Great White manager gets 4 years in prison

SonicClang said:
That would be GREAT! Not to mention that might actually be legal evidence!! :D
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Well here is some pics as promised..i believe 3 of the 4 pics was done at soundcheck.
As you can clearly see..thats some shitty foam!
I zipped em up for your viewing pleasure!
I had to use the "yousendit's" service.
Its a shame too because i always had a blast playing that club..and oh yeah...thats my ugly mug w/ the patriots jersey on! :D


http://download.yousendit.com/D90BA5DC0DB38C70
 
Those are actually REALLY good pictures.

One of us should e-mail some of the people involved with the whole case and get these to them! It doesn't matter WHAT the manager of Great White let off in there, something would have eventually caught that crap on fire. I mean, the back wall is just totally fricken covered with the shit.

That's really upsetting.
 
yeah but i never wanted to get involved...nor did the band.
The Station was always cool to us..and we just didnt want to bring up any old memories like that.
I have TONS more pics..but those were the ones i found first.
 
Well, I just want whoever's responsible to get what they deserve as opposed to the manager of Great White being the fall guy for the whole thing. It is illegal to use packing foam on walls.

I'm sad.
 
apl said:
This post deserves a Pulitzer, and should be read often.
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OK, I'll bite. Why does this post deserve a Pulitzer? It's interesting, but how many people do you know that died in a foam fire? Or lost a studio?

I don't know anyone. I've known lots of people who have had break ins, and one person who had a fire because of a downed power line, but I don't know a single person who has had any sort of major problem associated with cheap foam.

I take it that this sort of thing must happen all the time, or at least be a major cause of injury or death. Funny thing is, a media seach dosen't come up with much.

I'm not arguing that foam is safe any more than bird flu is safe. But what kind of statistical risk are we talking about here?
 
Supercreep said:
Why does this post deserve a Pulitzer?
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Because the writing draws the reader in to the horror of something going horribly wrong.

Supercreep said:
Funny thing is, a media seach dosen't come up with much.

I'm not arguing that foam is safe any more than bird flu is safe. But what kind of statistical risk are we talking about here?
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Fires of that sort would have been unknown or electical in origin and cause of death would be smoke inhalation. There are lots of those stories. There are several factors in the story and the foam did not cause the fire. If I were in a studio on fire, I'd rather the acoustic treatment not be foam covered with nylon.
 
I see. Besides not being close to ideal acoustic treatment compared to rigid fiberglass or SAFB or mineral wool or whatever, it seems like the spectre of death by foam seems to be raised with predictable regularity whenever foam is discussed here as an alternative.

Risk of death exacerbated by the use of foam is an interesting aside, but I think arguments against foam as an acoustical treatment should be kept mostly to the relative acoustical properties of the materials compared. The fire hazard thing I think is overstated to the point it's starting to look like a marketing angle.

"Sure, you could use foam.... IF YOU WANT TO DIE IN A FIRE!!!!!"


Some products work so much better than foam that the positive difference in the products performance is a stronger sales motivator than the fear of using a less expensive, lower performing, more "dangerous" product.

Just a thought, I'm not casting any stones here.
 
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Supercreep said:
Risk of death exacerbated by the use of foam is an interesting aside...
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Maybe it's an age thing. When I think about what car to get I go the IIHS and see how they perform in wrecks. Once I opened a Mercedes S class brochure and they had a picture of all the air bags inflated and I found it oddly arousing. Or maybe it's an engineer thing; part of my job is making sure I've figure out everything that could go wrong, and I've had FMEA training and applied it in real life. Accidents happen. There's no sense making them worse.
 
I work with 4 volunteer firefighters. Over the years I've worked with more than that on and off. They've told me stories about fires before that almost made me cry, and the story hardly made a small blip in the local section of the paper. I think outside firefighters telling stories, no one wants to talk about how horrible it is to actually die in a fire. To feel as though you want to breath but you can't because all you'd breath in is toxic fumes. It'd be exactly like drowning, and that's about the worst death I can possibly think of.

I'll never understate the consequenses of using materials that, when burned, let off toxic fumes. And I'll never understate how serious I am about fire safety. That was one of the biggest reasons I got that episode of Weekend Warriors pulled from the air.
 
Well... yeah :) that'd be pretty bad, but you and me will probably never be in that situation. I can't say I've ever had a nightmare about that kind of death (although I may now... thanks).
 
The really sad thing about this whole ordeal is that it was an accident - and the people whose family members died all hate this guy, as if he did it on purpose.
Now, he's admitted he's guilty of lighting the pyrotechnics display, but he didn't put the foam in there, and if the foam hadn't been there, the odds are this place wouldn't have turned into Irwin Allen's Towering Inferno in a matter of seconds.

Somebody could have started that fire with a cigarette, or perhaps even an extremely hot tube head sitting against the foam.

So, while he endangered peoples lives that night - the club owners endangered peoples lives - EVERY Night.


Tim
 
i too thought the sentence for the "manager" was way overblown and misguided. the building owners are more to blame, imo.

and besides, is this guy a "threat to society" ??? and does his jail time make the victim's families feel better? if so, they too need a reality check. IMO.
 
i too thought the sentence for the "manager" was way overblown and misguided
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Bullshit. One HUNDRED people died because of his stupid Rock and Roll "theatrics" decision. :mad: Who the fuck fires of incindiarys in a small club...fucking moron. :rolleyes:
 
My vote would still be harsher for the owner, or whoever put up the "flammable shit foam" all over the place making it a "toxic" tinder box.

the show on TV said the foam, once ignited, filled the room quickly with toxic fumes and the fire followed. the computer aided presentation showed the cloud of black smoke replacing all breathable air very fast. thats what the investigation showed as main cause of death, suffocation and secondly burning.

not to mention there weren't enough exits for the crowd, but the cloud of "toxic smoke" filled the room so fast maybe thats a mute point.

makes me wonder who the Govt. Safety Inspector was that approved the license for this place too? Was the foam all over the place when he did the Inspection?

but in the end the Owner of the business & building seems to hold the main responsibilty and liabilty for the safety of what goes on in the club.
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Bullshit. One HUNDRED people died because of his stupid Rock and Roll "theatrics" decision. :mad: Who the fuck fires of incindiarys in a small club...fucking moron. :rolleyes:
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Rick,

It's not bullshit. I've seen bands playing clubs here in Florida using Pyro over the years. I played in a metal band in the 80's that did it. We had a keyed ignition system that fired 2 pairs of flashpot/torches. The system had a keyed ignition switch where you had to turn a key in an electronic ignition switch and then press an ignition button to ignite the torches. This made sure that the system didn't fire accidentally, and that jimbob whoever didn't
fire the torches accidentially.
It fired a flame about 6" to 8" in diameter and about 72" high.
We never had a single problem - but we also never played a club where the owner had lined the stage with "egg-crate" shaped bedding foam.

I read that the owner had the foam installed in the club after a fire inspection, and that they had blocked the fire exits.

I still don't think this guy should be going to prison. What he made was a bad choice, not the same as some murdering crackdealer, carjacker, rapist, or somebody who is doing armed home invasions.



Tim
 
It's not bullshit. I've seen bands playing clubs here in Florida using Pyro over the years.
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Hmmm, not bullshit?. Great White doesn't own exclusive rights to stupidity . :rolleyes:
I played in a metal band in the 80's that did it.
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Amazing. I was always under the impression people came to hear musicians play music, Of course, maybe some people like a circus with their music, and maybe thats why I like jazz. Of course, I grew up in an environment that valued musicianship, not carnival acts. Then again, I'm an old fart so what do I know.:)

However, from what I've seen of METAL bands, COMMON SENSE isn't a prized virtue nor is great music :rolleyes: And maybe your band was just lucky :rolleyes:Personally, I highly doubt a Fire Marshal would have approved it in advance though, whether there was flamable materials close by or not. Ask ANY fire marshal if he would allow explosive "firepots" in a small public facility and I'd bet $100 he'd roll his eyes. Lets get real here. Its fucking dangerous in that context. If it weren't you wouldn't have used the keyed ingnition.


But let me put it this way then. Had that idiot NOT made his "bad choice", a hundred or so people would still be alive, and the foam would still be there, regardless if it was flamable. Granted, the club owners should be hung by the fucking balls too for flagrant violation of building codes, but they didn't light the fireworks. He did. Its no different than a person getting behind the wheel of a dangerous vehicle drunk and killing someone. The vehicle didn't cause someone to loose their life.
 
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