Uh, yeah.  Audio Labs rehearsal space over at 2101 W Hillsborough Ave got broken into at some point last night/early this morning.  How do I know this?  I have my finger on the pulse of the Bay Area’s criminal underworld, that’s how.  Those of you who know anything about the ultra white hot post-rock scene in this city probably also know that Audio Labs is the home of Petrograd in Transit, as well as a whole crapload of other good Tampa bands.  Well, ok, there’s the requisite overabundance of Cookie Monster Brutal Viking Metal bands in there, too, but I guess a crime like this makes us all brothers and sisters.  Or something.

Somewhere around nine rooms got broken into.  Cut locks.  Broken doors.  And one sad, mostly useless surveillance camera more or less put out of its misery.  I don’t know everything that got stolen.  My beer got stolen, for starters.  One thing I do know for sure that was stolen was Petrograd in Transit’s bass player’s bass.  This is no ordinary bass, people.  It’s a vintage Kramer bass with an aluminum neck and a split headstock.  That shit is space age, and it looks exaclty like this:

Since I know like 75% of our readers run pawn shops and music stores, please be on the lookout for this bass.  Alternately, if you happen to spend a lot of time playing Wii Fit with your tweaker neighbor and you see this thing on the floor of his double wide, punch out his one remaining tooth and bring the bass back to the studio.

There’s a special ring of hell reserved just for people who steal from musicians.  It smells like burnt popcorn all the fucking time, and you’re damned to spend eternity head first in G.G. Allin’s ass (which, incidentally, also smells like burnt popcorn).

Jesus, Tampa; this is why we can’t have nice things.