The Who Take Ronny and the Daytonas for a Ride in the City

Even with a songwriter of Townshend’s capabilities, the Who were never above appropriating a good tune when need demanded: ‘The Ox’ with the Surfaris’ ‘Waikiki Run’, ‘Substitute’ with Robb Storme’s ‘Where is My Girl’ and ‘Cobwebs and Strange’ with Tony Crombie’s ‘Eastern Journey’ are three that spring readily to mind. Moon and Entwistle’s ‘In the City’, b-side of ‘I’m a Boy’, is another, albeit of lesser known provenance, that’s worth noting.

I’ve written [here] about how the duo lovingly parodied surf and hot rod culture with ‘In the City’ by transposing California into London, but until I read Brian Chidester and Domenic Priore’s Pop Surf Culture I hadn’t known that they’d swiped the tune from Ronny and the Daytona’s ‘Hey little Girl’ [here] to give their take extra authenticity. Moon and Entwistle obviously had a liking for Nashville’s finest teen combo having covered ‘Bucket T’ on the Ready Steady Who ep. Both tracks had appeared on the album G.T.O., which wasn’t given a UK release though they had made it across the Atlantic as single cuts on the Stateside label. Whatever the legal niceties or ethics of the Who’s ‘rewrites’ you got to admit they had great taste in pop’s happening sounds . . .

Pop Surf Culture not only led me to score a copy of G.T.O. but also the Wax ‘Em Down comp, which is choc-full of killer tunes that come wrapped in a sleeve copped from an issue of Sports Illustrated that featured on its cover two hot rodders in Ed Big Daddy shirts . . . way cool

The Who and the Young London Look

March 1965 . . . Seventeen magazine runs a 20 page survey of London fashion trends . . . The Who, who were the self-proclaimed face of London 1965 [here], play backdrop in one of the fashion shoots, possibly orchestrated by photographer Joseph Santano.

At least two other images from this shoot are in circulation and Richard Barnes has used the following of the band alone in Maximum R&B. Are there more to be seen?

This one is usually cited as being from the ‘Young London Look’ themed issue but I suspect it’s from a subsequent edition. Joseph Santano is credited lower right

The Yardbirds (and Georgie Fame) also played the role of props in a Seventeen fashion shoot (September 1967)

Fab Goes Pop Art, Op Art or Just Call It What You Like . . .

January 22 1966, FABulous magazine goes all over Pop Art – the trend that is young, expressive, zany, alive, thoughtful and enjoyable . . .

photo Derek Berwin

Anne Nightingale is the issue’s guide to Pop Art and the abstract sounds of the Who . . .

The magazine’s theme is somewhat diluted by putting the non-pop art Moody blues on the cover. Inside Paul Jones puts a decidedly conservative spin on the latest trend . . . anticipating Laura Ashley’s turn to the floral he scorns the geometric. He also disses the label ‘generation’ suggesting a slight against the Who as much as against the notion of a divide between young and old . . .

Meanwhile Keith Richards is in on the scene due to his coat of many colours and not much else and Steve Marriot collects pop art robots . . .

And . . . the Who started the the thing itself moving from Mod to Pop. By the time June Southworth interviews the band, however, they have moved on once more: ‘they’re frank, intelligent boys who play space-age music for a pop art generation, and many generations to come . . .’

INTRO . . . 1967. Nik Cohn interviews Townshend, Davies and Wood

The short-lived teen pop magazine Intro lasted less than six months – September 1967 to March 1968 – before it was folded into the long-running Petticoat. Until now, hidden in four of those issues were a Nik Cohn profile of Terence Stamp and a limited series of interviews with songwriters. Pete Townshend (of course) opened proceedings, followed by Roy Wood and Ray Davies.

Pete Townshend is a talker. He's sharp, imaginative and comes out with some very funny lines. He tends to shoot his mouth off but mostly talks sense and he's never boring.

Most important of all, he's got his own private progression and, at a time when most of the people in pop keep changing fads as often as they once changed their socks, he jumps on no bandwagons.

 The interview was carried out while the Who were working on Sell Out and songs like ‘Jaguar’ were still in contention, but what leaps out is that the advertising concept – ‘one long mad montage’ –  even at this early date, was figured as only taking up one side.

AD-OPERA

‘For instance, we might start with the four of us in barber-shop harmony, really sweaty and masculine, singing the one word Jaguar’, he says. ‘Then it’d go into some maniacal drumming by Keith, and it’d open out from there into someone like Fenella Fielding talking about Odo-ro-no and then straight on to a song I've written about a girl with smelly armpits. It would all be one continuous ad-opera and we'd make it as fast and insane as we could.

‘I think that it's a logical thing to Progress into writing songs about subjects like these; Jaguars and Odo-ro-no and all the rest. Instead of putting

‘Oh, my heart is breaking’, I put ‘Oh, my arms are stinking’, At least it makes change from the usual draggy old love songs, at least it's a bit more relevant to real lives and problems.

Cohn captures the idea of ambivalence, contradiction and indirection that sits at the heart of Townshend’s writing: ‘His songs are full of calm violence, sober insanity . . .’

 ‘I Can See for Miles’ is discussed along with a recent tour of America and Townshend’s thoughts on the band’s relationship with their audience and how it has changed and in turn changed the Who:

‘The point is that if you're going to reach any kind of communication with your audience, with all the thousands of people that you can't see in the dark, you've got to be prepared to put out a lot of physical energy and sheer hard slogging.

You've got to force them out of their apathy, you've got to shake them up and invade their privacy. You've got to get tough with them.

‘When we were just starting out at the Marquee, three years ago, I used to hold my guitar like a machine gun and I'd mow the entire audience down.

‘I'd start at one end of the room and swing round very slowly until every single person in the audience had been shot. The people at the far end of the line could see me coming and they would try to hide, they'd double up in pain and they'd really be frightened.

At the very least, they couldn't ignore me, they had to react. They didn't want to be killed.

‘That's the kind of communication we had originally and that we've tended to lose. We had to get it back again . . . The audience is king and pop musicians his court jesters’.

 The magazine provided ecstatic reviews of both the single and the album

Rock n’ Roll Revival Time – Intro (January 27 1968)

1967 and Townshend and Cohn’s ideas about the pop/rock moment were completely simpatico:

Last year, the move was progression towards complexity and introspection. Now groups are tired of pretending to be camp intellectuals and want to get back to basics Already the Who, always in the lead with anything new, have started wearing authentic Rocker gear and performing Rock classics like Summertime Blues and My Way as a regular part of their stage act.

‘Pop was getting much too solemn’, says writer/guitarist Pete Townshend.

‘Rock was beautiful because it was direct. hard-hitting, loud, sexy and rebellious. Most Important of all it was incredibly glamorous.

More Nik Cohn HERE & HERE and via the tags below

Penny Valentine and Simon Napier-Bell in a tête-à-tête about John’s Children

Of all the weekly music press critics who took a turn at reviewing the latest singles, Penny Valentine was by far the most astute, witty and all around entertaining. You can get endlessly and delightfully lost browsing her column in Disc, which she wrote between 1964-1970. She could be equally enthused about the latest from regular chart toppers or a debut offer from complete unknowns. She didn’t work on a grace or favour basis, her recommendation had to be earned. Her style is intimate, personal, reflective. She will explain what she wants from a record and why it does or does not meet with her expectations. She is without cupidity in her love of pop: never curtly dismissive, patronising or elitist.

She filled the role of an interlocutor mediating between the pop machine and the pop consumer; her endorsement of a record genuine, honest, her critique considered. Most importantly she made her reader feel part of an ongoing conversation about pop, she was inclusive – writing in the same temper as the records she so clearly loved.

You can see how this played out across her reviews of records produced by Simon Napier -Bell in 1966–1967 in which she engaged with him as if he, the reader and her were sharing the same space.

Her column would highlight half a dozen releases but she also dealt with twice that number in the ‘Quick Spins’ section, which is where she reviewed John’s Children’s second 45:

A gentleman phoned me last week and accused me of being very anti the musical works of Simon Napier-Bell. I wish to disagree – while admitting that I have so far remained unimpressed with the odd sounds Mr Bell has produced. Now to ‘Just What You want’ by John’s Children which is odd weird peculiar and disturbing but some tricks work and the overall is effective. Do I see the light? (February 4 1967)

It doesn’t appear that she reviewed the band’s debut – ‘The Love I Thought I’d Found’ aka ‘Smashed Blocked’ –  back in October 1966 so that accusation of being antithetical to SNB productions was most likely in response to the discs by The Yardbirds and Keith Relf:

 Keith Relf – ‘Mr Zero’ (Columbia)

I'm very fond of dear Keith Relf with his starved face, and I too thought that this would have been just the sort of sad song cut out for him. BUT. . . I hate to make comparisons but if people will do songs that other people have already made then they must be prepared. It's been done much faster than Bob Lind's, and consequently you lose a lot of the of impact of loneliness. I'm not at all sure about this record at all. Other side is "Knowing." (May 14 1966)

Two weeks later, beneath the headline ‘Now Yardbirds go Russian and Arabic!’, she reviewed ‘Over Under Sideways Down’ (Columbia):

 I can only suppose that on their next record the Yardies will have the entire Dagenham Girl Pipers playing pick and shovels . . things have got to quite а pitch in their search for new sounds. On this they have great clapping and Russian-type "Heys, Indian rave-ups and a part that sounds like the Arabic call to prayer. Fact, I think it's fascinating and all very splendid. So there! (May 28 1966)

Hardly dismissive in either case but the idea of engaging with SNB must have appealed to her. Whatever, she definitely refused to continence their next single. As she explained:

 Yardbirds – ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (Columbia)

The time has come, the walrus said, to have a go. Well, he didn’t actually say that, but I am going to have a go.

I have always thought that a record should give, to each individually it should impart something musically nice. This does not give. It takes. I have had enough of this sort of excuse for music. It is not clever, it is not entertaining, it is not informative. It is boring and pretentious. I am tired of people like the Yardbirds thinking this sort of thing is clever when people like the Spoonful and the Beach Boys are putting real thought into their music. And if I hear the word psychedelic mentioned I will go nuts. (October 22 1966)

Being dull and condescending was a grave sin, while hiding behind the mask of psychedelia was no excuse for pretension. She was, however, ready to make amends with Relf’s second solo disc, ‘Shapes in my Mind’, which she reviewed under the title  ‘Make Me Break This Spell’ (Columbia), even if she still felt ‘Happenings’ was a ‘monstrosity’:

 I have a strange feeling that Simon Napier-Bell has been groping around in the dark – In the musical sense for a long time and may at last be coming out into the light.

This is as strange and weird as some of his other efforts (that includes the last Yardbirds’ monstrosity) but unlike the others this actually works. Here then we have Keith's off-beat, sad, echoey voice in a desperate state at losing his girl. Once you've got over the shock of everything stopping and starting and feeling that somewhere lurks the phantom of the opera at his organ keyboard, you'll like it. It may even move you. It did me. (November 26 1966)

Napier-Bell had cut the backing for Relf’s single in Los Angeles at the same time as he had the city’s top session men record John’s Children’s debut, musically and thematically the two singles make good companion pieces.

‘Marc explained about their stage act “We don’t just do a musical performance . . . it’s a 45-minute happening . . .”’Record Mirror (June 10, 1967)

It would have been a fair exchange . . . . Velvets for John’s Children Melody Maker (July 15 1967)

The third release by John’s Children was also placed in the ‘Quick Spins’ section:

Some have said that ‘Desdemona’ is a very dodgy song indeed, and JOHN'S CHILDREN say no, it's not. So be it. But even to my uncontaminated mind the words don't seem to leave much to the imagination. All very weird, with Marc Boland's [sic] odd black magic voice coming through well. (May 13 1967)

Valentine had reviewed Bolan’s debut The Wizard and had rather liked it:

On the strength of this strange young man's looks and weird background, I suspect we'll hear more of this odd record about meeting a wizard in the woods who knew all.

I prefer the other side, 'Beyond the Rising Sun' which has more tune. Jim Economides, ace producer, does lovely things on this. I'm a bit put off by the way this boy sings with Dylan phrasing, but that’s all. (November 19, 1965)

She missed (or avoided) reviewing ‘The Third Degree’ and ‘Hippy Gumbo’.

Melody Maker (June 10 1967)

Napier-Bell’s pursuit of the sensational, however phoney, had made its mark with ‘Desdemona’, how then to follow that line of provocation?

John’s Children – ‘Come and Play With Me in the Garden’ (Track)

Some people, including Simon Napier-Bell himself, think I have a "down" on Simon Napier-Bell's productions. Well, I haven't. I do try to be fair – really. But so often it strikes me that all he and his groups агe after is a controversial lyric and such a way-out production that nobody would be any the wiser if they were all playing and singing on their heads. Perhaps they are. Down here, mother, where the air is clean and your children are innocent, I couldn't understand what was going on. In fact, I couldn't even follow the tune.

John's Children sound as though they have been recorded suspended from crystal balloons. All disconcerting. But see "Emily Play" and look how wrong I was about THAT. (July 22 1967)

The admission of error when it came to predicting hit records was one of the traits that enhanced her appeal. The previous month she had written off Syd and the boys:

Pink Floyd – ‘See Emily Play’ (Columbia), didn't really go mad over this group's last record, and I' can't in all honesty say I like this much either. It's another of those songs which appear childishly innocent on the surface but actually carry messages of doomy evilness. (June 17 1967)

With the next John Children’s effort,was Napier-Bell replying in kind to her commentary about his charges?

 John’s Children – Go Go Girl (Track)

The clever thing about this group is that their records are always so outrageous they always manage to get a big review. This one, I understand, was made in desperation after continual harsh words from me. It sounds like it. I will accept no responsibility for this extraordinary send-up. It's chronic and a joke. But then, of course, it's meant to be. Haha. Ignored it will surely not be. Goodnight Simon. (October 7 1967)

Was Penny Valentine – all put together with chocolate n’ feathers – the subject of ‘Go Go Girl’? Undoubtedly not, but it kept the conversation rolling on though that was the last of the John’s Children 45s. Valentine did, however, review two of Andy Ellison’s solo singles:

 Quick Spins:

From ‘Round the Mulberry Bush’ a pretty song of lost summer love, sea and sand, called ‘It’s Been A Long Time’ by Andy Ellison (January 6 1968)

Andy Ellison, who has stunned many by recent TV appearances, makes Beatles’ ‘You Can’t Do That’ into a pretty evil-sounding proposition. (June 8 1968)

Had others heard the evil masquerading as innocence in ‘See Emily Play’ and Ellison’s version of the ‘You Can’t Do That’? While her dialogue with Napier-Bell faded his replacement was waiting in the wings:

Tyrannosaurus Rex ‘Deborah’ (Regal Zonophone)

Once you've staggered over that name this is a very interesting record. Apparently this is John Peel's favourite record at the moment but don't be feared doesn't mean it's that incredibly obtuse. What it is, is a very interesting record. By that I mean it's a new weird sound from Marc Bolan's highly distinctive vocal. Few words, lots of sounds, and it's pretty in a strange way too. Unexpectedly nice. (April 27 1968)

Tyrannosaurus Rex ‘One Inch Rock’ (Regal Zonophone)

I dig you now, Tyrannosaurus! It has taken me much longer than all those hip people who have been digging them for ages to appreciate this group. I now admit I find their sound rather endearing, certainly very individual, and totally fascinating. I have also met Marc Bolan in my lift, and he’s much smaller and delicate looking close to than I had suspected. I’m glad they put a title on this because I couldn’t understand a thing he was singing about. But there’s power in those vocal cords, by jove! And they do get a very good sound. (August 23 1968)

Most of Penny Valentine’s reviews of Bolan’s records have been quoted in There was A Time – Marc Bolan: a Chronology (2024). I can think of no better way to idle away the hours than tracking with Cliff McLenehan the traces Bolan left behind.

They call YOU Generation X

‘Roll on death and let’s have a bash at the angels’

– Generation X

When the teen pop magazines eventually picked up on Generation X they turned it into a set of life style tips with The Who, The Birds and The Toggery Five as their models

The Observer (May 17,1964)

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (December 1, 1964)

Wichita Beacon (November 26, 1964)

After You’ve Gone blog has some background on the term ‘generation x’ [HERE] and on the book itself [HERE]

Before Billy Idol’s mob took the name there were at least two other combos, one in Kent the other in Cornwall, who adopted the name and attempted to breakout of village halls

A Kentish Express columnist looks no further than to her darling boy’s school band, Generation X, for this February 1967 piece.

Cornish Guardian (January 19, 1967)

‘Generation X the title of a paperback which detailed the wild youth of the 1960s: a rock band of the 1970s . . .’ Bolton Evening News (December 20, 1977)

Clipped pages from Generation X on the rear of The Clash’s debut single

The 1964 American edition, published by Fawcett, uses a reversed and cropped image of rockers and policemen on a Margate street corner. The original below is reproduced in Johnny Stuart’s essential Rockers! (1987)

“Police Notice . . . NO WAITING”

The two rockers to the right of the policemen have been given hair enhancements by Fawcett’s photo editor – quiffs are go!

The Who Left The Campus Stunned – University of Kent (May 16, 1970)

“Darling, they’re playing our song . . .”

A week before the release of Live At Leeds, The Who played Eliot College Dining Room, University of Kent, on Saturday May 16, 1970. Capacity around 600. It would be the last University pick-up gig they would play before the big American money rolled in and made such intimate appearances redundant.

Published lists give the date of this gig as Friday May 8 but that show appears to have been cancelled and rescheduled for the 16th.

“THE two hour performance given by The Who on Saturday night must rate as one of the most memorable events ever to take place at U.K.C. The total effect of the volume of sound, musical violence and the sheer brilliance of The Who, seemed to leave the campus stunned and drained of energy for days afterwards.”

The reviewer was genuinely beside himself and the occasion deemed significant enough for the student paper, InCant, to devote a whole page to the review. The uncredited photographs are the best that the paper ran of any of the many live events at the University.

Two attendees of the show took a little pause and moved past immediate impressions to give voice to what would become The Who’s defining characteristic post-Tommy, nostalgia

InCant (June 17, 1970)

“the whole evening was pervaded with an air of unreality, an air which surely is present at a Judy Garland comeback or an Alamein reunion, where the audience sit on the edge of their seats waiting for ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow ‘or ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’.”

But if the sense that The Who were trapped by their own history and the demands of their audience, a bigger concern was with rock’s solipsistic turn:

“The mistake so many progressive groups make is to ‘intellectualise’ their music, to make it intricate for intricate’s sake”.

Ann Le Sauvage and David Rooney’s final point in their letter perfectly encapsulated the state of play:

"The Who seemed an image from the past simply because they played to and for their audience and not for themselves; the fact that this is a point at all, illustrates completely our disillusionment with today's popular music”.

Third generation rock and roll could not come soon enough. . . but meanwhile you could play pinball

“Playing pinball is a challenge to modern society. It is man versus machines. You try and beat the machine”.

“Playing the machine is a good analogy with life. You lose most of the time, but you do get occasional replays”.

“I think you find mainly scientists using the machines – they are more neurotic and that’s why they play”.

InCant (March 18, 1970)

Where The Who and The Velvet Underground Meet: John Hofsess' Palace of Pleasure (1967)

Inspired by Frank Uhle’s history of Michigan’s campus film societies, Cinema Ann Arbor (2023), I went browsing in the pages of The Michigan Daily. It’s a great resource for anyone with an interest in many of the topics this blog gets obsessed with [HERE] and it’s guaranteed to give up more than a few unexpected delights. A search for the ‘Velvet Underground’ produced among many things an advert for John Hofsess’ Black Zero: screened on October 17–18, 1968 as part of the ‘Underground at the Fifth Forum – Flicks & Jams’ programme – ‘poetry by Leonard Cohen and music by Velvet Underground’ was used to elevate the film’s attraction (and my interest).

Canadian filmmaker Hofsess and his kaleidoscopic experimental film were new to me.

Black Zero was described in the advert’s blurb as ‘an underground feature in color which demonstrates that split-screen dual projection can be used more creatively than in Chelsea Girls’. Also included were three lines of press hype: ‘A masterpiece! The finest experimental film in two generations – Boston Avatar. ‘This 1st prize winner is without question a sexual art’ – Vancouver Sun. ‘Filled with indescribable terrors and beauties! – London Free Press

I went looking for those indescribable terrors and beauties . . . I didn’t find an on-line stream but there are enticing extracts, with critical commentary, that are being used to promote a recent blu-ray release of Hofsess’ small catalogue of film works [HERE]. Palace of Pleasure features and pairs, as intended by Hofsess, Black Zero with the earlier Redpath 25.  The original soundtrack is provided by The Gass Company, another unknown, but they have Reed and Morrison’s guitar sound down pat, best heard in Redpath 25. In Black Zero, their instrumental sections feature a Cale-esque viola drone that seamlessly segues into the real thing with the VU’s ‘European Son’ followed by ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’. Hofsess had a good ear.

When his film was screened in Los Angeles in January 1968 it was billed with Ron Nameth’s Velvet Underground: Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which cemented a link with Warhol. Palace of Pleasure, however, is more than that relationship — it is a lexicon of contemporary experimental cinema; equally infused with Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, Stan Brakhage’s abstracts and Kenneth Anger’s oeuvre. Such a lineage should demand that the film be better known, but I’ve failed to find anything in the key histories of the avant-garde. Maybe Jonas Mekas and his peers didn’t take to Hofsess, finding him too derivative. But if cinephiles have ignored or remained ignorant of the film then rock’s cultists should surely have found their way to make the work more visible, especially as The Velvets are not the only contemporary group featured; their two tracks are preceded by two from The Who’s first LP, ‘The Ox’ and ‘My Generation’, which are played in their entirety across Redpath 25.

Bringing together The Who and the Velvet Underground through the filter of Pop Art is not a difficult move to make – see A Band With Built-In Hate – both Cale and Reed have talked about The Who’s influence on their artful dissonance and songwriting, but to see the two groups tethered to each other in an experimental film is suggestive of a more complex set of aesthetic interconnections, less a posthumous theoretical construct than the actual fact of the matter. You can find numerous historical intimations of a pop/art conversation but none, I think, quite so unmediated as found in Palace of Pleasure. Here, at least, Hofsess’ film is entirely unique.

Redpath 25 is the more overtly ‘Pop’ of the two films in its use of a familiar iconography that in one screen focuses on a young woman’s face. Lit by oversaturated red filter, her image strikes a contrast with the monochrome of the Vietnam war actualities projected in the right-hand screen. But, unlike pop art male fantasies that used the objectified figure of a young women to explore cultures of consumption, the fantasia on display here is one of female desire – the woman picks and cuts away at a sheet of silver foil to find packaged behind the film her ideal male lover. Quick cuts to images of male genitals and a view of her fellating the man follow. Meanwhile, masculine fantasies of death and destruction play out on the other screen.

The sonic riptide of The Who’s ‘The Ox’ provides a noisy urgency that tugs away at the passive slow burn of the otherwise inchoate death-obsessed imagery. ‘My Generation’ continues the onslaught but also comments on the film frames that follow of white weddings (and marriages that end in court) – Townshend’s mid-sixties bete noir of young marrieds here made manifest. Leonard Cohen’s poetry carries even more of the thematic weight. Black Zero, with the VU, continues the theme of emotional discord over images of a marital bed occupied by a couple who become distracted from their love making, disengaged from one another, when a second man appears; perhaps the one the woman (and Lou Reed) had been waiting forever to arrive?

Los Angeles Free Press (January 5, 1968)

Los Angeles Free Press (June 7, 1968)

“On the same programme will be John Hofsess’ dual-screen Palace of Pleasure and Ben Van Meter’s outrageous Acid Camp” The latter another film I should probably seek out . . .

UGLY THINGS – The Creation: In The Beginning

Very pleased to have a feature article in the latest issue (#64) of the great Ugly Things

Copies can be had from here – direct from the publisher or with cheaper shipping in the UK from 14th Floor Music here

There was a small formatting glitch in the print edition and a column of text went AWOL. So, if you’re interested in what Penny Valentine had to say on Ealing’s finest, here’s what’s gone astray:

Podcast with Mike Stax at Ugly Things

It was a great privilege to be invited to talk to the legendary Mike Stax, editor of Ugly Things magazine. I’ve been a regular reader since issue 13 . . . the one with The Birds on the cover. You can listen in here

Leaving a Wound: The Who and the New British Invasion

Pete Townshend: ‘We worked hard on “propaganda” for the first three days and I had two stock quotes which everyone wrote down. They were’.

“We want to leave a wound” and “We won’t let our music stand in the way of our visual act”’.

Townshend on top form here in the American magazine Hit Parader (though interviewed by NME’s Keith Altham), never sharper, never funnier . . .

“Murray the K’s wife was on the program,” recalled Pete Townshend in a Hit Parader article from later that year, “She appeared about ten times in a fashion spot with teenybopper girl models – Jackie the K and her fabulous fashion show. The most presentable of the models was a girl called ‘Joy Bang,’ who took a liking to Keith which I think was mutual until she said, ‘You must meet my husband, Paul Bang!’”

Joy Bang: Portobello Road, October 3 1966 . . . She’s standing on a 1960 Buick Invicta painted by BEV (Binder, Edwards and Vaughan) that featured on Kinks budget collection and in a Move publicity photograph. The car and Joy both have a cameo in Jack Bond’s Separation (1967). Excellent profile of Joy Bang HERE

Hit Parader (October, 1967)

Keith now has two ambitions: He wants to become a professional cartoon ‘Like Tom and Jerry’ and get a job in Herman’s new Herne Bay hotel bar as a professional drip tray.

Designed by Hamish Grimes of Five Live Yardbirds and Crawdaddy Club infamy

Fabulous – The High Numbers

The High Numbers in Fabulous magazine . . . The ‘in’ group who are not particularly anti-anything but with a manager who is eloquently ‘in’ . . .

You see, they are up-to-date with a difference. They’re even ahead of themselves

Fabulous (July 18, 1964) . . . was Pete Meaden a hairdresser?

The High Numbers are featured as part of a themed issue of Fabulous (October 10, 1964) on the Rhythm and Blues scene. Editor June Southworth provided the text and in-house photographer Fiona Adams produced the snap.

The Who worked under name ‘The High Numbers’ from July to October 1964, in August they started to work with Lambert and Stamp and Pete Meaden moved on . . .

‘The High Numbers . . . now under new management as The Who’

In January 23, 1965 issue of Fabulous they let readers know of a change in the band’s name . . . ‘They are not the mods that they were’ . . . the date of the gig at the Bruce Grove Ballroom in Tottenham is unknown but Andy Neill and Matt Kent suggest it was prior to the piece published in October.

Boyfriend (August 8, 1964) . . . Pete Meaden doing the business

Pete Meaden had orchestrated his own bit of publicity in Boyfriend six weeks earlier (June 20, 1964) appearing as that week’s featured ‘undiscovered British boyfriend’. The magazine was big on the notion of the undiscovered with the column on unsigned bands beginning in the following week’s edition with The Strides . . .

Meaden himself had two ‘undiscovered’ bands on the books, The Moments (Steve Marriott’s troupe) and a ‘nameless’ band ‘who had just bought out a record’ (?!?) ‘I Am The Face’ . . . in fact available on July 3 when they were called The High Numbers . . . Weird how he didn’t have their name in place to help plug the disc. You can’t help but think his mentor Andrew Loog would not have missed such an opportunity . . .

Cliff’s Column’ in Boyfriend was purportedly written by Mr. Richard but, like the magazine’s Rolling Stones’ column ‘Mod, Mod World’, it was ghost written, unless Cliff was writing himself out of pop music. . .

The urban noir of the image is in key with the idea that they ‘aim to get anything that’s wishy-washy out of pop music – what they play can be summed up as “hard sentiment”’

Weeks later, with ‘I Can’t Explain’ finally a hit, Boyfriend again featured The Who, returning to the Marquee: ‘We hate weak sounds like many of the groups have’.

Continuing the idea of ‘hard sentiment’, ‘brutality’, ‘strength’ and ‘hardness’ are what is said to personify The Who. But the image that sticks is of fans tattooing ‘themselves with their name or small arrow to prove their affection’.

Me and my brother were talking to each other about what makes a man a man . . . .

CODA

Two years before Pete Townshend gifted The Merseys ‘So Sad About Us’ they had their say about The High Numbers’ single

Pop Art Interiors: Pontiac Club – Zeeta House, Putney

‘Pop-art, Op-art and all that similar stuff is beginning to leak out of the avant garde galleries into the field of interior design. The doors open on a beat club in Putney tonight which aims to be the place where all things are happening in the Southern area’.

Charles Greville, Daily Mail (May 27, 1965)

From Ian Hebditch and Jane Shepherd’s essential, The Action: In The Lap Of The Mods (2012). Order [here]

Melody Maker (July 31, 1965)

As much as it was the name that caught my pop-eye – ‘Pontiac Club, Zeeta House, Putney’ – what piqued my interest was the description in Melody Maker’s 1965 cut-out-and-keep guide to London’s beat clubs. It was No.7 on the map: ‘A new action club with pop art décor’. With The Who as one of the named attractions, it was clearly part of the on-going phenomenon of Pop Art into Pop, that ‘leak’ which the Daily Mail’s Charles Greville was referring to when he visited the club on the day of its opening and one then being heavily exploited and led by the ’Bush Boys.

A cursory Google and a quick browse in books you might have thought the club would be discussed in gave up little but a membership card or two, music press adverts and a list of club dates on Garage Hangover [here], which suggests the venue operated for not much more than a year between May 1965 and June 1966.

The club was located in a building designed for the Zeeta Cake Co. that opened in 1938 at the junction of Upper Richmond Road and Putney High Street. There was a smoking room in the basement, the ground floor consisted of shops, a restaurant on the first floor, a ballroom and banqueting hall on the second floor and a bakery and staff offices on the third and fourth. The ballroom had a sprung oak floor with columns propping up a domed ceiling. [For a history of the building see here].

This sequence of images have been copied from RIBA’s webpages

First floor restaurant

Main staircase

The ballroom

Daily Mail (May 27, 1965)

Penny Valentine in Disc listed Johnny and Harvey Riscoe as the club’s owners, but in other accounts Paul Waldman is named as the owner (a June advert in Melody Maker announced the club was ‘now under new management’). The club had been advertising shows at least as early as March 17, but in any event it was Waldman who had invited art students to help redesign the club’s interior. Under the patronage of Sir Hugh Casson, Professor of Interior Design at the Royal College of Art between 1955–75 and director of architecture for the Festival of Britain, students Richard Beal and Alan Saunders were joined by Peter Dale from Kingston College of Art. They painted over the large mirrors that surrounded the dance floor with comic book figures, such as Superman and Iron Man. . . . Donovan was the opening night’s attraction, May 27.

The Kensington News & West London Times (June 4, 1965)

It’s Art Deco interior refashioned for a Pop Art age is a precursor, I think, to Biba’s takeover of Derry and Toms department store in 1973, both buildings were designed by the architect Bernard George (1894–1964)

Biba’s Rainbow Room, where the New York Dolls played in 1973, features a similar domed ceiling design.

Penny Valentine, Disc Weekly (July 3, 1965)

In Disc Weekly, Penny Valentine, described the Pontiac as a ‘sort of pop art club. The walls have been painted by two art students and look like something out of a nightmare with people like Superman in eight foot colour’. Beyond its Pop Art decorations, the appeal of the club was its size, holding over a thousand attendees, it was open Wednesdays through to Sunday, from eight to two in the morning and was unlicensed.

The club instantly became a feature on the city’s gig circuit, offering West London’s premier location after the closing of the Crawdaddy Club at the Richmond Athletic Grounds in July 1965.

Penny Valentine, Disc Weekly (July 24, 1965)

When they played the Pontiac at the end of July, Penny Valentine wondered ‘how many guitars and mikes The Who will demolish tonight’. The band exceeded themselves and even Penny’s expectations, as Andy Neill and Matt Kent note in their chronicle of the band. The Who only managed to play one of their two scheduled sets as they blew out the PA. They did, however, perform ‘My Generation’ for possibly the first time. Though it seems they just missed out on being filmed at the club, acts appearing later in the week ended up playing before cameras even if their efforts were mostly left on the cutting room floor.

Record Mirror (August 21, 1965)

At the start of August, Clarendon Productions spent time at the club shooting scenes for a sequence to be used in one of four thematically linked short films on ‘Romance and Courtship Throughout The World’.  Record Mirror listed possible appearances from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (featuring Clapton), Graham Bond and, club regulars, The Boston Dexters (The Action would later have the residency). Patti Boyd’s sister, Jenny, played the film’s lead.

The short film eventually appeared in 1966 under the title of Reflections On Love. Approximately three minutes into the eleven minute film ‘the girl’ visits the Pontiac. You can see the double doors, with the star insignia used on the club’s membership card, open onto the ballroom, which is crowded with dancers. The Bluesbreakers are playing but there is no synced audio from the band or anything from arranger Johnny Spence who had been listed as a contributor – the version on YouTube has Kula Shaker delivering the soundtrack. The club sequence has a set of visual effects, colour saturation, that blurs band, dancers and the club’s interior, and is, unfortunately, not much of a rival to Blow Up’s Ricky-Tick recreation, even if the dancers are more animated. It lasts a little less then a minute but some small compensation is that the ballroom’s mirrored walls, columns and ceiling can all be briefly seen.

Though it seems to float freely around on Facebook this is musician Steve Van-Deller’s membership card, he still plays in the Putney area – Google him. He recalls the Bluesbreaker’s gig with Clapton and T-Bone Walker as two standout shows at the venue. In an email to me Steve wrote:

‘I remember being very impressed with the interior, but I was only 15 going on 16 at the time . . .The club had a great vibe . . . The Action were brilliant when they had their Sunday residency, and the Boston Dexters were a great soul covers band too’. 

‘We are creating, a modern-day pop image in our own style’, one of the designers told The Kensington News and West London Times, ‘We made pop art into an interior, instead of leaving it on a white canvas’. Peter Dale added that he would be ‘rather pleased if people don’t like it’.

"The Long-Hair Musicians" – Sunday Times Magazine and The Pretty Things (July 1964).

Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Dave Clark . . . . and Phil May

July 12 1964 edition of The Sunday Times Magazine with a commissioned Pop Art cover from the very hip Peter Phillips

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . and all ten year-olds . . . The Pretty Things on the cusp of ‘blazing notoriety’ like the Stones or ‘total anonymity’ like The Daisies . . .

Peter Phillips, ‘For Men Only Starring MM and BB’ 1961

Peter Phillips ‘Entertainment Machine’ 1961

Peter Phillips, ‘Custom Print No.1’ 1965

THE WHO – LONDON 1965

The Who London 1965 . . . Ealing Club, Feburary 1965 with Fery Agasi (pinched from HERE)

The Who – Maximum R&B Tuesday Nights at the Marquee . . . a 23 week residency that became a cornerstone of the band’s foundation myth. As much as anything we have the classic poster to thank for that impression, reinforced by the one in The Who Live at Leeds package. Yet, the majority of the residency at the Wardour Street club appears to have been advertised not in its maximalist rhythmic and bluesy incarnation but as ‘THE WHO – LONDON 1965’. Sometimes with the hyphen, sometimes not . . .

An original is on the left, above is the Live at Leeds repro

‘Maximum R&B’ was used from November through to December 1964. The Monday Red Lion and Wednesday Florida gigs were in the same week the block ad, below, appeared in Melody Maker

Following the Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp takeover there was obviously an on-going debate over the band’s name or rather how best to present it. The first show of the residency, November 24, they were billed a ‘THE “WHO”’ which seems to have been the case until January 5 when the quotation marks were dropped, though they were back on the 12th and stayed in place until the first gig in February, when they went absent once more. From February 9 until April 6, if you paid to see The Who at the Marquee it was under the banner ‘THE WHO – LONDON 1965’. For the final couple of Tuesday gigs in April, the 27th being the last of the 23, they were simply ‘THE WHO’.

On the Brunswick label for ‘I Can’t Explain’, and in press advertisements and posters promoting the single, there was never any uncertainty over the name, they were just ‘The Who’. The heavily used appendage ‘LONDON 1965’ for the Marquee (and Ealing Club dates in February) was then a statement and a declaration. It was a contract with their audience that laid down the claim that they were not only at the very centre of things in Soho, but they were its centre – ‘right here, right now, we are what’s happening’, it said.

Melody Maker (March 20, 1965)

An April ‘65 interview with Kevin Swift, published in the May edition of Beat Instrumental, doesn’t refer to any of this directly, but it is there in plain sight – Stamp and Lambert ‘look upon them as the embodiment of London’s various characteristics’, Swift wrote:

It is quite a valid theory when you consider if for a moment. After all, their act contains an aggressiveness, humour, action and an overall indication of frustration.

London – The Who. The Who – London. Even the name is representative of the anonymity of the big city

Beat Instrumental (May 1965)

THE WHO – PRIMITIVE LONDON 1965

Record Mirror (December 19, 1964)

The High Numbers Record Mirror (July 23, 1964)

August 8, 1964

New Musical Express (April 23, 1965)

Before the Pop Art epiphony of ‘Anyway Anyhow Anywhere’, Townshend was already dumping the Mod tag: ‘this was a contrived artificial modness and we wanted to be ourselves’. Lambert’s reference to the band appearing in four films is intriguing. The French TV programme had been trailed in Britain as early as March in Record Mirror, with filming taking place at the Marquee, in Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith, Mods – Seize Millions de Jeunes (Sixteen Million Teenagers – tx March 18, you can find it on Vimeo as originally broadcast). Lambert is the ‘adult’ interlocutor, explaining teenage London. In one shot you see Moon (?) seemingly helping to design the Marquee poster but,The Who’s appearance aside, the highlight is the kids, smashed blocked and dancing like beautiful fools to some other band chopping away on Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love’.

One of the two British TV spots could be Ready Steady Go (tx January 29) and the promotional short for ‘I Can’t Explain’ shot by the two managers and sold to Rediffusion to be used in ‘That’s For Me’ (tx March 15). The film ‘about a stripper’ was Carousella. The reference to it in this NME piece confirming, for me at least, that the band and management had contracted/cleared their appearance with the documentary’s producers, Mithras Films. They were billed as “The Who”. . . Much, if not all, of this on the films is in Andy Neill and Matt Kent’s essential Anyway Anyhow Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of The Who (2007)

Screengrab from Carousella

Mail Bag, Melody Maker (June 19, 1965)

The Who Rave On With Alan Freeman (February 1966)

This late 1965 interview with Alan Freeman, published in the February 1966 edition of Rave, is the best contemporary summation of the breakneck speed of change in pop that the band were now pushing. The shift away from Mod and then Pop Art is discussed: ‘We found out Mods were just as conformist and reactionary as anyone else’ . . . ‘So far as The Who are concerned, the pop art image that stunned listeners last summer with things like “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” is already a dead carcass’ . . . staying ahead of the pack was the only consistent philosophy, innovation and renewal – ‘searching endlessly for newer musical forms that would reflect nobody’s ideas but their own’.

Townshend reiterates the importance of creative violence in the band’s acts of reinvention, comparing what they do to the everyday violence of bar-room fights, dance hall punch ups and war in Vietnam – all ignored by the man in the street. But ‘immediately a bit of property is smashed up he goes potty and cries out about senseless destruction’.

‘I reckon it’s this unfortunate national knack of putting higher value on things than on people that has made The Who the most unpopular group in pop’, wrote Freeman. And, as if to echo Kit Lambert’s claim that the band were involved in a ‘new form of crime’, one that attacked bourgeois propriety, he noted that the band were now starting to attract ‘quite a few gamblers and reformed villains who turn up at various parties and first nights. And I’ve heard some of them raving about the Who’s records’.

Townshend digs deeper into the art influences on his auto-destruction, including Metzger’s idea for ‘putting up statues with weak foundations so that they’d all fall down inside a year’, which was new to me. All this emphasis on violence and aggression was clearly understood to be the prelude that logically ends in the group’s own demise; its self-destruction: ‘It doesn’t matter in the long run. Eventually we’re going to destroy ourselves as a group. It has to happen sometime’.

Enjoy!

Greased: two new reviews of 'Pin-Ups 1972'

Grant McPhee reviews Pin-ups 1972: Third Generation Rock ‘n’ Roll for Into Creative

This publication takes a similar format to Jon Savage’s ‘1966’ to posit the claim that 1972 is another important milestone in ‘the story’ of music. It’s a well-argued point that focusses on 1972 being when Rock ‘n’ Roll went back to its roots, in order to reclaim itself from the patchouli self-indulgence that it had sadly fallen into. Other writers have made a claim for 74/75 being when Rock and Roll went back to basics, but this makes a convincing case that 1972 was where it began. Rather than starting with Dr Feelgood or New York Dolls, we have Bowie and Bolan, Iggy and Lou, Roxy, The Who’s Quadrophenia and most refreshingly, Mick Farren, an unsung hero and huge influence on the soon to emerge Punk sound.

The level of research is quite astounding; I know that Peter meticulously went through hundreds of period magazines, NMEs, Melody Makers, Newspapers, Fanzines and more to ensure historical accuracy, rather than falling into the trap of repeating oft-heard myths. This trawl through culture really pays off as it gives a tremendous sense of period for the reader and envelopes you completely in the world of the greaser as the story emerges.

review published HERE

Simon Wright reviews A Band With Built-In Hate and Pin-Ups 1972 for Only Rock ‘n’ Roll London

Two books from Peter Stanfield which follow the same approach, developing a hypothesis by the careful selection and presentation of quotes from a wide variety of other sources. This means that he will never be one of my favourite writers – I prefer the highly-opinionated school of Nick Kent , Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs – but the material he chooses is for the most part relevant and stimulating and in some cases new to me, so that is enough to make for two entertaining and thought-provoking volumes.

Stanfield also shares two of my prejudices: that the early ‘70s were a brilliant time for music and that the Who peaked with Sell Out and Tommy. Pin-Ups 1972 follows in the steps of Jon Savage’s book on 1966 and David Hepworth’s review of 1971. Unlike these two titles Stanfield makes no attempt to review the contemporary music scene in its entirety but instead zeroes in on a tight and inter-related group of acts including Iggy and the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Lou Reed and Roxy Music, all firm favourites of mine. He notes how Marc Bolan had lead the way, and how Bowie was at the centre of it all. A surprising outlier is the opening chapter on Mick Farren, by then no longer a performer but a full-time writer and generally angry person. Stanfield gives a clear account of tectonic plates shifting within the London music scene and how this helped rock’n’roll shake off the last fringes of the 60’s as these groups evolved a Third Generation Rock’n’Roll, the subtitle of the book.  He is also good on how the seismic eruptions of 1977 started as minor tremors five years previously.

A Band With Built-In Hate is a fine book about the Who that would be better served by its sub-title The Who From Pop Art To Punk. Stanfield spends little time on the implications of the Townshend quote beyond noting that the members of the Who were four very different individuals who did not get on, hardly new news. Much more interesting is what Stanfield has to say about the relationship between the Who and popular culture in general and Pop Art in particular. Stanfield is helped greatly by extensively quoting Nik Cohn, still the most pithy and interesting commentator on the Who in the 60’s. The final chapter is enlivened by a wonderful rejection letter from Townshend to Eddie And The Hot Rods’ record company where he refers to his “meditative Mercedes buying” – truly the Godfather meeting The Punks. As with pin-ups 1972 the book concludes with the influence of the Who on punk, and vice versa.

Academic in tone but accessible in content these two books are recommended to bored teenagers of all ages.

Review published HERE

Paperback: A Band With Built-In Hate

Paperback edition of ‘A Band With Built-In Hate: The Who from Pop Art to Punk’ hits UK streets on July 11, 2022. Get some!

The Who – Everybody's Talking About Pop Art!

“That knockout mod group, The Who, have begun a fantastic craze for Pop Art. And though it took lead singer Roger Daltrey over half-an-hour to explain to me what Pop Art was all about, if you want to learn fans, you can do it much faster”

RAVE (August 1965) gives you the lowdown on what Kathy McGowan says London has gone mad for . . .

RAVE (July 1965)

‘THE POP-ART SINGLE!’ ad in NME (June 4, 1965)

Clarks goes Pop Art NME (May 23, 1965)

Anyway Anyhow Anywhere – Intensity and Abstraction

Before Nik Cohn, Patrick Kerr was the Pop Scene columnist for Queen magazine. A choreographer on Ready Steady Go he clearly had his finger on the pulse of what the nation’s teens were getting into . . . He finished his June 2, 1965 piece with a tip-off on the band’s latest release with its ‘weird sound effects’. Two weeks later he provided a fuller appreciation – ‘on stage they are without doubt the wildest’ and they are the world’s ‘first “Op-Art” group’.

Five years later and the single seemed like ancient history, but for Creem’s Lester Bangs’ AAA’s ‘intensity and abstraction’ – a perfect summation – deserved to be resurrected. When everyone else was busy with the rock ‘n’ roll revival, Bangs had became the key archivist for sixties pop of the noisome and psychotic persuasion .

Meanwhile, in Youtubeland a sometimes great sometimes poor quality video of The Who making merry for Canadian TV has turned up . . . what a beautifully ugly racket they made. According to Andy Neill and Matt Kent’s bible, bits from ‘Substitute’, ‘Baby Don’t You Do It’, ‘See See Ride'r’ and ‘My Generation’ can be heard. The gig was at WestminsterTechnical College on Saturday, 9 July 1966.

My thanks to Dave Laing for the tip-off on this little explosion in SW1