A while ago I listened to Pete Townshend’s book and was amused to learn of how much time it took him to painstakingly repair his guitars after a show – often missing out on japes and capers with the rest as he attended to them. After all – he needed them for the next night’s show.
But my question is – why? Not in the sense of the art statement of doing it. No worries from me on that score. It’s more the logistics. Why oh why oh why didn’t he swap the “good” guitars for shit ones and then smash *those* ones up? Then he would have had more time for post-show larks. Maybe I should ask him…but dawwww I’m just too gosh darned shy.
I vaguely recall that other guitarists who copied this in the ’80s – Ritchie Blackmore and I think one of the guys in Saxon – were said to swap their proper, ahem, ‘axe’ for a factory second before destroying it. I’ve only ever see one person do this and it was last year, a Who tribute band at Ealing Blues Festival. ‘Roger’ looked a bit miffed after and said something like, ‘I suppose we’re not doing an encore now. This is why I’ve always said we should wreck triangles instead; it’s cheaper.’
Quite. In the early days of the Who he’d be smashing Rickenbackers which a) should carry a capital sentence and b) are ‘neck through body design’ ie it’s all one bit of wood from top to bottom, so very hard to snap. When Jeff Beck was asked to smash his guitar in ‘Blow-Up’ he refused to do such a thing with his main instrument and broke a cheap Hofner instead.
Hendrix at Monterey and Cobain at Reading ’92 both switched to a spare for the final song, which shows how spontaneous the whole exercise was. Ravi Shankar mentioned that Hendrix went way down in his estimation for disrespecting an instrument in such a way.
I’ll fess up: I did it once, at a school gig. I was young and foolish, plus the guitar was cheap, had been played to death, and I had a new one, which (you guessed) I’d played for the rest of the show. I broke old faithful against the pillar of the church hall and it exploded on the first hit, massively curtailing the extended outro we’d planned. At the end, some of the younger kids brought the pieces back to me, in case I could mend it. Bless!
I vaguely recall reading the Monterey guitar was rebuilt and Dweezil Zappa has it.
Just saw the name Ravi Shankar and had this idea of him smashing up his sitar on stage. It pays to read further.
You want sitar smashing? Hammer films will provide
Rickenbackers of the type played by Townshend aren’t neck through body. The neck tenon is reasonably long but doesn’t go go past the neck pickup.
I don’t believe much of what he writes about in that terrible book.
I don’t think it’s quite that bad, and as the tortured artiste of the band perhaps we should expect a little license from him.
You may enjoy Daltrey’s more recent autobiog more; he comes across as you might expect, down to earth, a little straight and contrary compared to his band mates, and disapproving of damaging their expensive instruments.
The cellophane envelope in Live At Leeds had some itemised repair bills if memory serves.
Now that’s what you call a Mastermind level answer. Top knowledge Mr Wells.
When I heard Daltrey narrating his book on Audible, I thought I was listening to Timothy Spall.
To be fair to him though, it was one of the best book narrations I’ve heard and very entertaining.
The only person I’ve seen smash a guitar up was Karl Wallinger out of World Party. He then said something like he wished he hadn’t done that because it’s the only left handed guitar he had, which seemed a bit odd.
He’s famous for playing a regular right hand guitar turned upside down so the strings are backwards from what you normally get, ie the thick strings are normally on the top. So this comment makes sense.
I recall Dan Stuart of Green On Red saying from the stage how much he regretted smashing a Gibson semi-acoustic in a fit of alcohol-fuelled rage about something. He decided the better course was to give up drinking.
It seems these days you can simply travel by air and the baggage crew will do it for you.
The entire USP of a Hiscox: avoiding the effects of baggage handlers’ military grade stupidity.
Is this what you’re referring to? @Sniffity
United Breaks Guitars
I feel a John Hiatt song coming on…
My thoughts entirely!
This is the clip that inspired that Hiatt song. I like Garth but this is stupid.
That’s bollocks from Townsend though. Those guitars were ruined, the dickhead.
Yep; the more I read from him, the more I think he’s a dickhead.
Stick to power chords, Pete old chum, don’t let us have any more details of what a twat you are.
Guitar smashing always struck me as incredibly stupid and witless, and deeply disappointing when done by an artist you thought might have some intelligence and perspective. This indicates depth and soulfulness? Bollocks. Many people can’t afford guitars (even cheap copies), and destructiveness as a tantrum, let alone an ‘artistic gesture’ (my arse) is odious. It’s up there with chucking beer glasses at gigs, in my book.
I think of it as being like book burning. Stupid mindless vandelism.
At last! I don’t know how to do this, so I’m glad you do.
’twas a Gibson Hummingbird if you’re interested. The blonde guitar will surely be the Martin d28 that he still plays, well, maybe not the same one, but the same model.
All the while I was reading this post the opening lines of this song was running through my sad little brain. Thanks for posting, great song by a great songwriter
But, but, but, Mr Blackmore only ever smashed guitars which ‘displeased’ him.
Fortunately he was in the position to buy job lots of guitars which ‘displeased’ him!
There is always a practical answer to these matters.
Nobody was particularly impressed at the time, IIRC. A gimmick, like Sandy Shaw’s bare feet. We all thought he was a bit of a twat. Hendrix setting fire to his guitar had a certain appeal, but it soon wore off.
This clip of the ‘Oo at the Marquee in ’67 has just surfaced (background vocals by two strangled cats). Interestingly, after a couple of minute of all-round twattery, during which time Entwistle just noodles away as if the whole thing has nothing to do with him, they all just trail off. No guitars smashed, no speaker cabs penetrated.
I seem to remember Menswe@r smashing guitars on Top of the Pops. It seemed a bit twee, and I bet they could use the cash from said instruments now.
To be fair to Pete and Jimi neither smashed guitars every night, and the one time I saw Pete do it (Kennington Oval 1971) it was genuinely thrilling to witness. I saw a far more fractious Who show in 1975 in Leicester when Pete and Keith actually came to blows after just one song but no guitars were smashed.
I do recommend watching the Kids Are Alright film some time. It is the best rock doc ever for me and contains the infamous Smothers Borothers clip when Keith sets off a huge firework behind Pete and Pete’s hair literally stands on end.
That’s also the moment, according to Pete, he lost most of his hearing. No, LOST MOST OF HIS HEARING. YES.
He has also insisted that it was listening thru headphones that buggered his hearing. Probably both…
Used to have a red guitar until I smashed it one drunk night
Smashed it in the classic form as Peter Townsend might
I threw it in the fireplace, I left it there awhile
Kate, she started crying when she saw my sorry smile
Red guitar was made of wood, could not take the heat
Red guitar, it caught on fire and the damage was complete
It burned until all that was left was six pegs and six strings
Kate, she said “You are a fool, you’ve done a foolish thing”
I put the remains in the case and I put the case away
Went to New York City for a new guitar the next day
I bought myself a blond guitar, I had if for three days
Some junkie stole my blond guitar, God works in wondrous ways
Sorry @Junior-Wells didn’t notice you’d already posted this!
As we say down here- no worries.
Good to see the lyrics
We did a gig in Newcastle, about 95. The support band was a hopped up rockabilly / garage band, hiccuping and hopping around and fairly frenzied. Throughout the set, their singer had been adding occasional scritching on a Vox Teardrop-style guitar.
As the band started the last wave of the final rave-up, he took the guitar off, waved it around a bit. then gave it an initial bump on the floor, looking like he was winding up for more. However, on the first bump, there was a small “th-dunk”, the guitar flew into a million match-sized pieces and a large cloud of dust. The rave-up fizzled out, and they shuffled off, disappointed, him still with the headstock in his hand, the strings trailing the bridge on the floor.
Oasis came to an end when Liam smashed a guitar backstage. He thought it was Noel’s guitar – turned out it was his, which just made him angrier