HOLLYWOOD DREAM PART 2

To Third Man Records on Marshall Street in Soho, to hear Pete Townshend talk about Thunderclap Newman alongside Mark Ian Wilkerson, author of Hollywood Dream, a biography of the band that I reviewed on Just Backdated in August.

It’s a fairly exclusive event, limited to 40, all of whom have some connection with the author or the trio that hit number one in June 1969 with that wonderful single ‘Something In The Air’, which Pete produced. We are gathered in a small basement, sat on ten rows of bench seats, four to a row, and at 7.30pm last night Mark and Pete took their places at the front of the room, sat down and spoke to us as we listened in hushed contemplation. 

Pete Townshend might look a bit older these days, with what remains of his hair now silver, but his eyes are as bright blue and piercing as ever and that mind of his shows no signs of stagnating. As was the case all those years ago when I interviewed him more than once for Melody Maker, ask him a question and he’s away, riffing on the answer, spreading out his thoughts, veering off into areas only tangentially connected with the issue and chucking in a tale of two, often amusing, sometimes harsh, occasionally giving the impression that he has a bone to pick and here’s an opportunity to gnaw it dry. 

        His memory is still top-top. He recalled how when Track Records was launched it was his role to find acts for the label, preferably oddities like Tiny Tim, whom he failed to sign, and Arthur Brown, whom he did. Pianist Andy Newman was certainly an oddity and he teamed him up with John ‘Speedy’ Keen, who’d been working as his driver and become, in his words, “his best friend” in those days, which was 1967, and Jimmy McCulloch, a pint-sized guitarist he’d encountered at a Who concert in Greenock in 1965. McCulloch was 12 at the time.

        A year passed before this unlikely trip assembled in London, specifically at Pete’s Thames-side house in Twickenham where they recorded the LP Hollywood Dream which included that hit single. Pete was voluminous in his praise for Keen whom he regarded as an excellent drummer, a bit like Charlie Watts in that he played a fraction of a second behind the beat, thus giving the group an edge that he found inspiring. Under the pseudonym Bijou Drains, he became Thunderclap Newman’s bass player, of course, but it was the camaraderie within the group that he enjoyed the most. 

        “I felt I was just part of a group,” he said, or words to that effect (I didn’t take notes). “Even more so than The Who which I was the leader of, in a way, because I wrote all the songs and made those demos that they copied. I didn’t write for Thunderclap Newman. I was just their bassist and producer. Speedy did and he was a great songwriter, though he was better at coming up with titles than actual songs.”

        Oddly, Pete spoke far more about Keen than he did about Newman and McCulloch, revealing that Keen played drums on some of his Who demos. Also, he seemed to have hardened his position with regard to the nefarious behaviour of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp who, as well as managing The Who, were the businessmen behind Track Records. “I never saw a penny from ‘Something In The Air’,” he told everyone. “Neither did the band. The Who and Track were managed by crooks, and one of them bought a palace in Venice with the money they should have passed on to us. We – The Who – were supposed to have shares in Track but we didn’t see a penny.”

        Such sentiments were delivered with a degree of passion but, as ever, Pete was able to switch gears quickly and return to the subject in hand. He regretted the collapse of the Newman band, and felt that when Keen stopped playing drums and became their front man, singing and playing guitar, the unique characteristics of the group were lost and they became “just another band”. In any case, he had too many other things on his plate.

        Alongside Pete, Mark Wilkerson had the easiest job in the world as an interviewer. Still, he was fulsome in his praise for the time Pete gave him during his research on the book and Pete, in turn, was magnanimous about the book which, it has to be said, is extraordinary comprehensive, as I point out on my review. (https://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2024/08/hollywood-dream-thunderclap-newman.html)

        At the end of the evening Pete and Ian signed books and though I’d left mine at home I joined the queue – behind Pete’s Ealing Art College mate Richard Barnes as it happened – and when I reached the front I asked Pete about something that was on my mind regarding Speedy Keen. “Tell me Pete,” I asked. “That song Speedy wrote for Sell Out. Is it ‘Armenia City In The Sky’ or ‘I’m An Ear, Sitting In The Sky’?”

    “The second choice,” he replied. “I’m An Ear, Siting In The Sky’.”

    Not sure whether I believe him but it’s always nice to spend an hour in the company of Pete Townshend. 

(The picture at the top of this post, with CC between Mark and Pete, was taken by a friendly girl with my camera, the inferior one of Mark and Pete by me, from the second row.)

PETE TOWNSHEND - Who Came First

Here’s another old Who-related review of mine that I found in The Who Article Archive, this one from Melody Maker dated October 14, 1972, my review of Who Came First, Pete Townshend’s first officially released solo LP. At the time it wasn’t generally known that The Who’s modus operandi was for Pete to record demos of his songs, on which he sang and played all the instruments, that were then circulated to Roger, John and Keith to learn from prior to recording.

         Neither was I aware at the time that the LP was recorded as a response to MCA’s belief that the two albums Pete had recorded privately for release only to followers of Meher Baba had been bootlegged. Evidently MCA, The Who's US label, persuaded Pete that the best way to combat these was to record an ‘official’ solo LP, and this explains its copious references to Baba.

         I still have my original vinyl Track LP, no doubt the one I listened to as I made notes 48 years ago. It’s in remarkably good condition too, which suggests I didn’t play it all that much. Oddly, it is credited to ‘Peter Townshend’ on the spine but ‘Pete Townshend’ on the label. A new CD I have, with six additional tracks, is credited to ‘Pete’.

PETER TOWNSHEND. Who Came First (Track). Whatever else one feels about this album, it REALLY is a solo album in the strict sense of the word. When Rod Stewart and a heap of other make solo albums – good though they may be – they seem to collect a huge cluster of musicians to help them, and the more musicians helping the less solo the albums get to be.

         But here Pete Townshend has done virtually everything himself with one or two slight exceptions. Apart from brief appearances by Ronnie Lane, of Faces fame, and Caleb Quaye, of Hookfoot, and occasional assistance in the writing by other followers of Meher Baba, Pete has done everything himself – sung, written, played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and synthesisers, and engineered, mixed and produced the whole thing. It really IS a solo album.

         While Townshend could doubtless have recruited some of the best rock musicians in the world to help him, he’s decided to do the lot himself – and as a result it sounds a bit thin here and there compared to the guts of The Who. Pete isn’t the best singer in the world, neither is he the best drummer and it’s on these two points that the album loses marks. But it picks up a load of marks on the songs, the simple but effective guitar picking throughout and on the general feeling of the record which is dedicated to Meher Baba, the religious guru who, apparently, changed Pete’s outlook on life so dramatically.

         Highlights are ‘Pure And Easy’, a song that sounds rather like the closing bars of ‘The Song Is Over’ on the Who’s Next LP, and the ever so laid back version of ‘Let’s See Action’ which is far superior to The Who’s single. Ronnie Lane takes the vocal on ‘Evolution’, a Lane composition, which is C&W influenced, and Caleb Quaye is on lead guitar on’ Forever Is No Time At All’, another goodie.

         It’s on side two that the standard seems to falter. It just doesn’t seem right, somehow, to hear Pete Townshend, the gymnast guitarist supreme, singing ‘There’s A Heartache Following Me’, titled here as ‘Heartache’, which was one of Baba’s favourite songs. ‘Sheraton Gibson’ is a pleasant little number, not unlike ‘Going Mobile’. ‘Content’ and ‘Parvardigar’ are really strictly for Baba followers. If it’s Pete’s intention to turn people on to Baba through the album, they are the all-important tracks. They are not unlike psalms with Pete airing them – as he says himself – like Vera Lynn.

         The words to ‘Parvardigar’ are beautiful but it clashes head on with the sleeve photo of Pete in which he resembles a character from A Clockwork Orange in his white boiler suit. I honestly can’t take the album too seriously. The more I play it, however, the more I like it – but is isn’t the Pete Townshend who dominates the stage like no other guitarist in rock.

THE AGE OF ANXIETY – by Pete Townshend

I’m not in the habit of reviewing fiction on Just Backdated but I’ll make an exception with this one for obvious reasons. No stranger to the written word, in 1985 Townshend released a slim volume of his short stories under title Horse’s Neck, and in 2012 there was his autobiography, Who I Am, which followed a book on Tommy he co-authored in 1997. He’s contributed to many more, written sleeve notes[1] and magazine articles galore, probably more than any other rock performer of his stature, and I was delighted when he wrote a preface for Tommy At 50, which I co-authored with Mike McInnerney for publication in May of this year.

         And now, in a tradition established by Nick Cave and Morrissey, Townshend has written a full-length novel, described by its publisher as ‘an extended meditation of the manic genius and the dark art of creativity’. But do not let this rather grandiloquent bit of blurb lead you into thinking the book is a hard-going literary slog. On the contrary, it’s quite a page turner, especially in the final stretch when secrets alluded to earlier are revealed and characters must face the consequences of their actions.

         Astute readers would have detected all sorts of oblique Who references in Horse’s Neck and it will come as no surprise that The Age Of Anxiety draws on Townshend’s life and career. The novel is set in the world of modern music where drug taking, promiscuity and internal band rows, often stemming from inflated egos, are rife. In this respect, it’s an inside look into the mind of a creative musician and how others in his life, not least the women that surround him, impact on the decisions he makes. 

         Without giving too much away, Walter is a young rock singer who, aspiring to inject deeper meaning into his work, seeks the advice of an older rock star, Paul, who has opted for the life of a hermit in the Lake District. Paul tells Walter to step back, and the resulting vacuum creates a set of circumstances a bit like Syd Barrett’s withdrawal from Pink Floyd. Nothing feeds myths and legends better than renunciation of all that is worldly in the rock’n’roll business.  

         All this is told from the point of view of the narrator, Louis, an art dealer whose extended family and social circle includes both Walter and Paul, and also some strong female characters – two sexy Irish sisters and their equally sexy friend Florence, nicknamed Floss[2]. All are portrayed as beautiful and a bit mysterious, with artistic backgrounds steeped in enigmatic ambiguity that demands an explanation.

         The sisters, Siobhan and Selena, together with Floss, are all involved romantically with the musicians in one way or another, as is the narrator and his estranged wife, and while there’s a hint of soap opera to all this bedroom activity, Townshend’s literary skills, his attention to detail and the often amusing dialogue keep the plot moving and the book from descending into an airport romance. Vivid descriptions of hallucinations and ear-splitting sounds regularly punctuate the text, all of which reminded me of the racket that The Who once made at the end of their shows, especially when their guitarist felt his equipment would benefit from a good hammering.

         There’s allusions to the rock star’s dilemma at various points, with the book promoting the viewpoint that the burden of celebrity is only partially balanced by the rewards it brings. When Walter says he feels a connection with the people down the front, I was reminded of how Townshend once said his worst nightmare was to be playing the same songs to the same people night after night. Another character, the die-hard purist in Walter’s band, says: “We aren’t the fucking Who. We don’t fucking sell out.” I couldn’t work out whether this was an allusion to the Who album of that name, or the ongoing debate about whether the group in its current configuration was entitled to call itself The Who or not. Either way, it reflects the author’s sense of humour.

         Various plot lines involving musical ambition, romantic attachments and the need to resolve questions of parenthood all coalesce in the closing chapters when most of the characters gather for Walter’s band’s big concert in Hyde Park. There’s a twist or two in the tale towards the end, an unlikely, unexpected coincidence, and the build-up to the denouement is skilfully wrought, so much so that I was genuinely unable to put the book down as I raced through the final pages.

         The Age Of Anxiety, an unusually appropriate title in the present unsettled political climate, is more than just a novel. It has been conceived as a musical work, with 40 songs already composed, and the film rights have already been sold. If part one of this project, the novel, is anything to go by, Townshend – an artist whose ambition really does seem boundless – has another winner on his hands.

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[1] Unless I’m mistaken the first text that Townshend published was his Melody Maker column which ran from August 1970 to April 1971. 

[2] Townshend followers will recognise this as the name of an ongoing project to which he has been alluding for several years, so The Age of Anxiety is actually Floss with a new name.