Guitar drag - how to destroy a guitar

poopot

Isn’t this exactly how Gibson age their custom shop models?... the results look the same

aord43

axisus said:

I used to hate people smashing guitars, but I totally get it now. It's a powerful form of rebellion, a statement that can work on many levels. It can say the music is everything and this is just a tool, it can say I'm rich enough to not care, it can say does this shock you, it can say f**k the man, it can say this instrument pissed me off, it can say you pissed me off, it can say I'm trying to incite a reaction from a mob ... So many possibilities!

None of which implies you still can't hate it!

DulcetJones

Art with a capitol "F".

Phil_aka_Pip

So, not a Lester in a Daisy Rock outfit then?

merlin

I saw Richie Blackmore with Rainbow at the Capital Cinema in Cardiff many years ago. Must have been in 1976 or 1977. I was sitting upstairs in the Circle. At the end of the set he went behind his onstage stack and from where I was sitting, you could see him remove his guitar, strap on another one (obviously a cheap version) come back on stage and smash it up. 

The crowd downstairs probably couldn't see the swap, and went nuts, but us lot in the gods saw the whole fakery. Also, the neck snapped as he bashed it on his (probably fake) wedge, so it must have been a truss-rod-free cheapo instrument. I thought he was a real twat without the courage of his convictions despite being able to really play! 

Phil_aka_Pip

@merlin there is another story about how he got his guitars mixed up. As you say the breakable ones are cheap lookalikes, and are often "prepared" by having cuts previously made in various strategic places - and probably the odd neck bolt removed as well. On one occasion the guitar didn't break so easily and he realised too late he was trying to break up a good one.

Frankly I don't get the performace art of it, I'd rather see and hear him play. The squeals the instrument makes while being broken don't strike me as good music, but that is just my personal opinion. Others may like it. The upside is that cheap crap gets destroyed so that beginners don't have to learn on it

usedtobe

Well aware there are far worse things in the world, and they do bother me much more than some wanker smashing a guitar, fwiw..

merlin

I just remembered this....



And with explanation by "The Artist".

tampaxboo

i like the streets of oxford one best. has more of a feel for going on a journey. the instrument being sensitive to changes in the environment. it's the most 'musical', in its broadest sense.

the truck one was overkill. more of a Viva La Bam prank feel to it. not a sound experience.

the smashing one was only interesting from the perspective of performance. the sound aspect was marginal.
the tensions; will he do it? when? what will happen if he does/doesn't? what is he thinking? what will make him decide now and not now? it more about performance than sound.

as for being a waste of good instruments, i doubt it. they are probably non or semi-functioning wrecks. like cars in banger racing.
a smart thing to do would be to monetise the destruction of a wreck guitar to generate funds to buy a decent guitar that you then make music with. or give to a school etc.

destroying valuable things has a useful provocation value in the right context. you sacrifice a small thing of value that people will get excited about, to attract attention to yourself, and then redirect that attention to a cause you feel should be getting more attention.

there's also anxiety-release potential on a freudian level (within a pressurised consumerist context) at seeing aspirational symbols destroyed. subconscious libidinal urges gratified not by the posession of, but by the destruction of, the given object of desire.

you can go front or back brain routes with it, but lots of exploratory/experimental potential.

but all musicians are destroyers of one kind or another, in that you 'destroy' silence every time you play a note.