Detached Music For Teens

Electronics Rules Rock 'N' Roll Show

By Charles Johnson

The electronic warfare of teen-ager-directed music has been escalated in the last few months.

The performers have now submitted to total domination by giant robot-like machines, to which they are connected by thick long elastic cables. Their motions were always jerky and unspontaneous and now they have become completely puppet-like.

When The Who finished their trick last night in Memorial Auditorium, one player made a sort of wry comment on this new turn of events by smashing his electronic guitar to bits and knocking over the big amplifier behind him.

Do not think, however, that sophistication has made any great inroads into rock 'n' roll. The formula still has far more noise than sense.

But the electronics have become sophisticated, so that sound has not only become larger, but far more electronically contrived and elaborated. The initial tone from the guitar or voice is now put through a wonderful variety of distortions and repetitions before it finally impinges upon, or rather smashes against the human ear.

The whole procedure makes the modern electronic serious music that is being created at Davis seem utterly bloodless and idiotic. Prof Larry Austin ought to bring his colleagues to one of these rock 'n' roll concerts and find out what can be done.

A result, or maybe a partner of the electronic bigness of the new r 'n' r is that the music has become rather detached from both the performers and the audience. The audience loves the performers because they are creating this experience, but it is all by remote control, somehow. The audiences shriek and carry on, but their attitude toward the music as such is very passive. No one is interested in who is playing what. No one wants to hear an encore. No one applauds very much.

It was rather pathetic when Peter Noone, the chief of Herman's Hermits, tried to get his rather skimpy second audience to sing along and "pretend you're in England, where everyone enjoys himself." These youngsters knew every note of the song, but they could not re-create it.

The Blue Magoos opened the show, and the remarkable thing about them is their drummer, a frenetic blond youth who flings his long hair about wildly, looking for all the world like a hopped up June Allison.

The passivity and non-show business quality is strong with this group. They have no stage presence, turn their backs on the audience half the time, twist knobs often on their amplifiers, and sing suggestive lyrics without elan.

The leader of The Who makes his mark by appearing in a long paisley shawl and a sequined codpiece. Yes, he often trips over his train. His characteristic movements are those of a novice stripper.

To his left was a lank-haired person dressed simply in a blazer made out of a Union Jack.

These are Britishers who sing with Negro accent and have a bit of the Beatle sound, without the Beatles finesse.

Their performance was marked by another result of the way records on the radio have come to dominate popular music: Their songs did not have any endings. On records, the sound simply fades out and the announcer begins gabbing before it dies away, announcing the next record and giving a commercial while its introduction is being played. So introductions and endings have become superfluous.

The Herman's Hermits is a rather conventional looking crew. On the right is a neurasthenic individual wearing glasses. He stands quietly carrying the melody. The drummer is dressed like an American gangster of the 1930s and Noone has on a simple little red mandarin jacket and tight blue pants with large white daisies all over them.

Noone was accompanied by guitars and shrieks from the audience in the tune that sounds like "She's a Muscular Boy," but I think is really "She's a Must to Avoid."

Noone has a huge red mouth, a boxer's eyes and a rough voice. He was perfunctory and great.

The audience consisted of hundreds of typically boorish teen-agers, each one trying to be the center of attention.

Grim-faced policemen squatted along the front of the stage as though they were guarding a president. They unconsciously became a sort of psychedelic light show as they flashed their lights at the youngsters who were standing up or running forward to take pictures.

Over the fuzzy heads, however, the connection was being made.