Last month, Tone Deaf reported on the theft of Sydney singer-songwriter Maia Jelavic’s $2,500 Maton guitar, which followed a spate of musical equipment thefts around the Melbourne area. We’re now sad to report that the wave of crime has returned southward, with local duo King of the North now appealing to fans to help them recover their stolen gear.
“Things have slowed up in KOTN world for a few days with Higgsy’s phone, wallet, laptop and KOTN business drives getting stolen in Maitland NSW this week,” opens a post to the band’s official Facebook channel (see the full statement below). “Contact is obviously slightly down. We’d really like to get these items back.”
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The items taken from the pair include a 15″ MacBook Pro (silver, black foot missing on bottom), a black iPhone 4S encased in a cassette-style cover, a Seagate Hard Drive USB3 1TB, and a 16GB black flash drive, with KOTN written on it in liquid paper.
According to the band, the drives are of particular value as they contain a lot of important information and “about 40+ song/riffs/ ideas, recording, jams” that the duo was hoping would comprise “at least half” of their next record. “Pretty devastating shit, if anyone knows anything please help.”
“It’s a loss for me personally (financially speaking), but a major loss creatively for the band because of all the songs I was working on that were on the drives and phone,” guitarist Andrew Higgs told Tone Deaf. “I really hope we can recover them!”
If you have any information about the band’s stolen gear, please contact the band via their official Facebook page or via email at [email protected]. The gear was stolen early Wednesday, 12th November in Maitland NSW.
Back in March, Tone Deaf reported on the theft of gear from Melbourne rockers Cash Savage and the Last Drinks, followed by a similar incident involving fellow Melburnians The Annie Crooners, who were robbed of a staggering $17,000 worth of music gear in June.
More recently, Melbourne punk mainstays The Smith Street Band managed to recover gear stolen from them at a show at The Old Bar in Fitzroy in August. After sharing CCTV images of the alleged thieves on social media, an online manhunt ensued, resulting in the recovery of the band’s gear and trending status for the hashtags #ampgate and #fedoraguy.
