Who are The Who? Or is it, who IS The Who? One might be tempted to say, who gives a hoot (for phonetic reasons), but a lot of their fans might take exception.

Anyway, The Who is a vocal group which ranks third in the hearts of Englishmen, teen-agers, and mad mods who dig the new sounds in music.

Or so says their public relations representatives out in Beverly Hills, Calif., and on Madison Avenue, which aren't bad addresses for your public relations representatives to have, by the way.

Peter Townshend (now, really, just because he was sent off to the continent by the royal family after failing to win Margaret's hand in matrimony, that is a bit much) Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon and John Entwhistle got their big start by busting up their musical instruments on stage to the accompaniment of shrieks of the girls.

They still go that route in the colonies (meaning the U.S.A.), but have knocked off that kick in England. They will demonstrate their smashing instrument-smashing routine at Curtis Hixon Hall on Friday.

"The Who," say their PR folks, "became bored with the current rock music scene and devised their instrument-smashing routine for concert performances, now one of the most internationally famous (and most copied) in all of popdom."

A narrow little book-marker type flyer tells everyone to "watch them destroy all $35,000 equipment."

That may be a bit of exaggeration, old man, but that is what the pop music business is all about, anyway, so why quibble over a few thousand this way or that.

It's the shrieks from the birds that matter most. They and their teen-aged boy friends are the ones with all the money these days.