Wednesday, June 1st, 1966

The June 1966 issue of Beat Instrumental features an article titled "Not The New Who" by Alex Hayes

 

Transcript:

NOT THE NEW WHO

Down at Tiles, with girls being carried here and there in various states of mental and physical detachment, I nabbed Roger Daltrey just after The Who had finished a particularly stage-powdering performance.

“Do you think that there is any reason at all for calling your group ‘The New Who’?” I asked trying hard not to tread on the heads of several prostrate faint-merchants.

“None at all”, he answered through an exuberant smile.  “We change all the time but that’s no reason to stick a label on us.  ‘The new Who’ sounds like a completely different group”.

“But certainly there have been drastic personal and musical changes”, I went on.  “Yes, of course”, said Roger.  “Common sense has made us change our music and presentation, now that we are doing straightforward stuff like the Dion numbers.  The new approach seems to appeal to a very wide audience instead of just those people who understood us right from the start.  Personally, of course, we’ve all changed, but I can’t, and don’t, really want to give many details.  Let’s just say that personally, I have grown up a bit.  I used to be a real tearaway, I mean I was really widld.  Now I have a load of laughs but I’m not as mad as I used to be.  Pete’s the only other member of the group I can really comment on.  HE’s got much deeper, more intellectual, although he always was on the brainy side.  Sometimes, you know, you can walk into a room and say hello to him and he won’t answer, then half an hour later he’ll turn round and say ‘hi’.”

I asked next, whether the Who had ever regretted that they came in on the ‘mod’s group’ promotion bit.  Roger commented, “The first few months we played round the London scene the Mod’s were the only ones to really ‘twig’ what we were doing.  They bought our records and we were grateful. Since then I think we’ve become a group for all the kids.  We don’t regret that we started off as an exclusively ‘mod’ group”.

AUDENCE CHANGES

If the Who have changed, so have the audiences.  Said Roger, “They have been getting wilder and wilder.  In the early days of feedback and things like that they stood and watched. Now they really go with us. Beat is definitely coming back”.

It’s paid off then.  No longer does Pete T. go into 20 minute ear and eye dissolving guitar phrases.  No longer does John Entwistle attempt to blow his speakers out of their cabinets and into the audience.  Keith Moon well, I don’t suppose there’s much you can do to restrain such a great showman.  Roger admits that his multi-tambourine smashing days are over.

Personally I like the Who much more now than I did when I first saw them in their amp-hacking era.  Now that they’ve modified their act, they are getting themselves across much better.  Their sound is better balanced, cleaner but still exciting and well … “Whio-ish”.

Gearwise there is always something new happening as far as this group is concerned.  John Entwistle is after a setup consisting of many 15” speakers and a 200 watt amp.  Roger wants to pick up some Swedish PA. He heard it on his last trip and thought it was great.  On his forthcoming trip he’ll probably buy himself a setup.  Keith will probably need a few new sets of drums if he keeps kicking his kits off rostrums, although just lately he has been pretty well-behaved on the whole. 

Recording, that all-important part of group life, is at a standstill for the Who because of “Legal Matters”, but with “Substitute” still well-placed they needn’t be over-worried.  Said Roger, “Studios are strange places. We have to force ourselves to be wild because of the cold surroundings. Sometimes it clicks, sometimes it just doesn’t and we all know we are wasting our time.  We tried the party atmosphere thing for some of the tracks on our first LP but I don’t think it was very successful.. Now we treat sessions very seriously”.

The big “conflict within the group” image doesn’t seem to apply to the Who anymore. Roger told me that because of the chemical reactions brought about by success and time the four extroverts are getting on together much better.  Each understands the other’s problems more fully than before.  “‘Substitute’ has made us very happyy indeed”, said Roger.  “As we told ‘B.I.’ a couple of months ago, we really thought we were in trouble but then ‘Generation’ broke for us and it’s been progress, progress ever since.”