https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/apr/16/the-who-appear-to-fire-drummer-zak-starkey-over-royal-albert-hall-performance
(https://media4.giphy.com/media/6EOkvBX07dryg/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952spjdyk609j07q3phg0h5qbvkzw6ab7p7w5nvjqxh&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=200w.gif&ct=g)
I'll just say this: The day I hear Ian Gillan complain on stage how either Ian Paice, Don Airey or Simon Mcbride (the new guitarslinger) are too loud for him, I will personally mount the stage, unplug everything and tell them to go find retirement homes. Unf***ingbelievable.
And to think that Ian Paice once auditioned with them, but didn't get the job in the end because Pete preferred Kenny Jones as the more laid-back drummer ...
Time to get back to Oasis, little Ringo! Say what you will about Noel & Liam, they might hit each other on stage (that's at least a manly thing to do to settle differences), but neither one would whine about the other - or the drums - being "too loud". Get a grip. 😑
Well, Daltrey has recently said he's going blind and deaf (he's doing a Tommy?)
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/roger-daltrey-going-deaf-blind-1235307823/
Apparently the sound of drums has become too loud for him.
Time to call it a day.
It looks like the cymbals are electronic, so there's no reason for the whole set not to be. It's too bad.
I listened for the first two minutes and understood maybe three words. I have no idea what Pete was talking about.
Daltrey is 79 and Townsend 81. The remarkable thing is that Roger can still sing and Pete can still play. More power to them!
Based on that video, Zak was doing his job better than cranky ol Rog. In addition to losing his hearing and vision, I think his sense of rhythm is going too.
I gather Zak's kit is fully electric? Any issue with volume, either way, comes down to the sound engineer not the drummer.
If the drums were not all electronic they could be. Firing him for being too loud is just unprofessional coming from the loudest band in the world (in 1976).
Seems like a big publicity stunt?
He's back in the band again.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/apr/19/zak-starkey-reinstated-as-the-whos-drummer-days-after-departure
Well, it runs in the family, didn't Uncle Paul welcome his dad back in The Beatles too?
I hope that I'm not the last one to realize it time to retire - when it's my time to retire.......
Quote from: TBird1958 on April 21, 2025, 01:42:53 PMI hope that I'm not the last one to realize it time to retire - when it's my time to retire.......
No way. You're too self-aware.
Not before you yourself start saying: Maybe this dress is a little short? ;D
I've just seen the clip of Roger getting upset on stage. He's wearing a scarf and holding a mug of tea. What is that all about?!
Quote from: uwe on April 22, 2025, 06:30:06 AMNot before you yourself start saying: Maybe this dress is a little short? ;D
I am favoring slightly longer dresses lately, post covid I wanted to dress a bit different on stage anyway, the band went through a serious change in members and I was really ready to break from our past.
(https://i.imgur.com/NvsLQAR.jpg)
I love this shot, The Nasty Habits Mons Pubis tour! :-*
(https://i.imgur.com/NBP1dQQ.jpg)
The Who Fire Drummer Zak Starkey Again (https://consequence.net/2025/05/the-who-fire-zak-starkey-again/)
Roger and Pete have lost the plot.
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGUrSvD7KDQOZ0cMMbn-wL7WrcrO91wcOutg&s)
Old people are dangerous.
Quote from: uwe on May 19, 2025, 04:50:33 AM(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGUrSvD7KDQOZ0cMMbn-wL7WrcrO91wcOutg&s)
Old people are dangerous.
I proudly resemble that remark!
(https://preview.redd.it/whos-your-favorite-three-stooges-member-out-of-these-6-v0-7411qap01mhe1.jpg?width=194&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8539e469daa98cacde393fb1dcf43eea0d9e8a7)
Ringo chips in.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/19/ringo-starr-roger-daltrey-little-man-zak-starkey-sacking-the-who
Daltrey always suffered from LSS (lead singer syndrome) if you ask me.
I'm dedicating tonight's set to Zak. ;D
Quote from: uwe on June 19, 2025, 06:19:05 PMRingo chips in.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/19/ringo-starr-roger-daltrey-little-man-zak-starkey-sacking-the-who
Daltrey always suffered from LSS (lead singer syndrome) if you ask me.
As the old saying goes, "It ain't bragging if you can do it." Daltrey could always do it.
Yet Made in Japan creamed Live at Leeds into the ground. It helps if more than one band member is good at what he does.
Steven Wilson has finally turned his attention and talent to the best untampered (yes, Dutch Lizzy-boy, UN - TAM - PE -RED) rock live recording ever.
Yet Jon and Ritchie are still the wrong way around ... :mrgreen:, but you get a lot more pick noise from Roger Glover's Ric, brilliant!
Quote from: uwe on June 19, 2025, 06:19:05 PMRingo chips in.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/19/ringo-starr-roger-daltrey-little-man-zak-starkey-sacking-the-who
Daltrey always suffered from LSS (lead singer syndrome) if you ask me.
And a bit of a shortarse too.
Quote from: Basvarken on May 19, 2025, 12:05:40 AMRoger and Pete have lost the plot.
This sums it up for me as well.
The Who stopped being The Who when Entwistle died.
Quote from: Dave W on June 21, 2025, 02:00:35 AMThe Who stopped being The Who when Entwistle died.
When it was the original four they seemed to keep each other in check, even if none of them were doing exactly what they wanted the band to do. When Keith died Pete brought in a drummer with a far more sturdy internal metronome but none of the fireworks. When John died they brought in Pino. Highly competent but dull. The Who never worked as a live band because they were all highly skilled studio-grade musicians. The band wasn't solely a vehicle for Pete's weird esoteric philosophy and existential ponderings. They would at least throw in a surf cover or ancient rockabilly number!
I wonder if spending a lifetime singing Pete's songs, but having to conjure up the pathos and emotion as though you wrote them yourself, is getting to Roger a bit!
Quote from: uwe on June 20, 2025, 12:23:25 PMYet Made in Japan creamed Live at Leeds into the ground. It helps if more than one band member is good at what he does.
:rolleyes: You are officially in the cult of Ritchie.
Quote from: Dave W on June 21, 2025, 02:00:35 AMThe Who stopped being The Who when Entwistle died.
Indeed.
Tom, I wasn't being quite serious, but DP is so much more than Ritchie - I think of Jon Lord and how Paice/Glover were a more cohesive rhythm section than Moon/Entwistle. This may be heresy to some, but Keith and John did not really work together as a rhythm section, they played over each other (with sometimes spectacularly beautiful results and sometimes also just plain uncoordinated). Very few The Who songs have a dance groove and where they did - Magic Bus - JAE would moan about having to play them.
And the legendary Live At Leeds is to me a bunch of 60s songs played at a 70s volume in a stripped down fashion. The sparse instrumentation forced on the songs by a small instrumental line-up doesn't really do them justice because no one in The Who really grooved and swung. Townshend is an angular rhythm guitarist and a very limited lead guitarist (plus a gifted songwriter with an endearing voice), JAE plays spectacular runs and has a sense of melody, but does his bird-of-prey-swoop-down-for-the-kill approach to bass playing ever swing or groove? He ain't no Mel Schacher for sure (to name someone who also played a lot of notes on bass and not just a root note player). Keith was the only one who had some swing, inaccurate as he was, but his drumming was at least lively and created - even in its chaos sometimes - a tapestry. Not a Ginger Baker, but similar in his role, even a bit jazzy.
I know, all that defies conventional wisdom and constitutes heresy in The Who pantheon, you may stone me now. 🤣
Keith's drumming sort of joins in the scrap rather than give the band a grid to nail everything to. His playing sounds pretty intuitive and musical, like a hyperactive vocal melody or conversation written out across the drum skins. It breathes and stretches.
I find Ginger's Cream stuff authoritative but leaden. Too much upright jazz sensibility, but Ginger doesn't seem to really swing intuitively, just in a studied 'what would Art Blakey do here?' sense. This is what a real drummer like Gene Krupa would do in a filthy jazz club somewhere, not some pretty boy rock drummer playing a basic 4/4 pattern in a stadium.
Bill Ward and Ian Paice both added a delicious amount of swing to hard rock music without bringing that sort of stiff, dragging clatter that Ginger had. Ginger talked a good game, imbibed like a jazz musician, lived as a hermit and had the drive to seek out Afrobeat music before other rock musicians (though Fela Kuti had made it to the US in the '60s). I don't think that big band style of drumming really works in rock music, however.
Ginger of course defied rock tradition (fledgling as it still was back then), but I always think of his drumming as someone holding an animated discussion with the music around him.
Keith Moon was at least one thing not: boring.
But Townshend (and with him in tow also Daltrey) seemed to eventually tire of a hyperactive, not always controllable rhythm section. Everything he has done since Keith and John left us was aimed at toning the rhythm section down. He wasn't the only one: Paul Weller did the same after The Jam and Sting never let a Stewart Copeland or Andy Summers into one of his backing ensembles either.
Uwe, I just thought I'd poke at you to see what the response was. ;D As usual, your response was well thought out and conveyed. We all know it's really subjective. I love MIJ, but Live at Leeds has a ferocity that's hard to beat. Expanded editions are highly recommended.
Alanko - Well put. I would add Brian Downey to the list of swinging rock drummers.
I agree with the ferocity of Live at Leeds. I also know the Hull recording. The playing is fine, it's just that a lot of the 60s material doesn't really benefit from that treatment. Of course that all changed with Who's Next and the enlarged line-up.
Made in Japan was basically a live rerun of Machine Head, an album that had only been recorded eight months before, honed to perfection on endless tours and with Purple already having a clear vision of what they were and what they wanted to be, also what worked live and what wouldn't. Live At Leeds in contrast had The Who wrapping up their 60s singles in a performance that saw them on their way to future stadium rock. In so far, my comparison between LaL and MiJ wasn't entirely fair.