Probably.Originally Posted by GuitarGeek
Joking aside, I think that was a bad period for the band. You could have gotten one reasonable album out of the two dull ones they released, I guess. But Kenney Jones didn't fit. On paper it looks great as he was a peer of theirs (and had worked with them before) but IMHO his playing with The Who is too straight, even when compared with his own earlier work with The (Small) Faces, let alone Keith Moon's.
It was the same here in Michigan. I listened to WLAV in Grand Rapids and WRIF from Detroit when in the east side of the state and they both played every single track from "Who's Next" at one time or another. I still love the album though. I don't care how many times I hear "Won't Get Fooled Again" I still crank it up and think it may be the best rock song ever written.
My feelings as well. Jones is a great drummer, just not a good fit for The Who. The first time I saw them live was the tour they did after the "Quadrophenia" film came out with Jones. I think that both Simon Phillips and especially Zak Starkey have been much better fits with the band. Zak plays like he is channeling Keith Moon. As I have already stated I like "It's Hard" a lot better than "Face Dances", but neither stack up to the band's early 70's material.
I love that song! One of the best things on the album, IMHO, along with "Another Tricky Day" and maybe "The Quiet One."
^Well, that whole album is blighted by a terribly fussy production and mix, with too much gimmicky stereo ping-pong going on. 'Did You Steal My Money' has that stupid thing with Pete (I think) saying the title across the stereo all the way through.
The live 'The Quiet One' on the 90s CD shows the album's malaise- it has far more energy and power.
H'mmm. Coming late to this thread, can at best repeat the recommendation of Quadrophenia as one of the three or four greatest rock albums of all time.
I can kind of understand not liking Daltrey's stage act, but there are some reasons behind how he developed it: the most obvious being that he was sharing the stage with two of the most explosive musicians in the world (Townshend and Moon) and it's kind of embarrassing when you're the front man and nobody pays attention to you, so he made himself more visible.
But some of it comes down to their roots as a "Mod" band. Mod was all about fashion, including doing the "in" dance; part of Daltrey's job was to showcase the latest dance moves.
As for his voice ... Townshend commented once that Daltrey's singing was a bonus, they hired him because he could fight. I think he became the greatest male vocalist in rock in the early '70s (the SCREAM in "Won't Get Fooled Again," to me, sums up everything that matters in rock), but he was kind of a generic voice on the first three albums.
My recommendation: get Quadrophenia and listen to it at least two-three times to let the connections between its various parts soak in.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Best two note guitar solo ever! Not that there's a lot of them...
I'm a huge fan, seen them several times, the first with Kenny Jones at MSG in '79 I believe. Awesome show. For some reason I remember how Pete kept bringing out his numbered Les Pauls for each tune.
Sure, I agree with the consensus albums, Next, Tommy, Leeds, Quad. I seem to go on Who binges these days, since they are on the radio all the time anyway. Lately, I've been binging on ...Are You. Lots of great songs but this is the one that sticks with me, love those power chords!
“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Anderson
No love for Who Came First?
Although some of the tunes are acoustic, they are some really great songs: I really like Pure and Easy (later to show up on Odds and Sods), Evolution, and Let's See Action.
Live at Leeds is so powerful. Got to check that out. Agree with previous poster, play it loud. The bass playing and sound just kill.
Quadrophenia is a masterpiece. Teenage angst in lyrical and rock perfection. The scream in Baba O is worth hearing really loud.
And don't forget: Crackling Noises O.K. Do Not Correct!
Seriously? I agree Kenny is no Moon, but watch/listen to this... I think Kenny does a great job. He rocks, he swings, he shuffles. Whatever is required to elevate and energize the songs.
Seriously. A certain type of drumming is needed for The Who and he wasn't delivering that IMHO- too rock-solid. Zak Starkey has more of what is needed.
But Kenney Jones certainly wasn't entirely responsible. It doesn't seem to have been a happy period for the band, with them struggling to come to terms with Keith Moon's death. And then there was that Cincinnati concert disaster, in this era.
Last edited by JJ88; 05-06-2015 at 01:55 PM.
Yeah, Keith Moon was in the "lead drummer" mold. Jones was not. And Moon's eccentricity as a person was channeled into his playing, making it very unpredictable. That in turn created tension with Townshend who was often rhythmically playing off of what Keith was doing. One or more of them could often veer off the tracks but somehow the train always kept a-rollin'. Partly due to Entwistle, who was also a "lead bassist" and knew how to fill space when needed. Anyways, put the three of them together and it's one of the most dynamic and riveting rock trios in history. For evidence, run -- do not walk -- to get yourself a copy of Live at Leeds (the expanded deluxe edition, mind you.) I'll go on record and claim it to be the greatest live rock album ever recorded.
After that definitely get Who's Next. Sure it's got a lot of worn out radio staples, but those songs are staples for a reason. And in time, with the fading power of radio you may actually find yourself not getting burned out on them.
From there I'd recommend going in both directions, Tommy and Quadrophenia. Both double disk concept albums, but one created at the beginning of the band's glory era and the other at the end.
Throw in The Who Sell Out and whatever compilation contains their best non-album singles ("The Relay", "The Seeker", etc.) and you've got the essentials. Everything else is a "nice to have" IMO but not critical unless you're a serious fan.
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
I think the Smothers Brothers' TV appearance is what created the tension between Moon and Townshend
I mostly agree with you there, though I think It's Hard is a bit better than Face Dances. I think the problem wasn't who was sitting behind the drumkit, but rather the fact that the band's main songwriter was:
a. actively pursuing a solo career at the same time
b. apparently writing songs that "didn't fit" with The Who (hence the solo career)
c. becoming disenchanted with being in a rock group, most especially one where he had to share a stage with a "Shepherd's Bush geezer" (I believe that's how Pete once described Roger) who once knocked him flat on his ass.
I think a. and b. are the main reason why Face Dances in particular is such a weak album, ie Pete saved his "A material" for the solo records, and in any case, either the songs "weren't right" for The Who or Roger would reject them. I always thought Rough Boys would have made a great Who song, but I was told once that "Roger would have never sung it", due to the "gay overtones" of the lyrics.
Pete usually used four or five guitars during any given show, depending on which tour you're talking about. He'd have his main guitar that he'd use for most of the show. Then he had several guitars with capos at various fret positions: 1st fret for Baba O'Riley, 2nd or 3rd fret for Dangerous (only applicable on the 82 tour), 5th fret for 5:15, and 7th fret for Drowned. On the 79 tour, Pete also occasionally played a natural finished Telecaster copy (you can see him using it on The Music Must Change and I think Won't Get Fooled Again on the Chicago video from that tour), but I think that might be just because that was one of the guitars his guitar tech Alan Rogan bought for him.
Of course, if Pete broke a string, or lost his temper and smashed a guitar, that would necessitate having to swap over to a back up.
Oh, and in case you're wondering how often Pete smashed guitars post-1967 (or whenever it was that The Who stopped ending their sets with the nightly instrument sacrifices), it happened at least a few times. There's that famous photo of Pete swinging a The Les Paul (high grade premium version of a Les Paul Custom, with every conceivable thing possible, from the pickguard to the binding and knobs, fashioned from maple wood), with the caption "This guitar has only seconds to live". One of the late 70's era editors at Guitar Player owns (or at least one time, owned) a gold top Les Paul Deluxe that Pete smashed onstage during the mid 70's. And I have a bootleg recording from the Oakland show in 82, where he smashed one of his Schecters in the middle of Won't Get Fooled Again, and I heard he pulled he similar stunt when The Who played in Oakland in 89.
The Rockpalast show I thought was good, but not great. I think the Chicago show from 79 and the Chicago, Oakland, San Diego and Seattle shows from 82 are, I think, much better. Actually, the Toronto show from the last night of the 82 tour, which was put out on VHS at the time (with a couple songs edited out), was pretty good too, though Pete mysteriously decided to play that butt ugly gold Schecter through the entire concert, save for the capo songs.
Well, certainly I'd never compare Kenney to Keith in serious fashion, and at the time, I think Pete even admitted that Kenney was a very different kind of drummer from Keith. And I also agree that Zak does a better job channeling the Keith vibe.
But I think taken on it's own merits, I think the 79-82 era model were still a happening band onstage. I think I would have been happy to
Someone mentioned Simon Phillips. He is a great drummer, and I love his work on a lot of the records I have thta he's on. But the 89 band was the worst live version of The Who ever. I didn't really realize it at the time, I was just stoked that I was finally have The Who back in action and that I'd actually get to see them. But listening back to recordings from that tour (including the show I actually got to see, I have a couple different versions of it, in fact), everything's all wrong.
First of all Pete's playing too much acoustic guitar (which was nice for certain songs, but not so much for others). When Pete did strap on a Strat and go electric, he was plugged into a Mesa/Boogie amp that was plugged directly into the soundboard, ie no speakers or mics involved. The upshot there was that he had this terrible, anemic guitar tone on that tour that paled in comparison to the righteous tones he got from his Hi-Watt amps during the 70's and early 80's.
The backup guitarist on that tour was Steve Bolton, thus beginning the band's association with Paul Young's back up band (a thread that would be picked up later when Pino Palladino would step into The Ox's shoes). Bolton's a fine guitarist, but to my ears, his playing doesn't sound right in this context. It's hard to put into words, but Pete has (or had until sometime in the 90's) a real sort of primitive, unevolved playing style. It was kinda not unlike Neil Young, in a way, almost sounding like he'd just learned how to play leads. And of course you had things like the one note, tremolo picked solo in I Can See For Miles, and things where he'd just blast out a bunch of power chords for half of a solo (like on the Toronto 82 version of I Can't Explain, where he tremolo picks one for the first half of the solo, then plays power chords for the rest of it). And sometimes, he'd play badly, again like someone who was just learning to play or something (listen to the version of See Me Feel Me on the Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea album for proof).
Bolton, contrastingly, sounds like someone who most definitely spent a lot of time woodshedding. There's more of a Gilmour-like aspect to his playing, which sounds out of place to my ears, in The Who. I remember at first there was a rumor that Joe Walsh was going to be the second guitarist, which I think might have worked much better.
Then there's the horn section and back up vocalists. The back up vocalists probably wouldn't bother me so much if, on the video footage that I've seen from the 89 tour, they weren't doing these sort of semi-choreographed dance moves during some of the songs. They look like they should be backing up a pop singer or some Las Vegas act. Yick!
And the horn section would have been fine if they were only playing on songs that had horns originally (as was done on the 79 tour). But instead, they're playing on like 3/4's of the setlist. Now, I heard it once said the real reason they had the backup singers, horn section, second guitarist, and percussionist was because of Pete's hearing problems. Supposedly, a big part of The Who's sound was that Pete and John were turned up so loud that certain psycho-acoustic phenomena happened that created that big sound that we hear, for instance, on Live At Leeds. To recreate that "big sound" at a lower volume level, they needed all these ancillary musicians, but the results obviously were most definitely not the same.
And on top of all that, everything was just too choreographed sounding, like for the first time in their lives, The Who decided they wanted to sound "professional" or something. Maybe that was necessary due to the horns and back up singers, but it still makes everything sound stiff and uninspiring.
And finally, Pete admitted in 1989 that the reason that they did that tour was for the money. We eventually found out the real reason was because Thunderfingers was on the verge of losing his house, but even still, doing something "for the money" is never the right reason. And I think it showed onstage.
With the weight of all of the above, the fact that Simon may or may not have been an improvement over Kenney is a moot point, in my book.
Pete eventually admitted that the pyrotechnic charge probably didn't hvae as much impact on his hearing (as he was known to claim for many years) as the band's volume levels during the 70's. I think the one interview I saw he claimed it was the band's over powered monitors, with Roger doing those screams, that caused his hearing problems. Yeah, I suppose standing in front of a wall of 100 watter Hi-Watt stacks had nothing to do with, eh, Pete?I think the Smothers Brothers' TV appearance is what created the tension between Moon and Townshend
Don't get me xrong, I still enjoyed the 2 shows I saw on that farewell tour (the CNE gran stand and the Maple Leaf Gardens three months later) Yup, they were still awesome... but not the same then with The Loon... from what I've seen in video since
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I'd think you'd probably be fine with anything Tommy or earlier. Who's Next is the album where The Who transitioned to more of a hard rock style and Daltrey adopted the singing style that you don't seem to enjoy. I'd get a copy of Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy which is a compilation of early singles, many of which were non-album tracks. It's a great listen in its own right. If you like it then try Sell Out and the other early albums. After that you can try Who's Next. If you don't like Who's Next then you stop there. If you do like it then Quadrophenia is just about the greatest concept album ever made IMHO, By Numbers is underrated with great songwriting and Who Are You is a little flabby, but is the last album by the original band. By the time you get to Face Dances and It's Hard Townshend's best tunes were going to his solo albums so you need Empty Glass and All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. Who Came First is really nice acoustic oriented Townshend and there's also his collaboration with Ronnie Lane of Small Faces fame, Rough Mix, which I think is really good.
"It was a cruel song, but fair."-Roger Waters
Great early tracks
Im not just talking about the suggested hearing loss:
If I was in a band that my drummer had put a pyrotechnic charge in his drums without me knowing, that could have injured me in some way shape or form (hearing loss, shrapnel to eye, possible damage from shrapnel and splinters, etc -- Do you realize how lucky they were that nobody in the studio audience was injured?) that left me a bit in a shell-shocked daze, I would have kicked his ass up and down the stage until somebody would have had to pull me off him....Yes, I would say there would be tension between he and I for a loooooong time
That's not what Pete said in his auto-biography Who I Am ...
He clearly blames Keith's bad/wrong dosage of the pyrotechnics
... but the tensions between the two had started previously.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I've found I don't mind Daltrey's voice as long as I don't have to watch him. Songs I love or like: Baba O'Riley, Behind Blue Eyes, Eminence Front, WGFA, L,ROM, Can't Explain, The Seeker, Substitute, TKAA, PW, Goin' Mobile, "Scoop"s version of Squeeze box, The Real Me, Bargain, Another Tricky Day etc.
Having watched some live stuff already this morning, I must have been irritable yesterday. Roger's onstage moves aren't bothering me today. I still wonder 'why the fuck does he do that?" with the mic twirling, but it's not the huge irritant it was 24 hours ago. I think I'm going to listen to some records on YT and decide what I want to get first.
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