stolen goods as sonic futures

On Tuesday, August the 5th, 2008, Iggy Pop’s gear was stolen from his hotel in Montréal after a concert as part of his current international tour with the Stooges. The following day the police located the missing van not far from the hotel, but found it empty, the contents, valued at around $20,000, missing. Appeals have been made on behalf of Iggy and his fellow musicians, including a list of the missing equipment, which reads as follows:

Red roadcase containing Mike Watt's Red Gibson 1963 EB-3 bass (no serial number)
Black roadcase containing Reverend Flying V guitar - Volcano black USA #08001
Black roadcase containing Reverend Orange guitar USA 03416 ZSL7
Black fibre case containing Gibson red SG short scale bass
Black roadcase containing Marshall Vintage/Modern Amplifier UK M-2007-07-0926-2 RoHS
Black roadcase containing Marshall Vintage/Modern Amplifier UK M-2007-07-0927-2 RoHS
4x Marshall 4x12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #1 Slant: M-2007-05-0149-0
4x Marshall 4x12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #2 Straight: M-2006-49-0380-0
4x Marshall 4x12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #3 Slant: M-2007-05-0150-0
4x Marshall 4x12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #4 Straight: M-2006-49-0381-0

Orange Calzone road case containing:
Guitar pedal board and pedals
Assorted leads
Two mic stands
Assorted strings and spares
Two Boss TU2 Chromatic Tuner
Boss CH1 Super Chorus
Fulltone OCD Overdrive
Crybaby Wah
Peterson Strobo-Stomp Tuner Pedal
Whirlwind A/B Boxes
Whirlwind Cable Tester and many more instrument cables, various tools (screwdrivers, soldering iron, pliers), tambourine and maracas

Cardboard box containing:
Assorted replacement drum heads
Gretsch Silver Sparkle Catalina drum kit
26" Kick Drum
13" Rack Tom
18" Floor Tom
Four Cymbal Stands
Snare Stand
Hi Hat Stand
Drum Throne
Eden D810 Bass cabinet USA D810RP4 0703E5001
Eden D810 Bass cabinet USA D810RP4 0703E5002
Cardboard box containing Eden VT300 Bass amplifier USA 0601E5115
Cardboard box containing: Eden VT300 Bass amplifier USA 0507E5033
Floor Fan

Green clamshell suitcase containing:
Yamaha snare drum JAPAN
Yahama kick pedal JAPAN
Zildjian Mega Bell cymbal USA
Zildjian 15" Hi-Hats USA
Three Zildjian 18" 19" 20" crash medium cymbals USA
Brown Epiphone guitar case
Black Epiphone EB3 short scale bass KOREA F300503

The missing equipment, while disrupting Iggy’s tour and no doubt setting him and his friends back a few dollars, sparks the imagination to speculate as to the potentiality embedded in the act: might the theft signal the possibility of displacing the focal point of Iggy’s tour, as the stage around which musicians and audiences gather and unite, and instead distribute the musical gesture onto a broader space of interaction, expression, and exchange? The loss of the equipment then becomes an increased value, a kind of sudden surplus, as it circulates outside the tour – pulled from the stolen van to fall into the hands of others… Is there a kind of utopian justice in such moves that nurtures an expanded anarchic system for not only promoting musical possibility (maybe some future Mike Watt will arise from acquiring, on the cheap, the stolen bass…) as well as stimulating an array of sonic fantasies – the thieves may have hoped for cold hard cash, but possibly, as an unconscious drive, they imagined certain dark pleasures in handling the Stooges gear, fondling it as precious goods that contain the sweat and energy of the godfather of punk, not to mention the dirt of Detroit itself, and from there, releasing a set of psychic-events that in the end may initiate an intensity of subsequent fugitive gestures.