Mermen - Stolen Gear

Our beloved surf band the Mermen need help.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: STOLEN MERMEN GEAR $3000.00 reward for recovery
Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 13:15:15 -0400
From: [email protected]
Reply-To: Mermen

Hello Everyone,

Here is a list of the musical equipment stolen from ATLANTIC/BMG/V2
internationally known recording artists, the MERMEN
at the FLAMINGO HOTEL's oversize parking lot
in LAS VEGAS, NEVADA on Friday , May 27 at about 6:00 AM. All of the
equipment( approx $60.000,00 worth of some very custom gear,) and
merchandise was in a 5 x 8 orange and white U-HAUL trailer: The U-Haul
trailer that was chained and locked to our Ford Van. The thieves used
bolt cutters to cut the trailer loose from the van . The stolen U-HAUL
had a Chicago travel ad on the side, and the
license plate # is: Arkansas PT103498. The U-Haul number is : AU34671C.
Please forward this to as many places
you can in Nevada and Southern California. MERMEN are offering a
$3,000.00 reward for the return of this equipment.
If you have any information regarding this equipment call:

JIM THOMAS 415 200 5493
831 464 3979
JENNIFER BURNES 415 725 4910
MARTYN JONES 650 455 5111
email: [email protected]

It is going to take a while for us to find the serial numbers for all
this stuff so we are sending out this prliminary list.

STOLEN EQUIPMENT:The following four guitars are peculiar in that they
have no volume or tone controls and
each guitar has two output jacks rather than one. These guitars are
extremely used and look that way-kind of beat up.
The strings on the guitars are very heavy guage 13- 60

1 FENDER USA STRATOCASTER guitar BABY BLUE in color with a WHITE
PICKGUARD tuned to an open D tuning. Has
MAVERICKS stickers on the back.

1 FENDER USA STRATOCASTER guitar SPARKLE RED in color with a WHITE
PICKGUARD, maple neck tuned to a regular
tuning.

1 FENDER USA STRATOCASTER guitar PURPLE in color with a WHITE
PCIKGUARD. regular tuning.

1 FENDER USA STRATOCASTER guitar SILVER BLUE in color tuned to an open C
tuning.

3 FENDER DUAL SHOWMAN/TWIN 100 watt tube amplifier heads. The are black
in color with black control panels
Each has four 6L6 tubes and a variety of small tubes.
one of the amps has red knobs. The other two have black chicken head
knobs with hand painted white markers on the
knobs. These amps look beat to hell. but work and sound very good . One
of them has duct tape all around it.

1 FENDER speaker cabinet( with logo) with 2 vintage JBL D-130 15 inch
speakers. Black in color with siver grill clotheThe cabinet has been
modified to be an open back cabinet. one of a kind of cabinet. In very
beat up condition.

1 FENDER closed back speaker cabinet ( no logo on front) with 1 vintage
JBL D-130 15 inch speaker. Black in color
with silver grill clothe. In good condiiton.

1 FENDER JAZZ BASS with NATURAL WOOD MAPLE color and WHITE PICKGUARD,
rosewood fingerboard Has a Roland GK-2 synth pickup on it.

1 FENDER FRETLESS JAZZ BASS CREME in color with white pickguard and EMG
pickups on it.

1 AMPEG (year 2000) SVT classic 300 watt tube bass amp head. This amp is
very beat up with some yellow knobs on it

1 vintage/collectible AMPEG SVT (year 1972) 300 watt tube bass amp head.
label on the back says made in the LINDEN, NEW JERSEY factory. This is
extremely well used amp.

1 vintage AMPEG SVT( year 1972 ) speaker cabinet with 8 - 10 inch
speakers. has a green grill clothe AMPEG logo black vinyl and
has some of the wood exposed. It is extremely well used,

2 OBERHEIM ECHOPLEX loop/smapler/digital delay. these are one space 19
inch rack mount units.

2 LEXICON LXP-15 II digital effects unit.

1 TC ELECTRONIC D-TWO digital delay

1 DIGITECH 1900 digital delay.

1 REAL TUBE II rack mount distortion preamp.

1 GCX rackmount midi audio/rounter switcher with
the GROUND CONTROL pedal.

2 KORG rackmount tuners.

1 KORG handheld tuner.

2 MACKIE 1202 mixers.

1 MESA BOOGIE V-TWIN pedal

1 BOSS floor pedal tuner

3 BOSS TRMEOLO pedals. ( 2 light green in color , 1 dark green in color)

1 ELECTRO HARMONIX POG pedal.

1 BIG BRIAR MOOGER FOOGER RING MODULATRO foot pedal.

4 BOSS FS 5U foot switches.

3 ERNIE BALL mono volume pedals.

1 GOODRICH pedal steel volume pedal.

1 THREE PIECE PEARL custom drumset. 22 inch BASS DRUM, 16 inch TOM , 14
inch TOM. Drums are PURPLE in color
There is an elabore MERMEN painting on the front head of the bass
that was painted for us in JAPAN . IT has a
fish and a wave breaking on it.

2 LUDWIG MARCHING SNARE drums. These are BLUE SPARKLE in color and are
14 inches

1 REMO Djembe drum large size w african disigns

1 set of DW double bass drum pedals

1 DW Hi HAT stand.

8 ZILDJIAN cymbals in a cymbal case.

6 cymbal stands.

drum hardware and case with various percussion instruments.

1 SANYO LCD video projector

1 portable DVD player.

1 portable CD player.

250 MERMEN CDS various titles.
50 Mavericks contest DVD's
50 Mavericks contest T-shirts
1 very large Mavericks banner.

Ouch!! That hurt just to read that!! Hope the perps are caught and subjected to some sort of primitive Polynesian torture - using bamboo slivers, hot coals and lava - applied liberally to sensitive body parts and orifices!

This sucks!! I remember tearing up the wild streets of San Mateo in my youth with Martyn and my brother!

That's RAZZ!

On 2005-06-01 09:36, PapeToaTane wrote:
...Hope the perps are caught and subjected to some sort of primitive Polynesian torture - using bamboo slivers, hot coals and lava - applied liberally to sensitive body parts and orifices!

And this from an Anglican Priest!

This is truly sad news. I hope they can recover some or all of it.

How f*#&ed up!

The problem with getting one's gear stolen is that many times, instruments and pieces of gear are either rare or vintage, and cannot be exactly replaced.

I hope things work out for them.

And this from an Anglican Priest!

How do you think we got so many converts way back when ?? :wink:

Haka - let us know if you hear anything!

Hey! This thread got bumped from the Main Discussion Area into the lesser viewed Beyond Tiki Forum. That's sad.

Anyway, the Mermen's website has an updated list with photos of the equipment:

http://www.mermen.net/equip.shtml

Here's a copy of an email I received;

Hello friends of the Mermen,

Mermen will be performing tonight at 19 Broadway in Fairfax ,CA
A very Big THANK YOU goes out to all of the very generous fans and
friends who helped us with the replacement of our stolen gear.
Nothing has been recovered yet. Yesterday we were informed the
U-Haul trailer was found abandoned and empty in Vegas somewhere.

And.......MERMEN will perform at the VIPER ROOM in West Hollywood
playing with STUTTERFLY on Friday July 29th

Peace and Love.......see you in the woods.
Jim, Martyn, Jennifer

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-15 15:09 ]

filslash wrote:

aloha,

Got an email from pals, The Mermen... What a freaking story...

it reads...

Greetings to all our friends,
The Big news and not all good is that after no news about any
of our gear for 5 months , a substantial portion of our stolen
equipment has begun surfacing in Kalikspell, Montana.

So, have they gotten any of the equipment back yet? Sorry I didn't
find this thread earlier (have only been a member here since about
the time of the email I'm quoting and it's taking me FOREVER to
get through the forums for some reason). I would have suggested
that they contact the Montana State Police (or similar official
state-operated law enforcement agency) as they would PROBABLY be
the ones to investigate "crooked local cops".

Anyway, I sympathize with the Mermen a bit as I have had similar
experiences, although not on quite the same scale or that would
affect my livelyhood to the extent that this theft surely did.

I hope they have recovered much of their equipment and that the
person(s) responsible for the theft and subsequent resale of the
stolen equipment have been arrested, tried and convicted and that
the local police there are no more.

Check Out their yahoo group Mermenlist, and go back a few months of posts,
for the whole lowdown.

They got about half or 2/3rds of the stuff back. Turns out it was probably some
tweekers stole it and sold it to some pawn shop in Montana, that is becoming a den
of thievs, crooked cops and drug addicts.

they have been playing with some new equipment, and some of their hard core SF bay area fans have posted reviews on there also.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

bigtikidude wrote:

Check Out their yahoo group Mermenlist,
and go back a few months of posts, for the
whole lowdown.

They got about half or 2/3rds of the stuff
back.
...
they have been playing with some new equip-
ment
....

Ok, glad to hear that they FINALLY got MUCH
of their equipment back, but I'm sure that
they miss the rest. Not really a musician (I
took a year of piano as a child, but MAY get
into ukes/lap steel in the future and think
I might be okay with a set of bongoes), but
I have lost or almost lost lots of stuff that
was/is dear to my heart so I can sympathize.

Glad to hear they reovered their stolen equipment, even if their hippy dreg is nauseating.