We Got CREAMed in Frankfurt...

[Little Miss Risk]

As with most bands, sooner or later your gear is going to break down, go haywire, or otherwise be unusable and render a show into a gong show. We had brought over most of our gear to complete our blackline for Europe with us but on our first show in Germany in Frankfurt at Bett, sCare-oline's amp blew. We thought that we were in luck since Cream music was in Frankfurt and we were able to get in there and replace her amp...

At Cream we parted with $1000 Euros (remember, we're Canadian and the conversion there makes that already big tag a very high price) in exchange for an EBS amp, which we were assured had tubes. It sounds great but there's a big ol' dent in the tour budget. But when your gear goes, you have to replace it right?

Last night, while BJB was online, he checked out that same model and found it to be a great deal cheaper online. Now, that's normal practice for retail to be marked up from online prices but this was a BIG difference. Significant. They also told us that it had tubes when this amp has transistors... It's not even like the general model has tubes and they made a mistake - it's NEVER had tubes, and has always featured transistors in it.

Pissed? You bet! Taking that kind of money out of a band on tour when you are an established music store and to misleading a band about gear is pretty despicable. I guess the lesson is to open up the equipment and then hit an internet cafe to make sure that they aren't getting wholly raped. Nasty business & shame on you, Creem Music. I thought you were better than that.

-LMR