Who release first single in ages

[Albert Tatlock]

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey tell 'IoS' about the 11-minute rock opera that will be basis of new musical

By Anthony Barnes, Arts and Media Correspondent

Published: 04 June 2006

Since The Who last troubled the top 40, the musical landscape has been reshaped by hip-hop, dance music and grunge. But now the band is set to return virtually untouched by the vagaries of fashion - by releasing an 11-minute rock opera as its first single for a quarter of a century.

 

At such a length, the track "Wire & Glass" will be one of the longest singles ever to make the charts - but its colossal duration means it will struggle to get airplay on mainstream radio.

 

Guitarist Pete Townshend has insisted the track should be issued complete and unedited when it is released next month as a taster for the band's first new album since 1982. "This new release is the first truly creative piece from The Who for nearly 25 years," he said.

 

It will dwarf other epic releases such as the once ground-breaking Bob Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone", which, at six minutes, was almost twice as long as most other pop hits of the mid-1960s, and "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was a mere five minutes and 55 seconds long. Townshend is now in talks to adapt the story as a stage musical and animation.

 

The single, which tells the story of a teenage band that finds global fame through the internet, is a condensed version of a half-hour rock opera - also called Wire & Glass - which will form the centrepiece of the band's new album, to be released on the Polydor label in October.

 

The band has not had the easiest of rides over the past few years. Bass player John Entwistle died in a Las Vegas hotel in 2002, and the following year Townshend was cautioned after he admitted accessing child pornography while researching a book.

 

Townshend's mini-opera grew out of a novel he wrote called The Boy Who Heard Music, which he published on his website. Needing inspiration for new material for a Who tour this summer, Townshend hit upon the idea of using the tale as the basis for his new songs.

"I was able to quickly scratch out a lyrical synopsis. This comprised seven or eight short lyric poems," he said. "I took into account none of the depth, background or complexity of the story. In a way, I deliberately skipped over what I had explored and elaborated in my 'novella', and just grabbed at whatever came into my mind as I sat with pen and paper. Quickly I found I had enough coherent lyrics to comprise a short song-cycle or 'mini-opera'. I had about 30 minutes of music that would create a vigorous backbone for the Who album, but allow me to continue to draw on the blood-line of The Boy Who Heard Music."

 

Townshend has previously written full-length rock operas with Tommy and Quadrophenia, which were both turned into hit films. The musician, who will premi

[Welsh Rich]

I read this yesterday... could be interesting... I hope it's good, but at 11 minutes it's going to go on a bit!

 

I also own the Orb's Blue Room... great track and single!

[suites]

Charts........reminds me of when Jim Mora said........"playoffs". They got no chance to get any song on the charts including a 3 minute one. That being said, I will at least give it a listen, but my hopes are not very high.

[tongue-tied lightning]

I'm crossing me fingers Pete has found some magic

[Analogman]

They are actually going to release an EP and then a whole album.

[borracho]

didn't they have 1 or 2 new songs a few years back on a greatest hits? or am I thinking of someone else?

[Analogman]

Yes

[quarter23cd]

The single, which tells the story of a teenage band that finds global fame through the internet, is a condensed version of a half-hour rock opera

 

...maybe it will sound better in execution than it does on paper.

[Analogman]

http://www.petetownshend.co.uk/

 

 

http://www.longliverock.org/downloads/index.php

 

I have a fully functioning Post Office Box for personal mail at the following address.

 

Box 305

Twickenham

TW1 1TT

United Kingdom

 

All my mail is opened by my PA, even that delivered to my home address, offices and studios that some people have discovered, and at certain busy times I do fail to reply personally to letters I would very much like to deal with. For that I am sorry in advance. Anonymous mail is destroyed before it reaches me. This includes any mail with no return address or Box Number.

 

 

His website is a good place to read news straight from him -

[imsjry]

didn't they have 1 or 2 new songs a few years back on a greatest hits?

 

 

Yes and both were God-awful!

[mountain bed]

The B-Side is gonna be called "The Claritin Allergy Song"

I'll hope for the best here but my respect for these guys went down the tubes years ago.

[Albert Tatlock]

Live at Leeds: Who's best...

Their 1970 performance, before 2,000 students at a university refectory, produced what has been described as the best live album of all time. Now Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey are to return to the site of their rock masterpiece. Ian Herbert reports

Published: 07 June 2006 - The Independent

 

It was with a sense of anxiety as well as fervour that the Leeds University student union awaited the arrival of its latest big-name band, The Who, on St Valentine's Day, 1970.

 

A newly purchased stage ensured that Townshend, Daltrey and Co would not have to jump up on tables to perform, as some previous bands had done. But there were serious concerns about the group's 10 massive amplifiers, the like of which had never been seen before in the student refectory which doubled up as a rock venue. "We stacked the amps on dining tables, five each side of the stage, and hoped for the best," recalls John Standerline, one of the university entertainments committee which received the band that day.

 

Happily, the amps did remain intact, delivering the mighty, primal sounds which, though Leeds did not know it at the time, were to assume a seminal part in rock history. The furious three-hour concert in the refectory that Saturday night was recorded for The Who's legendary Live at Leeds album, which is still considered by many critics to be the best live album made and an inspiration to the heavy metal genre. It is also common consensus that Townshend's searing, improvised guitar solos during a 15-minute take on My Generation have never been bettered.

 

Now, minus their drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978, and John Entwistle, the bassist who died four years ago, they are to make a return pilgrimage. The university announced yesterday that Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey would kick off The Who's forthcoming world tour later this month with another gig in the refectory. The legends will also unveil a local civic trust blue plaque at the venue to mark the 1970 gig.

 

The inspiration for Live at Leeds II is Andy Kershaw, who was entertainments officer at the university for two years in the early 1980s before pursuing his BBC career. Kershaw found himself in conversation on the refectory stage with the university's vice-chancellor, Professor Michael Arthur, last year, after receiving an honorary doctorate in music. He was informed of the plans for the blue plaque and two weeks later, a chance encounter with The Who's manager Bill Curbishley at Womad - Peter Gabriel's festival of world music, arts and dance - led to an approach to Townshend, 60, and Daltrey, 61.

 

Both musicians are said to be delighted by the idea of returning to the refectory, the compact, low-ceilinged art deco building which became one of Britain's most improbable rock venues in the 1960s and has remained one ever since. "Doctor Andy, I'm really excited about this," Townshend told Kershaw in a recent e-mail, which revealed that Kershaw's doctorate is evidently taking some living down.

 

"Both of these musicians have a real grasp of the historical and emotional significance of them coming back," Kershaw said yesterday. "They are doing this because they want to do it, not because they are going to make any money out if it. It will be the starting point for a tour which will take in football stadiums and baseball stadiums across Britain and the US." Fittingly, the band will be supported by the mod rockers Casbah Club, featuring Pete Townshend's younger brother, Simon, as guitarist and vocalist, when they play the venue a week on Saturday.

 

The refectory, a long, narrow room where Leeds students have dined since 1955, had its share of big names before The Who rolled into town. Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin had all gone before. But few groups were making waves quite like Daltrey, Townshend, Moon and Entwistle. The Leeds concert came on the back of the band's success at Woodstock, broadcast to the world in an accompanying documentary film, where they performed much of their rock opera Tommy. A live album had remained beyond them, though. The group balked at the idea of wading through recordings from their American tour to produce one, so decided to make one at a British concert. The band's appearance at Hull on 13 February seemed the perfect opportunity and the concert which made Leeds a household name might have been called Live at Hull, had the line connecting the bass guitar to the tape recorder been working properly on Humberside. It was not - and the concert at Leeds, which was arranged at just two weeks' notice, suddenly assumed a huge significance.

For a time it seemed the Leeds concert was destined to go the same way. "During the afternoon, we realised that the recording would need double the electricity that was available," recalls Simon Grogan, an ents officer, who secured the gig for the university and went on to work for Chrysalis before swapping music for a life as a sheep farmer in Scotland. "Luckily, two students on the committee were technical whiz kids and got the problem sorted."

 

The band launched the concert with "Can't Explain" and "Substitute" moving on to Townshend's masterpiece Tommy. With two hours' furious music behind them, there was no let up. "Summertime Blues", "Shaking All Over" and "My Generation" were to follow.

 

A delirious audience must have helped. The gig had prompted 6am queues at the student union that day. Even the queues became a story for the university newspaper, which reported on "a rota system for leaving the queue to warm up" which was in operation. The 11s 6d tickets (

[tongue-tied lightning]

The Who camp is flush with activity as the band prepares to kick off its summer European tour Saturday (June 17) at Leeds University, the site of its iconic 1970 concert album "Live at Leeds." A number of rarely played old songs have been reintroduced to the band's live set thanks to "special requests from fans."

 

According to guitarist Pete Townshend's Web site, they include "Relay," "The Seeker," "Another Tricky Day," "Naked Eye," "Bargain, "I'm a Boy," "Let's See Action" and "Tattoo," plus the obscure "Cry if You Want," from the Who's final studio album, 1982's "It's Hard."

 

The artist is also promising more rarities (including his ukulele song "Blue, Red and Gray") to be rolled out one by one by the time the Who hits North America later this year. Venues are still being nailed down, but that portion of the outing will run from Sept. 7-Oct. 10 and Nov. 5-Dec. 5.

 

Townshend said he is particularly excited to feature the band's new mini-opera, "Wire & Glass," in the shows. The six-song suite ("Sound Round," "Pick up the Peace," "Endless Wire," "We Got a Hit," "They Made My Dreams Come True" and "Mirror Door") will be released July 10 internationally as a teaser to the Who's as-yet-untitled new studio album, which he says will be delivered in completed form June 28 to Polydor, the band's international record label.

 

"We are playing it. It sounds great," Townshend said of the "Wire & Glass" material. "It's new, and that feels strange. We haven't played anything new for such a long time, but it's also familiar -- I remember playing new songs to audiences who were really unsure they wanted to hear them. This selection is 11 minutes long, we will blast through it, and if the crowd gets distracted they can buy our fabulous merchandising."

 

 

Ever the iconoclast, Townshend has hinted at, but not revealed, "a very cool idea for how to launch our new record using the Web. If we can pull it off it will entirely change the way the music industry operates. If you are a Russian or Chinese Internet music seller, or a bootlegger, and you are refusing to pay a share of what you charge your customers to the artists who made the music, my cunning plan will ruin your year."

[LouieB]

The B-Side is gonna be called "The Claritin Allergy Song"

I'll hope for the best here but my respect for these guys went down the tubes years ago.

I love the Who, but if I hear one more fucking Who song in an ad, I am going Elvis on my TV I swear.....

 

LouieB

[bobfrombob]

They've done more than enough over the past 10 years or so to make it hard for me to remain a fan. However, they're playing Leeds this weekend (as in Live at Leeds, 30 years ago). I would love a ticket to that.

[Albert Tatlock]

The Who

 

Leeds University

Dave Simpson Monday June 19, 2006 The Guardian

 

Hours after a blue plaque is unveiled to mark the site of the original Live at Leeds gig in 1970, Pete Townshend steps up to the mic to make his own carefully considered historical announcement.

"You are wank!" he declares, to shrieks of laughter. "Rock'n'roll!" someone shouts in the audience, as the band deliver what people came for. For anyone (under 50) who has grown up with the Who in stadiums, encountering them in a venue this size - Leeds University's refectory - feels like being put in a field with a wild animal after years of visiting the zoo. The first six songs are a ferocious blitzkrieg that prompt suspicions that this may actually be Live at Leeds all over again. However, minus the late John Entwistle and Keith Moon (though with Zak Starkey ably filling the Loon's drum stool), Townshend and Roger Daltrey are clearly wary of comparisons to their finest hour. Of the 34 songs played on February 14 1970, three (Pinball Wizard, Substitute and I Can't Explain) survive. The adventurous remainder consists of a dollop of well-received new material alongside rarely played oldies (Relay, Eminence Front) and a dusting of classics (Who Are You? Behind Blue Eyes).

 

Otherwise, parallels with 1970 are inescapable. There are no students on the roof, but the famous hall is again so hot that people are carried out, and fire doors flung open. Microphones again hang from the ceiling recording the event, and will hopefully pick up the girl who spends the whole gig going "Whoooooooo!" Townshend's white T-shirt echoes 1970's white boiler suit and, looking sharper than he has in years, he plays like a man reborn. Daltrey's voice struggles occasionally with heat or emotion but he seems determined to lead the Who into moments of transcendence like those that made their reputation. See Me, Feel Me feels like levitation, which must be particularly acute for the bald man being carried across the crowd. Daltrey's primal scream in Won't Get Fooled Again is an awesome burst of exhilaration accompanied by 2,100 voices. After two hours, Townshend gathers up his lyrics acting the part of a university professor. It's a lovely touch on a night of emotion, raw power and the creeping sense of history being made, again.

[Analogman]

I think it is nice they are not playing the same set every night again - but that is what CSNY said in 2000 - and they more or less played the same songs every night.

 

If anyone has never heard the following: Relay, Join Together, Let's See Action, and The Seeker - and would like to - let me know.

[Sir Stewart]

If anyone has never heard the following: Relay, Join Together, Let's See Action, and The Seeker - and would like to - let me know.

You talkin live?

[Analogman]

No - studio. They are hard to get now.

 

I suppose most have heard The Seeker - but maybe not the others. They were singles - originally they were going to be on a EP.

[bobfrombob]

On a balmy summer's night, the hottest ticket in town was The Who's

much-awaited return to Leeds. First things first, if this was the band

on the FIRST night of the tour god alone knows how good they'll be by

the LAST night because, from the opening chords of Who Are You right

through to the closing rush of Won't Get Fooled Again the band were

in blistering, breathless form.

Wire & Glass, the forthcoming single/mini-opera, was debuted and went

down a storm whilst old favourites like Relay were delivered with equal gusto.

I feel very lucky to have witnessed such an incendiary performance - as

I suspect everyone else in the packed, stiflingly hot Leeds Uni refectory felt

afterwards too. No need for me to wax lyrical about the performance as

it was all recorded for later release in the Encore Series so you'll all be

able to sample it for yourselves

[tongue-tied lightning]

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/articl...t_id=1002839043

[awatt]

"Hope I die before I get old"

 

I'm slightly nervous about this because it may confirm my worst fears--one of the greatest bands in rock should have retired long, long ago. But maybe they have another rock opera in them. Tommy? One of the best musical creations ever, next to Quadraphenia. Do you remember the mini-opera, A Quick One While He's Away? Brilliance.

 

My name is Ivor, and I'm an engine driver...

You're all forgiven!

 

 

 

In its entirety:

 

 

 

[i. Her Man's Been Gone]

 

Her man's been gone

For nearly a year

He was due home yesterday

But he ain't here

 

Her man's been gone

For nigh on a year

He was due home yesterday

But he ain't here

 

[iI. Crying Town]

 

Down your street your crying is a well-known sound

Your street is very well known, right here in town

Your town is very famous for the little girl

Whose cries can be heard all around the world

 

[iII. We Have A Remedy]

 

Fa la la la la la

Fa la la la la

Fa la la la la la

Fa la la la la

 

We have a remedy

You'll appreciate

No need to be so sad

He's only late

 

We'll bring you flowers and things

Help pass your time

We'll give him eagle's wings

Then he can fly to you

 

Fa la la la la la

Fa la la la la

Fa la la la la la

Fa la la la la

Fa la la la la la

Fa la la la la la

 

We have a remedy

Fa la la la la la la

We have a remedy

Fa la la la la la la

We have a remedy

Fa la la la la la la

We have a remedy

Fa la la la la la la

 

[spoken]

We have a remedy.

We have!

 

Little girl, why don't you stop your crying?

I'm gonna make you feel all right

 

[iV. Ivor The Engine Driver]

 

My name is Ivor

I'm an engine driver

 

I know him well

I know why you feel blue

Just 'cause he's late

Don't mean he'll never get through

 

He told me he loves you

He ain't no liar, I ain't either

So let's have a smile for an old engine driver

So let's have a smile for an old engine driver

 

Please take a sweet

Come take a walk with me

We'll sort it out

Back at my place, maybe

 

It'll come right

You ain't no fool, I ain't either

So why not be nice to an old engine driver?

Better be nice to an old engine driver

Better be nice to an old engine driver

 

[V. Soon Be Home]

 

We'll soon be home

We'll soon be home

We'll soon

We'll soon, soon, soon be home

 

We'll soon be home

We'll soon be home

We'll soon

We'll soon, soon, soon be home

 

Come on, old horse

 

Soon be home

Soon be home

Soon

We'll soon, soon, soon be home

 

We'll soon

We'll soon, soon, soon be home

 

We'll soon be home

Soon be home ...

 

[VI. You Are Forgiven]

 

Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang

 

Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello

Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello

Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello

Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello

 

I can't believe it

Do my eyes deceive me?

Am I back in your arms?

Away from all harm?

 

It's like a dream to be with you again

Can't believe that I'm with you again

 

I missed you and I must admit

I kissed a few and once did sit

On Ivor the Engine Driver's lap

And later with him, had a nap

 

You are forgiven, you are forgiven, you are forgiven ... [ad lib]

 

You are forgiven