Re: Bernd & Athena

[btm805@btrtx9.hrz.uni-bayreuth.de (B. Gramlich)]

Rich, Re:

> Bernd: your spirited trashing of absolutely everything I said about Athena
> was fun to read and respond to (but not THAT much fun) and it might even
> have been fun to read what I wrote back, (definitely not THAT much fun) but
> the computer crashed, the response was lost and that was that.

Ah, finally the destroy-all-criticism virus I implemented in this list starts
to work.  It is THAT much fun to hear this... ]:-)

> You wrote:
> 
> Just to insert my own stupid theory here (feel free to tear it to pieces):  I
> think that Athena, together with Eminence Front, I've Known No War, and Why
> Did I Fall For That, could have been the sixth revolution of rock music led
> by Pete if only his band and his fans had been willing to follow him,
> resulting in something I would call Progressive Rock. end quote

> First: I think you've already been alerted to the fact that the PR label
> was already in use, poorly describing bands such as Yes and ELP.

Sure.  But I don't think that every label exactly describes the product it is
attached to.  Just to recall an obvious example:  We once had a `German
Democratic Republic' over here.  Of course, it was German, and with a lot of
generosity one could even think of calling it a republic.  However, I guess we
agree that there wasn't much democracy within.

I would call Yes and ELP Alternative Rock.  They were in an intelligent but
somehow artificial way different from the rest, both musically and in their
choice of subjects.  (Sorry, fans of the above, I cannot completely hide that
I don't like them THAT much.)

Progressive means to me going one step further towards rock music as a pure art
form.  It denotes a rather `mature' approach to the rebel attitudes,
introspective lyrics, and noise-oriented performances that form the essence of
rock music:  expressing convincing and comprehensible feelings that are not
necessarily one's own, thus generalizing Pete's famous sentence about stage
performance `it's not like being obsessed - I just do my job' to songwriting.

I like the unpretentious structure of the songs mentioned above - they still
show a lot of Who tradition, but they go several steps beyond...  Progressive?

> Second: I wouldn't try tearing anyone's theory to pieces unless I found it
> offensive, and I'm impossible to offend. Discuss and debate instead. Tearing
> is for children.

Nonsense should be torn to pieces.  And I'm still not completely sure whether
my theory makes sense or not.

> Third: Pete wasn't leading any revolutions at the time. I believe
> he was retiring, for lack of a better word. (But if it quacks like a duck,
> etc...) It was Pete who rejected the band, not the band refusing to follow.

I'm certainly not the best Whostorian around here, but it seems to me like Pete
was only thinking about retiring from the good old loud four-piece Who, whereas
Roger didn't like much of the songs Pete came up with because he was still
dreaming of the ever-lasting style of the good old loud four-piece Who.  I
think that this contrast - with many of the fans being on Roger's side -
finally marked the end of the creative phase of The Who.

Since then, Pete has followed different paths - the old introspective one with
Chinese Eyes and Psychoderelict as well as a purely descriptive one with White
City and Iron Man.  He tends now towards greater projects - new presentations
of Tommy, Quadrophenia, perhaps Lifehouse.  But I'd really like to see him
write some more of these unpretentious songs in the It's Hard style...  Maybe
I'm just nosy about what The Who would have sounded like if they had continued
to work creatively together :-).

> So. What I would like to know: what is it about those songs that
> constitutes a potential revolution?

See above.  They don't cry `Revolution!' or `I'm hurt!' like many songs did
before, though they still imply it.  They are just cool.  That might be a
revolution.

Bernd