Derelict Guitar Hero (wow this is longer than I wanted to answer)

[Toby Elwin <taelwin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Psychoderelict and his playing immediately thereafter was what I heard as a
heavily jazz, atonal, Mike Stern-style and it was what I recognized as the
development of him as a musician, entirely different than anything Who-like,
which is good.  I loved it.  Further when I saw him on the Psycho tour I
almost did not want to see another Who show because I thought him brilliant
and crafty in his revisiting of Who classics, "Who Are You", Great Woods,
Psycho Tour burns through me as an example.  He seemed in top form ready for
a new direction, unfortunately the album bombed.

After the HarborLights, Pre-Woodstock show I was talking with his harmonica
player, keyboardist, and bassist about his playing and they shared that Pete
did not want to practice with charted songs but let the band develop each
song on stage, at the moment of the show, in the Live at Leeds vein where
they all played off each other and had to be on their toes to follow his
mood.  I came back to them with the jazz sound I heard in his playing and
thought it was a great direction for him as it is in jazz - I mean if you
want to talk about going on tour with new songs, but creating an incredible
buzz and reawakening and reinterpretation of songs, it is jazz and the
blues.   How many decades has Oscar Peterson played "Stella by Starlight" or
Buddy Guy played "Sweet Home Chicago"?  He was playing that way too with the
early Eel Pie releases of Pete:  new interpretations, differing grooves, and
tempos...  

Also, Chucho Merchan, his bass player on that tour and on "White City" and
others is a heavy, heavy jazz player in England so he has the background for
it.  And Pete has played with a lot of the Acid Jazz players, the Kick
Horns, Chucho, Cleveland Watkiss, all big jazz players in England.

I kind of combined his writing and playing in the later parts of my e-mail
about Pete and in my analysis of his ideas as a musician, which seem to have
halted.  So, if I break the past 10 years into two parts the first 5 years
of Psycho phase was a new direction as a guitarist, perhaps this is what his
solo "voice" allows.  The recent 5 years with The Who seems boring and when
I mean playing out the string I mean going through the motion of being in
The Who.  The "Can You Help The One You Really Love" I always found as a
boring, open-tuning song that goes no where with no melody and stays there,
I felt it was stock Townshend and nothing of merit.

You mention "English Boy" and it is an excellent example of that playing
that began to stretch into jazz, great song, "Don't Try to Make Me Real"
another good song from that album.  A lot of "Psycho" touches on that new
playing and has a lot of excellent playing by him.  I wonder who was
influencing him at that time?  But again like some of "Iron Man" the song
writing is so so.  I dream of John Entwistle and Roger Daltrey on the album
pissing Pete off and that it could have been a great Who album.

Now, I think The Who is killing him emotionally and artistically, but allows
him a far bigger audience, but as a musician I feel his digressing because
he is not challenged nor interested in The Who any longer unless they can be
reinvented or shelved; can the fans allow this?

Incidentally, my guitar gods (no particular order):

Richie Blackmore
Pete Townshend
Albert Collins
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Jimi Hendrix

- Toby (not to be included in the above list, for certain)