Guitar Archeology

The WHO Sunn Advert

I was spending a lot of time with the Who. Of all Sunn’s acts, Pete and the lads worked hardest to promote the Sundholm brother’s little Oregon amplifier company. Before and after tours, the lads would set up camp at the Continental Hyatt House out on the Sunset Strip-shortly thereafter to be known forever as the Contine…ntal “Riot” House. When the Who were in town whole floors of the hotel would be set aside for the band and entourage. The hallways smelled funny and were jammed with beautiful Mods, Rockers and Flower People. We recorded some radio commercials with Pete & John marveling at the fact “even the Who” couldn’t destroy Sunn Amplifiers. It was true. The gear held up, and John Entwistle for one, thought it produced the best bass sound ever. I was getting closer to John, both through herding Keith and talking careers in the music business. There was a seismic power-shift taking place in the music industry at that time. Recording artists suddenly discovered all the real money was in music publishing and administering their own copyrights. All you needed was a file cabinet. John was a writer pushing to get the band to do his songs. John’s composition “Boris The Spider” was the most popular song with American audiences on the first tour. John knew there had to be room for more Entwistle tunes on the Who’s set list. John also knew of my independent producer aspirations and fed me tips on label changes and new talent. He pitched me songs and suggested names for my acts and told me the story about how he and Moon had been approached by Jimmy Page, when the Yardbirds broke up, and Page wanted John & Keith to leave the Who and join him and Jeff Beck in a new band. John said he and Keith talked about it and came to the conclusion it would go over “like a Led Zeppelin”, a name so catchy, Jimmy Page decided to keep it. The infrequent casual conversations with Jimi Hendrix had also became more and more about the music industry, how it operated and where does all that money go, anyway? Jimi was not a happy camper about his business dealings, and he didn’t try and keep it a secret.