I am very particular about my guitar strings. I play Dean Markley Signature Series, Extra Light Gauge. In guitar-speak, I play 8’s. Technically, 0.008’s, but 8’s is description enough. In nearly 30 years I have never found a guitar string that felt as comfortable or as natural or just as right as those strings. Unfortunately, in the space of time between leaving my band in 2005 and joining a new band in 2014 my strings have become somewhat hard to find. I can sometimes find the brand and the series, but never the brand, series, and gauge.
Musiciansfriend.com has a listing for exactly the strings I want, but any time I’ve placed an order I have received a notification that the item is on back order. On one occasion the order remained open and on back order for so long that the company actually cancelled the order without consulting me. In the other cases I have just had to wait for months to get the items delivered.
Somewhere along the way I gave up. I switched to a different gauge string, while sticking with the same series. I went from 8’s to 9’s. The difference isn’t big enough to cause a problem, but it is big enough to just feel… wrong.
This morning I decided it was time to place an order for new strings. I went to musiciansfriend and put a bulk order of 25 sets of strings into my cart. Even if the band starts working a lot, I can still get about a year out of that many sets. As I am entering in my payment info I noticed that the estimated shipping date is next month. Damn it, they are doing it to me again! I cancelled that order and replaced it with an order for 4 individual packs. Again, the shipping date is next month. SONOFA!!!!
That’s it. I’m going to take my business elsewhere. I had heard of sweetwater sound before, but I’d never ordered anything through them. The list prices were a little more expensive but they offered volume discounts. I ended up ordering 10 packs of 9’s for a touch less than $35, including shipping. That’s okay, I guess. It’s cheaper than the priced I’d get at a store.
About an hour later my phone starts to ring. It’s not a number I recognized so I let it go to voice mail. A couple minutes later I get an email from a name I didn’t recognize. The subject was “thank you”. It’s a message from a sales associate at sweetwater thanking me for the order. I’ve already received an automated message confirming the order. This is a little over the top, but okay. Whatever. A little while later I checked my voicemail. The unknown number was from Indiana. I don’t know anyone or anything in Indiana, and given the political idiocy they’ve been displaying over the last week or so I am pretty pleased to not have anything to do with anyone there. The message was from sweetwater. The same guy who sent the email.
I placed a $35 order… and received an email and a phone call… and sweetwater is in fricken Indiana. SONOFA!!!!
I log back in to my new account and look up the order. Something must be wrong if they are calling me, right? Regardless, I am cancelling the order just out of the slim chance (well, I guess it’s a 50/50 chance) that people working there support the governor. There’s no way I’m doing business with them. No way. I look up the order and it’s already ready to be shipped. SONOFA!!!! There is a link to make edits to the order. I click it, this is ridiculous now. It brings me to a page with the name of the guy who called and emailed me. There’s a picture too. I started playing guitar before he was born. In order to edit the order I have to call him. SONOFA!!!!
I’m not calling this guy. I have never met, nor will ever meet, him but I already loathe his very existence and seriously wish I could throw rocks at him. I hate him. I hate the company he works for. I hate the governor of the state in which he works. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
All of this hate because none of the stores around me carry Dean Markley Signature 8’s anymore. SONOFA!!!!!
Inside the Red Head's Head 