Although marooned at home like the rest of us and left unable to tour with the Who, Pete Townshend found the pandemic a perfect excuse to keep creating within the safe womb of his studio. Townshend spoke to Guitar magazine, and explained, “Y’know, I’m not unbreakable. I’ve had some bad days and I’ve had some weird times. But I’ve gotten to spend so much time either in my studios or, what I feel is a key part of my creative process, creating studio rigs and set-ups — my Brian Eno side, if you like — and then composing too. For me, I was very, very happy for the first six months of the lockdown.”
Townshend went on to say, “I did three or four months in the studio writing, composing, and working with a couple of artists, because the lockdown wasn’t all that extreme at first. Then, just before Christmas, we hit another very extreme lockdown. I think, then, I found it a bit strange, the idea that it was going to be yet another year, really, before the music business found its feet again. And here we are. We still don’t know, do we?”
SIDE NOTES
Just published is the lates book on the Who — A Band With Built-In Hate: The Who From Pop Art To Punk by author Peter Stanfield.
According to the press release for the book:
- The Who are pictured through the prism of pop art and the radical leveling of high and low culture that it brought about — a drama that was consciously and aggressively performed by the band.
- Peter Stanfield lays down a path through the British pop revolution, its attitude and style, as it was uniquely embodied by the band: first, under the mentorship of arch-mod Peter Meaden, as they learned their trade in the pubs and halls of suburban London; and then with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two aspiring filmmakers, at the very center of things in Soho.
- Stanfield tells the story of a band driven by fury, and of what happened when Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon, and John Entwistle moved from backroom stages to international arenas, from explosive 45’s to expansive concept albums. Above all, he tells of how the Who confronted their lost youth as it was echoed in punk.
CHECK IT OUT: Pete Townshend on November 12th, 2018 performing “Let My Love Open the Door” at NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge during the “Rockers On Broadway” benefit: