Re: large instrument transportation

[Joe Kurland <ganeydn...>]

At 8:51 PM -0500 7/8/01, Alex J. Lubet wrote:
>To add on to this thread, my friend always buys a seat for her $70K cello.  My
>guitars are worth plenty, but not that much.  As a member of ASCAP, 
>I can insure
>my instruments very cheaply and for enough to replace them, not just 
>what I paid
>for them.  I think AFM offers a similar deal if you're not a composer.

When our band traveled to Iowa, our bass player and I, carrying the 
accordianist's instruments, took the train. (The accordianist carried 
my fiddle on the plane because he did not have as much time as I had 
for the trip.) The train crew helped us find suitable places to store 
the instruments safely within sight.  A piece of rope was very useful 
for securing the bass in an upright position where it would not fall 
into the aisle.  The train may take longer, but it's a delightful way 
to travel, and we stopped long enough in Chicago to have a delicious 
Greek restaurant meal going, and because of a missed connection 
(that's happened to me traveling by plane too), a Russian restaurant 
meal coming back as well as a visit to the art institute.

It's fine to say that you can replace your instrument with the 
insurance money, but what do you do when you get to your gig without 
an instrument? And what do you do about a hundred year old, one of a 
kind instrument that may not have cost that much but is virtually 
irreplaceable even if you do get the money?

On one trip, we rented a bass and a guitar.  Bad move.  Ended up not 
singing the songs that required the guitar.  Luckily, there are only 
a couple of those.


Zayt gezunt (be healthy),

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204
http://www.WholesaleKlezmer.com

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