onetonnemusic

It’s it the adoring groupies? Nope, got plenty of them…
Smelly roadies that have seen more concerts than have seen showers? Yep.
Is it the sleazy agent who’s secretly skimming 10% over and above what he was supposed to take at the door? Hell yeah! You should see his new gold teeth.
So what is it then… is perhaps that the hotel room you’re staying at isn’t totally destroyed yet? But what do you mean? Ahhh… Now I see the problem… read on genteel rockstar.

But first a little history...

How long have rockstars been trashing rooms? I mean were Led Zep the collective fathers of room trashing and everyone else a pale imitation of their sheer genius? One of the earliest recorded room thrashers was the great man himself, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The dead classical dude. Apparently the virtuoso was pretty cranky and erratic and had quite thing for trashing hotel rooms, and he hated to clean up after himself. He would trash the room and just get another. What a trailblazer! An inspiration to all aspiring rockstars the world over. This guy had it all, a funky wig AND a dirty room. Rock out 1791!

So after that, everyone else was just paying tribute to the big M. Man, that’s pretty impressive I think, back then I’m sure if you could get transported to prison in the colonies for stealing a loaf of bread, Mozart was probably racking up enough criminal charges to go around the world about 666 times. But of course because he was a genius he gets away with it – another approach is to leave before anyone finds out, but old Wolfgang was the pioneer of the punk “I don’t give a toss, give me another room” attitude.

At the movies…

Of course the best way to get a good idea of how to trash a room, you only have to go down to your local video store… My top 2 (because that was about as many as I care to remember) room thrashings of all time on film…. Grab some popcorn and just watch the masters at work…

The Wall – Pink sits in his seat and quietly builds up the inner tsunami as a groupie is increasingly weirded out with his silence. And he snaps, and in one of the most incredibly full on room trashing scenes in a movie, Pink dismantles the room, piece by piece. He is careful to leave no stone unturned in his destruction. This is an important aspect of the hotel room trasher. Equally important when recalling this tale is that he gets even weirder when he rearranges everything in the room into neat little patterns, cigarette buts, food, broken instruments....

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - when these guys trash a room they really elevate it to a whole new artform. It’s more than the hallucinatory montage and odd lighting.. it’s the collection of pool toys and the foot and a half of water. It’s the surreal level of destruction. If you’re the aficionado you cannot go past this style of habitat re-organization. Not the presence of copious quantities of illicit substances – you need to be really famous to get away with this level of destruction and the amount of gear on you. You’d really need to be playing big stadium events to make that shit fly.

Of course trashing can be available to all levels of fame and musical accomplishment. Here’s a quick set of guidelines to help you identify where you’re at.

1. You just played a six year old’s birthday party.

You are allowed to double dip one savaloy and drop a bit of sauce on the carpet.

2. You just played the school social.

You are allowed one snog with the popular girl of your choice and a bottle of spumante, which you will vomit up about ten minutes later. The vomit can be placed anywhere within the bathroom.

3. You just played your first pub gig to a disinterested crowd.

You are allotted a pickup from the bar of anyone who’s left at the end of the night, a slab of draught beer, and a couple of mates to come over and watch the English soccer. Vomit is allowed anwhere in the bathroom or kitchen. Make sure to do some after midnight cooking and leave a lamb chop down the back of the couch.

4. You’ve just played a bigger pub to an audience who know your music

You get free beer during the gig, and if you’re quick you should be able to nab the bucket full of grog and take it with you. (Some savvy bands will call for their rider drinks to be put in a wheel barrow for easy relocation – highly recommended.) The band and other acts are to be invited back to the room, for a round of spin the support act. Vomit on carpet is essential at this stage. You may also consider putting your head through the plaster board near the door. Check first that it is, in fact, plaster board and not brick – unless you’re truly rock and roll. Make sure to break a mirror and put that lamb chop up inside the range hood where nobody can find it, but will certainly be able to smell it.

4. The Tour – Stadium Rock

This is where things really start to heat up, you are required to step things up a notch. Feel free to bring back concert PA gear to your room. Any other items from the gig, such as screaming groupies, a dagwood dog van and the contents of the bar are all acceptable – nay essential. Especially the dagwood dog van. At this stage of the room thrashing game you should be able to perforate the walls, burst a water main, clog up the toilet and smash every glass surface all by yourself in about 30 seconds. What you can achieve in a weekend blinder with a cast of 150 people is truly staggering. Remember, even every day substances can take new properties with just a little bit of creativity. Vomit on every suface is also mandatory. Consider bringing along a set of screwdrivers so can you open up the back of the hot water service and put 50 kilos or so of raw beef in there. Remember to close it up, but not so tight that the smell won’t get through. Just picture the horror on the hotel mangers face when after finally cleaning the room they think they’ve just found a body. Blue chalk is good for knocking up occult circles too.

Okay, so that’s the basics. Remember to keep the art alive people, be creative and never let them say “Oh Trashing a room, that’s so cliché”. Prove them wrong. Oh and don’t forget the dagwood dog stand.