Times change

[chris1327]

I’m so happy you posted that! I saw that piece in a museum a few years ago… isolated as a video performance in a large dark room (maybe in the Smithsonian in DC?) and the sound was incredible. No words can really describe it

 

[ardgedee]

I’m so happy you posted that! I saw that piece in a museum a few years ago… isolated as a video performance in a large dark room (maybe in the Smithsonian in DC?) and the sound was incredible. No words can really describe it

It's been on exhibit a few times but I saw it when it was in a Christian Marclay retrospective that was touring the country a decade-and-change ago.

 

[chris1327]

It's been on exhibit a few times but I saw it when it was in a Christian Marclay retrospective that was touring the country a decade-and-change ago.

do you remember where you saw it? was it in a museum context?

 

[RichardW]

If I recall from Townshend's autobiography, the whole smashing-guitars thing started as an accident. The Who were playing a small venue with low ceilings. Townshend swung his guitar around, it hit the ceiling and broke--and the crowd went nuts. Townshend saw an opportunity for attention-grabbing and ran with it, but it quickly became something he felt obligated to do, rather than a pure expression of rock n roll angst and destructive power. The economic impact became clear quickly as well--most of the band's money went into buying new gear all the time. In fact, the Who was essentially broke until they put out Tommy.

 

[Panek]

I always liked what Wendy O. Williams did to guitars more than just boring, plain old smashing.

 

[No Malarky]

"Rock'n'rollers,you're all the same. Man, that's your instrument."

I felt so ashamed

- Ian Hunter "Mott the Hoople"

 

[bassdude51]

For "times change", there is a lot more going on today than the old lost 60s mentality of smashing equipment.

I can't believe that I am now 71 years old. Aside from coping with being old, I don't like this time era and do not belong here.

 

[jnewmark]

I remember back when this was a thing, I was in Chicago, checking out some Blues clubs. I saw Blues guitarist, Lefty Dizz, who asked me if I knew about " these English guys, smashing up their guitars". I said yeah, I was aware of it. He said, " Man, I'm still making payments on mine ! "

 

[ardgedee]

do you remember where you saw it? was it in a museum context?

I saw it at the Seattle Art Museum. I honestly couldn't tell you when (without doing some digging through old files) other than it was probably before 2010.

 

[Paul New]

When I saw them in 68 it was expected. The audience was more excited about that than anything else in their show. I tried to see whether they were just smashing props or the real thing and it seemed to be real. Moon frisbied cymbals out into the crowd which even then seemed pretty risky to me.

I guess it worked out, because a few years earlier they were only known as “that band who smashes their stuff”.

Their tours are archived, so I just checked and it was March 22, 1968. They were incredibly busy that year.

 

[Ostie]

Townsend did it to sell tickets and get their name in the mags, and I get that. But my instruments are my friends, and I could never treat them that way.

 

[fhm555]

Yeah, yeah, we all understand that; we were young too.

All I can say that as a teenager who had to WORK and SCRIMP and SAVE and sometimes go without dinner when the money was short, never mind even being able to buy fancy musical instruments, even back then it pi$$ed me off to watch people wantonly destroy things of value to make a pseudo-philosophical point. I'm not talking about my attitude NOW, I'm talking about my attitude THEN. I'm sitting there watching that and thinking "Man, I can't even afford to buy a box of reeds and those guys just smashed a Stratocaster, a Twin Reverb, and a Ludwig drum kit to splinters. Hey, a$$holes, give ME that stuff instead!" That's what it was like to be young and POOR and angry.

It must have been rough to watch Vanishing Point or the original Gone in 60 Seconds, Bullitt, The Blues Brothers, or any flic featuring wanton destruction of expensive things. The Dukes of Hazzard had a couple of full time employees scouring America for Chargers so they could destroy them for a hokey TV show about Opie Cunningham becoming a moonshiner.