Pete Townshend - Who I Am: A Memoir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRuN-3YMLzs

so is this the memoir whose research led to the child porn incident and all of that? this has been a LONG time coming.

I quite love PT and liked his book of fiction as well as the stories in Quad and White City, so I'll read this.

will.i.am is probably saying "damn now I can't use that for the name of my autobio".

I think "i am will" is still available, unless he's gonna be all "am i will" or something.

unreliable narrotor?

narrator, even.

Was hoping maybe he'd be covering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd9zYKLepCw

There is something irresistible about ole Pete.

Is it the way that no-one can hate him as much as he hates himself?

I dunno, I recently saw "The Kids Are Alright" for the first time and it gave me a whole new perspective on him up to that point in his life.

Definitely going to read this

Kind of half-pictured his bio being 'Well, my life...the whole thing...it was bollocks really, I don't know why you'd be interested. Go on, sod off why don't you."

dunno, i feel like townshend might go into deep oversharing mode here -- dude has probably been in therapy for 30+ years.

Horse's Neck was oversharingtastic. I expect much, much more of that. I also expect numerous errors. His memory tends to fail him (for instance, once claiming the Who had never heard one of his songs, when in fact not only had they heard it, but they recorded it).

ah, "Melancholia" indeed...

Kind of half-pictured his bio being 'Well, my life...the whole thing...it was bollocks really, I don't know why you'd be interested. Go on, sod off why don't you."

Ha, that's exactly what I imagine Paul Weller's autobio to be. In its entirety.

Ha! Probably more apt to tell the truth

ABOUT BLOODY TIME, EH

Funny, Gavin&Stacey was on last night, Ness was on her PTownshens tale "Where's the book then Pete?"

and herr it is...

I have to read this. I have a feeling there will be some real car-crash moments, Townshend's a pretty brutally honest guy.

Some tidbits from Rolling Stone. What was it we were saying upthread about oversharing?:

Mick is the only man I've ever seriously wanted to fuck. He was wearing loose pajama-style pants without underwear; as he leaned back I couldn't help noticing the outline of his ample cock lying against the inside of his leg. From then on, I encouraged the band to arrange our 'equipment' for maximum effect, especially onstage or in photographs.

The Who: Maximum R&B Cock & Balls

somehow, i doubt the rest of the lads needed much encouragement....

I generally hate Zeppelin, but I gotta say they win the "arranging equipment" sweepstakes

Spinal Tap More Realistic Than We Ever Imagined Part #147139314

Townshend wanting to fuck Jagger is as surprising as Jagger wanting to fuck himself.

I'd like to think that passage re:Mick's dick is a rebuff to same in Keef's autobio.

Xpost re Mick's cock: There's a small section in Richard Neville's 60s memoir whose name I forget which mentions how he (or rather Oz magazine) ended up with some cutting room floor offcuts of the sex scene between Jagger and Anita in "Performance" and you could see Mick's cock was "as thick as a good salami".

in other news I have preordered this on the amazon and am v excited for it show up on my doorstep in a week-ish or so's time

didn't realize Mick's cock was on Amazon

It's part of the "Ultimate Collector's Edition" of the new hits collection, iirc.

Grrr indeed.

:D

More like Grrrth, amirite?

hahaha

Good piece in the Times (UK). Love this part especially:

"When I was working on Tommy I was trying to present it to the guys in the band and the only one that got it, that understood it was about the teachings of [the Indian spiritual guru] Meher Baba, was Keith. The other two, both intelligent men, weren’t interested."

There were so many better titles for this book, like "Who Are You", "Behind Blue Eyes", or "Boris the Spider"

gargle? :)

another version of the Jagger story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HegN2T-JdN8

xp irl lol

hee hee

The Times' serialisation had it called "I Can Explain"

which is also a better title

The working title was Pete Townshend: Who He?

"Behind Who Eyes"

There's actually an awful, awful Townshend bio called Behind Blue Eyes, most of which concerns itself with the author's theft of Townshend's Tommy demos. The rest is made up of factual inaccuracies, so it strikes a nice balance.

Listened to most of the 19-hour audiobook -- read by Pete himself -- on a recent 13-hour drive. Really fun. He chuckles at a few things, is consistently engaged/engaging, and his run-in/rapprochement with Roland Kirk is hilarious.

I've started it & enjoy it immensely. Love the way he writes, he's so open.

I dunno, the story seems to me so often told, the bits I've read in the paper or on a cursory glance in Tesco.

I guess the audiobook might be the way to go, is there a link? (plz)

I got it via iTunes; if you search for "Who I Am Townshend," it should pop right up. And you're right, parts of it for me were "Oh yes, THIS story again." Sometimes, though, there were interesting variations (e.g., he just nudged Abbie Hoffman, rather than hit him full-force with his guitar). And his enthusiasm and energy never flag, so even the most familiar stories are fun to hear.

someone whose opinion i trust told me they felt that while it seems candid at first glance, that it actually leaves the impression that he stops short of going deeper, skirts some things...anyone else notice this? regardless, i am so looking forward to it, but i am engulfing the oral history of mtv--total guilty pleasure

Supposedly, he submitted over 1000 pages to the publisher, who cut it down to 500. A few things are curiously missing, notably, no mention of the writing/recording process for My Generation. I didn't get the sense that he's skirting anything, though, at least not in any sense of "better not say too much."

Countdown until the Complete Audiobook Sessions are released/bootlegged.

I'm still in the very early chapters, he's only just met Rog & Ox -- I'm just impressed that he could put together so much information about his childhood and make it so detailed and engaging.

Christgau's review: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/books/review/who-i-am-pete-townshends-memoir.html?_r=2

He's spot-on about the bio (seriously, enough with the fucking boats), less so about the work, but I always took Christgau's Whopinions with a grain of salt (as he recommends we do in this review). But if events zip by in chapter 23 without much reflection, it's because there's not much to reflect on: Townshend's work was now about "studios, yachts, and enticing beauties" rather than the intense engagement with the audience that enabled/inspired the bulk of the Who's work.

nearly bought it today, but looks like its going to be in the HMV sale all the way through Xmas period.
Definitely want to read it, they were one of the first bands I got into. I had most of at least the 60s stuff in my early teens back in my moddy boy days. Well until some a-hole nicked a lot of it.

Listened to most of the 19-hour audiobook -- read by Pete himself -- on a recent 13-hour drive. Really fun. He chuckles at a few things, is consistently engaged/engaging, and his run-in/rapprochement with Roland Kirk is hilarious.

wait as in rahsaan?

The very same. He opened for the Who in 1969, and thanked Pete for "giving us blind folks our own opera". He recognized Townshend, by voice, as someone who had good-naturedly heckled Kirk a year earlier in London (Townshend was/is a huge Kirk fan, though).

well huh

Got this for Christmas, was a good read. Very engaging, if repetetive--it is a book about one person's behavior after all.

i am not a particular fan of the who but my father-in-law got this for me and i thought it was pretty awful. combo of generic rock bio tendencies with townshend just being an unlikeable pretentious guy.

I agree it would be a pretty pointless read if you're not a fan.

I have been trying to like it more, but Townshend does a lot of self-flagellating and I find myself wishing for more delight

Well he does seem to get more giddy whenever boats and expensive mixing consoles come into the picture.

haha

Pete's always been kind of a gleeful curmudgeon though, I can't imagine a *non* self-flagellating Townsend. that'd be kinda weird?

Weirdly didn't mention Who Came First at all...otoh did imply that he invented the idea of the internet

I thought the Who Came First omission was odd at first, but it was really just his usual demos compiled into an album at Decca's suggestion (he'd been selling some of the same demos on private-press devotional Meher Baba LPs, which Decca took to be bootlegs). The process of making that record was, for the most part, the process of making the demos for Lifehouse, so in a sense it was already covered in the book.

OK that makes sense, guess I gathered that but didn't know it was at the label's prompting. One thing is for sure is that Pete makes some ace demos. The Lifehouse chronicles stuff sounds so good.

Yeah, his demos sound amazing. I can't think of another artist -- certainly none of Pete's contemporaries -- who could release an album of demos that no one would suspect are demos.

Yeah its kind of insane to hear the Tommy demos and it's pretty much the entire finished album.

yeah but when you have the rhythm section he had, nothing sounds like a finished record til you've got them on it

After reading the book, I watched Classic Records: Who's Next on netflix--it was great, in the way that whole series is, for all the isolated elements of the songs. Entwistle was just amazing on everything he played.

love that episode

made me want to go back and listen to the whole thing again right away

I kind of wish Roger would write a bio, just for balance. My guess is it would be good-natured, mildly funny, and about 120 pages long.

I love the little aside about Roger always prattling on about various conspiracy theories....LOL

Dunno about the book but I find I can't watch Townshend talking about almost anything on TV in the same way I can't with Geldof...he just sounds like such a tosser

like everything has says needs to be digested slowly and accurately for those at the back of the class..just fuck off

Yeah its kind of insane to hear the Tommy demos and it's pretty much the entire finished album.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, January 4, 2013 7:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The version of "Tommy's Holiday Camp" that ended up on the finished album is actually Townshend's demo.