Tell Me :
Talk
Face Dances is always a perplexing album to listen to because my expectations and reaction are always the same. For me, there are only 3 truly memorable tracks on the original album--You Better You Bet, Don't Let Go The Coat, and Another Tricky Day. The rest is mostly take it or leave it. Enough has been said about the dampened, muffled production sound, but enough cannot be said about the peculiar restraint of the playing and, especially, of Roger Daltrey's singing, which features his most laid-back pop-oriented vocal performances since the pre-Tommy era. It's as though Daltrey were singing from Townshend's demos as if he were trying to sing like Townshend. John Entwistle's songs only add to the confused jumble and general muddle that follows track 2 when The Quiet One comes crashing in like the mid-song jam of My Wife from Who's Next, but does not resolve itself and merely crashes along for 3 minutes before the album resumes with its hazy low-key demo-like atmosphere. The general mediocrity that mires most of the album brings down the occasional spark of life that glistens within the muck, as you tend to forget one of the album's brighter moments:
As further proof of the jaded dullness of the Who's playing on Face Dances, one could offer up a comparison between the Who version of Somebody Saved Me, which sounds as though it was recorded first thing in the morning without so much as a cup of coffee, with the obviously more exuberant PT solo band version that appeared on 1982's Chinese Eyes:
More perplexing still are the songs that were left off of Face Dances. With this album being the most low key, uninventive in their catalog, it might not have been the case if they had instead left out Cache Cache, The Quiet One, Did You Steal My Money, and How Can You Do It Alone and replaced them with:
Zelda
the Empty Glass outtake You're So Clever
the Who Are You outtake Never Ask Me
and, of course, the title track, which wasn't released until 1982 on Pete's solo Chines Eyes
all of which would have helped make Face Dances a solid post-Moon effort, perhaps...
Stay tuned and do not adjust your set--my review of It's Hard will be posted on Wednesday, followed by the follow-up to It's Hard that never was (1983's aborted Siege album)...
can't wait. i am going to bust out WHO ARE YOU soon
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-04 01:47 by custom55.
After Face Dances, 1982's It's Hard is one of the most maligned Who albums of all time. But as ambivalent as this listener is toward Face Dances, It's Hard on the other hand fares well in several comparisons to their 1965 debut album My Generation. Both albums feature 3 strong tracks for radio play (My Generation: (1) My Generation, (2) The Kids Are Alright, (3) Legal Matter; It's Hard: (1) Athena, (2) Eminence Front, (3) Cry If You Want) interwoven with many lesser tuneful tracks that work together as a whole behind an underlying thematic approach. My Generation was a mod album outlining the insular youth issues of trying to connect and fit in with a particular movement, whereas It's Hard was a modern album depicting grown men coming to terms with the social tensions of the times in which they lived, such as the nukes awareness of the 80s, as exemplified by the song Why Did I Fall For That ["five minutes to midnight on a sunny day"]:
Both My Generation and It's Hard each contain a period of life anthem, both of which have become indispensable concert staples:
My Generation's title track with its infamous "hope I die before I get old" line glorifies in hiding behind the facade of youth
and It's Hard's Eminence Front with it's realization of maturity, as exemplified by the line "that big wheel spins/the hair thins" that exposes the many ways in which people hide behind their various facades
A further link between the My Generation/It's Hard comparison is drawn by the band themselves. Though he hated the album It's Hard, Daltrey nonetheless favored the song Cry If You Want and said it should have been the lead single from the album, and when at Daltrey's request it was revived in concert briefly for the Endless Wire tour, it was tacked onto the end of My Generation as this 2007 clip shows:
We have Pink Floyd to thank for the lead single from It's Hard, Athena. Townshend had just attended a concert of Pink Floyd's The Wall on Valentine's Day 1980 accompanied by friend Bill Minkin and actress Teresa Russell, who Townshend revealed "was about to marry the film director Nic Roeg with whom I hoped to work on a new version of Lifehouse. I got drunk as usual, but I had taken my first line of cocaine that very evening before meeting her and decided I was in love. When I came to do the vocal on this the following day, I was really out of my mind with frustration and grief because she didn't reciprocate. But as you can hear, I was obviously enjoying myself. I respectfully changed the heroine's name to 'Athena' and The Who got a medium hit."
It's Hard is also notable for the fact that it was the last studio album to feature John Entwistle, who got 3 songs on the album, 2 of which were sung by Roger:
Other hidden gems include One Life's Enough, a meditation on the reincarnation theme
and the long-forgotten A Man Is A Man
The title track is actually a Face Dances outtake, originally titled Popular, which was greeted without enthusiasm when Townshend presented the demo to the band:
Any tough can fight, you can play
Any fool can fall, you can lay
Any stud can reproduce, few can please
Any boy can pay a bill, you can tease
I just wanna be popular
I just wanna be popular
I don't really care who you are
I just wanna be popular
Townshend merely changed the chorus and the title, kept the verses, and the new album had a title song.
Written and recorded in just 6 weeks, It's Hard was recorded in June 1982 (and was in record shops less than 3 months later) at Glyn Johns' home studio (Turn-Up-Down Studios in Surrey, England)--which explains why Kenny Jones has such a strong attack on this album. Johns' production gives the band an integrated sound and ferocious bite throughout that was clearly missing on Face Dances. In fact, several of these tracks wouldn't have sounded out of place on Who Are You. A much more balanced album in retrospect, It's Hard has to be the single most underrated album in The Who catalog...Come to think of it, I think I've misplaced my CD version--I'm going out to the record shop to purchase another copy. All these Youtube clips have me wanting to give it another listen all the way through. fyi, there's a 2011 Japanese remaster floating about somewhere--get that version if you can, those Japanese remasters, with the recreated album artwork, are always the best buy.
custom55, thanks so much for posting, that was awesome! I'd only seen the clip of him doing That's Alright Mama from a DVD, so it was great to see all that additional footage, particularly of After The Fire. I've also never seen the footage of Townshend the office worker at Faber and Faber--not much rock-n-roll action there, but then again, it is hard to be windmilling while strolling through those narrow office corridors.
Pete's demo of Theresa/Athena is absolutely fantastic. I love the Who dearly but I nearly always prefer his demos over the bands versions, especially from Who Are You on, ie: Sister Disco, New Song, However Much I booze (No Way Out), Did You Steal My Money, You Better You Bet, Don't Let Go The Coat. That scene regarding the letter he never sent from the Quadrophenia documentary really explains a lot regarding his later material and his fall into drugs and alcoholism.
yeah the 1975 show looks great
Yes, Pete's demo of Don't Let Go The Coat is preferable over The Who version--it seems like there are more lyrics, verses, and musical complexities and subtleties. Likewise, the demo for Cache, Cache sounds positively dynamic, compared to The Who version.
It wouldn't be very good.
I've got a very good boot DVD of the 75 Live in Texas show. Nice to see they will officially release it. Very good quality and a pretty good performance as well.
Available October 8
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-05 02:29 by stonesnow.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-05 02:45 by stonesnow.
With still one more album due on their contract with Warner Brothers, The Who's 1982 Farewell was not intended to be the end--at least not right away. From Mark Wilkerson's bio on Pete Townshend, Amazing Journey: The Life of Pete Townshend, chapter 11:
"Despite the conclusion of The Who's Farewell Tour [which was supposed to have included tours in 1983 of Britain, Australia, and Japan] just a month earlier, January 1983 found Pete Townshend working on material for a new Who album at Eel Pie studios in Twickenham and Soho. Although Pete had made some earnest overtures the previous year to the rest of the band regarding his desire to dismantle The Who, they had decided to record one more album before finally calling it quits.
"Pete began writing songs around the notion that 'each of us is a soul in siege,' he explained in 1987, continuing an idea he had addressed on All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. He wrote and recorded several experimental demos for the project, including Ask Yourself, Cat Snatch, and Prelude, The Right To Write, in addition to the various pieces he'd recorded on his Portastudio during the Farewell Tour. In searching for an appropriate sound for some of his synthesizer work for Siege, Pete came up with what he called a 'Myriad Speaker System'. 'I organized a synthesizer whose sixteen unison "string" voices were reproduced through ...sixteen separate small speakers on mike stands at about head height, distributed around the recording studio in formal string section grouping,' he wrote in 1987. 'As soon as I played a note, I knew I'd hit on something. The synthetic string sound was rich and spacious...It's a wonderful system, but is complex and takes many hours to set up.'
"The Siege project was abruptly dropped in March, with Pete deciding the material was unsuitable for The Who. After several weeks of deliberation, he informed the rest of the band that he was no longer able to write appropriate material for them, and that he was leaving The Who. Since this wasn't the first time a break up had been threatened, Pete's announcement to his bandmates was taken with a grain of salt."
From the liner notes to Another Scoop, Pete discusses further the motivation begind the aborted Siege project: "Ask Yourself (with Catsnatch) was one of the few pieces I worked on. Siege was based musically on a series of five black note repetitions. Ask Yourself contains an hypnotic exploration of one of these repetitions. This track was recorded in Cornwall in August 1982 and in early '83. I continued to work on it in Soho, London."
www.myspace.com/pete_townshend/music/songs/cat-snatch-44935
www.myspace.com/search/music?q=prelude%2C+the+right+to+write
With the termination of their contract with Warner Brothers made official on December 7, 1983, Townshend's decision to not complete another Who album cost the band $1,750,000 in repaid advances, with Pete himself having to pick up the tab for Keith Moon's estate (for use of the band name) along with that of Kenny Jones who could not afford to pay.
Here is one of the tracks (Holly Like Ivy) recorded on the above-mentioned (TEAC 224) Portastudio in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas, winter 1982
www.myspace.com/music/player?song=44931
along with Prelude #556 recorded in a hotel room in Tampa, Florida, on November 27, 1982
www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=44936&ac=now
both of which are available on Another Scoop.
Yes, I remember this interview from the Maximum R&B doc. Speaking of the Everly Brothers, The Who did a cover of one of their songs as an outtake from their second album, a Quick One
which they also did live on Ready Steady Go! on November 19, 1965
as well as a version for the BBC
This song was also covered my the mod band The Eyes
as well as A Wild Uncertainty
so it's only right to include the original (from 1965)
Talk about your favorite band.
For information about how to use this forum please check out forum help and policies.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 1, 2012 02:52
Quote
keefriffhard4life
what are peoples opinions on the last 2 moon albums (BY NUMBERS and WHO ARE YOU) and the 3 post moon albums (FACES DANCE, IT'S HARD and ENDLESS WIRE)
Face Dances is always a perplexing album to listen to because my expectations and reaction are always the same. For me, there are only 3 truly memorable tracks on the original album--You Better You Bet, Don't Let Go The Coat, and Another Tricky Day. The rest is mostly take it or leave it. Enough has been said about the dampened, muffled production sound, but enough cannot be said about the peculiar restraint of the playing and, especially, of Roger Daltrey's singing, which features his most laid-back pop-oriented vocal performances since the pre-Tommy era. It's as though Daltrey were singing from Townshend's demos as if he were trying to sing like Townshend. John Entwistle's songs only add to the confused jumble and general muddle that follows track 2 when The Quiet One comes crashing in like the mid-song jam of My Wife from Who's Next, but does not resolve itself and merely crashes along for 3 minutes before the album resumes with its hazy low-key demo-like atmosphere. The general mediocrity that mires most of the album brings down the occasional spark of life that glistens within the muck, as you tend to forget one of the album's brighter moments:
As further proof of the jaded dullness of the Who's playing on Face Dances, one could offer up a comparison between the Who version of Somebody Saved Me, which sounds as though it was recorded first thing in the morning without so much as a cup of coffee, with the obviously more exuberant PT solo band version that appeared on 1982's Chinese Eyes:
More perplexing still are the songs that were left off of Face Dances. With this album being the most low key, uninventive in their catalog, it might not have been the case if they had instead left out Cache Cache, The Quiet One, Did You Steal My Money, and How Can You Do It Alone and replaced them with:
Zelda
the Empty Glass outtake You're So Clever
the Who Are You outtake Never Ask Me
and, of course, the title track, which wasn't released until 1982 on Pete's solo Chines Eyes
all of which would have helped make Face Dances a solid post-Moon effort, perhaps...
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
keefriffhard4life
()
Date: August 1, 2012 03:32
you guys are making me want to bust out these albums by the who i usually overlook
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 1, 2012 04:44
Quote
keefriffhard4life
you guys are making me want to bust out these albums by the who i usually overlook
Stay tuned and do not adjust your set--my review of It's Hard will be posted on Wednesday, followed by the follow-up to It's Hard that never was (1983's aborted Siege album)...
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
keefriffhard4life
()
Date: August 1, 2012 06:19
Quote
stonesnowQuote
keefriffhard4life
you guys are making me want to bust out these albums by the who i usually overlook
Stay tuned and do not adjust your set--my review of It's Hard will be posted on Wednesday, followed by the follow-up to It's Hard that never was (1983's aborted Siege album)...
can't wait. i am going to bust out WHO ARE YOU soon
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
peoplewitheyes
()
Date: August 3, 2012 21:35
hey stonesnow, don't mean to put on the pressure... but i am really looking forward to your next installment, and learning about Siege (I'm a pretty big Who fan, and no almost nothing about this)
thanks!
thanks!
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
custom55
()
Date: August 4, 2012 01:40
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-04 01:47 by custom55.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 4, 2012 02:15
Quote
keefriffhard4life
what are peoples opinions on the last 2 moon albums (BY NUMBERS and WHO ARE YOU) and the 3 post moon albums (FACES DANCE, IT'S HARD and ENDLESS WIRE)
After Face Dances, 1982's It's Hard is one of the most maligned Who albums of all time. But as ambivalent as this listener is toward Face Dances, It's Hard on the other hand fares well in several comparisons to their 1965 debut album My Generation. Both albums feature 3 strong tracks for radio play (My Generation: (1) My Generation, (2) The Kids Are Alright, (3) Legal Matter; It's Hard: (1) Athena, (2) Eminence Front, (3) Cry If You Want) interwoven with many lesser tuneful tracks that work together as a whole behind an underlying thematic approach. My Generation was a mod album outlining the insular youth issues of trying to connect and fit in with a particular movement, whereas It's Hard was a modern album depicting grown men coming to terms with the social tensions of the times in which they lived, such as the nukes awareness of the 80s, as exemplified by the song Why Did I Fall For That ["five minutes to midnight on a sunny day"]:
Both My Generation and It's Hard each contain a period of life anthem, both of which have become indispensable concert staples:
My Generation's title track with its infamous "hope I die before I get old" line glorifies in hiding behind the facade of youth
and It's Hard's Eminence Front with it's realization of maturity, as exemplified by the line "that big wheel spins/the hair thins" that exposes the many ways in which people hide behind their various facades
A further link between the My Generation/It's Hard comparison is drawn by the band themselves. Though he hated the album It's Hard, Daltrey nonetheless favored the song Cry If You Want and said it should have been the lead single from the album, and when at Daltrey's request it was revived in concert briefly for the Endless Wire tour, it was tacked onto the end of My Generation as this 2007 clip shows:
We have Pink Floyd to thank for the lead single from It's Hard, Athena. Townshend had just attended a concert of Pink Floyd's The Wall on Valentine's Day 1980 accompanied by friend Bill Minkin and actress Teresa Russell, who Townshend revealed "was about to marry the film director Nic Roeg with whom I hoped to work on a new version of Lifehouse. I got drunk as usual, but I had taken my first line of cocaine that very evening before meeting her and decided I was in love. When I came to do the vocal on this the following day, I was really out of my mind with frustration and grief because she didn't reciprocate. But as you can hear, I was obviously enjoying myself. I respectfully changed the heroine's name to 'Athena' and The Who got a medium hit."
It's Hard is also notable for the fact that it was the last studio album to feature John Entwistle, who got 3 songs on the album, 2 of which were sung by Roger:
Other hidden gems include One Life's Enough, a meditation on the reincarnation theme
and the long-forgotten A Man Is A Man
The title track is actually a Face Dances outtake, originally titled Popular, which was greeted without enthusiasm when Townshend presented the demo to the band:
Any tough can fight, you can play
Any fool can fall, you can lay
Any stud can reproduce, few can please
Any boy can pay a bill, you can tease
I just wanna be popular
I just wanna be popular
I don't really care who you are
I just wanna be popular
Townshend merely changed the chorus and the title, kept the verses, and the new album had a title song.
Written and recorded in just 6 weeks, It's Hard was recorded in June 1982 (and was in record shops less than 3 months later) at Glyn Johns' home studio (Turn-Up-Down Studios in Surrey, England)--which explains why Kenny Jones has such a strong attack on this album. Johns' production gives the band an integrated sound and ferocious bite throughout that was clearly missing on Face Dances. In fact, several of these tracks wouldn't have sounded out of place on Who Are You. A much more balanced album in retrospect, It's Hard has to be the single most underrated album in The Who catalog...Come to think of it, I think I've misplaced my CD version--I'm going out to the record shop to purchase another copy. All these Youtube clips have me wanting to give it another listen all the way through. fyi, there's a 2011 Japanese remaster floating about somewhere--get that version if you can, those Japanese remasters, with the recreated album artwork, are always the best buy.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 4, 2012 03:23
Quote
custom55
custom55, thanks so much for posting, that was awesome! I'd only seen the clip of him doing That's Alright Mama from a DVD, so it was great to see all that additional footage, particularly of After The Fire. I've also never seen the footage of Townshend the office worker at Faber and Faber--not much rock-n-roll action there, but then again, it is hard to be windmilling while strolling through those narrow office corridors.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 4, 2012 03:52
While browsing through CD Universe for a copy of It's Hard, I just found out about two new Who-related DVDs soon to hit the market. One is an independent doc treatment of the Keith Moon years titled From The Bush To The Valley (release date: August 28; $16.25; United States Distribution)--but those independent treatments can always be hit or miss... The real treat to anticipate is a vintage concert film: Live in Texas '75 ($13.03; Eagle Rock Entertainment) to be released October 9.
www.cduniverse.com
By the way, the regular edition of It's Hard is reasonably priced at $11.59, whereas the Japanese import edition is $55.39.
www.cduniverse.com
By the way, the regular edition of It's Hard is reasonably priced at $11.59, whereas the Japanese import edition is $55.39.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
tomk
()
Date: August 4, 2012 03:53
Quote
stonesnowQuote
custom55
custom55, thanks so much for posting, that was awesome! I'd only seen the clip of him doing That's Alright Mama from a DVD, so it was great to see all that additional footage, particularly of After The Fire. I've also never seen the footage of Townshend the office worker at Faber and Faber--not much rock-n-roll action there, but then again, it is hard to be windmilling while strolling through those narrow office corridors.
Pete's demo of Theresa/Athena is absolutely fantastic. I love the Who dearly but I nearly always prefer his demos over the bands versions, especially from Who Are You on, ie: Sister Disco, New Song, However Much I booze (No Way Out), Did You Steal My Money, You Better You Bet, Don't Let Go The Coat. That scene regarding the letter he never sent from the Quadrophenia documentary really explains a lot regarding his later material and his fall into drugs and alcoholism.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
keefriffhard4life
()
Date: August 4, 2012 03:56
Quote
stonesnow
While browsing through CD Universe for a copy of It's Hard, I just found out about two new Who-related DVDs soon to hit the market. One is an independent doc treatment of the Keith Moon years titled From The Bush To The Valley (release date: August 28; $16.25; United States Distribution)--but those independent treatments can always be hit or miss... The real treat to anticipate is a vintage concert film: Live in Texas '75 ($13.03; Eagle Rock Entertainment) to be released October 9.
www.cduniverse.com
By the way, the regular edition of It's Hard is reasonably priced at $11.59, whereas the Japanese import edition is $55.39.
yeah the 1975 show looks great
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
backstreetboy1
()
Date: August 4, 2012 04:27
the who are great,but milking there fans recycling the same old stuff tour after tour.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 4, 2012 04:27
Quote
tomkQuote
stonesnowQuote
custom55
custom55, thanks so much for posting, that was awesome! I'd only seen the clip of him doing That's Alright Mama from a DVD, so it was great to see all that additional footage, particularly of After The Fire. I've also never seen the footage of Townshend the office worker at Faber and Faber--not much rock-n-roll action there, but then again, it is hard to be windmilling while strolling through those narrow office corridors.
Pete's demo of Theresa/Athena is absolutely fantastic. I love the Who dearly but I nearly always prefer his demos over the bands versions, especially from Who Are You on, ie: Sister Disco, New Song, However Much I booze (No Way Out), Did You Steal My Money, You Better You Bet, Don't Let Go The Coat. That scene regarding the letter he never sent from the Quadrophenia documentary really explains a lot regarding his later material and his fall into drugs and alcoholism.
Yes, Pete's demo of Don't Let Go The Coat is preferable over The Who version--it seems like there are more lyrics, verses, and musical complexities and subtleties. Likewise, the demo for Cache, Cache sounds positively dynamic, compared to The Who version.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
tatters
()
Date: August 4, 2012 04:43
Quote
backstreetboy1
what about new music.
It wouldn't be very good.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
cc
()
Date: August 4, 2012 05:57
I don't know, I've tried to listen to It's Hard a few times and can't get into it. It sounds awkward to me. I like Face Dances ... it's not The Who sound, but the songs are good.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
whitem8
()
Date: August 4, 2012 06:44
Quote
stonesnow
While browsing through CD Universe for a copy of It's Hard, I just found out about two new Who-related DVDs soon to hit the market. One is an independent doc treatment of the Keith Moon years titled From The Bush To The Valley (release date: August 28; $16.25; United States Distribution)--but those independent treatments can always be hit or miss... The real treat to anticipate is a vintage concert film: Live in Texas '75 ($13.03; Eagle Rock Entertainment) to be released October 9.
www.cduniverse.com
By the way, the regular edition of It's Hard is reasonably priced at $11.59, whereas the Japanese import edition is $55.39.
I've got a very good boot DVD of the 75 Live in Texas show. Nice to see they will officially release it. Very good quality and a pretty good performance as well.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 5, 2012 01:30
Available October 8
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-05 02:29 by stonesnow.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 5, 2012 02:34
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-05 02:45 by stonesnow.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 6, 2012 01:31
Quote
keefriffhard4life
what are peoples opinions on the last 2 moon albums (BY NUMBERS and WHO ARE YOU) and the 3 post moon albums (FACES DANCE, IT'S HARD and ENDLESS WIRE)
With still one more album due on their contract with Warner Brothers, The Who's 1982 Farewell was not intended to be the end--at least not right away. From Mark Wilkerson's bio on Pete Townshend, Amazing Journey: The Life of Pete Townshend, chapter 11:
"Despite the conclusion of The Who's Farewell Tour [which was supposed to have included tours in 1983 of Britain, Australia, and Japan] just a month earlier, January 1983 found Pete Townshend working on material for a new Who album at Eel Pie studios in Twickenham and Soho. Although Pete had made some earnest overtures the previous year to the rest of the band regarding his desire to dismantle The Who, they had decided to record one more album before finally calling it quits.
"Pete began writing songs around the notion that 'each of us is a soul in siege,' he explained in 1987, continuing an idea he had addressed on All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. He wrote and recorded several experimental demos for the project, including Ask Yourself, Cat Snatch, and Prelude, The Right To Write, in addition to the various pieces he'd recorded on his Portastudio during the Farewell Tour. In searching for an appropriate sound for some of his synthesizer work for Siege, Pete came up with what he called a 'Myriad Speaker System'. 'I organized a synthesizer whose sixteen unison "string" voices were reproduced through ...sixteen separate small speakers on mike stands at about head height, distributed around the recording studio in formal string section grouping,' he wrote in 1987. 'As soon as I played a note, I knew I'd hit on something. The synthetic string sound was rich and spacious...It's a wonderful system, but is complex and takes many hours to set up.'
"The Siege project was abruptly dropped in March, with Pete deciding the material was unsuitable for The Who. After several weeks of deliberation, he informed the rest of the band that he was no longer able to write appropriate material for them, and that he was leaving The Who. Since this wasn't the first time a break up had been threatened, Pete's announcement to his bandmates was taken with a grain of salt."
From the liner notes to Another Scoop, Pete discusses further the motivation begind the aborted Siege project: "Ask Yourself (with Catsnatch) was one of the few pieces I worked on. Siege was based musically on a series of five black note repetitions. Ask Yourself contains an hypnotic exploration of one of these repetitions. This track was recorded in Cornwall in August 1982 and in early '83. I continued to work on it in Soho, London."
www.myspace.com/pete_townshend/music/songs/cat-snatch-44935
www.myspace.com/search/music?q=prelude%2C+the+right+to+write
With the termination of their contract with Warner Brothers made official on December 7, 1983, Townshend's decision to not complete another Who album cost the band $1,750,000 in repaid advances, with Pete himself having to pick up the tab for Keith Moon's estate (for use of the band name) along with that of Kenny Jones who could not afford to pay.
Here is one of the tracks (Holly Like Ivy) recorded on the above-mentioned (TEAC 224) Portastudio in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas, winter 1982
www.myspace.com/music/player?song=44931
along with Prelude #556 recorded in a hotel room in Tampa, Florida, on November 27, 1982
www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=44936&ac=now
both of which are available on Another Scoop.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
keefriffhard4life
()
Date: August 6, 2012 06:28
yikes thats a big chuck of change. pete should have waited a few years before making up his mind that he couldn't write WHO music anymore
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
custom55
()
Date: August 7, 2012 02:18
I think you need to go directly to youtube for this one...
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 7, 2012 02:42
Quote
custom55
I think you need to go directly to youtube for this one...
Yes, I remember this interview from the Maximum R&B doc. Speaking of the Everly Brothers, The Who did a cover of one of their songs as an outtake from their second album, a Quick One
which they also did live on Ready Steady Go! on November 19, 1965
as well as a version for the BBC
This song was also covered my the mod band The Eyes
as well as A Wild Uncertainty
so it's only right to include the original (from 1965)
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 10, 2012 00:05
Strange that Townshend would say that by 1983 he no longer felt he could write appropriate material for The Who, as All Lovers Are Deranged would have made for a killer Who track that no doubt would have become a concert staple. Pete recorded the demo for the song in January 1983 while working on material for the next Who album to be, Siege:
But instead, Pete handed the lyrics over to Dave Gilmour, who gave the song quite the heavy rock treatment on his About Face release in 1984:
The seeds for the musical collaborations between Pete Townshend and Dave Gilmour were sown in early 1983, when Pink Floyd were using Townshend's Eel Pie studios to record The Final Cut. According to Gilmour, Townshend stopped him in the corridor one day to say how much he liked Gilmour's first solo album and to ring him up if he ever needed anything.
But instead, Pete handed the lyrics over to Dave Gilmour, who gave the song quite the heavy rock treatment on his About Face release in 1984:
The seeds for the musical collaborations between Pete Townshend and Dave Gilmour were sown in early 1983, when Pink Floyd were using Townshend's Eel Pie studios to record The Final Cut. According to Gilmour, Townshend stopped him in the corridor one day to say how much he liked Gilmour's first solo album and to ring him up if he ever needed anything.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
stonesnow
()
Date: August 10, 2012 00:57
Another Townshend composition from the mid-80s that would have made for an outstanding Who recording was Secondhand Love from White City. You can just imagine the places where Daltrey would have given the song more bite.
Re: OT - The Who
Posted by:
loog droog
()
Date: August 10, 2012 02:05
Thanks, Stonesnow!
I've been a fan of "Man With Money" ever since I heard it on the Everly's "Heartaches and Harmonies" box set.
The 45 version you had sounded a little different to me, so let's go with one more:
They really attack this song...it was only natural for the Who to cut it.
I've been a fan of "Man With Money" ever since I heard it on the Everly's "Heartaches and Harmonies" box set.
The 45 version you had sounded a little different to me, so let's go with one more:
They really attack this song...it was only natural for the Who to cut it.
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