Pete townshend new biography movies

Widely known as the windmilling, leaping about guitarist for The WhoTownshend is also a premier songwriter, accurately self-reflective lyricist and inspired multi-media entrepreneur. Both "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" were made into energetic films. The Kids Are Alrightthe band's biography movie, is interesting not only for The Who fans, but also from a filmmaker's point of view.

Townsend's pete townshend new biography movies songs have been used on the soundtrack of countless pictures. He stands out as one of rock music's most gifted and influential artists who has, despite being forever tied to the rebellious image of his youth, decided to somehow grow old with dignity. Spouse Karen Astley May 20, - divorced, 3 children.

Simon Townshend Sibling. Paul Townshend Sibling. Smashes his guitars after great live performances. Revolutionised the use of Gibson SG guitars. Known for. Music Department theme music. CSI: NY. Music Department arp synthesizer, guitar, keyboards, piano, uncredited. Grosse Pointe Blank. Credits Edit. Expand below. Music Department. Previous CSI: Vegas 7.

A Silent Voice: The Movie 8. CSI: Cyber 5. CSI: NY 7. CSI: Miami 6. White City 7. McVicar 6. Quadrophenia 7. Tommy 6. Many rock guitarists have cited Townshend as an influence, among them Slash[ 85 ] Alex Lifeson[ 86 ] and Steve Jones. In addition to his work with the Who, Townshend has been sporadically active as a solo recording artist.

In response to bootlegging of these, he compiled his personal highlights and "Evolution", a collaboration with Ronnie Laneand released his first major-label solo title, 's Who Came First. It was a moderate success and featured demos of Who songs as well as a showcase of his acoustic guitar talents. In Townshend produced and performed guitar on the novelty single "Peppermint Lump" by Angie on Stiff Recordsfeaturing year-old Angela Porter on lead vocals.

Townshend made several solo appearances during the s, two of which were captured on record: Eric Clapton 's Rainbow Concert [ 89 ] in January which Townshend organized to revive Clapton's career after the latter's heroin addiction[ 90 ] and the Paul McCartney -sponsored Concerts for the People of Kampuchea in December The commercially available video of the Kampuchea concert shows the two rock icons duelling and clowning [ 91 ] through Rockestra mega-band versions of "Lucille", "Let It Be", and "Rockestra Theme"; Townshend closes the proceedings with a characteristic split-legged leap.

While not a huge commercial success, music critic Timothy Duggan listed it as "Townshend's most honest and introspective work since Quadrophenia. Townshend recorded several concert albums, including one featuring a supergroup he assembled called Deep Endwith David Gilmour on guitar, who performed just three concerts and a television show session for The Tubeto raise money for his Double-O charity, supporting drug addicts.

From the mids through the present, Townshend has participated in a series of tours with the surviving members of the Who, including a tour that continued despite Entwistle's death. In Februarya major world tour by the Who was announced to promote their first new album since Townshend published a semi-autobiographical story The Boy Who Heard Music as a serial on a blog beginning in September It is now owned by a different user and does not relate to Townshend's work in any way.

On 25 Februaryhe announced the issue of a mini-opera inspired by the novella for June In October the Who released their first album in 24 years, Endless Wire. On 22 MarchTownshend stated that a new Who album should feature original songs by Roger Daltrey as well as him. It was the band's second album as a duo, and their first in thirteen years.

The Age of Anxietyformerly Floss the Musical[ ] is the name given to a work-in-progress by Townshend. Townshend was born ten days after Nazi Germany surrendered in the Second World War and grew up in the shadow of reconstruction in and around London.

Pete townshend new biography movies

According to Townshend, postwar trauma was the driving force behind the rock music revolution in the UK. I wasn't trying to play beautiful music. I was confronting my audience with the awful, visceral sound of what we all knew was the single absolute of our frail existence—one day an aeroplane would carry the bomb that would destroy us all in a flash.

It could happen at any time. Although he grew up in a household with jazz musicians, Townshend absorbed many of his ideas about performance and rock music themes during art school. In light of these influences, guitar smashing became not just an expression of youthful angst, but also a means of conveying ideas through musical performance. You can hear it in my work.

Throughout his solo career and his career with the Who, Townshend has played a large variety of guitars—mostly various FenderGibsonand Rickenbacker models. He has also used Guild[ ] Takamine [ ] and Gibson J acoustic models, with the J providing his signature recorded acoustic sound in such songs as " Pinball Wizard ". When the excited audience responded enthusiastically after he accidentally broke the head off his guitar on a low ceiling during a concert at the Railway Hotel pub in Wealdstonewest London, he incorporated the eventual smashing of his instrument into the band's performances.

He used this guitar at the Woodstock [ ] and Isle of Wight petes townshend new biography movies in andas well as the Live at Leeds performance in By Gibson changed the design of the SG Special that Townshend had been using previously, and he began using other guitars. He can be seen using several of these guitars in the documentary The Kids Are Alrightalthough in the studio he often played a '59 Gretsch guitar given to him by Joe Walsh[ ] most notably on the albums Who's Next and Quadrophenia.

During the s, Townshend mainly used Fenders, Rickenbackers and Telecaster-style models built for him by Schecter and various other luthiers. Since the lates, Townshend has used the Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocasterwith Lace Sensor pick-ups, [ ] both in the studio and on tour. Some of his Stratocaster guitars feature a Fishman PowerBridge piezo pick-up system to simulate acoustic guitar tones.

This piezo system is controlled by an extra volume control behind the guitar's bridge. During the Who's Tour Townshend played a Rickenbacker guitar that was ironically smashed accidentally when he tripped over it. Instead of throwing the smashed parts away, Townshend reassembled the pieces as a sculpture. The SG was clearly marked as a Pete Townshend limited edition model and came with a special case and certificate of authenticity, signed by Townshend himself.

There was a Pete Townshend signature Rickenbacker limited edition guitar of the pete townshend new biography movieswhich was his main 6-string guitar in the Who's early days. The run featured guitars that were made between July —Marchand according to Rickenbacker CEO John Hall, the entire run sold out before serious advertising could be done.

He also occasionally used Fender Jazzmasters on stage in and [ ] and in the studio for Tommy. Over the years, Townshend has used many types of amplifier, including Vox[ ] SelmerFenderMarshalland Hiwattsticking to using Hiwatt amps for most of four decades. However, sincehe has only three Vibro-King stacks, one of which is a backup. Townshend figured prominently in the development of what is widely known in rock circles as the " Marshall stack ".

He ordered several speaker cabinets that contained eight 12" speakers in a housing standing nearly six feet in height with the top half of the cabinet slanted slightly upward. These were too heavy to move easily, so Jim Marshall cut the massive speaker cabinet in half, at the suggestion of Townshend, with each cabinet containing four inch speakers.

One of the cabinets had half of the speaker baffle slanted upwards and Marshall made these two cabinets stackable. The Marshall stack was born, and Townshend used these as well as Hiwatt stacks. He has always regarded his instruments as being merely tools of the trade [ ] and has, in latter years, kept his most prized instruments well away from the concert stage.

These instruments include a few vintage and reissue Rickenbackers, the Gretschan original Fender Telecaster[ ] Gibson Custom Shop's artist limited edition reissues of Townshend's Les Paul DeLuxe models 1, 3 and 9 as well his signature SG Special reissue. Townshend played keyboards on several Who songs. On Who's Nexthe began to work with analogue synthesizersusing the ARP model that he first encountered at Cambridge University.

There are gadgets on synthesizers that enable one to become a virtuoso on the keyboard. You can play something slowly and you press a switch and it plays it back at double speed. Whereas on the guitar you're stuck with as fast as you can play and I don't play fast, I just play hard. So when it goes to playing something fast I go to the synth. Current photos of his home studio also show an ARP Townshend was featured in ARP promotional materials in the early s.

Since the late s Townshend has predominantly used Synclavier Digital Audio systems for keyboard composition, particularly solo albums and projects. Although known for his musical compositions and musicianship, Townshend has been extensively involved in the literary world for more than three decades, writing newspaper and magazine articles, book reviews, essays, books, and scripts.

An early example of Townshend's writing came in August with the first of nine installments of "The Pete Townshend Page", a monthly column written by Townshend for the British music paper Melody Maker. The column provided Townshend's perspective on an array of subjects, such as the media and the state of US concert halls and public address systems, as well as providing valuable insight into Townshend's mindset during the evolution of his Lifehouse project.

Townshend also wrote three sizeable essays for Rolling Stone magazine, the first of which appeared in November Also inTownshend founded Eel Pie Publishingwhich specialised in children's titles, music books, and several Meher Baba-related publications. He also opened a bookstore named Magic Bus after the popular Who song in London. The Story of Tommya book written by Townshend and his art school friend Richard Barnes now the Who's official biographer about the writing of Townshend's rock opera and the making of the Ken Russell -directed film, was published by Eel Pie the same year.

In JulyTownshend took a position as an acquisitions editor for London publisher Faber and Faber. Two years after joining Faber and Faber, Townshend decided to publish a book of his own. Horse's Neckissued in Maywas a collection of short stories he'd written between andtackling subjects such as childhood, stardom and spirituality. Townshend has written several scripts spanning the breadth of his career, including numerous drafts of his elusive Lifehouse project, the last of which, co-written with radio playwright Jeff Young, was published in InTownshend wrote a script for Fish Shopa play commissioned but not completed by London Weekend Televisionand in mid he wrote a script for White City: A Novel which led to a short film.

While the original novel remains unpublished, elements from this story were used in Townshend's solo album Psychoderelict. InTownshend authored another book, The Who's Tommya chronicle of the development of the award-winning Broadway version of his rock opera. The opening of his personal website and his commerce site Eelpie. In SeptemberTownshend began posting a novella online entitled The Boy Who Heard Music as background for a musical of the same name.

He posted a chapter each week until it was completed, and novella was available to read at his website for several months. Townshend's creative vagaries and conceptual machinations have been chronicled by Larry David Smith in his book The Minstrel's Dilemma Praeger Townshend called the work an "extended meditation on manic genius and the dark art of creativity.

In Townshend had begun to explore spirituality. At about this time, Townshend, who had been searching the past two years for a basis for a rock opera, created a story inspired by the teachings of Baba and other writings and expressing the enlightenment he believed that he had received from them, which ultimately became Tommy. In interviews Townshend was more open about his beliefs, penning an article on Baba for Rolling Stone magazine in and stating that following Baba's teachings, he was opposed to the use of all psychedelic drugsmaking him one of the first rock stars with counterculture credibility to turn against their use.

He wrote in Who I Am of becoming addicted to cocaine into the point of overdosing and needing resuscitation. Townshend met Karen Astley, daughter of film composer Edwin Astleywhile in art school. They married on 20 May and moved into a three-bedroom townhouse in Twickenham in outer south-west London that overlooked the Thames. Townshend and his wife separated in He has since been in a romantic relationship with arranger and musician Rachel Fullerwhom he secretly married in In a interview with radio host Timothy WhiteTownshend apparently acknowledged his bisexualityreferencing the song "Rough Boys" on his studio album Empty Glass.

He called the song a "coming out, an acknowledgment of the fact that I'd had a gay life, and that I understood what gay sex was about. So the interviewer kind of dotted the t's and crossed the i's and assumed that this was a coming out, which it wasn't at all. Townshend accepted a caution from the Metropolitan Police the Met as part of Operation Orea major investigation on child sexual abuse images conducted in — The Met stated that "it was established that Mr Townshend was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images".

Townshend was on a sex offenders register for five years, beginning inafter admitting he had used his credit card to access a child sexual abuse images website. Townshend suffers from partial deafness and tinnituslikely the result of noise-induced hearing loss from long-term exposure to loud music. The Who were known as a very loud band in their live performances; for example, a Who concert at the Charlton Athletic Football Club on 31 May —where the volume level 32 metres from the stage was measured at decibels —was listed as the "Loudest Concert Ever" by the Guinness Book of Records.

Townshend has also attributed his hearing loss to the explosion of Keith Moon's drum set during a Who appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. InTownshend gave the initial funding to allow the formation of the non-profit hearing advocacy group H. Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers. He stands out as one of rock music's most gifted and influential artists who has, despite being forever tied to the rebellious image of his youth, decided to somehow grow old with dignity.

Latest Latest Oldest. Filmography Back to top. Get to Know Us.