Is Pete Clueless? New Heavy Blog

[Lowgens02 at aol.com]

Pete's Blog
26th April, 2008

Clueless

Rob Lee  your webmaster came to see me on Thursday. You people probably don't 
know what a  fabulous man he is, and how much he cares about me, The Who, and 
you  subscribers. One day maybe, he will give you the story about his own 
background,  it is fascinating. Last Tuesday I had a lunch meeting with Roger and 
the two Who  managers Bill Curbishley and Robert Rosenberg. We were trying to 
come up some  kind of decision for the future, mainly - I suppose - for 
Roger's sake, but also  so we could get some positive news to our band members, and 
our fans. We all  feel in the air at the moment.

I sat fairly quietly. I don't want the Who  to evaporate before my eyes, but 
I can't see how to push it forward without some  kind of cohesive creative 
strategy, or Great New Idea to carry me along. That is  how I've always worked in 
the past. Today is no different for me.

Roger  and I are very different and have different needs. I find playing Live 
and  touring with the old music very easy, I enjoy it, but it doesn't rock my 
world.  Roger finds playing Live tough, sometimes he has to dig very deep to 
pull it  out, often he seems unhappy or pained while performing, but there is 
no question  - being on stage in The Who rocks Roger's world. He would prefer 
to do that than  almost anything else under the sun. I hope this explains the 
confusing facial  expressions that come from Rog and me sometimes on stage. We 
certainly try to  support each other these days.

What rocks my world? Feeling I am creating  something new. That's what I live 
for. The early work of The Who has become so  well known that it's hard to 
rise above it, but every artist with more than a  few hit records has this 
problem. New material has to be solidly supported  because fans want to meld it 
into what has gone before to create a continuum  that the artists themselves might
 not want to support. 

On Tuesday Rob  Lee sent me an email reproducing a couple of posts from folks 
on my Forum page,  asking when I was going to say something? It seemed to be 
amazing timing. There  I was, a few hours after a meeting with Roger, unable 
to give him a single thing  that would help him feel better, and Rob Lee was 
telling me I should speak to  the fans. 

Instead, I fired out a short noncommittal statement, and on  Thursday met 
with Rob himself. He's always great to hang out with. In the  morning on Thursday 
I had called Rog and told him I wanted to record with the  band in September, 
and do a Pacific tour in the autumn and winter of this year.  He was over the 
moon. He was already worrying about next year, and the year  after that, but 
it was good to make him happy.

When I put the phone down  I emailed the band, and our main crew with the 
good news. We would record in  September and tour in October to December. 

Today I changed my mind.  

I must not commit to studio time or show dates, especially not to long  
tours, without some kind of creative programme. I don't know whether I can write  
songs for The Who. I don't know if I can come up with some idea, some story,  
some angle, that will make me feel good about being the writer for The Who. 
Most  important of all I don't know if I write something whether I should try to 
force  The Who to carry it. With The Boy Who Heard Music squashed into what 
became Wire  & Glass on Endless Wire I was happy with what we did, but sad to 
lose drive  on the bigger story, the bigger idea. 

Now that kind of sadness for me as  a writer happens whether it was a Great 
Idea or not. Who knows? Who cares, but  me? What I must do is make sure I allow 
myself to write, make mistakes, and make  time to assess whether what I have 
on my desk makes sense for The Who.

So  this morning I emailed everyone to tell them I've changed my mind. I'm 
not mad.  I'm not selfish. I might be a little weak sometimes, to allow myself 
to make  decisions based on factors that have nothing to do with art, music, 
ideas,  change, life, expression or creativity - but I do want to honour our old 
 friendships, play the old music together, honour our desire to see you 
people,  and to meet new fans, play new places and so on. That's what tears me 
apart. But  I really do have to be strong enough to admit that today I really do 
not have a  clue what to do next. Something will come. It always does. But 
that's where I am  today. Clueless.




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