Anecdote # 303

The Sorrowful Tale Of The Wrecked Refrigerator.
not all anecdotes are funny,
some are educational, informative, even sad.

in early april 1994 the refrigerator (the name given to my new guitar rack)
was well-stocked and had completed its test run with flying colors.
it held an infinite number of possible combinations for future sounds
and was smartly designed to handle programmed midi patches
as well as the on-the-fly improvisation of stomp boxes.
and it sounded awesome!
the dream of the ultimate guitar rig seemed a reality.
I estimated the cost at somewhere north of $20,000.

the mighty beast was wheeled onto a truck headed for woodstock, new york,
home of tony levin and the future double-headed monster 1990's King Crimson.
the six members of the new "double trio" were convening at last
to conceive, write, and record our first new record in 10 years.

noah evens and martha were with me when the truck arrived
at Applehead Studio in woodstock
to unload and unveil the ultimate guitar rig.
the driver opened the rear of the truck and there it was:
a lopsided scrunched mish-mash of metal and plastic.
there were what looked to be forklift scraps down the sides of the twisted mass.
holding back tears we theorized it must have been forklifted off the plane
and dropped.
the next fews weeks of working with the new Krimson
were bittersweet for me as I struggled to get the most basic
decent guitar sound out of the few boxes still working.
(which is why I cringed years later to find out those rehearsals
were released by the King Crimson Collector's Club
as an official bootleg called "The Vrooom Sessions").

suffice to say when all was said and done
the airlines had their small print Rules For Compensation, blah blah.
they paid me a dollar per pound.
the refrigerator (rest in pieces) weighed 501 pounds.