Name: The Who

Are you a Mod or a Rocker?

This question was posed to the sharply dressed Ringo Starr in the Beatles movie, A Hard Days Night.  Ringo’s reply, “I’m a Mocker.”  The wit of his answer is not fully appreciated unless we know what a Mod was.

Mods (short for Modernists) were a youth subculture in London which began in the late 1950s and peaked between 1962-1966.  The men typically wore slim Italian-style suits, wore a mop-top hairstyle, rode motor scooters, and listened to American Jazz and R&B artists.  In other words, think of Austin Powers.

The two most popular bands to come out of the Mod movement were The Kinks and The Who.  The Who consisted of Pete Townshend (guitar), John Entwhistle (bass), Keith Moon (drums), and Roger Daltrey (vocals).  They are best known for their two rock operas: Tommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973). 

In the early years, they would take American R&B and Motown songs and “Whoify” them.  This meant they stripped down the harmonic structures, embellishments, and ornamentation and powered their way through them with pounding drums and driving bass. Some have termed this, Maximum R&B.  In essence, the band was loud and raucous.  It also became customary at the end of concerts for Townshend to smash his guitar and for Moon to destroy his drum kit (if he hadn’t already done so in the course of his playing).[1]

Part of their sound was due to the power chords Townshend used in his guitar playing.  Power chords are actually not chords at all, but rather the simple harmonic interval of a perfect fifth. This is reminiscent of 9^th century parallel organum.  Because neither a major or minor third is present, the vocalist and bassist are free to exploit the use of blue notes without having to commit to a major or minor key.