Word: groupness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Meaden wrote two Mod anthems, Zoot Suit and I'm the Face, for the group's first single, which was no particular success. Shortly after, the band switched managers, changed its name to The Who, and Townshend started writing his own tunes, widening the focus past Mod to take in all the audience. I Can't Explain, My Generation, The Kids Are Alright were as fresh and nervy as battle reports from the front lines where youth was locked in a tag-team match with the forces of the Establishment...
...strong in Britain, but in America was outpaced by the Beatles, who were beloved by all, and the Rolling Stones, who were even then playing devil's advocate in the Beatles' bright shadow. The Who made its first American appearance in 1965. Two years later, back again, the group was supporting Herman's Hermits on tour, giving those coy little gnomes nightly musical lumps and attracting a loyal band of American supporters...
Some things, however, remained unchanged. The Who continued to battle among themselves, drawing sustenance from friction that often flared into spot fires, blazing quickly and suddenly like canyon conflagrations in Los Angeles. Everyone had quit the group at one time or another. In 1965, Daltrey left, vowing to form another group, and came back a week later. "I thought if I lost the band I was dead," he says now. "I realized The Who was the thing, the reason I was successful. I didn't fight any more ... for a couple of years." Townshend, however, was not trying as strenuously...
...walk together. "I was always breaking up fights," Entwistle remembers, "pulling Roger off somebody, usually Pete. Keith and I were fed up with all the punching, and with Townshend's being so bigheaded, thinking he was a bleeding musical genius." Moon and Entwistle had eyes for a new group, and had even come up with a name and a rough design for an album cover. It was abandoned when Moon and Entwistle returned to The Who soon after the quarrel, but the idea was not entirely forgotten. The name of their projected group, along with similar artwork, appeared...
Moon, who could also be wonderfully benign and sweet-tempered, a sort of rock-'n'-roll Shakespearean fool, commanded perhaps the greatest affection from the audience. He was also dosing himself for disaster, and he began to undermine the group. During an American tour in 1975, he failed to show up for a sold-out concert in Boston and, Daltrey says, "Pete never forgave him." Townshend and Daltrey had wrangled bitterly over Quadrophenia, and during the first half of the '70s each member of the band had spent as much time on his own solo projects...