![]() ![]() In the ‘60s, the city of London (and New York, two years later) hosted the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) where musicians from all over the world came together to perform and violently destroy their instruments in front of big crowds. As in “the first rock guitarist to smash his instrument”. Pete Townshend, as in “the lead guitarist of The Who”. There’s another interesting thing about Metzger which concerns our topic, besides pouring hydrochloric acid on industrial materials and writing about it – he was Pete Townshend’s teacher. It turned into a whole movement in art and logically, spread to music as well. His role in the whole instrument-bashing thing was developing the concept of Auto-Destructive Art. ![]() He was an artist and a political activist. Have you heard of Gustav Metzger? Well, you have now. The problem is that repeating a shocking gesture is not that shocking at all. When people do it nowadays, even if they are sometimes sincere, it’s usually out of a desire to be “cool”. It was an outrageous demonstration of the social intolerance versus the political and cultural dogma of the time, at least for the most part. When musicians first did it, it wasn’t just a stage trick to get more attention. Oh, man, the ’60s…īut WHY? Why do people do that? First, there’s a canyon of difference between “do” and “did”. The lights went up in the auditorium and that was it. What he did was basically create huge suspense in his audience by very slowly lifting a violin over his head (it took him, like, five minutes or so) and finally smashing it into a table, producing just this one sound of devastation. In 1962 violin virtuoso Nam June Paik performed what was called the “One for Violin Solo”. At the famous New York Five Spot Café, jazz legend Charles Mingus was so frustrated with some very annoying members of the audience that he slammed his $20,000 bass guitar into the stage – demonstrating both his hot temper and his net worth.Ĭlassical music got there pretty early as well – in the ‘60s, of course. Rock musicians were not the only ones to turn their poor instruments useless by smashing them onstage. Lewis who reportedly set fire to numerous pianos, scaring the living hell out of audiences around the US of A. Although people usually think of Jimi Hendrix when it comes to burning stuff on stage, in the 1950s it was Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis is widely thought to be the first rock musician to ever “officially” destroy an instrument during a live performance. Guitars normally get all the credit but the truth is pianos were most likely first. ![]()
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