At ACM@UCO, The Who’s Roger Daltrey Caused a Big Sensation
Scott Booker and Roger Daltrey on the Maker’s stage during Wednesday’s ACM@UCO master class. Photo by George Lang
As soon as the video presentation showing four young English rockers in Mod gear started rolling, and president Scott Booker arrived on the Maker’s stage in Bricktown brandishing a Union Jack Wednesday night, the rumors were confirmed: Roger Daltrey, the lead singer of The Who, was the guest lecturer for the evening at the University of Central Oklahoma’s Academy of Contemporary Music.
The singer, who first began performing with guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon in The High Numbers in the early 1960s before changing their name to The Who in 1964, spent 90 minutes in a casual question-and-answer session with Booker and the ACM@UCO student body. He discussed the band’s history, the current state of the music industry, and greeted Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne, a longtime fan who saw his first Who concert in Oklahoma City in the 1970s and performed last year as part of a “VH1 Honors” tribute in Los Angeles.
“I’m very impressed with your college — it’s fabulous,” Daltrey said as the interview began. “And well done to the Lips!”
Daltrey, who performs a solo concert Thursday night at WinStar Casino in Thackerville, talked about being a disengaged student in the 1950s, and how a BBC television report on a young American rocker changed his life.
“The only thing that saved me was I saw Elvis Presley on TV,” he said. “There was this clip of this guy singing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and looking like something from outer space. It was just when my world changed. Something came out of the music, this drive and energy, and I thought, ‘That’s what I’m going to be.’ Pete actually wrote a song called ‘Real Good-Looking Boy,’ and it’s kind of about people who thought they could look like Elvis. And I was one of them, and all my mates thought they could look like Elvis, and of course, none of us did.”
The Who started out playing rhythm and blues before their music transformed into a powerful, muscular sound that contrasted sharply with The Beatles’ pop approach and The Rolling Stones’ loyal love affair with the blues. The Who were a rock ‘n’ roll band, first and foremost, and brought a visceral fire to songs such as “My Generation,” “I Can See For Miles,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” and a literary, poetic approach to the lyrics. Eventually, the band was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s loudest rock band, but the Who were not simply dealing in volume. The group is often credited with creating or perfecting the “rock opera” through concept albums such as “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia.”
While the group called it quits in the early ’80s, it reunited to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a series of concerts in 1989, and has continued to perform for occasional tours since. Moon, known for his manic drumming and excessive lifestyle, died in 1978 and Entwistle passed away in 2002, but Daltrey and Townshend continue to write and record as The Who with side musicians, including Townshend’s brother Simon, who was present at the ACM@UCO event, and drummer Zac Starkey, who is Ringo Starr’s son but was taught to drum by Moon.
For much of the band’s history, The Who was known for smashing its instruments on stage at the end of performances. Daltrey said he regretted that most journalists never reported the most important part of those smashing sessions.
“The most wonderful thing about that was, it was an art form,” Daltrey said. “What people don’t get about it, and what the journalists never wrote about, was the sound that it created. It was a total art form, it was music without space. That guitar was like an animal being slaughtered, and Pete did it with incredible artistry. It wasn’t just brutal destruction. He used to wail and howl, and Keith’s drumming would be so chaotic but perfectly in rhythm with the whole thing.”
Daltrey discussed few regrets, but told the ACM@UCO students to be careful about protecting their ears on stage. Beginning in the ’80s, Townshend suffered from tinnitus, and abstained from playing electric guitar for a few years while the ringing in his ears subsided. But Entwistle was not so lucky: Daltrey said the bassist was almost completely deaf for the last seven years of his life, and had to lean on an amplifier in order to feel The Who’s sound and stay in rhythm.
Booker asked the singer about the relationships that develop in successful rock bands. Daltrey, 65, said that in the best bands, the dynamic evolves from being just friends to being something “more than family.”
“You’re working on different levels, touching on different bits of the human journey,” he said. “I don’t know, it’s a really weird thing that happens. If any of us were in trouble, we’d probably know it without picking the phone up.”
This week, ACM@UCO performance class students, who regularly learn and perform important songs from contemporary music history, are working on The Who’s first single, 1965′s “I Can’t Explain.” Booker asked Daltrey if he had any advice for the students on how to get the most out of the song.
“No… none whatsoever,” he said. “Perform it how you feel it.”
Music Review: The Flaming Lips, “Embryonic”
Rating: 90
All great artists understand that every idea has its termination point, and with their big, apocalyptic howl of a headphone album, “Embryonic,” the Flaming Lips are at that jagged end and daring everyone who came on board in the past decade to march off the edge with them. If “In a Priest Driven Ambulance” ushered in their mind-charring psychedelic phase and “The Soft Bulletin” took them into an elegant avant-pop headspace, then “Embryonic” is the Lips detonating a dissonant homemade space-jazz explosion.
The chief sonic element in “Embryonic” is the shock of accidental-sounding noise. Beginning with “Convinced of the Hex,” Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, Michael Ivins and Kliph Scurlock embrace echo, fuzz and dodgy circuits to make a kind of free-form rock that can go from big and beautiful to claustrophobic and terrifying. Pounding along on John Bonham-style rhythm crashes, “See the Leaves” depicts seasonal change as the stuff of nightmares, and “Worm Mountain” takes a more cataclysmic view of death — “the sound of your starburn burning out.”
These dark mediations are offset by moments of bizarre playfulness (“I Can Be a Frog,” featuring Karen O) and unadulterated beauty — “The Impulse” sounds like nothing less than a Vocoder-soaked early ‘70s soul song by the Stylistics. But “Embryonic” is mostly a mesmerizing dark ride filled with ominous harp glissandos pointing to an uncertain future for us all and a map to the Lips’ future filled with monsters.
As the troubled-sounding announcer in “Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast” tells us, “this is the beginning.” Of what? We shudder to think.
Video of the Day: Jemina Pearl featuring Iggy Pop, “I Hate People”
With girl-group sass and an assist from Dionysus himself, the former Be Your Own Pet frontwoman delivers the Misanthrope’s National Anthem.
Video of the Day: Lily Allen, “Who’d Have Known?”
This is the Video of the Day because:
1. This is StaticBlog, and that’s Lily Allen, and
2. She goes psycho-bonkers and kidnaps (one of) her nemesis(es), Elton John. That’s entertainment!
U2 Stage, Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, Oct. 17
U2, Album By Album: 1980-1988
Since the full-scale reinvention of U2′s tours as an electro-savvy stadium extravaganza with the 1992-93 “Zoo TV” tour, the chatter about each worldwide venture centers on the new set. Most major touring bands now rely on massive fiber-optic screens that can shift settings with every song. But U2 are still big believers in the breathtaking tour colossus, whether it’s the giant arch and 40-foot lemon on the “Popmart” tour or the so-called “claw” that dominates the “U2 360” stage, which arrives Sunday in Norman at the Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
But as U2 descends on Oklahoma for the first time in 26 years, the most important reason to attend the “U2 360” concert is the same as it was back in 1983 at the Lloyd Noble Center: the songs. The following is a study guide for all that you can’t leave behind.
“Boy” (1980)
Rating: 84
U2 had already released a three-song EP titled “U2 Three” in 1979 on CBS’s Irish label, but that modest recording did little to herald their 1980 Island debut “Boy,” and not many bands premiere so fully formed as U2 did with the opening track and first single, “I Will Follow.” Influences can be clearly heard (Public Image Ltd., The Clash, Joy Division), but U2 ably synthesized those sounds on “Boy” to create possibly the most identifiable sonic template of the post-Beatles era. But it’s not just the early anthemic sound of U2 on display: the band laid the groundwork for the atmospheric adventurism of “The Unforgettable Fire” with “The Ocean” and “Shadows and Tall Trees.”
“I Will Follow”
“October” (1981)
Rating: 68
U2′s big, reverb-laden sound was perhaps even more fully realized on “October,” as shown by the dramatic opener “Gloria,” but U2′s second disc was botched when in 1981 someone stole a briefcase holding Bono’s lyrics notebook at a Portland, Ore. concert. “October” is the work of a great orator robbed of his script — the sound and fury is there, but it signifies nothing. Incidentally, the briefcase was returned to Bono five years ago, but since no songs from “October” make it into current U2 setlists, do not expect revisions anytime soon.
“Gloria”
Gloria - U2
Helen|MySpace Videos
“War” (1983)
Rating: 91
Purists often cite 1983′s “War” as U2′s greatest achievement, beginning with the martial protest epic “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” and carrying on to the great singles “Two Hearts Beat as One” and “New Year’s Day.” Steve Lillywhite’s production on “War” is almost a textbook case on showcasing the gifts of a superb four-piece band, and Clayton and Mullen deliver the Irish funk on “Seconds,” “Refugee” and “Red Light.” “War” capped off the early period by fully encapsulating the band’s passions, politics and youthful energy in what resulted in U2′s first classic.
“New Year’s Day”
“The Unforgettable Fire” (1984)
Rating: 90
Released only 19 months after “War,” “The Unforgettable Fire” signaled a major sonic departure in which texture and nuance held as much sway over U2 as military-precise rhythms and flag-waving anthems. Produced with an ear toward expanse and mystery by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, “The Unforgettable Fire” channeled U2′s signature sounds into more adventurous territory, whether it was the frenetic “Wire” or the slow-building tension of one of the band’s greatest ballads, “Bad.” It also was the first collection in which Bono’s increasing obsession with American iconography found center stage: “Pride (In the Name of Love),” “Elvis Presley and America” “MLK” and “4th of July” all featured heroes and images from the country that U2 was preparing to culturally dominate in the next few years.
“Bad”
U2 – Bad – live 1984
techchik|MySpace Videos
“The Joshua Tree” (1987)
Rating: 95
This is where it all happened: U2 streamlined its melodies and Bono's lyrics became more direct — when the album first appeared in the spring of 1987, central classics such as “With or Without You,” “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For” almost sounded too simplistic. In truth, U2 was just aiming at bigger, worldly concepts of identity and belonging, and running them through their (temporary) immigrants' view of America. Whether they were critiquing U.S. military might (“Bullet the Blue Sky”) or reveling in roots-rock textures (“Trip Through Your Wires,” U2 was in fertile territory. For a segment of U2 fans, “The Joshua Tree” will always be the quintessential U2 album, the record that made them the biggest band in the world.
"With Or Without You"
“Rattle and Hum” (1988)
Rating: 55
The flip side to the acclaim and gigantic audience for “The Joshua Tree” is that it created a monster. U2 became so enamored with being that biggest band in the world that the group, and Bono in particular, lost their ever-loving minds playing soul music pastiches (“Angel of Harlem”), glomming onto B.B. King for blues credibility, recasting “Still Haven't Found” as a gospel song, covering Bob Dylan and/or Jimi Hendrix, answering a John Lennon song (the atrocious “God, Pt. 2”) and claiming with righteous bravado to take back the Beatles' “Helter Skelter” from Charles Manson. On the plus side, “Rattle and Hum” ends with one of U2's best, “All I Want Is You,” but by the time this disc ran its course at radio, U2 had nearly worn out its welcome. Something needed to be burned down and rebuilt.
"All I Want Is You"
U2, Album By Album: 1991-2009
“Achtung Baby” (1991)
Rating: 98
Berlin, Germany is the place where Eno helped David Bowie commune with desolation on “Low,” “Heroes” and “Lodger,” and 15 years later, Eno immersed U2 in icy European rhythms and imagery for “Achtung Baby,” one of the most successful reinventions in rock history and arguably the band’s masterwork. Released in November 1991, “Achtung Baby” featured U2 as post-modern sonic adventurers armed with some of their best songs, including “One,” “Mysterious Ways,” and the Judas Iscariot anthem “Until the End of the World.” But it is designed for start-to-finish listening where hidden gems such as the gorgeous “So Cruel” and the beautifully propulsive “Ultra Violet (Light My Way)” get a fair shake next to the recognized classics on this essential album.
“Mysterious Ways”
“Zooropa”
Rating: 94
Often placed in the shadow of “Achtung Baby,” 1993′s “Zooropa” has even sharper kraut-rock edges than its predecessor — a U2 song as cold and bracing as The Edge’s robotic “Numb” was unimaginable just a few years before. This was U2′s transformation made complete: the nightmarish trust-fund anthem “Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car” is all clangs, clanks and confused sensuality, and “Dirty Day” is among the band’s darkest visions fully realized. But there are moments of great beauty such as “Stay (Faraway, So Close),” “Lemon,” and the hypnotic “The Wanderer,” featuring Johnny Cash on lead vocal before Rick Rubin officially ushered in the Man in Black’s comeback.
“Lemon”
“Pop” (1997)
Rating: 58
Widely considered U2′s worst album, 1997′s “Pop” is not the disaster as advertised — “Do You Feel Loved?” and “Gone” are strong U2 rockers filtered through trip-hop beats and seductive chord changes. The problem is not with dance rhythms or the replacement of Eno by Nellee Hooper and Howie B — it’s the lack of inspired material. U2 was falling back on “Joshua Tree”-era explorations of America on “Miami” and “The Playboy Mansion,” which was rarely the band’s best form. Most other bands could be proud to release “Pop,” but in Beatles terms, this is “Let It Be,” and in Rolling Stones terms, this is “Dirty Work.”
“Discotheque”
“All That You Can’t Leave Behind” (2000)
Rating: 80
“All That You Can’t Leave Behind” is the 2000 album that ushered in U2′s classicist period, in which the group consolidated its strengths and made music that played to the rafters, evoking nothing other than U2 in all its U2-ness. “Beautiful Day” marries the electro-pulse of “Zooropa” to a soaring chorus reminiscent of the band’s flag-waving early period, and the ringing guitars on “Walk On” are what a fan might play a recently landed alien as an example of the U2′s essential aura. This is U2 at its least ironic, and when the band can produce a song as simply beautiful and guileless as “Wild Honey,” that is an entirely defensible position.
“Beautiful Day”
“How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” (2004)
Rating: 74
Essentially a stylistic sequel to “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” 2004′s “Atomic Bomb” has almost nothing arch or boundary-pushing, and there’s much to suggest on songs such as “All Because of You” and “City of Blinding Lights” that during this period, U2 was actively denying the experiments of the ’90s. But even if U2 was settling into comfortable musical settings, soulful turns such as “A Man and a Woman” and the insistent hooks of “Crumbs from Your Table” made “Atomic Bomb” a pleasant if non-essential addition, but a slightly worrying signal of a holding pattern.
“Vertigo”
“No Line on the Horizon”
Rating: 65
Perhaps noticing that the past two albums were stuck in a moment, U2 got out of it with 2009′s Eno and Lanois-produced “No Line on the Horizon,” but rather than staking out new territory, returned to the atmospheric glories of “The Unforgettable Fire.” The problem here is that the band merely dressed themselves in the sonic finery of 1984 without offering anything new to fill those clothes: songs such as “Magnificent” sound, well, magnificent, but say precious little, but “Fez: Being Born” and the chaotic “Breathe” indicate that this mildly disappointing collection might be a prelude to U2′s next reinvention. After 30-plus years, even the best artists revisit and refine, and U2 could do far worse than an imitation of its best self.
“Magnificent”
Video of the Day: Wolfmother, “New Moon Rising”
“New Moon Rising” is the first single from Cosmic Egg, which has to be the most awesomely ridiculous album cover since the glory days of Hipgnosis.
Jason Segel, “How I Met Your Mother” Cast and Nuno Bettencourt, “It Was the Best Night Ever”
Probably works best in context, but if you didn’t watch Monday’s episode, “The Sexless Inkeeper,” you need better time management skills.
U2 Video Countdown: “I Will Follow”
Sunday’s U2 360 show will undoubtedly be a colossal production, but this video captures the energy that made the band so important in the first place. I will be reviewing the concert at the Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, with regular Tweeting throughout the show. Follow me on Twitter @GeorgeDLang as we trip through their wires.
