Coming on May 6th are new vinyl half speed remasters of the Who's first two albums — 1965's My Generation and 1966's A Quick One — with the latter mastered by longtime Who engineer Jon Astley. Both albums are packaged in original sleeve with obi stripe and certificate of authenticity and are available now to pre-order.
The images of the Who's early career will always be dominated with Pete Townshend's iconic guitar smashing — an instant gimmick that never failed to thrill: “Next thing I knew, I’m breaking guitars at gigs, y’know, saying, ‘I am destroying the instrument of my bourgeois child longing,’ y’know, which is I used to stand outside shops and people used to come and go ‘What a great axe!!!’ And I’d say, ‘It’s not an act, it’s . . .’ And I’d even have the guys in the band going ‘What a load of pompous pretentious drivel’ — and I’d go, ‘No, it’s auto-destructive art.”
Amazingly, Pete Townshend is still having “My Generation's” key lines — “Hope I die before I get old” — read back to him by journalists in hope of a “true” explanation: “The song was more about, y'know, refusing to grow old, rather than, y'know, 'I don't wanna grow old' — it was about refusing to grow old inside. That's what I'm so proud of: having the physique of a 16-year-old boy!”
On Friday (March 25th), Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend will front an acoustic band at London's Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2022 Teenage Cancer Trust concert.
The pair will be backed by Pete's younger brother and longtime Who touring guitarist Simon Townshend, Phil Spalding, Jodie Linscott, Billy Nicholls, Geraint Watkins, Charlie Hart, and Andy Cutting.