1965 – The Who play the Town Hall in Kidderminster, Worcestershire
1966 – New Musical Express reports the The Who will soon be touring Scandinavia
1966 – The Who play the Corn Exchange in Newbury, Berkshire. John and Keith are late due to attending Ready Steady Go! Pete and Roger have been playing with the bassist and drummer from their opening act The Jimmy Brown Sound and are naturally furious at Keith. At the end of the show Keith, knocking over his drum set as usual, hits Pete in the leg with a falling cymbal. Pete turns and sends his guitar flying right into Keith’s head. Keith and John storm off determined that they are finally finished with The Who. They head over to Kit Lambert’s house to tell him they’re out
The Reading Evening Post the following day had this to say about the night:
‘My Generation’ boys in stage scuffle
A SCUFFLE between member of the beat group The Who broke out as they were finishing their act in Newbury last night.
Four hundred teenager [??] and shouted as officials held drummer Keith Moon and guitarist Pete Townsend (sic) apart.
The dance ended a quarter of an hour early because of the [??]
The [??] happened at the Corn Exchange in Newbury — market place as The Who were finishing their hit number My Generation
For no apparent reason Moon dressed in yellow jeans and a white tee shirt kicked his two base drums over
Then guitarist Townsend (sic) wearing a brown suit threw his white guitar at Moon. He rushed over to him, at it was then officials jumped in and parted them.
Cut Short
The act was cut short and three of the group went upstairs to the dressing room
Suddenly Moon, brandishing his boots, ran down the stairs shouting “Where is Townsend (sic)”
He rushed to his drums and pushed his foot through one of them. He then walked off to the back of the stage.
The show, which was scheduled to finish at 11pm was stopped at 10:45. Officials shouted to the audience to applaud but the teenagers started booing.
After the incident base guitarist John Entwhistle (sic) said “We have known each other since we were at school. It is just a way of blowing off steam and it could be said it is the best part of the act”
But 17 year old David Woodwards who was in the audience said “I have seen the act five times and this has never happened before. It was definatly a scuffle. We are all very annoyed because we don’t think we have had our moneys worth.
1966 – Keith gets Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys an interview on Ready Steady GO!
1967 – The Who headline at the Woluwe Festival just outside Brussels supported by The Klan. John somehow managed to fulfil the complete show even though he had a broken finger from a self-inflicted occurrence in Stevenage on the Wednesday night.
1967 – “Lily isn’t pornographic, say Who” is the headline in New Musical Express. Pete defends The Who’s new single “Pictures of Lily.”
Transcript:
LILY ISN’T PORNOGRAPHIC, SAY WHO
By KEITH ALTHAM
THE lugubrious looking Pete Townshend with the mincer-like mind ground up an interesting selection of subjects for attention over a lemon tea in London’s Act 1 Scene 2 coffee bar last week.
First subject to receive attention was the accusation of “pornographic lyrics” in “Pictures Of Lily.”
“Really it’s just a look back to that period in every boy’s life when he has pin-ups,” said Pete and went his violence upon a slice of lemon between forefinger and thumb.
“The idea was inspired by a picture my girlfriend had on her wall of an old Vaudeville star—Lily Bayliss.
“It was an old 1920’s postcard and someone had written on it—‘here’s another picture of Lily—hope you haven’t got this one.’
“It made me think that everyone has a pin-up period.
“John Entwistle and I used to swoop birdies when we were kids at school—we used to get a kick out of buying a thousand pin-up pictures at a time from tawdry little newspaper shops.
“It’s funny how some film actresses have sex appeal and some don’t—Bardot still has it—so has Loren.
“Julie Christie has a kind of youthful charm but no sex appeal.”
“This adolescent stage is a very real part of a young person’s life. I remember when I was fourteen I got a bus pass for school without my age on it and I forged ‘sixteen’ on it so I could go into X films.
“The first one I saw was Richard in ‘Serious Charge.’ Cliff [Richard] Simon Dee, now somewhat irreverently referred to by his real name—Carl Hendy-Dodd—by the Who, recently said their new single was best forgotten and ‘It was just the Who in the studios making the noises!’
“If he appears on my TV screen again I may put my foot through it,” said Pete pleasantly.
“I think he’s trying to build up his own little musical empire on which we aren’t included.
“He makes my blood boil—I wouldn’t mind if he was any good in his programme!”
We left Simon somewhere between the apple strudel and the Danish pastry and turned to “Power Pop!”
Explained Pete: “Power-pop is what we play—what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop the Beach Boys played in the days of ‘Fun Fun Fun’ which I preferred.
“There are too many groups involved in the same kind of scene as the Move where every word has to mean something.
“The Beach Boys are playing on this kind of ethereal level where the public are expected to come to them and be taught.
“I believe pop music should be like the TV—something you can turn on or off and shouldn’t disturb the mind.
“Eventually these people are going to go too far and leave the rest of the world behind.
“It’s very hard to like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ for simply what it is. Some artists are becoming musically unapproachable.”
We discussed the progress of pop people and where the Who were going.
“To retain the attention of the public every pop star has to make the transition to films at some time,” said Pete.
“Elvis did it—so did the Beatles and so did Cliff. Paul Jones looks to me as if he has done it with ‘Privilege.’ It’s the only way to last.”
TV series
“We’re still being considered for a TV series in New York but it’s very difficult to see what else we can do as a group apart from slapstick.
“Obviously it must be humorous—maybe Roger could break a leg or something.”
Pete observed that it is now more difficult than ever for a new group to break into the big time.
“The pop group situation has been at saturation point in the hit parade for some time,” said Pete.
“Look at the Move—they were around for ages before people noticed them and then they had to smash up TVs and break up cars on stage before people would pay them any attention.
“It’s catching the attention and getting the publicity that is the biggest problem for a new group.”
At this point Pete produced a damaged toggle switch and Keith Moon walked into the cafe only two days late for his appointment with me—something of an achievement.
In all fairness he had phoned me on the Tuesday to say he was OK to meet me for the interview fixed for the previous Monday.
Still anyone can make a mistake and Keith generally does.
“I’ve just been to the Finnish Embassy,” he announced brightly, “lost my passport again,” and looked resigned to the fact.
Pete stayed for a few minutes but as Moon-mainlines began to creep into the conversation a look akin to that of a man sitting by a film round for the second time came over him and he fled.
“Where were you on Monday when I was supposed to interview you?” I enquired.
“Modelling for Vidal Sassoon,” smiled Keith hugely.
“I figured if Brian Jones can make £100 an hour I can undercut him by £15 and clean up.”
I discovered that Keith is buying a house but not, of course, in the conventional manner. It has bought some garden gnomes—now he is looking for a house to go with them.
“A large family-sized pack of gnomes,” emphasised Keith.
Other things Keith has done lately include selling his Bentley to Roger and buying a newer model, going down to Eastbourne to throw pebbles at ice cream cartons and hitting a belligerent fan over the head with a cymbal when they played recently in Düsseldorf.
“He bled all over my snare,” said Keith disconsolately.
Keith now has two ambitions. He wants to become a professional cartoon “like Tom and Jerry” and get a job in Herman’s new Herne Bay hotel bar as a professional drip tray.
Drugs somehow got into the conversation.
Wearing his most angelic expression he enquired: “Is it true there is now a thing called an electric grape which the hippies boil and smoke through a toilet roll?”
There are times when Keith Moon is worth waiting for.
Photo caption: Another picture of the WHO as they appeared recently on Murray The K’s show in America. (L to r) JOHN ENTWISTLE, KEITH MOON, ROGER DALTREY and PETE TOWNSHEND.
Inset text:
←This is what I was writing about
PETE TOWNSHEND told the NME: “The photographs for the ad were postcards our co-manager Chris Stamp picked up in the Portobello Road. I must say he ‘sussed out the lyrics because these are the kind of pictures I was writing about. I hope we get lots of letters of protest.”
1967 – “Pictures of Lily” hits its U.K. chart peak at #4.
1967 – “Pictures of Lily” is a hot topic in Disc and Music Echo with Ray Davies stepping up to defend the song from being dirty. “I’m sure Pete Townshend would be most upset if he was told ‘Pictures of Lily’ was a dirty song.” Roger is a little more coy in an interview in the same issue: “I suppose the words are a bit dodgy. Perhaps we just see how close to the wind we can sail — without actually getting banned.”
1967 – The Who fly to Belgium for a film shoot for RTB TV’s Vibrato show where they mime to ‘Happy Jack’ at a mock-cowboy town called Texas City in Tremelo, Belgium.
1967 – Billboard magazine reports that TRO is issuing “Happy Jack” sheet music in a special edition
1967 – Melody Maker talks to Keith in an article titled “The economy size, family pack Who –for U.S. consumption”. Pictures of Lily was #5 in their “Pop 30” chart
Transcript:
The economy size, family pack Who—for U.S. consumption
“WE want to make it in the States very much,” said Keith Moon during a break in a Who rehearsal in the, fortunately, solidly-built bar of London’s Saville Theatre.
And after one or two false starts it looks as though the Who are about to make it in the States. They already have 15 thriving American fan clubs. They are representing Britain at the mammoth Monterey Pop Festival in June as part of a major tour. “Happy Jack” — the British single before their current hit, “Pictures Of Lily” — is doing well in the US charts.
“It’s a funny thing about ‘Happy Jack,’” said Keith, steadfastly ignoring Pete Townshend hammering on his drums. “It’s the one record we didn’t think would go in the States at all.
“It’s basically an LP track, not a single. We had an idea of what songs would sell in America—or we thought we had. Obviously we were wrong.”
WORRYING
Are the Who planning anything special for Monterey and the American tour?
“No, nothing special,” said Keith. “We’ll do the things we usually do, only bigger. A sort of economy size, family pack stage act. We shall draw our repertoire from our American hits—all one of them.”
Keith admitted he found the current chart scene “a little worrying” and wondered who bought all the ballad singles. He didn’t, however, feel that the groups were getting too complicated for the average fan.
“There are always groups like the Troggs and Dave Dee who keep it simple,” he said. “There are plenty of new groups coming up all the time and it’s only when they have been on the scene a long time that they progress to the stage where they play more for themselves. In the long run you have to play what you want to play and what satisfies you rather than worrying too much about reaching the top of the chart.
“Then there are the light shows. We used to carry lights about until it all got too heavy and dirty. Now we just take a lighting engineer with us.”
A year ago journalists tended to concentrate on the Who’s ability to smash guitars, amplifiers and drum sticks rather than their music. This seems to have faded and I wondered if Keith was relieved that it had.
“I’ve not really thought about it,” he told me. “I suppose it’s partly because we’ve been out of the country for quite long periods and people have sort of switched to Jimi Hendrix. Then journalists have probably got a bit bored with it, it’s become too much of a straight story now. Anyway we are thinking up some new things now—like smoke.”
When I first saw the Who on TV, I thought that Keith was undoubtedly the worst miming in the business. Constant viewing decided me that he must be doing it on purpose—nobody could get that far out of phase by accident.
“I just hate miming,” explained Keith. “It’s impossible to mime. Really, it’s very easy to go on and do a straight mime to a tape but I hate it. So I go my own way.”
EVOLVE
The Who have long had the reputation of pace-setters in the avant garde of pop. Do they find this a burden? Do they worry about having to come up with something new all the time?
“We don’t think about it,” said Keith. “We just do what we want to do, and we always have. We work together within the group and the ideas just come out. It’s very easy. It was hard at first when we were all arguing—we didn’t find it easy to communicate at first. Things are a lot easier now. We don’t fight any more and ideas can evolve naturally.
“At the moment we are working on a new LP. All the material will be original, including some stuff I’ve been writing. It will be released later in the year.”
From what I heard of the rehearsal, the secret of the Who is simple. Inspiration laced with a great deal of hard work.
—BOB DAWBARN.
Photo caption: KEITH: hard work
1968 – Pete and his long-time girlfriend Karen Astley wed at the Didicot Registry Office in Oxfordshire. The reception is held at the in-laws’ but there is no honeymoon as Pete has to stay home to work on the next Who single.
1973 – Roger was to appear on the BBC2’s John Denver Show but was replaced by Paul Williams
1977 – Roger releases his third solo album One Of The Boys in Britain.
1978 – Record Mirror reports that The Kids Are Alright had filmed The Who at Ramport Recording Studios and that final edits would be completed “this month”
1981 – The RIAA certifies Face Dances as reaching gold record status
1997 – Remixed and remastered CD’s of Face Dances and It’s Hard are released. They are sold for a reduced price and feature almost no liner notes
2004 – The Who play the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts
2015 – The Who play the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York
2022 – The Who play the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania