Being (mistakenly) arrested for crack is not fun.

[STCHuey]

Before I start this story, let me tell you a background of my area. I live along a bayou, where the men love hunting, trucks, fishing, trucks, guns, trucks, etc. The women love their IPhones, wearing shorts that are WAYYYY too small for them, and gossip (think wannabe bad girls.) I have little complaints, as everyone around here is truly Cajun (albeit with a northern coat .)

The only problem is the music. I love Cajun music, but I don't play it myself. I prefer funk, 90's grunge, alternative, things along those lines. With 3 bars along the bayou, and each having a band every other night or so, it can get mixed sometimes. I can get in because the bars are local (they know me and my parents), the cops are easy (as in they don't give a crap, if you have a driver's license, you're good), and I have played in some bands myself. I usually don't pay attention to the bands (they suck IMO). However, the other night, I saw these dudes playing classic 90's - Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. It was a 5 song setlist, and these guys did it amazingly. The only thing I noticed? Their bassist sucked, and by "sucked," I mean couldn't keep up with them and didn't even play the right thing. Unsurprisingly, they fired him about a week later. The next time I saw them play, it was at the civic center without a bassist (and an STP song w/o bass just isn't the same.) I approached them after, and asked if they would like a bassist.

I didn't even get to finish the word "Bassist" before they said yes. The only problem was that they had a show the day after, and I hadn't even been able to practice with them. It didn't matter, we rounded our setlist out to the songs that I knew. They (well "we") called ourselves "The Cher Ners" ("The Naked Asses" in Cajun French), and they liked the same type of music I did. The first show went well (except me popping a string ), and we actually started doing bar gigs in Houma. This was from February - early April.

From late March and on, I noticed that the singer, Caleb, and the guitarist, Kyler, were acting weird. Weird as in the sense that they were becoming a bit more angry and distant from Trey (drummer) and I. We both thought that it was something that we were doing, but it wasn't - both of them were taking hardcore drugs - cocaine, meth, pills, all that crap. On April 7th, all of us were driving to a gig in Houma with Kyler driving the car. I noticed that he wasn't driving right - swerving, slowing down and speeding up, wiping his face, things like that. When I asked him if he was alright, Caleb went on a full-on ape**** rage against me. He started accusing me of random stuff - stealing money from the band, sabotaging the setlist, the things go on. This whole time, we didn't notice that a cop was behind us. We ended up getting pulled over, and while Caleb and Kyler were nervous as all hell, and Trey and I were just wondering what the hell was going on. We each get out of the vehicle, and they search our bags.

They open my bass case and find a good bag of coke, another smaller one of meth, some PCP tablets, one frickin' huge bag of weed, and some other pills.

To make a long, long story short, the druggies were stashing their drugs in my case. Kyler and Trey unload everything while Caleb and I go over the setlist. One druggie takes another druggie's drugs and stashes them in my case, just in case they ever get caught (and we did.) After a solid month and a half of investigations (and one me sitting in a jail for a little while,) they found Caleb's drug notes hidden inside his lyrics book. Basically proved Trey and I good, while it proved them guilty. They went through all of my crap - laptop, phone, room, etc. for evidence and found none. Trey's too. I got the majority of my stuff returned May 31, but my bass case and other things are still being held as evidence.

I really don't know if I can trust another band after this. First impressions from a band like this are hard to shed.

So, in other news, I've been chilling out and listening to Daft Punk's new album, how's the board been?  

[Xar]

Wow, sounds like you've been having fun. As far as the board, slow, but that'll be fixed soon enough.

[Elaura]

Huey, if you're planning on staying in the music business, the answer to your dilemma is trust no one.  There will always be illegal activities in that culture.  Keep your own stuff to yourself.  What I mean is, behave like you would with your suitcases at an airport.  Never let them out of your control for a second.  Be as wary about people putting stuff in your bags/cases/pockets as you are someone stealing something out of them.  If you suspect someone is using, assume they are carrying and don't get into any vehicle with them.

You can protect yourself in that industry, but you have to go in with your eyes open.

[Wolf undefined]

It is sad when people around you start taking a drug.  Even if they stop, they'll never be the same person they were.  For some reason, it completely reshapes who they are.  And they stop caring about anyone who doesn't follow their lead and do the same things they do.

Point is, you can never trust a druggy, they're loyal only to what they inhale.  But Elaura is right, there's a lot of those in the music business.

[SilentThief]

I feel for you, bro. I was a drummer in a deathmetal band called machine made slave, with 2 guitars and a bass player who were all brothers. The end was when 1 guitarplayer decided to smoke his check up in crack and blame me for stealing his money. The other 2 brothers knew what happened but they were family and had to cover cuz the cracked guitarplayers girlfriend was there. I believe that it isn't necessary for musicians to be F-d up to make good music but I gave up looking for a band after that.

ST

[STCHuey]

@Elaura - I know now. Like I've said before, I've only been in some small bands that performed for one night and then dropped it. I guess I should have seen this coming, but it was really good going at the time, so I guess I was in denial. I'll be looking out more from now on though.
@Wolf - It is sad. I never got how someone could donate more of their life to a substance than to their loved ones.
@SilentThief - At least I had a friend to back me up, along with evidence. That must have sucked for you dude.

In any case, I won't be on much for the next month or so. I'm currently sorting crap out with a lot of people, as being arrested for cocaine possession has degraded my reputation in my family quite a bit. See you guys for now.

[Sandman101]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I know a bit about the area since I work offshore and work out of Houma.  LA cops can be pricks. Do my best to avoid them.
Don't let it hurt your love of music though.  Worked with a guy recently that was a really good guitarist. Nice to have someone like that on the boat with his guitar.