The worlds most expensive guitar? United Airlines might think so.
Tue, 28 Jul 2009
As some readers will be aware, a hitherto unknown Singer/Songwriter named Dave Carroll (no that is not a pun) shot to notoriety recently, after an incident in which his Taylor Guitar was smashed by United Airlines baggage handlers. After Carroll was initially told that he would not receive any compensation, he set to work on 3 songs detailing his experiences. His video for the song “United Breaks Guitars” became a huge viral hit, and is said to have racked up over 3.6 million views on YouTube alone!
This phenomenon has ended up costing United Airlines 10% of its share-value, to the tune of $180m - Thats right! $180 Million!
Surely this is now the most expensive Guitar in history! The priciest Taylor Guitars I know of are 12-Strings, and would set you back just under £6,000. And from what I can gather from the video, Carroll tends to play a 6-String. Perhaps someone should have informed United Airlines of these small but important facts, when their losses began hitting the tens-of-millions region.
If only we all knew about this trick… I could have subtly had my ancient, beaten-up, and un-used Hohner classical guitar, smashed to pieces by a Tube-Train, in order to gain fame and fortune via a musical indictment of London Transport!
Needless to say, Dave Carroll was eventually paid compensation in the form of repair costs and flight vouchers. United were instructed to give the money to charity, as Dave’s band, ”Sons of Maxwell” find popularity and fame.
But in times of financial crises, the real people need what’s known in the industry as “Cheap-and-Cheerful”. Most musicians experience financial recession year-in, year-out! And can smile broadly at such a huge loss, for such a huge corporation. With this in mind, a recent internet poll has named the Epiphone ES 335 Dot the best guitar you can get for less than £300. The Gibson, that this Guitar is based on, actually goes for almost £2,000 more, and with apparently little difference in either playability, or sound, I certainly know which one I’d go for…
With this in mind, perhaps the whole Music Industry could do with a “Constant-Credit-Crunch Makeover”. And truly reflect the financial condition of it’s core representatives - us! The Musicians! I personally love playing expensive Guitars, but am still a way off buying one!
Rickenbacker are top of my personal dream guitars list, but are well out of my price range. And they tend to frown upon copies being made, meaning they are quite difficult to get hold of. I love Gibsons, but have had much more experience with Epiphones… you see where I’m going with this!
So what are your thoughts… Are we settling for second best here? Or do these ”copies” bring us as close to sounding like the real thing as our wallets and purses will allow…? Also, in this YouTube / viral age, can we now assume that rather than “Flavour of the Month” - many Artists using virals for promotion are merely becoming “Flavour of the Week”, and that by the time August comes around, Dave Carroll and his Sons of Maxwell will wish they had kept the compensation and flight vouchers for themselves…?