The Who’s compilation
offers food for thought

Michael Becker
RECORD REVIEW

“Why don’t you all f-f-f-ade
away” - My Generation, 1965.

hat to do about the
graceless, grizzied
men of rock ‘n’
roll?

Digest ‘em, deify ‘em and box
‘em up real pretty like.

Revel in the explosive early
tracks, when there was a com-
pelling relevance about these
unlikely British Mod heroes.

Disc One of a four-disc retro-
spective includes four pre-Who
tracks. The High Numbers cuts,
one of them previously unre-
leased, are urgent and speak of
the moment.

The set comes with the bless-
ing of Pete Townsend because
the compilers set out to create
something more than an easily
knocked-off best-of exercise in
opportunistic regurgitation.

Yes, the essential bases are
covered. The strategy ensures
that the set provides a chrono-
logical overview for seekers of a
compact Who overview.

But more importantly, yes, the
set is peppered with rare versions
and unreleased tracks.

As Who chronicler Keith
Altham points out in his contri-
bution to the thorough booklet
accompanying the set, the early
Who.“were never boring”, either
live as they flirted with the elec-
tranic maelstrom of rock apoca-
lypse, or recorded — to wit, the

John Moore
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breakthrough tracks such as
Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
and | Can See For Miles.

A personal revelation hers is a
Stones song recorded in 1967 by
The Who, (This Could Be) The
Last Time. The group released
the 45 backed with their version
of Under My Thumb in an act of
solidarity with their friends who
were facing legal hassles over
drug charges.

Much of the set is stitched
together with inivresting transi-
tional tidbits such as a Who
Coke ad or the Abbie Hoffman
outburst at Woodstock while the
Who were onstage and in the
throes of Tommy.

The overdose death of Who
drummer Keith Moon on Sept. 8,
1978 was more than the loss of a
drummer.

Moon was the anarchic

essence of the group. Without
the inspired mayhem, the group
began to drift and rely more
heavily on revisitations of its
own archetypes.

For me, the 1973 release of
Quadrophenia represents the last
cohesive creative highpoint of
the band.

Run from the later output,
those pale and dispirited paro-
dies of once dangerous out-
bursts.

in the end rock heads can
really do little else than shake
and marvel at the amazing trip
taken by a seminal rock act that
hard-wired the definitive crash-
and-burn ethos — “! hope | die
before I get old” —- upon the
paisley brains of a generation.

The Who, Thirty Years of
Maximum R&B, offers up much
to mull over.

Phote David Weinberg

FORMER YWEST Vancouver resident babe gurz and her band
performed at John Lawson Park over the weekend as part of

the Concert by the Sea series.

oft Dad. © Can hi
@ Secrat.o
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—

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