Music
Guitar smashed on Toronto promoter's head sold for a good cause
by Jesse Locke
April 18, 2016
The guitar John Dwyer smashed on Dan Burke's head is being sold to fund cancer treatments.
Dan Burke, the brains and occasional brawn behind Toronto venue The Silver Dollar, is a living legend. If you’re not familiar with his journey from a career as an award-winning crime reporter through struggles with addiction and a second life as one of the city’s most active music promoters, start by watching the short film about the Last Music Man.
One of the largest looming incidents in Burke’s ongoing saga is the time he had a guitar smashed on his head, immortally captured in this video:
Chart Attack summarizes the story of the 2004 guitar smash with the following details:
L.A. garage rock lifer John Dwyer was playing the Silver Dollar Room with the Hospitals in 2004. The openers had gone long, so Dwyer’s band set up on the floor and started playing over the band on stage. Burke snatched the mic away. Drummer Adam Stonehouse shoved Burke and they traded a few punches, before Dwyer, who was standing on the kick drum, came flying down with his guitar, a Harmony Stratotone, over Burke’s head like a battle axe.
12 years later, Dwyer has launched an eBay auction for that very same Stratotone. Alongside owning an iconic instrument that was played in his bands Thee Oh Sees, Coachwhips, and The Hospitals, the sale will also help fund the cancer treatments of Dwyer’s friend Aaron Aites (a filmmaker whose credits include the black metal documentary Until the Light Takes Us and the Kathleen Hannah biopic The Punk Singer).
On top of a GoFundMe page that has raised over $39,000 for Aites, Dwyer is selling the guitar for $5,000. Toronto scene stalwart Jon Schouten of Teenanger and Telephone Explosion fame had the brainwave to launch another Indiegogo Generosity campaign to help buy the instrument and return it to Burke. If the funds are collected, it has been suggested that the Harmony Stratotone should end up behind glass at the entrance of the Silver Dollar.
Dwyer’s eBay auction ends on Tuesday, April 19th. If you believe in this mission and want to help an artist in his battle with cancer, donate now.
