Fabulous, 22nd January 1966
WHO STARTED IT
Once upon a time, there was a group called The Who, which was the acknowledged king of the mods. Members of The Who, feeling the need to keep ahead, started decorating themselves with Keep Left signs, etc., and someone brightly observed that is was the beginning of pop art in pop
It must be terrifying to be an authentic miles-ahead-of-the-mob mod. When the mod movement was at it's height, The Who were kings and it must have been quite a strain. This, I think, is what turned them to pop art.
O
For The Who found that even the resources of Carnaby Stret couldn't quite keep up the pace. So they started decorating themselves.
This do-it-yourself bit started in a small way when Roger Daltrey took a red sweater and a lot of black sticky tape and emerged as the Jack of Diamonds.
When someone told The Who that their mass of amplification gear left a big black space on stage, they threw a Union Jack over Pete's big amplifier, to add a bit of colour. before long, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle decked themselves out in mtaching jackets, made up from the national flag at £30 a time.
Keith Moon, not to be outdone, started painting his T-shirts with slogans and symbols. He learnt to his cos that paint is not waterproof. After several rainbow-hued T-shirts had ended up with the rag-and-bone men it occurred to Keith that felt might be more practical. he cut out a bullseye in red, white and blue felt and started a whole new mod movement.
O
It was around that point that people decided that pop art had been born. The fact that a bullseye, which you expect to find on a rifle or archery range, had been taken out of context and put on a sweater, which is not where you usually find a bullseye, was pop art. The use of a popular everyday object in an art form, as decoration, was something new.
The Who went from strength to strength as the first pop art group.
For a group that has never taken kindly to authority, The Who took on quite a military look. Pete decked himself out with badges and medals from his mother's antique shop - as many as twenty at once - and carried it off with as much poise as if he had actually won them.
John wore bush jackets with R.A.F. stripes on the sleeves and badges on the pockets. Keith took to white leather jackets with a huge "Elvis for Everyone" slogan on his pockets.
O
Roger wasa a reformed rocker, so he was glad to move away from the mod bit. he and Keith made felt traffic signs - "No Entry" was my favourite - and caused a few head-on collisions between staring passers-by.
It all became so colourful that I remember Keith falling off a bench at Brighton and blending beautifully with the corporation flower-bed.
At one time, The Who were spending £100 a week on clothes. They thought nothing of leaving £200 with Carnaby Street boutiques for such non-essentials - but essential to their particular image - as T-shirts.
Pop art was not confined to the wardrobe of The Who. It soon took over their music as well. When they first started out, they were mods playing rhythm 'n' blues. Then they moved on to the more subtle Tamla-Motown stuff.
And then pop art reared it's head. They used their guitars, their drums, their mikes in a way nature, and the manufacturers, never intended.
The noises that emerged were so way ahead that people began to tip The Who as the first group to play itself to the moon.
The wear and tear on instruments was frightening. H.P. debts mounted, and are still, presumably, mounting. Pete smashed up a dozen guitars - "I enjoy smashing things up" - John bought guitar after guitar and now owns about a dozen, Keith began breaking drumsticks at the rate of four pairs a night (at a cost of £1 each), and Roger's mike bill reached £35 a week.
This must be the biggest outlay ever to push a group to the top.
The Who need to be leaders. They need to speak for what they call My Generation. Pop art brought them much more than that. It didn't stop with The Who. It became a nationwide craze, and a designer's dream. Union Jacks and bullseyes decorated everything from Shrimpton-type shifts to wallpaper.
It has all been beyond The Who's wildest dreams.
I went to see The Who down at 'Ready, Steady, Go,' to see if pop art still had it's appeal for The Who.
Roger, who doesn't believe in wrapping things up prettily, soon put me right.
"Load of old rubbish," he said.
He was looking extremely smart in a tweed jacket and well-cut trousers. he looked like a man who had suddenly found himself.
O
"I was never really a mod," he said. "Pete was a mod. The mods came from miles around to see Pete. But when everyone started talking about pop art, I found myself pushed into an image. I didn't know what I was, really. Now I suit myself what I wear."
Pete, the arch-mod, said that pop art had become too chocolate boxy.
"You see a Union Jack dress in a magazine and read that it's supposed to be the latest dolly gear. We didn't want that. We didn't want to be associated with something that would become so big. When the pop art craze dies, we don't want to die with it."
Pete paraded himself infront of the mirror, and turned round with a triumphant:
"I think I've found a brand new image!"
He was wearing a suit with a roll-necked sweater!
Keith, who was wearing the group's only bit of pop art look with a radio station blurb on his T-shirt, rolled his big eyes and said:
O
"We're finished with all that pop art bit. It got such a drag."
John, who is the only solid, sure thing about The Who - they call him The Ox - concluded the survey.
"All my pop art gear his fallen to bits," he said.
The Who feel a desperate need to move on. They're not quite sure in which direction, but with a new tour coming up, you can be sure they'll think of something.
So look out for them when they're round your way. They're frank, intelligent boys who play space-age music for a pop art generation, and many generations to come.
Their "new image" will be a knockout. Whatever it turns out to be.
JUNE SOUTHWORTH
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