Word: townshend
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...White House—hardly patriotic. Unlike what some of the protestors’ signs contend, President Obama is not King George III. The colonists that the current “Tea Party patriots” profess to follow were rankling under taxation without representation under the Townshend Acts and the 1773 Tea Act. By melodramatically associating their movement against a democratically elected government with the fight against British imperialism, modern tea parties only belittle themselves by comparison...
Which brings us back to the problem of trying to define rock 'n' roll. Rock is the cooing on "Gimme Shelter", the dripping guitars on "Purple Haze", the riff that brings Pete Townshend's nimble strumming to new heights on "Pinball Wizard." It's Thom Yorke's nasal voice on "Paranoid Android" and the way Nirvana somehow managed to sound loud and muffled at the same time. But is it the saccharine harmonies of Abba's "Dancing Queen"? Pudgy dudes in Led Zeppelin T shirts would probably say no, but the 30 music historians, journalists and industry executives who make...
...they played to a crowd the size of Reno, Nev., as if they were in a coffeehouse. A lot of the rock bands, meanwhile, were stoned out of their minds. (The Grateful Dead sound foggy, even for them.) At least the Who - so enchanted with the vibe that Pete Townshend bonked a speechifying Abbie Hoffman on the head and wrote "Won't Get Fooled Again" in the concert's wake - come off as professional. Not passionate, but professional...
...large, the paradox at the heart of bohemian superstardom has been tolerated or ignored by successive waves of teenage fans, although it makes for pretty luscious ironies. ''We've got to the stage where we end the night by destroying everything,'' Pete Townshend said in 1967, ''which is expensive.'' At their zenith in 1977, the Sex Pistols peevishly canceled a Saturday Night Live appearance. SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who has himself made a lucrative career out of counterculturalism, complained, ''It's very strange that a group that prides itself on representing the underground turns us down because...
...months, says only Amnesty could have dragged him out of bed to perform. Because of Bono's sympathies, U2 canceled two summer tour weeks to play for free. In the end, Healey had a suitably superstar lineup, snaring Ruben Blades, Jackson Browne, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana and Pete Townshend for spot appearances. Even Sean Penn and Madonna emceed in Los Angeles, and she promised to join Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston and Meryl Streep at the New York-New Jersey tour finale in Giants Stadium. During the eleven-day journey, 114,000 concertgoers paid a hefty $36 each to simmer...