structure collapsed on him, killing him.
That's not my first recommendation for a killer genre.

Here in Ontario, when bar bands were over 5,000 watts of power,
and roadies were shoving wires into the 220 voltage feeds for venue power,
for P.A.s and lighting,
having equipment plugged in to sockets on both sides of the stage,
created horrible ground problems, that electrocuted many musicians.
A sub-category would be drummers, starting to sing or talk through their mike,
flying backwards off their seat, hitting the back wall or stage, dead.

Don't ask me to get into the teslant, no, please... don't...

A drummer I was playing and myself were back in our home town,
and he wanted me to meet a guitarist friend of his, who had a '58 Les Paul.
I took my '64 Stratocaster, and we went to a downtown park to jam,
sitting along the Welland Canal, now bypassed with no lake or ocean boats.
As we were jamming,
a seagull came along and splat, right in the midde of his pickups, all over the strings.
After we got that cleaned up, we moved to another parkette, with more shade.
As we began to jam again, splat, right in the middle of my pick-guard.
That's the only time I've seen a seagull do that.

Wow, thats really interresting, that all the gear involved in performing with an instrument for an audience has the potential to cause some damage. I guess that focus on HSE in the stage business has increased in later years:)

The seagull story is pretty crazy. Did they survive?
 

John Watt

Member
I'm here to comment on the "Joshua played his trumpet and the walls came a'tumbling down" parable.
That's not a harsh "pare-a-bull" translation, and remember a Papal "bull" is Latin, not English only.

If you are reading the Holy Bible as the living word, what does Joshua and Jericho become for us?
Take a look at Jericho, supposed to be long gone ancient history, at least what they want it to be, for us.
Where is it, of course, in the Valley of Jericho, and it must have disappeared, it's gone, as the City of Jericho.
Aren't trumpets, even just one, supposed to herald the arrival?
And that's the arrival of the truth, the reality, and it must be eternal, and infernal, because it is there for all of us.
There are twenty-seven underground cities in the Valley of Jericho.
The smallest can inhabit over 10,000 people, the largest up to 20,000.
The longest tunnel between two cities is over four miles long, and is perfectly straight.
As a defensive strategy, living underground with air holes to the surface,
it is only too easy for attackers to smoke you or drown you out, but that didn't happen.
Are these "ice age" cities? Did "medea" and "hydra" and "nucleus" cause this downfall?
Did antarctic populations migrate north to the top of Africa, to avoid a total freezing?
The Sahara was like an arctic wasteland back then, and you had to come to the surface and kill to survive.
The Bhaga-vad Gita of India, written over 1,000 years before Moses wrote the start of the Torah,
tells about this even more. Where Moses says "there were giants in those days",
the Bhaga-vad Gita talks about them, and what it took to get rid of them, their Pantheon of Gods.
They were named "Avatars", yeah, you still got some? Noah was over eight feet tall.
There are even rooms and walkways designed for holding and moving animals, from camels to sheep,
in these underground cities. Americans are building underground cities along the Rocky Mountains.
They know far better, not only what they are doing, but what the eventual response will be.
That's our living history.

Hey, it's Sunday, and I'm feeling it.
 
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Florestan

New member
What about bands playing in redneck bars and having beer bottles thrown at them. I read that Johnny Winter used to play in some horrible joints before making the big time. In one place there was a chain link fence or some similar barrier between the band and the patrons for that very purpose. I think they also mention having to exit quickly out the back door and/or windows.
 

John Watt

Member
florestan! I think the most illustrated and illuminated example of American redneck bars with stage fences,
is found in "Road House", where Jeff Healey, from Toronto, Canada, with his rock band, are behind one.
Here in Ontario, bands say don't play in the States because sooner or later someone gets stabbed,
during a robbery in the parking lot.
When "Fargo", a Port Colborne "new country" band first went south, their roadie got stabbed.
And that's before there were zombies starting to come out.
Johnny Winter is a Texas player, and yes, Texas is the worst.
Transport truck drivers, delivering to New Jersey, don't get out of their cab, at all.
It's dangerous for them to even try to help unload.
 

bob32116

New member
What about bands playing in redneck bars and having beer bottles thrown at them. I read that Johnny Winter used to play in some horrible joints before making the big time. In one place there was a chain link fence or some similar barrier between the band and the patrons for that very purpose. I think they also mention having to exit quickly out the back door and/or windows.
Surely that wouldn't qualify. The injury was not due to the instrument itself, except indirectly as a result of someone not liking the instrument or the playing thereof. If that were the case, you could say that playing the bagpipes is very dangerous!
 

Florestan

New member
You're right, there are several cases of guitar players being electrocuted. The story of Joshua playing his trumpet absolutely qualifies. Very interresting. Thanks for telling it.

Maybe they need to wear thick rubber boots for insulation from ground.
 

Florestan

New member
Surely that wouldn't qualify. The injury was not due to the instrument itself, except indirectly as a result of someone not liking the instrument or the playing thereof. If that were the case, you could say that playing the bagpipes is very dangerous!

Good point. And it would be no accident if a drunk brained the guitarist with his own guitar.
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
Played for a wedding a long time ago - on a military base - was told the chapel had a very fine pipe organ when contacted. When I got there I found this wicked Hammond contraption .. the vibrato (at full speed) was stuck "on" and could not be turned off. The bride had requested the Widor Toccata for the recessional.

The accident that happened here was Widor rolling over in his grave - especially the final large chords (yinnneeee yinnnnneeeee yineeeeee). Almost added the 6th to final chord ... not.

Other accidents witnessed were handbells flung across the room when someone didn't quite have a good grip on the handle.
 

bob32116

New member
There must be a few recorded instances of drummers accidentally throwing their drumsticks away - possibly hitting a fellow band member or someone in the audience.
 

John Watt

Member
Oh! You guys are too nice. I can tell you're not hard rock, or American bar band players.

The Ernie Ball volume pedal and Crybaby wah-wah pedal are both built and designed,
to be thrown across a room and are heavy enough to knock someone out.

I didn't know that about Keith Relf.
The Yardbirds, their rhythms and songs, were one of my favorite Billboard bands back then,
when I was a virgin and never tried a cigarette.
"What's your name, who's your daddy, is he rich like me?
Has he taken, all the time, to show you, how to live or die,
tell it to me quickly, I really want to know, it's a time of the season, for loving."
Shakers and singing "shh...shh".

For the adult comedy Hollywood movie, "Who's Your Daddy",
Wayne Newton performs the title song and again, shows why he's so famous,
and the owner of a big Las Vegas casino. Please, see the credits for that.
I used to see him on The Uncle Jerry Show, from Buffalo, when he was fifteen.

Drummers throwing sticks into the audience became a cliche,
but when people started to sue over "injuries",
that's when promoters started tossing air balls into the crowd.
In North America, you have to appease your arena crowds,
a welfare society, just like ancient Rome.

When people want to talk about me as a rock star, or former rock star,
I say that's not me.
I say no-one ever slapped my face, threw a drink in my face,
poked a cigarette burn in my shirt, or dropped a drink in my lap.
Now...
when I walk down the beach in the summer with my shirt off, in short pants,
and a young woman, or young women, say you must have been a rock star,
I don't start singing "castles made of sand, slip into the sea... eventually".
"I still can, dream a little dream of me".
 
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Florestan

New member
The flung handbells is funny. I am not fond of handbells anyway, so fling them away. There is an Alice Cooper album track where the drummer drops a stick and you hear it hit something, but he apparently had more sticks at hand because he kept playing. It was discussed in the liner notes of the CD, maybe was a best of set or something. Can't remember now.
 

John Watt

Member
Florestan! Talking about dropped drumsticks and any other instrument,
has always been a part of liner notes or interviews as insider information,
and I'd say that really started with jazz albums.
However, a new level of droppings was achieved by Sting, a part of a VHS production,
supposed to be the live recording session in his country estate, of a recent hit album,
the one with "Fields of Gold", and "Be Still My Beating Heart".

While they are playing and Sting is singing, playing electric bass,
his upright, leaning behind him, falls over to the floor, banging on its way down.
You see and hear it all, live, captured on tape. Sting, and everyone else looks,
but keep playing, and joke around about it afterward.

Hand-bells are kindergarten stories, compared to flamenco dancers crunching castanets,
which do result in serious hand injuries.
The "Far-Flung Castanet Finger-Flingers of Santa Rosetta Stones", are famous for that.
If they had managed to make it through one recording,
they could have been heard as part of a Monty Python music compilation.

I can't remember the outside venue where falling stage equipment,
not set up for high winds, collapsed, killing many people,
making that State create new laws for such events.

I think that's the Alice Cooper album, where, on the cover,
he's sticking his thumb out at you, from inside his lowered pants zipper.
It was the Rolling Stones who got sticky fingers with their upgraded artwork.
 

bob32116

New member
I think it's in "Loo-e loo-i" by The Kingsmen - anyway it's in some classic rock song - the drummer is supposed to have audibly uttered the F-word after having dropped his drumstick. That may not sound a big deal, but this was a time when you could not even sing the word "bloody" without it being bleeped out on radio, unlike the present day where every second hit song seems to contain at least one or two swear words.
 
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John Watt

Member
bob32116! You should tell me what radio station you're listening to.
Hearing swear words every second hit song is better than around here.
I bought a new radio, cassette and CD player, but stopped listening to the radio.
Everyone, at the time, was saying I should get into some Bruno Mars,
saying he started out as a child Elvis imitator, and he used Police style production,
when I used to sing a lot of Police songs, still doing "Message in a Bottle".
What did I hear, a song with "bringing morphine to your front door".

In the rock world, the first band known to have recorded the f-word,
was The MC5, for Motor City 5 from Detroit, shouting, not singing,
"kick out the jams, motherf.....s".
Jam and jelly are slang terms from another culture for a female body part,
when the original inhabitants of Detroit were losing jobs, blaming them.
That's offshore becoming onshore, and look at Detroit now.

This can only lead to what vocalists sang on records,
and what they actually sang onstage, in adult venues.
"we're going to have a bug party, and everyone will get Raid", becomes,
"we're going to have a rug party, and everyone will get laid".

What bugs me on my rug is seeing television do the same thing to raise the level of porn and violence.
Just using "Home Box Office" as the name of a television station,
lets them show x-rated content as movies, when it's still the same screen for you.
Saying you are "cable content" is another scam that allowed more porn and violence.

I'd like to use some Professor Marshall McCluhan understandings about this.
He's a Canadian professor who wrote "The Global Village" and "The Media is the Message".
The human brain accepts everything you are seeing as your reality.
Your rational brain knows it's not real, but as you can feel the effects of all emotions,
from fear to being motivated to masturbate, you know yourself that TV is far more effective,
than viewing any stationary artwork or listening to any music performance.

You are what you see, and all this artificial reality only desensitizes your inner self.
This phenomena as hard-core was first demonstrated in New York city,
where, when a man was raping a woman on the sidewalk,
people would stop to watch, getting off on the visuals, without connecting to actual reality.
New York had to pass a law, making it illegal to witness crimes like this,
without reporting it to the police, or co-operating with an investigation.
And yes, they had hand-helds back then.

I'm trying to remember "Louie-Louie", remembering the more recent "Black Crowes" version.
What was Louie doing?
You are talking about the f-word,
but when you hear the word stick and sticks, that's old slang for hypodermic needles.

Here's an old Buddy Rich joke about drummers, as told on Johnny Carson.
Yes, it's a rainy day, so I'm prepared to type away... and let the font flow this way...

A jazz trumpeter was new to town, gigging downtown, and it was after his first night.
He wasn't sure where to go, that late at night, so he called for a cab.
The cab driver was saying there's a new club in town, with a new concept,
but he should be able to get into it, so he took him there.
As the trumpeter entered, he saw a big room with a lot of doors, all numbered.
He entered door number one, and saw a room full of people dressed in formal attire.
They were speaking foreign languages, drinking wine, with a nice cheese and cracker table.
He thought, no, that's not for me,
so he went back to door number two.
Inside that door, was a room full of people in business suits, drinking liquors,
talking business in conversational and conspiring tones, so he left without sipping.
Behind the next door was a room full of people in casual clothes, drinking beer,
a little pushing and shoving going on, men starting to get brew-tall,
so he left again, and just stood there, deciding to try the last door.
When he went in, he saw a vagrant looking man sitting there all alone,
looking up, saying "You got any sticks"?
I'd like to add this update, saying,
there was no next door, just a stairwell leading to the basement,
where he saw some truly dirty and frantic people loading some lime bags,
saying we better hurry and cover him up, before his royalties start coming in.
One of them turned to say, hey, you got the power of attorney?
 
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