THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: bucky_2300 on 15 May 2005, 21:23
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Guitar smashing: entertaining in moderation, or a crime against all things six-stringed and 21-24 fretted?
I personally think that one has to be able to play the hell out of a guitar before smashing it is acceptable. E.g. Pete Townshend.
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Most definitely nay.
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I think if the song and moment warrents it's cool.
If Dave Matthews smashed his guitar after playing an acoustic set it would be weird.
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It really depends on the guitar in question, but as a rule, nay.
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everyone should hear the song perfectly good guitar by John Hiatt
That song describes how I feel about this bizarre trend in a nut shell..
There are a lot of people that would love to have a guitar but dont, for whatever reason (me included) and if I did have a guitar, Id die before smashing it...
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It was cool back when The Who did it but these days it's just not an interesting way to finish a set, much like putting your guitar next to the amp and creating feedback when you walk off. I hate that. Feedback as musical tool yes, but I wish people would stop doing it for no damn reason.
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Nay...becuase what if you havent got another one that works and you arew buggered then
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Yay. If you are cool enough to do it. That means nay to most anyone, apart from bands that truly 'rock' in, of which there few nowadays.
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nay, basically smashing guitars is too easy, people should try and smash organs or stand-upright basses etc. smashing guitars is for pussies.
However it would be interesting if Tori Amos grabbed a battleaxe at the end of her set and then trashed her piano, now that would be a sight
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yeah, it's a waste of an instrument and yeah, it's been done to death. but it's sooo dammmm cuuuute.
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I say, nay, mainly cause, although it CAN look cool, I just think the artist should consider the poor unfortunate fan standing there wishing they could afford a guitar like the one the performer is destroying...
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yay, if you do it right.
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Cleary, Pete Townshend is a god and can do whatever the hell he feels like.
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nay, basically smashing guitars is too easy, people should try and smash organs or stand-upright basses etc. smashing guitars is for pussies.
However it would be interesting if Tori Amos grabbed a battleaxe at the end of her set and then trashed her piano, now that would be a sight
I saw a guy smash an upright bass once. Did a flying side kick right into the middle of that thing. It was pretty cool.
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Total waste, espicially if your Greenday, they suck, when my brother was at the woodstock he was hit by a peace of a guitar, and a fucking nice one at that.
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Nay. Smash People instead.
Also, bonus points to Bucky for the Dead Kennedys avatar.
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if somebody smashed dashboard's guitars while they were trying to play... NOW that would be good.
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It's a waste. Give it to some kid in the audience if you don't care enough about the guitar to keep it. Just leave it in one piece. Maybe they'll start a band.
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A thousand times NAY. It's really puerile and selfish. If they wanted to get rid of their guitars they could at least give them to members of the audience.
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The exceptions to the rule of "don't be selfish dicks and smashy" are as follows:
-The Who
-...Trail Of Dead
-Nirvana
and two of those bands don't really exist anymore.
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How much did you pay for the chunk of his guitar,
The one he ruthlessly smashed at the end of the show?
And how much will he pay for a brand new guitar,
One which he'll ruthlessly smash at the end of another show?
-Cake
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The exceptions to the rule of "don't be selfish dicks and smashy" are as follows:
-The Who
-...Trail Of Dead
-Nirvana
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word to that.
looking at it from afar, yeah it makes the band look like asses when they smash their shit. and it usually just comes off as an awful cliched stunt for a band that's lacking musically.
but sometimes, at the end of a really intense show, it just makes SENSE. (like at ...trail of dead shows).
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Smashing instruments is stupid.
Also Trail of Dead were pretty underwhelming when I saw them live, instrument-smashing and all. Explosions in the Sky opened for them and blew them away.
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I think it would be kind of hard to come on after Explosions in the Sky. I wouldn't want to.
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it upsets me to see an innocent instrument smashed..
though i wonder, does the musician smash the guitar because he/she feels they need to make up for their music ? you know, end the show with an 'oompf' they couldn't provide otherwise..
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It is stupid and cliche.
There are no exceptions.
To me it goes in the same chapter of "what not to do when playing live" as synchronized jumping and over animated strumming. If you want to call attention to yourself or to your band learn to play... or buy a delay pedal that will self-oscillate so you can make space ship noises, at least then you won't look like a douchebag when you try to attract people who have never touched an instrument before and thus are impressed by such things.
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It's okay only, and only, if the guitar is already at a visible point of breaking through overuse.
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i agree with jeph and tartar. one should only smash an instrument if said smashing occurs over the head of one's enemies.
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You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see someone, at the end of a gig, dismantling the guitar. Get the toolkit out, remove all the bits and pieces that can possibly be removed, line them up across the stage in a neat, orderly row from largest to smallest, then walk off.
Sure, it'd take a while, but it'd be different! And then when everyone's gone home the guitar can be put back together again, good as new.
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I love watching idiot douchebag pop-punk morons smash guitars they didn't pay for and that will be replaced by their label. It totally rocks.
[/sarcasm]
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I want to see a band finish their set by smashing the guitarist. Preferably Dave Matthews Band, but I'm not too picky here.
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A resounding "nay." It pains me to see an instrument come to an untimely death. Though for some reason the mental image of John Denver smashing his guitar into pieces makes me laugh uncontrollably.
As for stand-up bass smashing...are they insane? And how the hell can they AFFORD to do that? It's not like those are exactly CHEAP instruments.
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Only if they're being smashed in the drummers face.
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I'm saying nay, though it doesn't escape my attention that I only own a guitar because my best friend bought it to smash it up but forgot about it, therefore having a spare guitar about the time I decided I wanted one.
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Sadly almost anything you do on stage these days can seem like a cliché. The second your feet leave the ground you're stuck in the jumping group, everyone does the "walking around the stage" thing anyway and even if you just stand there doing nothing then you're jumping on the shoegazer thing. Of course there are exceptions, but I can't think of any names off the top of my head. Unfortunately if you just do your thing and concentrate on the playing you get accused of having no stage presence, there's no way to win!
I think a cetain type of band could pull off the gear smashing thing, so long as they were suitably angry, and I think thankfully most bands know not to do it, as I've only seen it done in the flesh once, if I recall, and I'm pretty sure that guitarist would switch to a squire for their last song and give that a good smashing afterwards rather than wasting a Fender.
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I'm pretty sure that guitarist would switch to a squire for their last song and give that a good smashing afterwards rather than wasting a Fender.
that's probably not seen as "hardcore" enough. you're dead on about the other stuff, too.
i won't lie, though, i like to go see a band for the visuals. if i solely want to hear them sound good i'll just put on the record on my nice, shiney headphones. while instrument-smashing would be wildly out of character for most bands i listen to, i do like to see a band jump around and act the fool onstage.
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Only if they're being smashed in the drummers face.
I saw a video once of a guy attempting to "bitch toss" his guitar over his shoulder, but the strap broke free right as the guitar was reaching its peak. It then flew directly into the drummers face/upper body, knocking him off of his little chair and out of commission for the remainder of the video clip.
I laughed a lot.
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I've got a shitty, old-ass Warlock with all the hardware screwed up, the neck is twisted and it had really horrible intonation to begin with, that was given to me three years ago, and the paint is actually sanded off for a good deal of the body, it hardly works, and it's just overall a total peice of crap. Next time I play a decent sized show, I'm smashing that baby because it is completely worthless, if I sold it I might make $25 at most, so screw it.
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I personally, as a guitar player, think that breaking a guitar is stupid. Even the lowliest squier can still make some decent music if you rig it up just right. And why break anything that makes good music, right?
But smashing an accordian...
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Woah, no smashing the greatest instrument ever. Accordians are here to stay.
Bassoons, on the other hand...
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How's about a compromise? No bassoons to be smashed if no accoriands are smashed either. Dealio?
We can compromise by torching every oboe on the earth, right? I... hate... oboes...
P.S. I just hate trying to PLAY accordians. I'm a TMBG fan. I don't think it's possible to be a TMBG fan and not like accordians. Sorry about the misconception, that was a sort of wanky thing for me to say.
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Done. No bassoons, no accordions, destroy the oboes, throw in a few piccolos or something to keep the fire going.
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Tee-hee, all this talk of accordion-smashing reminds me of a joke I heard a few years ago at the National Folk Festival:
Q: What's a banjo?
A: Kindling for an accordion fire.
(For the record, I LOVE both banjos and accordions - I'm just a sucker for silly jokes. And while I'm rambling - can I get a "hell yeah" for harpsichord smashing?)
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Rammstein blew up some of their instruments when I saw them. And one member of Apocalyptica stabbed through a drum with his cello spike, though I think that might have been accidental.
I am generally against this, unless it is done with extreme style and panache.
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Bela Fleck, the first time i heard him, in like 6th grade completely changed me. It made me decide that every instrument diserved a go. And yes, you can get a "lets break some fucking harpsichords". Bach would have been the shit if he just used a goddam piano. But no, he had to go do the better portion of his amazing classical on a goddam harpsichord.
The only good piccalo is one that has been shattered and rebuilt into a nice statue of a peice of human defication.
Cello spike THROUGH a drum?! Hurray for that. Drums are cheap. Why dont drummers ever smash them? Cheapo drummers...
P.S. I don't hate drummers. Just to establish that.
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Cello spike THROUGH a drum?! Hurray for that. Drums are cheap. Why dont drummers ever smash them? Cheapo drummers...
He ran up the drumkit and spiked a snare (the reason I think it was an accident was because he then pulled it out before planting it on top of one of the bass drums) before playing the solo from Master of Puppets. Apocalyptica may be a string quartet and a percussionist, but they easily rank as one of the most unbelievably metal bands I've ever seen.
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I'm trying to start a jam-metal-prog-fusion-jazz-absolutelyeverything (except pesky ol' emo, hardcore, and cheap techno, and rap cuz we're all white and would otherwise get majorly fucked up, seeing as we live in LA where there are a shitload more black and hispanic people than use honkies) band with some friends of mine and I just realized that this kid Isaac I went to middle school with is a fantabulous violin player. That was a big-ass long William Faulkner stylie run-on sentence. Anyhow. We are going to jam like it wasn't no thang. And maybe do some metal-klezmer which we think would actually work out really well. We definately need to cover "Ghost of Stephen Foster" (Squirrel Nut Zippers) in this style.
Lyrics from Ghost: "Ships are made for sinking, whiskey made for drinking. If we were made of cellephane, we'd all get stinking drunk much faster."
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Pretty damn awesome.
Lol, most of my musical projects at the moment are techno. I've got my one-man Troll Techno*/Atmospheric/EBM/Game Soundtrack project Halo of Flies, I've got my industrial collaboration with the mighty Dread Conveyor, and I've agreed to do some electronic keyboard work for my mates avant-garde project. So, until I get my Crossover Thrash/Deathcore joke band started up properly, or make some more Defiled Pantheon stuff, instruments hardly come into it.
I suppose I could, like, delete fruityloops after making every song, or something.
*In techno, ANYONE can make up a genre!
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I love techno. Actually, i hate 99.9% of it. But now and again a killer group who list themselves under the unfortunate label of "techno" will come along and blow me away. Lemon Jelly, The Dust Brothers, some of Kevorkian's stuff, and Kraftwerk.
Connecting all this tangent conversation back to the issue at hand, has a techno/DJ sort of person ever smashed their mixer on stage? I'd like to see that.
Speaking of smashing shit, I need a window-breaking party... like now. If anyone in LA anywhere is having one, please please please inform me. And don't make an age limit. It's not my fault i'm 15. My parents just obviously didn't make sexy early enough. Shudders at thought. Leaves computer to eat chicken-apple sausage and polish cabbage stew. Yumkins.
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Rammstein blew up some of their instruments when I saw them.
Like, actually exploded? Because that'd be both a waste and INCREDIBLY COOL.
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DJ Swamp did a turntablist set at a DMC competition and at the end he poured lighter fluid all over the still playing records and set them on fire. That was kinda cool, but it only destroyed the records, not the turntables.
Other than that, I've gotta go with no, because that's a serious waste. I'd let 65daysofstatic do it, but that's about it. Actually, the first time I saw them they finished the show with Paul falling off the stage while playing the end of the song, and the drummer threw his whole drumkit at him, and then the mic stand. Nothing was broken, but it was pretty funny. So maybe that counts.
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What if they pulled out of their pocket and smashed the cheapest instrument they could find, like a harmonica or a maraca or one of those clicky things on sticks? that'd be cool.
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it's become a bit too cliche. it's gotta be waaaaaay \m/ moment.
sidenote - I will permit Ted Nugent to shoot a flaming arrow into a guitar for shows.
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Nine Inch Nails has a history of smashing expensive keyboards on stage...like, grabbing micstands and beating the hell out of a synthesizer. Huzzah!
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Nine Inch Nails has a history of grabbing micstands and beating the hell out of a Trent Reznor. Huzzah!
What? I can dream, can't I?
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actually, he has beat the hell out of himself with a micstand a few times...
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alex cane from anti-product frequently beats the shit out of himself at gigs. it's actually pretty disturbing.
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Profanatica perform naked, smeared in blood and excrement, and have a stage act that includes ramming crosses up their anuses and then shitting them out onto piles of burning bibles.
I need to dig up that old interview with them actually, it's great
"Q: So, I'm hearing one time, you guys got razors and slashed all up your arms before doing a gig. Why'd you do that?
A: We thought it would be a bit of a laugh."
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Horrifying. Destroying guitars during a gig is one thing, destroying yourself is entirely different.
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I'm seconding the idea of doing a complete deconstruction of the guitar to end one's set. More freebies to throw to the crowd during cleanup!
"HEY! CAN I HAVE THE TUNING KNOB!?!?"
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Horrifying.
I am pretty much certain that is the point.
I doubt they do it for the chicks, anyhow.
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Hi guys,
This is my first post to the forum, and its funny that I happened upon this topic. I was pretty sure that the guitar smash had passed, but I saw a video on Google today with the Bass player from the Sammies smashing his bass guitar. I'm not sure if it was the crazy atmosphere or the fact that he threw his beer afterwards, but the smash just seemed to blend in perfectly. I have to vote yay on the smashing.
- John
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yay thread ressurection,
It all depnds on the show whether its acceptable or not. At the end of the Peice of Mind Tour, Iron Maiden destroyed the hell out the stage, basically smashed everything they could get there hands on. Dave Murray got so caught up in it he smashed up he's favorite Strat that he'd had since he was 17, he was pretty annoyed about it afterwards.
the craziest/stupidist thing I've seen is a Nargaroth video where Kanwulf gets pissed off at people in the audience for moshing and generally not being "true" so he decides to fire tear gas canisters into the crowd, misanthropy at its finest...
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That tear gas thing is fucking amazing!!
kvlt and nerco out of 10.
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although i'm against guitar smashing i must say if your going to do it, do it right
like what tim rogers did on the chasers war on everything
man that was funny
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Kanwulf
http://www.youtube.com/v/k_jqG6NlhPI
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I find it a great deal more entertaining when it is done by a band that cannot really afford to smash guitars, because at least that means they probably did it because they were drunk and it is going to seem like a hell of a bad idea the next morning.
When you can actually afford to calculate broken guitars as a touring expense, it kind of removes the edge.
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I think that if you want to destroy your equipment, you had damn well better be creative. Apart from the fact that it hurts me to see someone destroy perfectly good equipment, it's also pretty clich?.
I liked what the guitar player of mclusky did at the end of the show though: He simply grabbed and tore out the strings with his bare hands. Apart from the fact that this creates one hell of a noise, I bet it also hurt pretty bad and it looked a lot more entertaining than someone smashing a guitar.
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i work in a pub, and theres a venue/gig room downstairs. band played, no promo oor anything like that = no fans, no people at all.
they smashed up their guitars at the end of their set. dunno why. i shouted at them anyway, because they threw it into a chair. i did not want to have to tidy up broken chairs.
so i'm a nay.
plus, why smash it up when it could go to a deserving and loving home? (by which i mean me, of course.)
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Seems like a pretty boring way to say "I'm EXTREME LOOGITMEEE!!!" just rok out and all will be well and I'm sorry you're mad at you phallic guitar symbol. Go hug your dad.
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Rammstein blew up some of their instruments when I saw them.
Like, actually exploded? Because that'd be both a waste and INCREDIBLY COOL.
SOMEONE ANSWER THIS FUCKING QUESTION IT'S BEEN BOTHERING ME FOR A YEAR
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I think it depends. I think sometimes, in the passion and heat of the moment, guitar smashing can work. A lot of my songs are laden with feedback and will end with it, and one day I plan on ending my sets with a cover of 'Climbing Up The Walls' by Radiohead. That ends with lots of discordant feedback and noise and I think you could get a lot of discordant noises from breaking your guitar to shit. However, doing it routinely at the end of every show - like Pete Townsend was reduced to doing for a long time - is shit. If it's the emotion and power of the moment, then sure.
....I just realised this thread is a year old, bumped by Johnny C. I've probably already replied saying this exact same thing.
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DK:
stuff that i didn't write
I've only learned about this "resurrecting threads" thing recently. I like it, but this isn't my work.
ALSO: Seriously someone answer me about Rammstein. It's pissing me off.
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I'm pretty sure that Rammstein genuinely do blow up their instruments. I mean they've done crazier shit. They simulate giant, sperming penises, commit buggery and set each other on fire.
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Well, then, my work in this thread is done. I applaud you, Rammstein.
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nay. after seeing townshend and cobain do it, theres no point
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(http://www.jamonline.it/jam108/images/London-Calling.jpg)
Acceptable. Under conditions of absolute techinical difficulty. Otherwise, quit being lame and just play.
edit: There was a story in Guitar Player a while back about the Hard Rock Cafe opening in NYC with the smashing of 100 Gibsons. I think they called it "the biggest frigging waste of expensive gear ever".
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I don't generally approve of completely smashing the thing, but some less extreme methods can be quite good. Stabbing them with screwdrivers, dragging them across the floor, kicking the shit out of them and drilling through them are all perfectly fine gestures.
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although i'm against guitar smashing i must say if your going to do it, do it right
like what tim rogers did on the chasers war on everything
man that was funny
Link to a YouTube?
Man it'd be hilarious to see all the twee/indie-pop bands i like smashing their cheap toy instruments. Take that, xylophone! Die, thing you blow into that also has a keyboard on it that i can never remember the name of!
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I personally, as a guitar player, think that breaking a guitar is stupid. Even the lowliest squier can still make some decent music if you rig it up just right. And why break anything that makes good music, right?
But smashing an accordian...
Somewhere in Astor Piazzolla's grave a body is spinning...
As for guitar smashing, NO! Strange as it is, I think smashing instruments is pretentious, because you're basically rubbing people's noses in your expendable income. It isn't cool and nobody's cool enough to do it. Worse yet, it's less cool than used to be, because it's so over-done. I saw some music video once with some crap band like Creed or Avril Lavigne and at the end of the video someone smashed a fucking PRS! I could have died right there, bunch of idiots.
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I liked what the guitar player of mclusky did at the end of the show though: He simply grabbed and tore out the strings with his bare hands.
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Well, then, my work in this thread is done. I applaud you, Rammstein.
Exploding keyboard during one song, there were also exploding drumsticks (what a way to end a song, I'm still not quite sure how he safely played with them, they were kind of like flares), a guitar that caught fire and possibly a guitar got blown up, I can't quite remember.
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My criteria for the acceptability of instrument smashing goes something like this:
Ask yourself; Am I a member of The Who?
If the answer is no; then you may not smash an instrument.
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Save the guitar!
Smash The Who!
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Kanwulf
http://www.youtube.com/v/k_jqG6NlhPI
I've seen that before, pretty amusing, might go some of the way towards explaining he's misanthropy.
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I liked what the guitar player of mclusky did at the end of the show though: He simply grabbed and tore out the strings with his bare hands.
that is definitely fucking cool
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Anything that Mclusky did ever was fucking cool.
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dont know mcclusky unfortunately, what kinda music?
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My gut instinct says to tell you noise rock, but they're so much more.
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I think every expert would clearly classify mclusky as "awesome".
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Actually, a dissenting group of Mcluskiologists believes a better tag would be "fucking righteous." (bold theirs.)
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I haven't seen a band smash their guitars, but I've seen a fair few of them trash their stage. Knocking over amps and trashing the drums, being all round cocks. I personally don't subscribe to stage trashing and I believe the same can be said about smashing guitars.
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Nay. I used to hate seeing bands do that because I pretty much couldn't afford a guitar of my own, and I felt pretty shitty about that. I wouldn't want to make anyone feel shitty.
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A local band, Rah Rah, consists of guitar, drums and trumpet, usually. In the intro to one of their songs the only instruments playing are trumpet and drums. The guitarist usually takes the opportunity to grab a drumstick and pretend to conduct them. He then throws the stick out into the crowd. This is the closest I've ever come to seeing a guitar smashing.
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Yes, but that is different, as drum sticks are easily and fairly cheaply replaceable. (When compared to guitars.)
But as for the original question, I say no, why waste a perfectly good guitar? (Esp. when it could have been smashed over the head of a lame emo kid in the suburbs, instead of impressing the "hardcore" kids.)
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Have you ever been pelted with a drumstick? That shit is painful.
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well, after playing something really intense you want to continue it with something more intense. smashing the shit out of something ranks right up there.
personally i think bands should cart around highly breakable yet very resiliant fine artifacts to destroy.
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This brings up a question;
Ukelele smashing, hilariously cute? Or just pathetic?
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well, after playing something really intense you want to continue it with something more intense. smashing the shit out of something ranks right up there.
personally i think bands should cart around highly breakable yet very resiliant fine artifacts to destroy.
What like Ming Vases or something, that would be awesome.
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That would be WRONG.
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Lets face it. What we really want is to see musicians smashing people on stage and this is just a stage in the evolution of that.
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well, after playing something really intense you want to continue it with something more intense. smashing the shit out of something ranks right up there.
personally i think bands should cart around highly breakable yet very resiliant fine artifacts to destroy.
In their early days, Bloodhound Gang - and they told me this personally - used to just carry around garbage and smash that up instead.
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Have you ever been pelted with a drumstick? That shit is painful.
No, I throw them. :-P
But I know what you mean.
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Smashing your guitar is only cool if you are Pete Townshend and it is the 1960's.
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Have you ever been pelted with a drumstick? That shit is painful.
Pelted? No. But my skill on the drumset is such that I have hit myself both in the face and on the leg with drumsticks while trying to play, and that is quite painful, so I can imagine that what you say is true.
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Nay to smashing. What I would really like to see is someone who sets their guitar on fire and then KEEPS ON PLAYING. Now that would be cool. Asbestos gloves would probably be a must though, which might make soloing a tad harder...
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No, they would just play with their teeth.
As for the smashing: nay. Give your shit to me instead.
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Nay to smashing. What I would really like to see is someone who sets their guitar on fire and then KEEPS ON PLAYING. Now that would be cool. Asbestos gloves would probably be a must though, which might make soloing a tad harder...
Where have you been? Beck did that in a video in 1994 - as well as onstage regularly beforehand, I think - and I'm pretty sure Hendrix did it in the 60s.
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You see, I have not seen it. Also, I think Hendrix only set his guitar on fire when he was finished playing. If someone could link me that Beck video though, I will be eternally grateful...
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Just search for the video to Loser. It must be all over.