Hey, kids, have you heard of the newfangled musical invention that's all the rage in the record industry? Well, listen up, because it's called the "guitar" (pronounced gih-tarr), and it's sweeping the nation faster than all the mood rings, slap-bracs and Furbys combined! Put away your accordions and harmonicas, your sousaphones and flugelhorns, your tympani and triangles. The guitar has six strings and a fiberglass body for spectabulous, fantacular, stupelicious fun fun FUN!!! Purchase one today and we'll throw in a record demonstrating the possibilities of guitar music-- 764-HERO's Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere-- at no additional cost!

Witness, if you will, the guitar in all its majestic glory over the course of your complimentary album's ten tracks and fifty minutes. Licensed guitar specialist John Atkins gives a full demonstration of the instrument's capabilities, playing crunchy chords, sky-kissing riffs, and squeezing out all sorts of fancy sounds by using a number of neato effects pedals (sold separately). Your grandma's dusty old pump organ never sounded like this!

Not only does Atkins show the almost unfathomable breadth and depth of the guitar's capabilities, but he also organizes these demonstrations into actual songs like you hear on the radio! That's right, the guitar can also be used as a compositional tool, and because playing it doesn't require using your mouth or excessive concentration, you can even sing over the music! Atkins exhibits this skill admirably on Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere, with catchy tunes like "Photographic Evidence" and "Oceanbound" that'll have you singing along while you desperately try to learn his nasty gee-tar moves!

The guitar can be played without accompaniment, if you so choose, but we highly recommend that the instrument be played with a music ensemble of your choice, as Atkins himself has done with 764-HERO. With Robin P on the "bass" version of the guitar (a lower-pitched four-string model, also available), and Polly Johnson banging on the drumset, songs increase in volume and complexity. Listen to "You Were a Party," where the band presents how melodic sequences of notes played on the bass variant and dynamic drumming can add a stable beat while emphasizing your guitar's percussive qualities. Everything's functioning like a well-oiled Rock Machine!

What's more, not only does Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere show you how good making music with your shiny new guitar can be, it also gives you examples of where you can go wrong! For example, you may notice that without sufficient songwriting versatility, things can get pretty mediocre and, well, boring by the end of a ten-song album. No, kids, slowing a tune down ("Answers") or stretching it beyond six minutes ("Confetti Confessional") doesn't make it better. Adding more instruments, like the organ and piano on the rousing climax of "The Long Arm of the Law," can sometimes help, but don't just rely on the presence of keyboards alone to shake things up (see: "Satellites"). Also, when titling your record, never pun on the title of a classic album-- in this case, Neil Young and Crazy Horse's brilliant Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere-- just because you can't come up with something intelligent. Think and something better will come to you.

Fortunately, 764-HERO have made these mistakes so you don't have to. You see, while the guitar may not be sufficient to carry a whole album, Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere shows it can at least provide you with a handful or two of peachy keen songs. And that's all you'll need to hit the road, make some dough, and meet cute members of the opposite sex! So what are you waiting for? Get your parents' credit card, dial 1-800-764-HERO, and get your very own automatic, systematic, hyyyyyyy-dromatic GUITAR!!!

-Rob Mitchum, May 2nd, 2002