Lots of guitar thefts in the last two weeks...coincidence? Probably.

In the past two weeks, I have read four, yes, four separate accounts of pretty famous bands getting their guitars and gear stolen.  You don't hear about this kind of thing often, because frankly it's a really terrible thing to do to a band and most people aren't dickish enough to steal a band's guitars.  James Hetfield was so depressed when Metallica's gear was stolen once upon a time that he sat down and penned Fade to Black.  Even though Fade to Black turned out to be what I consider Metallica's best song, stealing a band's guitars is pretty damn low.

First, it came out that Machine Head guitarist Robb Flynn had several guitars stolen from his home on September 7th while he was picking his son up from school, including one that was given to him by the late Dimebag Darrell of Pantera, which is of course extremely valuable.  They also took the guitar he used to record the band's first album, and even the miniature flying V he was using to teach his son the instrument.  Dicks.  He's offering $2000 for the Dimebag prototype and $1000 for the Washburn that he recorded the band's debut on.  Poor guy even got the San Fran area news crews to help out:


I also read last week that Swedish metal band Katatonia had two guitars stolen at a show at Station 4 in St. Paul, Minnesota.  The real heartbreaker?  The stolen guitars were both going to be given to lucky fans who had entered and won a contest.  Someone stole the giveaway guitars.  If you live near St. Paul or frequent music shops in the area, they are the two guitars in this giveaway ad:

To top it all off I heard on the radio yesterday that The Guess Who of "American Woman" fame had their guitars stolen at a show in Cincinnatti (that should teach them not to go to Cincinnatti) while Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath and more recently Heaven and Hell had his guitar stolen...at the Ronnie James Dio tribute concert in LA.  Gotta be a real scumbag to steal Tony Iommi's guitar at a show honoring his good friend and bandmate Dio.

Seems odd that so many guitars are being stolen recently, but times are tough for some people out there, and some people must be getting really desperate for cash.  I blame Obama.  That, or there's an anti-metal mastermind villain out there sending his henchmen to steal the guitars away from rock and metal artists in order to usher in a new dark era of prepubescent male pop stars ala Justin Bieber, aka He Who Does Not Know What German Is.