"The Beatles are flippin lousy"

studiotwosession · Post by **studiotwosession** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:35 pm

The Who and the Beatles are probably the two bands in rock history that had the best senses of humor.

webhead · Post by **webhead** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:13 pm

Now guys, let's not forget the comic stylings of Davey Jones, Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith, and Mickey Dolenz....

jwilli · Post by **jwilli** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:29 pm

Randy, I watched it again. You are correct. Boy, Pete was an idiot, lol.

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:59 pm

John: I don't think Pete was ever an idiot (besides adopting a personal guru). I think he wanted to say something outrageous and newsworthy. The Who were always doing whatever it took to be sensational. I forgive him for slagging the MopTops!

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:20 pm

Just young Turk braggadocio, methinks. There was a lot worse slagging off-mike, I'm sure.

studiotwosession · Post by **studiotwosession** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:38 am

The best thing about this clip isn't the quote about the fabs, it's the quote about quality.

Another such quote, in the kids are alright, about the "geezers" in the crowd who only react when you make your guitar go "aaarrrrrwwwwhhh," is nearly as good and so true of rock shows.

>>I think he wanted to say something outrageous and newsworthy.<<

You bet it was calculated and it took guts to say it, as it could have backfired (funny how, to this day the Stones are thought of as the bad boys of the 60s, all for Jagger wearing a sweatshirt on Ed Sullivan. What a rebel. The Who made the Stones look like choirboys.)

Long before punk, Kiss, Alice Cooper/Glam and a ton of other acts that weren't half as talented as the Who, Pete and Co. had sensationalism and a bag of tricks that was deep and D.I.Y. (i.e. other than the occasional smoke bomb set off by a stagehand, in the early days they did it all by themselves.) And it wasn't because they were idiots.

At one point Lennon talked about how he felt the Fabs sold out/were constrained once Brian came on the scene, and that all their outrageousness was left behind in Hamburg.

The Who were constrained by no one (of course, Keith should have been restrained.) At times Lennon must have envied them.

studiotwosession · Post by **studiotwosession** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:44 am

>>Now guys, let's not forget the comic stylings of Davey Jones, Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith, and Mickey Dolenz....<<

So true. But were they comics first and a band second?

By the way, the classic clip of Zappa and Nesmith was on Youtube but it's been taken down. A lot of stuff on their is disappearing (Tom Petty has vanished.) Lawyers are afoot?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MXIR29KE20&search=the%20monkees

brammy · Post by **brammy** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:07 pm

Whats really scarey on that link is the clip of the 3 Monkees doing 'I'm a Believer".... Mike Nesmith had the right instincts to steer clear of those silly performances.

studiotwosession · Post by **studiotwosession** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 4:12 pm

Hmmm....worst Monkees clip I've seen is a 70s variety show appearance by Dolenz and Jones with Boyce and Hart, leisure suits and all. Ugh. Amazing they'd regroup and be a hot draw in the mid 80s...guess that shows how bad the 80s were.

12stringbassist · Post by **12stringbassist** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:22 am

Pete actually said that the backing tracks were lousy.

Very often, if you heard an earlier period Beatles song with the vocals off, the backing tracks DID sound unexpectedly scrappy sometimes (something to do with the speed they recorded those early albums at, due to little studio time being available to them between gigs and films, etc) though they still generally worked beautifully as a whole.

Their later work doesn't attract such criticism because they made far superior backing tracks later on.

studiotwosession · Post by **studiotwosession** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:50 pm

And of course there is the rumor that they never told Ringo what song they were gonna play.

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:23 am

If Pete thought that The Beatles' backing tracks were bad, what about The Who's? In my opinion, The Who's early work was very poorly performed and recorded. As a Who fan, I appreciate Pete's songwriting, but when he slagged the Fabs, The Who weren't a great studio band (yet).

studiotwosession · Post by **studiotwosession** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:14 am

As per poor quality tracking in the mid 60s, there's a thread in the Byrds folder called "massive bass clunker" that documents the unpolished nature of recordings of that era. It brings to mind the Rutles' joke "their first album took 20 minutes to record. Their second...even longer!" Otherwise, the consensus here has been that Pete was less slagging the fabs than engaging a brilliant kind of verbal vandalism positioning strategy (and having to use the world's #1 band to do so) for his own band and adding it to the Who's art-as-destruction live act (which could only reach those in the theater or club vs. all those watching on TV.) His whole knocking quality anti-pop diatribe was clearly a page the Sex Pistols swiped and followed to a T 11 or so years later, to great success. It's kind of funny how, by swearing in interviews and knocking the queen in song the Pistols were initially a lot more successful than early era Who when their act in the 70s, compared to the Who's in the mid 60s, was if not less outrageous (after guys dressing in drag in the early 70s) was certainly less dangerous (Pete had his eardrum nearly blown out in 67) and less expensive (as they weren't trashing all that gear every gig.)

expomick · Post by **expomick** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:33 am

Good comparison!

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:53 am

I was recently reading a detailed day-by-day account of The Who's career during 1965-1967, and it was amazing how many gigs they missed or cancelled. Reminds me of The Kinks who were also notorious for their unreliable nature (and onstage fighting). They couldn't have endeared themselves to booking agents and venue owners with their unprofessional behavior. The Beatles and Brian Epstein, on the other hand, were by all accounts very professional.