Tuesday, May 17th, 1966

The Lincolnshire Echo's "In the Groove by Bob Farmer" includes an article titled "The Who Look At A New Means of Self Defense"

 

Transcript:

THE Who, Britain's most talked-about, written-about pop group, may soon find themselves at the centre of another stormy controversy.

The Who, four London mods who between them smashed £1,500 worth of musical instruments and amplifying equipment on stage last year, are wondering how to make sure the fan frenzy does not lash back at them personally.

Two members of the group, when in Paris, were shown gas guns. The weapons are carried, Chicago-style, in shoulder holsters.

Drummer Keith Moon told me this exclusively. He was quite straightforward about it.

"They would be for use if the situation was desperate," said Keith. "They would never be used on the normal fans, no matter how hysterical they were."

The gas guns are converted .45 and .38 revolvers. The muzzles are jammed with thin, hollow metal rods. A cartridge explodes, and the heat turns the powder substances into gas.

NOT HARMFUL

"It only has a temporary effect and is not harmful," said Keith. "It would make a person dizzy and the eyes water.

Said Keith: "You get some yobs in these out-of-the-way places that carry knives and that sort of thing."

Keith should know. A long-haired Morecambe tough menaced him with a broken bottle. And although he was a flyweight boxer at school, Keith ran.

"The yobs try to impress their girl friends by threatening us," he said.

Since the group crashed into the pop world 12 months ago, they managed to stir up almost as much noisy controversy as the storm they create on stage — and among their audiences.

NOISY CHAOS

The Who were the ones that brought a noisy chaos of feedback and distorted electronic sounds into the best-selling charts, leaving behind a wake of broken guitars, battered drums and mangled amplifiers.

The Who's impact is still as immediate. At a record poll-winners' concert The Who were undoubtedly the most remarkable group in a show that included the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

Said Keith: "If we are playing somewhere for the first time, or at a big date, we make sure we give a spectacular performance to win over the audience. Once they have got over the initial shock, we concentrate more on what we are playing.

"It means we have to play harder at first. I've got to play louder than the guitars. Naturally, it means I have to hit the drums harder than the normal pop drummer, and the equipment breaks sooner."

Last month was particularly hard on Keith's pocket. Playing at the poll-winners' concert and a three-day tour of Ireland cost Keith £100. He broke one tom-tom drum, two snare drumheads and two bass drumheads.

HIGHEST BILL

The Who pay individually for breakages. Guitarist Pete Townshend has the highest bill. He's smashed at least 15 guitars. He slams them against the amplifier if he can't get the right sound.

Keith Moon has a boyish, open face. Fans identify themselves with him more than any other member of The Who.

When I talked to him, he was wearing a black surfers' cross, often mistaken for a Nazi medal, which was a present from a Californian surfing addict.

Clothes are as important to The Who's image as its sound. Pop art, with all its flamboyance, became synonymous with their name. Keith spent £50 a week on clothes in the first flush of pop success.

Today he is more conservative. The bill has been reduced to £15 of his £75-a-week pocket money.

LIKE WINDMILL

Keith Moon claims he has a quiet temperament offstage. But once he gets behind a drum kit his arms and legs explode into ferocious movement, like a windmill gone berserk.

"What happens onstage is all spontaneous. We are extroverts and it's a form of expression. When the audiences go mad I can't really believe it's directed at us," said Keith.

It doesn't frighten Keith that their jagged music stirs up audiences' latent aggression. At 19 his only fears, he said, were getting old and poor.

Life for The Who is much simpler: "We get on better now as people. It was dreadful at one time. We have learned to accept each other. It's better to be amiable, otherwise life's just miserable."

Simpler life, did I say? Suddenly I remembered those gas guns.

The Home Office were aghast at the idea of toting this kind of weapon around. "Only under very special circumstances," they pointed out, "would authorisation be given by the Ministry of Defence, and it's highly unlikely that it would be given in a case like this."

As I queried before: The simple life? Somehow it never works out that way for The Who.