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Rocky Mountain News on the case



Thanks to Charles at O&S for pointing this out:
On line at:
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/entertainment_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_84_1679143,00.html

Brown: Townshend's intelligence failed him
January 18, 2003

A few years ago, producer Don Was made a documentary
on Brian Wilson and was asked about Wilson's
often-shaky mental clarity and its effect on his
music. 

"There was this real disparity between the way he was
portrayed and the way I knew him to be," Was said. "He
was being portrayed as this sort of catatonic drug
burnout. I thought he was a pretty lucid thinker and a
very deep thinker, with a very skewed perspective on
things." 

Was had learned, after years of working with rock
greats as diverse as Keith Richards, Elton John and
Bob Dylan, that the skewed perspective is often key to
creativity. 

"(Wilson) is a little out of skew with the rest of the
world, which I feel is an essential component to
artistic genius," Was said. "In just my own encounters
with some of these people, what they have that makes
them unique is, they're looking at stuff from a
slightly warped perspective. They're great artists in
that they're able to articulate it in their own
medium, to express it to you. What's cool is, they can
describe it so clearly that you can actually feel what
they're thinking." 

This is what we pay them to do - to look into the
abyss and report back. This is why the heroin-fueled
songs of Kurt Cobain, Keith Richards and Lou Reed have
been touted as great art. This is why the darkness of
Nine Inch Nails and Nick Cave resonate with fans -
even if those fans themselves have never felt emotions
quite that dark. 

So where do you cross the line? Where do you take it
too far? 

Many music fans struggled with that this week with the
arrest of Pete Townshend on child-pornography charges.


It's much more shocking than previous claims involving
the likes of Michael Jackson and Gary Glitter.
Townshend has for decades been one of the most
intelligent voices in rock, revered and respected by
fans for his wit, compassion and integrity. 

So it's hard to see that all potentially crumble so
quickly. A mere week ago at this time, fans were still
unaware that Townshend had paid for child pornography.
It's been international news ever since. 

By now you've heard he says it was all in the interest
of research, part of his fight against kiddie porn.