Won't Get Fooled Again: The Who From Lifehouse to Quadrophenia

Last night I finished reading Won't Get Fooled Again: The Who From Lifehouse to Quadrophenia and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the book. In fact, I may at some point read it again.

What I particularly liked was the second half which was dedicated to the making of the 1973 album Quadrophenia. The author, Richie Unterberger, goes into great detail about the production of the record; Pete Townshend's explanation of the story of Jimmy and the mods; and the recording process.

He also explains how some of the sound effects were recorded. For example, the train whistle was obtained by giving a driver of a train five pounds to blow the train's whistle as he pulled out of a railroad station. Also, an actual newscaster was convinced to read on-air the part about the mods and rockers rioting, in Orson Welles fashion of course.

The first half discusses Lifehouse, which never materialized as a concept album, but rather many of the songs formed the 1971 album Who's Next.

Won't Get Fooled Again: The Who From Lifehouse to Quadrophenia goes into great detail about Pete Townshend's difficulty in explaining Lifehouse to the other band members and the group's management. At that time Pete was trying to follow up the hugely successful 1969 Tommy album and the futuristic Lifehouse ended up driving a huge wedge between Pete and manager Kit Lambert who had been so key in the consummation of Tommy. During this time period the band would drop Lambert and co-manager Chris Stamp and go with Bill Curbishley (who they still use to this day) because apparently money was missing, not because Lambert and Stamp were thieves, but because the two had gotten so deeply involved in drugs.

By the way, the book's cover (pictured above) is of Pete in his home studio where he recorded the demos for Lifehouse.

Unterberger also explains the thinking behind using Glyn Johns as the producer for Who's Next, but not using him for Quadrophenia.

As I wrote earlier in this post, I can definitely see myself reading this book again and at the very least I absolutely will refer back to it from time to time.