# Musicians who destroy their instruments (stage gimmick) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 15, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040 "2016-09-15T21:16:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/21 "2016-09-16T18:29:43Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I saw a local blues performer destroy his harmonica on stage. He was having problems with it and he slapped it on his leg a few times but the problem persisted. He eventually threw it down on the ground and stomped on it repeatedly, grinding his heel and crushing the thing. > > The crowd gave him a prolonged standing ovation. He said something to the effect, “and that, friends, is what the blues are all about.” I’m not a harmonica player but apparently they only have a certain useful life. Probably less if played by someone like John Popper. Throughout a concert he will play out several harmonicas and then throw them into the crowd. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/22 "2016-09-16T18:45:52Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I’m not a harmonica player but apparently they only have a certain useful life. Probably less if played by someone like John Popper. Throughout a concert he will play out several harmonicas and then throw them into the crowd. A buddy of mine plays harmonica for several local bands. Years ago he gave me a nice, shiny harmonica for my birthday. He told me that I should put it up on my Jeeps dash and in a year or two I’d be proficient. I put the harp where he suggested and it has been there for 8 or 10 years. I still can’t play. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/23 "2016-09-17T03:34:18Z")
Years ago, I remember Eric Clapton telling an interviewer that just once he’d smashed a guitar on stage- and he regretted it immediately. It was one of Clapton’s favorite guitars, and he said it never sounded right again. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/24 "2016-09-17T03:55:16Z")
In his book _The Who: Maximum R&B_, Richard Barnes (who was Pete Townshend’s college roommate) discusses how replacing guitars and other equipment was a considerable expense for the band in their early years, but also explains that Townshend and the crew got to be pretty good at repairing guitars and salvaging parts from those that were past repairing. Years later, after the release of John Hiatt’s “Perfectly Good Guitar”, Townshend said in an interview that most of the guitars he smashed were not in fact “perfectly good”. Of the good ones he had smashed, a fair number had actually been given to him by fans who _wanted_ to see them smashed. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/25 "2016-09-17T18:23:07Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > [Listi of guitars smashed by Pete Townshend](http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/guitar/smashed.html) > > I only got to him do it once-at Oakland in 1982…and, as the saying goes, the crowd went wild. Heh, I was at that 1982 Cotton Bowl show, and remember that he couldn’t get it to break. Still, I loved it. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/26 "2016-09-17T18:32:44Z")
Been busy, but have been reading this thread. Y’know, not much to add. When it happens spontaneously or it’s used at a key performance like Monterey Pop, it’s part of the full statement. When it’s programmed in to Kiss’s robotic routine - I’ve heard that their shows in various cities vary in length by a minute or so - well, yuck. I’ve mentioned before where Pete’s smashing of his Strat was angry and was likened to rape in some reviews I’ve read. Hendrix’s immolation and destruction of his Strat was self-described as a sacrifice of something he loved. The contrast is interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/27 "2016-09-18T16:36:39Z")
Surprised that Jeff Beck would have to require prompting from Antonioni to wreck his guitar in _Blow Up_. Spending almost 25 years drumming in crazy, noisy bands (since retired), I’ve seen oodles and oodles of destroyed, um…everything? In the last couple years I just resigned to having my kit get all moshed over at gigs. Sometimes by the end of a song, my floor tom ended up about 15 feet away. As a spectator, perhaps the finest display of onstage carnage I’ve seen was put on by one of the most spectacular fucking live bands in the history of most universes - The Boredoms, from Japan. Quite the exercise for your eyeballs seeing their vocalist, Yamatsuka Eye, et al, going just bat-shit insane on that stage. Mind-booming, from '94. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/28 "2016-09-18T17:48:44Z")
My favorite [Boredoms](https://s3.amazonaws.com/bit-photos/large/5298066.jpeg) photo. Completely amazing band. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/29 "2016-09-18T18:44:26Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > Surprised that Jeff Beck Jeff Beck is a car mechanic at heart. He respects his tools. He smashed guitars on stage out of genuine anger, but otherwise it’s not his thing. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/30 "2016-09-19T00:03:38Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > My friend Washboard Breezy frequently destroys washboard at Big Damn Band shows, and sells signed broken washboard at the merch tent after a show. I got the metal part of the board after one of their shows and had it framed. It looks rather nice. Modern art-ish. Not signed though. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/31 "2016-09-19T02:56:21Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > My favorite [Boredoms](https://s3.amazonaws.com/bit-photos/large/5298066.jpeg) photo. Completely amazing band. Awesome wicked. Thanks! Yeah, just like I remembered Eye. At the gig I was at, one of my buddies, Hugh, got thrown out for being drunk. I riled him out of being falling-down-drunk from off the sidewalk, managed to prop him up, and direct back inside with an explanation to the bouncers that he’ll be cool this time and remain sitting on a chair (despite him not _really_ looking up for the part:p), and it wasn’t even one minute later, back in the WAY-overpacked club, that I lost track of Hugh, and thought - oh great, probably passed out somewhere/thrown out. And then, wearing a different Boredoms t-shirt, Hugh comes up saying he was having a good chat with Eye, and apparently he liked Hugh’s _Soul Discharge_ tee, and they swapped. As he explained this, it was pretty darned rad cool seeing Eye come running out onstage, screaming, with Hugh’s drunken-ass-saved tee on. (hope that sidebar was worth that hi-jack) > [@WordMan](#): > > Jeff Beck is a car mechanic at heart. He respects his tools. He smashed guitars on stage out of genuine anger, but otherwise it’s not his thing. Makes sense, especially with his strong leanings into r and b, soul, and jazz fusion, whose musicians certainly engage in less guitar/equipment havoc, compared to JB’s rock contemporaries, anyway. shit - I gotta derail for two seconds _again_ for one of my most alltime watched youtube vids…nice intimate little venue, with the great Vinnie Colaiuta on drums: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPc819ryy0g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPc819ryy0g) from wikipedia, about Beck: “…fastidious about overdubs, and often dissatisfied with his solos…” I like that restlessness in a musician. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040/32 "2016-09-19T05:07:49Z")
Saw the updated Behind the Music on Weird Al, and noticed he burned an accordion, probably as a parody. Surely that one was fake. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-destroy-their-instruments-stage-gimmick/766040.md?page=1)