Saturday, May 19, 2012
On the nineteenth day, of a spring day in May...
Happy birthday, Peter Dennis Blandford Fucking Townshend. The Great One. The undisputed master genius of rock and roll. The greatest guitarist, greatest songwriter the world has ever known and will ever know. The Alpha and Omega. Creator and Destroyer. The man who invented rock and smashed the electric guitar. Pioneer of punk and prog. He is not afraid to bleed in the name of music. He is 67 on this day.
Long Live Rock.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Who I Am
No, not me... Him:
I'm going to take some time to write about my favorite human being in the world. I'll try to keep it short, because I could go on forever about him.
His autobiography is released on October 8th. I have a lot of hopes and a lot of fears regarding the contents of this book. Pete is an absolute genius, and there is not a musician alive that gives more insightful, cogent and humorous interviews. But he is 66 years old (67 in a week and a half) and he recently sold the publishing rights to The Who's catalog for a handsome fee. He's retired. The chances of him touring again, with The Who or solo, are very slim.
He has to sell books. Rock autobiographies are quite popular these days. Keith Richards recently released one, and Slash had his a few years ago, Nikki Sixx and Anthony Kiedis had popular autobiographies as well. Each one of those is identical to the others. Each one contains the same rehashed-heroin-confession rock star story. And surely Pete could tell that story as well as anyone, and it would sell well.
What might not sell as well would be an honest and critical reflection by the artist on himself and his art. Will Pete tell me what I want to know about art and being an artist in this book? I hope so. He certainly can. He's obviously a good writer and has a lot to say on the subject. But Pete is not necessarily above "selling out," as it were.
But of course he's a complex man. He often changes his mind and frequently contradicts himself and I'm not entirely sure he has a clearer picture of his artistic vision than we do. That's the price of genius. It's reflected in his music. The Who was a band that often changed its mind and frequently contradicted itself. One moment it was a loud punk band, devolving into pure noise and destruction, and the next moment it was a progressive rock band playing dynamic, delicate and difficult concept pieces.
Very few bands ever covered so much ground, and when they did, they were only treading the paths that Pete and The Who forged. I am of the controversial opinion that Pete Townshend is the most influential musician of the 20th century. I could go into dozens and dozens of reasons for that and I might later. Or I might now. I didn't plan any of this.
So there were always at least two sides to Pete; the punk side and the prog side. But even in all of the wildly divergent styles that Pete created the subject matter was usually the same. Pete wrote music for socially troubled young men, and I think he may have been the first person to ever do so. Sure, the old blues men wrote about their troubles with life and women (particularly women), but no one that I'm aware of wrote introspective songs about estranged youths. Certainly the Beatles never wrote anything approaching "My Generation" and could never have dreamed of coming up with anything as grandiose yet personal as Quadrophenia. And Dylan, while hugely influential, never touched on that subject matter much either.
That is what I want Pete to talk about in his book. Sure, he's going to mention his drug use, it was a large part of his development as an artist. And so was giving up drugs. All of that information has been covered, though, in books like Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend by Mark Wilkerson. But I've had that book sitting on my shelf for years. I'm less than halfway through it because it is a tedious read filled with endless footnotes and the prose is encyclopedic and sterile.
So I'm certainly looking forward to reading Pete's own thoughts but I pray he gives me information that I can't find elsewhere.
I'm going to take some time to write about my favorite human being in the world. I'll try to keep it short, because I could go on forever about him.
His autobiography is released on October 8th. I have a lot of hopes and a lot of fears regarding the contents of this book. Pete is an absolute genius, and there is not a musician alive that gives more insightful, cogent and humorous interviews. But he is 66 years old (67 in a week and a half) and he recently sold the publishing rights to The Who's catalog for a handsome fee. He's retired. The chances of him touring again, with The Who or solo, are very slim.
He has to sell books. Rock autobiographies are quite popular these days. Keith Richards recently released one, and Slash had his a few years ago, Nikki Sixx and Anthony Kiedis had popular autobiographies as well. Each one of those is identical to the others. Each one contains the same rehashed-heroin-confession rock star story. And surely Pete could tell that story as well as anyone, and it would sell well.
What might not sell as well would be an honest and critical reflection by the artist on himself and his art. Will Pete tell me what I want to know about art and being an artist in this book? I hope so. He certainly can. He's obviously a good writer and has a lot to say on the subject. But Pete is not necessarily above "selling out," as it were.
But of course he's a complex man. He often changes his mind and frequently contradicts himself and I'm not entirely sure he has a clearer picture of his artistic vision than we do. That's the price of genius. It's reflected in his music. The Who was a band that often changed its mind and frequently contradicted itself. One moment it was a loud punk band, devolving into pure noise and destruction, and the next moment it was a progressive rock band playing dynamic, delicate and difficult concept pieces.
Very few bands ever covered so much ground, and when they did, they were only treading the paths that Pete and The Who forged. I am of the controversial opinion that Pete Townshend is the most influential musician of the 20th century. I could go into dozens and dozens of reasons for that and I might later. Or I might now. I didn't plan any of this.
So there were always at least two sides to Pete; the punk side and the prog side. But even in all of the wildly divergent styles that Pete created the subject matter was usually the same. Pete wrote music for socially troubled young men, and I think he may have been the first person to ever do so. Sure, the old blues men wrote about their troubles with life and women (particularly women), but no one that I'm aware of wrote introspective songs about estranged youths. Certainly the Beatles never wrote anything approaching "My Generation" and could never have dreamed of coming up with anything as grandiose yet personal as Quadrophenia. And Dylan, while hugely influential, never touched on that subject matter much either.
That is what I want Pete to talk about in his book. Sure, he's going to mention his drug use, it was a large part of his development as an artist. And so was giving up drugs. All of that information has been covered, though, in books like Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend by Mark Wilkerson. But I've had that book sitting on my shelf for years. I'm less than halfway through it because it is a tedious read filled with endless footnotes and the prose is encyclopedic and sterile.
So I'm certainly looking forward to reading Pete's own thoughts but I pray he gives me information that I can't find elsewhere.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Blunderbuss Revisited
Just like he did when I first started listening to the White Stripes, Jack White has revitalized my faith in rock and roll. I was in a bit of a dark night of the soul recently and I truly believed that rock was dead.
Along came Blunderbuss.
This album not only met all my expectations but surpassed them. It has everything I wanted and everything I needed and everything I wish I could do. The songs are typical Jack, and each could have been a White Stripes song except for the fact that they are played with a full band. In fact, if the White Stripes' material had been recorded this way, it would probably have been much better. The album is dense with not only rock band guitars, basses and drums, but also mandolins, pianos and organs, violins, pedal steels, and more.
Except for one cover, Jack wrote and produced every song. He also played a variety of instruments on the record, which is expected from such a fantastic multi-instrumentalist. Throughout his career he has played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, mandolin, marimba and probably others I'm forgetting. He is like a modern day Neil Young, and my generation's only real rock hero.
Like Neil Young, Jack White's best skill is his songwriting. The lyrics on Blunderbuss are brilliant and rather dark. Like Neil Young, Jack White is an incredibly eclectic and diverse songwriter. There is quite a wide variety of sounds and emotions on Blunderbuss, particularly comparing the first and second halves. In an interview on NPR recently, Jack said he approaches the track order of his albums as if it's a vinyl record with two sides, and there is an obvious change in direction halfway through after "Weep Themselves to Sleep." The songs after lean much more toward classic Little Richard rock and roll, folk music and blues.
To cover the wide variety of sounds on the record, Jack has gone from touring with a two-piece band to touring with two five-piece bands. One male, one female. Judging by the live concert stream this past Friday in which he played ~50 minute set with both bands, the female band is much tighter and much more energetic than the male band, and they're probably better instrumentalists too.
Blunderbuss is currently #1 in the US, UK, Canada and Switzerland. I contributed to that success by making it the first album I've actually paid for in about a year. The album was leaked a week early and of course I snatched it up and listened to it exhaustively. But I liked it so much I went out and bought it anyway on the day it was released. In fact, I liked it SO much that I almost bought the last two copies they had at the store...
Along came Blunderbuss.
This album not only met all my expectations but surpassed them. It has everything I wanted and everything I needed and everything I wish I could do. The songs are typical Jack, and each could have been a White Stripes song except for the fact that they are played with a full band. In fact, if the White Stripes' material had been recorded this way, it would probably have been much better. The album is dense with not only rock band guitars, basses and drums, but also mandolins, pianos and organs, violins, pedal steels, and more.
Except for one cover, Jack wrote and produced every song. He also played a variety of instruments on the record, which is expected from such a fantastic multi-instrumentalist. Throughout his career he has played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, mandolin, marimba and probably others I'm forgetting. He is like a modern day Neil Young, and my generation's only real rock hero.
Like Neil Young, Jack White's best skill is his songwriting. The lyrics on Blunderbuss are brilliant and rather dark. Like Neil Young, Jack White is an incredibly eclectic and diverse songwriter. There is quite a wide variety of sounds and emotions on Blunderbuss, particularly comparing the first and second halves. In an interview on NPR recently, Jack said he approaches the track order of his albums as if it's a vinyl record with two sides, and there is an obvious change in direction halfway through after "Weep Themselves to Sleep." The songs after lean much more toward classic Little Richard rock and roll, folk music and blues.
To cover the wide variety of sounds on the record, Jack has gone from touring with a two-piece band to touring with two five-piece bands. One male, one female. Judging by the live concert stream this past Friday in which he played ~50 minute set with both bands, the female band is much tighter and much more energetic than the male band, and they're probably better instrumentalists too.
Blunderbuss is currently #1 in the US, UK, Canada and Switzerland. I contributed to that success by making it the first album I've actually paid for in about a year. The album was leaked a week early and of course I snatched it up and listened to it exhaustively. But I liked it so much I went out and bought it anyway on the day it was released. In fact, I liked it SO much that I almost bought the last two copies they had at the store...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
It Changed My Life
The purpose of art is to communicate emotions. Thus, as an artist, you intend (or at least hope) to affect the emotional state of your audience. Most of the time this is a transient effect, but when it's not, you often hear the phrase "it changed my life" spoken about the piece of art (a book, film, piece of music or musical artist, et cetera). But what does that mean? Your "life" is the word we give to all the things that happen to you. Some of those are out of your control, others are a result of your own decisions. It's rare that a piece of art will affect the things that happen to you that are beyond your control.
No, it's almost always the latter. The art affects your decisions and actions. It affects you. Most art changes us and informs our view of the world in some way, whether we are really moved by it or not, but when the impact is so profound that it completely transforms our worldview then we say "it changed my life." But our life is only changed by proxy. Art changes us. We are changed, and as a result our lives are changed according to our actions.
Music changed me, and I changed my life, and I know I'm not the only one.
No, it's almost always the latter. The art affects your decisions and actions. It affects you. Most art changes us and informs our view of the world in some way, whether we are really moved by it or not, but when the impact is so profound that it completely transforms our worldview then we say "it changed my life." But our life is only changed by proxy. Art changes us. We are changed, and as a result our lives are changed according to our actions.
Music changed me, and I changed my life, and I know I'm not the only one.
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