Who's not a Punk, Rael revisited, the concept of concept albums, & The Blues

["Mark R. Leaman" <mleaman@sccoast.net>]

> sound (even if they did invent it).  This may have been an excuse for the
fact
> that from 1976 on, Pete put a lot of his musical energy into finding ways
to
> fill the Who's sound while turning the volume down to save his hearing.

Brian:

As always, an astute read of the situation. I agree; the odds are this was
the reason.

> punk, but I suspect the kids would have seen it as a bunch of old 
> geezers trying to rip off their new style of music.

YL:

The reason I don't agree with you is that so many Punk bands did Who songs.
Too many to list here, and of course I would expect Pete to write credible
songs! Ray Davies managed it quite nicely, with no loss of credibility (LOW
BUDGET, for instance).
And I never meant The Who should actually get "down and dirty" and try to
be real Punks...but stripping down the music and speeding it up a bit would
have been nice. "We don't need no stinkin' horns!" Imagine if WAY had been
like WBN, only with more energy and no keyboards (etc.). Sounds good,
doesn't it? New Song might have been alright at a faster pace. It would
have made the point better, too, IMHO...showing clearly that Punk was no
more than early British Rock redone (however well). A comment on the music,
much like The Kinks' song Prince Of The Punks.

> I've paid special attention to the exact wording, so when I repeat it's
> because there is a difference...however slight, sometimes only one word.

And yet, with this attention to detail...I still made two mistakes:

> He's always been the kind of guy ->THAT<- I respected

> Hero: "Now Captain, you'll remember your instructions. Return to this
->POINT<-
> on Christmas day. And look toward the shore for my signal. And then
you'll
> know if in Rael I'll stay."

Sorry; it was damned busy yesterday morning while I was writing it. Hard
for me to feel bad about that.

> What do you think of Floyd's "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn"? Most
> people say it's a concept album, but I don't think so (especially
> because most of Floyd's later stuff were definitely concept albums). Do
> you agree?

The definition of "concept album" is slippery, so I can see how a case
could be made. I personally have never thought of it as a concept album. It
IS a great one, however.

> I think that Johnny Lang has a lot of talent, and is a very authentic
blues
> guitarist (Buddy Guy played with him on his first album, if I remember
> correctly.)  As far as parroting Stevie Ray goes, that's just how music
is.

I'm not saying he's not extremely talented, but there is it seems a trend
toward SRV type of Blues (and there are so many other styles) of late. I'm
just tired of that style of Blues, that's all. Give me Tinsley Ellis and
Muddy Waters!

            Cheers                           ML

"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
--Presidential candidate Dan Quayle