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The Who fire Zac Starkey

#41
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#44
Too bad it has seemingly ended with bad feelings. They worked together for like 20 years, and then to just be cut off/cut someone off… Beyond that, they must have known Zak to some extent since he was a little kid. I don’t know how well Pete and Roger knew him, but Keith Moon was like an uncle to him; gave him his drum set, iirc. It was a cool story how he grew up to play in Moonie’s band; seemed to keep things in the family.

Considering Pete and Roger don’t really get along, but then suddenly agree on this, my first thought was that it must be about money, a la the Don Felder getting kicked out of The Eagles situation ("What?! Being with us a quarter of a century doesn’t entitle you to an equal share with founding members. How dare you ask us that. You’re fired!"). But reading the comments here, and from that NY Post story SharpCat linked to, it seems like it may just be about Roger getting old. The guy’s 81 and losing his hearing. He’s probably deeply frustrated with the fossilizing of his physical vessel, the pathways of his thoughts and feelings narrowing, going over the same tracks again and again; and then the damn drums… they just never stop. "I told you a thousand times to TURN DOWN!!” lol (but, not lol).

Roger: "I can’t take it anymore, Pete. I really can’t take it."
Pete: "Eh?"
Roger: "He’s got to go."
Pete: "Yes, yes, of course we should go"


Oh man. Not that I sit around listening to their songs much anymore these days, but The Who. My favorite of band of all time.

Not really the same since Entwistle passed, and of course it was never the same since Moonie, but there was enough there with Entwistle to still be "The Who". They should call the iteration since then ‘Pete & Roger’ (uh oh, or ‘Roger and Pete’), ‘the Daltrey-Townshend Band’, or some such. I hope they can patch things up with Zach or, if it’s Zach’s fault (could certainly be, we don’t know — this is all speculation so far), that he can patch things up with them, and everyone involved can move on with better feelings than this kind of sad ending :(
 
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#45
J Wilson said:
I can NOT imagine touring at that age, and it always makes me wonder whether by now do they NEED the money, which would be some sort of combination of stupid and sad.

Of course, WTH do I know about the why's.
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Donald Fagen said exactly that in his book - because he's not making any money from royalties anymore, he has to tour. He goes on at some length about how much he hates touring, and I was surprised at how disparaging he was about the age of most of his audience.
Why not just sell your catalog for a few hundred million like everyone else?
 
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#48
It's actually really sad that "The Who" has come to this. Without going into an endless paragraph rant, all I'll say is that I prefer to remember them as the original member 4-peice band that the were. I did get to see them before Ox passed away, and even though Moon wasn't there it was probably the most amazing concert I've ever been to. They played just shy of 3 1/2 hours non-stop and sounded great. They would've kept playing too if the venue didn't have a strict cut-off curfew time lol.
 
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#53
I worked for a guy (in a machine shop) who was at the "Live at Leeds" show, as a student in the mining tech program. He also saw the show the next year, which was Faces (it's a yearly event put on by the student union). He said the Faces show was better in every regard. After seeing the Who on their second "farewell" tour, I believed him.
 
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#54
Peteyboy said:
It's all nonsense. Roger's half deaf and Zac is likely gonna tour with Oasis.
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For his sake, I hope not. That's a terrible situation just waiting for the right place to happen. Two brothers who have been publicly dissing each other for a couple decades are not going to be nice for a whole tour - at some point, everyone else is gonna have to go hide in their rooms to get out of the crossfire.
 
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#55
Iristone said:
But Roger's singing isn't good anymore, so his firing Zak is like Jimmy Page blaming Phil Collins for Live Aid.
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The beginning of that set (intro to Rock and Roll), where it was just Phil, was great ( I remember being really psyched), and then...the band kicked in. Phil had practiced. The other guys hadn't. Blaming Phil was definitely low class - they couldn't admit their screw up.
 
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#57
Artman said:
After reading Roger Daltreys book, it doesn't surprise me at all.

He wrote page after page of self serving nonsense while speaking ill of the dead (The Ox), and tearing down the others as well.

Anyway, who cares? (See what I did there?)
Starkey has a lot of good years in front of him, and a lot of great connections in the biz.
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I have read all of their books and it was a typical business, meaning none were really friends, though Entwistle and Moon were buds in earlier years, but the others didn't mix or socialise at all. Thats seems more common than not in the pro circuit.
The days of local buds teaming up is long gone though Is obviously niceer when things were social and still worked.
 
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