Sunday, August 22, 2010

Wait Wait! Rewind to 1964 Again!

Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who is a wonderful "warts and all" style documentary that came out in 2007. So many "rockumentaries" just rehash the old but this one gives some wonderful insights that I didn't realize:

  • offshore pirate radio like Radio Caroline played a huge role in launching the The Who.  State-controlled media, the BBC, actually suppressed things back then (image that).
  • Pete Townshend had an epiphany while driving a car and hearing "I Can't Explain" on the radio: he realized: I have a sponsor...I have a patron...this is art!
  • By far the best treat was a rare 1964 film of the The Who at the Railway Hotel. Watch it here:



Roger Daltrey was the man!  The Detours/High Numbers were his band at that point in time.  They hadn't written any original material yet and Roger still called the shots more or less (just like Brian Jones did in the Stones at first).  Look at him in 1964.  As my wife remarked, he's the only one of them who could walk around dressed like that right now and still look cool: the sunglasses, the hair, his shirt & white jeans.

I completely agree with her.  The others look like dorks: Entwistle with his vertical striped Kingston Trio shirt; Moon with his horizontal striped shirt looks like a child; Townshend's shirt buttoned up so high it looks like he's ready for church or school.

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