Rehearsal Space - The Horror Stories

OK, so after 25 years of renting rehearsal space all over MA, CT, and NH, we have endured squalid conditions, had our equipment damaged and missing, put up with the derelicts, had our van broken in to, got caught up in the middle of a few shutdowns, been raped on the costs, but through the whole thing managed to keep the band working, touring, and enjoying our love of music. The horror stories we will keep generic, but we will stick with the meat of the matter. Hopefully through it all, you can steer clear of what we experienced. This is just a smattering of them.

Our Gear Turned Up Missing - This happened to us way more than once. The worst was when we had our whole rehearsal space broken in to in Everett, MA with everything gone. Serious dough. There was an alarm on our room, but either it didn't go off, or it was an inside job, but nobody seemed to know anything. In Watertown, MA we arrived to find our padlock sheered off the door with pedals and cables missing. In Allston, MA during a room share which we have never done since, we showed up for rehearsal and our complete rack of signal processing had disappeared. When we asked the band we were sharing with where it was, they implied that we must have left it at a gig or something. OK, except for the fact that we hadn't gigged in a week. In Manchester, NH where there was supposed to be camera's watching our stuff, our room door was found open and gear missing. Nobody seemed to know anything. In Cambridge, MA someone kicked in our plywood door, which made the padlock screws just fall off, and took a keyboard. No one in the office would help us.

Our Equipment Flooded - The Concord river floods every year where the bend in the river is, and where the rehearsal studio is located. Because the building is in a low lying slope to the river, it flows right in. We had two feet of water in our room, the electronics were toast, and the drums were warped like seashells. Nobody told us about this until it was too late, but apparently the owner and the rest of the bands all knew.

Busted Just Because We Were There - When a Boston, MA rehearsal space was shutdown and the police showed up arresting people for drug possession in the building, we were in our rehearsal room, doing nothing, smoking nothing, drinking nothing, taking nothing and arrested just because we were there, and we weren't the culprits.

The Derelicts Hanging Outside Our Room - In Allston, MA we couldn't shake the derelicts from drinking and drugging in the hallway right outside our room door. It didn't make us feel very secure when we locked up to go home, having all these guys eyeing our gear, so we moved out.

Slogging Through The Piss on the Floor - As gross as this sounds, in Manchester, NH we had to endure walking through piss on the floor, and I don't mean in the bathrooms. This was right out in the corridor of the place. I guess it was OK just to hang it out in the corridor and let it go if you are so drunk from drinking beer all night, that you don't care.

Our Van Broken Into - We had our van broken into in the parking lot of one space while we were rehearsing inside.

We could go on and on, but the stories are too numerous. No we don't go to these type of places anymore, but that's not because we have given up on renting rehearsal space.