The Findlay sisters of Stonefield – singer Amy, guitarist Hannah, bassist Holly, and keys player Sarah – have been going from strength to strength in recent years, and following the success of last year’s Bad Reality EP, the sibling rock band have recently begun work on recording their full-length debut album.
But following the good news of Bad Reality‘s title track being nominated for the coveted APRA Song Of The Year Award – amongst an enviable list of national peers like Tame Impala, Gotye, and The Temper Trap – and their impending trip to the Great Escape Festival (the UK’s answer to SXSW) arrives some very bad news indeed.
The Macedon Ranges-bred quartet took to their Facebook overnight, reporting the “gut wrenching” theft of one of their guitars, stolen from the home of the band’s drummer and singer Amy Findlay. The post reads:
Hey everyone, just while we were on a high from the beginning of our album recording, Amy and her partner came home today to their new home which has been robbed. I’m sure some of you many know that gut wrenching feeling after having your belongings looked through and taken.”
The Findlay sisters also posted an image of one of the more precious belongings pinched in the burglary (as seen below), writing:
This guitar was one of the things taken. Hand painted by a friend, it is very individual. If anyone sees this around in a pawn shop or similar, please contact us ASAP before saying anything as it may be sold quickly to make cash for the store. Many thanks x”
UPDATE: Amy Findlay’s partner in question? That’d be King Gizzard & The Lizard drummer Michael ‘Cavs’ Cavanagh. Fresh from supporting The Drones on their national tour and releasing their “psychedelic western audiobook LP” Eyes Like The Sky, the barrelling garage rock visionaries posting about the Stonfield house robbery, with band member Eric Moore writing:
Last night our drummer Cavs and his partner Amy got home from work to find that someone had kicked in their front door and completely ransacked their house. They took their brand new TV, a mac book & harddrive (with irreplaceable pro tools sessions), two guitars and a bunch of other valuables. This guitar in particular was hand painted by (King Gizzard member) Cook [Craig] and given to Stu [MacKenzie] as a gift – if anyone sees this pop up at a Cash converters / swap shop / or onstage around town please let us know. It would be much appreciated if you could share this post.
Fans have already flocked to Stonefield and King Gizzard’s aid, re-posting, tweeting, and sharing images of the stolen guitar in the hopes that it can be recovered. Given it’s distinctive, hand-painted look, there’s every chance Stonefield’s guitar should be spotted if enough eyes are on the prowl for it.
Such fortunes befell Sonic Youth in the past; the distinctive, heavily modded guitars belonging to band members Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo were eventually recovered from pawn shops and returned to them in September last year… 13 years after the gear went missing.
A distinctive white Fender Jazzmaster guitar belonging to frontman Thurston Moore was spotted by a Belgian fan on eBay who contacted the band about the suspicious looking auction. “He wrote saying, ‘check out this auction’,” Ranaldo said at the time. “The colour’s different, but it definitely looks like your guitar. The serial number matches.”
It helps that Sonic Youth have a ‘Illustrated Equipment Guide’ available on their website, cataloguing and describing their enormous, varied amount of heavily modified gear.
Oklahoma’s finest psychedelic-leaning rockers, The Flaming Lips also took to social media during their visit to Australia over New Year’s to help recover one of their more conspicuous stage props: frontman Wayne Coyne’s pair of giant foam hand that shoot forth lasers.
Headlining the first night of Western Australia’a Southbound Festival, shortly after concluding another typically visually dazzling set Coyne took to Twitter to alert fans that their signature prop had been pinched. “Fuck!!!!!! Someone stole Laser Hands!!! Please please please!! At South Bound Festival !!!Fuck!! Help us!!!” bleated The ‘Lips singer.
Luckily, Coyne and co. weren’t separated from their novelty laser mitts for long, with the giant hands eventually turning up – looking a little worse for wear – in a nearby paddock, where they were spotted by enterprising fans and returned to the band.
Hopefully, eagle-eyed Stonefield fans can help engineer a similar happy reunion between band and equipment. If you or someone you know happen to spot the hand-painted axe, be sure to let the Findlay sisters know via Facebook or Twitter.
