Guitar smashing

Gustav Metzger, the idea of auto-destructive works of art, and its influence on rock music

Wolfgang Kraushaar

pp. 119-134

in: Timothy Scott Brown, Andrew Lison (eds), The global sixties in sound and vision, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

June 18, 1967, Monterey, California. Behind the scenes of the first great open-air concert, a bitter argument between two rock bands breaks out over the order of the lineup. The Who do not want to go on after the Jimi Hendrix Experience, nor the other way around. The two frontmen, Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix, remain intractably opposed. That neither is willing to defer to the other is by no means due only to vanity, but rather a very tangible reason. At the climax and close of their sets, both bands have outrageously dramatic displays of showmanship planned: they want to use their own instruments to destroy their equipment. Clearly, such a spectacle cannot be performed before the same audience twice in one night. In an attempt to find a solution, John Philips of The Mamas and The Papas flips a coin. Hendrix loses and defiantly declares that he will pull out all the stops. What results is one of the most bizarre and sensational performances in the history of rock music.