One Tuesday night in September 1964 , The Who — thenperformingas “ The High Numbers”—arrived at London ’s Railway Hotel andfoundthat the usual chopine of upside - down beer crates had been replaced with a slightly sturdier , slightly tall stage . Those few inches seemed negligible until partway through the concert , when Pete Townshend inadvertently punched a gob in the low ceiling with his guitar headstock . A hush fall over the way as the audience await to see how he ’d react .
And then they witnessed what ’s widely considered to be the parentage of the rock ‘ n ’ roll guitar hit .
Tempo Tantrum
Townshend was surprised and upset that the cap mishap had damaged his instrument , and the bunch ’s unsuccessful person to grasp the tragedy frustrate him . He need a bigger reaction , so he made a big scene .
“ I proceed to make a big thing of break the guitar , ” Townshend recalled in a 1968interviewwithRolling Stone . “ I pounced all over the stage with it and I threw the bit on the microscope stage and I picked up my spare guitar and carried on as though I really meant to do it . ”
The 2d time Townshend mangled an instrument was really for publicity ’s saki . Someone from theDaily Mailhad tell the stripe that another guitar belt would avail land them on the paper ’s front pageboy , so Townshend checked with his coach to make certain they could spare the disbursement of ruin yet another wanted piece of machinery . Though he perplex the go - ahead and carried out the mission with flair , theDaily Mailfailed to hold up their end of the unofficial steal .
A slight less newspaper reportage did n’t matter at all . With two wrecked guitar and an upended drum kit ( courtesy of drummer Keith Moon , during another Railway Hotel appearance ) now on their résumé , word soon spread that the group was a bash - glad bunch of boys . “ After that I was into it up to my neck opening and have been doing it since , ” Townshend toldRolling Stone .
The Who — which stopped going by The High Numbers in November 1964 — didn’t exactly invent on - stage destruction . early musicians likeCharles MingusandJerry Lee Lewishave both been credited with bankrupt instruments during concerts , and evenBeethovenwas cognize to represent his pianissimo well past their breaking points . But the band did rick guitar - shattering ( and destruction in universal ) into tacky , ritualistic performance art , and other rock ‘ n ’ rollers were quick to take up the blowlamp .
ForJimi Hendrix , that torch was n’t whole metaphoric .
Light My Fire
The future rock legend had already tried his hand at garden - variety guitar smashing in the mid-1960s , but the gimmick was in peril of seeming derivative . While wing at London ’s Finsbury Park Astoria in late March 1967 , Hendrix ’s director Chas Chandler model a question toNMEjournalist Keith Altham : “ How are we going to slip the headlines this week ? ”
“ You ca n’t keep crush the guitar because people will just say you ’re copying The Who and The Move , ” Althamanswered . “ Why do n’t you set fire to the guitar ? ” After a meditative pause , Chandler told the production helper to go buy loose fuel . “ That is how ‘ guitar fire ’ was born , ” Altham remember . “ Jimi localise fire to it on stage . After a few aborted efforts he whirled it around his head like an Olympic Verbascum thapsus . ”
The stunt did steal headlines , mainly because Hendrix hadsustainedburns and had to leave behind the microscope stage immediately . But it did n’t eradicate his enthusiasm for that picky spectacle . After a spirited rendition of “ Wild matter ” at California ’s Monterey International Pop Festival that June , the guitar player adjust hisFender Stratocasteraflame , crush it to bits , and tossed the neck into the crowd . Though the performance predated the smartphone era by several decennary , it was immortalise in D.A. Pennebaker ’s 1968 concert documentaryMonterey pappa .
And so , much like Townshend ’s first guitar bash , Hendrix ’s pyrotechnic pageantry was a spinal fusion of artistry and promotion bait .
Pour Some Gorilla Glue on Me
That ’s not to say the destructive theatrical were always just a system to make the newsworthiness . Townshend came toconsiderhis habit both a form of performance art and a political financial statement , and Hendrix ’s guitar smash oftenseemedlike they were more between him and his instrument than between him and the audience , the camera , or anything else . moreover , up - and - coming musicians inspired by the dramatic event had their own interpretations , unencumbered by backstories or intent .
“ I grew up lucky enough to have seen The Who in ’ 68 . I saw Jimi Hendrix twice,”Kissfrontman ( and avid guitar - smasher ) Paul StanleytoldAllMusic in 2016 . “ The idea of almost ritualistically smashing a guitar is something so cool and pertain a heart in so many masses that it seemed like a groovy agency to put a period or to dot theior cross thetat the end of a show — that this is finite , that this is over , it ’s the climax . ”
The heavy , more cacophonous rock music of the late 1970s and eighties was perfectly suitable to that type of count on calamity . Wendy O. Williams of Plasmatics was another noted practitioner , though she did n’t limit herself to just smashing her guitars ; sometimes , shedemolishedher cat’s-paw with a literal chainsaw . But in some situations , a wrecked instrument was really just the result of anger or some other I - could - perforate - a - wall emotion . Such was the casing when The Clash ’s Paul Simononsmashedhis Fender Precision bass part into oblivion at New York City ’s Palladium on September 21 , 1979 . The iconic image , which became the masking art for theirLondon Callingalbum , conquer Simonon ’s soreness with uptight bouncer who were stamp out the vibration .
“ I was sort of annoyed that the chucker-out would n’t let the audience stand up out of their chairs , so that frustrated me to the item that I destroyed this bass guitar . Unfortunately you always sort of tend to destroy thing that you love in temper , ” SimonontoldFender in 2011 . “ [ Joe ] Strummer take one of [ the slice ] and was about to walk off with it . I just had to grab it back and tell ‘ I recollect that belongs to me . ’ ”
Primal Scream
Musicians likeNirvana’sKurt Cobain kept the flavour of guitar smashing live through the stain John Rock of the1990s , another earned run average that lent itself to vague anti - establishment display of rage and destruction . Cobain , for the record , was mostlysmashingup brassy guitars and adenylic acid he bought in junk shops .
While it ’s potential that more guitars stay on intact these days than they did in the golden age of rock ‘ n ’ peal , guitar shattering has never disappeared . Muse ’s Matthew Bellamy smashed a amount of 140 guitar during a 2004 duty tour , actuallysettinga Guinness World Record ( though it ’s no longer an actively monitored record class , so it ’s technically possible that someone has one - upped him by now ) . Bellamy is less destructive than he seems though ; his guitars are make up in two parts , so he can easily replace the neck when it gets detached from the body . “ It look like I ’ve tear apart like hundreds of guitars , but it ’s probably only really about four , ” hesaidin 2018 .
But the esthetic side of guitar smashing is still alive and well , too , as demonstrate by Phoebe Bridgers onSNLearlier this twelvemonth . The Isaac Merrit Singer punctuate the primal scream at the ending of her Sung dynasty “ I Know the oddment ” by bringing her Danelectro guitar down on top of an unsuspicious monitor lizard . Many a viewer consider to societal medium to hollo for the two nonliving objects lost to originative manifestation , evidently forgetting about all the ( mostly manful ) musicians who had demolished countless legal instrument before her . Bridgers , for what it ’s worth , gotDanelectro ’s blessing for the plan beforehand , and the monitoring equipment was a bastard one made just so she could bash it . Maybe next meter , she ’ll bring a minuscule light fluid .
