Re: The Who Vs The Rest

[mleaman@sccoast.net (Mark Leaman)]

>>Well Ian...if Page was influenced by The Who while in the Yardbirds, and
>>then continues this (or makes it his style, as you say) in LZ, then...I
>>mean do you see what you've written? You've agreed with me (finally).

>At least I'VE been looking into the "archives" for this argument, BUT I 
>still contend that what you hear on LZ II is more Page than anything else.  
>What you hear on LZ II could be taken from the Who as much as Iron 
>Butterfly, it's still hard to tell.   But yes on certain Yardbird songs it's 
>a definate Who influence, but since there are plenty other YB songs that 
>don't ring a Who influence, so who's to say?  If it's a Who influence on LZ 
>II it is very dilluted in comparison to what he did with the Yardbirds.  

Ian:
What do you mean by saying that YOU have been looking into the archives? And
I haven't, I suppose you imply? Well...I have been listening to the songs
again, and checking a few things as needed.
I would have to question your idea that Iron Butterfly influenced Zep when
The Who didn't. That seems like grasping for straws. What's the big deal to
admit that Page and Plant were influenced by a band that was (after all) a
biggie while they were still trying to make it (indeed, before they formed)?
And even diluted, Who influence is Who influence. I don't care how much it
was diluted; I'm just saying that it was THERE.

>>So who's talking about the surface? As I said before, even if the great
>>unwashed record-buying public only heard the surface of this (and other)
>> Who
>>songs, there are those of us who went deeper...and heard more. What I heard
>>was a song that altered the face of Rock music forever.

>So what are you saying?  I'm only pointing out the foundation of the song, 
>and that is the surface.  It altered rock music because the Who played MG 
>like no other band before.  But it still contains the same contents as the 
>other artists of it's time.   What you consider "deeper" is how Who did it, 
>but the bare bones of the song isn't any different from YRGM.  If the song 
>itself was different from it's contemporaries it would have to be written in 
>something outside of the blues scale, which it isn't.  Call and response, 
>that is My Gen and it's a definate blues trait, delete this statement all 
>you want, but it's true.

What I'm saying is simply this: My Generation, as recorded and released, was
a revolutionary and a very (perhaps the most) influencial song in Rock
history. It doesn't matter if it came from The Blues (all Rock did, which is
why that never mattered in this discussion), it doesn't matter if there were
other Blues-derived songs recorded by other bands at the same time, it
doesn't matter if it's call and response and the demo was very Delta Blues.
You can nit-pick it to death and it won't matter.
What does matter is that it was unique (as a finished product) enough to end
the Chuck Berry/Blues/RnB style of songs that every major (at least) band
was doing up to that point. The evidence is there, all you have to do is
look at the music before and after the song was released. You might want to
say that there was another reason for this, but I have yet to see another cause.
At the surface, as you say, I'm sure that a lot of people said that MG
sounded like The Beatles. It doesn't, but we're talking surface here.
Musicians looked a bit deeper. Music changed just at that point. I
mean...that says it all.



 Cheers                      ML

NP: Stern