1973 Quadrophenia press release

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

Matt Kent has continued working on his own Quadrophenia project. Now he has
added a .pdf of the album's liner notes and another with Pete's press
release for the 1973 album with a description of what happens during the
songs on the album. You can access it at:
http://www.petetownshend.com/pr_display.cfm?id=219&zone=pr

but here's the press release for those of you who are having trouble with
the .pdf files.

Before the album was released Pete Townshend issued a full brief to
journalists
outlining the story of the album and the recording process.

Quadrophenia has taken us about a year to complete. We started thinking
of an album of this type last year, about May, when we stopped work on an
album we were doing with Glyn Johns. In fact, two songs that Glyn produced
with us are on Quad. We started the new sessions last year at Stargroves
using the Stones Mobile, these sessions also ran foul for various reasons
and
we decided that for a project this important we would build our own studio
at our warehouse in Battersea. This undertaking started late November last
year, was headed by our road manager, John Wolff.
John enlisted the help of a small army of carpenters and builders all in
their
twenties and the studio was completed in about five months. We started
recording
using Ronnie Lanes Mobile before the studio was even finished. Our
new engineer, Ron Nevison, who actually works for Ronnie Lane, proved to
be a hard worker and committed to the album idea and worked right to the
end at The Kitchen as our studio came to be called, because of the Lyons
Corner House appearance of its dicor. The control became the dining room,
the studio floor, where the real
work was done, the Kitchen.
I had already prepared a number of tapes and sound effects at my home
studio, so we got ahead very quickly
with backing tracks, John and Keith seeming to play better than ever in my
opinion. Much brandy was consumed,
sixteen crates so I hear and much food was eaten. Some of it superb from
Londons finest restaurants,
some of it Im afraid not so good. Cooked on occasions by road men and
Chinese men in Brixton.
All the time we were recording we were surrounded by anxious builders
watching to see their labours appreciated.
Whenever we stopped working they would start again, putting air conditioning
in and even doing
acoustic treatments. A lot of love, or vibes they would say, went into the
place and you can feel it, it definitely
helps the atmosphere to know the people who built the place personally, and
for them to have been involved
in the recording. We were worried at first but things turned out well.
We did the mixing at my studio in the country. Im a man of many studios now
and I didnt want to leave any
of them out. The mixing was a whole lot tougher than we thought, the effects
tapes taking days to get right for
only a few minutes of use. On one occasion we had nine tape machines
running, I think it was during the mixing
of I Am The Sea.
Whether you like it, or hate it, this album is notable as a Who album
because of the freedom we have had.
Every facility was provided and with synthesizer and John Entwistles brass
collection we managed to embrace
musical areas weve never hit before. I even played the violin! Keith Moon
even sang! Roger even designed
the cover! John Entwistle evenevenyoull hear Johns contribution when you
play the album.
Learning, very much the hard way, about making albums that flow I have
decided, after listening and listening,
that your first listen might be aided by a bit of a preamble. It would
probably be aided by a stiff drink
and a comfy chair as the album is long and we want you to hear it all.
The concept of the album is pretty simple. Its really a series of
reflections and memories that a young mod
kid is having while sitting on a rock he has ended upon after a miserable
and disturbing week. The boy, whose
name, hold your breath, is Jimmy, has four distinct sides to his
personality. Each one bothers him in a different
way. One side of him is violent and determined, aggressive and unshakeable.
Another side is quiet and romantic,
tender and doubting. Another side is insane and devil-may-care, unreasoning
and bravado. The last
side of him is insecure and spiritually desperate, searching and
questioning.
Each facet of the boys personality was adopted by a member of the band,
originally with a little type casting,
we thought we might all play parts. This didnt happen in the final
version although the type casting still
fits. Roger is the first, John the second, Keith the third and myself the
last. Each facet has a theme, and on
track 1, ! Am The Sea you hear these themes in the distance over the sound
of the sea just before track 2,
Can You See The Real Me. The themes dont always come in the same order,
on this occasion you hear
Rogers theme first played on horn, Helpless Dancer. The theme is taken
from the track of the same name.
Next is Johns theme Is It Me?. Next is Bell Boy, Keiths theme (Keith
actually plays the part of the Bell
Boy in the song itself on side 3). Last is my theme from Love Reign Oer
Me.
Each facet of his character also represents what I feel to be a particularly
marked trait of the
Rock generation.
Can You See The Real Me gets everything going with a quick look in at the
psychiatrists, at
home and even a quick visit to the local vicar. Mental security is
unfortunately not obtained.
Quadrophenia is the title track you guessed. The four themes are now
tarted up to form a
kind of overture. We used a lot of synthesised strings and brass on this,
but John also played a
lot of real brass as well. The themes are Bell Boy; Is It Me; Helpless
Dancer; and Love
Reign, in that order.
Cut My Hair is a domestic interlude. The boy recalls a row with folks that
culminated in his
leaving home. We also hear a news broadcast mentioning riots in Brighton
between Mods and
Rockers, events at which he was present the previous week.
After spending some time doing precisely nothing other than swallowing
purple hearts, he attends
a Who concert. An imaginary conversation between him and your average
mindless Rock
Star is portrayed in Punk And The Godfather.
Jimmy kicks his heels for a bit and the loneliness he feels, despite his
four-way mental hangups,
are put across in Im One. Happily, later on the record he does actually
get his four
themes into one.
Suitably disenchanted with his former religion, Rock and Roll, he gets a job
as a dustman. Unfortunately,
his extremely leftwing views are not appreciated by his workmates and he
passes
on the greater things. This action takes place in The Dirty Jobs. No sound
effects were available
to get the stink across (see photo) So we used a brass band. Incongruous
enough?
In the next track, Helpless Dancer, we get a real look at where the
aggression comes from.
Jimmy has a conscience that bites fairly deeply. His frustrations with the
world only make him
more angry, even bitter.
Is It In My Head is the track that shows that Jimmy, although an ordinary
kid, has not only
a conscience, but also self-doubt. He worries about his own part, and feels
maybe his outlook is
clouded by pessimism.
Ive Had Enough. A lot happens around this bit, much of it in the album
cover story, briefly
Jimmy snaps when he sees a girl he particularly likes with a friend of
his. In a desperately
self-pitiful state, he smashes up his prized scooter and decides to go to
Brighton where he had
such a good time with his friends chasing Rockers and eating Fish and Chips.
His train journey down to Brighton, sandwiched between two city gents, is
notable for the
rather absurd number of purple hearts he consumes in order to wile away the
time. In 5:15,
he goes through a not entirely pleasant series of ups and downs as he thinks
about the gaudier
side of life as a teenager that we see in newspapers like the News of the
World.
Arriving in Brighton sees Jimmy brighten up a bit, get the pun? He talks
about rows at home,
and is a little sarcastic as he recalls the evening on the beach with his
former girlfriend. This
happens in Sea and Sand.
Drowned is a song about Jimmys genuine need to end it all, not in the
literal sense we feel
from the earlier track, Ive Had Enough, but in a more spiritually
defeated sense. He feels
old, despite his youth, and feels the sea represents a kind of metaphor on
infinity, he longs to
drown, to become water, even to become infinite.
Bell Boy is fairly up again. The sea and the beach even in the rain do
cheer Jimmy up. As he
is walking on the beach he sees his old her, Jimmy remembers this bloke in
complete awe, recalling
his effortless dancing, his toughness and his fearlessness with Rockers. He
was leader of
the gang then. The hero turns out to be a little different then in his
ambitious drive than the image
Jimmy has laid out for him. Seeing how degraded his former hero had become,
he starts to
feel the emptiness of his waving the flag for the mod movement. Its
critical; here because its
all he had left.
He steals a boat and heads out to sea in it, he gets wildly drunk and in
Doctor Jimmy we see
the real bravado at work. Something else happens to him though, something
inside clicks, and
his original drive to suicide becomes sidetracked as he starts to feel, on
the boat at sea his first
genuine high. Despite the booze and naturally the pills, his mind and heart
transcend his misery
and the feeling of the sea and the rain and also the anticlimax of having no
axe to grind
anymore, free him inside.
He reaches the rock, and you hear the four themes again for the last time as
he finally shrugs
off his mental hang-ups. Finally they all merge into one and for the first
time he feels complete.
This section is called The Rock.
Sitting in the pouring rain he pours out his heart in a mixture of relief
and awe at the new life
he has to live ahead of him. Love Reign Oer Me closes the album with a
traditional Who
ending. We smashed the whole bloody lot.

N.B. The above information written by Pete Townshend is specifically
intended to be used for
reviewer purposes as a guide to your appreciation of QUADROPHENIA and not
for reproduction
in whole or part as a press release. The Who look forward to reading your
opinion. Thank
you.

Copyright Pete Townshend, Fabulous Music 1973

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