BCB 130: The Who

[Bent Fabric]

It includes a searing Young Man Blues that may be the best I have ever heard.

SOLD!

[fange]

A group that, due to time and place i guess, i've never really though of as one of my bands, but whose singles i've mostly loved my whole life.

Same great posts here, cheers to JSJ and all.

[Guy E]

Interested to see that I am apparently the only one who experienced them in real time.

I was a fan in real time, but not from the very beginning. My sister's best friend's older brother had a band called The Puppets Recytal and they were huge fans of the Who. I saw them at sock-hops and that's where I first heard My Generation, Substitute and Happy Jack. My sister and I pooled our resources to buy The Who Sell Out and it was my favorite album for the next six months. The US Magic Bus album was next - the proverbial hodge-podge, but it was my first exposure to some great Who songs.

I also missed-out on seeing the group in their prime. They played at a teen club called The Jaguar in St. Charles, Illinois, a neighboring town. My sister and her boyfriend were planning to go and I talked them (and my parents) into letting 14-year old me tag along. But Jessie and Jimmy weren't getting along that night so we drove around for a couple of hours, me fuming in the back seat while they argued with each other in the front seat, occasionally pausing to tell me to shut up when I suggested we follow-through on the evening's plan. We never got to St. Charles and it remains a huge rock 'n roll regret.

Here's a photo from the gig:


and a link to a reminiscence.
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/misc ... 80810.html

If I'd been a couple years older I would have seen quite a few bands in that quiet town along the Fox River:


I did manage to see The Who at the Auditorium Theater a year or two later. They did Tommy and all that... a great concert.

[Phenomenal Cat]

But Jessie and Jimmy weren't getting along that night so we drove around for a couple of hours, me fuming in the back seat while they argued with each other in the front seat, occasionally pausing to tell me to shut up when I suggested we follow-through on the evening's plan. We never got to St. Charles and it remains a huge rock 'n roll regret.

Fuckers!

I believe my friend John from Pezband (he lives down the street from me in Aurora) was at the gig.

[Bent Fabric]

I did manage to see The Who at the Auditorium Theater a year or two later. They did Tommy and all that... a great concert.

I would say you are right to be embittered about the St. Charles debacle, but...having not been born yet when they played Tommy at Auditorium Theater, I'm approaching your booby prize from a place of major envy.

[Count Machuki]

Remember the St. Charles Incident!!

[Count Machuki]

Oh um also, yes, the who.
They were pretty good, huh?

[Guy E]

Remember the St. Charles Incident!!

For the record, I dearly love my sister.

[Count Machuki]

Remember the St. Charles Incident!!

For the record, I dearly love my sister.

You must to still think of her as a sister.

[sloopjohnc]

I cringe to hear the author HIMSELF discuss/describe his process, because he seems almost determined to spoil his own effect on others - I've said similar things about Neil Young's autobiography...what could Pete Townshend possibly know about his own work?!?!?

JESUS, that is a thread in itself. I read Who I Am once (just once?!?) and about halfway through I realized that old man Townshend was trying to crawl into the mind of young man Townshend and the results were just embarrassing. I'd love to hear Quaco's take on the book because after reading Townshend's attempts to intellectualize the importance of, say, "Glow Girl", I really did hope to get some of my initial blissful ignorance back. No wonder Lifehouse didn't get made. Come out and smell the fresh air, Pete. You've been up your arse far too long.

In case anyone is actually hoping to read the book, you'll get very little insight into Keith and John other than "they like to have a bit of fun; go out on the town; have a larf", and then about 400 pages of Pete dropping to his knees in hotel lobbies across the globe pledging his love and devotion to any long-legged eye candy who was a) younger than him and b) not his wife. His poor fucking wife is all could think throughout that book. He's kind of a schmuck.

Bravo!

That was more or less my response to his awful book - to the letter. He comes off like a spoilt child in so many ways - serial philandering and deep self indulgence, all the while with some beautiful woman desperately attempting to build him a home, support him emotionally and raise him a family, and...yeah, he comes off (even when telling the story about what a general shit he is/was/is planning to be) as some sort of victim.

I consider him one of the few genuine geniuses of the rock era, but I would also say that you or Quaco could tell me a great deal more about the man and his work than he could ever hope to.

And here I thought I was the only one who felt the same way about the book.

[Guy E]

Remember the St. Charles Incident!!

For the record, I dearly love my sister.

You must to still think of her as a sister.

I actually brought up the memory a couple years ago at Christmas in the hopes of having a good laugh and she had absolutely no recollection of the evening at all.

[bobzilla77]

It includes a searing Young Man Blues that may be the best I have ever heard.

SOLD!

I'm pretty sure it si the one starting at 43 min that so impressed me - it still sounds like a scorcher to me. Pete is trying to take heads off rather than play some licks. Though honestly I'm listening to the one that starts at 1:02, and there's some real hellraising stuff in that one too as well as some some nice dynamics.

[naughty boy]

what a load of rubbish most WHO stuff is!

[Quaco]

Indeed!

[fange]

They're even worse than the Stones in that way!

[bobzilla77]

Yeah what a bunch of boring old bollocks. Who's up for an Echo and the Bunnymen thread?

[Bucolic Old Sir Henry]

My parents bought me Pictures Of Lily for my 13th birthday. They had no idea.

Pip pip!

[Matt Wilson]

If anything, we don't talk about The Who enough.

[bobzilla77]

They really were more fearless than anybody, weren't they? Lot of "firsts" from that band. Auto destruction, feedback on record (yes I know about I Feel Fine, allowing a little barely-audible hum at the opening is NOT what Pete did on Anyway Anyhow Anywhere), pop art fashion, rock opera, integration of synthesizers and minimalist patterns, into a heavy guitar band. Even things like, travelling with their own custom-built PA system, or starting your own record label to get out of bad contract terms, weren't done until they did it.

They were no bandwagon jumpers, them Who. They built cabins in the woods with their bare hands for many years.

[Quaco]

Development of "quintaphonic" sound, precursor to 5.1.
Development of roundwound bass strings.
Development of Marshall stack.