FirstMeasure Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Never have and never will smash an instrument on stage, no matter how cheap or already broken it is. It just sends the wrong message and I don't like the "Iconic Vision" of guitar meeting the stage. To me it says the artist ran out of musical ideas and is scrambling to find someway to upstage the last act. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Californiaman Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 SMASH 'EM! BURN 'EM! PHUQ SZHIT UP! IT"S ONLY ROCK-N-ROLL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.R.M.30! Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 There are Japanese made electric guitars that are made to be smashed. I dunno how much they are so....Get those and smash away! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaleb Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 What about Paul Stanley and the Gibson Marauders? I love KISS, but he comes off as a poser sometimes.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 There are Japanese made electric guitars that are made to be smashed. I dunno how much they are so....Get those and smash away! The Japanese market has been one of the leaders in quality for at least the last 25 years. China is today's leader in cheap crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 I don't see the point. It's been done and the coolness factor has been there done that. And like Izzy said, let someone less fortunate have an instrument to learn/play on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FenderGuy1 Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 For me, i would get a cheap guitar, smash it after the last song, like Hendrix did at monterey, hehe u will guess where that goes..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crowdaddy Posted September 15, 2012 Share Posted September 15, 2012 I never "got", smashing the guitar. My first reaction was, why would anyone that loves to play guitar smash one? I call it acute attention seeking behavior. AASB. If you can't get recognized through the actual music, or get satisfaction from playing one, it's one way to get noticed. The attitude who cares how I get noticed was a short fad. or How many times as a young broke band member would I have loved to have the throw aways that "big" band members were trashing? Â If you are tempted to trash it, do like mentioned on here, give it to a kid who can't afford one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manse Posted September 15, 2012 Share Posted September 15, 2012 Only pic I've got of it is this pic of my studio Don't look at the bong. Â yeah - it's horrible... Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brundaddy Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 Smashing guitars is a pose, and an unoriginal one at that. Or else a temper tantrum. Either way doesn't entertain me. A band I play in, the singer/guitar player smashed his OG 1961 SG. Foolish. He cried like a baby about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinh Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 Just gotta stick up my hand for the rule of law, the 1st Amendment, and private property here, if I want to buy an instument and smash it, burn it in the backyard, or even take the equivalent in $100 bills and light cigars with them, this is my complete right as an American. Expession of one's stupidity is a Constitutional right within certain public safety bounds. Conversely, it is also my unalianable right as an American to think that you are an idiotic poseur for doing so. Â If there are limits, it would be with objects that are so rare or irreplacable that the public interets intervenes, vis, buying a rare historical relic like Michalengelo's David and grinding it up. General production guitars do not meet that criteria. I'll leave it open to debate whether a '59 Flame Top has yet reached that "public interest" point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 I'm pretty good at acting like I'm destroying my guitar on stage. I freaked my wife out when I "Threw" my #1 Strat on the stage and "Kicked" it across the floor. It looks like I'm really giving it a hard time, but it goes through more stress getting put away in the case. The best part is, you get the audience reaction when you're kicking it around, and you get it again when you play the next song on a perfectly in tune guitar that was just manhandled on stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaleb Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 When Townshend did it it was somewhat cool, but anyone else who does it is automatically an epic poser.... Â I smashed a guitar TWICE. The first was when I was a little kid and I smashed a cheap plywood acoustic toy thingy. The second was when I smashed a cheap Epi SG. In hindsight, it was really stupid! Â Other than those two incidents, a couple accidental headstock breaks, and all the times I've torn guitars apart (I like to tinker!) if you count that, I've never ruined a guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrosurfer1959 Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 Definitely NO - not only is it stupid but it can be dangerous also. Â Sadly I did it once and I'll always remember it. It was a 1977 Fender Strat that luckily was pretty much a waste of wood. it was purchased used and was in bad shape with a repaint that looked ok from far away and the guitar just would not play well at all. Now I know enough to realize that it most likely had a twisted neck and could have been repaired but at that time it was just a cheap guitar that sounded horrible and would not stay in tune even for one song. I got fed up and basically just tossed it down in disgust and the crowd as well as the rest of our band started yelling smash it! Sadly at that time due to a combination of youth, misplaced anger and a lot of chemicals including about 1/2 bottle of Jack Daniels it sounded like a good idea at that time at least, so I picked it up flipped it like a baseball bat and gave it a hell of a smack against the stage which sadly was a raised wooden platform in the bar we were in so the guitar hit and bounced up badly causing all kinds of mayhem. The guitar broke quite well sending a jagged piece of the lower bout into my drummers leg requiring three stitches which was an amazingly low number since it speared him basically, he could hardly walk for over a week, as well as twisting it in my hand so badly I needed 7 stitches in my left hand where a tuner got me, it also cracked a guitar body sized hole into the stage which of course we had to pay for. Between the damage to the stage, the medical bills and missing the next weekend because of a damaged guitar player and drummer we all decided smashing guitars was not a good idea and would not be repeated. The only other time a guitar pissed me off so badly i never wanted to play it again I just handed it to a pretty brunette in the front row. Trust me the fall out from that was a whole lot more pleasurable and required no medical treatments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonzoboy Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 Guitar smashing and amp bashing has long been a cliché.Back in the early days of the British Invasion,Pete Townshend took to guitar smashing and the fans would go crazy.Jimi Hendrix took guitar and amp smashing and bashing and raised it to the level of being a performance art form.When Jimi hit the stage at Monterey,his technical prowess on the guitar alone wowed the audience but he established his role of guitardom`s King of the Hill as well and has pretty well kept it ever since.When Jimi told the Who that if he was made to follow their performance at Monterey he'd "Pull Out All The Stops"- he certainly did that and then some.When he took out the lighter fuel while kneeling at the "Sacrificial" guitar and proceeded to cremate it and then give it an incredibly violent smashing.The Monterey performance not only placed him at the pinnacle of the guitar kingdom but also established him as the quintessential showman.  When guitarists do it now the only message they are conveying to the audience is that they are dull unimaginative poseurs,that is unless the are doing a Who or Hendrix tribute show.A few years ago Brooks and Dunn played an outdoor concert here and at the end of their final song they both held their beautiful new Gibsons by the necks baseball bat style,swung and bashed the backs together thus reducing the beautiful works of art to splinters.Some of the younger ones who weren't around in the 60s thought it was a great finale but most of the older crowd-and of course musicians-just rolled their eyes over the copy-cat waste of 2 beautiful,new,hand-crafted instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVOL! Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 bonzoboy hit the nail on the head. It was revolutionary and quite a rock and roll show when the Who and Hendrix did it in 1967. Now a days it looks like a bad copycat act. I can understand frustration at a guitar that won't play in tune or acts out during a show. Throwing it on the ground happens. Smashing it? That takes intent. Â One note on Hendrix at Monterey - the critics slammed Hendrix's set. I think they called it Neanderthal; probably for the guitar smashing spectacle. In his defense, Hendrix did say before "Wild Thing" that he was going to sacrifice something he really loved and not to think he is silly for doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVOL! Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 Only pic I've got of it is this pic of my studio Don't look at the bong. Â Â Nice bong! ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissouriPicker Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 I've never undeerstood what smashing a guitar is supposed to mean. Are they mad, stupid, ignorant, releasing pent-up sexual frustrations, etc.? To me, it's kind of a sign of immaturity, but what-the-hell do I know? I'm 65 and still haven't grown-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevie Nazarenie Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 When Jimi Hendrix played... he was the best guitar player in the world? All they wanted to see him do was smash his guitar... he got sick of it and wished he never had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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