United Breaks Guitars

I caught wind of this on the news the other day. It seems that back in the spring if 2008 a small, up-and-coming band called Sons of Maxwell was flying from Halifax to Omaha on United Airlines (a carrier in whom I had plenty of trust -- until now), and their guitar cases were treated with just as much gross negligence by the baggage handlers as any other piece of luggage. Not surprisingly, when they got to their destination, at least one of their guitars was badly damaged. Unfortunately, the airline refused to take any responsibility, so these guys did what any disgruntled passenger with an Internet connection would do these days -- they wrote a song, made a video, and posted it on YouTube for all the world to see.

According to the news story, the band was hoping to see this video get one million hits by the end of this year. Well, not surprisingly, its exposure has helped it more than double that goal in mere days (2.1 million hits and counting)! And, well, it doesn't take a fortune teller to know that these guys are really going to go places thanks to this story, and I rather suspect we'll all be able to see their debut album on CD shelves everywhere before too long. If you want to read all the gory details of their ordeal with United Airlines, click here. Meanwhile, here's the story in a very entertaining and tuneful nutshell:



Oh, and just yesterday, the band's frontman posted an update to the story. Hmmm ... nine months go by with absolutely no help or cooperation whatsoever from United, but now that the story has spread like wildfire, the guys finally get a response. Who'da thunk it...?!



I don't own a guitar myself, and have never had any complaints about United's service, but from now on I'm really going to need a good and compelling reason to fly their airline anymore. After all, I love music, so seeing musicians treated this way (come on, how much brains do you need to know that a guitar case should be handled with at least some amount of care?!?) is almost like a personal inslut to me. As for Sons of Maxwell ... just the creative "lemonade from lemons" way they worked out their frustrations about the situation is making me want to buy their music...!