LAST FRIDAY, a “Broken Record” party occurred at the Crespinel gallery space in Belltown.

It was a promo event for our ol’ pal Peter Blecha’s new book Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands and Censored Songs. The book’s a scholarly, yet gripping, saga relating many of the myriad ways people have tried to silence other people’s creative expressions over the years.

Strictly speaking, Blecha doesn’t write about the censoring of “music” per se. He writes about the censoring of music-related creations—lyrics, band names, album art, and dancing.

At the exhibit (still up for the next week), the words and images associated with music are carefully preserved and protected, in the form of framed album covers, sheet-music covers, and posters. It’s the music itself that gets trashed, in the form of irreplacable 78s smashed around the gallery floor.

I disapprove of this destruction. I say: Be kind to your old 78s. You might be one yourself one day.

Among those who had a “smashing” time: Guest DJs Mark Arm and Krist Novoselic (above), Squirrels fun-popster Rob Morgan, and jazzman Maurice.