Pete Townshend: Who I Am. Pete Townshend

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СКАЧАТЬ I couldn’t see how The Who would ever become a band admired for their musicianship and ideology as well as their clothes, ideas, gimmicks, Pop Art transferences and aggression.

      Why did that even matter? Wasn’t it enough that I had helped discover guitar feedback? I had certainly invented the power chord. With Ray Davies I had introduced the suspended chord into UK pop. But none of this felt like enough. Something dangerous and new was happening in music, and I wanted to be part of it.

      While Jimi Hendrix conquered London, The Who’s first performance in the USA was almost an accidental event. Frank Barsalona ran Premier Talent, an agency in New York. He heard about The Who through someone in Brian Epstein’s camp, and was persuaded to put us on the bill of an annual New York package with the famous Murray the K, the first American DJ to get really close to The Beatles. Murray had also been tipped off about Eric’s new band Cream. The shows were planned to take place over a two-week period, during which we were expected to perform six shows a day, so we anticipated an intense period of work.

      Flying into New York was a first for my bandmates. Having made two trips there on my own in connection with what became the Allen Klein takeover bid, I felt fairly at ease in the city. Keith and John were so excited they could barely contain themselves, and immediately started living in high style at the Drake Hotel, Keith ordering vintage champagne and John a trolley of several brands each of Scotch, brandy and vodka. The bill was astronomical, and the waiter chided Keith for giving him only a $20 tip. We ate our first real ‘chopped sirloin’ steak there, a big $15 hamburger. I think that’s all I lived on during my stay.

      The shows in New York in spring 1967 were a smash for both The Who and Cream. Contrary to the drudgery I’d expected, this was one of the most wonderful two weeks of my life, and certainly the time when I fell in love with New York, a passion that has withstood the test of time.

      At the RKO 58th Street Theatre, where the shows would be taking place, we convened for a sound-check and pep talk from Murray the K. By now he had rather lost his ‘Fifth Beatle’ glow; his toupee was dusty and he sweated a lot. He insisted on having a gold-plated microphone, which no one else was allowed to touch, as well as the largest dressing room, which didn’t meet his standards until a star was hung on the door. His address to the bands brought out the worst in me; I hated what I saw as his inflated absurdity, even though I knew Murray the K had been a vital part of breaking British music on American radio. He seemed to have delusions of being a great showman. And perhaps he was.

      Murray the K may not have been in his prime, but he did put together an amazing group of musicians. On the regular bill was Wilson Pickett, who took great delight in using Murray’s personal gold microphone whenever he could lay his hands on it. One day Simon & Garfunkel headlined; another The Young Rascals. It was basically a pop-music festival. A real sense of camaraderie developed that, in the end, extended all the way to Murray himself.

      What is more difficult to describe is what happened in the audience during that series of shows, simply because we weren’t out there on the folding seats. Legend has it that, because one ticket purchased allowed you to stay all day if you wanted to, a large number of young people attended every single show, partly to find out when The Who would run out of equipment to smash.

      While I laboured backstage with soldering iron and glue, rebuilding smashed Fender Stratocasters, The Who’s New York fan base was being built from human kindness and affection never equalled anywhere else on earth. If I set up a mattress on Fifth Avenue today, I could live for the rest of my life on the beneficence and loyalty of our New York fans. I still know at least twenty of those RKO kids by name. I know at least a hundred faces. I know the names of some of their parents. Several kids have come to work for me at various times over the years, and some have written books or made movies about us. Some simply watched, grew up and did everything they went on to do with the same dedicated, compulsive lunacy they saw in us as we performed. We advanced a new concept: destruction is art when set to music. We set a standard: we fall down; we get back up again. New Yorkers loved that, and New York fans carried that standard along with us for many years, until we ourselves were no longer able to measure up.

      On our return to England I drove Eric Clapton and Gustav Metzger, the auto-destructive artist whose ideas first inspired me, down to Brighton Pavilion where we were playing with Cream; Gustav was doing the lightshow. Compared with Jimi’s shows I found Cream a little dry when they played a longer set. I wanted to see Eric do something more than just long, rambling guitar solos, just as I wanted something more from myself than silly pop songs and stage destruction.

      It was the first time Gustav had seen my version of auto-destruction in process, and though he was pleased to have been such a powerful influence he tried to explain that according to his thesis I faced a dilemma; I was supposed to boycott the new commercial pop form itself, attack the very process that allowed me such creative expression, not contribute to it. I agreed. The gimmicks had overtaken me.

      ***

      I remember going to a lunch gathering with Barry and Sue Miles. Barry was a founder of the Indica Bookshop, a radical establishment selling books and magazines relating to everything psychedelic and revolutionary. I met Paul McCartney properly there, with his girlfriend, actress Jane Asher. Paul had helped fund Indica, and he seemed much more politically savvy than any other musician I’d come across. He was clear-thinking and smart, as well as charming and essentially kind. Jane was well-bred, polite and astonishingly pretty; behind the demure exterior simmered a strong personality, making her the equal of her famous beau.

      George Harrison arrived a little later with his girlfriend, Pattie Boyd. Pattie was immediately open and friendly. She had the kind of face you could only see in dreams, animated by a transparent eagerness to be liked. Karen was with me, and for the first time I felt part of the new London pop-music elite. Karen, strangely, seemed more comfortable than I was.

      I saw Paul again at the Bag O’Nails in Soho, where Jimi Hendrix was making a celebratory return. Mick Jagger came for a while and then left, unwisely leaving Marianne Faithfull, his girlfriend at the time, behind. Jimi sidled up to her after his mind-bending performance, and it became clear as the two of them danced together that Marianne had the shaman’s stars in her eyes. When Mick returned to take Marianne out to a car he’d arranged, he must have wondered what the sniggering was about. In the end, Jimi himself broke the tension by taking Marianne’s hand, kissing it, and excusing himself to walk over to Paul and me. Mal Evans, The Beatles’ lovable roadie-cum-aide-de-camp, turned to me and breathed a big, ironic Liverpudlian sigh. ‘That’s called exchanging business cards, Pete.’

      ***

      The Who had several roadies from Liverpool at this time, who seemed to operate on the assumption that there was a moral gulf between London and their home city. One of them took five or six of my broken Rickenbacker guitars home for his father to repair, and I never saw them again. The other developed a compulsion for stealing hotel furniture, emptying an entire room once while the band was still on stage around the corner. He even took the wardrobes and the bed, all of which were added to our hotel bill. When these thefts were brought to their attention they made us feel as if we were making a fuss over nothing.

      By contrast, Neville Chester, our first official road manager, was excellent and hard working. We were difficult to please in the best of circumstances, and the equipment smashing meant that a lot of his free time was being spent chasing up repairs. When he became associated with Robert Stigwood and began to appear wearing rather posh suits, we feared Stiggy had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. In any event, we lost him as road manager.

      We then found the amazing Bob Pridden, who is still our chief sound engineer today. Bob’s first important show should have been at Monterey, but for some reason Kit and Chris felt we should take Neville instead, for one last job with us. I haven’t seen him since, but he played a vital part in our early career, and should receive СКАЧАТЬ