“Don’t fly United,” is the musical message from a musician who says the airline broke his guitar. After nine months of red tape, run-arounds and inaction, Dave Carroll decided to get revenge by making three music videos to publicize the experience. The first one hit YouTube yesterday and has already received more than 100,000 views. It’s pretty funny.

Here’s Carroll’s brief explanation of what happened:

“In the spring of 2008, [his group] Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3,500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.”

Be sure to check out Carroll’s website for a more detailed explanation. And don’t check your guitar on United.

UPDATE (July 8, 1:15 p.m.): According to Christopher Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times, the music video has caught United’s attention: “This has struck a chord with us, and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right,” said Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United. (Urbanski also said she “loved” the video.) Urbanski said a phone meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday [today, July 8], and that before the airline decides exactly what to do for Carroll, “we need to have that conversation with him directly.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 7:15 am and is filed under YouTube. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.