Fifty years ago this weekend past, on a break from my posting as Melody Maker’s man in New York, I was in the north-east of England to witness the debut of Entwistle’s Ox. It was the only time during the career of the original group that any of its members undertook a full tour away from The Who. John’s bass actually made his band sound a lot like The Who and it brought home to me, and probably other Who fans who were there, how much John actually contributed to the noise The Who made.
Here’s what I wrote for the December 14, 1974, issue of MM, slightly re-edited.
“This has cost a bomb so a few more quid won’t make any difference,” murmured John Entwistle as he signed a bar bill for slightly over £8 at the Five Bridges Hotel, Gateshead, on Sunday evening. “I mean… what’s money for? You can’t take it with you so I might as well spend it while I can.”
John Entwistle’s money is currently being spent on his latest passion, The Ox. Apart from being his nickname, The Ox is a rock and roll band of four, augmented by a saxophone player and two girl singer, who made their public debut in front of a sparse audience at Newcastle City Hall a few hours before John signed that bar bill and knocked back several large brandies.
About 300 tickets were sold for the show, one of three warm up gigs planned this year. Next January they’re embarking on a 14-date British tour, mostly universities, and in February – all being well – The Ox are off to America where demand for Entwistle and his music is greater than in his home country.
The fact that so few people bought tickets for his opening concert didn’t appear to worry John in the slightest. In fact, he seemed surprised that 300 had bothered to cough up £1.25. The Ox is, in fact, a very expensive hobby. How much? I asked. “Oh, I dunno. About twenty-five grand,” said John.
As a band they’re pretty hot, though several rough edges need straightening out, and something has got to be done with the volume. For some reason, John chose to completely shatter his audience with the loudest music I’ve heard since Slade played Earls Court.
They were certainly a lot louder than The Who, a fact confirmed by sound man Bob Pridden, The Who’s regular sound mixer who’s just finished a stint with Eric Clapton. Bob is one of the best in the business, and when he grimaces over the volume then something is very wrong. Actually, John chose to use most of the Who’s amplification equipment and most of their crew for his show, so much so that the smallish City Hall stage contained enough gear to equip several bands.
“Next gig, I’m gonna leave some of them speakers behind,” Bob told me back at the hotel. “Bleedin’ daft. I’ve bin arguing with ’im all week over the bleedin’ gear. There’s enough stuff for a band to play Hyde Park and be ’eard in ’Ounslow.”
The Ox played for just over one hour and the material was a mixture of tracks from Entwistle’s solo albums, including one by The Ox due for release shortly, and the songs he has written for The Who. He opened with ‘My Wife’ and guitarist Robert Johnson began the show by cracking out the chords for ‘I Can’t Explain’. Other Who songs featured were ‘Boris The Spider’, ‘Whiskey Man’ and ‘Cousin Kevin’. They’d rehearsed ‘Heaven And Hell’ but didn’t play it as John completely forgot.
It doesn’t take much to realise that John is an old rocker at heart. The set was liberally spiced with some beefy rock and roll, and he encored – yes, the 300 demanded an encore – with Eddie Cochran’s ‘Somethin’ Else’ and Little Richard’s ‘Keep A Knockin’’. One of the new songs was called ‘Cell No. 7’, apparently written when The Who were arrested in Montreal last December following a hotel fracas.
The bass was turned up throughout and if the band does nothing else, it enables John to show off his bass technique splendidly. He really is one of the best white bass guitarists in the business. His runs are often stunning and his finger plucking technique is quite breathtaking, unbelievably fast. His lines ripple out like machine gun bullets and, at the volume he chose to use, they had an odd effect on the audience. Shell shock, I guess.
Robert Johnson is good guitarist too, but he was frequently lost in the mix. I kept waiting for him to spin his arm around but he didn’t. The band don’t really need a drummer – Entwistle’s bass is a one-man rhythm section – but Graham Deacon fought manfully on, often unheard.
The Who numbers went down the best but requests for ‘Postcard’ – from Odds And Sods – went ignored. They did a knockout version of ‘Not Fade away’ and a curious instrumental called ‘Jungle Bunny’ which featured backing tapes and appeared to come unstuck towards the end. It was a dull tune, anyway.
‘Cousin Kevin’ – with girl singers – was a highlight but ‘Whiskey Man’ didn’t come off as well as it could have done. John is best doing straight rock and roll: his grating voice suits the 12-bar structure; he’d make a suitable replacement in The Wild Angels or their ilk anytime.
I think they were a little under-rehearsed. In the bar of the hotel before the gig, the saxophone player was busy copying down chords on scraps of paper. “Just to make sure,” he said after thanking me for a mention in the Raver column several years ago when his horn was pinched.
I enjoyed myself and I think everyone else did, not least the fetching Miss Doreen Chanter (one of the two girl singers) who attracted much attention back at the hotel. Her sister Irene went to bed early as she had a session at Trident Studios in London the following day.
One final point: it was refreshing that John laid himself open in such an unpretentious fashion. None of that bleating about keeping the press away from the opening concert from The Ox, and all power to John for it.
