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The 16th anniversary of going to jail is today...LOL

ScumbackSpeakers

Active member
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Messages
247
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.
 

Cody

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 23, 2002
Messages
4,494
Congrats, Jim - you troublemaker you!

:salude
 

Jeff West

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2002
Messages
877
Hey Jim- Yes, time flies for sure! Happy July 4.

Culver City is part of my old neck of the woods too, coming up.

Best-

Jeff
 

ScumbackSpeakers

Active member
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Messages
247
Hey Jim- Yes, time flies for sure! Happy July 4.

Culver City is part of my old neck of the woods too, coming up.

Best-

Jeff

Jeff! Next time you're out here, let me know and we'll fire up the stacks in the shop. Pretty sure I have enough to go around.

demoroom10-13.jpg
 

GotTheSilver

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 14, 2007
Messages
2,433
Jeff! Next time you're out here, let me know and we'll fire up the stacks in the shop. Pretty sure I have enough to go around.

demoroom10-13.jpg

Good God! That looks like Big Bob's House of Marshall! "We don't sell no boo-tiki amps!" :hee

Congrats on the happy anniversary!
 

ScumbackSpeakers

Active member
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Messages
247
GTS, thanks very much, but that's after I sold off about 12 old Marshall cabs to fund my car collection. For some silly reason I figured 28 cabs in the shop was enough, down from the 46 that were in there at one point 5 years ago.

I traded those cabs in on these...(runs away ducking).

C-8.jpg

04c5-7.jpg


Yes, my wife drives the silver/pewter one on top. The bottom one is a little scarier since it's had a supercharger
added giving it 640hp at the crank and 500 hp at the rear wheels. She's scared of that one. LOL
 

goldtop0

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 19, 2003
Messages
8,931
Move to NZ Jim......the police are a bit gentler over here.

Good lord if my neighbours complained I'd be put behind bars for life:lol
 

MapleFlame

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 3, 2005
Messages
14,044
Funny story, love it. I grew up in the Catskill mountains NY. My band played in our 4 car garage, 1 mile away which is thick woods, so called neighbor called the cops on us. Think middle of nowhere woods. Cop came and unbuckled his gun, we were 17 and had athletic tank tops/shorts/striped sox. Think 70's lol. My Mom told the cop to get the F outta here, your on private property and why did you unbuckle your gun for, go fight real crime, these kids are doing something constructive. Later found out guy was on his lawn chair trying to read. Guess our Marshall Stacks caused the sound to travel.
 

sonar

New member
Joined
Jan 10, 2003
Messages
3,589
Man, I got an eerie sense of deja vu from reading that story. I'm glad you got something good out of it.
 

TM1

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Messages
8,349
Jim; I'm glad you didn't get stuck in some shithole prison cause of a wack-job like her. I have a bipolar neighbour across the street. I stopped talking to her 10 years ago.. Life's too short to put up idiots like her. The rest of the neighbourhood on our little cul-de-sac tolerate her barely. She's nice to them one day and then gives them shit the day after.. I just call her a "stupid fucking cow" and go on with my business. She hates me and hates my 14 year old black Lab Nigel...
As Bill Clinton use to say " I feel your pain"... My next door neighbour' son works for the L.A. Sherriff's Dept. and he can't stand her either. So if she tried to F with any of us, he'd call his son as he's assigned to our area (Santa Clarita Valley)..
These folks need medication (or a good wack with a 2x4...) lol
 

ScumbackSpeakers

Active member
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Messages
247
Yeah, I hear you, but anyone who loses one lawsuit, then does the exact same thing again probably is immune to 2x4's as well. LOL
 
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