(Brunswick LAT 8616)
Released 1965
Out in the Street
I Don't Mind
The Good's Gone
La-La-La-Lies
Much Too Much
My Generation
The Kids Are Alright
Please, Please, Please
It's Not True
I'm A Man
A Legal Matter
The Ox
(Instant Party aka Circles)
There were
about six of us 13- to 15-year-olds crammed into a pal’s bedroom,
listening to records. It was the earliest co-ed hang of my life.
Exciting, scary, baffling... when I came across the first copy
I’d ever seen of The Who Sings My Generation album.
Off in my own out-of-place world in that bedroom, I stared at the album cover...
Four guys,
standing in front of Big Ben on a blustery day .. all four looking like they’re on the
edge of beating the crap out of someone who seems to be just a few feet
behind the photographer’s right shoulder. The Who, on this album cover, instantly made the Stones seem
almost fey. And, truly most
weirdly, intriguingly, their hair was the shortest I’d seen in on any
British band.
That distinctly
against-the-grain hirsute oddity, taken with their two syllable
punch-in-the-nose name, their unusual faces (especially that one with
the nose!), taken with that genuinely hard thuggish attitude they were
exuding, made them look exotically dangerous to me. I can still feel it. I was awestruck before I heard
a note.“Wow! Hey, can we hear this?” (Binky Phillips, Huffington Post)
A quavering, woozy-sounding chord progression blares out of
the speakers – seven chords in rapid succession, repeated, and then a final one
– this one, clear, ringing. And then a
young tough’s voice snarls one word:
“OUT---!!”
It’s a startling sound.
The martian musicologist who’s arrived to inquire about the genesis of
rock`n’roll (Greil Marcus sent him a list of records, with commentary, back in
`79. He arrived at my place in the wee
hours –those aliens and their sense of time - hoping to find a copy of The
Zurvans “Close the Book,” on End. I was,
alas, unable to help him) finds it startling, too. He has asked me a variation on the usual
questions, wanting to know not what my desert island discs are, but rather,
what would be my desert island disc for a particular artist, the legendary
British Invasion-cum-70’s-arena-filler superstars, The Who. He finds my choice quite unexpected (“What,
not Who’s Next? Quadrophenia?” he chirped, antennae
fluttering in bafflement).
I should note that, to add to the extraterrestrial’s confusion, the copy of the album I have chosen – My Generation, their 1965/66 debut, is a special, deluxe edition, produced at home with the help of RealPlayer. This edition substitutes the b-sides “Daddy Rolling Stone” and “Shout and Shimmy” for the two James Brown covers, and further includes their covers of “I’m A Man” (which appears on the British, but not the American, version) and “Leaving Here,” an early outtake which I appended cause (a) it fits in with the rest of the material here and (b) it kicks ass.[1]
I can understand the martian’s confusion. This is not, after all, what he has come to associate with a Who album. There are no songs of spiritual longing. No keyboard ballads (no ballads at all). It is not a concept album. It is not a “rock opera.” One gets the sense that the group of thugs who recorded this album would have stomped such ideas into the ground, laughing derisively as they swaggered off, in search of a bird and a pint. In some ways, this is the work of a different group entirely than the one with which he has grown familiar.
This is tough, tough rock`n’roll. Tough in sound and spirit and intent. It is rooted in the hardest-hitting American soul and blues – Motown’s stomping beat and the overpowering rhythm sections of Stax/Volt and Detroit, John Lee Hooker’s storming blues workouts, Howlin’ Wolf’s late-night rambles. It is the rumble of Link Wray’s guitar and the chime of the 12-string found on contemporary Beatles singles (“Hard Days Night,” et al). Vocal harmonies found there, too. And add in The Kinks frenzied attack and hammering chords. Add crashing, furious drum rolls lifted from “Wipeout” and a dozen and more surf classics. It is pure, undiluted rock `n’ roll, among the last of such that would ever be heard.
My Generation has often been called the first punk rock record. Not altogether inaccurately. But not entirely fairly, either. Punk rock certainly drew from its energy and its bare-knuckled aggression. But mostly (The Stooges and MC5 – both of whom undoubtedly listened to it - are a notable exception) punk missed the R&B underpinnings. Not just the James Brown covers. Motown and Stax/Volt soul lies underneath this music – you can hear it Moon’s drums, which combine that hard Motown stomp with surf music’s freneticism, the call-and-response vocals, and Daltrey’s macho growl. The Who never sounded black, or tried to. They were white boys who took much of what they loved about soul and r&b – its tough swagger and hard-hitting drive, and made the most of it. This is unsentimental guy- rock. There are no songs of spiritual yearning, no magic buses or pinball wizards. And almost no love songs. Women are territory to be claimed (“Out in the Street”) or, more often, baggage to be discarded, for being too cold (“The Good’s Gone”) too clingy (“Much Too Much”) too demanding (“A Legal Matter”) or just plain excess baggage (“The Kids Are Alright”).
The other differentiating factor is, let’s face it, musicianship. I don’t mean to suggest the long-standing myth that punk bands couldn’t play. Such an attitude elevates virtuosity over creativity and style. Most of the celebrated punk outfits usually included at least one ringer (anyone who’s going to suggest that John Cale or Topper Headon weren’t any good doesn’t have ears) and all of them could at least hammer out their own music expertly, most of the time (sure, The Ramones’ stuff is easy to play – but putting it across with the same power and wit which the boys themselves did is a trickier proposition. Go ahead, Steve Howe fans – try it!) It also mistakes being limited or idiosyncratic for being inept or amateurish. The Who were limited – Moon was no timekeeper and Townshend never had, say, Eric Clapton’s finesse or gift for blues soloing. And they were definitely idiosyncratic – not without their influences, but none of them really played like anyone else before or since. But they were also polished. This is not “raw wails from the gut,” as Lester Bangs might have it. There is none of the rawness of the Sex Pistols. This is a band that has its chops down. By the time My Generation was recorded, The Who had been playing together for several years, and had countless gigs under their belts. They knew how to compose, how to get the sounds they were after, and how to give each song its own distinct voice and identity. Far from being a detraction, their very skill makes these songs hit even harder.
Rock crit Dave Marsh has noted that My Generation would be important if all it had to offer was the debut of drummer Keith Moon. That would be fair enough. He is brilliant-plus throughout. Moon would fade fast, but here he’s incredible, not just for his unhinged crashing around the kit, but for his sense of dynamics. The Loon knew when to lay it on hard, but also when to lay off. When it was time to STOMP. As well as when it was time to fire off all the cymbals. Meanwhile, Entwistle, even then, was inventing “lead” bass-playing (the prime example, of course, being his solos on the title track). And over it all Townshend’s guitar rumbles away like the Spawn of Link Wray that it is. But perhaps his greatest moment comes on the Beach Boys-ish “The Kids Are Alright” when he slams out six chords (BAM! BAM-BAM!! BAM BAM-BAM!!) that ring like the tolling of Big Ben itself.
Roger has often been dismissed as the weak link in the band. Described (with a certain imperious sniff) as “swaggeringly macho,” not a songwriter and possibly perceived (in contrast to, of course, the sensitive, intellectual Townshend) as something of a brute. (or is it just that it was so much easier for us geeky, gawky, introspective music fans to identify with the geeky, gawky, introspective Townshend rather than Daltrey – rugged, handsome, aggressive – just like the jocks at school we hated – and secretly wished we could be more like) . True, there are better sets of pipes out there. He hadn’t yet developed the harsh howl or leather-lunged scream he would use later. Instead he growls and snarls his way through these songs. Swaggeringly macho he is indeed. It works, because he sounds like he means it. Of all the tough guys in rock`n’roll, Roger Daltrey always sounded (and seemed) like one of the few who really was tough. His best moment comes at the end of “Out in the Street” as the band suddenly lays off. Unacompanied now, he shouts “You’re gonna know me woman – and I’m –“ and the band crashes in with a barrage of drum rolls and slashing, flamenco-like power chords – “I’m a-gonna know you!”
And
that, pretty much, is the end of the story.
Not really, of course.
But after that, everything changed.
The Who escaped the clutches of producer Shel Talmy, and recorded a few
more singles (including the glorious “Substitute”) and finally a second LP, A
Quick One, in late 1966. There were
moments on A Quick One that echoes the glories of the previous year: the
rumbling, Link Wray-like “Run Run Run,” “So Sad About Us,” yet another bitter
kiss-off, driven by a chiming guitar and punctuated with blows from Moon’s
drumkit, and the bizarre “Boris the Spider,” which brought John Entwistle’s
compositions into the fray. But A Quick
One was compromised, partly by weak material (incomplete songs by Daltrey and
Moon) and by the title track, known affectionately as “the mini-opera,” which
pointed The Who into new and dangerous territory.
After that, The Who became a somewhat different band. Townshend found his vision, and art with a
capital “A” began to raise its head.
Unadulterated rock`n’roll gave way to acoustic ballads, psychedelia,
concept albums, “rock operas,” songs of spiritual musing and longing,
experiments with synthesizers and electronic music, laser light shows, aborted
(and should-have-been aborted) film projects.
For a long time, a very long time, their innate “smash the bloody lot”
spirit protected them from drifting off into the ozone. But in time, even this mighty bunch of
bruisers would succumb to theatricality and pretension.
I don’t mean to suggest that The Who never made any good
music after My Generation. Far from
it. Hey, I wore the grooves off a copy
of Who’s Next in high school, too. And
spent a summer blasting Quadrophenia day in and day out. I spent a lot of my younger years idolizing
Townshend and anything he did. And even
in their later years – and I don’t need to trot out again the litany of
disappointments that would come with the death of Keith Moon, and following – I
find moments of surprise and joy.
But nowadays, when I find myself wanting to hear them, and
that’s still fairly often, I find myself in a different place
than, I suppose, 99% of those who call themselves Who fans. It’s not Who’s Next
(generally considered their best album) or Quadrophenia (album of choice of
true Who fanatics), and its definitely not Tommy (I like Townshend's guitar playing and the songs in general, but am indifferent to the "opera"). Actually, my true favorite Who album remains
Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, which collects much of the cream of My Generation,
along with contemporaneous singles – all of them brilliant, and as close to a
perfect LP as I think has ever been heard – one killer track right after the
other.
But when it isn’t Meaty that I reach for, it’s this one.
And yet, My Generation is all but forgotten. Except for the title track, these songs
disappeared from their live set almost as soon as they were recorded (a few of
them were performed on BBC, and preserved now on The BBC Sessions). Most Who fans wouldn’t know them, and
probably even Pete and Rog themselves would have trouble recalling them.
What’s more, those who do know them tend to be dismissive of
them, as “early work,” and therefore somehow inferior to what came later. A glance at Amazon.com reveals die-hard fans
apologizing for, or outright lambasting, these songs (excepting, of course, the
title track) as embarrassments. This
attitude extends to The Who themselves, who disparaged the material at the time
of release (okay, granted they disparaged all their albums at the time of
release) and left it behind them, never to look back. This is wrong, as it has meant the effective loss of the Motown-meets-"Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" of "Out In The Street", the menacing drive of "The Good's Gone", the wham! of "Much Too Much", their smoldering take on "I'm A Man" which is as distinctive as The Yardbirds', but radically different, the Link Wray-meets-"Wipeout" of "The Ox" and the winding, hypnotic "Circles" aka "Instant Party".
Part of this attitude stems from an illusion of
sophistication that came to affect both fans and artists as the sixties wore
on. Rock`n’roll itself became no longer
good enough. It had to be musically
sophisticated. It had to say
something. It has a good beat and you
can dance to it just didn’t cut it anymore.
And the artists played right along.
The last gasp of My Generation-style rock The Who would produce was
“Call Me Lightning,” a flop 1968 single that had, in fact, been written as far
back as 1964. Townshend and Entwistle
both dismissed it as junk, and it was forgotten (it rarely even appears on the
multitudinous Who compilations). I think
it’s great.
So, while Who’s Next and Live At Leeds and Quadrophenia
and even occasionally Tommy routinely make lists of the Greatest Rock Albums
Ever, My Generation is left behind, a forgotten artifact of the early 60’s, a
relic, owned mostly by Who completists and then only as a kind of
obligation. It didn't even see a proper
CD reissue until late in the game (actually, this was in part due to legal
entanglements with producer Shel Talmy).
And then they messed up the mix!
But it’s a shame. A
shame that rock`n’roll fans and rock`n’roll artists have forgotten where they
came from. The Who evolved and changed,
as all artists must. And in time they
rotted, as most artists will. Most of
the music they made after My Generation was, in fact, remarkable. And most of it has been
(deservedly) celebrated. But, really,
they were never better, and certainly never more direct, than here, playing
unadulterated rock`n’roll, undiluted by pretenses of Art and aspirations toward
“progressive” ideas. If this had been
their final statement (as it very nearly was), they would still deserve their
place in rock`n’roll Valhalla. It doesn’t mean that The Who weren’t any good
afterwards. Only that they were, in
fact, that good, right from the start.
[1] I
should further add that the tracks are drawn not from the gawdawful
deluxe edition, released a few years back, the mix of which ruins these songs
(whole guitar solos are missing!), but from the original, cheapjack CD issue of
the American version which, cheapjack or not, sounds good, which cannot be said
of the more recent disaster.
