Page "Pete Townshend" Paragraph 6

After The High Numbers once again became The Who, Townshend wrote several successful singles for the band, including " I Can't Explain ", " Pictures of Lily ", " Substitute ", and " My Generation ".

Townshend became known for his eccentric stage style during the band's early days, often interrupting concerts with lengthy introductions of songs.

He developed a signature move in which he would swing his right arm against the guitar strings in a style reminiscent of the vanes of a windmill.

He became one of the first musicians known for smashing guitars on stage and would repeatedly throw them into his amplifiers and speaker cabinets.

The first incident of guitar-smashing happened when Townshend accidentally broke the neck of his guitar on the low ceiling of an early concert venue at the Railway Tavern in Harrow.

The stage, only about a foot high, nevertheless brought the ceiling to within 7 feet.

After smashing the instrument to pieces, he carried on by grabbing another guitar and acting as if the broken guitar had been part of the act.

Drummer Keith Moon was delighted ; he loved attention and destruction on any level, and smashed his drum kit as well.

The press sensationalised the incidents.

The on-stage destruction of instruments soon became a regular part of The Who's performances.

This was further dramatised with pyrotechnics, an idea which came from Moon, who incorporated it in his exploding drum kits.

At a concert in Germany, a police officer walked up to Townshend, pointed his gun at him, and ordered him to stop smashing the guitar.

Townshend, always a voluble interview subject, would later relate these antics to German / British artist Gustav Metzger's theories on auto-destructive art, to which he had been exposed at art school.

However, on several occasions, he admitted that the destruction was a gimmick that set the band out apart from the others and gave them the publicity edge that they needed to be noticed.