Bands known for smashing their instruments

Belle and Sebastian did this once (well, Stuart smashed his guitar anyway, in Dublin). That seems quite unlikely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5zoXULaRo&search=hijokaidan

Art of Noise :)

Based on one occasion of hearing Acid Mothers Temple do some Townshend-oid gratuitous guitar smashing to culminate a set played at Live at Budokan volume in a room not much bigger than a two-bedroom apartment, I'd say Dud.

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ah ha, i was wondering why you weren't playing when you said you would be. i presume that the "backline" is the amps and such? the way i remember it, most of the bands had their own. i've heard of barry hogan vetoing other bands he doesn't like for no good reason too.

i don't think i've ever seen anyone smash an instrument. i should start going to tougher concerts.

I saw them once and, after smashing up their instruments, a memeber of the audience stole thier BASS DRUM and smuggled it out of the gig. I've seem people tief drum sticks, but a bass drum strikes me as pretty impressive!

That was a great episode - I think also included Jimi doing 'Sunshine of Your Love' impromptu on the Lulu show or something, footage from the final Cream gig and a super-spooky performance of 'Set Your Controls for the Heart of the Sun' by Pink Floyd, filmed in crazy colours - scared me to death as a kid!!

They smashed shit in a big way when they played in brisbane, australia a few years ago. Stuff like the netting at that venue which had been up for years and years got ripped down.

i wouldn't be surprised if KLF smashed up their shit once or twice, too.

The Yardbirds...

Also, in the early 70s a friend told me about a band, I think it was Black Oak Arkansas or Grand Funk Railroad, that did this, but because they couldn't really afford it, the guitarist would discreetly switch his Gibson SG with an SG copy (made by Ventura, which is the guitar my friend had) for the smashing.

Wrong movie title. Blow Out is the Travolta movie you're thinking of.

(from a 1989 interview in Musician magazine)

MUSICIAN: Care to share a fond memory of a concert before your book comes out?

ENTWISTLE: I very rarely lose my temper. I let things bottle up and then something small or silly will be the last straw and I'll blow my top and everyone will run away and hide. Roger had been yelling at me all tour in 1974 to turn down. So I'd turn down and I'd be quite happy playing like that. And then Pete would scream from the other side of the stage, "I can't hear you! Turn up!" So I'd turn up, thinking, "What the fuck is this." For three weeks Roger would yell at me to turn down, and four seconds later Pete would yell at me to turn up. Finally we were in Houston, Texas, and Roger screamed in the microphone, "TURN DOWN!"

I thought, "I don't mind you screaming at me to turn down, but I don't need you to scream at me in front of the bloody audience." So I smashed the head off the bass, threw it in front of him and said, "You play the fuckin' thing!" He just stood there, with the song halfway through. I walked to the back of the amplifiers and they'd taken the fuckin' stairs away. I was in a bad enough temper that I jumped off the back of the stage. And it was 12 feet high. It felt like my spine came out the top of my head. But it was Chinese water torture out there: "TURN DOWN!" "TURN UP!"

Until they start throwing their fists.

Apocryphal story but supposedly Jimi first smashed-and-burned at Monterey Pop to one-up The Who who had just played earlier.

The handful of times they ever played didn't really involve smashable instruments. "Look behind the lighting desk! I've hit the DAT with a hammer!" Drummond did want to cut off his hand with a chainsaw at the Brits appearance with Extreme Noise Terror, though, and was talked down to just machine-gunning the audience with blanks. (And ENT's vegetarianism led to the sheep being dumped on the doorstep afterwards, rather than sliced open onstage and its guts thrown over the crowd.)

At at least one rave, they demanded their fee upfront in Scottish one-pound notes, and threw them into the crowd with "we love you children" hand-written on 'em.

This news story from NME (Nov. '90) is almost certainly bollocks planted by their PR*, but if not, does fit your theory bar one pronoun:

"THE KLF are at the centre of a controversy again after causing a disturbance during the Disco Mix Club's European Convention at Amsterdam's Paradiso Club. During one of their public appearances, as headline act at the DMC Convention, the notorious pranksters decided to 'liberate' the organiser's equipment and re-distribute it to the audience. Reports say they were coming to the end of a 23 minute version of their hit 'What Time is Love?' when Bill Drummond decided to give the Technics decks, mixers and other sound gear away to fans in the crowd. Organisers were forced to step in to try and retrieve the equipment as security staff clashed with Drummond himself. As the melee developed, Drummond's partner Jimmy Cauty allegedly blew up the mixing desk. Most of the equipment was salvaged, but not surprisingly the KLF have been banned from the Dutch venue."

*Reports say... 23 minute version? DEAD GIVEAWAY.

My recollection was the Yardbirds were first but who knows (cares).

The scene in movie actually features the band with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

Lame.

I also read about some guitarist who had a guitar, the sole purpose of which was to play the last song and be smashed up.
Said instrument would later be patched up by his roadie, ready for the next night.

I've never been too impressed with the Vines.I think Rites of Spring might have been the first band to smash their equipment during rehearsal.

I saw Richey Manic do the same thing at an early MSP gig (cheap fender copy). Pathetic.

Townshend was probably the first. Broke the headstock off his 12-string Rickenbacker by accident (venue had a low stage) and the crowd loved it. This would have been 65, IIRC.
― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, July 12, 2006 3:16 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not the first at all, by a couple of decades. Full-on guitar/bass/violin smashing at around 8:00, exploding guitar at 12:45:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAzm9yBfoHM

Yeah, but was Spike Jones influenced by Gustav Metzger?

Other way round surely? Metzger was active in the 60s, Spike's routines were all developed in the 40s and he died in 1965.

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/assets/img/data/291/bild.jpg

Nam June Paik
«One for Violin Solo»
Over the course of five minutes, Paik very slowly and intently lifts up a violin in this on-stage action on 16 June 1962 – and then smashes it with one blow on the table. Simultaneously, the lights go up in the auditorium. After the long drawn-out suspense, only one, final sound has been produced by the instrument.

I definitely wouldn't rule out Metzger being influenced by Jones. I don't know when Metzger first applied auto-destruction to instruments, but his manifesto Auto-Destructive Art was published in 1959.

Dud, as anything other than a 60s experiment, for the same reason that lighting piles of money on fire is a dud.

I mean, we've all got destructive impulses or bad habits but they're not classic.

Earlier this week, Schechter Guitars posted a picture on FB of a guitar that had been smashed by some guy in a band called Seether. Here's one of the comments:

How about youidiots shut the f#ck up? It's Shaun's gear, he does whatever he wants with that, I agree with "that could have been some kid's pass to music" but it wasn't, and as a musician I know at the end of a song I get too excited and I want to break my guitar too, but I can't cause I don't have money to buy another one, but it's called energy...

I've never been that excited. : /

what about bands who accidently smash their instruments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cirDaWcGwIE