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FD & IH article transcribed



Here's something you don't read every day - an article devoted entirely to 
the merits of Face Dances & It's Hard.  Source:  rockstar. magazine, January 
2000.

Cynthia
-------------------------------

Being: The Who after Keith Moon
by Jeff Miers

The (rockstar.) office echoed with laughter quite often this month.  It seems 
my esteemed colleagues got quite a kick out of the fact that I was working on 
a piece dedicated to The Who's recorded legacy following the death of 
original drummer Keith Moon.  The mockery directed at your humble editor 
became rather intense as the weeks progressed.  It was not unusual for 
someone to break into a chorus of "Athena" or "You Better You Bet," which 
would inevitably collapse into a fit of shared mirth.  Shared, that is, by 
all but me.

Not surprising, really.  Anyone who has read these pages even casually over 
the past eight months knows that I have a rather large chip on my shoulder.  
You would too, if you were commonly hailed by the moniker "Dad-rocker".  But, 
as Bob Dylan once said, (here I go again) "When you ain't got nothin', you 
got nothing' to lose".  So here goes.

Yes, The Who were one of the greatest bands in the history of rock music.  In 
fact, they may well be the single best live act to have pounded the boards 
over the past 35 years or so.  For while the Beatles and Beach Boys shunned 
live work (or should have, as the case may be) and ruled the recording 
studio, and Led Zeppelin and The Stones were fairly inconsistent in the live 
setting, the 'orrible Who were a well-oiled Sherman Tank of an outfit.  No 
one could touch them when they were on.  And they were on most of the time.

Here's why; take a disturbingly brilliant songwriter capable of both sonic 
muscle and tender subtlety, add a macho prick of a singer with an undeniably 
muscular and beautiful voice, a stoic, stationary bass player with fingers 
like tree trunks, and a drummer who soloed constantly, irregardless of band 
arrangements, and you've got the recipe for an incredibly  exciting 
rock-n-roll band.  Listen to Live at Leeds, and you'll realize that the 
subject needs no further debate.  The Who in their prime were simply 
monstrous; elegant and ugly at the same time.  

Rock fans are a notoriously unforgiving lot, though, and many Who lovers 
never forgave the band for continuing after the death of Keith Moon.  
Understandable, sure.  But unfair as well.  When Moon finally bit it, as his 
bandmates undoubtedly knew he would, The Who were left in a quandry.  In 
actual fact, Pete Townshend had quit the band following the recording of Who 
Are You, Moon's swan song.  He thought the album sucked.  (It doesn't).  
Townshend had been in a funk of drug addiction and alcoholism for the better 
part of a decade at the time of Moon's death.  The fact that he decided to 
carry on at all is rather surprising.  But he'd written a batch of new 
material, and he was excited once again.  The band hired ex-Small Faces 
drummer Kenny Jones, not so much to fill Moon's shoes, as to provide the 
foundation for what was essentially a new band.

"When Keith died, I did a weird turnaround," Townshend recently told Q 
Magazine.  "I felt the drive to carry on.  I summoned Roger to my studio and 
said, Listen, we've got to go on.  He was shocked - he said, Look, you're not 
physically very well - but he agreed and we decided to bring in Kenny Jones 
to replace Keith.  And of course, a couple of albums later, I found myself 
back in the place that I was at before Keith died."

It's the "couple of albums" Townshend so casually mentioned in the above that 
we are concerned with here.  For while those two studio albums that the band 
recorded with Kenny Jones at the drum throne - Face Dances and It's Hard - 
probably rank at the bottom of Who fans' list of great Who output, it seems 
fair to say, given the benefit of hindsight, that they've been given a bit of 
a bad rap.

A serious examination of these two albums must center around Townshend the 
songwriter, to be sure.  In fact, Face Dances and It's Hard shouldn't be 
judged by the same criteria as, say, The Who Sell Out, Quadrophenia, or even 
By Numbers.  It would probably make more sense to compare them to Who Came 
First and Empty Glass, or any of Townshend's solo work, for that matter.  If 
the listener is able to remove the Jones-era releases from beneath the 
unbearable heaviness of being The Who, two remarkably strong pop albums 
emerge.

In retrospect, it seems fairly obvious that the songs on Face Dances and It's 
Hard are among the most direct, least convoluted Townshend ever wrote.  That 
is certainly no slight on the man's more ambitious work.  The Who with Moon 
is obviously the only *real* Who.  But to insist that The Who shouldn't 
record unless they smack of the same significance that they did in their 
heyday, is simply ludicrous.

"Can The Who still be relevant to young people?" Townshend asks in the same Q 
interview, rather rhetorically.  Of course not.  One of the great things 
about being 54 years old is that I don't have to apologise to anybody - 
whether they're rock journalists or rock fans or fans of The Who - who might 
feel that I've had pretentious moments, or that maybe I'm a bit too big for 
my boots, or who think that if you delve deeply into my work that it's all a 
con.  The fact of the matter is, I'm fucking brilliant.  Not was brilliant.  
*Am* brilliant."

Townshend may have been speculating on the possibility of recording another 
Who album in the present day, but he may as well have been offering defense 
of The Who's 80's output.  It is pretty fucking brilliant, after all.

Face Dances was The Who's last big hit.  It's also the band's least bombastic 
recording; essentially, it's a great pop album, as unforgettable gems like 
"Don't Let Go The Coat", "Daily Records", "How Can You Do It Alone", and 
"Another Tricky Day" attest.  Townshend's intricate array of what we now call 
vintage guitar sounds are left plenty of room to breathe by the comparatively 
staid presence of Jones, who is as close as we are likely to hear to the 
diametric opposite of Moon the loon.  John "Rabbit" Bundrick's eclectic array 
of organic-sounding keyboards are a nice addition to the Who stew as well.  
Add the presence of a pair of Entwistle rockers in the mode of "My Wife" - 
the rollicking, bitter "You" and the equally pissy "The Quiet One" - and 
you've got a classic album by any standards, except possibly The Who's.

Similarly, It's Hard capitalizes on Townshend's penchant for shorter pop 
tunes, while adding enough bombast to keep things interesting.  In many ways, 
this is the superior album of the two, God strike me down for saying so.  The 
aforementioned "Athena" - the tune that kept my colleagues in stitches all 
month - is a wry, brilliantly worded love song with what sounds like an 
extremely bastardized Bossa Nova basis.  The bridge, wherein Townshend adds 
one of his brilliant key changes to the mix and, in a voice that could never 
be confused with any one else's, offers the query, "How long could children 
remain?" as Entwistle layers his inimitable horn parts, is simply awesome.  
No kidding!  And who can deny the power of the irreverent "Eminence Front"?  
Well, I'm sure many people can.  But they shouldn't.  Once again, Entwistle 
delivers the goods in perfect counterpoint to Townshend's more introspective 
eccentricities, with the tracks "It's Your Turn", "Dangerous", and "One At A 
Time".  A healthy serving of piss and vinegar, thank you very much.

A handful of these tunes - the title track, "One Life's Enough", "Cry If You 
Want" - rank among Pete's finest post-60's fare.  That's saying alot.

Hopefully, time will serve Face Dances and It's Hard well.  Recent re-issues 
include live bonus tracks, proving that the band still delivered the goods 
without Moon.

No Who collection is truly complete without these two albums.