Re: Letterman/times article

[Litgo@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-05-03 06:52:28 EDT, garyg@inforamp.net (Gary M.
Gillman) writes:

>.Gary M.....P.S., Further to the post
>that there was an article in yesterday`s New York Times on PT, I went out
>and bought a copy. I could not find any article on PT in that issue however.
>
>

I checked also - the national version -- and I couldn't find it. However, for
those who didn't see it, I grabbed it off the NYTimes site on AOL. And, (attn
internet police) I do so on my own volition for personal, information
purposes only, with no intent of copyright infringement...

By NEIL STRAUSS 

c.1996 N.Y. Times News Service 

NEW YORK - Pete Townshend is a man stuck in his own past. 

He has just released a CD-ROM exploring the various adaptations of his 1969
rock opera ``Tommy'' and a compilation of his old solo songs, ``The Best of
Pete Townshend'' (Atlantic); he is planning to perform his 1973 rock opera,
``Quadrophenia,'' on June 29 in London with the rest of the Who and such
guests as Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette. 

And he is working on a script to make a theater piece out of ``Lifehouse,''
an unfinished science-fiction project from the early '70s based on a
hypothetical six-month-long rock concert. 

For Townshend, who is to perform at the Supper Club on Friday and Saturday
night, returning to past projects isn't an act of nostalgia or a sign of
creative drought. 

``I think it's good to go back and revisit and rework,'' he said. Remaking
``Tommy'' as a theater piece and as a CD-ROM was an educational experience,
he added, though he has no desire to work with CD-ROMs again after the
costly, labor-intensive experience he had with the rock opera. 

The conflict between Townshend's past and present is an ever-present one.
This week, for example, he must decide whether or not to perform his newest
music-theater piece, ``Psychoderelict,'' which he has never played in
Britain, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

``It's a very expensive proposition,'' he said. ``I have to decide whether or
not I'm going to pay people to listen to my new stuff or just accept the fact
that they prefer to see me in a past context.'' 

Returning to past pieces while working on new ones has enabled Townshend to
see a single subject stretching through most of his work: youth. He said,
``Whether I do `Psychoderelict,' which is looking at growing old and
realizing that some of the dreams you had when you were young aren't ever
going to be realized, or `Tommy,' which is the great metaphor for the
spiritual childhood, or `Quadrophenia,' which is simply about being out of
step with your parents and blaming the world for everything that is wrong
until one day you trip over a stone and understand that there's a punch line
and it's not what you thought it was - they work incredibly well today.'' 

One of the reasons the pieces still seem relevant, Townshend is discovering,
is that rock `n' roll has become cyclical, and focused on dealing with (or
refusing to deal with) the passage from youth to adulthood. 

``The very fact that the same issues are being recycled kind of disturbs
me,'' he said. ``Did we write `My Generation' for nothing? Somebody else can
come along now and write it again with different words and a different
haircut.'' 

The struggle to avoid obsolescence is one of the hardest tasks facing any pop
musician. Townshend has not only successfully managed this but also spent a
lot of time looking at the way other rockers have dealt with aging. ``It
seems people of my age have divided up into strings of activity,'' he said. 

``There is a defiant, we-will-never-die group like the Rolling Stones. There
is an artistic group of people who reserve the right to do other things, like
Paul Simon or David Bowie. Then there's another group that literally pursues
the rock ethos - in other words, the idea that we go on through our life and
we will know what it is all about when we die - like Aerosmith, who are a
band that have kind of earned my respect over a period of time.'' 

So which group does Townshend fit into? None of them. ``I think where I sit
is somewhere between Sting and Oasis,'' he said. ``Musically, I need a reason
to write every song that I write. But the reasons don't always come.''

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