Don't get fooled again. By the Iranians. BUY: Endless Wire VISIT: The Who

[by Scott Thill]

He's played all the angles, as well as the power chords that keep them sharp. He's sneered about his generation and why everyone should just leave them the fuck alone, and then he's turned around and ranted about teenage wastelands and the need to put your back into your living. And he's walked the walk on that score; one of my favorite pictures of Pete Townshend is the shot that caught him resting his cheek on his bloodied hand, shot by Annie Leibowitz for Rolling Stone after a 1980 performance in Oakland. The guy put his back, and his hands, and his balls, and his infamous proboscis into his living, that's for sure.

And it's been a good life. Let's remember that this is a man who rightly linked religious messiahs to rampant consumerism in Tommy, after squirting out satiric juice on the subject with an earlier self-referential exercise called The Who Sell Out. Yet, two decades after that release, it was none other than Townshend's group who signed Budweiser on as a tour sponsor, ushering an era of rock-commerce collusion that has become mainstream ever since. In fact, the music of the Who has been used to sell , ironically or otherwise, pretty much everything you can think of. And now we've come full circle, with Townshend griping about the internet, Who singer Roger Daltrey and, what else, money:

"Why am I backing down on Who webcasting? It is simply that while on tour it is too much to carry on my own. I had hoped that Roger would fall more actively behind me, and we could secure a solid sponsorship deal that would make everything flow smoothly, and repay some of my initial investment. Roger has been recorded in the media several times saying that I benefit from publishing income while the Who are not touring, and that allows me greater personal, creative and financial freedom. This is true. But with no promise of any investment from inside or outside the Who I need to stand back now and review my commitment."

A commitment to what exactly, you ask? Welcome to the Who, rock's enduring contradiction, especially now that their newest full-length Endless Wire takes on everything from the war on terrorism to disaster capitalism. Let's just say that the band's legendary anti-authoritarian impulse is brushing up against the desire to rest very comfortably on its licensing fees. Cover your ears.

Morphizm: Endless Wire , whether it's tackling the Beslan hostage crisis or Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, has the feel of millennial violence to it. Are you worried about where we're headed on that count? We can't seem to stop killing each other.

Pete Townshend: Of course I am concerned. But I don't ascribe to any apocalyptic scenarios that will send our young people back to psychotropic drugs and the insane belief that attending the lovely Burning Man Festival will truly realign the planets. We need pragmatism, balance and to accept that there are people out there that hate us.

Morphizm: How does Beslan ring to you now, this long after a global War on Terror that doesn't seem to have an end?

Pete Townshend: How can a ‘War' on terrorism ever end? We have had terrorist bombs in Britain (IRA) since the fifties. It has only stopped recently to be replaced by extremists of another variety. The police in the UK are fantastic at following up tiny details, and have already prevented some horrific bombings. But prepare yourselves.

Morphizm: For what?

Pete Townshend: Do you really want Islam to have access to nuclear warheads they could set off in downtown Minneapolis? I'm sure you don't. But pretty soon they will have that access. That is why ‘we' went into Iraq. We believed -- wrongly it has turned out -- that the torturer Saddam might have nuclear weaponry. I am on the far right on this issue. Sorry.

Morphizm: Why?

Pete Townshend: I'm not a shoot-first-ask-questions-later survivalist by any means, but I grew up in a neighbourhood where every second house was a bombsite -- a little like downtown Baghdad today. I have no heart for war, but I have no heart either to stand quietly waiting for someone to kill everyone in my neighbourhood before I look to protect myself. It is a tricky time for the West. The rules have changed. Don't get fooled again folks. Remember Pearl Harbour.

Morphizm: From The Who Sell Out to sponsored tours, you helped merge rock with commerce. Nowadays, it's merging with technology as well, and you're with the curve on iTunes downloads and the like. What are you thoughts on how the proliferation and accessibility of technology has changed rock music, industry and performance? Will it explode youth culture further into the stratosphere, or will its accessibility and ubiquity cripple youth culture's ability to make hard-earned art?

Pete Townshend: Of course, no one knows. I think what is good about the internet -- music is free to share and musicians can reach a wide audience easily -- also has a downside: We are not protected and our work is given less value per unit now than water. I'm answering your question with the same question I suppose. Is there an answer? I think if you look at an average American middleclass town, the houses often have no fences, the lawns run from house to house. No one steals the other's dog, or lawnmower. We need to get to that place with music. People need to simply stop stealing it, and that applies as much to the big internet barons as college kids wanting to listen to the new Killers record. We will find a way to make this work without too many locks and keys I hope.

Morphizm: Finally, like it or not, you changed history. And history is filled with bands that are still trying, that tried and failed or are trying to form at all. What does it feel like, all these years later, to look back and know that you helped redirect the flow of music, history and culture?

Pete Townshend: It feels very strange. I think music may be about to undergo the most radical change since the start of rock (and its pop offshoots) in the ‘60s. The world feels more dangerous today, and we are all on edge. Music that adds to that sense of danger is not useful. Anger is inappropriate. Green Day's American Idiot did not offer an answer. It is a palliative, a soothing tissue (a little like "Won't Get Fooled Again") which simply states what we won't be a part of, not what we will offer as an alternative. Rock has always itself been the alternative. Music is not enough any more. So its function will change. We may start to see music look and sound much more like it did in the ‘50s soon -- more old-time folksy protest, more arty comment, more romantic soothing. Less heavy metal, rap and guitars as machine guns. I might be out of a job if I couldn't play the banjo -- but luckily I can.

Morphizm: Do you feel like you have anything left to prove?

Pete Townshend: Nothing to prove. We were lucky, still are. It's great to be respected by most people, but rock is still a narrow form, and not everyone is crazy about the Who. So I just do my best, and keep the customer foremost in my mind.

November 25, 2006