A show Stopping Event

The discussion in class on Wednesday in which we mentioned artists destroying their instruments at the end of the performance got me thinking about my favorite band, Nirvana. For those who are unaware of the stage antics of this particular grunge band, they were well known for destroying their instruments at the end of their shows. The class as a whole felt that the destruction of the instruments was a distasteful and disrespectful to the instruments in a way. This, in turn, got me thinking about why musicians, who are supposed to love their craft, would do such a thing to begin with.
I do know of a few bands, Nirvana in particular, who would use the method of destroying their instruments as a way of insuring that they would not have to play an encore. For a band that was just playing for about an hour and a half, an encore can seem a daunting task, what better way to make sure that both the audience and your manager cannot expect anymore of you than to damage the instruments that you played with? To me this seems to be logical, if not practical. Of course there were other ways to get around it, destroying a set is a bit dramatic, but it is my belief that they wanted the drama to begin with. It definitely is a show stopping event.
I also feel that deep inside of everyone, there is that destructive urge bubbling beneath the surface. We all experience those moments of extreme anger and frustration in which we want to punch a wall or destroy something. Artists, especially those who experience great success, can become very anxious and at times angered by the forced change in their own lifestyle. I always thought that at the moment those artists destroyed their instruments it was a way of releasing their anger that was in some ways created by their talents with the instrument. This was true for people like Kurt Cobain who did not like the media craze that surrounded his stardom and musical career. So I am not surprised that he often destroyed instruments at the end of his set, however, the instruments were not unusable afterwards.
A little known fact about the Nirvana front man was that he was a skilled guitar technician I guess you would call it. Generally after a show in which they would destroy the set, Kurt would work on and fix the guitars himself. He even said that many guitars would survive a few destructions before he could no longer fix them. So while the idea of an artist destroying their instrument might be disrespectful to many, he would fix the damage that he had done.
To be honest, I have no definite idea as to why musicians sometimes destroy their instruments, and since that I am not a musician myself, I do not experience the same abhorrence that a musician might when they see others commit this act. I do, however, think that this is a very interesting social phenomenon that deserves more in-depth analysis and thought.

Question: Is there any justification for a musician who destroys their own instrument?

Natural Sounding Music

This is in response to Sarah’s question; do you ever think we will incorporate early music (music of nature) with our newer "popular" music today?
I believe that there are a few answers to this question. If you want to know if popular music will utilize technology and imitate the sounds of nature then I think that the answer is yes. If you are questioning whether or not some artist, band or composer, is going to go out into the woods and record and use what he finds there, maybe. Do I think that nature and its sounds are going to start dominating the music scene today, not so much.
Technology is making things a lot easier for the lives of recording artists. With computerized music one does not need to say go out and get a sample recording of rain if they want to incorporate it into their music. They can simply go into the studio and make it with their technological devices. One band that did do such a thing was Godsmack on their song On Rainy Day off their fourth studio album. Like the title says, there is rain in the audio of the piece. However Sully Erna or Shannon Larkin did not go out and record these themselves. They used a previously created sound bite that was probably in some catalogue. So is this incorporating nature into popular music, well Godsmack is a popular band, and the rain can be found in nature but is it really a natural sound when it was created by man in a sound booth?
This also brings me to my next point, which is whether or not musicians will take the time to go out and record the sounds themselves. This I do think is possible. Musicians are by nature a creative being so it does not seem to be out of the realm of possibility that someone will want to actually get a recording of living birds to put into their piece. In the 60s Pink Floyd brought a dog into the studio and allowed the dog to bark and incorporated it into their album Meddle, so it is not an unheard of occurrence.
Even though there are occurrences of technology masquerading as nature or even actual nature popping up in music, I do not think that it will dominate the popular music in our society. Our culture is becoming more and more obsessed with technological advances and what can we do next that I do not see an immediate or complete return to the sounds of nature in our music of popular choice.

Question: Do you think creating nature sounds in a studio is the same as recording it from nature? Why or why not.