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Give it a rest Pete.

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I see that Pete Townsend out of The Who has been opining about his terrible life in having to tour with that band from the sixties again. According to Wikipedia The Who have put twelve albums in the last fifty years – approximately the output of The HJH over their first six years, The Kinks in nine, and Frank Zappa in five. Is it just me, or does anyone else think he might be a bit more “Christ, that’s a good return for my output” or should someone whose last decent song was in 1981 might want to pipe down a bit?

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Comments

  1. Agreed. He’s a miserable git tbh. Daltrey may be slightly to the right of Genghis Khan but at least he’s enthusiastic about the music they created. If PT hates it all so much, why keep coming back? Why put yourself through it and then spend every interview telling us poor sods who’ve had to work for a living how bloody shit your life is? It can’t be the money, surely?

  2. Also agreed ~ he is a miserable scrote because he lost his muse – around 50 years ago.
    Of their meagre output there is one great studio album, a very good live album, two dodgy concept albums and a smattering of some good singles,

    • Perfect summation, assuming the studio album is Who’s Next. I would say the original Live at Leeds was a perfect live album, shorn of its Tommy bollocks.

      • Just remarking how it’s been a suspiciously long time since Vol II of his autobiography.

        Given that Vol I was so dreadful, that’s probably no bad thing

        • I’ve not read it but am surprised by the pasting it’s had, because he can clearly write – his sleevenotes to the Maximum R’n’B box and the ’94 CD of Who’s Next were great. Sort of understandable that he’s lost his sense of humour since you-know-what, but still.

          • 100% agree with you. You don’t get to edit books for Faber and Faber as PT did for many years if you cannot string two sentences together.

            The fact that he always came across as an obviously articulate and intelligent thinker, writer and interviewee made the crushing tedium of his autobiography even more disappointing

            • I thought that whole ‘edit for Faber’ schtick was just marketing. They fling him a couple of drafts, he makes some pointless suggestions that are ignored and they get to put his name on the cover.

              • I think that’s a bit unfair. According to Wikipedia:

                ‘In July 1983, Townshend took a position as an acquisitions editor for London publisher Faber and Faber. Notable projects included editing Animals frontman Eric Burdon’s autobiography, Charles Shaar Murray’s award-winning Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop, Brian Eno and Russell Mills’s More Dark Than Shark, and working with Prince Charles on a volume of his collected speeches. Townshend commissioned Dave Rimmer’s Like Punk Never Happened, and was commissioning editor for radical playwright Steven Berkoff…As a result of his position with Faber and Faber, Townshend developed friendships with both Nobel prize-winning author of Lord of the Flies, Sir William Golding, and British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. His friendship with Hughes led to Townshend’s musical interpretation of Hughes’s children’s story The Iron Man, six years later, as The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend, released in 1989.’

                He edited Chazza’s speeches! More than I ever did. Of course ‘editing’ can mean anything from close word-by-word attention to having lunch with someone. But here he is being a proper publisher with Ted Hughes.

                View post on imgur.com

        • I thought Springsteen was good on his complex relationship with his father, and the familial and friendship dynamics of the Freehold community, and as a mental health worker I found his later exploration of his own struggles in that area quite compelling.

  4. Hang on. His last decent song was in 1981? The White City album was a good four years after that, and IIRC, the last Who album had some decent tunes on it, too. Mind you, travelling with Daltrey would make anyone grumpy

  5. Can’t argue with the above. Nothing great by them since Quad if you ask me. Maybe it’s time to enjoy his wealth and quietly create, rather than seek to compete or perform to diminishing returns. Many other artists could consider this, too.

  6. I found it increasingly hard to distant my dislike of the individuals (Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle – a recent Mojo article did the latter no favours at all) with my regard for a very select bit of their back catalogue…. so I got rid of all but ‘My Generation’, 66-68 Rarities and BBC Sessions about three years ago.
    I miss it not a jot.

    Funnily enough, I can forgive far worse character flaws by the likes of Little Walter, Gene Vincent, Ike Turner, Larry Williams, James Brown etc. Their CDs are going nowhere.

  8. It’s a tendency of the Brits to undervalue their artists (the exception being the cosseted Fabulars). Pete is a major and original talent, a huge cultural force, a true pop artist, and – rare – a genuine literary mind. No, he hasn’t made any great records since [YOUR CHOICE HERE], and no, he’s not the shining moral guiding light we expect our showbiz celebs to be, but it’s regrettable (cryface emoji here pse.) that the Afterword’s focus is typically his fall from grace, his disappointing songwriting, his grumpiness, his failure to still be a vital rebellious force for the young after only fifty years. Say what you like about the French (go ahead – I do) but their attitude towards artistic success is exemplary and respectful and celebratory, and had The Who happened in France – absolutely unthinkable, the most British of bands – there’d be a place for Pete in the Pantheon. Enough of this carping, you miserable gits! Carry the old bugger aloft, strew petals in his path, for he was great, and what was great, is great. Don’t wait for him to die before you can think of something good to say about him.

  9. I listened to the audio version of his autobiography. I thought he sounded relatively good-natured throughout.

    There was a particular project that didn’t work and he says something like “clearly, the audience wasn’t ready for it” – there’s humour and self-deprecation in his tone, but when it is written down I think that might get lost.

    • As most people come to books via the printed page, a story that gets lost when written down is clearly a non-starter.

      Sad as PT never seemed dull and uninteresting in interviews written up by others as he does in the book.

  10. They were the first band I went to see (1966), so the Who have a special place in my heart and I have forgiven them a lot over the years. A mate of mine was a regular at the Marquee (as a jazz fan) in 1964/5 and had encountered them there and raved about them before the first records and RSG! fame – then I heard I Can’t Explain on the radio and I remember that moment even now. I still feel that excitement when I play them – the volume gets cranked up, the air guitar windmill gets deployed and there may even be a bit of imaginary mic lassoo action.

    I last saw them live in 2015 at the RAH and they were absolutely brilliant, but they really haven’t made a good album since Quadrophenia. Commendably, I don’t think Townsend ever wants to repeat himself, and intellectually gets little out of simply writing a decent song. He seems to always be searching for yet another magnum opus, or trying to explain and rework Lifehouse – Pete, it’s still bollocks.

    I read a quote that he’s only been touring for the money – Christ on a bike mate, you can’t have spent it all?! I was on a farm tour last year, and the guide pointed out Pete Townend’s house in the distance – ‘I bloody bought that’ was my comment.

    • Saw them last week at the RAH – first time since Charlton 50 years ago in May.

      Bit underwhelmed, tbh, but there were flickers of their former greatness – most notably on the closing BOR – absolutely phenomenal young female violinist.

      Problem is that rather than a couple of classics, they started the set on a truncated version of Tommy – always a bit of a slog, imho

      For me, their last very good (rather than stone-cold classic) album is Who By Numbers. Seemingly detailing PT’s struggle to fit in to a changing musical landscape, the album is much under-rated and well deserving of a reappraisal now the half-speed remaster has come out.

      Having lost my vinyl copy many moons ago, my copy of the album arrived yesterday and sounds terrific

      • I think solo albums Empty Glass (particularly) and Chinese Eyes are very good, much better than the concurrent Who albums that were coming out in this prolific period.

        I love Who Sell Out and have a soft spot for all albums up to By Numbers, Meaty Beaty, Big and Bouncy illustrates how great a singles band they were in the 60s. But don’t mind me I have the worst musical taste here.

        * I also disliked his autobiography

  12. So much depends on how you listen and how you happen to encounter albums. I was late to The Who – 1980’s and I was in my late teens / 20’s. Always preferred his solo work from Who Came First through to Iron Man – I heard a particular voice and loved his singing. I think if you claim that Quad is the last great Who album – it’s s defendable claim I think – that is to ignore the solo album Empty Glass. I can’t think of many other writers ( I’m not asking for a list, okay) who write so distinctly for one voice and then for another – his own. Empty Glass is a masterpiece and in Let my Love Open the Door, he wrote a song that has broken through into 21st century culture through its use in long form TV and cinema and in many covers.

    I have no doubt he is a broken man – he has said as much and never attempted to hide it though unfortunately he is given to proclamations that have the whiff of moralism which is never an attractive quality. Tried the auto-bio but there was nothing that seemed interesting at all.

    I think the most recent songs on WHO are decent ( but not interesting, really) but what folks often mean by decent is that you have not had an experience with the songs as you did when Who’s Next emerged. I am not meaning to reduce Who’s Next in any way and I do think that The Who had their ‘three year moment’ and then Townshend attempted as a song – writer to do other things. They were less stunning, for sure. I personally can’t stand By Numbers but I listened to it a lot and enjoyed it – when I was 20.

    I resonate with the remark above that we don’t respect artists especially, don’t allow failures, make judgements that are not informed by how much difficulty there is in creating something that breaks through. I can’t stand Van’s moaning about the business but he did write one line that stuck with me from Ivory Tower – you think there’s nothing to / you should try it sometime.

    But yes – I wish Pete would shut up and play his guitar. Or not play it. Choose. But stop complaining.

    • You are quite right about how music shapes you when you first encounter it (see Bingo’s Hot 100 threads passim). I love “Who Are You”, an LP that not many rank highly, mainly because I was 16 when it came out and I bought it in New York on my first trip abroad on my own – on red vinyl too.

      By Numbers I first heard about three years ago and love that, too. Go figure.

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