8The Daily Tar HeelWednesday, September 29,. 1982
New 'Who disc reflects 'progress.
enduring group 's future unsure
By JIM CLARDY
Staff Writer
' - ' -
One last album, one last tour. That's the word from Pete
Townshend, songwriter for and guiding force behind the Who,
one of rock's most enduring "bands. The group will not be
forgotten. The rise of heavy metal and punk, would have been
inconceivable without the Who.
The Who drew their influences from such diverse sources as
Eddie Cochran and James Brown. They were billed as "Max
imum R&B" by Kit Lambert, their first manager. Early singles
such as "I Can't Explain" and "The Kids Are Alright" bor
rowed vocal harmonies from the Beatles and Beach Boys. But
unlike the Stones' single-minded devotion to rhythm and
blues, the Who sprang more from a direct context.
The first two singles, "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" and
"I Can't Explain," introduced the ringing chords and use of
feedback which were to become staples of the Who's sound.
Yet it was their third single, "My Generation," from their first
album of the same name, that firmly entrenched their place in
rock history.
"My Generation" "is three minutes of organized chaos:
Keith Moon's hell-bent drumming, John Entwistle's thunder
ing bass, Townshend's accelerated chords, and the tough bray
of Roger Daltrey's "hope I die before I get old" (American
Decca originally returned. the pressing thinking the feed
back was a recording error).
The recording was crude, the playing primitive, but this only
augmented the power. Nothing as archaic would be heard
again until the punks surfaced 10 years later. Even more -so
than the Stones' "Satisfaction," "My Generation" defined
the rebellion and discontent of the era, summing up the anger
of the '60s. "My Generation," along with another single,
"The Kids Are Alright" from the, first album, became an
thems for the Mods in England, and gave the Who their first
identity.
"Happy Jack," the title track of their second album,
garnered the Who their first American hit. It also contained
"A Quick One While He's Away," which Townshend would
sardonically refer to later as a "mini-opera." "A Quick One"
was actually four three-minute songs loosely connected by a
common story line. The ideas and themes would resurface two
years later as the rock-opera, Tommy.
The Who Sell Out was a concept album released six months
after the Beatles' more widely publicized Sgt. Pepper. Songs
were interspersed between obnoxious radio commercials in an
effort to both recreate and parody British radio. Side One ends
with "I Can See For Miles," one of the Who's most powerful
singles and their biggest bit of all time, reaching No. 9 on the
American charts.
At this point, the Who were still widely unknown to the
United States. A cross-country tour would change that, as the
Who unveiled their destructive and violent stage show to the
American audience for the first time. The climax came at the
1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Townshend, playing his Gibson
guitar like a crazed windmill, would smash his guitar, produc
ing a wall of shrieking feedback. Moon drummed like a mad
man, destroying his kit in the process. Daltrey strutted, stut
tered, and swung his microphone like a lariat. The audience
had never seen anything like it. Only Jimi Hendrix would top
the Who that night, and he had to burn his guitar to do it.
In 1969 Townshend released Tommy to an unsuspecting
public. Townshend acknowledged this as his masterpiece, and
for the first time the Who gained a substantial American
following, where the album rose to No. 4 on the charts. The
idea of a rock-opera, however, bordered between sheer genius
and trite pretentiousness, and raised questions as to how
seriously a rock band could take itself. .
Live at Leeds came next, a crunching document of tne
energy the Who was capable of producing in concert. The
band had never sounded tighter, more disciplined than on cuts
like "Substitute" and "Summertime Blues."
Townshend was now obsessed with .coming up with a sequel
to Tommy. A project titled Lifekouse was aborted midway.
Out of this material came Who's Next, a. remarkable album,
which for the first time captured the power of the Who's live
music in a studio production. Some of Townshend's best;
songs are here "Going Mobile," "Behind Blue Eyes" and "
"Baba O' Riley." But the real triumph belongs to Keith Moon.
Moon took the drums put of a purely percussion role and
made them as much a part of the band's sound as
Townshend's guitar or Daltrey's vocals. '
Quadrophenia, released in 1973, was another album in the
rock opera vein and was the real sequel to Tommy. The album
chronicles the life of an archetypal Mod named Jimmy, a pill
gobbling Who freak, and was Townshend's most
autobiographical album to date. Quadrophenia was unified
more by theme rather than a story line, although Townshend
was quick to point out "... it's not a story more a series of
impressions and memories."
By 1975 Townshend, approaching 30, was experiencing, a
- mid-life crisis, haunted by his own anthem "hope I die before I
get old." Despite the turmoil, the music flourishedTTT Who
By Numbers is a sparse and powerful album, confronting the
problem of aging. Townshend treads between celebration and
condemnation of the rock star lifestyle.
Who Are You, released after a three-year gap, picks up
where Numbers left off, but Moon's death just weeks after its
release made it seem more like a last gasp, the beginning of the
end. Face Dances puts these problems into context. The
energy is forced, the poses contrived. Townshend's pledge to
disband the Who after this tour leaves the future open to ques
tion. .
Jim Clardy is a staff writer for The Daily Tar Heel
lack charisma
New 'Who' tunes
By DEAN FOUST
. Staff Writer '
Four mirtutes to midnight on a '
surmy day
Maybe if we smile the dock'll
fadeaway . ;
Maybe we can force the hands
to just reverse
Maybe is a word, maybe
maybe is Just a curse
Nobody knows why we fell so
flat
from "Why Did I Fall For That"
If rock fans have an unnerving foi
ble, it's their undying and undiscerning
loyalty to their idols. Oblivious of the
true quality of the music, they will cuss
and swear at anyone in their path who
says their group's latest album isn't
manna from heaven. And when they
first concede that an album is
mediocre, they immediately assuage
each other that it will grow on them
eventually.
Very few critics gave approval to the
Grateful Dead's Go To Heaven, yet
Deadheads pack the concert halls
screaming for "Feel Like A Stranger"
or-" Alabama Getaway" as if their ex
istence depended on it. Ditto for Roll
ing Stones fans who eventually con
vinced themselves that Emotional
Rescue, Tattoo You and Still Life were
bcomparable (listenable would have
been an achievement) .while in truth
they all were found wanting.
And so it will be with the new Who
album, It's Hard. Who fans will tell
themselves how wonderful, how
creative, how unique it is. Arid if they
try hard enough, they'll believe it. ,
It's Hard, which Who leader Pete
Townshend has hinted might be their
last album (followed by their last tour),
is, at best, a mediocre finale for such a
prolific group.
"Athena," the first song to gain.FM
radio airplay, is among the best of the
album, thanks largely to John Entwis
tle's horn section. It doesn't get much
better, folks. '.'-'"
In fact, Entwistle gives one of the
group's better performances, with the
usual clever bass lines and penmanship
that is as good as he's done in years.
"It's Your Turn," "Dangerous" and
"One At a Time," all by Entwistle,
round out the listenable tracks along
with a Pete Townshend number, '
"Eminence Front."
Roger Daltrey's vocals are weak.
Noticeably absent is the strong, gravelly
scream that trademarked the Who's
sound for many years. With several
songs on 'It's Hard, you're left wonder
ing what Daltrey could have done, say,
10 years ago. And Daltrey's few
notable efforts are buried beneath a
bad mix that overemphasizes the
keyboards, bass and rhythm. But that's
good for Kenny Jones, who here '.
avenges his poor performance on Face
Dances. " ' ' vV. ' :.J ' "
. As for Pete Townshend, the patron
saint of Trunking (and Drinking)
Man's rock 'n roll, it may be that his
biggest, fear has been realized his
fear of growing too old to rock the
masses.
The magic just isn't there anymore.
Sure, there were signs of stagnancy and
aging on Face Dances, but we all
thought the Who would go out with a
bang, right? Surely, Townshend hadn't
been forecasting his fate, and even
wrote about it into the lyrics in a song
on It's Hard.
Townshend was the Pied Piper for
rock fans everywhere who followed his
every move of his guitar pick and pen.
But this is one dyed-in-the-wool
Who fan (35 albums, solos and
bootlegs testify) who has grown tired of
compromising and rationalizing about
what the Who was.
But it may not all matter. It's Hard;
will hit the album charts with a bang
and the songs will flood the FM air
waves. ;
And then it may follow the fate of
the four most recent Who albums,
languishing in the bargain bins.
It shouldn't end this way for such an
outstanding group.
L7 UQWOCCS, ' "
GIVE TO THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY.?
Boot
IlOtiElllSt
diBBmrMM movie
nnr OO-gn rHT
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By DAVID McHUGH ,
: Staff Writer
If you think you ought to like German
cinema, but have been frightened away by
things like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, ,
then your time has come. .
... Das Boot (The Boat), a tense, subtitled
German picture about a World War II
submarine and its depth-charged crew,
should appeal to the average American
who thumps down four bucks for a movie. ;
Das Boot has a straightforward plot and
a tight script, and falls easily into that most
familiar of genres, the war picture. It's got
some of the old war movie cliches, like
sailors on the bridge sternly gritting their
teeth into buckets of studio tap water.
It also bears humane and moving
witness to the destructiveness and futility
of the war.
The story concerns a young German
war correspondent who ships out on a
U-boat as an observer at the height of the ,
Atlantic war. ; .
Instead of cheerful blond war heroes
and hot propaganda material, the young
officer finds a cramped bunk, one toilet
for JSO men (no baths) and a crushing
boredom broken only by the sweaty
nightmare of depth-charge attacks from
pursuing destroyers.
The depth-charge attacks and other
underwater accidents generate much ex
citement. Lightbulbs pop, the hull groans,
valves burst and spray water all over, con
trol panels burst into flames and sailors are
thrown against bulkheads. -
All genuinely thrilling. But the oily
Teutons get bombed a little too relentlessly
for the good of the story. First they're
about to die, then they're about to die
again, and then again, and again, and then
it really starts to look bad.
Eventually, the ceaseless terror starts to
wear out, and a little inner voice begins to
chant perversely, "Let 'em drown." After
two hours, (the film runs two and a half
hours), it gets to be old hat.:
Review
T
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All the narrow escapes build toward an
ending whose irony, though faithful to the
film's grim vision, is just too heavy.
But for the first 90 minutes, the tension
is genuine, and this is still a very good film
in its entirety. The characters are all writ
ten and played with affection, especially
the unbelievably . self-possessed captain
(Jurgen Prochnbw) and his waggish 2nd
lieutenant (Martin Semmelrogge). The
correspondent (Herbert Gronemeyer) has
an unfortunate case of trembling lower lip.
The outdoor scenes are nicely shot, with
sunlight glistening on the ocean at sunset
and the like. The model work with the
sinking ships, however, is obvious.
But most of the action takes place in the
claustrophobic confines of the submarine
hull, whose , inner life -" sausages and
bananas hanging everywhere, the captain's
record player, and unwashed dishes,
clothes and bodies occupy much of
director Wolfgang Petersen's attention.
The maddening confinement and
squalor of submarine. life come across,
along with the quiet courage and fear of
the crew. Petersen reportedly kept his ac
tors shut up on the cramped set for days to
keep them pale and staring nervously at
the walls. V
He did something right, in any case. Das
Boot has that rare attribute in war movies
a conscience. .
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