THE WHO
Peter Townshend says the group is beginning to worry more about its musical ability than its image.
LONDON -- Critics drooled over rock's first pop opera, "Tommy," and raved about the Who as if the group had attained the artistic heights of the Beatles. Maybe it had. But the Who has all but passed from public favor in North America.
No flash-in-the-pan band, the Who produced several of the finest hard rock singles of the Sixties.
Who could forget frenzied classics such as "My Generation," "I'm a Boy," "Magic Bus" and "I Can See For Miles?" Yet, the fact remains that many people have.
Where once the Who ruled the roost in hard rock, some of its efforts seemed to have paled in the more recent episodes of Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad and Black Sabbath.
It's more because of a lack of news about the Who than any spectacular failures, that it has slipped from the upper rungs of the rock ladder.
The followup album to "Tommy," "Live At Leeds," was received with lukewarm reaction by rock critics. Certainly, the Who's last single did not exactly set the charts on fire. But one would have thought its track record would have kept the Who well on top. The sadness of the current rock scene is that if you're not in there with a new commercial single every 10 weeks; if you're not in Time Magazine once every six months; if you're not on the road 346 days a year; your chances of remaining potentially hot cool rapidly.
So be it. Yet -- with considerably more than a twist of irony -- the Who has been trying to recover from the critical fawnings accorded "Tommy." It was, we learned, just too much to take.
"Tommy" was definitely a result of image building," says guitarist-writer Pete Townshend. "I mean, I'd spent two years writing the thing, but it was still more an image idea than a musical idea.
"And it was the whole thing of it being taken up in the States as a masterpiece that threw us. From selling 1,500 copies of 'The Who Sell Out' album, we were suddenly selling 20 million albums, or whatever it was, of 'Tommy.'" It was the ridiculous from the sublime.
"It had to have repercussions. We thought, here we are being told we are musical geniuses and all we are is a bunch of scum bags. I mean, we've always been respected as a group, right, but we've never among ourselves had a feeling of being a good musical band. We've always been like a gimmicky band.
"It wasn't directly as a result of 'Tommy' being hailed the way it was, but it was a natural thing that we should be a wee bit turned around by something we didn't think was that musically good being so strongly approved . . . when really, and let's be completely honest about it, it was mainly a brilliant example of the ad-man-visualizing that Kit Lambert (the Who's former producer), in conjunction with myself, was so good at.
"Did you know I'm in the American 'Who's Who' now . . . (Pete Townshend, composer of the first rock opera?" Townshend really can't believe it and probably does not want to; unlike the majority of top rock musicians, he has no illusions about his ability.
"You see, it's at the point that Kit Lambert still has bigger ambitions for us. But we haven't. What we want is to be able to justify ourselves to each other as musicians.
"We are at the point that the last thing we are thinking about is image. Yet Kit's still talking about concerts on the moon. That's image.
"I don't think Kit really understood that the group wanted to improve its sound, as well as other things. So we got slightly frustrated despite the fact that he is an incredible producer.
"I think when Kit realized we were unhappy with him, he was hurt and opted out completely rather than take a downward slide. We just generally moved apart. We think completely differently now.
"There is a grave danger of a group in our position breaking up. When any group feels that it's done it all and can't get anymore mileage out of what is happening, it tends to do the obvious, which is to day that the individual can do his own thing. But we know from watching other groups that all that is rubbish."
Townshend's answer to this problem was to plan a group film.
With the current North American tour, and another planned later in the year -- coupled with a series of concerts throughout Europe -- Townshend has decided to put the movie idea back in the can for a while.
"I still feel that the group should be making the film," he continued.
"There is so much that the whole Who organization, our whole team, could do in a film.
"This may sound like blowing our own trumpets, but I don't think there are many groups who have the knowledge of stage rock theater but at the same time, the necessary lack of ego to carry it off.
"At the moment we are leaning heavily on the fact that we are good experienced musicians and can put on a good stage act. But . . . I hate to rub it in ... what we really need is a film."
