Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament assaulted and robbed.

You know the economy's bad when musicians get robbed, and the two recent occurrences in what seems to be a new trend are Jeff Ament and Gliss vocalist/guitarist Martin Klingman.

A few weeks ago, some assholes broke into the van of LA psyche rockers Gliss (who stopped here a few weeks ago) and made off with all manner of gear, including a flight case, microphones, tour shirts, several copies of their new album, Devotion Implosion, and most importantly, vocalist Martin Klingman '70s Fender P Bass, an instrument he got from his grandfather when he was a kid.

The latest musician to suffer caught it first hand. According to reports from DeKalb County Police, Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament was leaving Atlanta's Southern Tracks recording studio on April 27 when he and another man were jumped by three masked goons with knives who'd been lurking in the nearby woods. Ament was cleaned out — the robbers took $3,000, his passport and $4,320 worth of goods. When Ament attempted escape, he was knocked down and split his head open, but didn't require hospitalization. The robbers fled the scene in a black Nissan Maxima.

Luckily for Ament, he was only injured, not kilt. That would've sucked.

This article appears in May 13-19, 2009.