Guitar Smashing

I have a kind of fixation about groups that keep smashing up all their instruments. This began when I first got into The Who back in the 1980’s. I thought the music was great but at the same time felt almost a sense of guilt at buying music and supporting people who promote that kind of vandalism. Perhaps it’s not strictly true to call it vandalism when the property being destroyed belongs to the vandal, but that’s not really my point.

I remember back in the 90’s a group called Nirvana headed by Kurt Cobain. Kurt came to a widely publicised demise when he commited suicide with a shutgun. Long before this nasty end, through his music and stage antics he promoted a sense of dispair and hatred of life that became the foundation of the grunge culture. I strongly suspect that Kurt has far more deaths on hands than just his own. I wonder how many teen suicides resulted from idolising Kurt and his grunge during that period.

I guess Pete Townshend from The Who is pretty much in the same mould. He never seems to quite come to terms with life. A history of massive drug taking combined with his almost hysterical stage antics finally culminated in television scenes of him being arrested in relation to Child Pornography. Like Kurt, smashing things up is perhaps just the tip of a very unstable iceburg. Guitar genius appears to come at the price of mental stability.

Of course now we’re into the 2000’s the whole thing has changed. Music isn’t music now, it’s a visual feast, and only succeeds if it’s performed by teen boys, or girls with big tits. Smashing up entire stage sets no longer means anything at all, it’s a bunch of teen wannabes that do what their producers tell them to. The violence, vandalism and desire to shock isn’t there, they just do it because they are spoilt little brats.

I guess that’s about it, just felt a need to vent that one. Having scraped up enough money to buy myself a new bottom of the range Fender Stratocaster, I find myself looking at such a lovely instrument and wondering what pleasure anyone can derive from smashing them up. Pete Townshend of course takes the top of the range Eric Clapton Strat and still does it at the age of about 60. Childish? Deranged? The Gary Glitter who got away with it? Great music though.