Aren’t you tired of all these guitar pedal companies and their social justice Instagram posts?
Julian Saporiti
Dear fellow sound maker / music lover / gear enthusiast,
Hi. My name is Julian. I’m a musician and a lover of sound. Earlier this year, I started working on a project considering guitar pedals and how their aesthetically pleasing, Instagram-able forms could be a gateway into exploring different sonic effects and serve a practice of deep listening; that is, really paying close attention to the sound around us.
In addition to being a musician, I’m also a nerd - like, a professional nerd - finishing up my PhD as I write this. My research is at the crossroads of race, sound, immigration, and music, and I’m fascinated by thinking through history in terms of guitar pedals. Effects pedals provide useful metaphors for trying to make sense of the past. Think about an event that happened 100 years ago. It’s hard to get at what really happened. The historian must consider how this event’s “clean signal” has been altered. How does that primary source suffer from signal loss? As memory fades with age, how does it fuzz or distort? Does passing down a story get lost in echo, reverberation or delay, or perhaps it modulates, pitch shifts, reverses? And so on. Sitting with the affected sounds of history trains us to listen more closely and appreciate the jumbled mess that it is.
What seems like 100 years ago (this spring), my plan was to work through a bunch of gear with all this historical metaphor stuff in mind and write a series of both “popular” (readable) and “academic” (not so readable) articles. This is still the plan, but the pandemic tossed a wrench into my timeline, pushing back the release of my next album with which these articles were supposed to coincide. But as I began to interview pedal makers, I realized there was something more interesting to write about in the meantime: the effects pedal world was starting to think about race.
In the month of June, at least on social media, almost every pedal company could be seen grappling with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others killed by police. Donations to bail funds, Black Lives Matter, and other organizations, as well as posts about solidarity and the need to learn more were everywhere. That the effects pedal social media landscape would be overridden with posts about BLM was not something I expected, but I welcomed it. I am not white, and I found it really heartening that these spaces, filled overwhelmingly with white men, were engaging with these conversations because it is these spaces, the sort of nondescript, non-political white dude corners of the world where conversations like these are important to push society forward as a whole, and not just the progressive left.
Before I continue, let me just say a word to the reader who is sick and tired of all this “social justice” “PC bullshit”, to pull a couple of your Instagram comments. I feel you, friend. I really do. I was raised in the south and spent my formative years in a deep red Rocky Mountain state. A lot of the folks I consider friends and family are white and a good amount are very conservative. It’s hard to watch your country on fire, the culture rapidly shifting, everyone divided, so why can’t a goddamn pedal company stay out of things? I understand that sentiment. You don’t follow gear Instagram accounts to be lectured on politics. This summer has been enough of a bummer already. Having your online spaces of solace turn into soapboxes and battlefields for white liberal dudes, well, I can see how that can be obnoxious. I can understand any negative reactions you might have, whether that’s tuning out or saying some not kind things on the internet. I appreciate you sticking with me here and allowing me the chance to share some thoughts and maybe opening/easing your mind a bit.
It is exhausting to have to think about race all the time. I know. Growing up in Tennessee, I got into fights because of how I look. I still have a sort of “gas station paranoia” whenever I fill up in a rural town because of some unfortunate shit I’ve experienced at the hands of some ignorant people. And for me, even in these online spaces of gear and guitars, you notice the heavy whiteness and lack of representation. It’s just nice to see yourself.
Between the pandemic and the protests, this summer has forced many of us to consider race for the first time in a meaningful way. It’s a good sign when dudes in the middle of the country, people of all different walks of life, get to the realization that this country has not been inclusive to people of color, women, transgender, nonbinary and gender non-conforming people, and other marginalized communities. That there is actually no such thing as a “neutral” space. It’s just a space where you haven’t had to really consider the sometimes shitty reality other people experience.
At the end of a Zoom call last month, Josh Scott of JHS looked down and said “I don’t know what to do, man. I mean, I’m not racist, but I know I haven’t done enough. I know I can do more. I’m just not sure what that is.” A similar sentiment was shared by Joel Korte from Chase Bliss when I spoke with him right after the George Floyd murder happened in his hometown. Two of the most brilliant minds in the industry and makers of some of my favorite gear were at a loss for words. You could tell they hadn’t had to think about this and they were recognizing this privilege. But they, like many of their peers, have done a lot since and I hope they will do more, quietly but sustained.
I recognized what these dudes were experiencing. They had that oh-shit-things-are-actually-really-really-fucked-up-and-maybe-I-haven’t-been-on-the-right-side-of-things look. I’ve been there myself. I’ve worn that face. Growing up in the 90s in the south, there is a lot of ingrained thinking, behavior and bad habits I have had to undo. I was raised in a culture that was not only insensitive and outright racist at times, but deeply misogynistic and homophobic. At my school (named for a Confederate general), we played a game called “smear the queer.” A schoolyard game may be a little thing, but it can do a lot to normalize hate towards people who are different. And as for my views on women: backwards. I “escaped” the south (although I still love it) and joined bands as a young man. These spaces although politically “progressive” were largely devoid of female perspectives and encouraged toxic behavior which I have been unlearning for over a decade and still have work to do.
As I spoke with Josh and Joel respectively, I recognized the weary confusion in their eyes and I appreciated their recognition of the moment. The need to acknowledge that things aren’t great, to read up, own the past, and do more. This is encouraging because these guys don’t really HAVE to speak out or do anything, but things change when the decent white dudes come around. It’s not the KKK members that need to open their minds and hearts to the perspectives and lived experiences of others; those assholes are lost. It’s the good folks in the middle, quite literally in the middle of the country, who can really change things by listening and having conversations amongst themselves.
Something I should have learned a long time ago is if you put people with different perspectives in charge, you will get fresh results. Julie Robbins of EarthQuaker Devices told me about the awesome initiatives they’ve put in place in response to the events of this summer, but also continuing a company trajectory of inclusion and diversity. Like a lot of other wonderful pedal companies, they have donated to good causes and done the whole social media thing. But Julie and EarthQuaker show how a company can use its platform for deeper, more ingrained and sustainable change. Whether it’s partnering with the local Akron community, expanding their artist program to increase representation, or supporting their staff through a multi-week diversity and inclusion workshop, EarthQuaker is providing a good example of how to move forward and make progress from this crazy summer. Seeking out more artists of color and female artists for demo videos, continuing to do giveaways for social justice organizations, diversifying record collections, reading articles and books on anti-racism and educating themselves - these aren’t political acts, they are just ways to make the music better by giving more people a chance to do some cool shit with cool gear, which is the whole point of making gear.
As a historian, one of the best things I saw on my social media feed this summer was JHS highlighting pioneering black guitarists, people who helped invent and perfect electric guitar playing but have largely been forgotten and erased, or in the case of Hendrix deified as something beyond human. A little project like this matters. Giving honest accounts of our history matters.
When I was a kid, I literally once said, “Chicks can’t rock.” Jesus fucking Christ. What an idiot. But in this idiot’s defense, if you grew up watching MTV and listening to modern rock radio in the 90s this was the messaging. Women were rarely given equal access and if they did make it, they were often treated as over-sexualized exceptions to the rule. My brain was so warped by the media I consumed. I didn’t realize that there was this insidious mixture of larger historical and cultural factors at play from the size and shape of guitars, to male-dominated demographics in the record industry, to lack of representation, to super disgusting gender norms in rock n’ roll spaces where boys were in bands and girls were groupies. I think back to some of the idols I had growing up, the great rock bands of the 70s, and how predatory and toxic that world was. I still adore Led Zeppelin’s riffs, but Jesus. Thankfully, opportunities have opened up in today’s musical landscape and we are much better off for it. My playlists are so much more interesting. New and profound voices like Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Thao Nguyen, and Brittany Howard populate my songwriting imagination, productively humbling my younger self and opening my future self to new ideas via these role models’ creativity.
But let’s not kid ourselves; women artists, just like the black guitarists JHS highlighted, have been making amazing music from the get go. I just did a shitty job of listening and was raised in a society which did not give the same opportunity to women and men. This summer, we’re realizing we haven’t been listening to Black people and so many other marginalized voices. I hope that in these continued strange and reflective times, we might move away from the gut reactions of this summer (illuminating as they have been) and take a breath and listen deeply to what this year has told us and more importantly listen to what we have been feeling.
I applaud the pedal makers and music lovers who have been experiencing those moments of recognition this summer and hope you all continue to do good work in whatever space you occupy with whatever ability you have. And for the people tired of all the “PC bullshit” and “social justice crap,” I appreciate you taking my perspective on things into account. I also want the social media feeds go back to demos and gear glamour shots. While I applaud anyone standing up for kindness and fairness, I’m pretty tired of all the performative posts myself. I just hope that as these posts fade, these companies will seek out more artists who look and sound different, invite them into this space and we’ll all benefit.
Black Lives Matter.
Julian Saporiti is a musician and scholar from Nashville, TN currently working on his PhD at Brown University. His work No-No Boy combines songwriting, academic research and archival visuals in a unique multimedia project which looks at immigration, race, refugees and Asian American history. His next album 1975 will be released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2021. He is spending the quarantine in Portland, OR, writing songs, finishing his dissertation and grilling out and gardening with his mom and girlfriend.
