Fuckin' Electrovoice!!!

[flemingmras]

FUCK!!! If it's not UPS it's fuckin' Electrovoice!!!

I noticed I had a blown 15 on Sunday and I thought "Fuck I need to get a replacement by Wednesday."

Well I called Monday to order it but they had closed by that time(didn't take central time into account...my fault).

So Tuesday I call and we get it on order red label shipping.

Well then I find out UPS is shipping it and I'm like "AW SHIT!!!"

Well it came in this morning and I went to go pick it up at the store. Opened it up and did a visual inspection...looked OK. However it had bolt marks on the speaker flange like it had been mounted in a cabinet at one time, so I moved the cone by hand and..."SCRAPE!" I'm like "Uh...THAT'S not good!" The guys in the store agreed.

So we called EV and they told us to install it and test it. So I went home, got it installed into the cab, and played some music through it. I killed one side so I could just hear that cab and sure as shit the fuckin' thing is blown!!!

So I take it back and we call EV, and they're like "Well the soonest we can get you one is Friday." MOTHER FUCKER SON OF A FUCKIN' BITCH!!!" So we call the store owner and he OK's them to loan me two mains. I'm thinkin' they're gonna set me up with some EV Eliminator i's which are close to the Gladiators I have. NO! They have to loan me the beat up ass rental gear, and they end up fuckin' loaning me JBL MR825s! They're too fuckin' small, the 15s are OK, but they can't handle a lot of power and they don't have a fuckin' constant directivity horn like mine have! They have this 100'x80' flat fuckin' piece of shit horn on them! And the band I have to run sound for tomorrow night is expecting my regular system! So I'm like "Aw fuck!"

Well I get home and I think to mysef "You know what!? FUCK THAT! I'm gonna call EV!" I figured I could get them to refund my shipping cost since techinically I didn't get an overnight shipment of a functional component, which is what I paid for. Anyway I call them and I'm talking to one of the customer service reps. And I told him I want my shipping refunded and he's like "Well we're shipping out another speaker free of charge" and I'm like "Right, BUT I paid to have a functional component shipped overnight and that's not what I got so I want my shipping refunded." Finally he puts me on the line with the factory service manager, who had just received my email about the whole ordeal. He told me he had heard about it, and at first he's like "Well UPS could've damaged it in shipping cause to my knowledge that was a brand new speaker" and I'm like "Well UPS IS in fact on my shitlist, however there were bolt marks in this speaker indicating that it had been installed in a cab at one time." Then he's like "Uh...OK this isn't gonna sound very good on our part, but now I know what happened. That speaker probably got sent into us for testing, they mounted into a test cab, tested it, it failed, but someone didn't mark it as bad and it most likely got mixed in with our new speakers and you happened to end up with it."

He then proceeded to call around all the local stores in my area to see if anyone had an EV Gladiator cab to loan me under the agreement that EV would take care of them for it. However he calls me back and tells me that no one in the area had one. He reiterated to me that this whole incident is a big embarrassment to him and I told him "It would be to me too!"

Well through him I happened to find out that EV stuff is warranted for 5 years. Well I told him I had bought the cabs used in July through a friend who had bought them earlier in the year." So he said "Well I know this doesn't help the current situation but here's what I'll do."

(This is the manager talking to me here)
"The replacement speaker will be there Friday, and I'm eating all costs...shipping+cost of the replacement speaker. And also, I will fully honor the 5 year warranty on those cabs starting from the day you bought them used."

Well I told him "Well I modified the crossover in them. I took the coil that's in line with the 15 out." And he replied "It doesn't matter...the warranty is still valid."

Also he told me if I had any more issues with EV speaker products to give him a call personally as well. He also told me a little about the new EV Zakk Wylde series speaker they're releasing(actually re-releasing). Who knows? I may be able to talk him into re-releasing the horn that George uses in his talkbox!

Jon

[VelvetGeorge]

Man, I remember being the guy everbody looked at when shit started going wrong. I recall one new years eve spent in a little basement off the side of the stage with a powered mixer taken apart. Trying to get something happenin in time for midnight. While all the other members (9 piece band at the time) were upstairs getting wasted.

In 6 years I did so amny gigs setting up and running sound from the stage that I can't even count them. And do you know what I got?

Not shit.

Never again. My biggest worry now is getting your packages to the post office by 5PM.

How about the time I had to rewire the trailer lights in a snow storm in northern Wisconson? With a state trooper waiting to make sure we didn't drive without lights to the next exit.

Or fixing a broken leaf spring on the side of I-75.

Replacing an alternator on a 15 passenger van on the side of the road at 98 degrees?


Fuck. Why did you get me started?

Let's here some of your stories. That way I won't feel so bad.


George

[BrownSound1]

Well...I do remember a very funny incident that happened. My band at the time was commissioned to do a gig at a local state park, for some social club. Anyway, this is in March...and the weather in the South can be kind of screwy in March. Warm one day, bone ass cold the next. Anyway, it turned off real cold that evening before the gig, and so as we were setting up our equipment we started to try to think of ways to stay warm onstage. The drummer gets the bright idea that he would take some cloth work gloves he has and cut the fingers out of them with a razor blade. Well he goes to cutting the fingers out of his gloves, and slips. Cuts himself on the nose...right where your nose meets your upper lip, between your nostrils. Well the poor guy starts bleeding like crazy, so he takes a bandana and puts it up to his cut, then proceeds to tie the ends around the top of his head. Looks like someone with a toothache..except it goes down around his nose, instead of his jaw. He says, "I can still play!" and plays the whole gig.

I'll never forget looking back, right in the middle of playing "Twist and Shout", and seeing him with that head tied up. Poor bastard had to have stitches after the show.

Other than the usual things you have go wrong in shows I've been pretty lucky. Except for when I fell into my amp and knocked it over...busted a tube, and had to play through a Peavey Bandit the rest of the night.

[Billy Batz]

Man I had enough bad equipment nights and bad nights period to have had to add bringing and running a sound rig on top of it. There is no way I would ever do that unless I was being paid. Id take 50% of the going rate for a sound guy with a similar set up and call it more then fair.

[NY Chief]

Decided to accentuate the "STOP" in Train Kept a Rollin by jumping up off the stage and landing on my knees ala Townsend. Didn't judge the overhead beam to well and cracked my head on it, went straight down my back and when my head hit the floor it bounced up to meet the heavy metal cross I was wearing with my front teeth. I was bleeding from my lip and back of my head but I finished the song and people told me I never missed a note. I don't remember! Got to be a habit that if I didn't bleed it wasn't a good gig (Pete would be proud!)

But the worst was when the van broke down and we rented a truck for $40 and made $20 at the door that night...

[VelvetGeorge]

Twice we drove 4 1/2 hours to Chicago to play. Had our van and trailer towed, and it cost us $400 to get it out. The gig only paid $250.

On the way home we put gas station hot dogs on the gas credit card.


George

[NY Chief]

Boy, it sure is a good thing I got that engineering degree "to fall back on in case this music thing doesn't work out".

[Star*Guitar]

Decided to accentuate the "STOP" in Train Kept a Rollin by jumping up off the stage and landing on my knees ala Townsend. Didn't judge the overhead beam to well and cracked my head on it, went straight down my back and when my head hit the floor it bounced up to meet the heavy metal cross I was wearing with my front teeth. I was bleeding from my lip and back of my head but I finished the song and people told me I never missed a note. I don't remember! Got to be a habit that if I didn't bleed it wasn't a good gig (Pete would be proud!)

But the worst was when the van broke down and we rented a truck for $40 and made $20 at the door that night...

Now you did it...I read this post unsuspecting the content...Thanks a lot..You made choke on my cola and come out my nose...I was laughing so hard...LOL... :~) Now that is something I would have done...

[NY Chief]

It all started the first time I saw "Song Remains the Same" and watched Page dancing all over the stage. I said that looks like FUN!!!!