Amazing Journey in Hollywood, Florida Video

This song from the Tommy album really works very well live. Some songs no matter who the performer is don't always make it, but this one absolutely does.

Substitute Hyde Park Calling Video

I've wanted to get this on DVD but the Hyde Park DVD is not compatible with players made in the U.S. Don't get why, but that's what I read. Oh well, thank God for YouTube.

Roger Daltrey "Going Mobile" Hollywood, Florida Video

This song - "Going Mobile" - was always very unique. It was on the Who's Next album and on that version only featured Keith Moon and John Entwistle with Pete Townshend on vocals but it still achieved an incredibly rich sound. The above video is from Daltrey's solo tour this past fall in which Pete' brother Simon takes the lead on vocals.

Bargain in Florida Video

A Who classic from the Who's Next album being performed in Florida.

Pete Townshend "Postcard" Video

As most Who fans know, Pete Townshend wrote most of the band's songs. However, John Entwistle also contributed some very good tracks. "Postcard" is off of the Odds & Sods album.

Pete Townshend and Deep End Live - "Stop Hurting People"

This is another good song by Pete Townshend which he performs with Deep End live at the Brixton Academy in London in 1985.

Politicians and certain holier-than-thou groups of people should take the advice of this song.

Pete Townshend Discusses Rough Mix

Cool excerpt of an interview on YouTube in which Pete Townshend discusses the Rough Mix album which he did with Ronnie Lane. The interviewer stated the interview would last an hour, but I couldn't find the other parts. Still, some pretty interesting stuff from Townshend; one of the best interviews in rock.

My Generation Remix

The Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am and fomer Guns N' Roses' guitarist Slash have done a remix of The Who's "My Generation," which will air during the Super Bowl and then go on sale on iTunes. Proceeds will go to Haiti.

Billboard has the story, just click this.

The Who's Super Setlist

The Who's Pete Townshend revealed to Billboard what the band will be playing at the Super Bowl. From Billboard:

"We're kinda doing a mashup of stuff," the guitarist tells Billboard. "A bit of 'Baba O'Riley,' a bit of 'Pinball Wizard,' a bit of the close of 'Tommy,' a bit of 'Who Are You,' and a bit of 'Won't Get Fooled Again.' It works -- it's quite a saga. A lot of the stuff that we do has that kind of celebratory vibe about it -- we've always tried to make music that allows the audience to go a bit wild if they want to. Hopefully it will hit the spot."

The entire story can be read here.

Pete Townshend "The Kids Are Alright"

I'm sure Pete Townshend was going to play "The Kids Are Alright" anyway, but it's funny that someone yelled out a request for the song and then Pete said "he would play that." It's always funny when fans scream out song requests as if the band or musician doesn't have a setlist to follow. Anyway, this is a nice solo version I found on YouTube.

Pete Townshend and Jakob Dylan "The Kids Are Alright"

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Bob Dylan's son Jakob joined Pete on this version of "The Kids Are Alright." Jakob is the lead singer of The Wallflowers. I give him credit for going into the same business as his legendary father. Inevitably people would compare Jakob to his dad, which is completely unfair given the fact that Bob Dylan is one of the best songwriters ever.

Jack Black Honors The Who

In late December 2008, The Who became the first rock band to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. Jack Black paid tribute to the band with the above video.

Pete Townshend - Eminence Front

"Eminence Front" was a song on The Who's It's Hard album, which was released in 1982. The song is basically about people at a party ignoring the world's problems and reveling in their hedonistic lifestyle; which I suppose excess and cocaine use were a hallmark of the 1980s. It's Hard was the last Who album to feature bassist John Entwistle and drummer Kenney Jones, who had replaced Keith Moon after his death in 1978. Jones formerly played with the Small Faces and the The Faces.

The above video is of Pete Townshend performing the song in New York in 1993. Entwistle's "replacement" - sorry no one can replace "The Ox" - Pino Palladino is on bass with Simon Phillips on drums.

Pete Townshend - Keep Me Turning

In 1977, Pete Townshend did an album called Rough Mix with Ronnie Lane; bassist for the Small Faces and later The Faces. Lane was having financial problems and went to Pete for some money. I suppose in an act of tough love, Pete proposed doing an album instead of loaning money to Lane. It's a really good and underrated work by Townshend. The interesting thing is that the two did not collaborate on any songs together as they each wrote their own stuff. In fact, Townshend has co-written very few songs with anyone.

"Keep me Turning" is one of the songs Townshend penned on the record.

Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts and John Entwistle all played on the album.

Sadly, Ronnie Lane passed away due to complications from M.S. in 1997.

Pete Townshend "Now and Then" and "Going Up the Country"

In the summer of 1998, Pete Townshend performed at “A Day in the Garden,” which was a three-day festival in Bethel, New York on the site of the original Woodstock Concert. The above video is of Townshend performing “Now and Then” which is off of his solo concept album, Psycoderelict. He then follows up with a performance of “Going Up the Country” with Taj Mahal.

Richie Havens, Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks and many others performed at the festival.

The Who "I Can't Explain"

Forty-five years ago today The Who released their first hit single, "I Can't Explain" in the U.K. I've read reports that Jimmy Page played rhythm guitar on the song, but I had always heard he played on "Bald Headed Woman" which appeared on the "B" side of the record. Regardless, up until this time The Who (momentarily the High Numbers) were only covering American blues songs, so this is Pete Townshend's first soiree into the songwriting biz.

The song would eventually replace "Heaven and Hell" as the band's concert opener.

Below is one of the final performances of "I Can't Explain" by The Who's original lineup. It took place Live at Kilburn (which is actually spelled with one L) in 1977:

Pete Townshend and The Shout

I recently came across a cool message board for fans of Pete Townshend. It's called "The Shout" and is located at http://www.ukmajortom.demon.co.uk/theshout.html or by clicking this. There's plenty of news and discussion on Pete Townshend and some good links to other rock Websites.

The Sea Refuses No River

In 1982, Pete Townshend put out a solo album called All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. One of my favorite songs on the record is “The Sea Refuses No River.” He performed the song above with his "Deep End" live band at London's Brixton Academy in November 1985.

Deep End consisted of David Gilmour; drummer Simon Phillips; bassist Chucho Merchan; percussionist Jody Linscott; keyboardist John 'Rabbit' Bundrick; backing vocalists Billy Nicholls, Cleveland Watkiss and Chyna; and a five-piece brass ensemble called The Kick Horns.

Pete's daughter, Emma, also did backing vocals in the above video.

I've always admired the ability of Townshend to be very introspective and brutally honest in his writing, while still leaving room for the listener to guess what the song is actually about. That is definitely on display in the lyrics of this song.

Pete Townshend Scoop

I'll put Pete Townshend's Scoop album up against anything I've ever listened to and incredibly these are a collection of Townshend's demos. The album is sheer brilliance and gives a different take on some of Pete's solos and songs by The Who. The above song is a favorite of mine, "Mary." I remember when I picked up this CD and just not really grasping the concept that these great songs were only demos. Hey what I can tell you, they didn't have Wikipedia back then. Scoop was released on vinyl in 1983 and later on CD in 1989.

Pete Townshend Cares

The above video is of Pete Townshend performing “Can You Help the One You Really Love” which is from Lifehouse; the aborted project that was supposed to follow up Tommy. Many of the songs from Lifehouse were used for the 1971 Who’s Next album.

One of the quotes below the video on YouTube says it all:
"He says more in this song than almost all rock music has said all through the entire sixties and seventies."

How accurate that statement is.

As far as helping people goes, Pete actually has helped many people. As recently as 2008, The Who played a show in Detroit - which has an estimated 50% unemployment rate - and all profits went to Focus: HOPE (a non-profit civil and human rights organization) and Gleaners Community Food Bank.

Some detractors - and boy are there enough of those in this world - will say that all celebrities donate to charity because it is a tax writeoff. First off, I don't know that ALL celebs are philanthropic and secondly Townshend personally sold fund-raising anti-heroin T-shirts at a bunch of U.K. Bruce Springsteen concerts in 1984.

The Genius of Pete Townshend

This is “Unused Piano,” which is a Pete Townshend demo that was never used for the Quadrophenia album, but ended up on Scoop – a CD collection of Townshend demos that are really remarkable...as is the musician.

The Who Giveaway

The Barnes & Noble Website has two offers: win a trip to see the SuperBowl and see The Who halftime show and they are also offering a chance to win a Gibson SG Guitar that has been played by the great Pete Townshend. The link is here.

You can also guess the band's setlist at the big game here.

As much as I would like to go the Super Bowl, I would actually prefer winning the guitar!

Pete Townshend Month

I’ve decided to honor Pete Townshend all month here on my blog. Why? Why not. Besides, with the labeling function on Blogger it gives me the chance to group some cool stuff all under one heading.

This first clip is the close to "Won't Get Fooled Again" at Live Aid in 1985.