20 August 2008

Pete's arsenal

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam describing Pete Townshend's guitar playing:

He's got a lot of weapons in his arsenal. He can play beautifully, he can do finger-picking, he can slash and burn away... And then he can solo until this guitar - really, you just think the guitar wants to be rescued.

I spent a couple of evenings in intimate contact with 'Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who' on DVD, and it was very satisfying. I've had the riff from 'Won't Get Fooled Again' on continuous replay in my head ever since.


Certain quotes begged to written down. This is Pete trying to describe his early guitar playing, all adolescent gesture and fingers-down-the-blackboard feedback:

[My] electric style was this slabby machine gun style, kind of a post-war, macho, male, don't-interrupt-me kind of noise.

Which I think is as good a description of rock 'n' roll as I've ever heard.

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