Re: Re: Movies

[Daswer@aol.com]

Alan,
I would have paid good money to watch you throw the WHO gauntlet in
Tarantino's face!  That was a great story and I admit I didn't know he
qualified what he said in that Playboy article, although being three years
younger than him myself I feel pretty safe in saying that he and I and anyone
roughly our age was long past the bandwagon age when the '89 tour hit.  I was
a year out of college myself (as a matter of fact I blew off my high school 5
year reunion to see the boys play at Giants Stadium.  Not a hard decision to
make).  I would say if anything, the "Final Tour" in '82 probably rubbed him
the wrong way.  Even when I was in high school in the early to mid-80s, The
Who were old news to the general teen populace.  Tarantino spent his teenage
days in trendy LA during the height of New Wave and in '82 people who loved
New Wave loathed The Who (in my experience anyway).  I got my ticket to the
'82 tour from a kid who disdainfully scalped them to me so he could go pay for
tickets to The Go Gos.  The kid laughed and thought I was a geek.  The Go
Gos...and I'M the geek!?.  If anything I would say The Who was probably much
more reviled in Tarantino's 'hood than in most places in the US (and it was no
picnic for a Who fan like me even in never-trendy Connecticut).  What I think
happened was Tarantino blissfully considered the "dinosaur rock" Who dead and
buried years ago, and when The Who reared its head with a roar in '89 their
sudden massive appeal didn't make sense to him.  He had counted them out long
ago, and suddenly they were storming the country.  He'd never liked them but
suddenly he could no longer simply dismiss them.  Popularity demands a
reaction whether good or bad.  He'd gotten a taste of media power and he felt
like labeling them "a fad" in order to once more dismiss them.  But the truth
is, excepting the brief spell of Tommy days, The Who were never a fad.  New
Wave certainly was, but The Who wasn't.  Maybe piles of people who weren't
"Who Freaks" went to the '89 tour, but even that wasn't a fad.  It was an
attempt to grab at history.  It's the damn Who!  Personal tastes aside, they
are cultural icons!  The most famous LIVE rock band ever!  The real question
is, why wouldn't someone our age go see a long awaited Who concert?  If you
were simply indifferent you'd just stay away, but to make a public statement
dismissing them, that still smells like an ax grinding to me.  So I don't buy
his justification, but I love the fact that a Who fan called him out!!  That
is music to my ears.

I also wanted to welcome newcomer Jon.  I hope you have as much fun reading
this Who madness as I do.  For Who fans this list is definitely a port in the
storm.
-Leo