SD Music TV suspects in the crosshairs

“Please, we need your help,” SD Music TV’s Megan Erickson posted on Facebook on April 1, “as it is a sad day for the San Diego Music Community.” Sometime during the weekend of March 30, thieves forced their way into the music-video production company’s studio-office complex in Poway. They made off with computer equipment, cameras, and hard drives containing unedited footage of local bands taped in performance for playback on SD Music TV’s website and on their YouTube channel.

Erickson, 27, is the founder of SD Music TV. “I was asleep at the time the phone call came.” It was an employee on the other end of the line, calling to tell her he’d gotten to work early on Monday morning and discovered the break-in. “He said the computers were gone. I thought it was an April fool’s joke. But when I got there, I saw that the door had been pried open.” She begins to cry.

“We work so hard to help people, and now this happens.” Erickson stops for a moment to collect her feelings before she moves on. “It’s been a very sad few days. We had bands scheduled that can’t come in now.” She says that all of SD Music TV’s finished product is posted on the web and is safe. The real loss, she says, is in the theft of hard drives holding the company’s extensive graphics library and those as-yet unedited band performances.

The list of stolen items includes some custom Taylor guitars and other items Erickson is not at liberty to reveal. She says there is an ongoing investigation and that the San Diego County Sheriff’s Poway Station may already have suspects in their crosshairs. Erickson says she is working with her insurance company to replace the missing items.

A nonpracticing lawyer, Erickson says that she has lived here since the age of seven. Last October, she opened up her music-video shop with underwriting from private investors. She explains that the SDMTV idea grew out of a job with a local marketing firm that also happened to be making band videos. “I learned that there are artists who are getting screwed over by venues.” She says this turned into a desire to help the music community by filming their gigs and archiving them on the internet. “It’s all free of charge to the artist.”

As of this writing, there is no update on the investigation. SD Music TV is offering a $500 reward for any information that leads to an arrest or the recovery of the stolen property. “We hope to be back up and running in a couple of weeks — hopefully.”