Dave Carroll has a publicist. I'm going to say that again. Son of Maxwell Dave Carroll, the Nova Scotia folksinger who needed only $150 and some creative friends to turn a beef with a US airline into a mortifying (to the airline) viral video that drew nearly 12 million pageviews, now has his own publicist. Eliza Levy is a pleasant sounding young "assistant to the publicity team" at Media Connect, a division of Finn Partners of New York. She's handling PR for Carroll's newly published book, United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media, and his...

18 May, 2012

Buried in a Herald story about Dave Carroll's testimony before a passenger rights organization-sponsored hearing in Washington, lies this little nugget: Last week, for the first time since his YouTube hit went Stage 6 pandemic, Carroll inadvertently flew United Airlines—a long booked connecting flight to a gig in Chicago. As the flight prepared for takeoff, a United attendant, apparently oblivious to Carroll's musical history with the airline, chastised him for not placing his (Taylor?) guitar in an overhead bin. A nearby passenger watched in amusement. "Oh, he’s going to write a song about you," she said....

23 September, 2009

In the spring of 2008, the Halifax group Sons of Maxwell headed out on a one-week tour of Nebraska. They flew United Airlines from Halifax to Omaha, with a connection in Chicago. While waiting to deplane at O'Hare, band members heard a woman behind them cry out, “My God, they’re throwing guitars out there!” They watched helplessly as ground crew pitched their instruments recklessly across the tarmac. Before boarding the next  flight, the band took all the steps normal people would to report the abuse, only to be shunned by every United employee they encountered. Once in Omaha, band member Dave...

07 July, 2009