Happy Birthday to Jim Bouton, 73. I have this theory of The Who that while they were a terrific band, their influence was entirely negative. I suspect that's the same of Bouton. Are there great books which would have never existed if it wasn't for him? Not that I know of -- but surely there's tons and tons of junk. I haven't read Ball Four in years, so I'm not sure how it holds up, but in my memory at least it's very good, well worth the hype.
A bit of a detour (feel free to skip): Minor life stuff got in the way of blogging here yesterda (it's been that kind of week; I just now realized as I was grabbing a newspaper section to read when I have a snack in a few minutes that we seem to have received not two, not three, but five copies of the Sunday Styles section in our NYT this past weekend. I probably should have noticed that before Wednesday night). Blogging is a funny thing. I started doing these daily links posts a while ago, and now it's a ritual for me to dig up someone for the birthday thing every night, and of course to collect the links...sometimes they're all there by the end of the afternoon, and sometimes I'm scrambling around to find them before I go to bed or even early in the morning (which defeats the purpose a bit, since part of the idea was to have something easy to post first thing in the morning while I'm doing my elsewhere writing). Anyway, I'm having fun with the new feature, but I have no sense of whether it's a good use of my time, especially since looking for the birthday person is...well, it can lead to distraction fairly easily. So I hope everyone is enjoying it, but I suppose as long as I am I'll keep doing it.
Oh, and Happy Purim to all who are observing the holiday. On to the good stuff:
1. Didn't get a chance to link to my own stuff yesterday, so I'll slip it in here. One is about Romney and the GOP war on budgeting; the other about where Obama stands right now in Gallup compared with other presidents at this point -- he's moved ahead of GHW Bush, and is just now passing Carter.
2. Amy Fried on where the center of things is in Maine.
3. Terrific (and insanely detailed) post by Matt Glassman about how Democrats choose committee/subcommittee chairs in the House -- and especially about how Approps subcommittee selection works.
4. I really like the last paragraph of this Jamelle Bouie post about the state of the GOP race right now.
5. And Bill James campaigns for Dwight Evans for the HOF. And I agree -- indeed, I've always thought that Jim Rice was the third-best player in that outstanding Red Sox OF, and that's not counting Yaz, who was still around for the first few years of it. So fair enough, but what about Darrell Evans for the HOF?
Thursday, March 8, 2012
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The Who were an immense influence on The Clash, though, at least. "Clash City Rockers" is like a minor rewrite of "Can't Explain". I've always felt that Nirvana had a negative influence, despite their own merit. No record company executive would sign Creed to anything without the omnipresence of grunge. The lead singer of Creed sang at the 7th inning stretch in Game 4 of the 2004 World Series, though, so I guess it all worked out all right.
ReplyDeleteI was just comparing the approval ratings of Obama & Reagan yesterday. They're not at all dissimilar, though Obama probably needs to continue to improve.
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ReplyDeleteI wish the comments section had an edit function.
DeleteAnyway, yes THE CLASH is a great example of a band influenced by The Who that became an even greater band than The Who (in my opinion).
Darrell Evans belongs in the Hall of Very Good Players, not the HOF. Put Evans and Rice there too.
OK, ok, let me clarify: the pre-Tommy The Who was an influence for good in the world -- not just The Clash, but of course The Jam, and others. So I agree with that. But basically everything from Tommy on...not so much. So sort of like the difference between Bouton as a fastball pitcher with the late-dynasty Yankees vs. the Bouton who pitched for the Pilots and wrote the book.
DeleteI'm with James: if your HOF doesn't include Dw. Evans, it's a stingy HOF. He fits in much better with the guys who are in than with the guys who are out. Da. Evans is a tougher call, but the Hall doesn't have enough 3Bs in it -- I'd add about half a dozen, including him.
It's fine not to like later Who stuff (I don't get dismissing Who's Next & Live at Leeds, but hey, no disputing taste), but what was the bad impact of their more theatrical stuff? Do you hold Pete Townshend accountable for Meat Loaf, or Grease, or something?
DeleteJB,
ReplyDeleteBoth of your Plum Line links go to the same article.
(Shouldn't that be Plumb Line, or am I missing an inside joke?)
Fixed; thanks!
DeleteI assume it's Plum as in the Plum Book, but I'd have to ask Greg.
JB, I think your swipe at The Who deserves a full post so we Lester Bangs wannabes can have at it.
ReplyDelete1) There's another major-league pitcher, named Jim B, who wrote two fine books, and preceded Bouton by a decade. Plus, he actually wrote them. So here's a shoutout to Jim Brosnan.
ReplyDelete2) You could simplify the Who statement by noting that Tommy's influence was negative.
Good point on Brosnan.
DeleteAnd...I'd say that the Who's Next era stuff also had a negative influence, too. I'm not sure whether Quadrophenia itself had much influence on anything, but if it did, that's negative too.
And (to reflect above), I like much of their stuff all the way up to Who Are You, some of it quite a bit, although I haven't actually had the urge to listen to anything on Who's Next for twenty years or so - but I'm actually listening to Q'phenia right now.
I feel the same way about Van Halen as you do about The Who. I'm less familiar with the effects of The Who. But I know Van Halen helped spawn the hair bands of the 80s, which for the most part was pretty bad. But their influence wasn't all bad, particularly that of Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing. You can point directly to his influence on someone like Dimebag Darrell from Pantera and argue he makes up for some of the hair band stuff.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as Van Halen is so synonymous with the 80s (even though their first album came out in 78) and since this is a politics blog I feel compelled to draw a political parallel. I see Van Halen as Reagan and the hair bands as George W Bush and the modern GOP. Like the hair bands did with taking Van Halen's image and certain aspects of their music, Bush and today's GOP take certain aspects of Reagan (taxes, rhetoric) and fetishize them to the point of absurdity while missing the important foundation underneath the window dressing.
That's not to say I personally buy the core principles of Reagan. I very much don't for the most part. But he was better than what we have now. Van Halen on the other hand was incredible, despite their influence.
Let it be known, for those who keep records of these things, that the above comment is officially the first time anyone in the known universe has ever compared George W. Bush to '80s hair bands.
DeleteOoh, great game. I call Romney as a manufactured pop star who's technically competent and deeply ambivalent about her relationship with the audience, who have elevated her only, it sometimes seems, in order to tear her down. A lip-synching scandal has no effect on her career because it's not like anyone has ever believed she'd written or meant the words she delivered every day the exact same way, mechanically on tour, in a variety of uncomfortable costumes and position. She's at the top of the heap, but people complain she's only there because she "looks like a pop star," and lots of critics like to throw around the names of some other pop stars who just barely missed "making it" as she has. Pleasantly all-American. Way too much attention paid to her undergarments and -- oh my God I think I just analogized Mitt Romney to Britney Spears
DeleteAs someone who's listened to the Who (and the much-underrated solo work of Pete Townsend) since they first appeared on the scene, I have no idea what you folks are referring to when you say things like "the influence of The Who was entirely negative." You don't like rock operas, and you think they invented them? You're really punk rockers and don't like classic rock anyway? I'm totally lost, could you provide some examples of what the heck you're talking about?
ReplyDeleteAll I know, is that in looking at the sheet music of various early rock bands (and my study is far from exhaustive in that regard), Townsend's compositions are far and away the musically complex of any of the pre-'75 rockers.