BOOK REVIEW: Pretend You're in a War: The Who and the Sixties

No band from the 1960s identified and asked as much of their audience (and vice versa) than The Who. Driven by the creative genius of songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend, the Who not only wrote and performed music that articulated the insecurity, angst, and confusion of their audience, but they shared in it themselves. From snot-nosed adolescent punks in the early 1960s to the elder statesmen of rock that they became in the 1970s, the Who were one of the few of the major bands to emerge from 1960s England that meant more to their audience than the casual fan would or could ever know. However, most of the Who's legend is due to their groundbreaking album Tommy and their appearance at Woodstock, both from 1969, as well as their stadium rock anthems throughout the 1970s. These songs are staples of classic rock radio and touchstones for wannabe rock musicians all the way to the present. What is less known and appreciated is who and what they were in the 1960s, and why. That is the thesis of Mark Blake's excellent new book, Pretend You're In a War: The Who and the Sixties.

***special thanks to the author for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

During the 1960s, rock music unquestionably had its golden age, when the sheer number of influential and talented bands all coexisting was at its peak and the breadth of their styles resulted in a staggering number of classic albums and singles. While the scene in America was exciting and produced many great bands, it is inarguable that the majority of the best bands of the decade hailed from the UK.  The Beatles led the way wire-to-wire throughout the decade, but the Rolling Stones, Who, and Kinks were hot on their heels and would all outlast the Beatles after the Fabs split in 1970.  Of the four great bands, however, the Who had the strangest and bumpiest ride to stardom (although the Kinks didn't fare much better in either of those departments). Additionally, while all British bands of the 1960s generation were unquestionably shaped by growing up during and immediately after WWII, the Who harnessed that influence in a manner and intensity that stood apart from the rest of their musical peers. The title of this book comes from an answer a young Pete Townshend gave to a reporter who asked him how the band get themselves up for their powerful, loud, and often violent live performances. However, as Mark Blake shows, this answer applies not only to their stage act, but permeates everything about the band's career. 

As I've discussed before, the Who were four guys who really didn't particularly care for each other even though they cared about each other. Daltrey, Entwistle, and Townshend all met at school and had been in bands together when they joined forces with Keith Moon in early 1964. After going through a couple of name changes and managers, they came under the guidance of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two fast-talking hustlers who would go down as two of the craziest managers of all time. The Who were, for most of the decade, the quintessential singles band, releasing numerous quirky and powerful singles that were all successful in the charts, from "I Can't Explain," "My Generation," and "Happy Jack" to "I'm a Boy," "Pictures of Lily," and "Magic Bus."  However, the band fought each other as much as they fought with producers, the press, and unruly fans. Constantly in debt from having to replace the instruments they smashed on an almost nightly basis and having signed one of the worst record deals of the decade, they were kept financially afloat due to their fast talking managers. Lambert and Stamp spent as if they were Brian Eptsein and employed every sleazy trick in the book to stay one step ahead of the debt collectors. The chaos and instability of their management company could only have happened in the 60s, but eventually their faith in the band and Lambert in particular nurturing and encouraging Pete's artistic and songwriting ambitions led to a rapid development that helped the band keep pace with their three closest peers (the Beatles, Kinks, and Stones) before they finally hit the jackpot with 1969's Tommy. Not only did the band break America wide open, but they managed to become trailblazers with the first full blown rock-opera, connecting with fans and critics alike while becoming the best live band of their generation and beyond. 

Mark Blake draws on several influential primary sources, as well as his own new research and extensive interviews with the band and those close to them in order to fully paint the portrait of the Who during the sixties. In particular, he sets up the book in order to show that, of all the sixties English rock bands who grew up during and after WWII, the Who were the ones who bore the marks of its impact in just about every facet of their being. It's worth noting right here that one of the things I've long thought interesting is the difference between the American and British of that generation in terms of the War's impact on them. While the Americans fought the war abroad and returned home to a country that had pulled out of a depression and went right into an unprecedented period of affluence and stability, the British returned home to a country ravaged both physically and psychologically by the conflict. Ruined cities and towns and a crippled economy went hand in hand with continued rationing of food and luxuries and a drab pop culture. They looked to American movies and music for excitement and inspiration.  As Blake and many others have pointed out, it was in this climate during which the 60s generation in Britain came of age and which would shape the outlook and output of the musicians, actors, writers, directors, and artists.  The Who dealt with this by channeling their violence, insecurity, and anger into their music, demeanor, and live presence, most manifest in their destruction of instruments and stages.  While the Beatles were lovable, the Stones were scruffy, and the Kinks a bit odd, the Who looked like they were fixing for a fight at any moment, and they were. They fought each other, their audience, and attracted an undercurrent of violence and tension no matter where they went. Blake traces this throughout their evolution during the decade, from their early days playing hard-hitting R&B to their phase as mods with which they are most readily identified in the 60s. The author does a nice job giving background into the mod movement and exploring the band's, and in particular Pete's, fascination and embrace of the movement before they outgrew it and left it behind. At every turn, however, the Who had to fight: with themselves, their managers, and the musical environment they found themselves in. If it wasn't a battle to get up the charts, they had to stave off challengers like Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and Led Zeppelin, never mind the Kinks, Stones, and Beatles. Blake paints a vivid and detailed picture of the turmoil and upheaval felt during the decade and how it shaped the Who as musicians and people, with the scars from WWII always just beneath the surface. 

While I was able to recognize certain bits of info sourced from other Who books I've read, there was still a huge amount of new information in the book that was new to me. For instance, I knew that Roger had been kicked out in '65 for his conflict with the other three, but I never knew that he flat out quit in '66 due to uncertainly over the band's future before deciding to stay.  Indeed, they all wanted to quit at one time or another but could never bring themselves to do so, always being drawn back to each other.  Additionally, just how dire the band's circumstances were in 1968 and realizing just how make-or-break Tommy was is thrown into sharp relief when compared against what their peers were doing. While the White Album, Beggar's Banquet, and the Village Green Preservation Society were all released in 1968 and are classic albums, the Who spent the year working on Tommy and gigging heavily simply to earn enough money to pay off their debts. This is just one of the many juxtapositions the author makes to show how unique the Who's situation was compared to their legendary peers of the era (although the Kinks had just as tumultuous a decade in their own right). 

This book does for the Who what no other book on the band does, which is focus solely on their formative years and the role the 1960s played in their career. Most in-depth looks at the band tend to skim over the decade and begin really focusing on Tommy and 1969, and this does the band and their fans a major disservice. Thankfully, Mark Blake has rectified this with Pretend You're in a War. It's the first book I've read with a detailed chronicle of their youths, especially those of John and Roger. In addition, while their years as the Detours in the early 1960s has been written about in some detail in various other books, I've never read (or enjoyed reading) as much detail about their time under Lambert and Stamp as I did with this book. The level of detail and the manner in which it was written shows just how insane the situation was and that it could only have happened to the Who. Myths are busted, stories are set straight, and the truth is revealed over the course of the book...what it all adds up to is an achievement worthy of being the definitive biography of the band's early life and career up to and including 1970. My only wish now is that the author will follow this up with a companion book on the Who in the 1970s...after all, they were still pretending to be in a war even then.  In fact, as Blake's afterword shows, even in 2014, Pete and Roger, as the surviving members of the band, still are. 

MY RATING: 9.5/10

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Blogging Advice and Tips from the Rock and Roll Chemist (PART 4)

Part 4 of this series is going to be about a very important (and very fun!) aspect of building up your blog.  It's one of the things I've enjoyed most in getting the Rock and Roll Chemist off the ground and growing in exposure and popularity. While this series of articles is solely based on my own experiences and the knowledge I've gained since I took up blogging several years ago, I think the theme of this part is something that most bloggers more seasoned and successful than me will still agree with.  That thing is ENGAGEMENT!

Not that kind of engagement!!

By engagement, I mean interaction...with your readers, with potential readers, and with the larger blogging community as a whole.

THIS kind of engagement!

I've broken it down into three phases: Attract, Sustain, and Growth.   Let's take them one at a time:


ATTRACT

If only it were that easy...

Merely posting interesting content on your site will not entice anyone beyond the few who stumble upon it to read your blog, nor will it make them want to leave comments on your posts and tell their friends to check out your site. In order to attract people to your blog, you're first going to have to act as your own PR agent. This can be a lot of fun but you also have to tread carefully here. Similar to how I explained getting exposure for your book in my series on How To Write a Book, there is a fine line between being excited about your work and wanting to entice others to check it out, and coming across too aggressively like a huckster who is only trying to get something from your audience. It's okay to be really excited about what you've written and wanting to share it with as many people as you can...in fact, that's essential! Why else are you blogging? But make sure to do it in a tasteful and somewhat restrained way so that your targeted audience doesn't feel like they're being bludgeoned over their metaphorical head...that ends up having the opposite effect by turning people away.  This phase is one you will spend the most time on in the earlier stages of getting your blog off of the ground and working to make it successful.  That's not to say you will never have to do it again once you've established a faithful readership base and reputation as a blogger...you're always going to want to attract more eyes to your site and it will always take some effort. But the amount of effort you'll spend on it will lessen the longer you're established as someone of quality and trustworthiness that readers can expect great content from.

In terms of engaging with your audience, this means getting involved in various ways, whether it be social media, message boards, blogging communities, etc and tastefully enticing people to check your blog out. Personally, I use a combination of all of these: Twitter, Facebook, InstaGram, and Tumblr for social media, various message boards I am active on relating to music, certain bands, writing, sports, etc, and blogging communities like Blog Catalog and twitter blogging chats that occur regularly every week like #blogchat, #bloggab, and others.  These are all great ways to interact with your audience, fellow bloggers, and potential new readers of your site. 

SUSTAIN

The second stage of engagement is to sustain it. This means that you want to keep most, if not all, of the readers you've attracted to your site coming back time and again to read what you're writing. It also means that, in order to sustain that growth, you need to continually produce new quality content on a regular (or semi-regular) basis.  Much of what you need to do here overlaps with what I wrote in Parts 1 and 3 as far as producing quality content on a somewhat regular basis and establishing yourself as someone your audience can trust, respectively.  I'll also add that comments on your blog posts come under this umbrella. Once you've got enough interest that readers start commenting on your posts, making sure to interact with them and keep the discussion going is a great way to maintain and sustain their interest. Additionally, any feedback you get from readers on social media or elsewhere should be promptly answered and the engagement nurtured for the same reasons.  Like the Attract phase, the Sustain phase never ends. However, unlike the Attract phase, the amount of effort you'll need to spend on the Sustain phase will never really diminish, not if you want to keep the gains you've made from slipping away.  However, these two phases are intimately entwined and both lead down the path toward...

GROWTH

We'd all love to have an audience for our blog like this!

The third and final phase is the Growth phase.  Here, you'll take what you've done in the Attract and Sustain phases (both of which you'll continue doing) and begin to reap the benefits in terms of growing your brand and your blog.  It doesn't mean that you don't have to do anything in this phase in order to grow and expand, however. In this phase, you'll need to think long and hard about how you can change, improve, and move on to the next stage in your blogging career.  This might mean taking advantage of some new blogging opportunities that come your way, it might mean producing new and difference types of content for your site, it might mean trying to broaden your exposure through new channels, or all of the above and more.  However you do it, this growth will then lead to a new round of attracting and sustaining audience engagement with your blog. Think of this phase (all three of them, in fact), as a big feedback loop, where Attract and Sustain feed into Growth, which then becomes something new that feeds back into the beginning of the cycle, which will repeat ad infinitum.  The more you put into it, the bigger and more rewarding this cycles becomes.

As you can see, engagement with your readers and nurturing that connection in order to keep it alive and growing takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of creativity. However, it can also be the most fun and rewarding part of blogging...I know that, for me, the only thing about blogging better than the engagement part is the actual writing itself.  However, the reason I and countless others write is because we believe we have something worthwhile to say and we want to share it with others and get their feedback. When you stand back for a moment and look at it this way, it's easy to see why this is one of the most difficult and crucial things a blogger needs to do to be successful. Just remember to have fun with it!

Click here for PART 5!

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You Say It's Your Birthday!

Today would have been John Lennon's 74th birthday were he not tragically, senselessly, and savagely taken away from us on that night in December in 1980. Inasmuch as I'm a huge Beatles fan, I've also always felt a bit of a connection with John. Perhaps it's because I was born the same year e died, 10 months before. I'm proud of the fact that I was alive when all four of were, but also a little sad that I can mark my own age by the same number of years that John has been gone and that I'll always be able to.  His songs, both in the Beatles and solo, have had s profound effect on my life, all for the better, and while he was a complicated and conflicted man who said and did some bad things, on balance he was a good man who gave a lot to the world...you're sorely missed, John!

Another famous John was also born on this day...he would be 70 were he still alive, and it's the legendary bass player from The Who, John Entwistle. The Who are a band, like the Beatles, who have had a real and lasting positive impact on me and continue to. John is a big part of that, from his incredible, groundbreaking bass playing, to his impeccable musicianship (he was also an accomplished piano and horn player, lending his talents to loads of Who songs) and his wry, classically British black humor. The Ox left us in 2002 bit like Lennon, he won't soon be forgotten. 

So crank up some Beatles and Who tunes in tribute to these two legends who share the same birthday today. I know I will!

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BOOK REVIEW: Are You Experienced? The Inside Story of the Jimi Hendrix Experience

In the 1960s, The Beatles ruled the music world, but the sheer number of extraordinarily talented bands who were all making music at the same time in London was truly staggering.  In addition to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Cream, the Hollies, the Animals, the Zombies, the Yardbirds, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were all releasing fantastic singles and albums in this incredibly fruitful and fertile climate.  Within this collection of bands, the Hendrix Experience was perhaps the most unique of them all, formed in the autumn of 1966 when former Animals bassist Chas Chandler brought American Jimi Hendrix to London, recruited bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, and put together a band that first took the UK, then Europe, and by mid-1967, America by storm.  I've always thought of Hendrix' career running in parallel with that of his good friend Eric Clapton's band at the time, Cream. Both bands were power trios with virtuoso guitarists, phenomenally talented drummers, and excellent bass players (although Jack Bruce's virtuosity lopsidedly compares with Redding's excellent skill, unfair because Redding was a guitar player who had never played bass before hooking up with Hendrix). Both bands burned brightly, releasing hugely successful singles and albums and changing the face of live rock with their loud, heavy, and long concert performances. Both bands earned record-setting profits on their ever expanding American tours, and by the end of the decade, both had splintered: Cream from internal clashes and egos, and Hendrix from overwork, creative differences, and tragically, Hendrix' death.  Similar to Cream, where each member has written a memoir, there exist books by each of the members of the Experience...I've reviewed the closest we'll ever get to a Hendrix memoir and Mitch Mitchell's book is on my to-read list, which leaves us with Noel Redding's book.

I first purchased Noel's book in 1996 when it was first released. At the time, I read it and enjoyed it, but for the purposes of this review I've read it again, and I'm glad I did. It's subtitled "the Inside Story of the Jimi Hendrix Experience" and that is certainly true as Noel is candid, honest, funny, and bitterly cynical (when appropriate) in his telling of the meteoric rise and fall of the Experience's legendary career. He stays true to his word, too, as there is very little in this book about his life outside of his experiences as pertaining to the Experience. Born in Kent in 1945, like just about every musician of his generation, Noel was bitten by the music bug early and by the time he was in his early 20s, he was a working (and struggling) professional musician in and around London. His big break came in September of 1966 when he auditioned for a new band Chas Chandler was putting together around an unknown American guitarist named Jimi Hendrix. Redding was persuaded to switch to a bass, an instrument he'd never played before (but one which he would establish himself as one of the best of his era). Rounding out the band was former child actor and well-known London jazz and rock drummer Mitch Mitchell.  Steady gigging and fast recording sessions on a shoestring budget yielded hit singles right off the bat in the form of "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "Foxy Lady" and by the time their debut album Are You Experienced? was released in mid-1967, the Experience were one of the most popular bands in England, with fellow musicians (Paul McCartney in particular) as their biggest supporters.  After their breakthrough at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, the Experience ascended to become one of the biggest concert draws of the 1960s, helped along by two further exquisite albums (Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland).  However, all was not well within the band, and this is what forms the meat of Noel's story.

From the outset, this was a band that was assembled, not a band of friends who slogged long and hard and worked their way up from the bottom together. While Noel describes a real friendship and affection that developed between all three members, he also points out that they came from such ludicrously different backgrounds (starving black American musician, former child actor of an affluent family, and working-class suburban kid) such that while these disparate roots were often a source of humor and bonding between them, they also served as wedges (most notably between him and Mitch).  Their prodigious drug intake and Jimi increasingly falling prey to numerous hangers-on and sycophants led to rows which came to a head during the making of their landmark third album, Electric Ladyland in 1968.  Hendrix' perfectionism and inability to delegate any aspect of the music making to anyone other than himself and Eddie Kramer led to Chandler's departure and Noel's detachment, two close confidantes whose abandonment shook Jimi deeply. A final disastrous tour in 1969 led to the break up of the band, and although an attempt was made at reforming in early 1970, Jimi and Mitch effectively froze Noel out and they never worked together as a trio again.  Eventually, Hendrix succumbed to various pressures, both internal and external, and died under mysterious circumstances in September 1970, an event that devastated those who knew him, including Noel. But the effects on Noel's life that his years in the Experience had was about to get even bigger.

Even though the band was earning huge amounts of money during their career, especially between 1968 and 1970, they saw very little of it thanks to their unscrupulous and shady co-manager, Michael Jeffrey. Noel would end up spending the remainder of his life fighting to try and get his fair share of the royalties and percentages on all music he played on and film with his likeness. From the point in the book when Jimi died up until the end, it reads like an almost farcical tale of navigation through a legal labyrinth that has to be read in order to be believed. While it's a sad and cautionary tale reading the litany of ways in which Noel, Mitch, and even Jimi were swindled out of their money (mainly by the villainous Michael Jeffrey, who has been discussed in just about every Hendrix book for the same reasons), after a while it begins to simply be a laundry list of failed lawsuits and bills piling up that Noel and his longtime companion Carol couldn't pay. It is quite sad to read of just how skint Noel was...at one point, he and Carol were doing odd jobs around their village in Ireland simply to earn enough to buy bread, potatoes, and milk so that they could eat; they lived in a house that was in such a state of disrepair that they could not afford to fix, and they were constantly beset by people who treated Noel as though he were a retired millionaire (based on his time with Hendrix) who would then cut all ties with him when they found out he was broke. He eventually settled all claims to his rightful Hendrix money for a paltry sum that ate away at him until he decided to kick his addictions, buck up, shake himself out of his depression, and move on. By the end of this book, he was much happier and was earning good money playing gigs around the world with his own band or at Hendrix tributes, and had a publishing deal for his book.  Sadly, Carol, who had helped compile the book from his diaries, passed away in 1990 right before the book came out in the UK, another death of someone close that devastated Noel.

The feeling one takes away from this book after reading it is that, while Noel (mostly) had fun during his time in the Experience, the years afterward were wasted by lawsuits, depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and financial troubles that destroyed his love of music until he was well into his 40s. It's a candid, humorous, sad, and cautionary tale of a man who reached the peak of the rock music world at a ridiculously young age and spent the rest of his life paying for his youthful naivety and inexperience until finally finding peace and comfort before his untimely death later on in 2003 at the age of 57.

MY RATING: 8/10

 

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Guitar Heroes

My guitar heroes, pencil on paper ca. 1995/1996

We've been steadily unpacking our belongings since our recent move to Pennsylvania and as I was going through one of my boxes the other day, I found the above drawing. I drew this when I was 15 or 16 years old, so it dates from 1995/1996. It was done only with a bunch of pencils and a blank piece of paper (approximate size is 24" x 36").  I drew all of my favorite guitarists from photos I had clipped out of magazines or from album artwork. As a teenager who was obsessed with music and playing guitar (and here I am at nearly 35 and nothing has changed!), it seemed a fun thing to do. I distinctly remember sitting at the dining room table with the pictures all laid out in front of me as I worked diligently on this for several days. The end result is above, which I hung in my bedroom until I went off to college in 1997. It's been stored away ever since until I found it again.  

I'm sure you can guess most, if not all, of the guitarists shown, but just in case there are some you don't know, I've decided not to tag them in this post until I see if anyone can guess all of them. So have at it!

Can you name all of the guitarists I drew in this picture nearly 20 years ago? Answer in the comments section below!

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New England

I was born and raised in New England and have always been fiercely proud to call the region home.  My family came from Greece to America almost 100 years ago...my father's side settled on the New Hampshire seacoast by the end of WWII and my mother's side arrived in the same place by the mid-1950s via Boston and New York City.  My parents, aunts, and uncles were all born and raised in NH (and all except for my parents still live there). I was born in Massachusetts, lived there for the first two years of my life, and after a year in Pennsylvania from the age of two to three, moved back to New Hampshire where I lived until I was twenty-six. My wife was born and raised in New Hampshire and lived her whole life there as well. In 2006, I completed my PhD and, at the ages of 26 (for me) and 28 (for my wife), we made a big move down to South Carolina so that I could spend two years as a postdoctoral fellow. However, when I completed my fellowship, I got a job in Boston and we moved back to New Hampshire.  Six years of a grueling commute caused us to move down into the Boston Metro West area to make it easier for me to get to work.  Apart from the two years we spent down south (which we loved!), we're New England lifers. All four of our kids were born in NH and it's all they've ever known.  I, my wife, our kids...we've lived here our whole lives and I thought we would never live anywhere else. Well, I was wrong! The six of headed off on a new adventure earlier this month when I accepted a new position at a company in central Pennsylvania and, for the first time in my life, made a permanent move out of New England.

Now, I know it's not that far away...it's not like we moved to California or Alaska! It's an easy day's drive from where we're from to where we've moved to. However, it's a very different place and will take some for me to adjust to, the same way it was in South Carolina when we first arrived. For as united an identity as we Americans have, this is also a huge country and each region has its own unique heritage, culture, identity, accent, cuisine, and traditions. All of these changes, which are exciting but also have my head spinning at how fast they all happened, got me thinking about what makes New England such a special place, why I love it so much, why I'm sad to have left it, and why no matter where I live, it will always be home to me and my family.

I *NEED* this shirt!

For those of you reading this who are outside of the United States (or for those of you within who don't...shame on you!), New England is the northeasternmost region of the country and is made up of six states: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut. It is the site of the earliest English settlements and by the 18th century, the region initiated the resistance to the British Empire that eventually resulted in American independence. Nicknamed "The Cradle of Liberty," the area was where the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's midnight ride, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Boston Massacre, and numerous other pivotal events which helped shape the eventual push for freedom by the colonists and birthed the USA.  New England is steeped in history and tradition relating to the Revolutionary War of Independence and the very beginning of the USA. It's also the only geographical region in the country that has clearly defined borders and a name that doesn't have any reference to its geographical area.  Each of the six states has a unique identity and variations on New England traditions that are specific to them.  Boston is not only one of the major cities in the country, but is the unofficial "capital of New England" due to its size and status as a city world renowned for its universities, hospitals and medical research centers, history, and culture (art, music, literature).

As I mentioned above, each state in New England has its own identity and, as is typical, there are stereotypes that are generally accepted by all who live here regarding each state. For instance, Maine is the land of beaches, seafood, and wilderness, while New Hampshire is the no-tax, freedom-loving, gun-toting land of Live Free or Die.  Massachusetts is a mini Soviet state filled with terrible drivers, funny accents, and high taxes, while Vermont is full of farmland and hippies. And lastly, Rhode Island is a wannabe Massachusetts on the water while half of Connecticut roots for New York teams and isn't even really a part of New England, anyway (that last part is true, actually!).  Now, I mean no offense to anyone who is from any of those states who might get upset...it was meant to be lighthearted and in good fun...in fact, if you're from New England, you probably agree with some or all of them!  There's a germ of truth to them, too, as there is with nearly all stereotypes.  What a lot of people who aren't from the region don't understand is how provincial and proud we are. Most of us love living here and cannot and will not consider living anywhere else.  I certainly didn't think I ever would, and yet here I am 400 miles away in Pennsylvania!  That got me thinking as to what it is that makes New England so special to me. Many of these things will be the same for anyone else who lives here or is from here, while others will be of a more personal nature and unique to me. In any event, I thought it would be fun to list them all, so here goes!

1. Geography

One of the best things about living in New England is how close you are to just about every type of terrain you could want.  The seacoast, lakes and rivers, mountains, forests...there's everything except deserts, and let's face it...who wants to go hang out in the desert? (No offense to any of my desert-loving readers).  You also have access to towns and cities of all sizes, as well as major cities, most notable of which is Boston.  And of course, people I speak to always marvel at how all of the town and city names here are either from Native American or British descent.

2. Climate

Typical to see between December and March

I realize this one won't be popular with everyone, and there will be many native New Englanders who will be aghast at what I'm about to write, but the weather in New England just might be one of its strongest selling points. And like we always say here, if you don't like the weather in New England, wait half an hour.  For starters, we get all four seasons without fail, every year (although depending on the year, Spring is sometimes called "Mud Season," while other years it's little more than either an extension of winter right up until summer starts, or an extension of summer right after winter ends). Autumn in New England just may be the best season anywhere the country, period. The crisp, cool yet comfortable weather still has a fair amount of daylight, the air smells fresh and earthy once the leaves have fallen, and the foliage when the trees turn color is absolutely gorgeous. There's a reason leaf-peepers from all over the country descend on the region in September and October.

Just look at that foliage!

The summers are typically nice, with temperature rarely exceeding 90 oF, although we do often get stretches of oppressive humidity that can make it uncomfortable. Even so, the summers are so short, lasting only from June through August, that it's rarely unbearable. Which leaves us with winter...yes, the winters are loooooooong, they're bitterly cold, we get a LOT of snow, with barely 10 hours of daylight at its peak. Some winters, like the past two from 2013 and 2014, have started earlier than usual (early November) and dragged on well into mid-April.

Even hardened lifers such as yours truly can get sick of them. But there is something beautiful about being outside on a cold, clear day when the temperatures are well below freezing, there's not a cloud in the sky, and the sun is shining down on the snow-covered landscape. And let's not forget that skiers from all over flock to our mountains for some of the best skiing on the East Coast.

3. Sports

Our teams have won titles for decades, the most recent stretch coming since 2001

I've written about our sports heritage and teams before, so I won't belabor the point too much, other than to say that we have old, storied, championship-winning franchises in all four of the major sports, and we are routinely listed as one of, if not THE, best sports towns in the country year after year. Our loyalty, devotion, and fervent support for our teams is well-known, often-mocked, and rarely equalled. The region is not a hotbed for college sports at all...unless you support your alma mater (for instance, I am still an avid fan of UNH Hockey), the only college teams with a sizable following are Boston College's basketball and football teams, and even then it's only when they're doing well. In New England, it's all about pro sports and in that regard, we're nearly without equal, especially given our championship success, both history and in recent years.

4.  Food

New England clambake, anyone?

Every region of the country has specific cuisine it's known for, and New England is no exception. Given our proximity to the ocean, we have some of the best seafood in the country, from Maine lobster to shrimp, steamers, fried clams, mussels, scallops, and a whole host of delicious fish (cod, haddock, flounder, etc).  Everyone knows about New England clam chowder. There are also regional dishes within New England, like whoopie pies, clam cakes, grilled bagels, bar pizza, and more.  We've also got the love-it-or-hate-it soda Moxie, Necco Wafers, and a bunch of other things that make us different from other parts of the country.

5. History

Nicknamed "The Cradle of Liberty," there's a ton of history in New England. It was one of the oldest settlements in the country, the pilgrims having landed at Plymouth Rock, and the region gave birth to the men and the movement that eventually launched the American War of Independence. From Paul Revere's midnight ride and the Boston Tea Party, to the Boston Massacre and the Battle of Bunker Hill (which actually took place on nearby Breed's Hill), so much of our nation's early history took place in the region. You can still visit the Old North Church, Fanueil Hall, Paul Revere's grave, and walk the Freedom Trail, among many other things you can do in Boston, which brings me to...


6. Boston

"I love that dirty water..."

Boston is the unofficial capital of New England and one of the major American cities. It's one of the oldest cities in the country and is rich in tradition, history, character, and charm (as is the rest of the region).  It's the closest you can get to a European feel in an American city and has quirks all its own. It also happens to be a very modern city, with many of the country's most respected and cutting edge hospitals and medical centers, as well as being a hub of technology. Much of this is due to the city having the most colleges and universities of any city in the nation, including top-notch research institutions like Harvard University, MIT, Tufts, and Northeastern.  There's also a rich cultural tradition here, from art museums like the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, to Boston Symphony Hall and the Boston Pops. There's an active and vibrant live music scene, with local, up-and-coming, and established major touring acts passing through playing concerts all over the area.  Basically, Boston is similar to every other major American city in many ways, but unique enough to make it special in its own right.

8. We're Provincial and Proud

Of course, our regional magazine is called "Yankee!"

Again, I've written about this before, but we are very provincial and initially wary of outsiders here in New England. It's a place we're all fiercely proud of...we're proud of being from here, proud of our traditions and way of life, and proud to live here.  It's somewhere where outsiders just can't understand the appeal and draw to those of us who hail from here. I remember when we were living in South Carolina and I'd told a friend I'd made there how I couldn't wait to find a job and move back. He gave me a puzzled look, scrunched up his noise, and asked "WHY?" As in, "why on Earth would you want to move back there?" Like I said, if you're from here, you'll understand; if you're not, you never will.

7. Accents and Slang

Finally, I can't finish writing about New England without touching on one of the major things we always get made fun of for: our accents and slang! Let me say right off the bat that I and my family don't have the typical accents...in fact, we come from a region in New Hampshire that has NO accent. But I've been around everyone else who does for so many years that it's natural for me to hear. The most famous is the thick Boston accent that gets made fun of in movies, TV shows, and more.

But there is also a thick Rhode Island accent that sounds like a cross between a Boston and a New York accent, where a word like "source" is pronounced like "sauce" and "crayon" is pronounced "cran." And don't forget the Downeast Maine accent, where "yes" is "ayuh," and the phrase "you can't get theah from heah" was made famous.

I also grew up hearing people pronounce "drawer" as "draw" and "draw" as "drar." In fact, that's another funny New England accent, mainly in northern New Hampshire: where an "r" is added to every word that shouldn't have one (ironically, since the Boston accents DROPS "r" from the end of words). So for instance, someone with a Boston accent says "cah" instead of "car" or "yahd" instead of "yard," but someone from northern NH will say "idear" instead of "idea" or "raw" as "rar."  And let's not forget our most famous slang, the use of the word "wicked" to mean "really," as in "this ice cream is WICKED good!" I'm guilty of this and have been my whole life...if you're from here, it's just how you talk. I had an English teacher in high school complain that it made no sense, because how can something be "wicked" and "good" at the same time? The thing is, she wasn't originally from here, so she didn't get it and she never would.

So there you have it! I certainly could have gone on and on even more about how much I love New England, but I don't want to belabor the point. If you're a native like me, you'll get everything I've written, and if you're not, you're either tired of reading about it (I hope not!) or not convinced it's anywhere special. That's absolutely fine and I respect the opinions of everyone reading this. The impetus for writing this was my homesickness at having moved out of the area for the first real time in my life, which made me really step back and take a look at why I was so sad to leave. It made me reassess the place that is such a part of me; it's an irreducible and integral and part of who I am. No matter where I live until the day I die, I'll always be a New Englander.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Who Before the Who

Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr.  Davies, Davies, Quaife, and Avory.  Jagger, Richards, Jones, Wyman, and Watts.  Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle, and Moon. Some bands have line-ups that are instantly recognizable by simply the surnames of their members, and these bands are forever cemented with these particular line-ups. However, one thing all of the above bands have in common is that earlier incarnations included a different member who was replaced (for whatever reason) on the cusp of achieving success and fame.  In every case, it was the drummer who was the last to join and solidify the classic line-up, which in the Who's case meant the arrival of Keith Moon in early 1964 and the departure of Doug Sandom.  These members who get left behind before fame and fortune often end up as mere footnotes in the history of rock, but they usually have very interesting stories to tell. The Who Before the Who is Doug Sandom's take on his two years with the Detours, who renamed themselves The Who just months before he left the band.

Doug Sandom was a bricklayer and drummer in London when he joined up with teenagers Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, and John Entwistle who, along with a vocalist named Colin Dawson, started playing gigs as the Detours in 1962.  Eventually jettisoning Dawson and changing their line-up to the classic vocals, guitar, bass, and drums format, the band began regularly playing gigs and building up a loyal fan following.  Things in the band were tense between Roger and Pete, which would continue until well into the band's career, but another little known source of conflict was between Pete and Doug. According to Sandom, Pete was moody, introverted, and arrogant and was surly and verbally cutting to everyone around, including Doug, who concurrently founding himself mediating the disputes between Daltrey and Townshend.  All the while, there was an internal power struggle between Roger, who favored the band playing the pop hits of the day, and Pete, who wanted the band to move into a harder-edged R&B and blues direction, not to mention the new songs he was now writing.  Eventually, they caught the eyes and ears of several A&R men, as well as a short-lived manager named Helmut Gordon, which spelled the beginning of the end for Doug. Being a solid decade older than the other three, married with a son and a day-job, Doug was the odd-man out. The consensus from Pete and the producers who auditioned the band at the time was also that Doug's drumming, while solid, wasn't good enough for the band (shades of Pete Best here!).  Pete and Gordon made Doug feel uncomfortable and suspicious that plans were afoot to replace him, and after a spat during a rehearsal, Doug quit the band (but was kind enough to finish off the engagements he was obligated to before they found a replacement). It was a decision he made out of anger and which he has always regretted, although to his credit Sandom acknowledges that Moon was what the band needed and that he most likely wouldn't have been able to handle all of the craziness that was to follow.  He eventually met his replacement, Keith Moon, and stayed close to the band over the years, where he is still their VIP guest to the present day.

The Who pre-Moon: L-R Pete, Roger, Doug, John

Along with the drama surrounding the band's interpersonal dynamics,  Doug also had his fair share of drama at home. His wife, Lily, disliked his spending all of his nights out playing with the band and she grew suspicious of the female fans the group started to attract.  Sandom does admit that he got a bit too friendly with a couple of girls who were fans of his, but that while he grew uncomfortable with the situation he found himself, he never stepped out on his wife and stayed true to her. He also describes some of the more memorable gigs the Detours played, playing on the same bills as other legendary bands like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Hollies.  There are several passages shared from Doug's diaries at the time which give a bit more of an inside look into the band during those early, formative years.  Finally, the end of the book contains a tour date itinerary of all of the gigs Doug played with the Detours/Who between 1962 and 1964, as well as several pages of photographs.

Doug Sandom today, still drumming!

This book is a short, enjoyable read although I do have a few minor complaints with it. On the whole, it's a bit superficial in the sense that it doesn't scratch too far below the surface to give a real in-depth insiders' account of the band and Doug's time in it.  Several of the anecdotes and quotes were familiar to me from other sources, and while it's understandable that the really interesting stuff happened to the band after Moon's arrival and their fame started to grow, I'm sure there is still a lot of fascinating information from Sandom's time in the band which I would have liked to have had more of.  The pictures are all in black and white and while most look fine, some are reproduced so dark and grainy that it's a bit difficult to discern them. Many of the photos are from the author's personal scrapbook which are really nice to see, but several are common pictures of the Who that have been seen multiple times over the year and seemed out of place amongst the rest.  Lastly, Pete Townshend wrote a ver nice introduction to the book, mentioning just how important Doug was to his development during that time and acknowledging that he (Pete) was difficult to get along with in those years!  Overall, while this book would probably not be of interest to the casual Who fan, for any hardcore Who fan, it's well worth reading to learn a bit more about Doug and what the Who were like before they were THE WHO.

MY RATING: 7/10

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