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Quadrophenia: The Real Mod by C. Bottomley "Listening to bands like the Who," says the Beta Band's Richard Greentree, "[helps] you grow. There are all different dimensions to their music that stay with you. But when you get into a band like Limp Bizkit, you might think it's the greatest thing for a couple of years, and then you're going to realize eventually [that you're wrong] and just feel cheated." It took Pete Townshend a long time to realize that being cheated was a necessary byproduct of rock 'n' roll. He held out longer than many seminal rock songwriters, and before he allowed the Who to merely traffic in greatest-hits packages, wrote the definitive musical treatment of the subject: Quadrophenia. Preceding its DVD release, the movie is back in theaters as spiffy as a new pair of go-go boots, and although many will remember the story of the lost mod Jimmy Cooper as a relic of a youth spent rolling joints over the album's gatefold cover, the film is still a prescient fable on lost faith. Townshend wrote the double album at a time when threats to the Who's existence were stronger than usual. Following 1971's Who's Next, the group had turned to solo projects, became entangled in building its own studio, and watched as producer Glyn Johns and manager Kit Lambert clashed over their particular roles in the band's creative process. Outside the studio walls, the world was also changing. Peace and love were never the Who's bag, but by '72, the hippie ethos had taken a beating with Altamont, Manson, and the grim Isle of Wight festival. The Beatles were done. The Stones returned to R&B. The Who were left, perhaps unwillingly, in the vanguard. With typical perversity, Townshend's response was the most radical trip down memory lane since John Lennon's "In My Life," revisiting a mythical mod past he had been too old to really enjoy. Quadrophenia the album is filled with Townshend-ian knottiness. Rather than simply relate his disillusioned teen's quandaries, the songwriter referenced old tunes from his early days in the High Numbers, gave Jimmy four personalities and had him meet the Who themselves in "The Punk and the Godfather," and poured the Meher Baba's teachings into songs like "Love Reign O'er Me." It should have made for a horrible movie. But director Franc Roddam, who cut his teeth with fly-on-the-wall documentaries like The Family, trimmed the conceptual fat from the key theme - how kids outgrow the very movements they believe will guarantee their individuality. When Quadrophenia the movie premiered in May 1979, mod had morphed to punk, and that idea had renewed currency. |
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