Every Guitarists’ Worst Nightmare Happened to Me—What Went Down and How You Can Save Yourself

Video Transcript

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[00:00:00] Emily: Welcome to get offset. My name is Emily and this is kind of a hard video to make because I know I’m going to have to revisit a very, very painful moment of my life. Um, in case you’re new here, uh, I went through something that is basically every guitarist nightmare. I had an accident and incident. It was, um, it’s hard to watch.

[00:00:34] In fact, when I, um, when I went to summer Nam, uh, People people who had seen this, this incident, because I it’s the morning that that fender announced the new square paranormal series colors. So I was already filming to kind of do a video where I run through those colors. So I just kind of hit record on my phone.

[00:00:57] I was pulling up the page on the CME website and I had just kind of staged a few of my paranormal series. Guitars is four 20 in the background when something terrible happened. Um, let’s let’s, let’s watch.

[00:01:44] Can I hold something for you? You okay. Let’s watch again.

[00:01:58] let’s watch again and slower.

[00:02:16] yeah, that, um, that’s painful. I, uh, oh God. Yeah, I did. I think catch the superstar. Uh, as I watched that video, I’m most impressed that I caught the supersonic with my non-dominant hand and without looking to which I credit boxing, uh, I did that on an injured, an injured knee. I tore the meniscus Ms. Carter cartilage in my knee, and I did that pivot and I did that catch and I’m impressed by that.

[00:02:52] Uh, so like, let me just answer, it are some common questions about. Um, what happened to these instruments? Uh, are they damaged? Are they okay? Okay. The number one question I get is, is everything okay? Uh, the responses ha no. Are you serious? No, they’re not. Okay. Uh, but they’re not like broken either. Uh, I have, I have a supersonic here and I just gotta say, like I had like literally minutes earlier, swapped out.

[00:03:25] Thousand dollar range, fender guitars for these like $400 range Squires that did end up getting kind of a damaged in the video. So let’s look at the, the supersonic, you know, there’s some, some dings that’s the most visible one on the supersonic is another one there, some on the back a little. The piece there, uh, the cyclists in the other corner of the room.

[00:03:54] So I’m not going to snag it. It honestly got, uh, more damaged from the pedals falling on it. I tested the pedals, the pedals are fine. Um, people were like, oh my God, the chase bliss shelf and the yellow. Yes. Oh my God. The chase bliss shelf. Um, I will say thankfully, as far as it being the chase bliss shelf.

[00:04:13] Chase plus is still an active paddle company that does repairs. So at least I had that going for me. Um, it wasn’t like some vintage company. It doesn’t exist anymore that doesn’t do repairs on pedals. Uh, so, you know, worse come to worse. Uh, if I blooper busted, I know I’d be able to just ship it back to Minneapolis and their team would, would take care of me.

[00:04:35] At least I had that confidence. Um, let’s talk about like the, the reaction that I had. It’s not have a reaction at that moment. It was very early. I just had a band practice the night before I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. The band practice went late and then you had those, like, it was like my first practice with that band.

[00:04:53] So then like your brain’s kind of buzzing for a few hours. I didn’t fall asleep. So I was like running on nothing. I was tired and I thought like, I, I knew I shouldn’t have got out of bed that morning to make that video. And so I was just kind of my reaction. My husband heard me out on the front I’m on the first floor.

[00:05:10] My husband heard me from all the way up on the third floor and came down and just like his reaction of, oh shit. Oh my God. Just rewatching this fight. But like from the Nam floor, like at Nam and Nashville, like people just call it to be, and it’d be like, oh, and I just knew that they knew me from that video.

[00:05:34] And it made me laugh. So let’s, I just want to talk to people. I don’t want to just like rehash it. I want to explain the people like exactly what happened. I’m actually not as prepared as I should be. So I’m going to get up really quickly. I will be right back. Cause I need to get, I need to get little piece of shit that caused this accident.

[00:05:57] This. Is a wall hanger that I bought at Amazon that Amazon no longer carries apparently. And it’s called an auto-lock hanger. And the company that made this was called punk. And I got this because, you know, it had like this rubber and mostly it had these little arms. And the way that this mechanism works is when there’s weight applied, these arms locked down.

[00:06:24] And if you have, um, you own these arms, uh, you put a guitar in the hanger and if it slides the arm’s supposed to catch it, it doesn’t fall out. Right. Does those post-work right. And that’s how it usually has work. I have walked into this office and I’ve seen guitars just dangling. But because these arms worked,

[00:07:00] they caught the guitar and the guitar didn’t fall. And I had rushed in and saved the guitar. And you know, that was, that, that was fine. The thing is, this is the one that failed, and this is the arm that stopped working and. So the arm just completely was

[00:07:30] loose and I will take some responsibility. I knew this arm wasn’t working, but I would push it in. I just kind of shove it back in there and it would appear to be working again. And obviously it’s not doing that in. So in my quest to save a few dollars on these units, instead of spending extra dollars on a nicer unit, I, um, had an incident.

[00:07:58] That’s what happened. That’s why this broke. I, I got some unhelpful feedback. I got some unhelpful comments for a couple of them. So, uh, that, that was just one part though, because as you saw in that video, the whole pedal shelf also fell. And I had concerns when everything fell that the actual culprit was the pedal shelf.

[00:08:23] I thought that the pedal show. Had too much weight on it and that it broke away like that. Cause I knew that this had still been attached to the wall. So the way the shelf worked, you can see the holes in the back of those hooked into the wall. The way the shelf works is basically it’s glued in is three pieces.

[00:08:47] They’re glued together. There’s a weight limit that I did not think I had hit, but as it fell. Did I hit that limit and just not think I did. Was it not flush enough? Cause if it wasn’t, wouldn’t be flush enough. Like if I had not, if it wasn’t up against a wall, it was kind of at an angle. This would be putting a lot more pressure against this and this would be.

[00:09:09] Like then the weight limit would be actually lower. That’s just kind of how the mechanisms of the wood would work. So then it would, you know, I’d be worried that this would be kind of falling apart, but I do check these pretty regularly to make sure that I’m not seeing any slow kind of, um, lions forming there.

[00:09:27] And I have had one of these shelves, uh, starts to fail because I hadn’t screwed. Tight enough, uh, to the wall and it wasn’t flush against the wall. So they did start to separate. I very quickly pulled that board down, fixed it, replaced the board. Uh, no problem. So what happened was when the guitar fell, it hit this lip.

[00:09:49] Uh, that’s not going to photograph very well, but, um, I don’t think there’s any. Oh yeah. So there’s actually a little bit of damage to that lip. I think you can kind of see it. Right there. Uh, so that’s where the guitar hit it and it just pulled the whole thing down. And that’s why that fell. And actually the reason that the cyclin is damaged is because the guitar pedals fell and it actually caused a lot of the damage to.

[00:10:19] Um, the guitar, the psych, the supersonic itself, um, was from those falling pedals and, uh, the jazz master I have beneath those pedals some of the day it is from, there’s just a little Nick in the headstock. I want to fix with some super glue, um, at the suggestion of some Luther’s and guitar techs. So that is what happened there, but get back to the unhelpful feedback.

[00:10:44] I got this comment from a couple of people. And I know that they were trying to be kind of helpful or smart or something. Um, more than one person said, this is why I always drill into studs and never used drywall anchors, friends. I drilled this shit into studs. I know I’m a girl, but I’m not an idiot. I drilled into studs.

[00:11:12] I’m hanging guitars. I mean, jazz, masters and telecasts. They’re not all to, to tones. Okay. They’re not all lightweight babies. I’m hanging pedal shells. Um, I’m like being careful with my possessions. They’re expensive. I’m being loving with them. I have a stud finder. I stole it from my brother. He knows now, but he didn’t know at the time.

[00:11:41] I used dishonesty with my family to ensure the safety of my possessions. I drilled into studs. I don’t know why you would assume I dried into dry. I drilled into drywall and use anchors. I avoid drywall anchors, wherever possible. I hate using drywall anchors. I think they’re messier. I think they suck. I don’t trust them.

[00:12:04] I only use drywall anchors when I literally have no other choice due to. Design a static choices for like very minor things. And I never used drywall anchors. If it’s going to be something that I like care about. I used drywall anchors a few weeks ago for like a coat rack thing that I put near my front door, because that’s not a good that falls out then.

[00:12:36] Uh, well, my Coatesville. If, if these fall out then, oh, oh shit, my guitars fall like that. I never said that. And then you watch the video, just watch the video, just watching the video a couple of times, and you’ll see that the back of the pedal shelf is obviously still on the wall. The, the entirety of the guitar volume.

[00:13:09] Still on the wall. So I don’t really know why anybody came to the assumption that I use. Drywall anchors. I will say that bugs me. And I will say probably don’t use drywall anchors, uh, the solution that I’ll say for, um, like if, if you don’t really like the positioning of the studs on your wall and you still want to hang guitars on the wall and you don’t want to drill into the drywall, um, get like a, um, uh, uh, uh, like a two by four or something.

[00:13:45] Some, some, uh, A panel of wood and, uh, actually like hammer or drill that into studs and then take your nice, nicer, higher quality. This is what, this is another one with one of those mechanisms in the, hopefully this one will last longer. I’m actually going to get into the habit of replacing this part completely every, every year.

[00:14:14] So if I can. Um, I’m going to check the search in the arms a lot more frequently. This was stupid by, by right. Um, get, so get this like a wooden board, a hammer or drillers secure those into studs. Um, it could be a cool look to go like th the length of the wall, if you can. Um, and then, uh, secure. Your wall hangers into that, um, at whatever kind of, uh, intervals make the most sense for you and the spacing.

[00:14:51] Um, so kind of, you can kind of treat it like slatwall, but obviously not like the functionality of like the slatwall you’d have, like in a garage or that you would see in a hardware store or a retail store. Um, I, I think that’s a pretty, pretty slick kind of, kind of use for the. I’ve seen other people do it.

[00:15:11] It looks pretty nice. And it kind of, um, because not everybody’s studs are exactly where they want them to be. It doesn’t always work that way. I’m sorry to say, but that gives you, I think, a little bit more, um, more security versus versus a drywall, which can just kind of fail and really sucks to fix a big nasty patch drywall.

[00:15:33] And you don’t. Yeah. Um, I’m trying to think if there’s any other, any other tips I have for you. I don’t love the shelves that I got. Um, I mean, I do, I, I do love the shelves that I got. I, I really do. Um,

[00:15:52] I mean, at this point I’m kind of worried about them and thinking about them a lot more. Uh, I really wish that I, I could’ve just gotten. Bent metal solution or had just gotten some sort of bent metal solution. Those are much more expensive. So I might, I might look into making that investment sooner rather than later.

[00:16:12] If anybody’s curious, I basically use, um, shelves that are designed as in marketed as, um, shelving that, uh, is used for, for picture frames. So the idea is there was this trend. Um, that you would make, you have these shelves that are wider and you put the fixed picture frames on the shelves of actually hanging the picture frames.

[00:16:38] I’m not sure why that was a trend, but God I’m glad it was because it is such a nice way to display a litany of things from, from bobbleheads, the chotskies to, uh, to, uh, um, Funko pops the guitar pedals. So again, Thank you to whatever Pinterest queen came up with that I hats off, but, um, yeah. You know, shop, right?

[00:17:07] Like don’t, don’t buy don’t, don’t make my mistake. And if you, like, if you see the problem with the stupid little guitar hanger thingy, like truly don’t risk it. Don’t don’t don’t don’t be like me. Just take it, take the guitar out of it immediately. It ain’t worth it. It’s not, it’s not gonna fix itself.

[00:17:28] It’s not going to be good enough. It, I am lucky that it was a Squire guitar and not, um, not one of my. No, not one of my nicer, nicer instruments. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s all I’ve got to say. If anybody has a connection at Hercules’ hangers, I will be, I w I will be, uh, investing and upgrading my entire collection.

[00:17:56] So, uh, Hercules hit me up, please. Thank you. All right. Well, uh, thanks for watching. Thanks for understanding until the next. My name is Emily. Please. Like comment, subscribe below. Bye.