I moved to a case containing some of his key guitars. The first guitar was a gold Danelectro. Next to it was a classic photo I’d long known, of a 15-year-old Jimi standing outside with this guitar slung off his right hip. The boy is exhuberant. I don’t know the circumstances of the photo, but it strikes me as if he was about a week into owning this guitar. He’s finding himself. I couldn’t take my eyes off the gold Danelectro, only to take quick glances at the photo next to it before looking back at the guitar and remembering my own teenage crush on the whole notion of being a guitar player.
The white Strat from Woodstock was cool to see. The chunks of famously smashed guitars from Monterey, Woodstock, and some other show sent tingles up my spine. That whole guitar-smashing/amp-humping routine of Jimi’s, as slightly embarrassing and calculated it would seem when artists following his footsteps would try it, seemed sincere and even necessary for the evolution of rock when Pete Townshend and then Hendrix did it. In another room, where a bunch of short films on Hendrix played, an early-70s Townshend told a cool story about first being bummed that Jimi had nicked his schtick but later appreciating the personal spin he put on it.
BigSteve mentioned some childhood drawings. There was a colorful notebook drawing of Elvis Presley that caught my eye. Check it out! It suggests a pretty cool processing of rock ‘n roll at place, more mysterious, first-season, blue-windbreaker Fonzie than the better-known Leather Fonz.
“That whole guitar-smashing/amp-humping routine of Jimi’s, as slightly embarrassing and calculated it would seem when artists following his footsteps would try it, seemed sincere and even necessary for the evolution of rock when Pete Townshend and then Hendrix did it”
Was Cobain brave or foolish for attempting to walk with giants?
Cobain was brave for many other things, in my opinion, but his guitar-smashing/amp-humping routine seemed no more powerful than what any of us might have done out of a desire to be part of that tradition. What do you think?
I’m truly ambivalent but I did think it was funny how indignant people were about that SNL appearance, often making a big show of re-enacting how bored they were by it. Even if their reactions were more nuanced, they seemed just as peeved as my parents would be.
On the other hand, the whole tradition has a privileged, “carpenter disrespectful to his tools” quality that bugs the grandson of the Depression in me.
Still, if he was only aiming to get himself in the footnotes of rock history, Cobain must be pleased somewhere that no discussion on the politics of guitar-smashing can be held without mentioning his name.
-db
(just finishing up his vacation and getting into the swing of things….)
Yeah I’m not really interested in science fiction, so I forgot all about that part of the museum. It’s true that the inside is not as out there as the exterior of the building. It seems like there’s a lot of wasted space, like they haven’t quite figured out yet all of what’s going in there.
One thing that exhibit does in reinforce the once-in-a-lifetime aspect of Hendrix. Even with all the artifacts of his upbringing and apprenticeship, he still seems to have come out of nowhere. Genius is always a quality that cannot be adequately explained, but Hendrix is a special case.
That EMF building is ugly as all heck. It looks like a melted Visible V-8 Engine model kit.
Jim said “…Hendrix (who played on a Covay single I don’t know)”
I say: What Covey track did he play on besides Mercy Mercy? Do you recall the name?
I don’t recall the name. I’ve been meaning to look it up.