The Who Album-By-Album (& Single-By-Single) Thread

I didn't even know Direct Hits existed. A pointless compilation indeed. But probably according to some people still worthy of an audiophile 200 grams vinyl pressing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-WHO-DIRECT-...ewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item4cdaa27320

 

Well the Japanese cd version couldn't be more essential, IMO, assuming you don't have a good vinyl copy of the ICSFM mono 45...

 

That is certainly an interesting thought, and the band probably had some input, as Diogenic Attempts Ltd. (who put the cover together for Track) usually only did what they called "design coordination" from a concept made by the artist. They did this for bands and artists like Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Nick Drake as well.

 

Certainly a plausible explanation:

 

"The Who"-picture of the day:

 

I have not heard this, but I am under the impression that, like the Japanese CD, MUCH better sources were used than for the original release.

 

There were people who raved about this comp, and it had colectors' appeal, being an import, no US issue, etc. But still a cash in.

 

I don't have it myself, but several people have reported that the Classic LP reissue did not use better sources. It doesn't use the single mix of "I Can See for Miles," and Prof. Stoned has said that it sounds like the same fold-down from fake stereo as on the original LP.

The Japanese CD, on the other hand, sounds pretty nice. The obi claims that it's sourced from Japanese single masters. "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand" is actually the album version, but since that track came out in Japan as a B-side to "Armenia," I suppose they might have used the LP version for the Japanese single too.

 

Wow, that's crazy. I think that's the single worst fake stereo I have EVER heard. It sounds like the frequencies were combed and half of them were delayed...and the second delay was louder than the original signal. So the whole thing has an uncanny "backwards" sound to it.

This collection was unfortunately my first exposure to crucial things like "Pictures of Lily" and "I'm a Boy," and the sound was so bad that I couldn't even understand what I was listening to.

The version I had was called "Story of the Who"....it was a release from some other European country, same songs. Pressed on excellent vinyl.

 

"The Who"- picture of the day:

It's always 5:15 pm at my house

 

Come on reb, I'm sure it's 9:05 at least twice a day.

 

How about 3.36? (Early Morning Cold Taxi)

 

"The Who"- pictures of the day:

 

Must be time to move on. Not much left to say about Direct Hits is there. The one stage photo from the 67 tour was always a a major factor for me... Same gear as the SF show I saw. It sure wasn't Who's Greatest Flops, the album Pete mentioned a few times. My pal MADE me buy his UK copy of Substitute, because he was sure it was going to be on WGF! Cost me all of $.75...

 

Definitely time to move on to a new year - and a new and fantastic era. Let's kick it off with some silver balls!

 

Pinball Wizard

http://www.*****/images/PW-UK.jpg

UK: March 7, 1969 - Pinball Wizard / Dogs Part Two - Track 604027
US: March 22, 1969 - Pinball Wizard / Dogs Part Two - Decca 732465

A1: Pinball Wizard (3:03) *****
(Pete Townshend)
B1: Dogs Part Two (2:28) *****
(Keith Moon/Towser/Jason)

By the end of 1968, The Who's debt was pushing £100,000. It had been a well known fact to most people around them for a while. Back in September '67, John had to borrow money just to get home from the Herman’s Hermits tour, despite the fact that the band had earned $40,000 on the trip. Roger: "After "I Can’t Explain", we started earning what was then pretty good money, say £300 a night. But after the first year we were £60,000 in debt. The next year, after working our balls off, we were still £40,000 down. And the biggest choke of all came the year after that when we found we were back up to £60,000 again. Every accountant’s meeting was ridiculous. We always owe so much money that we end up rolling around the office laughing ourselves silly." As a live force, The Who were regarded as unbeatable, and in December they gained an even wider audience through D. A. Pennybaker's Monterey Pop film, where they are an absolute highlight, tearing through "My Generation" and smashing up their instruments. The same month, they filmed a TV special called The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus (with the Stones, Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithful, Yoko Ono and super group The Dirty Mac, featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell), where they blew The Rolling Stones off the stage to such an extent, that the Stones decided against releasing it to the public. But the band felt that they were losing touch with the original Who audience, and that they had reached the point where they would have to let them go in order to progress. Pete: "We were into the idea that the audience were the people to serve, so I suppose I lost that audience, I lost touch with The Who’s mod audience, and I decided that what I actually had to do was I had to write something for me. And where I was at the time was in a very strange place. I had had a couple of acid trips and hated it. Everybody else in the world was wearing funny clothes and blowing their heads off and wearing flares with flowers in their hair, and I felt very out of step with it, but I was interested in the mysticism. I was interested in the spiritual side of it. So I thought maybe what I could try to do was marry the pop single with this idea of this mystical journey, and that's when I started to work on Tommy." Pete's inclinations toward a new project for The Who had indeed coincided with his discovery of the teachings of Meher Baba in the summer of 1967. He got the idea of writing a series of thematically linked pieces of music, with the theme being man's spiritual quest. The idea of a rock opera was something Kit Lambert had been pushing Pete for since 1966, and although they had touched upon it in "A Quick One, While He's Away" and "Rael (1 And 2)", they still hadn't realised it in a full concept, and it was still an absolutely revolutionary idea. Pete: "In my first notes I talked of an opera that would tell a spiritual story in a parallel way, from the inside and from the outside, but the solid undercurrent riding through all the material was the fact that I was in a new found spiritual mood." During the bands Herman's Hermits tour, Pete laid the groundwork. "I used to rush back to the hotel room to work, writing songs or collating lyrics, or scribbling out ideas for the opera that I was working on at the time called Amazing Journey." Amazing Journey started life as a poem of epic proportions if not an epic poem, clocking in at over 230 lines. It formed the nucleus of Pete’s new project, outlining a spiritual quest. Pete: "It was all stream of consciousness stuff, but when I read it back then, it staggered me. I realised that I had described a story that I could never have dreamed of myself let alone put to music. But the strangest part of all is that there was no development stage between this Hesse-like tale of mystery and spiritual intrigue, and what we today see to be Tommy. I just lived with the story, invented a name for my hero; Tommy, and started to write songs.” Throughout 1968, on tour and at home, in hotel rooms, dressing rooms and even airplane cabins, Pete laboured on the creation of his grand design. He also spoke with several journalists about his project, putting pressure on himself by announcing it up front. Pete: "I said so much about Tommy that it just had to be finished – I had to get it done." A breakthrough came when Pete realised that Tommy had to be deaf, dumb and blind. Pete: "Tommy became deaf, dumb and blind when I realised that there was no way to get across, musically or dramatically, the idea of our ignorance of reality, as I had learned it to be, from reading Meher Baba. We have our five senses, and we have our emotions, but there are whole chunks of life, including the whole concept of reality, which escapes us. We don’t really know who we are, we don't really know how we got here, and we don’t really know what our aim is, we don't understand the concept of infinity, and our minds are unable to accept it. We don't understand suffering or what causes it, we don't understand life itself or what motivates it, we can't accept death and we feel it to be unjust (although it is part of the wheel of life). So I decided that the hero had to be deaf, dumb and blind, so that, seen from our already limited point of view, his limitations would be symbolic of our own." With this, the title changed from Amazing Journey to Deaf, Dumb And Blind Boy, and at this point Pete wasn't even sure if he was writing for The Who, and again - like in "Rael", he was thinking about using Arthur Brown. Pete: "I didn’t believe I could do it in the framework of the Who. I'd had the idea of rock opera way before, but when I met Arthur Brown, I was convinced that he was the perfect foil for it, he was a great rock singer with an operatic range and all that. I thought about writing an opera for him, but it was something outside of the Who – I was hedging my bets. It was Kit that kept pushing me back to the band. He seemed to have greater foresight than we did as to the level that the Who would reach." In September the band took the first batch of songs into IBC, again engineered by Kit, and kept working on the album until March 1969. The band played a lot of gigs in the UK during this period, often premièring new songs on stage, resulting in good takes in the studio. In September, they had recorded a version of Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues" - initially for a potential inclusion on Tommy, but when that was decided against, they were going to put it out as a single. That never happened, and Who-fans were left without new material for another six months. What eventually was to become the first single off the album, though, was one of the last songs added to the project - and a display of both how open and insecure Pete was all the way through the writing and recording process. He had considered the album pretty much complete, when he let his friend, journalist Nik Cohn listen to an early preview tape. Nik didn't like it, and Pete was very disappointed. Pete: "I expected him to like it and he said it’s OK. We went out and we were shooting pinball in some arcade somewhere, and I said to him “If Tommy was a pinball player, would you... Be more receptive to the idea?” And he turned to me and said “Yeah.” So I went home and I wrote the song. And I rewrote the piece with all of the references to Tommy rather than just being a spiritual leader, being a pinball player. So the pinball became a metaphor for the life of a rock star or even the life of a guru." The resulting song "Pinball Wizard", certainly made Tommy more of a rock opera than a God opera, but Pete wasn't too sure about the lyrics. Pete: "I thought "Oh, my God this is awful, the most clumsy piece of writing I’ve ever done". Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball, from Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all... Oh my god. I’m embarrassed. This sounds like a Music Hall song. Sure plays a mean pinball. I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on." It was recorded at Morgan Studios, London on February 7th, and the B-side "Dogs Part Two" was recorded five days later at IBC. "Pinball Wizard" is a massive return to form, with a majestic Purcell-inspired intro from Pete, and an excellent performance from the entire band. Keith is fantastic here, showing great skill, feel and uniqueness in a mid-pace song. The fills are incredible. John has his melodic and powerful signature all over it, and listen to that fuzzed up intro. You could almost swear it was a guitar! Roger has matured into an amazing singer, and this dynamic, expressive and emotional performance is an absolute bliss to hear. The B-side "Dogs Part Two" (for those who thought The Who were finished with the dog theme) is a killer riff-o-rama instrumental reminiscent of "The Ox", with Keith going absolutely crazy behind the kit and the whole band barfing and howling over it. The interplay between Pete and John is incredible, John's bass is fuzz heaven, and the whole song just smokes. What a joy! The song was written as a collaboration between Towser (Pete's dog), Jason (John's dog) and Keith Moon (everybody's dog). John: "Well, what do you expect from a song written by The Who's dogs? The lyrics leave a lot to be desired, but they reached the hearts of canines all over the world." The single reached #4 in the UK charts and #19 in Billboard (where a single was released with a picture sleeve for the first time) - their best US chart position so far, but not everybody were convinced. BBC DJ Tony Blackburn called it "distasteful" and declared that "there is no excuse for the lyric." NME also attacked the song, running a picture of Pete with the headline "Is this man sick?" Regardless, "Pinball Wizard" is their greatest A-side since "I Can See For Miles". A timeless, classic wonder of a song. And who else but The Who would keep people waiting for ages for a promised gigantic spiritual statement, only to come out with a catchy as hell pop song about a rather good pinball player? A perfect single!​

 

Pete's crowning achievement IMO: "Pinball Wizard Demo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHDc98tJgds


The Who cut a pretty good version too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRR-WlLVj74


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOUqRZkR8dE

 

Didn't ICSFM make the US top 10 in 1967?

 

Reached #9. Their only top 10 single in the U.S.

 

Devotional, these are great posts! You need to do an audiophile follow-up soon for some recently reviewed singles!

 

Doh! Thanks for the corrections, guys. Of course ICSFM was #9, thus higher than PW. Starting to think that I maybe should PM the write-ups for corrections before I post them here.

We'll be headed to Tommy land next week, just in time for Christmas. The audiophile catchup won't happen until January, unfortunately. But I've got in my hands a pretty much complete Rolling Stone-collection, and will flip through it and try to post HQ scans in the meantime whenever I come across Who-stuff. Don't know how exciting this could be, but they seemed passionate about the band from day one, so there should be some fun and/or interesting stuff there.

 

'Pinball Wizard' is one of those rare pop songs that cannot be overplayed! No matter what version I choose, when or where I'm listening everything else fades into the background. It's been that way for 40 years.

 

"The Who"- picture of the day:

 

"Pinball Wizard"- 45's

 

This is a great thread and one that deserves to be read and followed by any true Who fan. That being said, is there any way you can use proper paragraph form when reviewing each single and LP? It's so hard to follow (especially on a laptop) one long, continuous sentence. Other than the form used, the topic and writing is first-rate. Thanks, Ron