The Who at Woodstock

I have a problem with my radio station. Its not what you might think, I love their music, and their reception is great…they are just  a bit delusional!  Ok, allow me to explain…..Most of you who know me know I’m  an old head-banger from way back.  No, I was not at Woodstock, I wonder if you add up all the folks who have said “I was there”, it would probably fill the whole fucking state of NY, don’t ya think?  But I haveseen many of the legends of Rock and Roll perform live, have a whole shitload of classic 33 LP’s, and still get to concerts reasonably regularly. And generally  havethe local station 99.7, i.e. 98 Rock blaring. And there seems to be some sort of collective mental zombification there that decrees that Metallica is “the greatest rock band of all time”.  Lets see, how can I put this delicately..” Dudes and Chicks, you guys are SOOO full of crap on this one, the greatest Rock band of all time is….. The Who!!!”

The Who (The early days)

Now we all know what opinions are, and  the generation x,  y, z, whoever is running the mikes there at any particular moment there are certainly entitled to their opinion. But , as has been often said, “ While you are certainly entitled to your OPINON, you are NOT entitled to your FACTS.”  And the facts about the very talented Metallicabeing greater..and yes that is a very subjective word, I grant you that…greater then the Legendary, Immortal,  Who, simply do not add up, lets take a look, shall we?

First off, you havegot to give points for longevity, and consider this, the Who was formed in 1964. That is 46 years ago!!! Forty Six years!!!! Haveyou even been alive that long???  There is a fair chance you have not. These guys were making music when you were sucking on your momma’s tit!  Certainly beats that  other outfit we are talking about here, who came together in 1981. And by the time the aforementioned 80’s rolled around and  the newbie’s did come on the scene, there was a well hewn path for them to follow. We can all agree that spectacular lighting, smoke, ear splitting decibels, and tremendous band movement, jumping, running, etc are part of the staple of virtually all  rock bands, its part of the concert experience, right?  And of course…. The scream….as in what probably is the greatest song of all time “Won’t get fooled again.” And who INVENTED all of this?  Who blazed the trail for Eddie van Halen, David Lee Roth, Axle Rose, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Carmine Appice, Bruce Dickerson, Lindsey Buckingham,  Eddie Vetter, Angus, and so many more…oh, and Lars Ulrich and his guys?  Why, that would be The Who…..that’s who!  (I could not resist). Rodger Daultry and Peter Townshead along withthe late, great Keith Moon  literally blazed the trail of the modern concert performance, and speaking of concerts, they stole the show at the greatest concert of all time, the aforementioned Woodstock.  They had THE greatest performance at THE greatest concert of all time!! So….they literally invented the modern rock concert, and put on the best performance at the quintessential definition of the  phrase “rock concert”. That alone would be enough to qualify for “greatest of all time”. But we are just getting started here.

 They have sold over 100 million albums, Dozens of #1’s, numerous Platinum albums, etc.  “Liveat Leeds” might well be the best live album of all time.  The rock opera “Tommy” by itself is one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, I can still remember the Goosebumps I got the first time I ever heard it.  They have put out countless hits, that we not only know by heart, but are used anywhere and everywhere, from elevator music to commercials, movies, they  have become part of our very culture..think the opening of any of the CSI series and you’ll get what I mean.  And who has not heard and used the phrase “Meet the new Boss, same as the old Boss”? The Who was one of the early inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1990….Metallica was inducted in 2009, btw.  So here we are in 2010…and this year Who played on the greatest  stage of them all, the Super Bowl.   Forty Six years and still Rockin’!!!

The Who at Superbowl XLIV in 2010

So what about the other guys?  The ones that generation X thinks is the “greatest band of all time”? Well, they were formed  in 1981,and have pumped out 100 million albums themselves, not too shabby, for sure.  And yes, they are a decent band, a very good band, great heavy metal for sure. But, when you throw out “the greatest” on anything, or anyone, that is a whole lot different than just being very good…or even great, for that matter.  I notice no quote  for Metallica like the following  attributed to Eddie Vetter; “The one thing that disgusts me about The Who is the way they smashed through every door in the uncharted hallway of rock ‘n’ roll without leaving much more than some debris for the rest of us to lay claim to”. Pretty much sums it up, I would think.  The bottom line is, we will all be humming “My Generation”,  “Won’t get fooled again”, “I can see for Miles”, “The Kids are all right” for the rest of our lives….. again, see what I mean about being part of our culture? We all subconsciously acknowledge greatness, we immortalize it in fact. As we have done with The Who. End of story!! The Facts speak for themselves, the Who is the greatest Rock and Roll band of all time!

But, Metallica did do some sort of trailblazing, ya gotta give credit where credit is due, ya know.  They led the charge against free music on the Internet, putting Napster out of business in a series of lawsuits. They were the ones who were responsible for the news stories you heard about unemployed Mothers getting fines of 2,000 dollars each for the 250 songs Jr downloaded from the Internet. That would be 2,000 times 250. Many cases of that happening in the early part of the decade.  I do not condone stealing, and yes, Ulrich was right, it is stealing and there is now a nice system in place to sell music  on-line…..but I have always thought that all of that was done in a very heartless way, and one that needlessly punished the little guy. For instance,  why not go after, say the ISP that allowed jr access to the songs in the first place? Oh I know, too many Lawyers to do that, lets just fuck the unemployed lady who has no money to defend herself and send a “message”, good thinking,  Lars.   Of course with the modern attention span of 5 min, to  paraphrase one of their songs “nothing else matters” . And maybe in another 20 years we might well be talking about  Metallica the same way as we do about the Who….but not just yet. Takes time boys and girls, not “Internet time”, where if something is older than 5 years it’s a classic..LOL, but real time.  Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I don’t know if it was well deserved or not, but got away for about two weeks to Knoxville Iowa for the Superbowl/Indy 500/Daytona 500 of Sprint car racing the Knoxville Nationals. Set in the charming small town of Knoxville IA for which it is named, with all  the history and  tradition of the event itself, a museum and hall of fame, Knoxville Raceway is hallowed ground for sure. I have been trying to get back to see that race again for quite some time, and something always  seems to get in the way. I had made it here in 1984 with my best friend Tracy, on our meandering journey  to the west coast, we were both young and very crazy then, and  many of the details from that particular week are a bit hazy. 

Signing the wall again at the famous Dingus Lounge

Steve Kinser "The King"

Entirely too much time was spent in the Dingus Lounge, and proceeded to  get hooked up with a bucks down race team  from Lincoln NE (I think, seem to remember, maybe…??)  Regardless, I’m quite certain they spent more money that week on alcohol than Methanol.  They were camped out in the old campgrounds off of turn 3.  There was an ancient Airstream that was part shop, part party trailer, cases of beer competed with a spare block and quick change for floor space,lets not discuss the toilet, the generator blew up, one of the  guys started a fire  in it while hitting  a bong, …….anyway, moving along……This year was the 50^thanniversary, so this one I simply could not  let go by.  What a great time! When you throw in the non winged show at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, we saw 5 straight nights of racing. Over 100 cars were there fighting to be one of the 24 cars that started the A main Sat night. It takes qualifying to a whole new level, trust me on this. One of the awesome things about this sport is the accessibility to the drivers, cars and crews that  you have. Nascar has made personal contact with virtually any part of its show restricted to those with deep pockets. Unless you want to call the autograph sessions with everyone lined up like cattle and the drivers working like school kids on a big test “personal contact”, that is . Sprint car racing is not like that, us unwashed rabble can see the cars up close and personal as they are being field stripped in parking lots all over town, the drivers not only are often hanging around then, but also are all over the place all the time. You can walk right up to Steve Kinser, Donnie Schatz, Danny Lasoksi, etc  and talk to them.  

Sprint car crews work on cars while spectators wander through

And its so quintessentially American heartland. Knoxville Raceway is part of the Marion County Fair, as is the Oskaloosa track and so many more racetracks around the country.  I mean how can you get more heartland and country  than a county fair? And Dirt is so primeval and cool. Its alive, its constantly changing.

In the stands before the race at Knoxville Raceway

You can sense the bond that the folks here, the farmers and all of those who make their living from the land have with these tracks.  I’ll  admit I do not want to live there, but boy did I enjoy visiting it and plan on returning next year if at all possible. And yes folks, to those of us who care about such things, the Dingus lounge is still very much in business and just as crazy as ever……

On the way back we stopped at  the Civil War, ie; War between the states, battlefield at Chickamauga.  These are really special places, very spiritual. This is one of the very largest of our battlefields, it sprawls all over the place. The veterans themselves got together in the late 1800’s and put up hundreds of monuments all over the place there. It’s a very cool place to spend some time soaking up our heritage.

Chicamagua

Well, I made it……no, not onto the ten most wanted list…this blog post for August is up in…August!! Hey, I did not say WHEN in August, you forgot to read the fine print !! I’ve already started on the next one, this one has rambled on way too long, but that’s why we call ‘em  ramblings, right? TTYL, Bye for now, Angie

Livin' in a Buick, burnin' down the house, blowin' up speedbumps, priceless!