{"id":2679,"date":"2022-11-07T00:58:26","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T00:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2679"},"modified":"2022-11-07T00:58:26","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T00:58:26","slug":"from-the-vaults-whos-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2679","title":{"rendered":"From the Vaults: Who’s Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1999, the Wachowskis siblings launched a little multi-part film franchise called <\/span>The Matrix.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Although I have yet to see the fourth installment, the whole series revolves around the original film\u2019s basic tenets.\u00a0 According to Wiki, \u201c<\/span>The Matrix<\/span><\/i> depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality called The Matrix.\u00a0 Intelligent machines have created The Matrix to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source.\u00a0 When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias \u2018Neo\u2019, uncovers the truth, he joins a rebellion against the machines along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.\u201d\u00a0 I find similarities between <\/span>The Matrix<\/span><\/i> and Pete Townshend\u2019s follow up to The Who\u2019s massively popular album <\/span>Tommy<\/span><\/i> that are hard to ignore.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> (Issue 303, Summer 2022), writer Christopher Scapelliti tackles the vexing problem of explaining how a Pete Townshend science-fiction rock opera imploded in 1971 only to resurface (in part) as one of the strongest albums of the classic rock era, <\/span>Who\u2019s Next.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Before getting too deeply into Townshend\u2019s mind-set at the time, I am going to let Scapelliti explain what <\/span>Lifehouse <\/span><\/i>(the title of the sci-fi rock opera previously mentioned) was all about.\u00a0 I am going to borrow Scapelliti\u2019s explanation in full because prior to reading his description, I never could put a handle on what Pete was trying to do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Scapelliti on <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i>:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe futuristic fable is set in a dystopian Great Britain, where pollution has forced much of humanity to retreat into womb-like Life Suits attached to the Grid – an internet-like device run by the government, the gas company, and a cable concern.\u00a0 In addition to food, medicine, and anesthesia, the Grid provides programming that lets its netizens live out virtual lives.\u00a0 Within this world, music and art have diminished value, and are seen as providing little to human experience.\u00a0 Beyond the Grid, a small collective of farmers have been allowed to subsist in the countryside.\u00a0 Among them are Ray, Sally, and their daughter Mary, who live in Scotland.\u00a0 One day, they learn of a rock music festival being held in London.\u00a0 Called Lifehouse, it\u2019s the project of a computer hacker named Bobby, who collects raw data from the Grid\u2019s users and converts it into music.\u00a0 After Mary runs away to attend Lifehouse, Ray and Sally race in their van to find her.\u00a0 They arrive right when the concert reaches its peak, as the combined songs from the Grid\u2019s users ring out the perfect note, and the attendees, including those observing the concert from their Life Suits, disappear in the musical equivalent of the Rapture.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Do not misread my intent here.\u00a0 I am not saying the Wachowskis nicked the idea for <\/span>The Matrix<\/span><\/i> from Pete Townshend.\u00a0 Many elements for the Wachowskis\u2019 film come from all over the map.\u00a0 One Easter-egg like hint takes place in <\/span>The Matrix<\/span><\/i> when a copy of Jean Baudrillard\u2019s book <\/span>Simulacra and Simulation <\/span><\/i>(a French publication from 1981) is seen on-screen as the \u2018book used to conceal disks\u2019, and Morpheus quotes the phrase \u2018desert of the real\u2019 from it.\u00a0 Many see this as a hint that the Wachowskis borrowed heavily from Baudrillard\u2019s philosophy.\u00a0 The author himself, however, has said he felt the film \u2018misunderstands and distorts\u2019 his work.\u00a0 What I find remarkable is that Pete Townshend was attempting to write such an ambitious piece of sci-fi rock opera in 1971, fully 28 years before the appearance of <\/span>The Mat<\/span><\/i>rix<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>This was well before the terms \u2018digital\u2019 and \u2018internet\u2019 entered our vocabulary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The year 1971 was a turbulent one for The Who, but especially so for their chief songwriter \/ guitar player Pete Townshend.\u00a0 He was feeling the pressure.\u00a0 The band had a few hits in the mid to late 1960s but he was feeling constrained by the typical pop song format.\u00a0 Pete began toying a little with deeper concepts;\u00a0 songs that followed some sort of story line – a mini-opera if you will.\u00a0 The first was <\/span>A Quick One, While He\u2019s Away <\/span><\/i>and then a musical suite called <\/span>Rael <\/span><\/i>that appeared on the 1967 release <\/span>The Who Sell Out<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 The <\/span>Sell Out<\/span><\/i> album was a bit of a concept in itself with fake advertisements used as interludes to mimic the pirate radio stations operating outside of Britain\u2019s territorial waters. \u00a0 Experimenting with this format led to Townshend\u2019s crowning glory;\u00a0 the full blown rock-opera <\/span>Tommy.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 This LP succeeded on three fronts:\u00a0 First, it was a high concept for a rock record.\u00a0 Second, it had songs with enough pop sensibility to produce hit singles which further spurred massive album sales, and lastly, it made the band wildly popular.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When The Who appeared at the original Woodstock Festival (and in the subsequent concert film), they set the bar so high Townshend wondered if he could ever get over it again.\u00a0 Thus began his odyssey to do just that with the <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> project described so well above by Scapelliti.\u00a0 The problems came at Pete faster than he could process them and he was feeling trapped – the same feeling one would get after painting oneself into the corner of a room with no easy exit available.\u00a0 Manager Kit Lambert seemed to be the one person who understood what Townshend was doing and often \u2018interpreted\u2019 his work to others.\u00a0 The problem here?\u00a0 Even Lambert could not decipher what <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> was about.\u00a0 There was also Lambert\u2019s other little problem:\u00a0 heroin.\u00a0 With Pete stuck in neutral, Lambert\u2019s cash flow dwindled as his drug money flowed out faster than his record company profits came in.\u00a0 Kit decided the way to get Pete off square one was to get him to New York to record at the fabled Record Plant studio.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why transplant the recording to New York in the first place?\u00a0 A month before being summoned to the Record Plant, The Who took what they had already assembled for <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> and played several unannounced shows at London\u2019s New Vic theater for whoever decided to walk in the door.\u00a0 It was a mistake because very few people showed up.\u00a0 Townshend\u2019s tenuous hold on his songwriter\u2019s ego was shaken:\u00a0 \u201cIt was disturbing.\u00a0 The place was empty.\u00a0 There weren\u2019t Who fans there, it was people we\u2019d invited in off the street, local kids.\u201d\u00a0 It is no wonder Pete welcomed the opportunity to work at the same studio where Jimi Hendrix recorded some tracks for his double album masterpiece <\/span>Electric Ladyland.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The plan didn\u2019t work out exactly as Lambert had hoped and it almost answered the question, \u201cCan Pete Townshend fly?\u201d\u00a0 According to the guitarist, the band found themselves meeting in Lambert\u2019s hotel room when, as Pete later remembered, his anxiety about <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> peaked:\u00a0 \u201cI got this welling of energy, which I think you can only get in New York.\u00a0 And I started to hallucinate.\u00a0 I thought I must get some air, and I stumbled toward the window.\u00a0 I was about to jump out when Kit\u2019s secretary grabbed me – just like that!\u00a0 I nearly killed myself.\u201d\u00a0 After a few unproductive days in the studio, it became apparent that nothing good would come out of the session.\u00a0 The rest of the two week studio block was canceled and Townshend headed back to London.\u00a0 As Scapelliti noted, \u201cSometimes failures are just failures, and nothing more.\u00a0 Sometimes they are the fertile, nurturing hotbed from which success unexpectedly springs\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> had become an albatross for Townshend, but in the end, it spawned one of the all-time great rock albums, <\/span>Who\u2019s Next.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Several things pushed Townshend over the edge before his full blown NYC panic attack.\u00a0 One was the success of <\/span>Tommy.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>He feared the connection he made with his audience with The Who\u2019s\u00a0 earlier pop hits was lost.\u00a0 He told Scapelliti, \u201cWhat ultimately alienated us from our fans was the way Woodstock turned us into superstars.\u00a0 In some ways that was wonderful.\u00a0 We went from being a band with a predominantly male following to one where Roger seemed to be like a new kind of rock Sun God.\u00a0 And we had a few women in the audience for a change.\u00a0 But in other ways, it was disarming, because the actual natural, easy connection between me, as the writer, and the audience was broken.\u201d\u00a0 The two sided nature of his relationship with Lambert also drove a wedge between Pete and his ability to create music.\u00a0 Arriving early at Lambert\u2019s suite for a band meeting, Pete heard Kit ranting about, \u201cTownshend this, and Townshend that\u201d in none too friendly tones.\u00a0 When he finally opened the door, the vibe changed in volume and tone to, \u201cOh, hello, Pete!\u201d\u00a0 Townshend recalled, \u201cI sat down and I thought: \u2018When I\u2019m not doing what people want me to do, I\u2019m this arrogant (expletive deleted) called Townshend, and people hate me.\u201d Suffering from nervous exhaustion, Pete\u2019s resolve caved in:\u00a0 \u201cAnd that is when I gave up on <\/span>Lifehouse.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Record Plant sessions may not have been productive, but they had one shining moment.\u00a0 Leslie West of Mountain (who had hung out with The Who at Woodstock and later at the Speakeasy club in London) was asked to come in and play guitar for the sessions because Pete wanted to record without doing overdubs.\u00a0 The Who and Mountain were known as two of the loudest live acts in the early 1970s and with both guitarists refusing to turn down the volume in the studio, it got loud.\u00a0 West said, \u201cAfterwards, he came over to me – I guess he was a little embarrassed – and said:\u00a0 \u2018Can you hear yourself okay?\u2019\u00a0 I told him I could hear myself even if I was in Chicago!\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately, none of these sessions were used and Townshend decamped back to London to try and figure out what to do next with his floundering project.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Soon after landing in England, Townshend hired producer \/ engineer Glyn Johns to help him move the project forward.\u00a0 Johns agreed to work with him for a week and if things didn\u2019t go well, he wouldn\u2019t hang around.\u00a0 Things went so well The Who began again, this time recording the backing tracks for <\/span>Won\u2019t Get Fooled Again<\/span><\/i> at Mick Jagger\u2019s Stargroves country estate using the Stones\u2019 mobile recording studio.\u00a0 To say Johns saved the day is a major understatement.\u00a0 First, he suggested wildman Moon should tone down his style, something no producer familiar with his playing would have dared to do.\u00a0 Glyn asked him to simplify what he was doing by eliminating the rolls and fills his frenetic playing was known for.\u00a0 Oddly, Moon the Loon complied and did not chafe when Johns used Townshends\u2019 pre-recorded keyboard parts on <\/span>Baba O\u2019Riley <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Won\u2019t Be Fooled Again <\/span><\/i>to set the tempo.\u00a0 Townshend believes this didn\u2019t limit the drummer at all, but rather freed him from, \u201cPretending to keep the beat.\u00a0 No, Keith was brilliant.\u00a0 When somebody else kept the beat for him, it was just great, he was just decorating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Moon wasn\u2019t the only one liberated during these sessions.\u00a0 Johns next convinced Townshend to condense the album to one disk by focusing on the strongest tracks.\u00a0 With the daunting double album concept now in the dustbin, John Entwistle\u2019s song <\/span>My Wife<\/span><\/i> could be added to the mix.\u00a0 Left to program the album in any order he wished, Glyn first took Pete out to a pub and asked him to explain the concept behind <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> once and for all.\u00a0 Pete explains, \u201cHe asked, \u2018Pete, tell me just once more about this <\/span>Lifehouse.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>I thought:\u00a0 \u2018Oh, god!\u2019\u00a0 So I told him the story,\u00a0 And he sat there, thinking.\u00a0 I thought he was going to say: \u201cNow I get it!\u2019\u00a0 And instead he said:\u00a0 \u2018I don\u2019t understand a word that you said!\u2019\u201d<\/span> Lifehouse <\/span><\/i>was now truly dead and Townshend was still shaken by the failure.\u00a0 On the plus side, the artistic death spiral his fragile mental state suggested\u00a0 thankfully never materialized.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pete\u2019s greatest take away from working with Johns on <\/span>Who\u2019s Next<\/span><\/i> was to work more simply.\u00a0 The lesson would pay dividends on their next high concept double LP <\/span>Quadrophenia.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>As he told Scapelliti, \u201cWith <\/span>Quadrophenia,<\/span><\/i> I decided to get a much more loose line.\u00a0 I did that thing that one does if one\u2019s working on a short story – to take a glimpse, a slice, and say:\u00a0 \u201cThis is something;\u00a0 this is three days in the life of a boy.\u2019\u00a0 That was all, and that will do.\u201d\u00a0 Though bits and pieces of the original <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> project would appear in various forms over the next thirty years, the songs pulled together for <\/span>Who\u2019s Next<\/span><\/i> would not have had the same impact if they had been inserted as parts of the original double disk concept.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was one other thing that stood out about <\/span>Who\u2019s Next<\/span><\/i> beyond the outstanding tracks:\u00a0 the album cover.\u00a0 Photographer Ethan Russell had numerous shots rejected and he found himself under the gun as the album release date neared.\u00a0 On May 14, 1971, Russell joined the band on a car trip to a performance at the University of Liverpool.\u00a0 While there, he did take a series of photographs of the band pretending to destroy their dressing room, one of which eventually being picked for the back cover.\u00a0 Returning to London the next day, the band was passing through Sheffield when Russell spotted a large coal slag heap.\u00a0 There were four or five large concrete monoliths among the slag designed to keep it from shifting and running away in an avalanche of loose material.\u00a0 \u201cIt looked like the surface of the Moon,\u201d Russell said.\u00a0 The monoliths reminded him of the scene from Stanley Kubrick\u2019s film <\/span>2001:\u00a0 A Space Odyssey<\/span><\/i> where primitive man receives knowledge in the form of a large monolith.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The original idea he had was to photograph the band reacting in fear to one of the slag heap monoliths, not unlike the apes and humans in <\/span>2001.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Once they were done with the original shots, they decided to have a little fun as Russell snapped what would become the iconic album\u2019s cover.\u00a0 For those unfamiliar with the record sleeve, let us just say the \u2018fun shot\u2019 made it appear that the band had relieved themselves on the monolith and were turning to amble away.\u00a0 According to Russell, \u201cNobody peed [on the monolith].\u00a0 We just filled some empty thirty-five-millimeter film canisters with water and poured it on the cement.\u00a0 I mean, the whole thing was so outrageous, I just thought, \u2018There\u2019s no way they\u2019re going to use this!\u2019\u201d No, \u2018outrageous\u2019 would have been an earlier shot (soundly rejected by the band) of drummer Moon dressed in drag brandishing a whip.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For all the angst <\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i> had caused Pete Townshend, he was able to recognize <\/span>Who\u2019s Next<\/span><\/i> as a remarkable album still revered today.\u00a0 Townshend said, \u201cI was delighted with it.\u00a0 It felt like The Who\u2019s first proper album.\u00a0 It felt uncomplicated and simple, and I didn\u2019t care that the story had been lost.\u00a0 I was just relieved to have made anything at all.\u201d\u00a0 I wonder if the Wachowskis had similar feelings when the first <\/span>The Matrix <\/span><\/i>movie was released?<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 A great example of Keith Moon ‘decorating’ BABA O’RILEY rather than keeping the beat.\u00a0 Note also that Roger Daltrey is wearing his famous Chamois cloth shirt – he and his wife literally took two of these car wash cloths and stictched them together – Miles Davis sent his people to Roger’s house to photograph it – he couldn’t find a place to buy one (I wonder why) so he was having one tailor made!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1999, the Wachowskis siblings launched a little multi-part film franchise called The Matrix.\u00a0 Although I have yet to see the fourth installment, the whole series revolves around the original film\u2019s basic tenets.\u00a0 According to Wiki, \u201cThe Matrix depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality called The Matrix.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2680,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}