Sunday, June 9th, 1974

Henry Edwards blasts The Who in an article in The New York Times. He finds their work from "My Generation" to Quadrophenia to be imbued with violence, is appalled that young people identify with a "basket case" like Tommy, and calls The Who's live performances a "choreographed temper tantrum."

 

Transcript: (unreviewed)

 

THE English rock group, the Who, creates music which is crude and self-indulgent and whose lyrics express feelings which range from violence and rage to frustration and despair. It is a narrow range, but a singularly powerful one, earning the Who a huge and adoring following of people from ages fourteen to thirty. Five out of its nine recordings are certified "gold," a record-industry label applied when the public spends more than a million dollars buying copies of a particular album. Its concerts, rowdy and tumultuous affairs, are among the best attended in rock's history.

Fans, once again, will hear the Who in Madison Square Garden, tomorrow, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. And a clever promotional strategy has guaranteed that the inevitable turnout would be populated by the most rabid of the Who's devotees.

The stratagem involved a 90-minute radio broadcast of a concert given by the Who in Washington, D.C., a year ago. The taped concert was featured a few weeks ago on one of the most popular rock programs in the New York area — "The King Biscuit Flower Show" on WNEW-FM. As expected, a host of Who aficionados had tuned in. Midway, the program was interrupted by a scripted public service announcement, and listeners were told they were the first group in the metropolitan area to be informed about the Who's concert this week. They then learned that tickets for the performance would be on sale the following morning.

The stratagem worked. Forty Who enthusiasts rushed to a deserted Madison Square Garden while the program was still on the air. By 12:30 A.M., 1,000 people circled the Garden arena. The ticket windows were suddenly thrown open. Within 60 hours, 80,000 tickets had been sold. The Garden had collected $500,000, setting a new box office record—and 50,000 fans had to be turned away since the sellout.

Henry Edwards is a popular music critic who writes frequently for The Times.

Who fans who came rushing to the Garden in the early morning hours by foot, by bus and by train typify the hysterical brand of loyalty of the Who audience which has grown by layers over the years. There is an original hard core group now essentially middle class and in its twenties — who adored the Who from the moment of its birth 10 years ago. Joining them are large numbers of younger followers added five years ago when the Who became superstars with the creation of "Tommy," the first so-called rock opera. The latest addition is an even younger generation of adolescents who see the Who as a venerable classic. Whatever the age or time of initiation, the common interest of all the members of the Who audience seems to be the provocative and violent feelings of the music.

And so, Madison Square Garden is preparing for trouble. The last Who concert in New York three years ago left a young guard stabbed to death in front of the Forest Hills Stadium. The security force at Madison Square Garden has been beefed up from 125 to almost 500, and a five-foot high plywood barrier is being erected in front of the elevated performing area to discourage those who suddenly develop an urge to jump on the stage or on the Who.

On one of these evenings, an adult (but not an adolescent) who sees the Who for the first time might have difficulty comprehending the hysteria stimulated by these four men between the ages of 27 and 30.

He will see dour guitarist-composer Pete Townshend, angel-faced lead singer Roger Daltry, perpetually grinning drummer Keith Moon and immobile John Entwistle—all engaged in rowdy and violent rock theatrics.

Townshend pummels his guitar, hammering chords rather than notes. He aims his guitar at the many amplifiers producing a crackling nerve-wracking feedback; then he aims his guitar like a musical machine gun at the audience, picking the strings to produce a stinging ratatat-tat. As he plays, he leans high in the air and flamboyantly circles the air with his gun, blasting a few more chords. Daltry howls loudly. He twirls his vocal microphone above his head and beats it against the bass drum. Then he howls again. Moon's drumming establishes an incessant rhythm. He bounces his drum sticks off against the cymbals high into the air, catches them and continues to play on the beat. Throughout, Entwistle remains practically motionless. At the finale, Moon may kick over a drum—paying tribute to the Who's original finale, a spectacle which included the setting off of a smoke bomb, the destruction of a guitar and the battering of "amplifiers."

The violence of this musical technique—better called a choreographed temper tantrum—is literally pounded home in blasting volume, loud even by rock's standards. Conventional melodies, traditional rock harmonies and even the rock beat are obliterated. In fact, music itself disappears; what remains is a roar.

This roar was originally and quite deliberately conceived to attract one of England's most publicized youth gangs of the mid-60's, the teen-aged urban working class dandies who called themselves the Mods. Other early English rock groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Kinks sought a wider young audience. But the Who set out to create a violent musical experience that would win them the sleek adolescents with dark glasses, Nero haircuts and scooters and who armed themselves with tiny hammers and screwdrivers.

A decade has passed. The narrow audience has widened; yet the music is essentially the same—primitive music played at an explosive volume. The content of the music, especially the lyrics, remains simplistic and banal, bloated by expressions of adolescent frustration and violence.

This anger was manifested first in "My Generation," the group's first English hit in 1966 and a permanent part of their repertoire. "They all try to put us down, Just be- (Continued on Page 5)

Lead singer Roger Daltry

Guitarist-composer Pete Townshend

Drummer Keith Moon

Guitarist John Entwistle

(Continued from Page 3)

"Cause we get around," begins the Townshend lyric which includes the following advice to one’s elders: "Why don’t you all fade away?" The aging process is summed up with "Hope I die before I get old."

Eight years later in The Who’s most recent release, a two-record set called “Quadrophenia,” the same banal negativism is revived. The songs deal with Jimmy, an English teenager during the mid-60’s who is a “quadrophenic” because his personality is split into four equal parts. Jimmy hates his parents, his psychiatrists, his school, his job, the teen-age culture to which he belongs, the leaders of the English government and just about everything he encounters. At one point, he moans "Every year is the same, And I feel it again, I’m a loser — no chance to win."

Without question, however, “Tommy” is the Who’s most significant work. No one had suspected that a band devoted to dramatizing rebelliousness would come up with the notion that basic loud rock music could be stretched to tell a story as was done in “Tommy.” Written primarily by Townshend in 1969 for the Who to perform, it is essentially a parable with the Who’s familiar mix of violence and failure. It tells of a boy who becomes deaf, dumb, and blind after he witnesses his father killing his mother’s lover. Tommy is tormented by his cousin, sexually assaulted by his uncle, and dosed with LSD. He eventually becomes a pinball champion, enters a state of grace, regains his senses and starts his own pinball religion only to be finally discarded by his disciples.

It is a mild understatement to say that the points Townshend intended in this parable do not emerge with total clarity. Nonetheless, the work became a major hit. A ballet company danced it. A symphony orchestra recorded it. Opera companies adopted it. Serious music critics all over the country subjected it to musicological scrutiny. And its libretto was interpreted with an intensity usually reserved for an Ezra Pound Canto.

"See me, feel me, touch me, heal me," Roger Daltry will wail in his keening “Tommy” voice sometime during the course of each of the Who’s forthcoming concerts. And once again, Tommy’s familiar wail will stir crowds. A feeling of community will flood the arena.

And yet to the untutored eye, it is frightening to see so many people identifying with basket-case Tommy who echoes their own need to be “healed.”

To those who have observed the Who over the years, it will seem more like a re-hash of the late 1960s notion that youth and rock were going to save the world.

There is not much talk about salvation these days even though the music keeps increasing in popularity. This music revives the myths of youth power of the late-1960’s as if to give lip-service to the vitality that has faded. In reality, a concert by the Who is now an entertainment for the young much the way girlie-shows once existed to please tired businessmen.

There will be lots of shouting and foot-stomping at the Garden this week. But the music—as loud as it is—will be tired. And so will its audience.