I'm not old enough to have worshiped the Who in their heyday. But I have retroactively come to appreciate some of their stuff -- and am a particular fan of this one I experienced contemporaneously during the early days of MTV. How do you top this?
(I also loved the followup, "Don't Let Go the Coat," which didn't heat up the charts like its predecessor.)
My family got MTV during the summer of 1982, exactly when the Who released what would be their last studio album for decades. Videos were in relatively short supply back then so you saw some of them quite often -- and/or payola had already infiltrated the video music channel -- and they must have played this Pete Townshend-sung single 30 times a day -- all five minutes and 30 seconds of it. While it drove me crazy back in the day -- waiting for your favorite video to come on seemed to take an eternity in those days, and how many times a day did you need to see "Black Coffee in Bed" and "I Ran (So Far Away)"? -- like many things I didn't love "back in the day," "Eminence Front" has a nostalgic appeal now. No sooner did I mention this song to my brother Terence, he reported over the weekend hearing it at a bar he frequents!
I'm in the middle of reading "The Kids Are All Right," a multi-point-of-view memoir by Liz and Diana Welch -- with input from brother and sister Dan and Amanda -- about losing their handsome and successful businessman father and soap star mom in a short period of time when they were all still children, and the estrangement that followed when they were all placed in new living arrangements. (Review TK; learn more HERE.) The Welches say the thing they have heard most about the book is that their title was "stolen" by the makers of the Annette Bening-Julianne Moore film -- the book came out first -- but they are quick to point out that they had already stolen the title from the Who, from the wonderful track from their 1965 LP, "My Generation." (Duh!) I'm also a huge fan of Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs's splendid version, which appeared on their "Under the Covers, Vol. 1" CD a few years ago. See what I mean here:
This week's rag 'n' mag roundup features Harry Jowsey, Michael Scanlon, Judy Gold, Lenny Kravitz, Alan Ritchson, the "best ...
Fake Jan Alert
My blog is featured in Susan Olsen's tell-all about the ill-fated "Brady Bunch Variety Hour"!
Little Kenny
Growing up in Madison Heights, Mich.
Back to the Old House
The Web leads to an unexpected return to a house I grew up in.
Oceans 11
Carlsbad, Calif. (2008)
1983
Go Behind the Music of my high-school band, A La Plage
A Death in the Family
Little Larry left us too soon.
Once I Had a Love
With Debbie Harry
'Jungle' Fever
With Robert Buckley
Roger & Me
With Roger Federer
Step Brother McMullen
With Ed Burns
Headline News
With Thomas Roberts
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