Congratulations On Your New Dieselharp

The stupidest instrument that never existed

Art by Stephen Wilson

This piece originally ran in Stereogum’s The Black Market on September 2019. This is an annotated version.

Congratulations! You now own a limited edition 15th anniversary d.Marvin Guitars Dieselharp, offered exclusively through a beer can redemption program overseen by Blake Judd’s new blockchain startup Nachtcryptium.¹

With a Dieselharp, you’re only one strum away from opening a portal to a DXM-saturated alternate plane of bleak and blurry black metal tones.² Whether you’re looking to create atmospheric black metal, blackgaze, metalgaze, or atmospheric blackened metalgaze, the Dieselharp will turn your fuzzy dreams into an even fuzzier reality.

Your Dieselharp is based on a prototype used by Velvet Cacoon on its 2004 album Genevieve, the specifications of which were detailed in an interview conducted in August of that year in conspiracy with the band’s then-label Full Moon Productions.³ Some say Velvet Cacoon lied about the Dieselharp to cynically build buzz or catfish a buzz-thirsty black metal scene. However, by building a totally real Dieselharp that will be shipped to you shortly, d.Marvin Guitars has proven that the Portland (sure) duo (why not) lied about lying. And that, Dieselharp owner, is the truth.

Built in the same Chinese factory that once employed Ghost Bath, your Dieselharp features everything a mysterious black metaller could desire.⁴ From the high-grade steel guitar body with mounted diesel fuel tank down to the 75-gallon fiberglass aquarium resonator 3-D printed with Moore, Inc.’s patented CLOAKBRAIN™ technology, it’s clear from the first touch that your Dieselharp is an engineering marvel.⁵ (WARNING: Do not touch the Dieselharp.) It’s also Instagram-ready, finished with a high-gloss, mostly-not-flammable lacquer that shows up well in high-contrast photo editing.

Needless to say, the Dieselharp is unlike any guitar you’ve played before. Unreal, even. So, to keep your Dieselharp in top working condition and lessen the chance of injury and war-crime levels of collateral damage, please read this guide in full before using this unbelievable instrument.

NOTE: Due to the passage of Proposition 666 (popularly known as The Squirrel-Wheel Bill),⁶ all claims about the functionality of the original Dieselharp prototype have been vetted by Avinash Mittur, an engineer now working at Saildrone. We are legally required to disclose his findings.

1. KNOW YOUR DIESELHARP

In the 15 years since Velvet Cacoon member LVG unveiled the instrument to the world, the basics remain roughly the same:

• A steel body with 33 pre-drilled holes for silver diesel-delivery tubes

• Three large steel braces outfitted with custom pickups

• A tightly packed bundle of analog fiberoptic cords

• 75-gallon fiberglass aquarium resonator (a 15-gallon practice resonator is the standard in Dieselsquire packages)

Due to user demand, the fourth generation of the Dieselharp has evolved to include the following:

• A hand-taped diesel fuel tank

• Custom flame guard

• VTEC⁷

• Choose Your Own Adventure-style legend-building pamphlet. Now with more options explaining your drummer’s demise!

WARNING: Check all parts before starting the Dieselharp. Damaged parts may cause the tone to sound, and this is a technical term, less sick. Also, death.

2. STARTING YOUR DIESELHARP

1. Pour diesel gas into the mounted fuel tank until you reach the line denoting the length of the song you will be playing. This ranges from “You Suffer” (one gallon) to Someone Mansplaining Camel’s Influence on Opeth In Between Sets at Wacken (35 gallons)

   1. The Dieselharp takes diesel fuel only. If you need an instrument fueled by another option, please consider the d.Marvin Guitars coal-powered Ecoharp or the more fuel-efficient acoustic guitar

   2. Your Dieselharp averages 6mpgs and can mow approximately three suburban lawns

2. Pull the greenskeeper-strength pullcord on the side of your Dieselharp’s body

3. The Dieselharp will begin saturating the wires inside the silver tubes with diesel fuel. This priming process may take up to five minutes depending on the ambient temperature of the abandoned warehouse or liberal arts college dorm room that you’re playing in. For your safety, each tube has been outfitted with authentic Volkswagen emission monitors

4. Once enough diesel fuel has been carried to the bottom of the tubes, the pickups will start glowing bright red. This means the pickups have been charged and can begin sending audio signals through the fiberoptic bundle into the fiberglass aquarium resonator via the magic of science
   

   WARNING: Holy shit, do not touch the Dieselharp.

5. Touch the NEVERMELT™ strings to ensure they’ve reached the proper temperature. If you smell burning, proceed to the next step. If you are lightheaded, check the carbon monoxide alarm (sold separately)

6. Step into the provided flame-retardant suit (out of stock) with optional reinforced crotch insulation (flash paper stuffing recall notice)

7. Tighten the provided back brace (out of stock) that will restrict unnecessary movement that might cause paralysis

8. Get ready to fuckin’ rock, man

Proposition 666 Disclosure:

• Fuel doesn’t flow through wires, it flows through lines or hoses.

• There’s no method cited for actually igniting the fuel, and diesel fuel is already difficult to light up without vaporizing it first.

• I don’t think this guy knows what a pickup actually does. Pickups are basically magnets wrapped in copper wire. Per Faraday’s Law they produce current based on physical disturbances (the vibration after being strummed) in the strings’ magnetic field. So, the idea of “charging” a pickup via heat is quite literally some hot garbage.

• Fiberoptic cable doesn’t carry analog audio signal. It transmits digital signal in the form of light flashing on and off. On being digital high (aka binary 1), off being digital low (aka binary 0). –Avinash Mittur⁸

3. PREPARING THE RESONATOR

Before tearing down society with some serious black metal, please go through the painstaking and laborious process of preparing the resonator. The 75-gallon fiberglass aquarium resonator requires special attention and care.

1. Fill the resonator with liquid until it reaches the line indicating your preferred low-end tone. There are five tone marks on the side of the resonator:

   Murk
   Extra Murk
   Myrkur⁹
   None More Murk
   Profound Lore Contract

2. You may use different liquid types for different mids and highs. Seawater makes for a traditionally hazy tone. Fresh water adds a crisp brightness. White Claw sounds like Deafheaven.¹⁰ Experiment for yourself!

   WARNING: Do not experiment without adding droplets of blood to the resonator. For your sanity. Naturally.

4. WARMING UP THE RESONATOR

1. Ensure that the analog fiberoptic bundle is plugged into Dieselharp and the resonator

2. To test the connection, play the opening riff of Obituary’s “Chopped in Half”

3. lol hell yeah

4. An audio signal will be sent to the resonator, causing it to emit a series of warning glugs. Listen carefully to the glugs as this is part of a built-in Power-On Self-Test:

   One glug – Systems are working correctly. You may begin playing your Dieselharp
   Two glugs – Check to make sure that the pickups are properly charged by touching the Dieselharp

   WARNING: Do NOT touch the Dies-ah, whatever. Just … just do it. I’m not your dad.

   Three glugs – Oh … oh no. Shit. Shit shit shit. We may have Chernobyl’d
   Four glugs – Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
   Five glugs – Systems are working correctly. You may begin playing your Dieselharp

5. If you hear more than five glugs, you’re either playing a Tool song or someone is using the resonator as a beer bong. In either case, please leave the Burning Man playa immediately.

Proposition 666 Disclosure:

• They don’t even specify a way for the electrical signal from the pickups to turn into acoustic energy — basically, they’re missing a transducer and an amplifier would more than likely be needed too.

• How do they even transmit the sound “into” the aquarium? Do they stick a speaker inside the tank or some shit? And then mic up the speaker?

• This is the even funnier part — audio doesn’t sound murky underwater. In fact, you can actually hear things that are much farther away because sound travels much more quickly in water than it does in air, especially in an enclosed environment like a tank! –Avinash Mittur

5. PLAYING THE DIESELHARP

If you successfully completed the four previous steps and you haven’t slipped into crippling DXM addiction (key symptom: lying a lot, you’re possibly a YouTube influencer), you may begin playing the Dieselharp. In this respect, the Dieselharp is quite like a traditional guitar, just made of metal, set on fire, and hooked to a 75-gallon aquarium. Shred away, Yngwie!

NOTE: For your convenience, the demo button will play two to three repeating riffs from random “Freezing Moon” uploads tabbed out by middle schoolers until the Dieselharp runs out of fuel.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

The tone is too insane!
Again, have you tried adding 3-5 droplets of blood to the resonator? Yes, people apparently believed this the first time around.

How do I add distortion?
Hold the Dieselharp against a wooden table.¹¹

I think I ported myself to hell!
Where we’re going, we don’t need guitars.

I accidentally swam in the resonator!
Over the next month, you will devolve into a semi-conscious primordial matter. Sucks.

The pickups won’t charge!
Have you tried turning the Dieselharp off and on again?

I think my Dieselharp is broken!
Steal an album from a shoegaze band and call it a day.¹²

---

1. As you might expect, I hate that this joke is still relevant in two ultra-depressing ways.

Anyway, the original idea for this intro was to actually build the dieselharp. Turns out, no fabricator in my immediate area/on earth wants to do such a thing. I even tried to get the blueprints down to just the fish tank resonator, but people were even less thrilled to be working with water and electricity. I wonder why.

2. Dextromethorphan is real. It's probably the only thing about the Velvet Cacoon mythos that is real. DXM is basically cough syrup (NyQuil uses it as an active ingredient), so, you know, Velvet Cacoon and DJ Screw have something in common, as you suspected all along.

3. This is an in-joke to anyone who received promos in the ‘10s. “Freshly in conspiracy with [label]” became the PR equivalent of a meme, as much as those things can be memed.

4. Never listened to Ghost Bath in my life. I'll still take every opportunity to dunk on them.

5. I don’t know if “cloakbrain” made the glossary. It should have. Another good one is “catfashed,” for when you discover a band you’ve covered turns out to be Nazis. Both are Doug Moore terms.

6. See: Flames, In. “Episode 666.”

7. This got me.

8. Thank you, Steve Dave. I mean…what?

9. Never listened to Myrkur in my life. I'll still take every opportunity to dunk on her.

10. Joke still works!

11. Burzum joke! Still works.

12. For those who don’t remember/are too young, this is from Velvet Cacoon’s Metallum page:

At least 15 alleged releases in Velvet Cacoon's discography are known to have been faked. While many of Velvet Cacoon's claimed releases simply never existed, others, particularly their non-metal releases, were full albums comprised of stolen music. The shoegaze demo How the Last Day Came and Stayed then Faded into Simulated Rain was almost entirely stolen from Korouva's Shipwrecks & Russian Roulette, while the Dizzy from Eternity demo is taken from My Violent Ego's Clicks & Hisses. 2009's drone album Atropine consisted of tracks taken from at least three different artists.