H Upmann Mag 50 (ESL SEP-18) / The Who - Who's Next (FCFARW)

[GVan]

Worked all day on my Man Cave Project and tired of watching the protesting / rioting / looting on TV news so, it's time to head to the second floor smoking porch and listen to some tunes.  Like many, I've been glued to the TV watching this craziness (on all sides).  Whenever I want a pick-me-up (like prior to a round of golf) I always listen to The Who - Who's Next.  Also, many of the lyrics seems to fit perfectly with these times, as an example: "Won't Get Fooled Again .... We'll Be Fighting In The Streets; With Our Children At Our Feet; And The Morals That They Worship Will Be Gone...." Perfect - starting music picked!

Before I go up, I stare at the humidor and try and decide what cigar fits my mood.  I'm tired, but feel good about getting a lot of work completed today.  It's late so, normally I'd reach for a Petit Coronas or a Robusto.  However, there is a relatively new box at the top that's 50 RG x 6 ¼".  I've seen a few FoH members discussing that now is the time to smoke these - while they're young.  I think maybe it's time for "Getting In Tune" with "The Men that Spurred Us On" meaning these member's recommendations.  The HuP Mag 50's were put in the humidor 170 days ago and are just a few days short of the perfect 6 months acclimatization, so, like Daltrey and Townshend wailed in Baba O'Riley "Let's Get Together Before We Get Much Older" ... CC for the evening picked!

Construction & Cold Draw:  Very nice sheen on the smooth wrapper, almost non-existant veins, light brown colorado color, firm feel, foot perfect, a somewhat flat cap that I have to cut carefully.  The CC smells great, a sweet, earthy smell like walking into the forest on a cool morning and the sense of wet wood entering your nostrils - fantastic.  The first draw has me concerned - it's pretty tight; not plugged.  I remove some small, loose tobacco fragments with my fingernail as well as a small stem right in the middle that reveals a nice dimple.  Draw improves.

First Third:  Wow, this was the best part of the CC.  Starts out almost light-bodied, delicate, with velvety smoke and a very smooth taste.  I know I'm smoking tobacco but I don't really get that taste at all.  The smoke has a slightly sweet smell almost like "But The Air Is Perfumed By The Burning Firewood".  I get creamed coffee but very light flavored coffee like Nespresso Volluto - the coffee that my wife drinks.  Perfect time for the tracks "Love Ain't for Keeping" and get's me thinking about the upcoming song "Behind Blue Eyes" even though her eyes are brown.

Second Third:  Try to knock the first third ash off and I have to actually push down for it to come off in one piece - great construction.  Now the CC ramps up to a medium bodied smoke and looses the delicate notes.  Start to get a light, raw hazelnut taste.  The coffee is replaced by more like toast and the occasional ginger bread.  But this is still really smooth.

Final Third:  Now definitely medium bodied with hazelnut replaced by toasted almonds - that nut flavor you get towards the back of your throat rather than on your tongue.  Also the coffee is definitely stronger with a little of that bitter espresso flavor - nothing harsh - just different as I "Smile And Grin At The Change All Around".

 

Overall:  Smoke time was ~ 97 minutes.  The Who's Next was ~ 44 minutes.  Had to cut a little more off the cap after the first third because the draw tightened up a little more.  Also, had to light the last third once and touch it up several times.  May have still had too much moisture in this third which caused a little of the bitterness in an overall extremely smooth and velvety smoke.  I'd say 93 points now and a little more time in the humidor will only improve this score.

 

When I bought these cigars, they were on the expensive side for me - I'm still building my CC collection and at the time I thought $10.98 each was expensive.  After this first cigar out of the box "I'd Call That A Bargain; The Best I Ever Had ..... " 

[armada_crew]

Great write-up and review, thank you for taking the time to do this, much appreciated.

[Goodfortune]

Nice review, thanks!

[prodigy]

I remember when $5 was expensive. Now I buy $25 cigars without batting an eye, but those ELs and talisman are just rip offs lol!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Islandboy]

Nice review. I love that album, still have it on vinyl from my college daze. “Bargain” is my kinda love song!

[JohnS]

Wow...what a great review and a great album! I've had very different reactions to explaining Pete Townshend's original concept for this album titled 'Lifehouse' ranging from intrigue and admiration to bewilderment and derision. Perhaps this explains why Lifehouse never came out as the follow-up to Tommy and The Who followed producer Glyn Johns recommendation to bring out Who's Next as a single album of the best songs from the Lifehouse concept (as Lifehouse was meant to be a double album, like Tommy).

For me, Who's Next stands out for its incredible and innovative use of synthesizers which was new in 1971. Only Stevie Wonder was doing similar work with synthesizers at the time with the help of TONTO (a British-American electronic music duo consisting of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff). These songs have been further immortalised in popular culture, in my opinion, due to their use as theme songs for various CSI: Crime Scene Investigation shows (The original CSI used Who Are You, CSI: Miami used Won't Get Fooled Again and CSI :NY used Baba O'Riley).

The original concept?  Read on...

The original storyline itself was simple, albeit Bradbury-esque.  The setting was in the not-too-distant future, in an ecologically-destroyed United Kingdom.  Most people live in the major cities and are electronically connected via special suits to The Grid, a Matrix-like virtual reality computer program that feeds, entertains and pacifies the populace, which is controlled by a villainous character named Jumbo.  Since it is not approved by The Grid, music is outlawed completely; despite this, a hacker musician named Bobby who lives outside the city amongst the hippy-gypsy farmer communes broadcasts a signal of classic rock (called Trad) into The Grid.  Some rebellious few congregate to the secret Lifehouse to experience the music Bobby broadcasts, which are somehow tailor-made for each individual person, the music representing their own life experience (and performed by, who else, but The Who!). 

 

The story begins with Ray and Sally, husband and wife turnip farmers, also living in a traveling commune outside of the city.  Their teenage daughter Mary intercepts the Lifehouse broadcasts and runs away from her family to seek the source of the pirate signal.  While Ray goes after her, Sally finds Bobby attempting to find The One Note, a musical note that represents all people and unites the universe.  After falling in love, the pair travel to London to find and play The One Note at The Lifehouse. By the end of the double album, Ray catches up to the couple, Jumbo’s troops storm the rock festival at The Lifehouse just as Bobby plays The One Note, and we find the rebel youth have simply vanished, transcended to another plane, along with any civilians attached to The Grid who had witnessed the event. 

 

The story seems to make sense to us, in the internet age.  But the rest of the band members failed to understand Townshend’s concept (specifically Roger Daltrey’s inability to conceptualize wireless communication), and likewise Towshend had difficulty articulating it.  To make matters more confusing, Townshend intended not only live performances of The Who to be intercut within the narrative in the film, but the performances themselves were to be metaphysical music that would be “tuned” to each individual audience member.  The final touch was that The Who, by the end of the performance, would become holograms.  These performances at The Young Vic Theatre beginning in January 1971 and carrying on sporadically until the spring seemed to be unpromoted and open to the general public—anyone curious enough to wander into the Young Vic and discover The Who playing new material!  Unfortunately, The Who were a band who wanted to make metaphysical music that represented the souls of the individual audience members, who themselves casually arrived just wanting to hear the bands’ hits.  The Young Vic performances were a failed experiment and in the end simply amounted to public rehearsals of the new Lifehouse material.  With Townshend disheartened that not only the audience “didn’t get it” but his band as well, The Who relocated to New York to record the new songs properly in the studio, giving Lifehouse one final chance. 

 

Initial album tracking began at the Record Plant in March 1971, produced by manager Kit Lambert as usual and featuring legendary keyboardist Al Kooper and guitarist Leslie West of Mountain.  At least six core Lifehouse songs were all worked on to completion or near to it: “Baby Don’t You Do It” (allegedly a studio warm-up), “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Love Ain’t For Keeping”, “Behind Blue Eyes”, “Pure and Easy” and “Getting in Tune”.  By this time the band’s relationship with Lambert had broken down completely.  Lambert was producer only in name, as he was preoccupied with a heroin addiction and was unable to even mix the session!  Townshend (himself by this point a chronic alcoholic) also had problems finding a common-ground with Lambert in regards to the Lifehouse narrative; Kit had helped Townshend flesh out the concept of Tommy two years before, but they were unable to agree upon a script for the Lifehouse film.  The situation reached its boiling point when Townsend overheard Lambert blasting him at their hotel room, including his recommendation that the band should abandon the project.  Townshend in effect spiraled into a nervous breakdown, later claiming to have attempted to jump out of the hotel window.  That was the deathblow to Lifehouse. 

 

Still needing to finish an album—be it Lifehouse or otherwise—producer Glyn Johns was brought in to mix the Record Plant sessions and to see if it was salvageable.  Johns thought the recordings were up to par but recommended restarting the project with him at the helm, as he could better capture the essence of The Who to tape.  Recording began at Mick Jagger’s mansion Stargroves in April, testing the waters with “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.  Impressed with the results, Johns and the band relocated to Olympic Studios in May to overdub it and to record at least another 15 songs.  At this point in time, Johns urged an already discouraged Townshend to shelve the Lifehouse concept indefinitely and release the best material as a singular, non-conceptual album.  The result was Who’s Next, regarded as not only one of The Who’s greatest albums, but one of the greatest in rock history. 

 

While Johns apparently made the correct call in whittling down Lifehouse to Who’s Next, Townshend never really gave up on the project.  He continued working on it, adding new songs to the project that regardless found their way onto other Who singles and albums (“Join Together” and “Relay” in 1972, “Slip Kid” in 1976, “Who Are You” in 1977, etc).  After a failed attempt to write a new Lifehouse screenplay in 1980, the themes and basic plot outline were recycled by Townshend for his 1993 solo album Psychoderelict.   Townshend eventually commissioned a Lifehouse radio play for the BBC in 1999 and released a multi-disc boxset of his original 1970 Lifehouse demos, the radio play and its soundtrack in 2000 as The Lifehouse Chronicles.   To top it off, Townshend performed a series of concerts of the Lifehouse material later that year, released as Pete Townshend Live: Sadler Wells 2000.

 

Source: https://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-who-lifehouse-upgrade.html

[Kongelunden]

Wow, great review! I haven’t myself really jumped on either the Upmann Mag 50 or the Who - maybe its time to try something new ?

[joeypots]

Great review and a great album. Well done. 

[GVan]

JohnS - Thanks for the addition.  I was thinking about including some of the history of The Who's Next in the review as well; but, frankly, it was already too long for a cigar review.  Your additional post is fantastic and only adds to why I like the Album so much!  My favorite part is that "Won't Get Fooled Again" was originally recorded at Mick Jagger's home - how cool is that!