Being a pedalgeek with some small awareness of what's going on in the pedal geeky world, I was impressed when VisualSound announced their new pedal, the Vans Warped Distortion. Cash-in and fad pedals aren't new, but it takes some real balls to try and sell the sound of Warped Tour punk rock in a pedal... especially since the festival is 15 years old now. At least DOD launched the Grunge distortion in 1993, and Ibanez's Phat Hed distortion and chorus with the wack'd setting launched in 1999: sure, these companies were digging in for kids' Seattle and nu-metal obsessions, respectively. The pedals didn't sound anything like the uber-popular music they referenced... it was just a calculated cash grab, aimed at teenagers who just got their first guitar. Seriously, people: Kim Thayil doesn't play through a pedal labeled "grunge" and Munky doesn't have a pedal that says "wack'd."
But that doesn't stop the corporations. Visual Sound used to be a nifty little pedal maker that got bought out by Dunlop (who has been gobbling up pedalmakers like a comic book villain). Vans was sold in 1988 and is owned by the same corporation that does Lee and Wangler jeans. They have teamed up in the name of a massive festival to create a cheap pedal to sell in 2010... you know, for "punk." Which I think lives mostly at malls.