A rough year for Victoria musician Neil James Cooke-Dallin got even tougher when his most cherished guitar was stolen from his downtown recording studio on Christmas Day.
The theft follows a flood and burst sewer pipe that have made his Burning Rainbow Studios all but unusable — all at a time when the musician’s income was already depleted by COVID-19 restrictions.
“It has been really, really challenging just to make enough money to get by, with the studio limping along,” he said.
The nightmare started in early October, when Cooke-Dallin discovered during a recording session with local folk-rockers Carmanah that water was flowing into a corner of his lower-level studio.
An exterior downspout on the six-storey building that houses the studio had become clogged, and water was “pouring down, floor by floor,” until it reached his studio.
“Water and a studio is not a great combination,” he said.
While the insurance process was running its course, Cooke-Dallin did what he could to get the studio back up and running, but disaster struck once again in early December. Water had made its way back into the studio, this time from a burst sewage pipe.
Help from his friends kept the majority of gear safe from extensive damage, including his 56-channel Midas recording console.
Water did come into contact with the six-metre, 227-kilogram board, however. He won’t be able to use it until it gets fully cleaned and serviced.
“You could spend thousands of dollars on repairs for a board like that and it’s still not even close to the price of replacing it,” said Cooke-Dallin, who couldn’t enter the room for the better part of two weeks due to the remediation.
Just when he started thinking he could put the damage behind him, Cooke-Dallin learned that his 1976 Gibson Les Paul guitar — one of only 400 made — was stolen from his studio during a targeted break-in on Christmas Day.
Someone had taped shut the latch on the side of the door to his studio, making for easy entry at a later date.
“The place must have been cased, or somebody must have known it was there,” he said. “I’m hoping for the best but assuming the worst.”
The studio is in a commercial building in the downtown core that has been targeted by a rash of break-ins in recent weeks.
Cooke-Dallin said thieves returned to the studio and attempted to break in once again on New Year’s Eve, but more security measures were in place by that point — including his friend DJ Murge, who was sleeping overnight in the studio as a deterrent.
Thieves tried to re-enter the studio a third time last week, but new locks had been installed, Cooke-Dallin said.
Victoria police said Tuesday there have been a series of business-related break-ins downtown, and nearly two dozen thefts of a similar nature appear to be connected.
Cooke-Dallin is well known in the Victoria music community as a producer and performer. One of his projects, Astrocolor, earned a nomination for best electronic album at the Western Canadian Music Awards in 2018.
An online fundraising campaign has raised more than $11,000 since Monday to cover the extensive repairs and insurance deductibles needed to get Burning Rainbow back in action.
“I’m not a person who likes to ask for help, so [the campaign’s organizers] did it without telling me,” Cooke-Dallin said. “In the middle of COVID, it’s a nice reminder that we have strong community bonds, even if we’re not able to see people. We’re still taking care of each other.”
