The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

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Scumback Speakers
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The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by Scumback Speakers »

The 16 year anniversary of getting arrested and going to jail for loud, unreasonable noise is today. Wow, how time flies!

http://www.scumbackspeakers.com/name.html

How the Scumback name came to be.

I had a psycho neighbor around 2001. She lived 126 feet across the street from me in Culver City, Ca.

This woman hated guitar players. She would call the cops on me for just putting a guitar around my neck, if she saw me doing it, much less firing up my 10 watt project amp, later known as the Capt Crunch.

I'm not sure if she was completely nuts, but she had a few bats in the belfry, or brain anchoring screws loose for sure. She called the cops on me at the goofiest times, I mostly heard about it from my neighbor, here's an example he related to me.

I had just driven back from Mexico and dropped off my girlfriend at her place in Hollywood. When I got there around 9 am, my neighbor informed me the cops had just left, after pounding on my door and then knocking on his door to wake him up to find out where "the guy next door that plays guitar was...".

He told them the truth.

Neighbor (N) "He's away for the week, back later today. I'm watching his dog."

CC PD "No you don't understand. We want the guy next door who plays guitar."

(N) "I know exactly who you're asking about. Is Ellen calling you for the loud guitar playing bit again?"

CC PD "You know who's calling?"

(N) "Sure, she does it when he's here and when he's not."

CC PD "She does?"

(N) "You don't log your own calls on this? Interesting. She's called the cops on him three times that I was involved in by you good folks pounding on my door. Once he was out visiting his Mom 100 miles east of here. Another time he was working at a studio fixing their computers that was out in Burbank. And now this time."

CC PD "He seems to play this guitar very loudly, according to Ellen."

(N) "Yeah, that's what I understand. You know what's funny? I live next door with a six inch thick wall between our apartments and I don't hear it that often."

CC PD "You sure he's not playing it with a remote?"

(N) "Ha ha...it would have to be one hell of a good remote to do that. He went to Bajamar Golf Course just above Ensenada, Mexico and is due back later today. If he can remotely play that guitar from 250 miles away that would be something."

The cops left embarrassed as hell to field the prank call.

Eventually Ellen turned me in for "loud unreasonable noise" by filing a citizen complaint, and had me arrested. She claimed I had just finished playing 15 minutes before. I had been asleep since 10 pm, the cops showed up at 11:30 pm.

As I was being led away in handcuffs, she came out and screamed (from 126 feet across the street)..."Good! And make sure you keep that f*cking scumbag in jail overnight!"

Her complaint was dismissed for lack of evidence, I spent about 90 minutes in jail discussing HD pixel sizes and screen specs with the Culver City police before they took me home. They also told me she'd done this before to an acoustic guitar player that used to live across the street from me, but within 50 feet of Ellen's condo.

It turned out he won a large settlement from her and her condo property management company for "false imprisonment".

I finished my amp design, and came out with "Scumbag Amps" in honor of my former psycho neighbor.

A couple of years later, I was talking to my buddy Jeff Jourard on the phone one day after getting the speaker specs dialed in I asked him what I should call them.

Jeff said "Well, you have a Scumbag amp company and you're replicating the tone from the old 60's Greenbacks. How about Scumback?"

That's the whole story. I guess we can thank Ellen (wherever that psycho hose beast is) for inspiring the name, and speaker company years later.
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xtian
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by xtian »

That was entertaining. And I don't have any stories to compete. Thankfully!
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joeboo88
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by joeboo88 »

Happy Anniversary!

thanks for the funny story
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martin manning
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by martin manning »

Great story! Probably got funnier with age though... I wondered how the Scumback name came about. I figured it was from the green color on Celestions.
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by Scumback Speakers »

Martin, it's funny now, but when I couldn't sleep at night for 8 months while the lawsuit was
going on, it wasn't funny. I would wake up in the middle of the night wondering if the cops
were about to bang on the door.

After the arbitration was over and I dropped the case it got better. But from July, 2001, until
March, 2002 I didn't sleep real well.

Glad to see that wench lost her condo, her job and her marriage, though. Karma is a bitch!
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dorrisant
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by dorrisant »

What a b***ch... Hope she doesn't try to sue for royalties on the name... Good read. :)
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pompeiisneaks
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by pompeiisneaks »

I'm glad you got past that nightmare sane. It's great to be able to reflect on that kind of thing being in the distant past. I got a good chuckle put of your misfortune :)

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ChopSauce
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(joyeux anniversaire ;-)

Post by ChopSauce »

Shouldn't you have sued her for insults?

:mrgreen:

I am glad your sanity survived this, too :wink:
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by Scumback Speakers »

She did insult me further. She amended her cross complaint to "ogling" her acne/pizza faced 12 year old daughter as well. Yeah, you read that right, I was ogling her daughter while I was asleep.

Obviously this woman thinks I had an out of body experience since she lived 126 feet across the street, and could somehow see through multiple walls to ogle her daughter.

Jeez, that kid was ugly, pizza face, fat and wore black glasses.

She insulted my taste in women, that's for sure. LOL
Scumback - Guitar Speakers That Kick Ass!
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stelligan
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by stelligan »

Scumbag! heh. Great story.
ChopSauce
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Re: The 16th Anniversary Of Going To Jail Is Today...lol

Post by ChopSauce »

Man, this is insane :shock:

It reminds me I used to have a crazy old women for neighboor, too. Her sanity did not survived the loss of her husband :?

She was living alone with her 60 years old son. A damn' great couple for sure :mrgreen:
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