PETER TOWNSHEND ROCK STAR MEMOIR

 

peter townshend and the who

 

Closing in on the end of Peter Townshend's autobiography, Who I Am. First surprise was to find he is such a good writer. A thread that runs through the story is the growth of his writing from forcing himself to write songs for the Who's first recordings. Uncertain, feeling like he didn't know what he was doing. Next album, more songs to write. It became a form he liked and worked at making them better. He had a longing inside to do something with rock on the order of opera. He told the whole process of creating his first rock opera, Tommy, from conception, the writing, the rewriting, the feedback, rewriting, working toward a stage production, practicing with the band, performing it on stage, the film made. He told about almost not making it to Woodstock. His band had just come off a tour, all were worn out. He said no to the initial invitation. He was advised this is big, be there. They went, liked and disliked the experience. Though when it was over and the movie swept the world, the Who went from being another London band to one of the biggest bands in the land. Metaphorically overnight.

 

Woodstock

 

Not long after the Woodstock experience, the band had been so busy touring over the last year they didn't have anything for a new album. They decided to put out a live album from concert tapes past. Instead, recorded their show at Leeds, Live At Leeds, which set them firmly in the new status the band found after Woodstock. The Who was one of my favorite bands in the time of Sixties rock, last half of the Sixties, first half of the Seventies, the time of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, Live at Leeds my favorite of the Who's albums along with Who's Next. I like all their albums, have most of them on LP, Who's Next and Live At Leeds on cd. Instead of replacing all their albums with cd, I picked my two favorites. Had a mess of Rolling Stones LPs, and for cd I have their first album, one of their best, and a live album recorded in small clubs called Stripped. On it, Jagger sings Dylan's, Like A Rolling Stone, and made it his own. It is my "best of" album for the Stones. And Black & Blue. With Allman Brothers, I'm satisfied with Live At The Fillmore for cd, one of the great albums in rock. Blind Faith is my Eric Clapton cd.

 

 

I've been a rock-n-roller since 1955 when Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Bill Haley & the Comets, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly were making a new music. Went through the Fifties in jr hi and high school. American rock n roll came to a halt around 1960 after Little Richard quit music and went to preaching, Chuck Berry went to prison for crossing a state line in the South with a teenage white girl in his car, Jerry Lee married his 13 year old cousin evaporating his fan base instantly, Elvis was in the Army and came out of it singing sickening songs like Teddy Bear. American grownups were furious about the music, calling it communist, subversive, devil music. The preacher at my church said band leader Paul Whiteman went to Africa and learned how to play devil-worshiping music, brought it back to America and made rock n roll. I knew better. It ran a crack through the preacher's credibility for the kid. The entire adult world was dead set against the devil music. Dick Clark was part of the adult world determined to put a stop to rock n roll. It doesn't seem so with the idea of American Bandstand. He emphasized black do-wop groups, pretty Italian boys and Connie Francis. He did not like rock n roll nor did he advance it.

 

the who

 

Early Sixties, the English bands brought rock n roll to life again, Dave Clark Five, Spencer Davis Group, Beatles, Stones, The Who, among many others. There was no more defeating rock n roll. It became a force unstoppable. And now, in a time when nearly everybody living was raised on rock, I'm reading the autobiography of Peter Townshend, one of my top favorite rockers, someone I consider an artist the same as I consider David Hockney an artist. Bill Wyman and Keith Richards of the Stones have published their autobiographies. I read Billy Idol's autobio last year. Patti Smith has a memoir recently published. Sixty years ago, my parents advised me, "Rock n roll will never last." Alas for them, it was Big Band that failed to last. At the time the Sixties bands were at their peak,  when the Who and the other bands were playing big arenas, the shows got bigger and bigger, punk happened. Punk played in small clubs, no light shows, no walls of speakers, beginners with guitars, new rhythms, new attitude, and the Sixties bands were over. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols said in an interview when asked what he thought of Pete Townshend, "an old fart." At the moment, it was outrageous to say such a thing. The market for the Who's music and for solo albums by everybody in the band never went away, however. There came a time the Who folded as a band because everybody in the band was worn out by it. Keith Moon was dead. The life of a rock star is not an easy one. On stage it is fulfilling.

 

the who

 

 

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AT HOME WITH CATERPILLAR

hans silvester

 

Woke from a long nap today too weary to do anything that required action or thought. Looked at emails, looked at facebook. Read an article I've been seeing for days, scrolling, a comet two and a half miles across due to hit the earth with a window of the last two weeks in September, calculated to fall in the ocean two hundred miles off the coast of Brazil and make tsunami "everywhere." Everywhere? Maybe so. I wondered how the exact location, considering a rotating earth, could be calculated so exactly with a two week window. It was clever, but stank too much of Y2K religion frenzy. Next, I found somebody's interpretation of Revelations prophecy in a documentary kind of film about a half hour long. It held my interest all the way through, not that I took it for anything but mentation. He had some fairly interesting interpretations. Of course, it leads to the biggest disaster ever on earth, snuffing out USA in one sweep. This to happen before January of 2017. But, if you're saved and know the Lord, He will keep you safe throughout the terrible time of tribulation for everybody else, the losers. Buy this book on how to survive and you, too, can live happily in the ruins like nothing ever happened. His short film was loaded with some scholarly research that made a good story, until the end when it turned into an infomercial boring as a late-nite used car lot ad, thumping a Bible.

 

hans silvester

 

Caterpillar walked in the door. She'd been outside in her wild mind another twelve hours. This time without me worrying something might have caught her, like a coyote or a dog, both legitimate concerns. I came upon a young coyote walking in the road yesterday driving, about half way between here and Glade Creek. It walked down the road in front of the car like a dog, loping along unafraid, moved over to the side of the road continuing his lope, like a dog. Passing it, I got a good profile view. Its tail suggested fox, though the legs were too long. It was small for a coyote and its fearlessness alone in the world of the humans told me it was young. Seeming lost from the pack, it paid the car no mind, just like a rambling dog. I felt immense gratitude for the opportunity to see a living coyote so close and it in motion. When I see one, I see the most beautiful dog I've ever seen. I'm uneasy with them being around, though I know, too, they mean no harm. They live amongst themselves. They eat everything small that lives on the ground, rabbits, grouse, turkeys, young deer, small dogs and cats. To them a herd of cows is a herd of cows, a source for food. Now we have coyotes, farmers who buy and sell cattle also keep donkeys. Coyotes learn to stay away from donkeys.

 

hans silvester

 

It puzzled me. Sleep half the day, wake up and check out two end-of-the-world disaster worst-case scenarios, pick up cat and talk to her, letting the images of doom fall from my mind. They went away as fast as water falls out of my hand. Caterpillar snuggled in for awhile. I put her down to get some water. I put a dvd in the player, turned it on, picked up Caterpillar after she'd had some water and a bite of catfood, sat down and watched the last half of the Who concert in 1975. It was a time amazon nailed me with because you bought this we thought you might like this. Because I bought Billy Idol's autobio, Peter Townshend has an autobio, Who I Am. Also a dvd of a 1975 show by the Who, because I bought a Siouxsie & the Banshees concert 1983. The Who my favorite band of the Sixties era. Some people object to this kind of customer-specific advertising, but I don't. The grocery store gives out coupons for things I use, not things I don't use. I was grateful to be pointed to the Townshend autobio and the dvd. I find it comic at this age that I'm reading autobiographies of rock stars. They were my age all the way along. It is now time for them to be publishing their stories.

 

hans silvester

 

Since Caterpillar's matted hair was shaved, our relationship is changing. She was freezing in the night and I took her to bed at night, keeping her warm under the covers. She did well, doesn't move all night long. This worked well for a couple weeks. She stopped liking it. The last couple nights she crawled out, jumped to the floor and went outside. She doesn't like it any more. My feeling is that it changed her rhythm, which is ok for a vacation, but a time comes she wants her rhythm back. She sleeps awhile, explores awhile, drinks some water. She's not used to sleeping all night long. I'm actually glad she's had enough of it. I'm a bit weary of it myself. She has also become more dependent on me holding her and petting her. She has developed the most pitiful mao she's ever done. It's plaintive and long when I pretend to ignore its appeal. Some people would tell me she's spoiled. She is. This is new behavior in her. Old age. She's 18. We don't have a great deal of time left together, so I do spoil her. We're the closest we've ever been. I pick her up when she wants to be held. A few minutes of petting and talking to her, she's ready to go about her day. 

  

hans silvester

 

 

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SEEING QUADROPHENIA THE FIRST TIME ON A BLUE MOON

judy

 

It is the night of the Blue Moon, a very early Elvis Presley song on the Sun label. It was in this time, and his recordings in 1956, that got him the name, the King. Colonel Parker latched onto his million-dollar baby, Hollywood next and the end of Elvis for me. From then on, he was a glittery spectacle of his fame. I digress. The Blue Moon made a good song. I've seen facebook posts about the Blue Moon like it's something cosmic, a once-in-a-lifetime event in the sky. It hasn't happened since three years ago. Wow. Cosmic. It is the Blue Moon, not because it's blue, but it is the second full moon in one calendar month. July had a full moon on the first and again on the thirty-first. That's it, the significance of the Blue Moon. It is not about the moon. It's about the calendar. The moon came first. The calendar we go by is not the original astrological calendar, but an overlay created by the human mind and collectively agreed upon. It's one of many, has no more significance than being the calendar we go by. It so happened this year two full moons occurred in the same month.

 

view from the deck

 

My friends, Lucas and Judy, are here. They like movies as much as I do and largely the same kinds. We watch movies together in the evenings when they visit the mountains. Both are retired now, this their first stay of a full week. They checked out several movies from the Emory library to bring along, plus my netflix movies and two they brought. Last night we put on Quadrophenia, the Who's second rock opera. We put it on not knowing what to expect. They had seen a stage performance of Tommy in New York and loved it. I had seen the film of Tommy and never connected with it. I had the album in its day, liked it, but it was a disappointment from the Who I wanted to listen to, like the Live at Leeds Who, the Who that rocked my world. None of us knew anything about Quadrophenia, except rock opera, which is no attraction for any of us. We put it on with an attitude it will probably be ok. If we don't like it, we have no lack of something else to see. It took charge of all three of us in the first minute, didn't let us go until the final scene and the credits. We sat gaping while the credits rolled wanting it not to be over.

 

 

view from the deck

 

My appreciation of Peter Townsend the artist skyrocketed while watching the story unfold. He conceived it, wrote the story, created the characters, composed the music and performed it. In my way of seeing, Townsend's is a Woody Allen kind of talent. The story involved teenage boys in London, Mods and Rockers, gangs that fought each other. The time was the Sixties, the Who playing on the radio. The soundtrack was a potpourri of Fifties and Sixties hits, like Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron, Louie Louie, Green Onions, the Kinks, as wide a variety as was played on the radio over the first decade of rock n roll. The characters in the story did not listen to American psychedelic rock, but bands like the Who that rock a song start to finish. The scene was pre-punk, just before punk broke loose. In the crowd of Mods, I thought I spotted Billy Idol in the role of the Bell Boy. He was ten years older than the scene, though didn't seem so, a Mod. Billy Idol was, himself, a Mod before the punk scene happened. His punk style was Mod. By the time of making the film, 1979, Billy Idol had been through the short-lived punk scene and was in New York and LA making hits, an injection of new London attitudes into American rock.

 

lucas gazes skyward

 

Not  many rock n roll movies are much as films, but this one made a dynamic rock n roll movie with a great soundtrack that was good to hear all the way through. I noticed a few humor moments, like the kid in the story had a photograph of Pete Townsend on a wall in his room, and a wall collage of nude women, and a poster of the Who. In the beginning, I was seeing one thing, a bunch of high school kids hanging out, doing what the young do. They rode about on motor scooters with a seat on the back for girlfriends. The girls were as much fun as the guys. One short girl with short blond hair could dance like she was born to dance. Others jerked about, while she was in flight. Eventually, I noticed the boys our friend whose story we're following ran with, Mods, one of them favored Roger Daltry, vocals with the Who. The one we're following favors Townsend. Another favored Entwistle, the bass player. And the fourth, Keith Moon, was characterized as their black drug dealer. Soon after I got it that these four guys were based in the guys in the band, a scene came up with the four of them gathered round talking. I wanted to give Peter Townsend a thumb-up, good story, great movie. I'd like to see it again before too long.

 

sparkles in the trees

photos by tj worthington

 

 

 

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MY GENERATION: FLAT TOP CATS AND DUNGAREE DOLLS

 

 

 

As I look at my generation with a cold eye, I don't see anything worth crowing about except rock n roll. I remember in high school believing my generation was going to be "awesome," really believing it, even feeling a pride in my generation. We were the first white people to use the word "cool" outside jazz circles. There were so many black people in the early years of rock n roll from the rhythm n blues angle that I believed this was the end of racism. Then came the time of civil rights protesting that had an air of righteousness about it. The emergence of Bob Dylan in the early Sixties was even more evidence that my generation was extraordinary. We who listened to Bob Dylan in his early years became convinced right away that he stood somewhere beyond the others. Dylan has been the pop star of my lifetime like Frank Sinatra was for my parents' generation. I've seen both in concert. Sinatra was dynamic in his style and Dylan was dynamic in his style. Sinatra sang. Dylan sang, wrote the lyrics, composed the music, played guitar, hand-picked his band, tours with the band every year. Sinatra was an artist as a performer and actor, Dylan an artist all the way around. Dylan blew my mind then, he blows my mind now. Mr Tambourine Man never gets old, nor does Sinatra singing Watertown.

 

bob dylan

 

 

My generation, like the musicians of the Sixties "classic rock," then "underground," meaning you couldn't hear it anywhere on the radio, and the musicians of Punk, that also was not played on the radio except college stations, they went Pfitzzzz, shooting stars taken down by heroin. As was the case with the Be-bop jazz musicians the generation before, where the white kids picked up the word cool. I did jr hi and high school through the late Fifties. The music was my connection with the world outside home, school and church. Bill Haley convinced me my generation was cool, We're gonna rock around the clock tonight, we're gonna rock, rock, rock til the broad daylight, we're gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight. The poetry of my youth. Well I saw uncle John with bald-headed Sally, he saw aunt Mary comin and he duck back in the alley. I didn't get it til many years later that Long Tall Sally was about masturbation. Long Tall Sally was uncle John's wiener. Busted. I knew Edie Sedgwick was the "you" in Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone a long time before I got it about Long Tall Sally. That was the time in my life when I knew all the words to all Little Richard's songs, Chuck Berry songs, Bill Haley's and Buddy Holly's, esp Rave On. They are still with me. Can't leave out Ronnie Hawkins' Mary Lou, perhaps my favorite song of the whole period. I can pull up the words of any of those songs at will, as well as many others, like Heartbreak Hotel. Fifties lyrics are the poetry in my head.  

 

 

 

The music of that time was so great to a teenage kid coming up on radio music parents listened to, none of it resonating with me, though some of it I liked. Peggy Lee was pretty cool. When rock n roll happened, I found my heartbeat. The music was rebellious, just the way I felt, though had to internalize it, which I did with the songs in my head and listening to stations on the radio that played the new music. Bought 45s and had the next thing to a tin can to listen to them on. Didn't matter. We didn't know about CDs and Bose then. Anything was better than nothing. My generation has made great leaps in sciences, fields we know nothing about, because interest in the field rarely extends beyond participants. The same applies to poetry, theater, fiction, film making. The greatest rock n roll band in the world is my generation, the Rolling Stones. Then, of course, there is the Who's My Generation, Peter Townshend who pointed a finger toward Meher Baba with the Who's album, Tommy. Perhaps the greatest discovery of my generation is recreational drugs right there alongside rock n roll. The drugs have taken their toll on my generation, though most survived, all the wiser for having been through something really dangerous and come out the other end. My generation has also been one of embarrassing conformity. We grew up believing television propaganda, like all generations since.

 

pete townsend

 

In college, nobody wanted to grow up and be like their parents. Thirty years later I went to a reunion and thought I was back then in a big room full of everybody's parents. It was disheartening, but I already knew it. I was surrounded by people who bought the package I rejected. I meant it when I said I didn't want to be like my parents. The laugh for me after thirty years of living outside group-think by intent and many of those years living with hillbillies, adopting their vision, it was disconcerting to find myself in the midst of lawyers, doctors, judges, and their dolled-up wives, putting on the dog for each other in suits that cost more than the pickup I was driving, suburbanites good at cocktail party chatter. Some winters before, I had carried a newborn calf through sixteen inches of snow to the barn to put it on some hay. Mother would not follow. I carried calf back to mother to let her smell it, carried it back to the barn, mother didn't follow. I took some hay bales to the spot on the snow the calf was born and made a nest for it, carried the calf back from the barn to place it on the only spot mother recognized it. Sixteen inches of snow. I didn't feel less than any of the judges around me and didn't feel better. We had very different experiences behind us and very different ideas of how we want to live our lives. They paid people to mow their lawns more money than I made.

 

 

My goal over the last thirty-eight years has been to live in the world, not of the world. It took several years to figure out what "the world" meant to my satisfaction. What I've come to is that the human mind is "the world." Creations of the mind constitute the world. Conformity is living of the world. Anti-conformity is living of the world. I'm not the only one of my generation who has stepped outside living of the world. We ask more of ourselves along the way through life than what channel is playing Cheers reruns. Maybe. That's a little high-sounding. Let's just say my generation has an awful lot of us who go our own way for our own reasons, checked out of the System consciously, however we individually interpret the System, uninterested in playing the climbing game, the status game, the money game. We leave that merry-go-round so we can have another ride of our preference, Ferris wheel, rollercoaster. In my case, I've rarely made over minimum wage, never wanted more, did not want to need to be an accountant just to live my life. I never wanted to live in a suburb where the houses are slight variations of each other and the mailbox out by the road needs to be housed in a brick structure because of kids bashing mailboxes on Saturday nights. I'd rather listen to the call of the crows, the tweet of the towhee, the buzzing sound chickadees make, the tree frogs, fiddle and banjo music, and conversation with my friends at the coffee shop in Sparta. Am in a place now where I want my life in first person instead of third person.   

the roan mountain hilltoppers

 

 

 

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