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Again: All the news from Pete
I'm sorry if this is the 3rd time this has been sent in, but I've
had trouble all morning with the cc:mail. I haven't seen this one
clear yet, but one of my later messages have. And since this is so
important:
FEATURE: Townshend Becomes Creative Wizard
By Gary Graff
DETROIT (Reuters) - In Pete Townshend's life these days,
just one thing is certain.
"What I'm not gonna do is tour with The Who," says the
guitarist-singer-composer-rock icon, referring to the band he formed
in 1964 in London and broke up in 1982. "That leaves me with a bunch
of other options I can get involved in."
And Townshend's is a formidable bunch of musical, theatrical
and cinematic projects that are in various phases of fruition.
He just finished a series of solo concerts to promote a new
best-of album,
"Coolwalkingsmoothtalkingstraightsmokingfirestoking" -- titled from a
lyric in his song "Misunderstood."
He moves from that into a presentation of The Who's 1973
rock opera "Quadrophenia," which will be staged June 29 in London's
Hyde Park. It's not quite a Who reunion, Townshend cautions; the
band's Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle will also be involved, but
they'll be joined by a group of guests who Townshend is keeping secret
for now.
Meanwhile, Townshend says he may not even play guitar during
the show, though he does expect to sing a couple of songs. And he
dangles the possibility of also staging "Quadrophenia" in
the United States this year. After that, he seems to have a full plate
of ideas in development, including:
-- A full-blown theatrical production of "Quadrophenia,"
which is in its fourth re-write;
-- A film version of his 1989 adaptation of Ted Hughes'
fable "The Iron Man," which he's working on with Warner Bros.;
-- A fleshed-out treatment of "Psychoderelict," his 1993
album about an aging rock star, which may be staged at Britain's
Edinburgh festival during the summer;
-- An autobiography that links his life with his father's,
who played in jazz and big bands in England;
-- And a resurrection of "Lifehouse," a "millennium,
apocalyptic, virtual reality story" that The Who was working on after
"Tommy." Some of the songs turned up on the classic
album "Who's Next."
Townshend says the New York City Opera has expressed
interest in helping him develop that project.
"Lately, most things I'm doing seem rooted in the past,"
Townshend, 51, says. "Even things that still feel new to me, like
'Psychoderelict'... This is something that's three years old."
There's a higher purpose to this spate of activity, however.
In 1965, Townshend hung himself with the lyrical albatross of "Hope I
die before I get old" from The Who's hit "My Generation." Now he's
earnestly investigating a way to craft credible, rock-oriented
projects after he's, well, gotten old -- at least by rock 'n' roll
standards.
"I just think it's because rock 'n' roll is, for me, an
artistic process, though it's not seen to be that way by everybody who
works in it or by part of he media that surrounds it," explains
Townshend, who lives in London with his wife, Karen.
"I think an artist has to constantly re-evaluate and
redefine, not himself, but what is his commission. I want to know what
my commission is. "I don't want to be part of this boomer thing ...
the idea that I can't miss just because I'm surrounded by so many old
(people) like me who are going to go out and buy whatever I put out.
I'm looking for what happens next in the same creative
continuum, rather than this theory of what happens when you grow out
of listening to your favorite college band...
"I feel a kind of duty to be able to accept that I am in an
extraordinary place at the moment, and I have to respond to that --
not just what the business around me offers but also to find out
whether or not the people I write for, the people we're trying to
entertain, what they feel and how important it is for them to feel
they can go to see a play or hear a bunch of songs or see a movie
which has themes that relate deeply to their own experience and are
not just about universal issues."
This is something Townshend began pursuing when he started
writing songs for The Who. There's a reason why Pearl Jam's Eddie
Vedder was hanging around Townshend's recent appearances; The Who's
songs were rock's original teen angst -- reflections of confusion,
alienation, frustration and just plain awkwardness -- that indelibly
touched everything that's known as modern rock today. The themes may
be broad, but Townshend says they were designed to touch listeners in
a very specific way.
"In rock 'n' roll, you rely on people to put themselves in
the picture," he says. "You have to put yourself on the stage, throw
yourself into it. Then it works -- brilliantly. The ability of rock to
be particular is so extraordinary and makes it so difficult to make it
happen in other mediums...that rely on characters and stories.
Occasionally it happens; I suppose I'm out there to see what happens
when I do whatever it is that I do."
Townshend has already done that successfully. In 1992, he
and director Des McAnuff adapted "Tommy" into a Tony Award-winning
play that's wowed audiences all over the world with its combination of
Broadway and rock sensibilities. Townshend says he learned quite a bit
from that endeavor -- and not just on the creative end.
"I can get anything I want done if I go straight to the
source," he says. "We're getting 'Quadrophenia' done because we went
straight to Mastercard -- cut out all the people in-between -- got
$400,000 and put the thing up.
"It's a strange place to be to realize that...all I have to
do is stroll into a room with a few old guys and say 'I fancy doing
'Quadrophenia' as a dramatic work' and they say 'Hey, we'll give you
money.' That may sound cynical, but the fact is I can do it, and I
trust myself to do it well."
Reuters/Variety