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Re: Sea and Sand



>one wishes Sea and Sand and the rest of Quad had been given a harder sound,
>more akin to the way the Who performed it live in the mid-70`s as certain boots
>attest. It`s interesting to note that much of Tommy is relatively quiet
>sounding, and perhaps PT calculated that he needed to do the same for Quad
>to make it the transcendent commercial and critical success he clearly
>wanted. Except by then LAL and WN had been released, albums which are the
>summit of hard rock glory. I think any Who album released in their aftermath
>which returned to a softer sound inevitably sounded like a demo - at least
>that`s how I saw it at the time, and still do... 


Gary M.:

That's one of the things I love about The Who live; the way they adapt the
complex song to three musicians. And a reason why I'm not thrilled at the
Who Orchestra approach to QUAD at Hyde.
Reasons (I think) that QUAD is so complex:

1) Pete felt he had to take things a step further each time (giant steps, as
Rog once said), and this is the "son" of WN's synth work. Maybe not a
natural progression, but if you listen to the synth work on WHO CAME FIRST
it makes sense.

2) Rock Music in general was headed in a more "produced" direction, which
was shattered by Punk Rock a mere three years later. Pete wanted to extend
the band and keep it modern. Not to mention get away from their "old" sound.

3) He always felt that TOMMY was unfinished, which is also why the
soundtrack version (which I've always called the son of QUAD) is so filled
with synth-work.

Pete felt that the band was limited by having only the three instruments,
which is more apparent with each album after MY GEN. Why he felt limited
I'll never know; I think the music is never freer than when he's improvising
and adapting to make up for the missing instruments. But you see that Moon's
death allowed Townshend to add a keyboard player and later other musicians.
He leaped at the chance.


                   Cheers                   ML

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."  L. Long