JUMPING DARKNESS PARADE: DAATH’S EYAL LEVI ON GUITAR CENTER

Who here likes going to Guitar Center? The Kmart of music supplies. Going there always pisses me off because I get some dude in a button up silk shirt with embroidered flames shooting up it trying to convince me how the latest Crate amp is gonna blow the roof off the house. I JUST NEED SOME STRINGS AND SOME PICKS. Why does everything there take so goddamn long? I swear, it takes me an average of forty-five minutes to just buy a pack of picks.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Guitar Center is a necessary evil. When you’re on the road and you run out of gear, well, there it is. Go getcha some. Back in the day they even gave a ten percent over-cost deal to signed artists. Which was fucking rad, considering how much money we would spend there. When you’re not making any money, and the little that does come in continually goes into the same place of business, then its nice to have a discount.

Well, that’s been discontinued, I hear because too many people were taking advantage of it. So it’s back to full price, for everyone which fucking blows. IF we’re making a $250 a night guaranteed, without our discount one small trip to Guitar Center can wipe out all our gas and food money. For picks and strings and an odd cable, which should cost us next to nothing. Considering we buy so many things from the same goddamn place all around the country.

Then there’s the noise factor. How many times can you listen to a thirteen year old playing an out of tune version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on a Fender Squire through a shitty practice amp? Or, better yet, rippin’ the solos to one very badly. Shit, Kirk Hammet could barely play them, what makes this acne ridden sperm factory think that he’s got a chance?

But hey, it’s for all of us to endure. I wonder how the people who work there deal with it. Do they tune it out? I guess they have to. But at first. When the job was new. And they had to deal with the endless racket of terrible musicians just hogging the gear. Did it drive them crazy? Did they reach a point where a submachine gun would have just made everything liveable again? Do they just smoke a bunch of weed and tune it out? Do they keep the eye on the prize and just think about that phat commission? Or did they pass the point of craziness to where they just don’t hear it anymore?

I’m trying to figure it out. Thirty minutes in that place and I’m ready to take out a McDonald’s. Families and all. Just to express my rage. How the fuck do you employees do it? I applaud you and commend you. You give us gear, you deal with the worst of the worst, you wear funny outfits, and you do it with a smile. Congrats!

-EL

If you don’t visit Daath on MySpace, Eyal is going to take out a McDonald’s. Families and all.