Repost: Pete Townshend's Biography

Pete may finally publish his autobiography according to Crains. In 2007 he was blogging as a mechanism to organize his possible book. He's a very good writer but unfortunately he stopped writing publicly and the link no longer work as they did in 2007.

Repost from March 3rd, 2007:

Mr. Townshend was blogging on and off during the last stages of the recording sessions for Endless Wire (which is great by the way) but he has now jumped in fully and is using the blog format to organize his biography. Here is a sample from last week:

Later. I parked my car in the Wardour Street underground car park next to the Intrepid Fox pub. I walked past the Marquee Club towards Brewer Street, and looked up at the beautiful big half-moon windows of my old apartment on the top floor at the corner.

I felt comfortable in Soho because I had once lived there; I felt comfortable because the Marquee Club was where the Who finally proved themselves at our residency there at the start of our career five years earlier in 1964. This wasn’t Soho, this was my home, my manor. And yet as I turned the corner down Old Compton Street towards Frith Street my heart began to pump. I reminded myself, in a familiar mantra, this is futile. To feel fear is pointless. There is nothing to fear. I am a man now. No one can hurt me any more. In thirty minutes time The Who were to play their new rock opera Tommy to the press at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, our first Live performance before the critics. As I crossed Dean Street I imagined I heard a voice shouting ‘Judas’. Did I fancy myself to be Bob Dylan? I realized someone was shouting ‘Trousers’, one of my nicknames used by insiders.

I looked towards the voice and saw a small group of men I knew to be a travelling party of fans of the band from the Marquee days, led as ever by a bombastic music journalist, already a little drunk, who I had always regarded as an ally. He would not catch my eye. I did not want them to join me on the last steps of my journey, carrying my guitar, on my way to face an inquisition of sorts. I didn’t want them to catch any scent of fear; fear I could not allow myself to feel. One of them spotted me and ran to catch up with me. Breathless, smelling of alcohol, he asked me how I felt. I said I felt all right. He told me not to worry, even if everyone was saying that Tommy was sick, it was controversial, a little controversy never hurt anyone in show business.

Pete is also close friends with Steve Riggio and there is a post about Melissa Riggio and some poetry she wrote that has been set to music by Pete's partner Rachel Fuller.

Bit of a confession from my side, I had a bit of a winge a few months ago when The Who came through NYC that I wasn't going. Well, almost immediately after posting that day I checked on tickets and ended up going. It was pricey but absolutely fantastic. I saw Steve there as well.

(Note: Sadly, Melissa died in 2008.)