Bootlegs became all the rage around 1969. These illegal recordings of rock concerts were made less out of greed and more out of fan passion.
Formations such as The Who were particularly affected by this, as they were regarded as an outstanding concert band that was worth recording – musically, of course. As early as 1970, the English quartet reacted by releasing their own live recording (Live At Leeds) and packaging it like a bootleg album. But when the bootlegging didn’t stop, the musicians said to themselves: “Our fans want more unreleased material from us? They can have it!” In 1973, The Who decided to compile unused studio material, so-called “outtakes”, for their own album. However, the filming of their Tommy opera was just about to begin. Pete Townshend was busy with the musical preparation of the film songs, Roger Daltrey was practicing his acting role. John Entwistle, the band’s reliable bass player, was therefore entrusted with the task of compiling usable “outtakes” for an album. Entwistle fought his way through a “mountain of blank tape boxes” – and he found what he was looking for. He came across so many suitable songs that he could have filled a double album, but then decided on a single LP with eleven tracks from the years 1964 to 1973. When making his selection, he imagined a “parallel career” for the band, namely “which singles and which album tracks we could have released”. The unused recordings had once been made for planned EPs, for rock operas and album projects that were later abandoned, or as special commissions (a non-smoking campaign!). In Pete Townshend, the songs brought back memories of “big dreams that didn’t come true”. On the record sleeve, the bandleader comments on each song in an extremely witty and confidently ironic manner. And Roger Daltrey spontaneously came up with the album title for the musical “surplus special”: Odds & Sods.
The oldest song in Entwistle’s selection is called “I’m The Face” – it was the only one to have been released before, albeit in a very small edition, namely as the B-side of the band’s very first single. That had been in 1964, when The Who were still called “The High Numbers”. The track, a rocking twelve-tracker with blues harp, blues guitar and blues piano, was stolen, by the way. Behind “I’m The Face” is the song “Got Love If You Want It” by Slim Harpo, a blues musician from Louisiana. The manager of the newcomer band had written new lyrics for it: “I’m the face if you want it” instead of “I got love if you want it”. The new lyrics were tailored to the subculture of British mods. But after this single, the High Numbers were history and became The Who.
Although Odds & Sods was only a recycling of leftovers, it was accepted as a new Who album when it was released in October 1974. In the UK, it entered the top ten of the album charts. “Postcard” and ‘Put The Money Down’ (B-side) were released as singles, followed by ‘Long Live Rock’ and ‘Pure And Easy’ (B-side). In terms of quality, the songs on Odds & Sods were no different from the band’s well-known warhorses. “Naked Eye”, for example, was also part of The Who’s live program in the 1970s. In later CD and double vinyl versions, the Odds & Sods album grew to 23 to 25 songs.
The typical English music critic, who likes to think of rock music as the “outcry of the working class”, was also enthusiastic about Odds & Sods in 1974. After the (in his opinion) “cerebral” concept projects such as Tommy and Quadrophenia, The Who now simply delivered another package of uncompromising three-minute songs: “On Odds & Sods there is no plot and no leitmotifs. This mishmash of tracks presents pop music in raw form, with the edges still on” (Rolling Stone). The Who had chosen the ideal cover photo for their raw, edgy message: the four musicians under rugby or football helmets, armed and combative, a clear “ROCK” on the helmets, a battered, half-torn photo.
Compared to The Who, who have been around for 60 years, the American punk band Kid Dynamite was only a fleeting phenomenon in pop history. After just three years, the quartet from Philadelphia disbanded in 2000. However, their second album had been released shortly beforehand and the end of the band was apparently sudden. That’s why Kid Dynamite had some “leftovers” lying around, outtakes, cover versions, session and live recordings that the band was sorry about. So they put everything on an album and called it Cheap Shots, Youth Anthems. Some of these 29 leftovers only last a few seconds.
The punk vocals are certainly not everyone’s cup of tea – but the riffs and grooves here go down well. Because The Who always had a good standing with punk bands, the cover model was probably obvious. Perhaps it was the legendary Who’s Ramp that gave the American band the idea to try something similar. After all, the punkers have hidden a gag on their cover. There’s a woman under the second helmet from the left – she definitely wasn’t part of the band.
The Who: Odds & Sods (Track, 1974)
Kid Dynamite: Cheap Shots, Youth Anthems (Jade Tree, 2003)