The Who-Who's Next

I decided to listen to some of the Who this morning on my commute to work.  Today, it was Quadrophenia.  But the album I had been wanting to write about is the 1973 album Who's Next.

In 1978, the Who's drummer-Keith Moon passed away after an overdose of medication to alleviate his own alcohol withdrawal. In 1979, at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, 11 fans were trampled to death when fans were rushing to get a good spot for festival seating. There was even an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati at the time with a parallel story called In Concert. I don't think the name of the band is even mentioned in the episode.  I seem to remember the original episode mentioned the Who by name. But, I've seen syndicated reruns of the same show and I don't seem to remember them ever mentioning the Who in the syndicated episode. According to Wikipedia and IMDB, the actual news story is being played in the background during the end credits. I had seen the name of the band in my childhood comic books. Mostly, in ads for iron-on t-shirt ads(among others). I also remember the department store my dad managed had a series of beach towels hanging on display. One of the towels on display was a design for the movie version of the Who's Tommy. In my 7th grade Art Class, one of my classmates was working on his lineoleum printing project and was making the Who's logo.
After my classmates talked up the Who, I started to look into this band and what they were all about. Looking back, I suppose it was an attempt to fit in by talking about a classic band. My older sister-Kathy had a subscription to US magazine at the time. At the time, I was mostly interested in looking at the pictures of the female celebrities of the day(Victoria Principal and uh..Morgan Fairchild that's the ticket) in all kinds of scantily clad apparel. One article I remember in the magazine was an excerpt from the book Full Moon about the life of Keith Moon written by his personal assistant Dougal Butler.
Late in my junior high years, I became so enraptured with everything involving the drums. I had picked up a Tama drums catalog at the local music store and carried it around with me. I would pull it out in my classes to read and peruse at the end of classes. As I would page through the catalog, I remember my classmates bringing up the subject of "Who's the best drummer?"  Well, one guy behind me said, "That dead guy who used to play for the Who!"
By 1982, the Who had released 2 albums after the passing of Moon. Those albums were 1981's Face Dances and 1982's It's Hard.  In 1982, the Who went on their "farewell" tour. It's even funny writing this 28 years later knowing that they've gone on the road many different times since that tour in 1982.  The build up of all these things piqued my interest in the Who.  By the summer of 83, I was a sponge for anything related with the Who. Even HBO aired the Who's "final concert" from Toronto.  My family didn't have HBO or any cable TV at the time. But, my friend John did. Somehow, I invited myself over to watch it. I loved it.  On my 16th birthday, I had some friends over to spend the night and we rented an RCA Videodisc player with 2 laserdiscs. That year, two of my biggest obsessions were the Who and the TV show M*A*S*H*.  So, I rented copies of the Who's The Kids are Alright and the Robert Altman movie version of  M*A*S*H* starring Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould.  I think I was the only one that enjoyed those movies that night.  The format of the M*A*S*H*  movie was different than the TV sitcom.  There weren't a lot of one-liners and punchlines during the surgery scenes. Just seemed like a lot of mumbling and didn't really hold anyone's attention.  But, I was completely tuned in to the Who.  I loved the antics of Keith Moon and the outrageous behavior of Pete Townshend.  But, the music had so much energy. But, the part of the movie that lit me up was the footage from Shepperton studios in 1977 featuring songs from the album Who's Next.  I distinctly remember loving the instrumental intro for Baba O'Riley.  I simply couldn't get that riff and opening chords out of my head!  It's just keyboards and John Entwistle's bass and Townshend pounding on a tambourine, drops the tambourine.....

...I don't need to fight...to prove I'm right

I don't need to be forgiven......

Townshend starts his trademark windmill and then the guitar kicks in!!  .....when they look back at the power of a Les Paul guitar combined with Rock n' Roll,  this is the clip that should always be referenced.
Anyway, I was 16 and had a drivers license. I now had the opportunity to listen to music "on-th-go".....even if it was in the tape deck fo my parents' 78 Chevy Impala Station Wagon.  As a birthday gift, I got the albums Who Are You and Live at Leeds on an MCA Records "Two-on-One Cassette". I used to mow lawns with those albums blaring on my cassette walkman. But, now I had access to some wheels. So, I would frequent the local record departments and music/record stores on regular basis. I bought Who's Next from Murphy's Modern Music in North Platte on a hot summer day. I remember I had a couple of stops to make that day and I didn't want the LP to be in the car very long for fear of it warping. I put on Baba O'Riley and then as the album began to play, I didn't know any of the songs in between the first and the last Won't Get Fooled Again.  But, I wasn't about to skip from one song to another.  After all, I might miss something.  From Bargain to My Wife to Going Mobile to Behind Blue Eyes,  I found an album that had been around and (in a round about way) discovered it all myself.  I didn't hear it on the radio. I didn't have any friends pounding it into my skull and telling me "You gotta hear this!" This truly felt like my own discovery!
The band reunited for Live Aid in July 1985 and I was definitely tuned in for that performance.
My college years were filled with many different musical discoveries. But, this one stayed with me. During my first two years of college, many of my days ended up with a visit to Dustys Records after I finished my afternoon classes.  One of those days, I was driving back to the dorms and this day I didn't have any cassettes playing and I was actually listening to the radio. Well, the song that started was Won't Get Fooled Again!  I remember racing from the car to my dorm room (on the 3rd floor) so I could hear the whole song. I made it to my dorm room just in time to hear Keith Moon's drum solo at the end of the song!...priceless.  Every time I would hear this song or someone plays a track from that album, I am reminded what a great album it is and I feel compelled to listen to it again! 
Behind Blue Eyes was something I liked because (as an individual) I felt I was just a little different from my peers and....

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like

To be hated

To be fated
To telling only lies

But my dreams

They aren't as empty

As my conscience seems to be

Years ago, I heard a local college frat band do a cover of this song. It wasn't that great. It was cool as it was played solo with vocal and acoustic guitar. The performer hadn't figured out the rest of it. But, it was cool and prompted me to pull out my album again.

As my interest in music grew in college, I was also interested in what others liked too. I remember going through a classmate's CD collection. It was relatively small! But, it included Who's Next.  To me, just seeing it in other's collections was like an affirmation that it really is a great album. I was such a rabid fan about the Who. For example, I was at a party once and some girl at a party basically said that she didn't like the WHO!  My drunken response was "You don't like the WHO?....You are a stupid B**%*."  For the next hour and a half, (according to my friend Bob) I told this girl all the great things about the Who and why she should like them even long after she stopped caring about my drunken rants. Yes..that rabid of a fan!

Of course, in today's pop culture fed world, the Who is everywhere. For me, it was just great to watch the Who at the Concert for New York after the events of 9/11/2001.

(anybody else get goosebumps?)

When my ex-wife became a great big fan of the CSI TV shows, I watched a lot of the shows with her.  So, it was pretty cool to hear Who Are You, Won't Get Fooled Again and Baba O'Riley used as the theme songs for CSI, CSI:Miami, and CSI:NY.  So, the Who is everywhere. 

Obviously, the only original members of the band are Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey. Ringo Starr's son-Zak Starkey is now playing drums as even Townshend has called him "the karmic Keith Moon".  Session Bassist Pino Palladino has replaced John Entwistle after he passed away in 2002.  The only player that was around the same time as the Shepperton studios sessions is keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick. This past February, the band played the Half-time show of the Superbowl. It was not a moment of greatness for the band.  I make the excuse (for the band)that it was a network TV production with bad audio and there was no crowd on the field for the band's performance. But, I'm sure there will be another public performance that the band will play to redeem themselves. If not, there will always be the great performances seen above here and (of course) a great album known as Who's Next!