[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Another brick of the hash



> Except Lifehouse didn't happen. Who's Next happened and Pete, quite
rightly,
> puts the blame for Lifehouse failing to Lambert's abandonment.

Brian:

Counterargument # 2:
A most successful failure. Without Lambert Pete was able to pull off their
most successful album of all. And he went on from there.

> that project as well. It was Kit's guidance that brought Tommy about.

Granted.

> had been enthused about Lifehouse (or could have forgotten about the Tommy
> film for two seconds) we'd be talking about The Who's follow-up opera
> Lifehouse that made everyone forget about Tommy.

Possible. However Kit was also increasingly incoherent, so it still might be
he was unable to focus on Lifehouse even without the Tommy film obsession.
And how was Lambert to instigate the ascension of fans (and band members)
"coming together with the band?" And how is he responsible for the reaction
of fans at the Young Vic? I can't blame Lambert completely...only
marginally. With him it might have been a film on the level of Man Who Fell
To Earth...interesting but not great.

> The result? Pete quickly begins to back away from The Who, does albums
about
> how much pain he's in, crawls within himself.

That is pretty much what I said. Pete killed The Who. I find it hard to
believe he killed it because Kit wasn't there to take half the blame. I
don't know that Kit was involved in Quad at all. And its "failure" had more
to do with the mood of the marketplace (which wanted WN II) than a lack of
Kit. I remember hearing the album, telling people it was the best thing the
band had done, and the response was "It all sounds the same." "Can't tell
one song from another." People didn't buy it in droves.
Translation: no hit single, no easy listen. You had to WORK to listen to
Quad...and people didn't want to.
So, no, I don't blame Kit for the "failure" of Quad. I blame the spoon-fed
buying public.

> But what if Kit had stayed on track? Pete and Kit's last project together
> was Pete's orchestral rock experiments of 1977. Imagine a Who Are You
album
> built around Football Fugue, Brooklyn Kids and Street In The City. Of
course
> Who fans would have loathed it, but what a challenge it would have been to
> the status quo!

I don't know that it would have been all that innovative and progressive.
Sounds like the Moody Blues with better songs, and there were plenty of
bands merging Jazz/Classical and Rock by 1977. Not only would Who fans have
balked, the buying public Pete finds so personally influential would have
rejected it en mass. I don't think anyone would have liked it. The closest
Pete ever came to making a new sound for the band was Music Must Change, and
unfortunately it was a one off.

> time events that happen in places like Mount Airy,
> Galax, Black Mountain. Believe me this is a beautiful
> part of the USA.

Lee:

The Smoky Mountains ARE the most beautiful place in the USA.

> with "black music". This is stuff like "The Ballad of
> Maddy Groves" and songs that are two, three, four
> hundred years old that come from Ireland and Scotland

Right. Folk music came from British minstrel music (even if from Scotland or
the green hills of Eire).

> attract many thousands of folks. If you spoke to some
> of these people and told them that "white" music only
> became part of the popular culture with the Titanic
> soundtrack

I was joking! Come on! I'm a Black 47 fan!

> Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild".  Who are these people?!?!

Brian W:

A bunch of bikers.

> You know, they say Jimi slept with his guitar when he was in the army.
Really.

Scott:

Well, look at the nice set of strings on that baby.


"The important question is, How many hands have I shaked?"
          George "and how much money was in them" Bush


               Cheers                 ML