Celebrating Pete Townshend on his 80th birthday. —Ed.

Who loves The Who? Everybody loves The Who, that’s who. Six billion Chinese people love The Who. That Turkish family that walks on all fours loves The Who. Kim Jong-un loves The Who. The ape at the zoo loves The Who. Okay, I suppose there are lots of people who don’t love The Who, but I don’t understand them. Why, I would even go so far as to say there’s something terribly, terribly wrong with them.

Then again, how much do I really love The Who? I have no use for Tommy, dislike everything after 1973’s Quadrophenia, and have never really listened to their early stuff beyond what’s on the 1971 compilation Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. And don’t even get me started on the post-Keith Moon Who. Face Dances? Why, I have half a mind to dance on your face, Mr. Peter Dennis Blanford Townshend, for reanimating the corpse of a band that died with its heart and soul, Keith Moon.

So, unlike our friends the quadruped Ulas Family from Turkey, I suppose I’m ambivalent about The Who. But I have no mixed feelings about Who’s Next, the band’s 1971 masterpiece. From its cover of the foursome at Easington Colliery, having apparently just finished pissing on a concrete “monolith” emerging from a slag heap, to “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”—two of the greatest rock songs ever written—it’s a gas, especially when you toss in such odd birds as the hilarious “My Wife” and the cool and amusing “Going Mobile.” It may include some songs I flat-out dislike, but I don’t care. It’s still the best thing to come along since sliced Altamont.

Back story in telegraphic form: Formed in 1964 and briefly called The High Numbers… Mods vs. rockers and gratuitous guitar smashing… “My Generation” and rock opera Tommy… drummer Keith Moon drives limo into swimming pool… shirtless Roger Daltrey swings mic in great arcing loops… John Entwistle, bass genius, as great as Jack Bruce… Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar and famous boiler suit, STOP.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Kinks, one of the greatest ever British rock groups, continue the 60th Anniversary celebrations of their illustrious musical journey with the final part of their career-defining trilogy, The Journey, out July 11 on BMG.

With The Journey – Part 1 (featuring Kinks standards such as “You Really Got Me,” “Waterloo Sunset” and “All Day And All Of The Night”) and The Journey – Part 2 (which included “Lola,” “Sunny Afternoon,” and “Everybody’s A Star (Starmaker)”), released in 2023, The Journey – Part 3 covers their transformative RCA/Arista period spanning 1977 to 1984. The period saw the band finally break America, leaving behind their iconic pop and experimental phases, and returning to a fresh and concise style of classic songwriting that draws on their own distinct British sense of self.

Compiled by the band, the release comes on two discs. Disc 1 is made up of 11 classic tracks and hits from the era, freshly remastered from the original ¼” production master tapes including “Come Dancing,” “Destroyer,” “Living On A Thin Line,” and more.

Disc 2 is a very special release featuring never-before-heard recordings, discovered in the Konk archive, from the band’s euphoric, historic Royal Albert Hall show from July 11, 1993, including formidable renditions of “You Really Got Me,” “Till The End of the Day,” and “Sunny Afternoon,” among many others.

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It’s hard to believe that horn band Chicago, along with Grand Funk Railroad, were one of the most popular touring acts of the early Seventies. Why, I would go so far as to suggest the above proves that the young people of America had lost their collective fucking mind. Personally, I blame the Ohio National Guard.

I would blame drugs—acid and speed and St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin and the like—but what respectable dope fiend would have been caught dead at the live shows that make up Chicago’s eight-sided beast, 1971’s Chicago at Carnegie Hall? Chicago was only slightly less square than the likes of fellow horn band Blood, Sweat & Tears and vocal group Three Dog Night, both of whom also raise questions about the intelligence, taste, and indeed sanity of the Children of America in the Age of Nixon.

I can only think that collective societal trauma induced a sort of mass idiocy that led America’s supposedly turned-on kids to buy albums by horn bands, including a quadruple live album that is largely unlistenable. So unlistenable indeed that you can tell it’s unlistenable without actually listening to it, or so concluded Robert Christgau in his contemporaneous review of the LP (“I’m not claiming actually to have listened to this four-record set—you think I’m a nut?”). And he wasn’t even apologetic about it!

Lester Bangs did listen to all eight sides, which makes him a hero in my book, and after sarcastically calling the album “a classic” and commending it for its sheer heft (3.2 pounds according to his calculations) he went on to add, sarcastic still, “Loving Chicago at Carnegie Hall as much as I do, though, I still don’t play it very often. In fact, I’ve only played it once since I got it, and never intend to play any of it again.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Yusuf/Cat Stevens has announced his long-awaited memoir, Cat On The Road To Findout. Launching in the UK through Constable on September 18 and in North America on October 7 through Genesis Publications, the new autobiography is an extraordinary soul-baring journey through the triumphs, trials, and transcendental quest of one of music’s most enigmatic figures of our time.

More than a memoir, the Yusuf/Cat Stevens story is a backstage pass to the mind of a man who has lived a thousand lives. From his folk troubadour beginnings, to the glamorous chaos of ‘60s pop stardom, to his ‘70s reign as a generational voice, his songs formed a musical odyssey that intricately recorded the journey to self-discovery. Then came his unexpected departure from superstardom, embracing Islam and leaving fans heartbroken.

Missing from the public narrative has been the intimate story of his deeply emotive transformation—until now. Cat On The Road To Findout finally reveals the curious complexity and intellectual reasoning behind his navigation through life—a voyage that has now culminated in his return to music and art, to share his lessons of life with those seekers, dreamers, and believers who still love and admire him. He remains true to the optimistic message of his melodic peace train.

Yusuf/Cat Stevens says: “I’ve been on an amazing journey, which began in the narrow streets of London, and led me through the most iconic cities, to perform upon the great stage of Western culture, ascending the dizzying heights of wealth, recognition and artistic pinnacles; freely exploring vast ranges of religions and philosophies, wandering through churches, temples, all the way to the Holy abode in Jerusalem—ignoring myths and warnings—and crossing the foreboded, desert heartlands, to arrive at the House of One God in Abrahamic Arabia. What finally elevated my perspective was a luminous Book that perfectly alchemized my thoughts, beliefs, with human nature. It taught me Oneness, and my place and purpose within the universe.”

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Celebrating Robert Fripp, born on this date in 1946. —Ed.

What a great album! The songs are brilliant! The entire cast of musicians, which include Daryll Hall, Tony Levin, and Terri Roche defy the laws of talent! Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins also make guest appearances! And Mary Lou Green does hair! And does a bang-up job of it I’m sure!

On 1979’s Exposure—the first of his four solo albums—Robert Fripp condescends to the conventional, or as close as the dyed-in-the-wool avant gardist would get to making an album for progressive rock haters. Fripp has spent his long and illustrious career on the experimental end of the rock party; he co-founded and played guitar for King Crimson on all thirteen of the albums they released between 1969 and 2003.

He also kept himself busy during those years by recording two LPs with Giles, Giles & Fripp, two with the League of Gentleman, and collaborating with the likes of Brian Eno and David Sylvian. He also fell in with the crowd attracted to the work of Russian spiritualist George Gurdjieff and went off to a ten-month course at Gloucestershire, where he achieved so much deep spiritual wisdom he would later say, “I was pretty suicidal.” I’m thinking of signing up myself.

On Exposure Fripp enlisted the usual array of prog-rock musicians, including Brian Eno, Tony Levin, Peter Gabriel, and Peter Hammill of Van der Graaf Generator fame. But his real genius lay in enlisting Hall and Oates’ Daryl Hall in the project. Hall was not as surprising a choice as, say, John Denver, but many wondered why Fripp engaged a top notch pop songwriter and blue-eyed soul singer to participate in a project that—with the noticeable exception of “North Star”—made so little of Hall’s perceived musical strengths.

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On this episode of Radar, I spoke with Jon King, co-founder and lead singer of Gang of Four, about his new memoir, To Hell with Poverty! A Class Act: Inside the Gang of Four. The book offers an account of his journey from a working-class upbringing in South London to international success with the band.

We discuss Jon’s early days in the slums of London, his passion for reading, art, and the political and social themes that influenced their music. King discusses what brought him to make music and the broader cultural landscape that shaped their work.

This conversation coincides with Gang of Four’s “The Long Goodbye” tour, marking the band’s final performances. The current lineup includes King, original drummer Hugo Burnham, bassist Gail Greenwood, and guitarist Ted Leo.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

Street Hassle is a hassle indeed—this 1978 part live, part studio LP is a hot mess, and after listening to it for days, I still can’t tell you whether it’s a good album or not. It’s certainly an interesting album, and Lou sounds committed to doing whatever it is he’s doing, and in all I find myself drawn to it despite the fact that I’ve booked enough reservations about it to fill a commercial airliner headed for Perth, Western Australia, which is as far from “street poet” Lou’s muse, New York City, as you can get on this planet.

And I’m not alone. Critical opinions of Street Hassle are wildly divergent, with some calling it brilliant (“the best solo album Lou Reed has ever done” said Rolling Stone’s Tom Carson) and others calling it, well, let’s just say it was Tim Lott of the Record Mirror’s opinion that “Lou Reed has been a musical corpse for years now. Street Hassle is a creative nadir.” Me, I can only say that the fact that I can’t stop listening to it is proof that there’s something there—Lou Reed put out a whole slew of albums I’ve only listened to once, because listening to them twice would have made me a masochist.

Street Hassle is a true conundrum and act of polymorphous perversity—on the live tracks (although it’s hard to tell some are live because the crowd noise has been eliminated, and mucho overdubbing has been done) he does irreparable harm to one old Velvet Underground chestnut, does a bizarre but amusing riff on another one, tosses off some half-baked ditties (one of which I swear is a Bad Company ripoff), tosses in a joke of a song about how he wants to be black because then he’d be able to “shoot twenty feet of jism,” and centers the mess around one of the most brilliant and complex songs he would ever write as a solo artist.

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Celebrating Brian Eno, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.

What a divine creature: In the first half of the 1970s the pre-ambient Brian Eno flitted about England’s glitter rock scene in fantastical glam attire, making an indelible mark on Roxy Music’s first two LPs with his VCS3 synthesizer and “tape effects” before moving on to create two utterly idiosyncratic art rock masterpieces with Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, both released in 1974.

On the former album, Eno utilized a boldly original approach to recording that placed a high premium on happy accidents that were not really accidental; Eno very deliberately lined up a cast of studio musicians he felt would be incompatible with one another just to see what would happen. In his own words he organized the situation “with the knowledge that there might be accidents, accidents which will be more interesting than what I had intended.” He then doubled down on the oddness by “treating” instruments and doing a lot of heavy condensing and mixing of the recorded tracks, some of which ended up sounding nothing like what the musicians played in the studio.

In short Eno puts chance in charge, and like any good gambler chance works in his favor. Marcel Duchamp abandoned art to play chess; if Eno were to retire, he would no doubt take up craps. Not enough random variables in the game of kings.

Art Rock with a sense of humor and none of the grandiosity, Here Come the Warm Jets is a collection of beautifully textured songs filled with staggering performances by the slew of stellar performers Eno gathered together because he thought they didn’t belong together. All of Roxy Music (excepting Bryan Ferry) were on hand, as were guitar aces Chris Spedding and Robert Fripp; other players included members of King Crimson, Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, and Matching Mole. They don’t seem like such an incongruous bunch to me–Spedding excepted, there’s a decided tilt towards art- and prog-rock–but if Eno considered ‘em an Odd Bunch, well, he’s the guys with the ears.

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LOS ANGELES, CA | Rockaway Records has done it again, unveiling a stunning acquisition that’s got music collectors and Beatles fans buzzing. The world-renowned music memorabilia hotspot has secured not one, not two, but three of the rarest Beatles “White Albums” in existence. Numbered 007, 008, and 009, this pristine trio of 1968 pressings is valued at a jaw-dropping $250,000, making it one of the most significant finds in Beatles collecting history.

For those in the know, low-numbered White Albums are the holy grail of Beatles memorabilia. These three-digit gems were part of a test run for the number stamper at Bert-Co in Los Angeles, making them a piece of music production lore. Numbers below 100 are virtually non-existent, and anything sub-10? Forget it. These don’t just pop up on eBay.

To underscore their rarity, consider this: Ringo Starr’s personal UK mono pressing No. 0000001 fetched nearly $800,000 in 2015. While the White Albums at Rockaway don’t have Ringo’s fingerprints on them, they do hold the distinction of being the lowest US-numbered trifecta to hit the market. That’s history you can spin on your turntable. And when was the last time you could say that?

“In our nearly 50 years in business we have had countless amazing Beatles artifacts, but never a White Album with such a low number, let alone 3 consecutive low numbers,” Wayne Johnson, the co-founder Rockaway Records told me last week.

But it’s not just Beatles collectors who are digging deep into their pockets. Nirvana memorabilia is blazing hot in the collector’s world right now too, with items like original concert flyers, rare vinyl pressings, and even Cobain’s personal artifacts fetching record-breaking prices at auction. The demand for grunge-era nostalgia only seems to grow, breathing new life into ’90s music history.

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