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Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn

ira
A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 16, 2012 11:16AM
By Ira Robbins

I've been affected in many ways by the thousand-plus rock concerts I've attended over the years. Not all of my reactions have been pleasant, and some have strayed mightily from what I took to be the artist's likely intentions. So when I say that Wednesday night's performance of Quadrophenia by the Townshend-Daltrey band was the saddest concert I've ever seen, you will be sorely tempted -- but wrong -- to hear the sound of yet another diehard Who traditionalist disappointed at the sight of two men nearing 70, pounding stages like superannuated clowns. I won't deny the element of truth in that, but that was not, in fact, the source of my sadness. Nor was it the transubstantiation of Quadrophenia to a formalized stage presentation as another outgrowth of Townshend's abiding and to me inexplicable enthusiasm for the rock-negating artifice of musical theater. It wasn't bad, just a little smooth around the edges.

No matter how hard they try, and how capable they remain of making a competent noise, all of rock's surviving dinosaurs are, ultimately, ghostly simulations, cover bands and nostalgic flag-carriers attempting to negate the reality of les temps perdu. Obliged by fate to carry on with only two of the four irreplaceable cornerstones of their band, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have chosen -- as have the Beach Boys and Queen -- to bring their fallen colleagues back to life onstage, using films to put Keith Moon and John Entwistle literally back in the mix. It crossed my mind, watching this quixotic revival of Quadrophenia, that when the Who first attempted to play the album live, nearly 40 years ago, they could barely coordinate themselves -- through Keith Moon's gaffer-taped headphones -- with the analog audio tapes Bob Pridden was cuing up to reproduce the synths, ambient sounds and horns of the studio album. Now they can throw up a video clip and synch so seamlessly to it in real time that the idea of artificial A/V rock – a full band of filmed images -- seems thoroughly within reach.

But that was just the start of my dolorousness. Moon was the first, and to date close to the only, rock star whose death left me bereft. I have never forgotten the shocking morning call from my London journalist friend Pete Silverton informing me of the news. The other night, the sight of Keith grandly declaiming his part of "Bell Boy" through a toothy grin, took me right back to that miserable moment in 1978. So did the amazing Zak Starkey, who -- from the day in 1996 that he began repairing the damage of Pete's short-sighted selection of Kenney Jones -- has reliably made himself the second best Keith Moon-type drummer in the world. His playing, while paradoxically controlled in its credible replication of Moon's dizzying chaos, makes Moon's absence even more pungent: you don't need to remember or imagine what's missing, Zak makes it manifest.

The tribute to Entwistle, whose death a decade ago led Pete to make the most hideous and indefensible decision of his professional existence, was even more ambitious and effective. During "5:15," an old clip that isolated both the sight and sound of his bass playing on the song, went up on the video monitors, but it took me a moment to realize that Pino Palladino had stopped playing and had been supplanted, temporarily, by the audio from Entwistle’s dazzling demonstration of electric bass technique from the afterlife, trailed gamely in this world by Zak.

Entwistle was always the oddest man out in the Who, the one who relied the least on Townshend's creativity. In the film, playing "5:15," John is entirely in his own world, entertaining himself with what looks convincingly like "I wonder what it would sound like if I tried this" excursions that stray miles from anything that could be mistaken for a standard bass accompaniment to a song (yet which, in the band dynamic, always filled that role completely). His own songs likewise had nothing in common with Pete's, but provided a distinct, and again strangely complementary, component to the Who catalog. His death destroyed the Who's musical underpinning forever, but did less damage to its soul and spirit than Moon’s departure did.

But John was too dry and sardonic a character for real sadness. No, seeing him scattering notes like marbles didn't push me to tears. What did that, and left me shaking in my seat, arrived out of the baffling blue: a newsreel recap of the world's post-World War 2 tragedies to accompany Quadrophenia's penultimate track, the rousing but ruminative instrumental “The Rock." Whatever part of the Jimmy-goes-to-Brighton narrative it was meant to convey (and, while I do get that he ends up stranded on a rock in the ocean, I hereby admit that, despite its strained explication in songs, pictures and booklet text, I have never fully understood -- or actually given a shit about -- the album's plot), I don't see how the murder of John Lennon, the election of George Bush and the destruction of the World Trade Center fits in with that. So, while it felt wholly unnecessary to be reminded -- while a skilled group of musicians, including Pete's capable kid brother Simon, provided a soundtrack -- just how much suffering, injustice, destruction and fear we baby boomers have lived through in our long lives, it was no less effective for being utterly gratuitous. My sensitive wife and her callous husband wept openly.

For a band that started out to create the future, the Who has always had a soft spot for its past. When it was released in 1973, Quadrophenia offered the band’s real fans (not the Tommy the Who crowd, or the Teenage Wasteland doofi) a secret handshake. The Who acknowledged that they knew what we knew, that we would understand the references to zoot suits, faces, numbers (high and otherwise), would hear the faint strains of "Kids Are Alright," would care about the band’s four personas. The Who relied on us to bear witness to the validity of their journey through the past. The Who were never really mods, but that was the shared understanding of who they wanted us to think they were in 1966, and it was an illusion worth preserving.

I've been reading Pete's book lately. It's kind of what I expected, only a lot more so, a rough mix of arrogance, self-loathing, self-righteousness, revelations, insights, blind spots and dubiously credible delusions. But it provides excellent contextual preparation for seeing him perform. I recommend it for that if nothing else.

A couple of hundred pages in, I no longer believe, as I once did, that he and his audience have much common ground. I thought the Who and its fans were joined through the band’s music; certainly the adolescent angst he put in the band’s records found ready receptors among the angsty adolescents who bought them. But was that a real connection? From my reading, what mattered to the writer of Who I Am is nothing like what mattered to his fans. I wanted the Who’s music to rip me apart; he needed it to make himself whole. No doubt he is knowledgeable about and sympathetic to fans (and the critics he engaged): many of us cherish handwritten letters from him that read like a concerned friend, not a high and mighty celebrity doing mandatory goodwill for the peons. But a king and his subjects will always be divided by a moat.

Once you've swallowed the ocean of doubt, self-consciousness, guilt, grandiosity and genuine creative effort spewed in the book, nothing that Townshend does onstage feels simple or obvious. It's like suddenly noticing the strings, and realizing that the arm motions do not begin with the puppet, but are the result of more complicated planning and intentions. I don't mean to suggest that I underestimated Pete all these years, that everything he does onstage is premeditated or that the forces that guide him in any way lack artistic legitimacy, but it's a bracing realization to see, with a tiny bit of insight, the gears turning behind the shades. It’s also unsettling to learn how much human desperation can be covered by the confident armor of stardom.

Townshend, as Robert Christgau noted recently in the New York Times Book Review, is one of rock's most voluble, articulate and intellectual figures, but those of us who've followed him closely over the years know well how maddeningly inconsistent (when not downright contradictory) he can be. So I am reading the book with a large bottle of sodium chloride, knowing how differently he's portrayed some of the topics in it before. I have to believe that even his most abject self-excoriation may be colored more by self-image than self-awareness. (Other than that, I'll keep my unsubstantiable theories about his psyche to myself.)

That leaves Roger. Rock’s most valiant crusader, a commoner who sings his exalted partner’s creations with even more conviction than their author can manage, is unique among his kind. Maturity softened the atavistic rough boy who gave the young Who its surprising hardness; time erased the preening bravado that suited the golden god of Woodstock. What remains is, I’d wager, who he always was: a true self-believer, a confident but humble man who knows himself and knows his place. He is a man for whom stardom was never the goal, but rather the agency to grant him the role he prizes, a proud teller of musical tales. No one ever believed in Tommy the way Roger did (especially after playing the title role in Ken Russell’s appalling masterpiece), and he has carried that ferocious sincerity ever since, fulfilling the awkward mission of embodying Townshend’s highly personal lyrics as manfully as his aging voice and body will allow. I have always imagined his subordinate’s role a poignant place to inhabit. With the inevitable melodic revisions to avoid the unreachable, what I think were new delegation of vocal parts to Pete (and, in the case of “The Dirty Jobs,” to Simon) and a couple of painful weak spots, Roger acquitted himself decently, certainly better than I’ve heard him do at other times. For his part, Pete – whose high, sweet voice, never the equal of Roger’s roar but always its vulnerable companion -- sang with a disturbing growl. Not a ruined Bob Dylan rasp, but an affect he has employed in the past to indicate extra emotional thrust. He should have done it a lot less.

For the finale, after a half-hour of what currently passes for the Who’s greatest hits (“Who Are You,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” a desultory “Pinball Wizard,” a colorfully illustrated “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” with bonus guitar jizz), the sidemen departed for the night, Pete provided shapeless accompaniment on acoustic guitar as Roger hoisted a mug and crooned “Tea and Theatre.” This wet and tepid (note the clever tea metaphors?) curtain-dropper from 2006’s Endless Wire album reads like a fraternal declaration of endurance but, in the wake of the show’s occasional flashes of excitement and real energy, felt more like a defeated fade. “All of us sad, all of us free, before we walk from the stage, two of us, will you have some tea?” At the end, Roger wiped away a tear and seemed a little undone as he thanked the crowd.

Tender, sure, but a far cry from what initially sold me on the Who: the slashing jabs of Pete’s guitar chords, echoed in Roger’s “My Generation” stammer and Keith’s explosive barrages. A lot of guitarists played hard and loud in those days, but few thought to complete the punctuation by silencing the strings just as forcefully.

(Oddly, I have no reliable recollection of my first introduction to the band’s music, which must have come in 1967, the year of The Who Sell Out. I do remember demonstrating air-guitar windmills to a girl I liked on the street in front of the apartment building we had recently moved to. What an idiot I was at 13. I saw them on The Smothers Brothers TV show that same year; by the time I attended a screening of the Monterey Pop film late in 1968, I had already seen them in the flesh at the Singer Bowl, opening for the Doors.)

The Who were in their prime when I saw them at the Fillmore in 1969. They made an enveloping storm of omnidirectional sound. The stuttering torture of Pete’s pickup switch and the sweeping majesty of his windmilled chords, synched and strengthened by Moon’s cymbal crashes and the merciless amplification (in those days, Pete controlled his guitar volume by turning on or off one or more of the three stacked amp heads onstage behind him), made me feel like the machine-gunned bodies in Bonnie and Clyde. The music punched, kicked and shook me, an invisible ballet of noise and aggression, and I loved it the way drug-users must relish relinquishing their senses and ceding control to unseen forces.

The Pete and Rog show, needless to say, didn’t do any of that. Who concerts stopped having that effect after Keith died, and I don’t believe anyone, including my trusted friends, who says otherwise. Townshend hasn’t left behind any serious portion of his instrumental skill or style, but at those rare moments when his excitement neared the possibility of liftoff, the loss of control which could carry him – and us -- away, even for a minute, he pulled back, and resumed his dutiful role in the 10-man ensemble.

That, more than anything, divides this company from the four desperate young men who opened a world of possibilities for the teenaged me. First they gave me what I needed, then proved, by their onstage quest for what lay beyond what they already knew, that they didn’t have all the answers, either. Age has changed both participants in that exchange, but I suspect we’ve learned very different things along the way.

Quadrophenia hasn't aged all that well -- I hate to say it, but the Who really was a singles band. The intricacy of the music, using repeated motifs within divergent styles and complex arrangements, remains sterling proof of Pete's artistic command, but I don’t think of listening to it as fun in the way The Who Sell Out and Happy Jack are. (Actually, let me reconsider that: I’m playing the album for the first time in years right now, and it’s definitely tighter, tougher and more stirring than the concert was.)

A masterful work that holds together as more than a collection of songs for 80 minutes on record (despite the absence of any between-song patter, and with only a few extended instrumental sections, including a bit of jazzy piano toodling to introduce “Love Reign O’er Me,” it took about 10 minutes longer than the record to play), Quadrophenia is well-suited to performance in toto by a company assembled for that purpose. When the Who first played Quadrophenia, which Townshend created expressly to put a fork in Tommy as the central attraction of their set, the vagueness of the plot, compounded by American unfamiliarity with the cultural milieu and era being limned, led Roger to futilely try and explain it to uncomprehending and impatient Who’s Next audiences. Songs were cut until the glorious goal of presenting a complete song cycle was reduced to just the rock tunes that went down well. Hence this tour is a vindication, proof that it can be – and could have been – done successfully with the right preparation and equipment. All the same, it’s a curious undertaking to revive a 40-year-old record focused on an earlier decade as a way of reinvigorating a band nearing the end of its practicable existence.

Jolly thoughts. So, one is obliged to ask, was the show any good?

In the realm of 21st century high-stakes concertizing, this was an ambitious and accomplished presentation. The lights, video and sound were all first-rate. I don't go to a lot of arena shows any more, but I can safely assure you it was a lot more fun than Aerosmith. Or my most recent Stones experience (which, admittedly, was in a previous century). I doubt Train or Nickelback could mount anything that would deserve to be removed from the sole of Pete's shoe. But that's hardly the point, now is it?

To their eternal credit, the Who set an impossible live standard, one they could not indefinitely maintain and which will forever be held against them. While others have brushed against such bewildering power (the Clash and the Replacements, to name two strong contenders), it has been a very long time – understandably, for all the obvious reasons -- since the Who have had a shot, or possibly even a desire, to reach for the chaotic perfection of their youth.

At their best, the Who were an all-things-possible careening behemoth with a one-mind center of gravity that pounded out beauty, improvised astonishing digressions on the spot as if guided by an outside force and made music that was not just loud but huge and imposing, with emotional components and an undercurrent of frustration and rage that threatened violence at every broken string or sputtering amplifier. Pete understandably writes about guitar smashing with the disgust of an artist being ordered about by a selfish, demanding audience. But to witness a musician -- balled into a frenzy of tension, incensed at the elusive perfection of his vast dreams, reaching the climax of his ear-splitting exertions -- suddenly letting it all go with the sacrifice of his primary tool of creation was to be swept into the moment, into the band, into Pete's head. Fuck the art-nonsense theories of Gustav Metzger, whatever they were: in totaling those Ricks, Strats, SGs and Pauls, Pete was showing us how to push back, how to set yourself free, how to do the unthinkable for all the unspoken but clearly understood reasons. While the Who played no real political role in the ‘60s (unless you count Pete clocking that imbecile Abbie Hoffman at Woodstock), those of us undaunted by the idea of violent rebellion saw what we needed in those splendid splinters. While John Lennon was content to say “count me out,” Pete Townshend smashed his way in. We all wished we could get worked up enough, and have the guts to follow suit, without worrying about the results. Rate it fraudulent sensationalism if you must, an expensive form of crass stagecraft -- to me it was a most satisfying reward, far beyond anything ordinary groups (read that with a sneer) could deliver. Smashing guitars was absolutely not the thing that made the Who great, but it was emblematic of why loving this particular group at that particular time mattered so much.

So, no, there was no reason to expect a transcendent rock experience from these well-traveled veterans and their skilled accompanists. There's no shame in that. No one is at fault for growing old or losing their loved ones, and even elder statesmen are entitled to ply their trade if they still care to. I don’t need to go again, and I fear that some of my fellow audience members may have been too strongly influenced by the idea of seeing a “legend,” or what’s left of it, in the flesh. (Chuck Berry is a god among rock and rollers, and I hope he lives to be 200, but you couldn’t pay me to see him kick the gong around one more time in this neck of the woods. Same goes for Rolling Stones.)

There was a moment early in the set when I found myself focused on the cool band footage playing on the video screens and realized that the musicians onstage were being upstaged by black & white images of their younger selves. It also got me thinking about bands who haven't given much away over long careers -- Cheap Trick and the Dictators both held on to their high-octane vigor and natural gifts for a long time; Neil Young may be the only rocker to actually reverse the process -- but let’s be honest, none of them was ever the Who.

So if the show couldn’t have been great, and it wasn’t in any real sense, then what was it? It’s not fair to say they were OK and leave it at that. That’s not a cultural transaction I can abide with a group that meant so much to me for so long. I won’t condescend to idols by allowing them to be unspectacular and pretending it’s all the same because, after all, we’re all getting on in years. For all his sophisticated pretensions, the balding English gentleman -- who at the height of his tinnitus concerns all but de-bollocked the Who as a live band so that the stage volume wouldn’t cause him pain – still seemed to find some joy in making a big noise and breaking a healthy sweat while doing it. No, I won’t make excuses and lie to myself about what I saw. It was fine. They played the songs well, and showed some genuine enthusiasm. But it wasn’t great in any sense. It didn’t generate anywhere near the level of emotional response I need from art that moves me. I have seen concerts that I consider great art, and this wasn’t one of them. Nor do we have any reason to imagine it should have been. Let’s leave it at that.

I used to get good and indignant at concerts that didn’t cut it; I no longer feel that investment. My high horse has trotted off into the forest. I didn’t go to the Barclay Center to be rocked like a hurricane, I just wanted to be able to say that, for once in my life, I walked home from a Who concert. (Actually, that’s just a glib line I thought up as we were walking home from the Who concert.)

I went to see how some old friends were faring. Like a long-ago girlfriend with new kids and none of the old spark. Just checking. If Pete and Roger felt obliged to take Quadrophenia on the road to celebrate the 30th anniversary of what, back then, was already a belated farewell tour, and bring it to Brooklyn of all places (I’m pretty certain the Who have never previously played in the borough of Kings), the least I could do was show up and gauge the results. I have. No joy, no embarrassment. Just a sorrowful set of memories.

I’m not blaming anyone for a show that was just OK, with a few moments that were better than that. Personally, I would have died and gone to heaven were this assortment of players somehow able to recreate even half of what I remember of the Who. I may not be a kid anymore, but I’m not afraid of being devastated by a rock concert: I would welcome it. (You know who put the old band together and revved it back up to 11, erasing a quarter-century of dwindling? Roxy Music in 2001.) Granted, it’s easy to ignore advancing age when you’re not the one playing a two-hour (to the second!) set in front of 20,000 people. But I am ready. Bowl me over. Knock me down. Just don’t make me sad.

[edited to correct three typos]



Post Edited (11-16-12 09:49)
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 16, 2012 03:27PM
Very nice piece, Ira. It reflects a lot of what I've been thinking about the so-called "heritage acts." I don't know if I'd turn down the chance to see the Who play Quadrophenia, but I'd probably expect way too much, even though logic tells me I'd get a show exactly as you describe it.

Here at the TV show I often question the wisdom of recording legends who are way past their prime, enshrining a mediocre or even awful performance in the catalog. (I won't name names, but we've had some true legends on the show that were too far gone to live up to the legend. Though to be fair, we've had some that surpassed the legend as well.) It seems a disservice to the artist's legacy. Yet, I also know how glad, sometimes even ecstatic, their fans are to see their heroes give any kind of performance at all. I've gotten e-mails and letters from fans pleading with us to release performances by music gods that were pretty lame.

As for myself, I've been making a point the last few years to try to see a lot of the legends/pioneers/innovators from all walks. That encompasses everyone from the Stones (decent), Dylan (terrible), Neil Young & Crazy Horse (not quite transcendent but mostly great), Leonard Cohen (impossibly great) and Cheap Trick (phenomenal both times) to Eddie & the Hot Rods (shockingly good), the Damned (great), Iggy & the Stooges (Iggy - great, Stooges - struggling), the Beasts of Bourbon (great) and even the Vibrators (awful). I don't think I always go for the right reasons - I love Neil Young, but, while I love many of his records, I wouldn't call myself a Dylan fan, and I just went because I had the opportunity and he is who he is. Is there a point to just putting a notch on the gigpost? Is it better to not experience a legend live if the only opportunity is when s/he/it is in the where-the-hell-is-my-paycheck twilight of the career?

As for the Who - this band gives fans fits. I never had the chance to see the band with Moon, being too young, so there's no point in regretting it. I did see them on the their '89 tour. That tour has come under much criticism over the years (including by Pete himself in the book), but the show I saw - Houston at the Astrodome) was fucking great. Pete played electric guitar through most of it and seemed pretty enthused, or at least having a good time. And tinnitus or no, it was the loudest show I'd ever heard until Sugar a few years later.

But now...a Moonless Who is the only Who I've ever experienced live, but an Entwistleless Who doesn't make any sense to me at all. I have a buddy who's seen them in the 'aughties who assures me the fire is still there, but the bonus live DVD that came with Endless Wire was fucking pathetic, and it's made me avoid the band's shows ever since. (Not a difficult proposition, given that the closest the band comes to Austin is Dallas and I can't afford arena show tickets anyway.)

And yet...I love Quadrophenia, even more so now than when I first heard it, and to see one of my favorite bands play one of my favorite albums would likely be irresistible to me, even though I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment. Especially given that film you mention that plays during "The Rock" - in my middle age I have no patience for that kind of baldly manipulative theater. Let me be moved (or not) by the music itself - that's what it was created for.

I think ultimately concerts by one's heroes as they enter (or are already firmly ensconced in) their dotage require a certain suspension of disbelief. "Well, hell," you think, "they're senior citizens now, after all." The question is whether we should really cut them that kind of slack - the argument could be made that either they can cut it or they can't. I tend to lean on that argument, especially after seeing the 60-something Cheap Trick and Neil Young blaze away with most, if not all, of the same fire as they had in their so-called prime, and the nearly-80 Leonard Cohen play a show that both backed up and surpassed his reputation. But, again, I'd probably cut the Who more slack than they deserve.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 16, 2012 06:33PM
Quite a piece, Ira. I appreciated your commentary a lot too, Michael.

I was too young to see The Who with Moon. I missed them with Kenney Jones, and after that, their ticket price just went too high for me to consider. But I have gotten the impression that they should've hung it up after the '82 farewell tour, and saved themselves and their fans a lot of embarrassment. The show described above sounds like it buried the needle on the pathetometer.

Let's see, since moving to Seattle — a city with a vital music scene, and an enormous number of venues — who (among others) have I paid to see?

Glen Matlock
Hugh Cornwell
Cheap Trick
Elvis Costello
Blondie
Devo
Bob Mould (playing Copper Blue — a 20-year-old album, albeit a fantastic one — even though he had a superb brand-new release to promote)
Joe Jackson (playing a set heavy on Duke Ellington covers)
Steve Winwood (this past Monday)

I had seen at least five of those artists in their acknowledged prime, so going in, I knew what I'd be comparing them to. And yes, my own sense of nostalgia was well in evidence, those nights.

Did I enjoy those shows? Immensely. Every one of them. Did I get any sense, from any of those shows, that the artist in question is past their prime? Well, none of them looks young anymore; Debbie Harry, in fact, looks like one of the Golden Girls (according to my wife). But I wouldn't have missed any of those shows for anything. They all sounded great, and Cheap Trick, Costello, Mould and Winwood all did so well that I'd say they're still in their respective prime. (Mould, in fact, looks healthier and performs more vigorously than ever, these days.) JJ is showing his age, physically, but his voice and his musical prowess are still in top shape.

That said .. It sure felt weird, driving my Volvo to a winery to see Blondie and Devo.

And who's coming to Seattle soon, that I'm considering paying to see?

John Cale
The Sonics
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 17, 2012 05:24PM
Delvin - By all means see Cale. I saw him in Asheville in 2004 [playing to an audience of maybe 80 in a club that fit a thousand] and he was mesmerizing. The man can do anything; art rock, heart-wrenching ballads, full-tilt rockers. When I think of post-60 musicians I am inclined to agree with Mr. Robbins with two exceptions; John Cale has lost nothing over the decades. His new material is compelling as any of the earlier material that drew me to him in the first place. Finally, I think that John Foxx [with The Maths] is making the best music of his career at 63-64 years of age. Period.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 16, 2012 09:56PM
ira,
that was the most emotional concert review i have, and positively the most personal one i will ever read in my life. many deeply felt thank yous.

fwiw, i dont think true artists bring anything of beauty into this world, that initially wasnt intended for anyone other than themselves. collective artists working together, can/may create something on a grander scale. the sum being greater than the parts. however, the true individual artist within that collective might feel compromised. consequently, and quite naturally would continue to create on his/her own, regardless of the outside worlds input, encouragement or betrayal.

trying to recreate beauty no matter how futile, is utterly and profoundly the art of living.

for example, i wasnt in a new york studio w/Sandy Pearlman or the CLASH in 1978 but i am truly happy,(at this very moment) to recreate that great piece of art in my home. didnt you do 'handclaps' on that one ira?

ps-official TP score keepers have recorded your vote AGAINST train &
nickelbag.
post edited ten times over the last six hours.



Post Edited (11-16-12 22:51)
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 17, 2012 12:04PM
Is there any endeavor--creative or otherwise--where we expect individuals to be anything but a shadow of themselves in their late 60s? Novelists (and writers in general) seem to do pretty well in this regard.

Painters/artists? I don't know enough about it to say.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 17, 2012 02:08PM
Jazz and blues musicians often seem to be hitting their stride in their late 60s.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 17, 2012 03:17PM
"Jazz and blues musicians often seem to be hitting their stride in their late 60s."

Good point. . . Last time I saw Dave Brubeck, he seemed to be hitting his stride quite nicely in his 80s.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 17, 2012 05:17PM
When I interviewed Rick Wakeman about 12 years ago, he told me he thought it was unfair that jazz, blues and classical musicians were accepted, even lauded, when they hit AARP age, but that rock musicians were mocked and dismissed once they pass their 40s. In principle he has a point, but in practice far too many rockers have lost too much of their steps to be effective.

And yet - some of them still do. I think it all comes down to what style of rock they play and how well they can still play it. Wakeman told me at the time that classically-trained keyboardists were generally seen to have reached their technical peak at 18 (!), but he felt he was still as good as he ever was.
zoo
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 17, 2012 11:16PM
For what it's worth, the NY Times had a mostly positive review of the Quadrophenia show in Fri's paper. I read Ira's post before the NY Times article...you would have thought they were two different shows.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 12:10AM
"For what it's worth, the NY Times had a mostly positive review of the Quadrophenia show in Fri's paper."

I thought Pareles' piece was extremely down the middle and flatly empirical--and devoid of much color or analysis/editorializing. This--i.e. the dry, straightforwardness of it and its colorlessness--as well as its relative brevity, spoke volumes. It said to me that he didn't want to use his prominent platform to say anything negative about a sentimental favorite in their dying hours.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 01:39AM
Amazing piece, Ira! I, like Steve, was almost moved to tears by it. I last saw The Who as a high schooler in 1989 (?) and even then they seemed slightly over the hill. I would be too sad to watch them in concert today. Hearing them criticized by the ignorant masses after their Super Bowl appearance was painful enough.

On a Quadrophenia side note: Is there anyone else here who considers The Dirty Jobs one of the best songs in their whole canon? It blows me away every time.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 05:11PM
Damn, Ira, your concert review of the Who’s current Quadrophenia tour is DEEP. The expectations of a fan projected onto the creator, and the responsibility of one to the other. Is there any? What do we owe them? What do they owe us? (How dare you make me think?)

A writer in Rolling Stone wrote about “The Beatles at the BBC” – “every generation gets the Beatles it deserves.” I think every generation also gets the Who they deserve, too. My 11-year old nephew Sean suddenly announced that he’s going to grow up to be a drummer like Keith Moon. I smiled and said, “You can try” and I gave him my box set “Maximum R&B” and “Amazing Journey” DVDs. If he’s going to grow up to be a drummer like Keith Moon, he’s going to have to see Keith Moon. Therein lays the problem with legacy bands.

I was the first generation of Beatles, but rock & roll had gotten its tentacles into me at a much earlier age. I can remember sitting on the cool tile floor of a bathroom in a second floor apartment in Jackson Heights, NY listening to a baby blue 8-transistor AM radio my grandfather had given me. I heard Elvis. It was “Hound Dog.” That would have made me around three. Elvis was so captivating that I forced my poor, loving, Irish grandmother to take me to see “G.I. Blues” at the Bliss Theater in Sunnyside, NY – it long ago stopped showing movies; instead it became, still is, a Jehovah’s Witness temple.

“G.I. Blues” is a handy benchmark. Rock & Roll virtually died when Elvis went into the Army; Jerry Lee Lewis married his cousin without bothering to get a divorce; the flaming Little Richard walked away to become a preacher; the ‘plane carrying Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens went down in some icy mid-western state who name starts with an I and where the people have never seen an ocean. A wasteland – just like what happened to rock music until December 1963.

It was Christmas Week 1963 when the AM radio erupted with this noise: “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” It was radical. The only decent pop at that time was Motown or the Girl Groups. NOBODY played guitars or pounded the drums. Hearing that song for the first time gave me a great gift – I now knew what new sounded like. I developed a keen sense of new all based on the nervous system relaying messages throughout every synapse. In an instant, Elvis was old; the Beatles were new.

So what’s this got to do with the Who? Plenty.

Back then, when the Beatles “British Invasion” shoved every UK band down America’s collective throats, there were only but so many ways to get your rock & roll fix. AM radio. “16 Magazine”. The Ed Sullivan Show. Hit Parade Magazine – which printed the lyrics and did select interviews with musicians – was the first place I heard about “Pictures of Lilly,” “I’m A Boy,” “Little Billy”. (You were right, Ira, the Who were an awesome singles band, and that’s nothing to be sad about.) Everyone was jockeying to see if lightning could strike twice in the same place – sometimes it came close like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, the Hollies, the Zombies…sometimes it didn’t, like Freddy and the Dreamers.

When did the Who first kick their way into my consciousness? Late at night. Listening to the AM radio under my pillow. 50,000 Watts of power. Late at night the signals would drift across the skies, when New York City was powered down, and 8 million people were drifting into the Land of Nod.

Late at night, if the air was clear, and the signal was strong enough, you could get the AM frequency from Detroit Michigan/Windsor Ontario which played heavier music largely ignored by the WMCA Good Guys, the jocks at WABC, and even by reliable envelope-pushing Murray the K or Mad Daddy at 10/10 WINS. One night “I Can’t Explain” drifted over the airwaves. I was hooked.

Gloria Stavers, legendary editor of “16 Magazine,” had a very insidious and subversive column called “Gee Gee’s Gossip.” At the bottom, Gloria would print little thumbnails of album covers with a sentence or two. She would use this to promote Lenny Bruce, the Fugs, the Velvet Underground, the Mothers of Invention – to little teeny-bop girls. One of those was “The Who Sing My Generation.” I bought the album and played the black vinyl until it turned grey and the cover was beat to wood chips.

My disc jockey of choice was Murray the K, and he held rock & roll shows – a dozen or so big time acts playing for fifteen minutes each at movie theaters. One of those was the RKO 57th street. It was a daytime matinee. The Who played (along with the Young Rascals, Mitch Rider, the Blues Project, and another UK trio, Cream.) The band not only won my heart but got it pumping.

Once I saw them live I had to see them again. There was a long list of concerts – the Schaeffer Music Festival in Central Park; the Fillmore East; Madison Square Garden. The Who won the distinction of being the ONLY band I ever waited on the street all night to buy tickets for. It was the 4 nights at MSG in 1974.

I remember that run of shows for a two reasons. One, we got great seats within the first 10 rows for every night. Security then wasn’t what it is now so all our friends and family who had nose-bleed seats came to visit us during the intermission – and stayed crammed into our little block of folding chairs chained together side-by-side. Two, there was this obnoxious, scrappy writer/editor promoting his stapled-together fanzine, Trans Oceanic Trouser Press. He was a passionate, intelligent, articulate, funny, opinionated entrepreneur – Ira Robbins.

That’s another take-away from your review. Memories. Name a band and I can tell you the venue, the songs, the context, and at least what part of the decade it was. At the end of the day, memories are all I need because I can conjure them up at will and wash myself emotionally with how the music made me feel, think, be. I made a decision to never ask an artist I respect for their autograph. If I encountered them, all I wanted was to just have a human moment, and to let that moment be mine.


My single, favorite moment took place in the late 1970’s on a crisp fall dusk walking west-to-east, alone, on a path past the carousel in Central Park. I remember wearing a deco-era mouton coat, green paratrooper pants, and black Chinatown Mary-Jane-style slippers. Walking west-to-east were John and Yoko.

John Lennon. The Beatles changed my life. Do I respect his right to be a fellow New Yorker? Or do I shove a piece of paper in his face and demand his signature? Do I try to articulate the life-changing experience of the Beatles on my values?

I’m sure this internal battle going on in my head showed on my face because when I became aware again I looked up to see John and Yoko slowing down and virtually waiting for me. That decided my course of action – I kept walking until we pulled up beside one another, looked up at them, smiled, and said, “Hi, John! Hi, Yoko!” I kept walking. I remember their smiles, and the way they said hello back at me. Their relief at not being bothered was palpable. In light of everything that happened, every December 8th, I think of that moment and smile. I’ve never regretted not getting that autograph.

During the late 1970’s I did a stint as a “hooker booker.” I came into to work the night shift and in the book of clients that evening was the name Keith Moon, Navarro Hotel.

Part of the job was to call after the allotted time, and speak with the client for their decision regarding their escort. After all, time is money. I called Keith. Before I hung up, I said, “Mr. Moon, I have been a long time fan of yours, and your music has meant a lot to me.” He laughed, told me to call him Keith, and asked when I first saw the Who. When I told him the Murray the K show he laughed again, and said: “You DO go back, don’t you?”

Over the next few days, we spoke many, many times. Keith won the distinction of being one of the most delightful customers the women spent time with because he was a gentle man. When his companion for the evening mentioned a craving for a snack not on the room service menu, Keith insisted on dressing and taking the woman in question on a late night grocery shopping spree at the Carnegie Grocery, open 24 hours. Imagine, if you will, Keith Moon pushing around a shopping cart in a grocery store tossing in noshes and nibbles for a late night attack of the munchies.

When he called to say goodbye, he said he’d call back the next time he was in town. He never called back again because he died shortly after. His death really did leave me bereft. When he died, I resolved to never see the Who live again. It was no longer the Who, at least to me. Nobody could replace Keith Moon.

The Who was never an average band. There was no way whoever could measure up to the memories in my head. I was afraid that what I might see was a legendary band becomes a mediocre one. Memories are a double-edged sword – you can conjure them up; you can’t make them go away. I continued to follow the recorded output of the Who, Pete, Roger, John, but not to see the band still being called the Who.


I did have my Roger Daltrey moment, too. It was in front of Carnegie Hall when I literally bumped into him, nearly knocking him over. When I steadied him, I looked into his face and blurted: “Roger Daltrey.” He smiled, and waited for the pen and paper. Instead I said: “You’re short!” I’m 5’8”. I was looking down at the top of his head. I corrected myself, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out.” He was laughing so hard he had to catch his breath to say, “That’s O.K. I am short.” I recovered with: “All the times I saw the Who live you were larger than life to me.” With that, Roger smiled and sincerely thanked me. I shook his hand, and we went our separate ways.

So there would never have been a sad night in Brooklyn for me. I made my mind up in 1978 about that.

You wrote your expectation of the Who’s music was to “rip you apart” while Townshend’s was to put himself back together. For myself, I need and want rock to do both. When I was 10, my mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and went into a hospital bed never to get out of again for the next 30 years of her life. My dad traveled on the road three weeks out of every four; myself, my six-year old twin brothers; my baby sister became caregivers for a woman with a serious chronic disease.

There was nothing in my life that was normal anymore. I became the living embodiment of Jenny in Lou Reed’s “Rock and Roll.” Despite all the complications I could always dance to the rock & roll station. It became not only a passion, but a reason for living. I found I was projecting my needs onto them. I found heroes, heroines, role models; songs with lyrics that I incorporated into my life as my philosophy. Rock & roll coupled with virtually no parental supervision was total liberation.

Under the mentorship of Lillian Roxon, I became a rock writer and friends with Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Nick Tosches, and extended family of like-minded pirates. Under the auspices of the New York Dolls, I and my siblings were ushered into every club and night club. No one ever “carded” my under-age brothers or 12-year old sister. She was walking into Max’s with David Johansen’s arm around her shoulder, and hanging out in the ladies room trading makeup tips with Jayne County.

I needed the energy and vitality of rock & roll to compensate for an internal family dynamic that made me a grown up without the perks; I needed the comfort of taking me out of my immediate situation to give me an alternative reality. With such a combination, it gave me the value-system to walk away when the actual band could no longer measure up to my memories and expectations. Now that I knew what new sounded like I was always off to find it. Sometimes you need to leave something behind to make room for more music and experiences.


Grace Slick was right; rock stars have no business being on stage after the age of 50. In her opinion, jumping around like you’re 25 instead acting your real age is just pathetic. I came to the same realization about the Rolling Stones after the “Steel Wheels” tour at Shea Stadium. Now they weren’t bad. They were pretty damn good in fact. When they played “Satisfaction” the weight of the entire stadium jumping up and down made the levels shake. I thought they were going to crumble that dilapidated baseball cathedral into dust. But did they compare with the Stones I saw in the 60’s with Brian Jones in the band? No. The band I saw in the ‘70’s with Mick Taylor? No. Can Mick compete with himself in his 20’s? Bloody hell, no!

Grace Slick knew she couldn’t compete with herself in her twenties in people’s minds. Plus she had other stuff she wanted to do: like give away her royalties from “White Rabbit” to PETA; the woman who wrote “one pill makes you larger; one pill makes you small” wields her celebrity to publicize medical marijuana legalization. That beats being a bad impersonation of herself and singing “We Built This City.”

Last comments, the technology have finally caught up with Pete’s concept of “Lifehouse” so it can become an actuality. Roger is still his most game interpreter. They both need to retire the Who and collaborate on new projects that will not conjure up comparisons with the past. It’s time for Roger and Pete to do something new.

Brilliant review, Ira; it’s a job well done.



Kathy
ira
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 06:02PM
Wow, Kathy, those are some spectacular memories. And, not surprisingly, some gorgeous writing. For anyone not schooled in the old ways of rock journalism, our new cohort is none other than Kath E. Miller, who was a regular contributor to Creem when I was just wanna-be fanzine freak. My hat's off, and yours should be, too.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 06:20PM
Back at ya, Ira. I wouldn't been motivated to write anything if you hadn't posted your Sad Night in Brooklyn. But, now that I've posted after lurking for several years, your regular-regulars don't have continuing be-moaning about the lack of woman posters. You have one now.



Kathy
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 22, 2012 12:50AM
Quote

For good or ill, it seems like most of us have/had a strong emotional (maybe "visceral" would be a more appropriate word) to The Who.

After posting this, I realized the sentence above lacks an object. Maybe. I've been writing too long to understand the rules.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 08:13PM
take note mates, kathy said 'woman' not female. thought i'd put a fine point on it, the tp fan club prez really gets ticked about it.

so glad to have you here kathy, i'm quite certain i've read your stuff in hiugh school 76-80
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 09:17PM
female is fine with me, too. I'm old enough at this point to find being referred to as a girl as flattering. But Lady still sticks in the craw. Thanks for the welcome Steve.



Kathy
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 09:48PM
right on kathy. do you hava a site dedicated (in the present tense of the word) to your scribes? er uh, could you please provide a link, i'm kind of a lazy luddite. thanks in advance.



Post Edited (11-18-12 17:56)
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 10:43PM
no site. no copies. the only articles around are the ones I wrote for Trouser Press that Ira posted - the Eno piece was mine; the Bolan piece; I did a Sparks piece. nada.



Kathy
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 18, 2012 11:13PM
no worries kathy,
wanna start a band with me?



Post Edited (11-18-12 19:13)
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 19, 2012 10:10AM
my father broker my guitar over my head when I was a snotty teenager thus ending a musical career that never started. I would be nobody's vote as a band member. Could take a whack at writing lyrics. But my essence role has always been a fan in the audience thrilling to the noise and the spectacle.



Kathy
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 20, 2012 07:13PM
Quote

My father broker my guitar over my head when I was a snotty teenager

Did he yell "KAAAAAAABOOOOOONG!" while he was brokering?

...

My younger brother broke his blue, plastic guitar over my head when I wasn't even 10 years old yet and that was what he said.

Damn cartoons.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 20, 2012 10:27PM
Nope. I think I may have yelled "Kaaaabbboooong." Quick Draw McGraw? Anyway, no great loss to the music world and no permanent damage to my very hard head.



Kathy
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 21, 2012 09:48PM
Kind of blown away by this entire thread. I've never been able to come to terms with my conflicted feelings about The Who, post-Keith Moon, who's been absent, what, 3/4 of the band's career?

Carrying on after Moon and Entwistle, that's incomprehensible...and it's been over 10 years.

For good or ill, it seems like most of us have/had a strong emotional (maybe "visceral" would be a more appropriate word) to The Who.

Last week on All Things Considered (public radio news show for non-US TPers), they interviewed the 4 primary Stones over 4 days, asking each to reflect on a tune of their choosing (first in the series: [www.npr.org]). At the end of the week, it occurred to me that there probably wasn't a single member of the radio audience who reacted with much more than a broad smile and a chuckle...now, The Who, that would be a different story.

So it appears.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 19, 2012 02:32PM
"Female" is an adjective, and a perfectly good one. "Woman" is a noun. It's beyond me why people think "woman attorney" and the like is preferable to "female attorney", or even grammatically plausible.

Such nonsense aside: I enjoyed both Ira's and Kathy's pieces very much.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 20, 2012 04:15AM
Brilliant observations. A combination of the professional and the personal, experienced and observed. I wonder how this production registers with someone who hasn't seen the Two or the Who before. Part of what makes your commentary rich is both admiration and disapointment, comparing with a long view of history and experiencing this band and this music before. Part of the inevitable let down is that this music evolved in a youth culture which remains true to human nature, but has little relationship to the elder statesmen now performing it. Rock is pretentious even though it was nakedly shamelessly ignorant of the context it was creating, rudely in the middle of someone older persons idea of good taste. So for older rockers to be peddling their wares without pushing the envelop as they did when they discovered their niche by accident isn't so surprising. What they did when they were being carried by the tides of their youth instead of creating the tides of their elder years was alive and vital. It still echoes with some of the genius that created it, and the one day unattainable opportunity to hear the orginators of the music play and sing it. Live music is usually a let down, especially when the promise of the studio composition is an overeach of something like an "opera". You cover so many angles in your review Ira, well done.



DAZA
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 23, 2012 05:50PM
welcome to the board Ms McCarthy and a hat tippo for the most excellent literary reviews to be found on Amazon. I once spent an entire quarterly review reading them while the others pured over spreadsheets arguing churn and ARPU.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 23, 2012 10:06PM
Quote

After posting this, I realized the sentence above lacks an object. Maybe. I've been writing too long to understand the rules.

no worries Jmoe, thats how i learned to love scrabble @ drink beer @ the same time.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 27, 2012 04:40PM
Hope I die before I get older....
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 27, 2012 07:04PM
Quote

Hope I die before I get older...

You might find this s-s-s-study interesting.
Re: A Sad Night in Brooklyn
November 29, 2012 12:58AM
C'mon, we know they didn't hit their stride until "Endless Wire."
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