Re: How I bit the bullet.

["Rene Bos" <renebos@prodigy.net>]

Howdy,

I started it, so I guess must "zelf met de billen bloot" as they say in
Dutch.

I thought I was pretty young when I discovered The Who, but from the
postings thus far this proves to be untrue!
I was thirteen at the time. Before that I'd been quite heavily into what is
now known as glam-rock; Slade, Sweet, Mud. That stuff.
My brothers' friend had five brothers. When my brother and I went over to
his place, all the -older- brother's had a) huge record collections b) they
were all into The Who. The first song I heard was "Bucket T", from the album
"Superstarshine vol. 22" (vol. nr might be incorrect) and I really liked it.
Just like "Happy jack", "Pictures of Lily" (even though I didn't understand
it's lyrics properly) and "Dogs".
The next time, my brother's friend played Tommy to us in his very small
room. the one thing I remember is him throwing artificially a stone through
his bedroom window at "smash the mirror".
I liked -and like- Tommy, and also the 2LP "The Who Sell out", but only
after listening to Quadro I got really hooked - and virtually immediately
abandoned all glam-rock. For years, Quadro was my all time favorite. I still
thinks it's The Who's / Pete's masterpiece/tour-de-force. It combines Pete's
talent of writing shear brilliant "(rock)songs" with
"intelligence"/"complexity"/"passion"/"adventure/experiments". In fact, I
think this remains the sole album that fits into the "rock" category that
has all what it takes to really "touch me". I mean, my other "hero's"
Hammill/Cave/Brel/Walker/Drake aren't exactly "rock", but they all write
brilliant "songs" along with music with these same attributes a mentioned I
like in Quadro!
In second half of the seventies The Who didn't particularly made great
albums; Numbers I found too "simple" and "Who are you" too MOR.
But I remember being more upset then I'd imagined when slightly later, about
9 am, somebody at highschool told me Keith had died by an overdose of
"drugs".
In the eighties, I kinda dived into new wave and stuff, and kinda neglected
The Who, though never forgot them, and alway liked them, although my musical
"soul-mates" were never into them. My Who-love kinda revived at the release
of the 25 yrs Max R&B Box, and I rediscovered the shear brilliance of old
songs like I can see for miles. And only then I tried to get my CD Who
colection complete, blaming myself for selling all those rare vinyl Who
bootlegs I used to own.
I enjoyed seeing The Who live playing Quadro May last year -despite the too
large venue. And, since I moved recently from Holland to Houston, TX, of
course I'm amazed how often USA radio plays The Who; back in the Netherlands
this is a pretty rare event.

cheers, Rene