By Patrick Keegan

-I love obscure guitars. I like the aspect of explaining what each knob and switch does, I like telling people the history of the manufacturer, I like having a guitar that is “exclusive,” I even like the puzzled looks on people’s faces when I pull my oddball guitar out of its case. The problem that I have now though I’m sure is not just plaguing me. Obscure guitars have become almost nonexistent since the dawn of the internets. Before the internet, people relied on the occasional catalog and what they found in their music stores/classifieds for guitars, this limited their exposure to the more obscure guitars greatly.  Now with the internet, detailed information of every guitar you can imagine is at your fingertips, and that is making obscurity easier to find.

Another thing that’s killing obscure guitars is what I call the Jack White Factor. This is when a famous musician, like Jack White, uses an oddball guitar (his Airline), and then everybody and their mother goes out to try to buy a guitar with the same type of obscurity as his. People like Jack White bring out something different onto the stage and it gets people thinking about what they are playing. They look down and see a Tele or a Les Paul and then they look around and see that everyone else has the exact same thing. So they use the internet to find themselves a guitar that they haven’t seen before, they order it and, boom, obscurity is in their hands. Although I completely support the purchasing of guitars, this is what’s killing your mom and pop music store. Go down there before you order your next guitar, if they don’t already have it in stock they can probably order it for you.