Van Hunter

So this time it was Dinosaur Jr that got its gear stolen from a trailer following an Outer borough gig. My sympathies to the aging indie rockers - it looks as if their guitar set-up was almost as convoluted at that of Sonic Youth, who have also been ripped off in recent years. The sociopathic behaviour of frontnerds J Mascis and recently-returned Lou Barlow notwithstanding, I hope they can recover their stuff.

But this news is depressingly familiar, as this quick search of the mighty Vegan demonstrates. It's quite possible that there is an abundance of light-fingered hipsters in the borough. More likely, there's an abundance of careless musicians coming to town that thought that what with gentrification and all, there's no way that scrote punkers are getting their start in the biz the way the Sex Pistols did.

But this is utterly insane. Why the hell would venues not be able to direct a band either to a secure garage or be able to stash this for them? More importantly, shouldn't road managers be able to spring for some kind of security? I dare say for the smaller band such costs are going right out of their tiny pockets, but it seems like a pretty good investment, unless the history of these thefts is that most of the stuff gets returned by trawling Sam Ash and craigslist in a timely fashion. Or through mentalist blog appeals.

I imagine, though, that there's a decent amount of money to made for an enterprising young gent, or gents, that could hook bands up with a storage facility in their selected cities. It certainly couldn't hurt to cultivate the venue owners. That all said, it's not like I've ever taken a band on tour, and the only real advice I could offer a venue owner would be to never f*** with Peter Grant. And if one owned a time machine and had a yen to have them play your enormodome, that would damn useful advice too.