After months of patience I am going to be a proud owner of one of these babies. I told myself I would cease the purchasing of additional guitar effects, as it is a humerously dorky addiction that usually results in loss of income, pimples, and hilariousy prog rock guitar tones. Nonetheless, I could not resist this New Zealand made overdrive that adds odd harmonics on top of your original signal. It makes guitars sound frantic and as much as I try I can’t get over agitated guitar rock.
Characteristically, I can’t merely purchase a new toy and enjoy it. Instead I see it as part of the frame work of my cultural heritage for better and worse. Do I need this piece of gadgetry? Obviously not, but I feel prompted to buy it with the sudden presence of income after a summer of poverty. Nonetheless, buying things I don’t need feels like it is essentially wasteful, and if unchecked can become a frivilous and shallow habit that coincidentally 85% of the world can’t participate in. USA!/Materialism……
Here is where it gets interesting. If materialism means an intense preoccupation with objects, America’s recent model for consumerism is anything but. Rapidly evolving fashion and technology, coupled with an almost Tokyo-like ominpresence of product placement seems to have left our cultural reflex in a state that can’t buy new things and get rid of old ones fast enough.
A true materialist would be saddened by this state of affairs. You can find them still, but most of them are a bit older. Like the guy that lovingly polishes his Firebird every weekend and drives it with one ear cocked to monitor every idiocincracy in its timing. Or, a wine enthusiast who instists you will taste the oak if you try hard enough. A Japanese tea ceremony is far more attentive to the presence of physical things then I am in any trip to Target.
So where does that leave a gear head? I suppose, when it arrives I better engage my senses to every nuance of my odd little fuzz pedal and use it attentively to agitate for many years.
