smashing an instrument

[ShortyGetLow]

I broke my Ovation 12 string when a girl broke up with me...

I really miss that guitar...

She still ain’t famous so maybe the guitar got its revenge...

 

[jdh3000]

I've never understood that, from the first time I saw footage of Hendrix doing it. I even saw Stevie Ray Vaughan wreck one... I guess that was just him "channeling" Hendrix.

I don't think I could even do it to a cheap instrument...

It just goes against my core feeling about taking care of my gear and respecting other's equipment.

An instrument seems very personal, just something that needs care.

 

[EatS1stBassist]

Someone smashed this guitar to bits! I dug it out of the trash and it took me about 4 months to put it back together!

 

[Groove Doctor]

I’ve smashed a few junk acoustic guitars and folk guitars in my time.

Dad owned a music shop, people would bring instruments that were waaay beyond rescuing. We were teenagers....

 

[jschulman]

Real punk rock means setting up your neck and fixing the intonation during a guitar solo.

 

[Maynjo]

Just as an example of how abundant guitar smashing has become in the rock world; here's a couple of clips that also relate to comments in this thread in some manner.

First time seeing the billy joe incident, but that’s basically how it went down.

 

[mrcbass]

That is just something that irritates me to no end when I see it. No can do.

 

[Scottgun]

Couldn't smash an instrument. Unless it was a Rickenbacker and I had to anything with that tail/bridge atrocity, then .

 

[Ronzo]

Yeah.
Except the Simonon thing that happened in a situation that made sense, at least.

“The only band that matters.” My azz.

Those pretentious jerks couldn’t even cover I Fought The Law adequately. I cringe every time I hear it - which, on Sirius Classic Rewind, is six times a day.

 

[DoctorZee]

I always wondered about damage done to the stage. I can't imagine the venues I play being too happy about big dents, chips, and scratches in their floor.

 

[konfyouzd]

If I were to smash one I think I'd have to be stupid rich so as to feel less bad about wasting an instrument (although I'm not sure I could ever be fully okay with it)... But I think I'd also probably do what Yngwie Malmsteen does and have someone hand me one I don't actually use regularly before smashing it.

I watched the G3 with him in it and right before the part where he smashed his guitar at the end, the tech comes out and takes the guitar he's been playing all night from him and hands him one that looked just like it. Then Yngwie proceeded to massacre the poor instrument.

 

[konfyouzd]

View attachment 3545476 View attachment 3545478 View attachment 3545479 Someone smashed this guitar to bits! I dug it out of the trash and it took me about 4 months to put it back together!

Whoa... You did a good job.

 

[Flashback Bass]

Well one thing sort of led to another...

 

[EatS1stBassist]

Whoa... You did a good job.

Thanks!

 

[SouthLatitude]

Stanley not only smashes them as props (doesn't play them), but he then sells them:

https://www.paulstanley.com/2014/07/stage-played-smashed-guitars

I saw Paul Stanley smash guitars at several shows in the late 70's. In each show he wrapped the broken neck and strings around the body and gave it to someone down in the mosh pit.

 

[thewildest]

Destroying a musical instrument on purpose, whatever rationale someone wants to use to explain it, is terribly sad. I am just sorry for whomever feels they need to do that.

 

[D M C]

 

[barrenelly]

Music bit me as a penniless teen but I had no instrument to learn on. My equally impecunious friends and I used to go to the town tip (i.e. dump), where there was the bit of the piano with the strings on, and hit the strings with knitting needles to play out tunes (actually you can learn a lot about scales etc doing that). This was at the time when The Who etc were smashing up a heartbreaking number of fine instruments; meanwhile, I was out in all weathers doing two paper rounds every morning until I had enough (5 guineas = £5.25) to buy the cheapest bit of plywood rubbish you've ever seen. I was so proud and pleased at last to have something on which to begin learning to play properly. A few years later I was making a good living playing bass full time and had nice instruments, but I hate destruction and waste, especially of instruments that are desperately needed for new musicians.

 

[CryingBass]

I draw the line at burning. Or was that draw a line, consume, and then burn? If you remember, then you where not there...

 

[murph7489]

I never intentionally smashed a guitar but once I was drunk and fell into my friends' acoustic guitar that was leaning up against the wall in his apartment..I obviously didn't mean it but he initially thought I did it on purpose..but the next day as was forgiven and I gave him a nice alvarez electric acoustic that was a major upgrade from the crappy thing that I had crushed..

I was never one to smash stuff..but once when I was a teenager in high school me and my friends had a wild keg party and once we were all drunk we took turns trying to smash the picture tube out of an old television..I gotta say, those things are tough as rocks. It wasn't as if we were little kids and we were using stuff to ram into it, like a big metal coat rack, hammer, kicking it, punching it, throwing bottles at it etc..we tried everything..but at the end of the night that television picture tube was left standing almost as if we hadn't even done a thing to it...I never thought those things would be so tough..