Word: townshend
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...sound track comes rushing out of a four-track stereo system that manages to give the exhilarating sensation of total immersion in sound. Joe Cocker gives a gutsy, driving interpretation of the Beatles' With a Little Help from My Friends. Performing part of the rock opera Tommy, Peter Townshend of The Who tames his guitar like some wild electronic animal, while Santana makes the theater seats vibrate, and Alvin Lee of Ten Years After comes close to tearing down the movie screen. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sound slightly out of tune ("It's only our second gig," says...
...quote (from Peter Townshend of the Who): "Unchanneled or misdirected energy is incredibly wasteful in pop music. Like the Beatles know how to channel their energy. I'm convinced that there's not a lot actually coming out, it's just that we get all of it." That's the first thing. The Beatles not only generate enormous energy, but they direct it in a carefully chosen and strictly limited manner so that nothing is wasted. They never overreach and whatever they choose to give us comes out intensely focused, as penetrating and overwhelming as a laser beam...
...examine the limits and variances in perception. It is such an inquiry into ourselves that is at the roots of Deaf Dumb and Blind Boy. Suppose a person has none of the normal mechanisms of perception; in what terms will be formulate his understanding of the world? Peter Townshend's answer is that the world is understood wholly in terms of vibrations, perceived through the sense of touch I presume. Thus, his recreation of the story of a particular deaf, dumb, and blind boy is wholly musical. He is seeking not only to imagine what such a person is like...
...sound. People go to their concerts to try to see how they make all those noises with so few instruments. Its hard to describe, but the breaks in their sound awfully formless and abstract, but deep down they consist of just a hard drum beat, a loud bass, and Townshend's amazing chorded rhythm or lead guitar. They use virtually no sophisticated recording tricks. I guess the thing is that they have retained all of the normal apparatus of a regular old rock and roll band, but their sound is unique. The only two groups that have done remakes...
...lives and motivations of the individuals who are being discussed--usually in the first person--in the songs. In Sinatra, the situations are very realistic--a man writing a letter to his wife who has left him, or something like that. In the Who the situations are very strange. Townshend has a very strange head. Some of the lyrics make no sense internally. "I'm a Boy" is about a boy whose parents insist that he is a girl, and he wants to act like a boy, but he's afraid. Why? Well, the thing about Who songs is that...