Demonuitar

Based on a True Story

The Fendson Grandocaster Les Peter double necked hyper electric guitar had ten pick ups. Ten. Each set of strings had five pickups on them, each of which had separate knobs for tone control and volume, and a rather complicated-looking switchboard for the pick up on/off switches. The base color was a deep, deep crimson red; rose petal red; blood red; guilty red. It was a two tone—you know, like the deep sparkle paintjob you see on cars?—with an amazingly shocking brilliance when put in front of the right lights.

There was an inlay of a Japanese silkscreen-like scene involving a burning village and a samurai army laying waste to the villagers on the body, the long snaking tips of the flames stretching up both necks to have their sharp tips poke at the tuning pegs. The scene was silhouetted against that amazingly rich, chuck-berry red—bleeding—sky.

The body of the guitar was curved—and yet, at the same time, angular as well. It was as if it had been sculpted out of a strikingly gorgeous, shapely woman, then beaten with an abstract bust of Picasso to even things out. The way the thing curved in the body was like her hips, and the through-neck attachments were like the angular, noticeable collar bones of a starved old man.

The tuning pegs at the very end of the beastly beauty were in line sixes on the bottom, knobs facing the floor if it were in someone’s hands. The twelve string portion were in a similar fashion; in line straight back, but flipped around from the six-string counterpart in its upwards facing peg positioning. This gave the overall instrument an appearance of horns at its zenith—a demon, seductress, enchantress all in one.

And that wasn’t the half of it.

The sound—the sound!—the sound was beyond describing. It was like a torture victim’s howl of physical agony, a beautiful angel’s horny cry of euphoria, a tiger’s low growl of blood lust, and a Harley Davidson’s wail of antiquated, gas guzzling speed all combined into one blaring tone. I can’t do its sound justice with just a few lines of text. It simply—it simply isn’t enough.

This guitar was currently owned by hot-shot Ricky Shivanto—lead guitarist for the hack job band, The Dire Core Avengers. I hated the band. The vocalist couldn’t sing to save his life, sounding like some wretched mix between a drunk Kirk Cobain and an overly sedated, drowned, washed up, beaten, tortured Meat Loaf. I loved Meat Loaf’s music. I loved Meat Loaf’s tone of voice. But this Dire Core Avengers guy… He was horrible.

As for the guitarist…

Well, he probably sounded something like Fred Durst, if Durst’s guitar skills matched his artistic skill level and overall creativity. I can’t comment any further on that.

Do you know why such a horrible guitar player had such an amazingly beautiful guitar?

Neither do I.

Neither does the rest of the world.

But, being the skill less, talent less, Art less, cash hungry bastards they were, they were pop icons. I’d go so far as to say that they were pop icons merely because of the fact that they are skill less, talent less, Art less, cash hungry bastards. The public just loves being played, and that’s what these guys were great at; crowd manipulation. Skill? Who needs skill anymore? All anybody needs is a good publicist to promote your image. It worked for them.

Well, it probably would have. It did for awhile, but… let’s just say that divine intervention took a hand in their abrupt—overnight, I should say—downfall.

I like to call jealousy a form of divinity, simply because of the sheer emotions it can summon.

It was in October, I believe, when I first saw the bastards live. October fourteenth? No, it was a Friday—I remember that much. October thirteenth, it was. Friday, October thirteenth. Yes, I remember it clearly. That was their last performance.

That was the guitarist’s last night alive.

It went like this:

My friend was a pop culture moron. He bought into the whole Dire Core Avengers paraphernalia and merchandize, completely succumbing to the brain rot of commercial consumerism. Not to mention his infatuation with the redheaded, anorexic, female bass player of the band. I had no opinion of that girl. She was probably the only one in the band that could actually play her instrument, which was a point in her favor—but still, if she could play her instrument, why was she with these horrible excuses of musicians? Yeah, point less in her favor, by my count. Her idiocy clouded her ability.

Anyhow, this friend of mine, he was a fanatic for the Dire Core Avengers. Somehow, he managed to rake up enough cash to get his hands on exclusive, back stage tickets to their homecoming show at the Theatre, just up the street. He was going to ask this one girl to go with him, but she apparently turned him down. He was such a great friend that he gave the ticket meant for her to me. Yeah. He was such a great friend.

Well, I went anyway.

The thing was, I had heard rumors about this guitar. It was the only one of its kind, and it hadn’t even been officially produced. Fendson denies ever having built the beast, in reality, but the fact still stands that one was created, and this idiotic guitarist did have it. Some fans thought the denial by Fendson was just a sham to make the guitar more valuable, but I didn’t think that made any sense. I had just figured some backdoor company had created the guitar, then slapped Fendson’s name on it for shits and giggles.

It was for that guitar alone that I went to go see the Dire Core Avengers.

The show was hideous. I could describe it to you, but I’m sure my explanation might make Japanese director Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer look like a children’s movie. Have you ever seen that? It’s really gruesome.

No, the exciting part didn’t happen until later, after the show.

I wanted that guitar.

I wouldn’t have my chance until I was actually in the same room with the guitar, after the party at some fancy hotel. Since my friend and I had the exclusive tickets, we were two of the exclusive fans that got to ride back to the exclusive hotel in the band’s exclusive limo. My friend wanted to get into the pants of the exclusive bass player. I just wanted that guitar.

It was there, in the back of the limo, on October thirteenth that I first heard the guitar’s voice calling to me. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before; beautiful and terrible, terrifying yet alluring. It was begging me to take it. It was begging me.

Then we got to the suite—the party. Oh boy, the party. The band members happened to have had their spare, back up equipment in their suite; amps, cables, the basic needs should their quality stuff be shot right before the show. At least they planned for that kind of stuff.

Unfortunately for them, it would be that exact planning that would be their shocking, overnight retreat to the stage left exit that would make VH1 documentaries for years to come.

The band was dead within minutes. The guitar was bathed in their blood, laughing, singing, crying in euphoria as I repeatedly bashed it into its former masters. The suite itself was almost painted with their sweet, sweet, life juice. It beckoned me to keep going—keep going!—until not even a bystander was left.

The first one down was the guitarist himself, killed when he was lightly tapped in the face by a rogue amp. His head made brutal contact with the wall, his grip instantly released from my guitar. It wasn’t long until the guards were in the room, pistols drawn—but by that time, I already had the monster in my hands. The peasants on the body of the guitar were crying out in demonic laughter, daring the guards to shoot me down.

They didn’t stand a chance.

Once the guitar bloodily dispatched them, it was the drummer that came next. He barely knew what hit him; life thread suddenly severed by the Fates as the guitar’s strings literally grew and grew, tearing him apart like the tentacles of the giant squid.

The samurai on the body suddenly came alive, after having their fill of the drummer’s screams, jumping off the guitar’s body and messily slaughtering the vocalist. Vengeance screamed on their red soaked blades, their angry swings carving a painting of rose-colored Jackson Pollock portraits all over the walls.

The bass girl was probably the most fortunate of all, her death being painless and quick. The pickups were her deliverers; shooting off volleys of discord and feedback that pierced her skull like expertly thrown shuriken, death careening into her quickly and—almost—mercifully.

But my friend—my stupid, pop culture poisoned friend—he tried to stop it. Couldn’t he see that it was all inevitable? Couldn’t he see that this was how it was meant to be? Of course he couldn’t; he was consumed by a fate more horrible than death—mindlessness. For that, the guitar punished him.

The flames that crept up the necks of the guitar like rivers of blood came tearing out of the beast, stretching towards him like the fiery inferno of an inevitable Hell. They licked and teased his delicate flesh, before their blazing tongues grew teeth and tore away at him like ravenous vultures.

The massacre was over, but I wasn’t—not yet. The guitar brought me fame and fortune after that incident. It whispered to me my next moves, what I should do, what I needed to do. The guitar was a monster, a demon, a seductress, I knew. But it was also a judge, a deliverer, a saint! And it would use its saintly abilities to deliver me to new heights! Now, instead of the Dire Core Avengers, there would be me ruling the music industry, the charts! Me, and me alone; even as my most trusted ally rid the world of my music competitions, tearing them apart in sadistic and brutal ways.

My skill increased tenfold with the guitar. All it needed was to feed, and then it would grant my fingers otherworldly speed and dexterity and precision. I could play notes that denied physics, I could make sounds that denied logic, I could force howls that denied explanation! I was a god! That guitar gave me the powers of a deity, and by God—by me—I sure as hell wasn’t going to waste them!

My power wasn’t without caveats, however. As I said, it needed to be fed. It needed to be fed, and I always had to feed it. I only missed its feeding time once, and I paid for it…

It was a concert, I remember, I was giving on one Friday in October… the thirteenth, if memory serves. That would have made it about seven years after it had been delivered to me by the Fates. I always fed it before a performance—it was necessary. It made me who I was, after all!

This thirteenth of October, I had forgotten to feed it. It was hungry for the blood of my enemies, but I wasn’t there to give that to it. I had been exercising the pleasures of my exquisite fame and fortune, hitting the clubs the night before and, that day, not making it out of bed with a particularly attractive groupie.

That night was the concert. The stage was fantastic—you should have seen it! I can’t even begin to describe that stage.

The guitar was ready, I thought. It was perfectly in tune, perfectly toned, perfect in all respects—just like always. I did a few warm ups minutes before going out, like always. This would be just another show, just like always, right?

The show wasn’t just like always.

The show was incredible.

My fingers were swift and agile, inhuman, unreal. The guitar pushed me to my limit, past my limit, past everything I had ever even thought possible. It was amazing, the way I literally tore apart the very stage with the sheer sound of the guitar, the way the building’s roof cracked and collapsed, the way the ground splintered like overstressed wood as I pushed the very fabric of space and time to its breaking point.

And then, the guitar let the rules of reality come back.

My fingers, which had been playing a solo far beyond human capability, were instantly shattered to a million pieces, just as the guitar’s teeth opened up and swallowed my hand. The flames leapt off of the beast, engulfing me in a fire of a thousand suns, burning me as the samurai figures tore me open with their swords. The pickups sounded off the feedback of the Devil himself as I felt my skull start to crack, agony coursing through my every cell. As if that weren’t enough, the strings formed into the tentacles once more, piercing me everywhere and tearing me apart as I was still alive. The jaws of the horned devil opened wide, swallowing me into the darkest pits of Hell.

The guitar needed to feed, and it let me become its next meal.

You should have seen it, though. God you should have seen it. It was the show of a lifetime.

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the licenses of Meat Loaf, Fred Durst and/or Limp Bizkit, Harley Davidson Motorcycles, Takashi Miiki and/or the film Ichi the Killer, or Picasso. All rights are reserved to their respective owners.