Photo by Chris Carroll

This week singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston will be taking over the XPN blog. He recently released a new collection of original songs (his first collection of originals in 7 years) called Rain On The City. He’s currently on tour and will be playing in Philly on Thursday February 18th at World Cafe Live.

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Hoboken’s Finest

I lived in a ground floor apartment on Willow Ave. in Hoboken in 1991. I had five guitars; an electric bass, my tele copy, a Schecter electric, a Guild acoustic signed by my favorite band from Kansas, The Embarrassment, and an old ’30′s small-bodied Gibson. One morning I came home from my girlfriend’s place and found my front door open, stuff thrown everywhere, an open kichen window, and all the guitar cases gone. Two Hoboken detectives arrived soon after. Detective Maria (names have been changed…) was the tough cop, Detective Dan was the quiet, nice cop. Over the next couple of weeks they followed a lead or two, but advised me to put up a flyer describing the guitars and offering a reward for anonymous tips. Which is what I did, and one night soon after I got a call from a quiet girl who said Suspect A works at (name here) deli, lives with his mom, and has all my guitars. Then she hung up. Last I ever heard of her. But I gave the info to the detectives, who knew this individual, and they started visiting him at work. He wasn’t talking though, so they came to see him at home one evening. They started telling his mom the situation in a round-about way, and she apparently gave him a look that would turn you to stone, and Suspect A burst into tears, went into his bedroom and brought out all my guitars. Except for my first Tele, but you know that story.

There you go, Mom is the law in Hoboken.