Billboard report on Roger-Pete co-writing

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

Available on line at:
http://www.billboard.com/daily/2000/1116_06.asp?mn

Townshend: No New Who Album Next Year
As the Who nears the end of its current round of U.K. and international shows
with a second performance at London's Wembley Arena tonight (Nov. 16), Pete
Townshend has revealed on his Web site that the new material which he and
vocalist Roger Daltrey have been separately writing is unlikely to produce a new
album by the band next year.

But in his latest online diary entry, the leader of the West London rock icons
strikes an upbeat tone about the Who's latest reunion. "Roger, John [Entwistle],
and I intend to go on seeing each other as often as we can, to continue to
explore what we might do next as a creative band," he says. "The Who brand has
never been stronger."

Anticipating the Wembley shows, he describes the Arena -- once known as the
Empire Pool -- as "an old stamping ground for me and the Who. It is just around
the corner to where I live, and it's good to be able to invite so many friends
and family too."

Prior to a show at London Arena earlier this week, a film was screened to
promote the band's Nov. 27 charity show at the Royal Albert Hall, at which
guests are due to include Oasis' Noel Gallagher and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder in
a concert to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. In the film, Daltrey
comments that Townshend has expressed enthusiasm with the songs the vocalist has
written for the band of late, and says they hope to write together "for the
first time since [their 1965 U.K. top 10 hit] 'Anyway Anyhow Anywhere.'"

The London Arena show featured an impressive opening set by former Clash
frontman Joe Strummer and his band the Mescaleros, who played a selection of
their own material and Clash favorites such as "Rock The Casbah" and "I Fought
The Law." The Who, augmented by John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards and Zak
Starkey on drums, played a long, varied, and energetic set from their vast
repertoire, including early hits such as "I Can't Explain" and "Substitute,"
mid-period cuts like "Bargain," Entwistle's "My Wife" and "5.15," the later "You
Better You Bet" and less-celebrated Townshend compositions including "Relay,"
"Don't Even Know Myself," and "Mary-Anne With The Shaky Hands,"

"So the future's been seen," continues Townshend in his diary, "and it is not
the void it once was, neither does it need to be ever again -- not while I'm
pretending to be alive. So take heart. There will be a pause. Maybe even a long
pause. There will probably be no new Who studio album in 2001, it doesn't quite
seem possible. But there may well be new Who songs -- though today I have no
idea quite where they will come from. What there will not be is an end."
-- Paul Sexton, London
© 2000 Billboard and BPI Communications Inc.

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
        http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm