Dateline: Brooklyn. Yeah, you’ve heard all sorts of stories about hard drive failure rates and why you should back up. But here’s a new one: someone might steal your hard drive, while it’s plugged into your laptop, in the middle of a set, as happened to Matthew Dear earlier this month.. Given that hard drives are worth about ten bucks each at this point, we can only assume this is some twisted fan crime. I’d like to respond:

Yo! Earth to useless hipster: this is New York. We used to have real crime here, not you jacking someone’s external FireWire box. Jeez.

I’m a little late on this — the crime took place April 4 at Galapagos’ Bunker party (formerly at Tonic).

Matthew Dear’s harddrive was stolen @ Galapagos [Brooklyn Vegan, via Dance Tracks Digital]

Some jerk in comments on DTD says, "Who cares hwo mucgh creativity is therein blippy tracks that lst 45 minutes." [sic] Aside from Pete’s complete inability to spell the easiest words in the English language, he’s risking some major bad karma by writing that — well, unless he plays with theft-proof wax cylinders, that is.

For reasons that escape me, this whole incident sends the Brooklyn Vegan rock-loving crowd into a frenzy of anti-computer, pro-guitar rhetoric. Yes, that must be it — God Himself took Matthew’s hard drive, because playing music out of computers is the Devil’s work. The classic “FireWire Smite” move.

“The storage device that you just removed was not properly put away before being stolen from this computer. Your set may have been damaged or lost. In the future, please play a banjo, or risk eternal damnation. Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?”

Electronic musician BT recently had US$150,000 in gear stolen from his studio, including his primary show computer with the entire This Binary Universe show on it and rigs for two other live shows and recording. He doesn’t just want to get his stuff back, though: he also wants to help musicians protect themselves from a similar fate. Few of us have studios worth anywhere near that amount, but losing your whole rig: priceless.

Among the loot: a Dave Smith PolyEvolver, serial #271, a Hartmann Neuron with BT’s patches, and a loaded Apple Mac Pro with This Binary Universe. All pretty priceless; the Neuron and PolyEvolver would be tough to replace and the Mac Pro has a whole show on it. To get them back, BT is offering a $20,000 reward or equivalent time as a producer to anyone with a name and address.

BT Theft Announcement and Proposals on MySpace

Via electronic music site Filter 27

And this would just be another painful gear theft story, except BT wants to go further:

1. Protecting gear from theft: He wants to start a simple subscription service to register and thumbprint gear, so it can be easily traced to retailers and online auction sites. (Note that New York’s Sam Ash, for instance, does just this for used gear and coordinates with the NYPD, but with online sites, tracking just got a lot harder.)
2. Giving music tech gear to the needy: He wants to collect new and user gear to give to musicians and producers who can’t afford it.

While the second one is an interesting idea, I’m not exactly sure how it would work here — and there are other, worthy organizations dedicated to this idea. But helping protect gear from theft sounds ideal. BT is looking for lawyers, musicians, and vendors to donate.

Know of similar initiatives? Or think you might be able to help with this? Let us know in comments. Know where BT’s gear is? Email gear@binaryacoustics.com