Another in my very un-regular series of posts about my idols. See also Rufus Wainwright and John Lennon Pete Townshend has been an inspiration to me for years. It really kicked in watched
The Kids Are Alright the 1979 documentary movie of The Who. I bought the DVD to cheer myself up after a teenage romance ended badly, and the scene in which the band perform
A Quick One While He's Away on
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus just totally summed the musical power and inventiveness of The Who and in particular Pete. In this clip Pete sings, jumps all over the place, plays beautiful guitar, plays hard guitar and kicks over then rescues a drum mic mid song.
As well as the seminal performances on that DVD I also studied The Isle Of White 1970 DVD. So influential was Townshend that I could often be seen at gigs with my then band The Bleak doing this sort of thing.
Windmills, jumping around, all that sort of thing. Many was the gig where I'd bloodied my hands and bruised my thumb. I carried on though and in my way I meant it. And Pete means it too, even going so far as to impale his hand on his Strat's wammy bar at a gig in the 80s.
I never smashed up my guitars though and I wouldn't recommend anyone else doing it either. (I heard a great story around this time about a local guitarist who smashed up his crappy old guitar at a gig because his band had just been signed to a major label. A day later not only had the deal fell through but he was scratching around for money for a new old crap guitar.) I would say I was too poor to smash up my gear but according to legend so were The Who in 1964. They didn't make proper money until the album
Tommy in 1969 because of all the debt they had build up through being expected to destroy their gear at EVERY gig. It's hard to really appreciate now what effect this smashing of gear must have had when The Who were the first band to do it. It had only been a matter of a couple of years since the cutting edge of British Rock and Roll was Cliff and The Shadows (nothing against Cliff or The Shadows by the way, I love
Move It and
Wonderful Land)
So Pete the showman had a big effect on me. The Who were one of the most visually arresting groups in history and Pete's performance style had a very obvious effect on Jimi Hendrix in 1966 and thousands of others since. When I actually got to see The Who play in concert in 2007 it was astonishing to see Townshend, a man in his 60s, still being the frenetic and energetic showman he was in he's 20s. He was also the only member of the band to stay on stage throughout the show.
Then there is his influence as a guitarist. If you look up his name in one of those great Rock Guitar Players lists you'll most likely find him described as a truly inventive rhythm player with an aggressive, staccato, almost flamenco style. This is very true and this alone makes it very likely that of all the 1960s guitar gods he has been influential on the most bands. I've got to add some more to that though. Whilst it's true that his lead guitar style never reached Clapton, Beck, Page or Hendrix levels of technicality and speed he did play a lot of stunning solo lines from the late 60s onwards. Maybe he hasn't got the big famous solos of other players but he always did the right thing. You can't improve on the lead guitar in the intro of
Eminence Front, or the beautifully melodic breaks in tracks like
Join Together. Very often his rough edges made the perfect sound, such as in all those improvised jams in the Woodstock/Tommy era. He also has a fabulous acoustic style which can go from delicate finger picking back to that aggressive rhythm.
So he helped make me the guitarist and the performer I am today. Thanks Mr Townshend. Most important of all, of course, is his song writing. By the time he was my age Pete had already written
I can't Explain and
My Generation. Had this been his only contribution to the cannon of British popular music he would be a giant, but by 1969 he was working towards Tommy and from there
Who's Next and
Quadrophenia...
There are so many of Pete's songs that I love both mega famous and criminally under valued. The lyrics on
Quadropenia, the Synths on
Baba O'Riley and
Won't Get Fooled Again, the beauty of
Blue, Red and Grey, none of these things are accidents.
Great songs, great performer, exceptional guitarist.
When I first started playing solo Pete's appearances on the webcast series
In The Attic were very helpful in convincing me to make the plunge. I even had a slightly surreal dream in which I sought Pete's assurances that I should perform solo and he said yes. I don't think he liked me much though...
