Tag: The Who

Our last installment in this series appeared on 201111.  This took us up to about the middle of 1967, and we shall pick up where we stopped.

They had been recording material for what ended up being The Who Sell Out, and some singles from that effort appeared beginning in September.  However, they also did a tour in the US and Canada.

Last week we started this series, beginning in 1958 and going through early 1966.  This week we shall cover to the end of 1967.  The reason for the shorter timeframe is that the band were much busier and beginning to know real success beginning then, with a really good year in 1967.

Last week I failed to mention that Keith Moon married Patsy Kerrigan on 19660317.  He nicknamed her “Kim”, which stayed with her for the rest of her life.  She was killed in an automobile accident in 2006.  I apologize for the oversight.

I also neglected to report this piece of trivia about “Substitute”.  In the original US release on 19660402, the line in the original that goes “I look all white, but my dad was black.” was altered to “I try going forward but my feet walk back.”  I strongly suspect that this was because the Atco executives (this was the only song released by Atco with The Who) feared reprisal from the bigots in the US.

In any event, let us take up where we left off, more or less, last week.

In this series about The Who we have reviewed all of their albums through Who are You, and I chose to stop there because the band were just not the same after the death of Keith Moon.  We shall now go back and look at the formation of the band, their rise to fame, and their slow decline after the release of Who’s Next.

Tonight we shall concentrate on their meeting and early success, ending with the departure of the really shady Shel Talmey in 1966.  Most people are not really aware of how far back some of the band members actually went, and how the band came to be in its lineup of Roger Daltrey, John Enwistle, Keith Moon, and Peter Townshend.  There were two others who, although they did not play or sing or write, were absolutely essential to the evolution of the band into what it became.

This is the last post that I shall do for albums released by The Who.  They died in 1978 when Moon died.  However, that does not mean that this is the last post about them.  There is lots of other material from 1978 back that I have not covered, and a few gems from later than 1978.

However, as a vital, functional band The Who really ceased to exist after the death of Moon.  As a matter of fact, the death of The Who was actually before that of Moon’s death since they were no longer in studio since Who are You had just been released.

This installment might get to be a bit emotional, so please bear with me.  The reasons will be obvious as the story unfolds.  With that said, let us go!

The Who by Numbers is the second to last studio album released by The Who, released in October 1975.  The UK release date was the the third, by Polydor Records, and the US release date was the 25th on MCA Records.

The album did rather well, charting at #8 in the US and #7 in the UK.  Personally, it probably my least favorite album from The Who.  Many of the songs are very dark, likely because of Townshend’s deepening alcoholism.  However, at least one song was upbeat.

With that said, let us listen to some music!

We had a really good time with Part I last week!  I very much appreciated all of the comments and suggestions that folks sent.  Now we are ready for Part II, and it gets even better!

This week we shall look at the bonus tracks that were included on the 1998 remastered CD, some of them previously unavailable except as bootlegs.  Some of them are quite good, by the way.  Of course, there are several stories to go along with them so we had better get started.

Odds and Sods was the third “canonical” compilation album released by  The Who, released 19740928, almost exactly 37 years ago today.  

In the US the record was released by MCA, and in the UK by Track.   There is some discrepancy as to how the record charted, some references saying #10 and #15 in the UK and US, respectively, whilst others indicate #10 and #8.

This is one of my favorite records, since it contains material not previously released, some of which is amongst their best.  It also marked the final release of material that I consider “classic” Who, since the next studio album, The Who by Numbers, was a considerable departure from their old sound, a trend already started by Quadrophenia, discussed here and here.

All of the material was previously unreleased, except “I’m the Face” which we shall discuss in a bit.  None of the material on the record was specifically recorded for it, but rather were studio tapes recorded months to years before it was compiled and released.

We last discussed the first side of the seminal album, Quadrophenia, by The Who, entirely written by Peter Townshend.  Since that time I have done more extensive research, and found some interesting things that I hope will be illuminating for everyone.  They were for me.  Without too many details in the introduction, I can say with a good bit of confidence that this record almost dissolved the band.

Roger put Pete in hospital with punches, Kit was almost banned, and the fraud that the management was doing to the band was discovered.  That was part of the genesis for the song “How Many Friends Have I Really Got” that was part of The Who by Numbers some time later.  But there is more!

I have a frank correction to make, and then what is more like a clarification as to the original characters who were combined to make Jimmy.  I also have a stupid one to make, about the name of the album itself.  Shall we begin?

I apologize for posting late tonight, but a very rare event happened.  The International Space Station made a transit directly overhead at posting time, and I did not want to miss it.  Besides, my lovely friend wanted to watch it with me.  It was a spectacular sight, and the ISS was not bad, either, LOL!

Second, I was going to add a new crosspost site that is run by our friend ninkasi23, but never figured out how to make it so.  I trust that she will email or call me to help me over my stupidity.

I was going to write about the compilation album, Meaty, Beaty, Big, and Bouncy this time but we have already discussed every song on that record.  However, I will make a comment about the title.

Most people think that the title was just sort of a dirty joke, but it actually was a description of the band members.  I think that Lambert came up with it, but I am not really sure.  Here is the meaning:

At the time, and still, Daltrey was pretty fit, so he was Meaty, meaning all muscle and no fat.  Moon, of course, kept the beat, so he was Beaty.  Entwistle, aka The Ox, was a really big guy, and of course Townshend was always leaping about the stage, so he was Bouncy.  Now you know, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.

I thought that I was done with it, I really did!  I was really better the past few days.  But depression has set in again.  I hate it!  I want to be normal, get a job (all of you know that I do have a brilliant side), and get back with my family.

Not likely.  My garden is ready to pick, and I have not the energy to do anything to make it so. Melancholia is a curse that I have lived with, off and on, for half a century now.  For a couple of weeks I was over it, but that was just because of a fantasy.

Now, never concern yourselves that I will do anything rash.  I will live until I die, and will not die from my own hand.

This is an extremely difficult piece to write, because the only living soul who understands it is Peter Townshend, and he still has a bit of difficulty articulating the concept in terms that we mere mortals can understand.  This is not in any way a criticism of Mr. Townshend, but more of a comment of my own poor understanding of his high goals.

In a nutshell, perhaps a cracked one, the concept for Lifehouse was sort of like A Brave New World, or 1984, in that society has been overtaken by a monied elite and thought suppression was the norm.  Does that sound timely?  I think that Townshend has presaged the ideas that the “modern” Republican Party is trying to impress on us all, but perhaps I give him too much credit.  I think not.

The concept that I finally came with was that individuality was suppressed, and group think was being imposed by the technocrats that ruled.  I ask for everyone’s thoughts on this, because it is so hard to decipher.

I am very sorry, folks, but I was in a hurry to finish up the piece and there was a horrible traffic tie up before I could get home.  I got home late, and was finishing up the 21st song out of 24 when I fat fingered my keyboard, wiping out almost everything.

That teaches me, regardless of the venue, to save after EVERY paragraph.  It would not have made any difference if I had been writing in Word, or Works, or at any blog site.  If one does not save work, it gets lost.  However, there is a bit of a workaround.

Load up Lazarus for Firefox and it can help.  It is not perfect, but if I had been using it, I would lost only the two or three paragraphs before my keyboard mistake.  I still do not know what I did, but I now save after EVERY paragraph!  I use it now, although I am not sure how well it works.

It is disheartening to lose so much work, but there is a silver lining to that black cloud.  Next week the piece will be much better, because I had time to think about it and improve it.