2002 Articles

Blender - Who Buying Guide

Q Life thru a Lens

Entertainment Weekly - 07/02

Mojo 08/02

Mojo 08/02 pt 2

Guitar World 09/02

Record Collector 09/02

Rhythm 11/02

Guitarist Xmas 02

Maximum Who

Maximum Who
2002, Genesis

A book I haven’t read but a few reviews.

Images from Genesis site with more reviews


Mark Blake, Q, 4 stars
(Reviewed with Anyway Anyhow Anywhere and Maximum RnB)


Avoiding the grimness of their later years by contrast Maximum Who occupies itself with their earlier heyday. A companion to editor Ross Halfin’s previous book a collection of 70s era Who pictures titled The Greatest Live Rock N Roll Band In The World, this comprises the work of six photographers from the 60s. Here the group preen against a back drop of shabby post war Britain, looking like dandy aliens beamed in from another galaxy and drawing baffled glances from the old men in trilbys, wondering if this is really what they fought a war for.

The photographers commentary runs alongside their work, with droll asides from Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle themselves (“where was I taken when this was taken? Probably out shagging”). Prohibitively pricey, but if you can afford it, a book to treasure - and hefty enough to fend of any ageing mod burglars. But if you buy only one of these make it Richard Barnes’s.



Andy Davis, Record Collector


As a visual history of The Who in the 1960’s Maximum Who is without equal. Compiler Ross Halfin, best known as photographer for venerable rock organs such as Sounds and Kerrang compliments his previous book for Genesis Publications, The Who Live, with a photographic feast concentrating on the years 1965 to 1969. The book begins with the young buttoned down, high fringed mods at home and ends with perms and beginnings of mad moustaches as the band raised its game recording the rock opera Tommy.

Genesis high end production values is the obvious selling point here. The mostly black and white photographs - about 75% previously unpublished - shimmer off the gilt edged pages, displaying a depth of quality unseen outside exhibitions and art galleries. As editor, Halfin�s choice of photographers is second to none. Here is the cream of what survives from that period, as taken by Chris Morphet, Dominique Tarle, Tony Gale, Baron Wolman, Colin Jones and the late in house Decca photographer David Wedgbury. Each displays a style of its own. Worphet’s images are intimate and unobstrusive, Jones is iconic, capturing the zeitgeist of mod-infiltrated 60’s London. Gale’s selection speaks of high fashion as pop-art gave way to Carnaby Street frills. Wolman’s of in studio intensity and Tarle’s of the end of the 60s, the coming of age of pop as it bristles into hirsute rock. David Wedgebury, meanwhile renowned for cover shoots such as John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers famous beano album, manages to capture four young men in the centre of London at the dawn of their career, looking every inch like one of the most incendiary and indespensable rock acts of all time. Which of course is exactly what The Who became.

But the photographers only tell part of the story. Full credit must go to publisher Brian Roylance whose uncanny knack of getting the cream of Britains rockbroker belt to do his bidding has once again yielded impressive dividends. Here Pete townshend, Roger Daltrey and the late great John Entwistle all provide commentary. Other contributors include Who associates Glyn Johns, Bobby Pridden plus fine artist Peter Blake.

Weighing in, quite literally at over three kilos, Maximum Who is a heavyweight rock book in both senses of the word. Its meaty beaty big and bouncy and worth every penny of the £234 Genesis are asking for it.



Mick Wall, Classic Rock
5 star review


Compiled by Classic Rock photographer Ross Halfin with text from Pete Townshend, Roger daltrey and John Entwistle, Maximum Who is the follow up to Halfin’s last stupendous picture book, Who Live.

Not available in shops, but only as a strictly limited edition of 1,500 numbered copies, signed by Ross, Maximum Who features rare and never before seen pictures by the likes of Colin Jones, Dominique Tarle, David Wedgebury, Tony Gale, Chris Morphet and Baron Wolman (the six photographers most closely asociated with the band throughout the 1960s).

Presented in a large format book, it covers the period up to and including the recording of Tommy - the album that effectively metamorphosised the group from British hit single makers to internationally succesful album orientated superstars.

As Ross explains, the pictures in the book “graphically define the image of The Who in the 1960s in a way that has never been done before”

With wonderfully intimate portraits (Entwistle practising while his mum looks on; Daltrey as a teenager playing records in his bedroom with a huge Union Jack on the wall), Halfin’s inspired image selection successfully evoke the era in all its sepia tones, from the arrival of drummer Keith Moon in 1964 to 1969 and the success of Tommy.

As ever with The Who its not just their staggering energy that comes across, but all the little inconsistencies too, the barely concealed tensions as Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle re-live the creative rivalry, often violent recording sessions and gigs, the freezing photo shoots, hot girls, and multitude of brilliant highs and desperate lows that went into being The Who back then, just as the ball really started rolling.

As Daltrey recalls in the book “It was just really exciting times with the mod thing coming up. Most of my time was spent being the singer and the placater of many fights that were going to happen in the audience! A lot of my mates were into all sorts of mischief in those days”

Anyway Anyhow Anywhere - Matt kent and Andy Neill

Anyway Anyhow Anywhere - The Complete Chronicle of The Who 1958 - 1978, Matt Kent / Andy Neill


2002, Freidman Fairfax
ISBN 1-58663-591-3

Probably the definitive book on the Who up to 1978, great photos and interesting text, renders most other general biographies about The Who obsolete. Version shown is the US version which had a better cover than the UK version.

This has since been reissued twice, First as a 12x12 paperback with updated text, then as a smaller paperback. For me the larger format is certainly the better option.

For my money, if you only want one book on The Who this is the one, especially one of the larger editions.

I will where I can include reviews of the books rather than just my opinions.


Nigel Williamson, Uncut, 4 star.

Maximum detail with a Daltrey foreword admitting even he never knew half this stuff.
Books that trace a band’s history through a day-by-day chronology are really for rock anthropologists only. But hidden within the tedious listings of provincial gigs, release dates and chart peaks can lie an instructive story.

Neill and Kent’s research finds The Who on 23/01/66 playing the Adelphi Ballroom, West Bromich, followed 3 hours later by a gig at Smethwick Baths. We’re still firmly in the era of beat groups slopping up and down the M1 playing crappy halls twice a night. Yet by the end of 66 The Who are sharing an all-nighter at the Roundhouse with Pink Floyd called ‘Psychedelicmania. Somewhere in-between rock music had changed forever.

At the same time nothing had changed at all. Into 1967 and the diary reveals three weeks after playing the Monterey Rock Festival they’re supporting middle America as support for Herman’s Hermits. Even their Woodstock performance was sandwiched by gigs in Worthing and Shrewsbury the same week.

Reading between the datelines makes for a fascinating social and cultural history. Add many previously unpublished pictures and items of rare memorabilia and the book becomes indispensable.



Mark Blake, Q, 4 stars
(Reviewed with Maximum Who and Maximum RnB)

No John Entwistle jokes please, but spare a thought for The Who widows tackling bailiffs and unfed children after the fan in their life splashes out for all these books. Maximum Who alone will break the bank, but all three have much to recommend them.

Firstly the diary style approach of Anyway Anyhow Anywhere with forewords from Who frontman Roger Daltrey and former co manager Chris Stamp delivers a fascinating day by day account of the bands history up until drummer Keith Moon’s death in 1978. Want to know what date they supported freddie and The Dreamers at the Grand Ballroom in Broadstairs? Its all here.



Jon Hotten Classic Rock 5 star
(reviewed jointly with Keith Moon: A Personal Portrait)

Neill and Kent’s hefty Anyway Anyhow anywhere is a luxurious chronicle of the years 1958 - 1978 and weaves history with some superb photography.

In his foreword Roger Daltrey writes ‘It never ceases to amaze me how four young prats with such divers personalities ever came to be in the same band’. But thank the lord they did.



Record Collector, Chris Charlesworth

Perhaps because of Pete townshend’s own literary aspirations, The Who have been unusually well served by biographers and chroniclers. From the first Gary Herman’s The Who (Studio Vista 1971) to the latest Andy Neill and Matt Kent’s Anyway Anyhow Anywhere; The Complete Chronicle of The Who 1958 - 1978 (Barnes and Noble 2002) the standards has been generally high and occasionally awesome.

Into this rarefied category which includes classics like Dave Marsh’s Hope I Die Before I Get Old, and Tony Fletchers Dear Boy, we must know welcom Neill and Kent’s chronicle which renders all other Who chronicles redundant at a stroke. It is to The Who what Mark Lewisohns Complete Beatles Chronicle was to the fab four, with the added attraction of scores of colour photographs and a creatively superior design.

Like all the best rock chronologies Anyway Anyhow Anywhere is clearly a labour of love. Neill and Kent might have glanced at previous Who diaries but trusting nothing and no one, they started from scratch, spending somee 5 years researching and confirming everything for themselves to build up a massive and relentlessly accurate 304 page dossier that recounts everything of note in The Whos career, from the initial stirrings as the Detours to the death of Keith Moon. Along the way they’ve unearthed a wealth of previously unrecorded trivia, like details of the Detours 1963 demo session, Keith’s first serious band (Mark Twain and the Strangers) and information gleaned from their original booking agent Bob Druce’s personal diaries.

As I point out elsewhere in this issue, The Who worked their butts off in the 60s, clocking up anywhere between 250 and 300 gigs per year in 1965 and 1966 alone. They did this because they needed the money, not least to fund their notoriously casual attitude towards instrument maintenance, and it turned them into a well drilled fighting machine capable of taking on the world. Chronicle leads the reader through all this, year by year, day by day, and many of the precisely captioned photographs are either here for the first time or are so rare it feels like that.

Opening with prefaces by both Roger Daltrey and The Whos early co manager Chris Stamp, each year in Chronicle is introduced by an overview of The Who’s career and place I the scheme of all things rock and pop. There is much to be learned for the first time, especially within the year 1964, when the band not only changed their name from the detours to The Who, then The High Numbers and back to The Who again, but also gained and lost an acting manager (Helmut Gorden), a publicist (Pete Meaden) a drummer 9Doug Sandem replaced by the irrepressible Keith Moon), released a record (Zoot Suit) unsuccessfully auditioned for Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham appeared on TV for the first time (as The High Numbers) gained proper management (the unlikely team of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp) and a diasterous recording deal (with independent producer Shel Talmy).

In some respects there is a replication of information particularly from the bands later years, previously documented in The Who Concert File by Joe McMichael and Jack Lyons, though many of the mistakes or omissions in that particular book have been rectified here. The only quibble I have is that in placing text over artwork, the designers have occasionally rendered background news clippings somewhat difficult to read.

But these are minor complaints in what will doubtless stand for all time as the definitive record of Shepherd’s Bush finest.

2002 US Tour

36 page large format. Prepared prior to the death of John Entwistle and prior to Pino linking up with the band. Short introduction by Matt Kent, most of the rest are photos. Of particular interest are the number of latter day photos of John Entwistle from 2000 and 2002.

2002 Teenage Cancer Trust

2002 Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts at Royal Albert Hall This programme has articles about the various headliners for the weeks shows. This includes a three page feature on The Who by Matt Kent. These were John Entwistle’s last shows with The Who on 07/02/02 and 08/02/02.