Gasp! How-to Get Rid of All of Your Gear (Noooooo!)

I’ve done the unthinkable. Over the past few weeks I’ve reached down into the deepest depths of my equipment arsenal, and started tossing it all. I’ve been selling gear on eBay like a shifty flea market shyster. I’ve been forcing old drum sets on friends who actually have basements. I’ve even gone as far as giving stuff away in the Craigslist free section. That one is the fastest. Make a post, and sometimes within the hour POOF! It’s gone forever.

Have I gone mad? Surprisingly, no. I’m just as imbalanced as normal. You see, major changes are taking place in my life, and a severe gear reduction became mandatory. Among the major events were moving to a new apartment that lacked basement storage (moldy wah-wah pedal anyone?), and the other was suddenly having a pregnant wife. Well, okay, the pregnancy wasn’t “sudden.” The kid is due in two weeks.

My blog mostly focuses on creative production equipment. Please don’t interpret my jettisoning of gear as a betrayal of my core interests. It’s the opposite. Yes, I still deeply love creative production equipment, but my hope is that the people who come to my site are more concerned with the creative and the production, and far less focused on the equipment.

I honestly believe that equipment is an obstacle. When you don’t have it, you feel like you can’t create because you lack the gear. When you do have it, you either become distracted with technical nonsense, or you lose the will to commit to finishing projects because the reality of the gear isn’t as sexy as the dream of owning it was.

We owe it to ourselves not to fall into these traps. It’s monumentally important to commit yourself to actually making music, creating pictures and videos, etc. Yes, we must try not to get fired from our jobs. Yes we must love our families with all of our heart and soul, but dammit, if you’re anything like me, you need to be creative. You need to make things. You need to perform. You need to encounter something you did years before and think to yourself, wow, I’m glad I did that.

What’s interesting is that as soon as I committed to selling these things, I started playing bass again. I leave it out of its case now, in a strategic place in my new closet, and I can grab it whenever I get the whim. I’m loving it. I’m so into it that I’ve decided to pick up a new amp!

Yes, this is a vicious, wasteful cycle, but my gear lust is much more refined, budget-conscious, and realistic now. Fatherly, if you will. I want to buy the Roland Micro Cube Bass RX. It’s a bass amp that’s the size of a shoebox that runs on batteries, but it looks really fun to play. Plus it fits nicely into my new closet.

I’ve mentioned my new closet a few times, because it’s actually central to this story. When we moved into our new place, there was only two closets. Naturally, my wife got one, and I got the other. My closet was unusual because it had a window. Shortly after we moved in, I was looking at this tiny space, and I realized that I had enough room to sit in a chair, close the door, and play guitar. It was at that moment that I realized that I needed to get rid of most of my gear. Why would I pack this closet with old instruments, when I can use it as a functioning music making space?

I’m guilty of spending most of my adult life hoarding gear like an anxious beaver, but I honestly feel like that phase is over for good. I’m looking forward to changing diapers (well, not really, but you know what I mean) and playing guitar near my kid. I have far fewer tools now, and I’m as nimble as ever. My mind is free, and my butt is following it.