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1999 Lifehouse interviews part 1
Transcribed in Dec. 1999 by FionaP
Introduction to interview transcripts
http://www.igtc.com/archives/thewho/1999/Dec/msg00206.html
Subject: PT Radio 3 i/v
I: Pete, whats Lifehouse about?
P: Well the play for radio is about ... er the
post-ware period from 1945 to
the present day. Its about the time, about the
importance of music to that
time, about the importance of media - entertainment,
but also about the
significance of not just the art but also whether - I
suppose the importance
of - of action. Theres a question - the play end
with a question: If we
were born as close to 1945 as I was, you know, there
was a huge bomb in
Japan which ended the war and left us with this
strange climate in which we
live which was the freedom to roam bomb sites and
strange kind of freedom.
That when we became 13 or 14 or 15 and we started to
realise that we had
this new form of music called Pop and that we had this
new freedom and new
rights, in a sense, to attack the establishment and
take it over - CND was
formed, I think, when I was about 10 and I proudly
wore the badge but I
didnt know what it was about - you know, Ban the
Bomb.
Today as we, as our generation, move into the new
Millennium. The bomb is
still here, its proliferating and - and I wonder what
it was that I should
have done that I havent done - both as an artist and
as a - a man and, you
know, I suppose the question in the play is the story
in the play is - this
concert, this big concert, this Lifehouse event that
is happening at the end
of this play - is it real? Is it a dream? Or is it a
bomb? Is it the end?
...I: The other thing about it is that it is a way of
addressing people. I
know that your preoccupation back in the early 70s
when Lifehouse - you
were first thinking about it - was ways of addressing
the problem of
alienation, I guess, and thats something which still
seems to be a
preoccupation today, if Im right.
P: Yeh I think maybe for different reasons. When I
was young I think the
kind of alienation that I worried about - or that I
identified in my
audience was one of alienation - a sense of alienation
from society that
drove them into gangs and cults. And today the kind
of alienation that I
think were anxious about is the alienation, you know,
the couch potato
syndrome. Is it easier to stay home than go out? Is
it easier to fall in
love in fantasy world than fall in love in reality?
You know, when there
are difficulties in relationships - do we really deal
with them today or do
we run away? You know, the prevailing notion of
modern sociologists is that
perhaps we run away, we are cutting ourselves off,
were afraid and
frightened of the world and thus we say well Im not
going out there, it
frightens me you know, Im anxious, Im agoraphobic,
Im afraid of
vomiting or Im afraid Im going to be run over or
for whatever reason
theres lots - theres lots of fear around these days.
...
I: Does it alarm you though? I know one of your
preoccupations with the
piece and clearly prophetic, you know, 30 years before
the Internet, youre
floating questions about the Grid and about the
alienating effects of
technology.
P: You know, what I was worried about was not the Grid
itself, I was worried
about the Grid being taken over the censorious and
dictatorial Governments
in league with ... selfish media barons.
I: Like I said, prophetic (laughs)
P: (Laughs) Well you know, I think to some extent the
reverse is true with
the Internet anyway. Certainly with, you know, what
we have at the moment
is the fact that you know weve got a very very
precariously imbalanced
scenario where there are huge powerful megabarons of
media out there,
controlling huge chunks of the worlds entertainment
industry either in
gangs or elite gangs or - megacompanies.
You know, where a company as big as Universal recently
bought Polygram and
its now called Unigram. You know - I mean .. (with
horror) Unigram well I
mean you know, for heavens sake. I mean The Who
happen to be on Unigram
now I mean what a terrible name - there is only one
gramophone company:
Unigram its almost like an Aldous Huxley invention.
I: Yes
P: And its here. On the other hand, you have the
Internet where your ten
year old child, in my case - my ten year old child,
could quite easily
switch on and be subjected to the pornographic
machinations of the Russian
Mafia and its a terrifyingly unpoliced medium. So my
fears when I wrote
Lifehouse were - have not been realised and neither
have I been vindicated
in the fears that I had, you know, I think whats
actually happened is a
different situation.
..
P: But this is a strange time and I think the Internet
is only the beginning of
this World-wide Web which will eventually take us into
a place which I think
I did predict in Lifehouse where, you know, you will
be offered, you know,
through a plug in the wall, something which you will
put into some orifice
in your body which will, you know, if it doesnt just
give you the
proverbial LA hand job, will give you some promise of
some sort of cerebral,
spiritual, experience, compacted into, you know - you
know this thing on
downloading on a computer, its called Stuffit, what
it is is a thing that
compresses up data so a 5K file when you put it
through Stuffit lands on
your computer desk top and its - rather than 5K its
now 300K. My fear -
my vision in Lifehouse was that life would become like
that. In other
words, there would be people saying to me (speaks like
market trader)
Listen, you know, the rock star thing, the touring,
the TVs through
windows, all that, the sex, the drugs, the rock n
roll. I can do that for
you and everything involved in that, I can do that for
you in about a week.
And then you can go on and have a nice life, you can
do your gardening and -
but if you wanted to, you could do your gardening in a
week as well - we can
squeeze it all in for you.
http://www.igtc.com/archives/thewho/1999/Dec/msg00207.html
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