The truest joy of being a rock star is not playing the music you love for money, or punishing your liver with a zealous vengeance (and being encouraged to do so), or even wearing a cheap cowboy hat onstage while you cover Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica and make jokes about Michael Hutchence’s affinity for leather belts.

No, the absolute peak of your life as a performing musician comes when you take a live instrument (amp cranked to a painful volume that is further enhanced with a serious distortion pedal) pound out the final notes of whatever song you happen to be playing (note: must be bombastic and drawn out; the more retarded and METAL the better — in this case, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”by Metallica, done up all hellbilly style), remove said instrument from your body, and procede to use your instrument to put a divot in the concrete floor of the club you’re playing.

Hendrix and Townsend had it right.  Smashing your guitar, while somewhat hazardous to anyone standing in front of you, is brilliant fun.

If only I had been allowed to set things on fire, the night would have been complete.