Pete Townshend would be the last person you would lend your electric guitar to.

No offence to the great man but he does have a bit of a reputation, and it goes right back to the beginning of his career and those explosive performances with the Who during which instrumental destruction was de rigueur.

Simply, Townshend relished in smashing guitars, in speaking 4x12 speaker cabinets with the headstock of a Fender Telecaster, in relieving a Rickenbacker of its structural integrity. It was part of the show. In a sense, it was Townshend’s attempt to make the Who viral in an analogue era – and it works.

“The guitar smashing was basically marketing,” he told Guitarist magazine in 1990. “I knew it was going to work, but I had to use real guitars and that was because I am primarily a musician and I wanted it to be real.”

This, he explained, was a form of art – performance art, art as destruction or vice versa, a convulsion in “vengeance” at consumerist society.

Townshend learned early on not to get too attached to his musical instruments after saving up all the money from his paper round for his first “real guitar” only for it to get stolen after he lent it to the late Who bassist John Entwistle, whose mother compensated him with £3. “I think I swore then that I would never get attached to another instrument as long as I lived,” said Townshend.

Though Townshend would sound a note of regret that his Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar got ruined during the making of his 1989 musical, The Iron Man, he was as good as word. He admitted that he even smashed them out of the public eye, fury getting the better of him.

But where did Townshend get the idea? That urge to destroy – that volatility – was in him. That seems sure. He was an experimentalist.

The Who’s high-volume show embraced feedback almost as a means of provocation, drowning out the boors at the back of the show who had been drinking pints and were wanting to hear Cindy’s Birthday or some other chart-bothering fare. They were pushing the envelope.

Townshend’s guitar-smashing epiphany arrived one afternoon when he was a young student at Ealing Tech, watching a guest lecture from the late Malcolm Cecil, who was then a player with a growing reputation on bass guitar, but who would go onto become a longtime collaborator of Stevie Wonder’s and help introduce synthesizers to popular music in the ‘70s.

“[He] beat me to the punch,” recalled Townshend. “He went on to co-produce Innervisions for Stevie Wonder and he was bass player with the Johnny Scott Quintet. A girl in my class went out with the flautist and she invited Cecil to come and give a talk. Halfway through the talk he started to get carried away, saying, ‘There are lots of different ways you can play the bass; you can play it like this, or like that.’ And then he started to bang it.”

This was an early indication that Cecil would know what works for a crowd. His blood was up. He started looking around to see what else was at his disposal to underline his point that how you play an instrument does not need to have been mandated by what you read in the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method series.

“Somebody had been doing something on the stage with a saw, and it was still there,” continued Townshend. “He picked it up and said, ‘You can even saw at the bass’, and he started to saw through his strings and we all stood up and cheered! It made a fantastic noise, and the fact that he was sacrificing his strings! And he just carried on sawing, right through the strings and through the belly of the bass!”

Townshend and his classmates were smitten. The campus was electrified by this display, by all these new possibilities. All bets were off. Things would never be the same again.

“The whole college was full of it, so that wall had been broken and it seemed perfect, natural for me, a couple of months later, to find myself doing the same thing.”

It’s been reported that Pete Townshend has sold his image rights, including that of his name to a group called Primary Wave. It also, according to the Variety, includes “certain music rights.”

The details of the deal have yet to be confirmed, but it looks like Spirit Music, who bought Townshend’s publishing rights in 2017 for over $100 million, no longer holds the rights to the likes of My Generation, Won’t Get Fooled Again et al. Variety suggests these are all part of the Primary Wave deal.

The idea, it seems, is to continue to mine the Townshend back catalogue for the archival releases, synchs, and various creative projects that the Who guitarist is so fond of. The band’s two concept albums, Tommy and Quadrophenia, have been re-interpreted many times over the years, as films, musicals and even last year, in the case of the latter, a ballet.

In a statement, Townshend said: “Moving forward with my creative and performative work with Primary Wave, at this time of my life when most creatives might be slowing down, is a joy for me. Their entire team exhibits an energy that is truly stimulating. Challenging too. I need that.”

He also made clear that this creative work will continue to include The Who: “Then there is Roger (Daltrey) and all my friends and colleagues in and around The Who. We are always trying to come up with SOMETHING special, and God Willing will continue to do that, hoping one day we can astound you the way we used to.”

“I have always been something of an ex-art student, and that means my work spans a lot of genres. Primary Wave span even more genres than I do, and I know we will have a lot of fun working together. Our first few meetings have been wonderfully inspiring moments of shared adventure.”

Adam Lowenberg, Primary Wave’s chief marketing officer, added in their own statement. “There is no rock music without the genius of Pete Townshend. An artist, innovator and songwriter who stands alone in his own category of icon and legend. We are extremely honoured to partner with Pete on his future endeavours.”

Townshend turns 81 next week. Last year’s tour of North America was supposed to be The Who’s last in that territory, but that, of course, doesn’t preclude one-offs or indeed further dates in Europe. At the very least, the Primary Wave deal suggests that even after more than 60 years there won’t be any let-up in Who-related activity any time soon.

Phil Daniels has been a jobbing character actor for well over 40 years, but he’s still best known for two excursions into the world of music – playing Jimmy in Quadrophenia and appearing on Blur’s Parklife.

He’s been performing the latter with Damon Albarn and co on and off for more than three decades. In a new interview with the Times he’s revealed that he gets a performance royalty for the track rather than a one-off fee, meaning it still provides him with “drinking money.”

“I love Blur, I’ve had a great time with them,” he continued. “But what I love about Damon is he’s got two sides to him. He’s that guy who plays with musicians all around the world, does lots of good work.

"But he’s also got a really hard side and that’s what’s made him in control of his own career. He’ll tell people to f*** off if he has to. He can be ruthless. And I think that’s good to have that about you.”

Daniels also performed the role of narrator when The Who toured Quadrophenia in 1996/97. “You’d be in Madison Square Garden, they’d finish a song, I’d go, ‘That was us in 1964…’ and people would be shouting, ‘Shut up, you f***ing fag, get off!’ So it wasn’t the best job but it was all right. Pete (Townshend) loves all that. Roger (Daltrey) just wants to rock’n’roll.”

Quadrophenia was his breakthrough role, but as he explains, real fame was long in coming. “I don’t think it was till Trainspotting that people really appreciated British dramas about inner cities and urban people. I could certainly get on the bus. Nobody would recognise me for years and years until (Quadrophenia) came out on DVD and I started getting letters from people saying it changed their life.”

At the moment, he’s currently in another music-related role, playing an old skool manager of a rock singer in David Hare’s revived 1975 play, Teeth N’ Smiles. The singer is being played by Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, and Daniels has apparently based his character on the likes of Bill Curbishley and Don Arden.

Prior to Quadrophenia, Daniels was in various bands and released a solo album, of sorts, in 1979, credited to Phil Daniels and The Cross. However, he’s apparently recording another at the moment. “I thought, well, I’m 67 - now or never,” he says, describing it as: “a cross between Ian Dury and a sort of theatrical night out. It’s a few laments and a few more happy-go-lucky songs.”

Pete Townshend has intimated that he might use AI to complete some unfinished Who songs.

The 80-year-old guitarist was interviewed by Stephen Colbert on his show last week. In a wide-ranging conversation, Townshend talked about his favourite Who songs, the band’s recent (and supposedly last) US tour and also about future plans. Towards the end of the conversation, the chat show host asked if there was any unheard music in the Who vault.

“Yes, I’ve got about 350... 450 pieces of music. Now, a lot of it is probably terrible,” Townsend admitted. “I’ve managed to wade through about half of it. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I’m also quite interested in AI,” he revealed. “I’m interested in getting some of my old... the songs that didn’t quite work because I didn’t get them quite right first time round and put them up onto Suno or some AI music machine and see what it can make of it. There might be some hits.”

If the guitarist did go down this route, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise. Townshend has never been afraid of using new technology, whether that be synthesizers on Who’s Next, or the quadrophonic sound he originally envisaged for, well, the Quadrophenia album.

Then there is the small matter of him predicting the Internet in the Lifehouse project – for what is ‘the grid’ in the plot of that abandoned concept album, but the World Wide Web itself?

Pete Townshend popped in to Stephen Colbert’s show this week to, amongst other things, reminisce about the first time The Who came to the States.

That was in 1967, the height of the hippy era. “The hippy thing didn’t fit in very well for us,” Townshend told the host. “Cream – Eric Clapton’s band – was on the same bill. We were doing four to five shows a day, and I was smashing a guitar at every show. I was just making sure I left my mark.”

The guitarist claims he actually repaired them between every show. “I had to glue them together between shows. I did. I had to use this special glue called Cascamite – it’s a powdered glue and I managed to string them back together. I got very good at putting guitars together.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukBwvh3-h2Y

The Who wound up what they claim will definitely be their final US tour last month. Townshend told Colbert he didn’t like touring but “I really enjoyed this last tour. It was great.

"I decided that I was going to make Roger (Daltrey) happy, which isn’t easy. Not because he’s a nasty guy but because he sings and his whole body and life goes into it. And I thought ‘I must forget about myself and just do this for me’. It might be the last thing we ever do together.”

“And it worked. He did have two days off when he got sick. But I loved it because I got him laughing and got him smiling and we were hugging each other and telling each other that we love each other, which is not something that has happened up until now. So it was a great tour for me.”

The Who’s final US tour has hit a bump in the road in that the third date in the tour, in Philadelphia last night (August 21) has had to be postponed due to “illness”.

In a social media post, the venue - the delightfully-named Xfinity Mobile Arena – said that they were working towards sorting out a new date and that ticket holders are advised to keep hold of their tickets.

It’s not yet known who exactly is ill and what the severity of that illness is. The next date is at the Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Saturday. There is no news yet regarding whether that show is going ahead.

What the band are saying will be their final US tour kicked off in Sunrise, Florida last Saturday (August 16). These have been The Who’s first US gigs with Scott Devours on drums, after the prolonged, messy departure of Zak Starkey.

Their 23-song set opened with I Can’t Explain and covered all the bases you’d expect, finishing on the Who’s Next album track that provides the title of the tour – The Song Is Over.

The 17-date tour takes the band through to the end of September and a show in Las Vegas. Ticketholders for the next few dates would be advised to check social media for updates.

This year’s biggest musical soap opera – Zak Starkey’s prolonged sacking from the Who – goes on and on and on.

So...the latest. Roger Daltrey gave an interview to The Times earlier this week in which he described the drummer’s comments about him at the fateful Albert Hall gig way back in March (five months ago!) as "kind of a character assassination and it was incredibly upsetting.” Starkey had said that it was Daltrey who had messed up at that show, missing the intro to The Song Is Over and not him.

Now, Starkey has replied, via a lengthy screed on Instagram. He wrote: “I didn’t make any nasty comments about Roger when I got fired. I think it’s [Daltrey’s accusation of ‘character assassination’] about the public comments about Roger on my Instagram - which I have taken down.”

“I didn’t think Roger was having a go at me on stage because he was shouting into a special microphone that he only uses to communicate with the sound guy. There was no conflict and no argument before the show or after as I was in my car on my way home before Pete and Roger had finished the last song Tea and Theatre, which is an acoustic duet and doesn’t feature any of the band.

“I thought the gig was ok,” the drummer continued. “I had no idea about getting fired or any problems at all until a week after the show. So either The Times misunderstood or… confusion reigns O’er me and everyone else! I thought this had blown over. The Who has a new drummer - they’ve played some shows they’re about to do their farewell tour… so this is old news and it’s completely wrong.

“When I first saw it [The Times interview] I was gonna leave it but now it’s been picked up by every outlet in the cosmos it’s a bit annoying cos it’s bollox. I love Roger and he’s a fucking amazing singer - we go back too long for grudges.”

So... is that it? Or will we still be here at Christmas?

The saga of Zak Starkey’s sacking/‘retirement’ drags on with Roger Daltrey now accusing the Who’s erstwhile drummer of “character assassination”.

Daltrey’s comments came in a new interview with The Times, in which, as well as his upcoming knighthood, The Who’s final American tour and his deteriorating eyesight, the 81-year-old frontman addressed the issue of their turbulent drummer.

“An audience can see what’s happening on stage and have a complete misunderstanding of what’s actually going on,” Daltrey said about the band’s Teenage Cancer Trust performance at the Albert Hall in March, before he said of Starkey’s subsequent comments that it was Daltrey who made the mistake that night, not him: “It was kind of a character assassination and it was incredibly upsetting.”

According to the singer, the drums that he heard in his in-ear monitors were electronic which is where problems began that night. “It is controlled by a guy on the side, and we had so much sub-bass on the sound of the drums that I couldn’t pitch.

"I was pointing to the bass drum and screaming at him because it was like flying a plane without seeing the horizon. So when Zak thought I was having a go at him, I wasn’t. That’s all that happened.”

Starkey simply claimed, during the subsequent back-and-forth, “I got it right and Roger got it wrong... he came in a bar too early”, while Townshend said elsewhere, “I think Roger just got lost. Roger’s finding it difficult. I have to be careful what I say about Roger because he gets angry if I say anything about him at all".

When asked by The Times why Starkey was then sacked, reinstated and then sacked again, Daltrey countered by saying: “Pete and I retain the right to be the Who. Everyone else is a session player. You can’t replace Keith Moon.

"We wanted to branch out and that’s all I want to say about it. But (Starkey’s reaction) was crippling to me.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the singer addressed his own health issues. His sight, is “not good. I’ve got incurable macular degeneration.” And he’s been having other difficulties since he contracted meningitis back in 2016.

“It’s done a lot of damage,” he revealed. “It’s buggered up my internal thermometer, so every time I start singing in any climate over 75 degrees I’m wringing with sweat, which drains my body salts. The potential to get really ill is there and, I have to be honest, I’m nervous about making it to the end of the tour.”

Zak Starkey, eh? For decades, he’s seemingly lived a steady(ish) existence, known not just as Ringo’s son but also a dependable drummer in his own right, who’s held down a position in two of the UK’s biggest (and most combustible) acts. But we’ve heard more about and from him in the three months since his initial sacking from the Who than we have for the last 30 years.

Now he’s given a highly amusing interview to NME that covers everything from his long-drawn-out Who sacking to Oasis to his hobby band Mantra Of The Cosmos. Even if the Gallaghers are no longer talking to the press, one (ex) Oasis member is keeping up the band tradition of providing entertaining copy for the members of the fourth estate.

Inevitably, much of it concentrates on his recent sacking: “It was only one gig (at the Royal Albert Hall), it was only one fuck-up,” he says of the incident that kicked it all off. “At the end of the day, with technical problems and The Who, you see it all crash and we start it again. But on this particular occasion, I don’t know why, I dropped some beats, apparently. I’ve f***ing looked everywhere and I can’t find them!”

Of course, we know that Starkey won his job back, albeit temporarily. “Roger demanded a public apology and me admitting that I dropped two beats. So I did it, but with a duck playing drums – which is my character in the new Mantra Of The Cosmos video. Pete phoned me and he went, ‘Try that again without the duck’. I did it without the duck, got the gig back – 10 days later, sacked again. Roger said he couldn’t work with me no more after I’d done that.”

While this was going on, Oasis were sorting out the lineup for their reunion tour. This is Starkey on the fellow who got the coveted drummers’ position, Joey Waronker, and whether he has any advice for him: “He’s not a mod is he? Don’t fuck it up.

"Make sure you get your tempos right, them boys know. They’re smart. They’re some of the smartest musicians I’ve ever met. Whether it’s fast, it’s slow, they’re bang on it.”

Advice for Barry Keoghan, the actor set to play his dad in the forthcoming Beatles biopics? “Get a big rubber nose. I don’t know what else to say. He doesn’t look anything like my dad, does he? You can fix anything, can’t you? You can certainly give someone a big rubber nose.”

In the meantime, Mantra Of The Cosmos have another single lined up, which apparently is “better than this one – it’s a lot more political”. Then when asked what else he has coming up, Starkey replied: “If I say anything, Roger will say ‘You’re too busy!’ I’m going to have a wank and relax for a bit…”

Absolutely priceless.

After weeks of to-ing and fro-ing and head-scratching Instagram posts, Zak Starkey has thrown fresh light on his protracted exit from The Who.

In an interview with the Telegraph, the drummer confirmed that it was some dropped beats at the band’s second Albert Hall show in March that led to his ‘retirement’/ sacking and that it was Roger Daltrey that instigated the move, rather than Pete Townshend.

It all arose from the decision to play the Who’s Next track The Song Is Over, which Starkey had suggested as “a treat” for fans. The song hadn’t been part of their regular set ist for some time and the drummer says it was a combination of this, plus a lack of rehearsal and the fact Daltrey “took a bit out” of the song because it’s so long, that meant that, on the second night, “Roger [came] in a bar too early.”

“I got it right and Roger got it wrong,” is Starkey’s summation. But it seems this minor error (you can check out the performance in question below) which long time Who fans – even if they detected it – would have surely made allowances for, was enough for him to be handed his P45.

“I got a call from Bill [Curbishley], the manager,” said Starkey. “He says, ‘It’s my unfortunate duty to inform you’ – it’s like Porridge or something – ‘that you won’t be needed from now on. Roger says you dropped some beats.’ I watched the show and I can’t find any dropped beats. Then Pete had to go along with it because Pete’s had 60 years of arguing with Roger.”

It seems that, after this, Townshend phoned Starkey and asked if he was prepared to fight for his place in the band. Initially, the drummer said no, but later changed his mind.

Yet the reunion didn’t last long: “Two weeks later it was like, ‘Roger says he can’t work with you no more, and we’d like you to issue another statement saying you’re leaving to do your other projects’ and I just didn’t do it because I wasn’t leaving [of my own volition].”

He also says that he’s fallen out of love with drumming and now prefers guitar: “Have you seen what a guitar looks like? It’s like a woman. A drum looks like a pot of biscuits. You can’t play the drums and watch telly.”

Now out of the Who and having missed out on the Oasis gig, he claims he’s even offered his services to Bob Dylan “because he’s the only person that’s anywhere near Pete lyrically”. And has he had a reply? “Course not, it’s Bob Dylan innit?”

Confirmation - if any were needed by now - that Zak Starkey is something of a character...

Poor old Zak Starkey. He’s wasted the last three months leaving, then not leaving and eventually definitely leaving The Who. All the while he’s managed to miss out on another prime gig – the vacant position for drummer in Oasis.

That’s what he was bemoaning in a new interview with The Daily Star. Starkey sat behind the kit on the band’s final two albums – 2005’s Don’t Believe The Truth and Dig Out Your Soul from 2008 – and would have been in the running as sticksman on their 2025 comeback tour. Instead, that honour has gone to stalwart session player Joey Waronker. Much to Zak’s chagrin.

“I’ll cry if I go, in case he mucks it up," said Starkey. "I’m sure he won’t, but you know that’s my favourite band. I’d have done that gig for nothing, you know? I just loved it. I can’t see someone else do it, that’s not me.”

The drummer also continued his recent habit of making puzzling comments about his elongated sacking from The Who. It seems he’s still “friends” with Mssrs Daltrey and Townshend, even though he got fired. “I got fired, twice,” he reiterated. “Once I wasn’t even there.”

“I didn’t enjoy what they (the reports) were saying about Roger (Daltrey), because he’s my friend. And we talk on the phone every week still. And I text with Pete (Townshend) for hours. We’re still great friends. We’ll always be friends and brothers, really.

"Roger thought that I was so busy that he needed to retire me because of Mantra [his hobby band Mantra Of The Cosmos] but I’m actually not busy at all.”

He also intimated that he could even end up rejoining The Who. Again. “Last week Roger said, ‘Don’t take your drums out of the warehouse yet in case we need you’. What the f**k, Roger!? Has anyone been fired three times from you? I said, ‘If that’s going to happen, please let me know’.”

The Oasis Live 25 tour starts in just over three weeks, at the Cardiff Principality Stadium on July 4.

Zak Starkey, eh? If you’re finding it hard to keep up with the seemingly never-ending tale of his exit from The Who, then you’re not the only one. He was in. Then he was out. Then he rejoined. Before being booted out once more. Or did he quit? Was he sacked? Or should we say ‘retired’.

Not even the man at the centre of this intrigue seems to know. Less than 48 hours after posting a cheery message on Instagram saying that he and Roger Daltrey were “great friends” and that he definitely hadn’t been fired, but had, in fact been “retired”, the drummer has set the record straight once more.

Last night (Wednesday 28 May) he shared a screengrab of the story saying that he had been ‘retired’ with an irate comment: “This is fukin total bollox (sic). I was fired.”

He went on: “I called Roger last week and told him in person I had spent nearly 2 months at my studio in Jamaica completing my studio projects. That I had a mantra of the cosmos single out next week and then I was completely available for the foreseeable future… he was a little surprised but understood. It’s true – I have no plan’s [sic] whatsoever for the fall as I thought I was touring with The Who and my mantra band mates are v busy in oasis and happy Mondays until the new year. So this is simply a load of bollox … Am I fired , retired, deffo not tired as I’m 20 years younger than these guys as they keep saying.”

He then let slip a detail about exactly why he had been fired/ 'retired' back in March: “Dropping two beats on our second show is not a firing offence - I’ve watched the show on tv I can’t see where I dropped them - I looked everywhere - it’s the who ffs if it was perfect it would be so f–king boring.”

The Who themselves haven’t commented on this latest update. With a new drummer confirmed in the shape of Scott Devours, it’s not really their problem any more.

So is this the final twist? Or is there more to come from Starkey’s ever-entertaining Instagram page? Don't touch that dial.

There’s been yet another twist in the saga of Zak Starkey and his prolonged departure from The Who.

In an Instagram post, the 59 year old drummer has said that he spoke on the phone last week with Roger Daltrey, remains on good terms with the singer, and that he was “retired” from the band rather than sacked.

Starkey has written: "I had a great phone chat with Roger at the end of last week which truly confused both of us!!! Rog said I hadn't been 'fired'...I had been 'retired' to work (on) my own projects.

"I explained to Rog that I have just spent nearly 8 weeks at my studio in Jamaica completing these projects, that my group Mantra Of The Cosmos was releasing one single at the beginning of June and after that had run its course (usually 5/6 weeks) I was completely available for the foreseeable future....Rog said 'Oh!' and we kind of left it there."

The drummer added: "On good terms and great friends as we have always been. Gotta love these guys. As my mum used to say 'The mind boggles!!!'"

The late Maureen Starkey isn’t wrong. What’s the difference between being ‘retired’, being ‘fired’ and ‘being let go’? In practical terms, nothing.

Starkey has been in The Who for nearly thirty years. Earlier this year they announced two Italian dates for July. After this there is the little matter of their ‘final’ US tour in August and September.

Are we to believe that Starkey chose this moment of all moments to decide that he’d rather concentrate on his hobby band, rather than the rock legends he’s played with for nearly three decades?

Whatever the truth in all this, Starkey suddenly seems cheerier about the situation. Just two weeks ago he wrote, after he had been ‘fired’/’retired’ for the second time, that: "I was fired two weeks after reinstatement and asked to make a statement saying I had quit The Who to pursue my other musical endeavours this would be a lie. I love The Who and would never had quit."

And going forward, The Who’s new drummer is now, definitely, Scott Devours, a 58 year old American who has served behind the kit for Roger Daltrey’s solo band since 2009.

So Quadrophenia... You’ve heard the album, seen the film (probably a few times). There’s even been a classical version. Now here comes the ballet.

Unlikely as it may sound but Pete Townshend’s rock opera, set during the mid-60s mod era has been turned into a dance production that premieres at Plymouth’s Theatre Royal in a couple of weeks.

Townshend has been interviewed for a Guardian feature about the ballet. It was he who suggested the idea to his wife, the classical musician and writer Rachel Fuller, who then sketched out a plan with Royal Ballet dancer Natalie Harrison, the project's Creative Director.

The Who songwriter seems to be impressed by what has been cooked up between them and the cast. “I was struck by the fact that I was being drawn back to my mid-20s by these boys, who had a physical way of expressing the missing lyrics,” he says of the dancers. “It felt like it was drawn from deep inside these young dancers. And I found it incredibly moving.”

One thing that has needed adjusting are the clothes. As you can imagine, quite difficult to cavort around the stage in the tight-fitting suits Jimmy and his pals preferred. Paul Smith may have designed the costumes, but adjustments have had to be made – gussets have been added under the arms and in the trousers to accommodate the dancers’ muscular thighs.

One interesting thing to note – the ballet is set, not in 1965 but in the modern day.

“It became clear there was a link between the kids that I grew up with and the similar issues, frustrations, difficulties that young men are facing today,” says Townshend. “The world is in a dangerous place at the moment.”

“It’s being brought into the modern day by the dancers. There are a couple of times when I’ve had tears in my eyes,” the guitarist, who turned 80 this week, admits. “And that’s not because I’m listening to my own music, it’s because it feels like it belongs to this new gang.”

After Plymouth, Quadrophenia: The Ballet is touring, in Edinburgh, Southampton, London and Salford until July 19. For more information and tickets click here.

The Who have a new drummer. He is Scott Devours, a 58-year-old American who has played in Roger Daltrey’s solo band for over 16 years.

Devours replaces Zak Starkey, who according to Pete Townshend quit last week to concentrate on ‘new projects’, before Starkey, very publicly, made it clear that he had been sacked, saying: “I love The Who and would never have quit and let down so many amazing people who stood up for me through all this madness.”

Anyway, Devours seems to be chuffed to have been promoted. In an emotional Instagram post, he wrote: “It’s hard to express the tsunami of emotions that I’m processing since that incredible news.

"The amount of positivity thrown my way has been overwhelming, I truly thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Also, please don’t ask me for tickets, lol.”

Devours acknowledged that many fans will have been “gutted” at the departure of Starkey, who served as Who drummer for almost 30 years, far longer than even Keith Moon.

“As a huge fan myself, there is a part of me that’s processing this loss with a heavy heart too,” he said. “It really is a strange contradiction of emotions to have the greatest moment of my professional career also be one framed with some sadness and shadowed by someone else’s loss. It’s tough to put into words actually, but I know it’s there and it’s real.”

Thus ends one of the odder episodes in The Who’s long history. Starkey was originally sacked back on April 16, reputedly because they were unhappy with the standard of his performance at a gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

Three days later he was back in. “We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen,” Pete Townshend wrote to fans by way of an explanation. “It’s over. We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.”

The peace lasted until last week when Starkey quit or was fired, depending on who you believe. Now The Who go into what they’re saying will be their final US tour with their fifth drummer. “In my world, there are no bigger shoes to fill than those behind Pete and Roger,” Devours wrote on Instagram. “The weight of this responsibility is enormous and I am feeling every ounce of it. What I want to say to all of the fans is that I will do everything I can to honour the legacy of The Who, Zak, Kenney Jones, Simon Phillips and the memory of the great Keith Moon.”

He concluded, with much sincerity: “But this tour isn’t about me or anyone other than The Who, which IS Pete and Roger. I will give them everything I have. Thank you for reading this. Now I’m going to go throw up, lol.”

Zak Starkey has been sacked from the Who - again - just a couple of weeks after being reinstated in the band, and Josh Freese has been ejected from Foo Fighters, in a brutal weekend of high-profile drummer nixing.

Both men have issued defiant statements. Starkey, in particular, is not about to go quietly, refusing to peddle what he says is an officially mandated narrative about his sudden (re)departure, something the band seem to claim was down to their in-out drummer's 'new projects'.

Announcing Starkey's latest Who exit, Pete Townshend wrote, “After many years of great work on drums from Zak the time has come for a change.”

“A poignant time. Zak has lots of new projects in hand and I wish him the best.”

However, just one hour after Townshend's statement, Starkey, 59-year-old son of Ringo Starr, issued his own rebuttal. “I was fired two weeks after reinstatement and asked to make a statement saying I had quit to follow my other musical endeavours.”

“Not true. I love The Who and would never have quit and let down so many amazing people who stood up for me through all this madness.”

Starkey added that his latest sacking followed “weeks of mayhem of me going ‘in and out and in and out’ … like a bleeding squeezebox”.

"The lie is or would have been that I quit the Who – I didn’t. I love the Who and everyone in it.”

Freese's response to his own sacking, meanwhile, was more measured. The Foo Fighter, recruited in 2023 following Taylor Hawkins' untimely death, wrote, "I'm not angry - just a bit shocked and disappointed."

The full statement reads, "The Foo Fighters called me Monday night to let me know they've decided 'to go in a different direction with their drummer.' No reason was given."

"Regardless, I enjoyed the past two years with them, both on and off stage, and I support whatever they feel is best for the band. In my 40 years of drumming professionally, I've never been let go from a band, so while I'm not angry — just a bit shocked and disappointed.

"But as most of you know, I've always worked freelance and bounced between bands so, I'm fine. Stay tuned for my 'Top 10 possible reasons Josh got booted from the Foo Fighters' list."

Just days after being unceremoniously dumped from The Who, Zak Starkey, the journeyman session drummer who’s been playing with the band for 29 years, is back in the hot seat for the rock legends.

That’s the surprising word coming from Pete Townshend’s camp, apparently overruling official word from The Who’s management following an on-stage spat between Starkey and The Who’s lead vocalist Roger Daltrey.

In an Instagram post, Townshend wrote: “News flash! Who back Zak! Zak is not being asked to step down from The Who. There have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.”

And on the official Who website Townshend continues, shedding more light on this latest Who fracas.

“Roger and I would like Zak to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line-up and he has readily agreed. I take responsibility for some of the confusion,” Townshend writes.

“Maybe we didn’t put enough time into sound checks, giving us problems on stage. The sound in the centre of the stage is always the most difficult to work with. Roger did nothing wrong but fiddle with his in-ear monitors. Zak made a few mistakes and he has apologised,” he continued.

“We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It’s over. We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.”

During the band’s second appearance at the Royal Albert Hall on 30 March – seen as precursor try-outs for another (final?) yet-to-be-confirmed The Who world tour – Daltrey complained of on-stage sound problems and not being able to hear the band’s final track properly due to Starkey’s drumming.

Gesturing to the sound crew throughout the night, Daltrey complained on mic during The Song Is Over that: “To sing that song I need to hear the key, and I can’t. All I’ve got is drums going boom, boom, boom. I can’t sing to that. I’m sorry, guys.”

While tensions were visible between the pair it was assumed that the blame that night would land squarely on the sound technicians at play that evening, however, days later a cryptic (read: barely legible) Instagram post from Starkey indicated that “Toger Daktrey” wasn’t happy with him, accusing him of “overplaying” and that The Who were about to “Zak the drummer”.

The post has since been deleted.

Sure enough, a thoroughly professional and carefully worded statement from the band was to follow next day, spelling out their thanks to Starkey for his service but making it plain that he wasn’t welcome anymore.

“The band made a collective decision to part ways with Zak after this round of shows at the Royal Albert Hall. They have nothing but admiration for him and wish him the very best for his future."

After which Starkey himself announced that he was “surprised and saddened” by the band’s decision.

The situation took Who watchers by surprise, as Starkey had – up until this point – been seen as the ideal replacement for the dearly departed Keith Moon, offering up the kind of spirited performance, full of personality that befitted such an honourable posting.

Speculation upon his being let go soon inevitably pointed towards Starkey being resurrected as Oasis’ drummer for their upcoming summer 2025 reunion mega gigs, a role Starkey has filled before and which despite being rumoured to be filled by Joey Waronker has never been officially confirmed or endorsed by the band themselves.

Also with Starkey out of The Who, not only were the band’s rumoured world tour announcement placed in jeopardy, but also the band’s ability to perform confirmed gigs in Italy, scheduled to take place on 20 and 22 July this year.

With just weeks of prep to go, speculation had circled around the possibility of Daltrey’s solo drummer Scott Devours who’d previously covered for Starkey during a tendon injury joining the band. Or similarly top session drummer, and Townshend band member, Simon Phillips stepping in.

Now it seems that common sense has prevailed, simultaneously securing their fan’s buy-in once more, placing that world tour announcement back in the frame and making the band’s upcoming Italian gigs possible. Phew.

Previously, apparent peace-maker Townshend had commented that he didn’t always see eye to eye with Daltrey’s choice of band members and it would appear that his calming influence (at least in this latest Who spat) is responsible for Starkey getting his job back.

In 2024 Townshend revealed that it was Daltrey who was in charge of appointing the various members of The Who over the years and that Townshend “wasn’t 100% happy” with some of his choices.

Meanwhile, in light of Starkey’s recent spot in the limelight, a charity version of Children of the Revolution featuring an all-star line-up has been doing the rounds once more. Recorded in February this year the track features Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Elton John and Starkey’s father, Ringo Starr and will be appearing on a yet-to-be-announced charity album.

“Ringo/Elton/Axl/Duff/Slash. C’mon amazing people – let’s get this record out and [help] these teenagers who, as musicians, we rely on so much,” Starkey said on Instagram.

Pete Townshend claims that The Who invented stadium rock - only to see Queen steal their thunder at Live Aid.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Townshend is asked about a comment he makes in the liner notes for a new box set of his solo material, where he states: “I handed the stadium stage to Queen and U2, and of course to Bruce Springsteen…

He tells Rolling Stone: “The Who invented Stadium Rock.” But he adds: “We gave it away.”

On July 13, 1985, both The Who and Queen performed at the Live Aid show at London’s Wembley Stadium.

But as Townshend says now: “Our timing was terrible. When we did Live Aid, we could barely fuckin’ play. Queen were in the middle of a tour, walked out there, took the whole thing, and turned it into an advert for themselves.”

He continues: “I never really appreciated what Queen was about, to be honest. I liked ABBA, but I didn’t really connect with the lighthearted pop diversity of Queen’s catalog.

“I’m a huge fan of Bruce [Springsteen], of course, and a big fan of U2, and very happy to see the way that they took the stadium mantle.

“But with songs like Won’t Get Fooled Again and Baba O’Riley, I fuckin’ nailed it. There’s no question. And I gave that instrument away.

Townshend concludes: “It would be wrong to say that I regret it, because I don’t. I have to look back and say, ‘Well, what is, is.’”

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Best of 2024: The Who's musical legacy is unquestionable, with an undeniable cultural influence through classic songs and landmark concept albums, but it was nearly a very different story when they kicked singer Roger Daltrey out of the band in late 1965.

The singer became the steady hand and voice of reason as bandmates Keith Moon, John Entwhistle and Pete Townshend became embroiled with amphetamines in the mid-'60s, but his frustrations with the situation became physical.

"What they did in their own time was up to them – everyone was doing stuff like that at the time," explained Daltrey to The Coda Collection in 2022. "Personally, I couldn't do it because I wanted to be the singer and if you want to be a singer you can't take amphetamines and all that kind of stuff because it dries your throat up. 

"You start chewing your lip halfway through a song and no one will understand what you're saying. And everything will be going so fast you won't be able to get the words out anyway. 

"But for them to take it before a show was a complete no-no," reflected Daltrey on his Who bandmates."Because it was a brilliant band of musicians – Townshend was an absolute original on the guitar, Entwhistle was an original on the bass and what can you say more about Moon than being totally original. 

"But when they got on amphetamines the music just turned to a load of crap – the songs were too fast and when rock gets too fast, it's not rooted. The band thinks it's good… but when you listen back to it, it's come off the ground. 

"It's not slamming to the floor and that's what was happening, and you've got to remember the singer never sees the band, all he ever does is feel. And when that happens you really feel it. You have to go with it because you can't fight it but you know [it's not right] because you can't phrase it properly… it's clumsy. [The band] became clumsy before I flushed the amphetamines down the toilet."

This porcelain intervention followed a particularly bad performance from the drummer. Daltrey's action then provoked a violent response from Moon, and the singer responded in kind. 

"It was a fair fight that I got thrown out of the band for because Moon came for me with a tambourine," noted Daltrey. "Now that sounds like being hit by the Salvation Army but it wasn't quite like that. He came at me with the bells of the tambourine, slashing, which if it caught me in the face or across the eyes, it would have blinded me. It was not funny.

"I did lay into him, and I laid into him quite heavy but I think he deserved it to be honest with you," Daltrey reflected on the incident, reportedly sparked by Moon supplying the guitarist and bassist with the drugs. 

“It took about five people to hold me off him,” Daltrey remembered in his 2012 biography. “It wasn’t just because I hated him, it was just because I loved the band so much and thought it was being destroyed by those pills.”

Taking Moon's side, the band fired Daltrey on 19 November, 1965. The Who were already at a critical juncture following their first hit at the beginning of the year with the Townshend-penned I Can't Explain. Their anthem My Generation had only been released on 29 October (20 November in the US) and the band were supposed to be in full touring mode to support it. Now they were down a singer, but decided to play on regardless anyway.

"After a few weeks of them doing shows without me and audiences dropping off quite rapidly, they asked to have a meeting with me to come back," recalled Daltrey to The Coda Collection. 

"I was adamant that I would only go back if they came to the agreement that they wouldn't take drugs before a show. What they did in their own time was their business… I was neither for it for against it. 

"I would have preferred them just to be sober and straight when we played music because it deserves because it's your craft."

The Who's management of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp were well aware of the mistake the band were making in dismissing their powerhouse vocalist, and began to broker a peace deal. But the other three members of the band had their own terms for Daltrey in return.

"They said, 'Oh we'll do that if you don't fight anymore', and I lived up to it," noted Daltrey.

Disaster averted and The Who back on the path to glory? It was never that simple, but what would unfold shaped the band they would become – a very different proposition to the kind of singles acts around them at the time. 

Still in the mindset of delivering consistent hits, the Who faced another challenge in 1967  when the Townshend song the guitarist had been holding back to reveal at the right time because he believed it would be the band's first number-one, only reached number 10 in the UK charts.

"To me it was the ultimate Who record, yet it didn't sell," Townshend bitterly recalled in John Atkins' book, The "Who on Record: A Critical History, 1963-199. "I spat on the British record buyer". In the film Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who, the songwriter admitted it even gave him doubts about the band's future.  

It inspired a dramatic change from a singles band to the conceptual visionaries that would define The Who's next era.

"He's probably correct – if he hadn't come up with Tommy, we would probably have become just another hit singles band, and it would have been a five-year from top to bottom journey," Daltrey reflected on it with The Coda Collection. "But we were very fortunate to have creative managers – they were like the fifth and sixth members of The Who," he says of Stamp and Lambert. "Their input in those days days was enormous – especially Kit [who] was a mentor to Pete about the potential that music has – that rock music had that it wasn't living up to. It was Kit who taught Pete to doing operas. 

"It was making something more than a three-minute single – not that there's anything wrong with a three minute single, they're still fantastic, but it could be more and Kit encouraged Pete to find the more. And he did."

For more visit The Coda Collection 

• Why John Entwistle was the greatest rock bassist of all time

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Back in 1990, Guitarist magazine caught up with The Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend, who was characteristically frank and revealing. Here, we look back at this classic interview.

Best of 2024: What originally influenced you to become a player and a writer?

"My father had played the guitar when he was young and my uncle Jack had worked for Kalamazoo, before the war, developing guitar pickups. So there was a kind of family thing about the guitar, although it was considered something of an anomaly then.

"My father was in a dance band and I wanted to do what he did, play the saxophone, but I couldn't blow a note so he suggested the guitar. Chromatic harmonica was actually my first instrument and I got very good at it - not quite Stevie Wonder, but very good. Then I hit eleven and decided I did want to try the guitar, so my grandmother bought me one.

"Then I started to examine what was happening, listening to Elvis Presley like all my friends. But to be honest I never really liked him, and also I think Scotty Moore was an aberration - it's not my idea of great playing.

"I think he was someone from another era who'd been drafted into rock and roll; he was competent but not brilliant. I know that's sacrilege to many people and I wouldn't want to slight him as an individual or as a player, because he's cited as a seminal influence by so many people, but for me it was more the sound of Nancy Whiskey."

Do you mean Freight Train?

"Yes, the sound of strumming guitars; such a glorious sound. And I like flamenco music and used to listen to a lot of that, and that's really where my style was born.

"I got my guitar for Christmas but I didn't learn it. Instead I bought myself a banjo, because in my class at school we had quite a good trad band, we even had a tuba player - and [The Who's bassist] John Entwistle was on trumpet. We were all very left-wing, or they were – I didn't know what politics was about. And they were always disappearing into sleeping bags with girls.

"So I picked up the banjo. And the players I looked at were the guys who played with Acker Bilk, Ken Colyer and Kenny Ball. English banjo players really were a law unto themselves – you don't find that kind of brisk banjo playing on the original Louis Armstrong or Bix Beiderbecke records.

"But Acker Bilk's banjo had this very vital, bright sound. He used a G banjo with along scale and played it with lots of flourishes, and I copied that, until I went back to playing guitar a couple of years later.

"I didn't start to collect records and listen to guitar players properly until I went to art school, when I'd already been playing for five years. So my style was already formed and that's why I think it's so unique. I did start copying Chet Atkins when I was eighteen and I can do quite a good impersonation – not quite as good as Mark Knopfler, but I could give him a run for his money on Lambeth Walk, for example.

"But they're not in my blood, they're things that I learned but rapidly got tired of, and I became interested in the intuitive style that seemed to be R&B - like Jimmy Reed, who just played two shapes, but it was the depth in those two shapes that created the poetry."

Was your songwriting developing at the same time as all that?

"Yes, listening to R&B and to other players, and the creative process, were all part of the same thing. Prior to that I'd just been playing for amusement, not really accepting any challenges.

"In a way I regret not having had a formal beginning, because there are walls that I come up against, particularly in these days of players who are so brilliantly expressive and can play so fast. I can play much faster now than I used to, but I'm always ahead of my fingers, my vocabulary is limited and I can't read very well. So I wish I'd taken a more formal route."

Wouldn't that have changed the way you evolved as a musician?

"No. I think it might have structured my songwriting a bit better; I look back and see wasted songs because I was working so intuitively. There were lots of really lucky songs, like Won't Get Fooled Again or Behind Blue Eyes, which came out perfectly, but not through any understanding of song structure.

"Computers have since helped me a lot there - it's a bit like having always suffered from hay fever and then finding that your computer will analyse the pollen count. Analysis is a lost art, and to replace it with intuition is asking too much of intuition. Intuitive players and composers should have all their armoury before they start relying on intuition. That's when they'll make quantum jumps.

"Look at somebody like Prince. He has that armoury, he can write an orchestral score, sit at a piano and read a part, knock out a fairly good version of the Moonlight Sonata or study Gershwin if he likes. Then you've got this impetuous, imp-like character grafting all this intuitive waif-like feel - and you come up with that kind of magical quality."

So where does blues, rock 'n' roll and country fit into that?

"I think people are now looking at blues, rock and roll, country and folk music as a separate strain. But it's not, it's just that those four categories are the most disciplined forms of music that exist, with rock 'n' roll probably the most disciplined of the lot."

Because you're bound by certain limits?

"Yes, and they're very strict. A lot of them have now become rules which you break at your peril - people who broke the rock 'n' roll rules in the seventies are still smarting from the response."

But didn't bands like The Who push those boundaries and merge the feel of rock 'n' roll with true pop?

"The interesting thing is that rock 'n' roll was denied to The Who in a way. The Who were more a pop band than a rock band. Some people get confused when they read the history of The Who, or hear me talking about 'rock'.

"When I talk about rock I'm talking about the ideology that lay behind the emergence of new pop in the sixties - British pop. And I include in that people like The Beatles. That unleashed something which I'm very proud of, because it happened here and it came from us! I talk with Paul McCartney about when it all started, and it's fascinating to feel that you were the beginning of a movement that has outlasted Cubism!

"A lot of people will find that statement unbelievably pretentious, but the fact is that rock 'n' roll itself lasted as long as the pundits said it would - a couple of years. I mean, Elvis only made one rock 'n' roll album!

"Then there were a couple of albums from Bill Haley and one from Eddie Cochran. Buddy Holly isn't really rock 'n' roll at all, but you'd concede one album. And Jerry Lee Lewis said it - they were buried by the emergence of bands like The Beatles, who actually took the song form back to its romantic and sentimental post-war origins."

You mean the set middle eight and everything like that?

"That's right, much more melody involved, lyrics about love and sentimentality rather than about sex. And very few code words for sex, which rock 'n' roll was full of. We really didn't understand then – I don't think The Beatles understood better than anybody else what was really going on.

"We were quite naive and I think it produced a very innocent and refreshing form of music. And where the guitar fits into all this is as the symbol, the anchor, the only continuous line through that period and probably out to the present day.

"People occasionally try to revive the saxophone: the saxophone is the symbol of the eighties - bullshit! Even today, people hold saxophones like guitars! I'm not claiming superiority for the guitar, I'm just talking about what's been imposed."

The feedback and other noises that you extracted from your guitar, were these conscious efforts to do something new, or did you happen to turn your amp up too loudly one day and create it entirely by accident?

"No, I'm afraid I was an arty little sod and I was actually experimenting. I was at art school, surrounded by real intellectuals, people that were experimenting all the time. I was greatly impressed by all this and wanted to please these people.

"A lot of it was posing, trying to drag something out of the band that it was resisting - this is pre-Keith Moon. And as I got louder, John got louder by inventing the 4 x 12 speaker cabinet, which he did with somebody up at Marshall. Then I got a 4 x 12 cabinet and put it on a chair, so then he invented the 8 x 12 cabinet, to get louder than me, and then I invented the stack by getting two 4 x 12s and stacking them up.

"Marshall were outraged, and one day somebody from Marshall came and they were nagging me about the fact that the top cabinet was shifting and was going to fall off and get damaged, and I just said, 'So what?' and knocked it over! There was a tremendous kind of arrogance.

"I haven't actually shown up at any of Jim Marshall's anniversaries or anything because firstly I feel a bit guilty about the way we treated their products, but also because I never see anywhere that what they actually did was rip off the circuit of a Fender Bassman amplifier. I remember them doing it. I remember the amplifier in the shop, on the counter, This is the one we're copying. But of course, there was a revolution in the way that they built the stuff and the actual sound that it produced.

"Our experimentations were all to do with our irritation with the audience, who heckled if you played a rhythm and blues song that they didn't know. You'd get blokes in the back with their pints of beer shouting, 'What's all this rubbish? Play some Shane Fenton!' And we just got louder as a result. Then the squeaks and farts did start to occur in the feedback, but by that time I was already well along the path.

"When I broke my first guitar, I'd actually watched a guy called Malcolm Cecil, at Ealing Tech, where I was at High School, beat me to the punch. He went on to co-produce Innervisions for Stevie Wonder and he was bass player with the Johnny Scott Quintet.

"A girl in my class went out with the flautist and she invited Malcolm Cecil to come and give a talk. Halfway through the talk he started to get carried away, saying,' There are lots of different ways you can play the bass; you can play it like this, or like that'.

"And then he started to bang it. Somebody had been doing something on the stage with a saw, and it was still there, and he picked it up and said, You can even saw at the bass, and he started to saw through his strings and we all stood up and cheered! It made a fantastic noise, and the fact that he was sacrificing his strings! And he just carried on sawing, right through the strings and through the belly of the bass!

"The whole college was full of it, so that wall had been broken and it seemed perfect, natural for me, a couple of months later, to find myself doing the same thing. I saw myself as an R&B/ jazz musician, and also as an artist.

"I thought The Who would last about a year and I'd end up back in experimental music pursuing a career very much like Brian Eno, who, believe it or not, I was a primal influence on, from a lecture I did at Winchester when he was in the audience.

"It shows that radical experimentation really is worth pursuing. Because even though it might feel stupid and pretentious, if you do discover something new, it's your property and you're identified with it for ever.

"Other people stumbled on feedback at the same time as me. Jeff Beck was using it when Roger [Daltrey] went to see The Tridents rehearsing. He said, 'There's a shit-hot guitar player down the road and he's making sounds like you'. Then later, when we supported The Kinks, Dave Davies was adamant: 'I invented it, it wasn't John Lennon and it wasn't you!'

"I worshipped The Kinks and never let a bad word about them pass my lips, so I conceded. But I believe it was something people were discovering all over London. These big amps that Marshall were turning out – you couldn't stop the guitars feeding back!"

But you did try to turn it into something musical, didn't you?

"Oh yeah, you can hear it on the records. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, the solo, on the note A I would flick a harmonic, get it feeding back and then go 'dit-dit-dit-dar-dar' with the switch. And by standing at certain angles I could get incredible sounds out of it, some of which were just characteristics of the Rickenbacker body, which I stuffed with paper.

"You could control it and it could be very musical - certainly that sort of thing where you hit an open A chord and then take your fingers off the strings... the A string is still banging away but you're hearing the finger-off harmonics in the feedback.

"Then the vibrating A starts to stimulate harmonics in other strings and it's just an extraordinary sound, like an enormous plane. It's a wonderful, optimistic sound and that was something that happened because I was posing - I'd put my arms out, let go of the chord then find that the resulting noise was better."

Is it correct that The Kinks' single You Really Got Me influenced you to write Can't Explain to attract the attention of the Kinks' Producer?

"That's right. I had two songs, one called Talking Generation, which became My Generation, and Can't Explain. We picked Can't Explain as the first song to play him and I re-did the original demo with staccato chords. Listening to it, it's a craftsman-like pop record of the time and a lot of people's favourite Who record. Shel Talmy was producing a particular kind of sound in the studio, a particular kind of arrangement."

So you were into home demos even then?

"Yes, I actually started with tape recorders before I started with guitars. As well as the trad band, John Entwistle and I were also in a rock band. One of the guys had a tape recorder and we used to have such fun with it doing spoof radio shows and stuff like that, and I set my heart on getting one.

"My mum and dad had a junk shop, in which I worked, and inevitably a tape recorder came in – it was a Grundig or something. I couldn't dub on it, but I rapidly realised that all I needed was another tape machine and I'd be able to.

"It was Kit Lambert who set me up with a studio of my own. He was The Who's manager and he pushed me all the way. I had a flat above my folks' and I set a studio up in one of the rooms. He bought me two machines and although those demos are a little brittle-sounding they were the first things I ever did and they sound really good."

Did you regret you weren't The Who's singer?

"No, not really. There were actually periods when Roger left the group for several weeks and I was The Who's singer. Robert Plant talks about the fact that when he first saw us I was the singer. He came to see us three nights in a row and offered himself for the job, as did Steve Gibbons when he came to see us and Roger wasn't there. Obviously none of them thought I was any good!"

If asked what songs Pete Townshend writes, many people would say, aggressive songs. But some of them are really gentle...

"Well, everybody has different shades, some of which don't get seen by the public. But anybody who cares to go further can find that stuff. I find myself whining about how record companies put everybody into boxes, but we put ourselves into a box.

"If you've got something to say I think it's best to specialise, but when you are the product, you end up lumbered with the specialisation. It's not like running a factory and saying, We'll start by concentrating on the garden gates and then move on to the rest of the furniture. You say, I'm a garden gate.

"But then, when you've successfully sold yourself as that and you say, 'Oh, by the way, I'm not just a garden gate', people say, 'Oh shut up'. They don't want to know. There's only room for one garden gate and that's The Who."

When everybody else was after guitar hero status, you turned around and played a one-note solo on I Can See For Miles. Was that Townshend the anti-hero?

"Well, maybe. I'm sure it was a kind of defence mechanism. You have to remember that I knew Jimmy Page – Led Zeppelin weren't formed then but I'd seen him in various bands and if anything his playing slowed down as he got older! He was an extraordinary player, arrogant, flash...

"And Eric [Clapton], with the Yardbirds, used to play absolutely beautifully and he'd only been playing a year! And Jeff Beck, who always had that guitar quality of making the guitar sound like a voice. That was the kind of marketplace I was in, and although I hadn't been belted round the chops by Jimi Hendrix yet, I definitely didn't want to be competing with those players."

You say you were belted round the chops by Jimi Hendrix.

"It's very difficult now, just listening to records, to understand what all the fuss was about. He was such a visual performer There was something else, other than music, going on. Hendrix was a great player, but he wasn't really creative. He was dealing in other people's ideas, old blues things and tricks that were either borrowed from Eric – that Marshall kind of style – or the pyrotechnic things that he had caught off watching me.

"He used to follow the band around, watching, and then he suddenly appeared on stage doing all this stuff. But it was something else that made it extraordinary; he was just an extraordinary man. Talk to the women who came in contract with him - he literally enchanted them. And he was a pretty unremarkable kind of gnarled-looking guy, but he was a real enchanter.

"The thing that really stunned Eric and me was the way he took what we did and made it better. And I really started to try to play. I thought I'd never, ever be as great as he is but there's certainly no reason now why I shouldn't try. In fact I remember saying to Eric, I'm going to play him off the stage one day. But what Eric did was even more peculiar, he said, Well, I'm going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!"

What statements were you making by smashing your guitars?

"The guitar smashing was basically marketing. I knew it was going to work, but I had to use real guitars and that was because I am primarily a musician and I wanted it to be real. I'm also an artist, and I'm not afraid to claim that what I do is art.

"But it couldn't be phoney, there had to be a kind of act of vengeance against the consumer society that was telling people like you and me that we had to have a Fender with those funny little Phillips screws on, otherwise we weren't real people. And I did the paper round for three years to buy my first real guitar!

"I lent it to John Entwistle one day and it was pinched and his mother gave me three quid! I think I swore then that I would never get attached to another instrument as long as I lived.

"When Rickenbacker made me a Signature model, a couple of guys in the factory weren't too happy about it – they felt it was a kind of jibe. But I don't have romantic misconceptions about musical instruments – they're just wood, probably far more useful as pulp than anything else.

"There are actually a couple of instruments that I would miss, and in fact a weird thing happened to the J-200 that I've had for a long time. Half way through Iron Man [Townshend's musical] it got wet here in the studio and exploded, and it was almost like the guitar getting back at me – the only guitar I really cared about dying on me!

"In The Witches of Eastwick, Jack Nicholson smashes up a Mercedes 600 saloon. I saved up for about five years for one of those once, and I thought, smashing it up in a movie! It could have been any car and it would have been just as effective."

Have you ever smashed a guitar off stage, in anger?

"Oh yes, quite a lot - once the principle is there..."

Shel Talmy, the producer behind some of the most incendiary electric guitar sounds of the ‘60s, has died, aged 87. Talmy, whose work with the Kinks and the Who turned up the volume on the British Invasion, died from complications following a stroke.

He leaves behind a formidable discography. Talmy was in the control room for the Kinks debut album, ground zero for powerchords in high-volume rock, with Ray Davies’ You Really Got Me having an all but immediate impact, influencing Pete Townshend to write I Can’t Explain, using it as a calling card to get Talmy to work with the Who.

Speaking to Warren Huart of Produce Like A Pro, Talmy said he didn’t need too much persuasion to sign the Who to his production company, Orbit-Universal.

“The first thing I heard was I’m A Man, that Daltrey sang, and about after about eight bars I said, ‘Yes, I’ll sign you.’ [Laughs] Because they were, at that time, the best rock band I’d heard in England that sounded like an American rock band” he said. “I think they had just changed their name to the Who but they were the High Numbers just before that.”

The Kinks had made Talmy a hot ticket. He had racked up enough hits that he could self-finance the early Who recordings. There was no messing around. The first song they recorded was I Can’t Explain. Next up was Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere. The third track was My Generation. The world was never the same again.

Talmy's remarkably story began on TV. Born in Chicago in 1937, Talmy got an early taste of showbiz when appearing on NBC’s Quiz Kids TV show. TV was his first job, working for ABC in Los Angeles, but he soon transitioned to music, first as a recording engineer working under the auspices of Phil Yeend, who indulged Talmy’s appetite for experimentation. Those early experiences set the tone for his production sensibility. Talmy was always in search of new sounds and new ways of capturing them.

Moving to the UK in 1962 was the making of him. He got a job at Decca but it wasn’t long before he struck out on his own. He had the knack of being in the right place at the right time. That’s how the Kinks came into his orbit.

Talmy was visiting a friend at a music publishers on Denmark Street when Robert Wace, the manager of the Kinks appeared.

“He said, ‘Would anyone here like to listen to this?’ There was nobody in the reception room except me,” recalled Talmy. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m here. I’ll listen.’ And so I did and they were the Ravens at that point. I liked a lot of what I heard and made a deal – well, I was going to sign them but I didn’t have a whole lot of money so I took them into Pye.”

One of the leitmotifs of Talmy’s production was his uncanny ability to foreground the guitar and capture the danger of it. Tracks like You Really Got Me, with its legendary and oft-contested solo (it was forever rumoured that Jimmy Page played it but it was Dave Davies) would be the ultimate calling card, for the Kinks and Talmy alike.

“It became kind of iconic,” Talmy told Produce Like A Pro. “I think it’s fair to say… the opening chords are iconic.”

All this was new. Telmy was dealing with players who were doing something different. He was there when the Kinks Dave Davies slashed his guitar amp’s speaker cone with a razor. And it wasn’t just the guitarists who were pushing the envelop; Keith Moon was so radical he didn’t even have a hi-hat in his drum-kit. He used his crash instead.

“He was brilliant,” said Talmy. “I really thought he was the best rock drummer I ever recorded, or ever would record.”

Talmy’s credits make a credit playlist. He worked with David Bowie when he was then called Davy Jones, producing two singles. He recorded the Easybeats, whom Bowie would later cover.

One of his most seminal collaborations was with UK psych-rockers the Creation. Together, they made some skronky classics. The Creation's 1966 debut single, Making Time, featured an Eddie Phillips’ guitar solo performed with a violin bow, reportedly the first time this was ever done on record.

Talmy’s work with Wild Silk is superlative; Visions In A Plaster Sky is an essential work of ‘60s psych-pop. When recording British folk icons Pentangle and Roy Harper demonstrated how his production nous could be applied to other genres.

He also had some weird and wonderful singles, too, like Alan Freeman’s recording of the old dance standard Madison Time. Later to achieve fame on BBC Radio as Alan “Fluff” Freeman, Freeman was backed by the Talmy Stone Band. This 1962 single for Decca was a flop. But there weren’t many.

To survive in this business, you also need sense of humour, and Telmy had one. Maybe it is best typified by his parting shot. Before his death, he had prepared a statement to be released posthumously by his family on his Facebook account. He says he had a “good run” and it’s hard to argue with him.

“Hi to all, and many thanks to all of you who have been reading my rock stories for all this time, it has been greatly appreciated!” he wrote. “Please note, that if you're reading this now, this is my final vignette, as I am no longer residing on this plane of existence, and have ‘moved on’, to wherever that may be.

“I’d like to think there is something beyond where I was to where I am now, assuming that the millions of suppositions as to what is next, are accurate. I’d like to think that I'm thoroughly enjoying my new ‘residence,’ and that the countless rumours that there is a big working ‘studio in the sky’ are true, and that we are, dare I say, making heavenly music!

“I am also hoping that I am currently engaged in renewing relationships with a ton of friends and acquaintances, many of which go back for decades.

“I’ve had a good run, and I am delighted it lasted as long as it did. I’m also delighted that I am told I have a legacy that will last even longer. I look forward to meeting some of you in the future who are reading this, but LOL, don’t hurry to get here, I’m not going anywhere!”

Pete Townshend has criticised Rick Rubin and said that “somebody needs to occasionally slap” the esteemed producer.

Not that the Who guitarist is encouraging people to literally inflict physical violence upon Rubin. Townshend was merely guesting on Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt’s Rockonteurs podcast when conversation turned towards the issue of creativity and things became a little heated.

“You see a lot of stuff on YouTube and Instagram, people nagging you about the way that you have to be creative,” Townshend began. “Somebody needs to occasionally slap Rick Rubin, because, one minute he’s telling us that we need to do whatever we like, and then, on the other hand, he’s telling us that we mustn’t do this, and we mustn’t do that.”

“The book of rules for me is… I’ve dabbled with all of those methods. I’ve carried complete big, recording studios on the road with me sometimes, and then sometimes I’ve used little cassette machines. I’ve recorded in all kinds of different ways. And if I fancy going into a studio with a huge orchestra, I’ve done that too. But what’s most interesting is the paper. The paper, the photograph, the writing.”

Townshend added that creativity is “not just about rock stars, pop stars, singers, musicians, artists, or whatever. It’s about everybody.”

“As Rick Rubin so rightly says, and many other pundits about creativity, it has to be fun,” Townshend says. “It has to be enjoyable. It has to be something that you love to do, and it also has to be something that you like what you do. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that anybody else will like it.”

Townshend was guesting on the podcast with his wife, the writer Rachel Fuller. As well as creativity and Rick Rubin, the couple were also talking about The Seeker, Fuller’s musical ‘reinterpretation’ of Herman Hesse’s classic novel Siddhartha, which coincidentally (or perhaps not) shares its name with a classic Who track. 

Last week saw a special one-off performance of The Seeker at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Townshend was one of the performers, along with Alfie Boe, Bollywood superstar Sunidhi Chauhan, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Choir of London. The show’s narrator was well-loved actor Christopher Plummer. The Seeker album and an illustrated novel were also released last week.

Pete Townshend has promised that the Who will definitely “do something” next year.

The guitarist was talking to The Standard but was vague on whether this means gigs, a new album or a reissue of some description. However, he did reveal that he and Roger Daltrey had recently met up and discussed future plans.

"I met with Roger for lunch a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “We're in good form. We love each other. We're both getting a bit creaky, but we will definitely do something next year."

On the issue of new music it seems the two remaining Who members are still divided. "The album side of it… Roger's not keen. But I would love to do another album and I may try to bully him on that."

Townshend did hint that any gigs might be stripped-down back-to-basics affairs. "The last big tours that we've done have been with a full orchestra, which was glorious, but we're now eager to make a noise and make a mess and make mistakes," he said.

The last Who album, simply entitled Who, came out at the end of 2019. It was well received, but sold modestly, and Daltrey was left somewhat chastened by the experience.

When asked by the NME in 2023 about the possibility of new Who music, the frontman laughed: “What’s the point? What’s the point of records? We released an album four years ago, and it did nothing. It’s a great album too, but there isn’t the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don’t know why, but that’s the fact.”

The Standard interview sees Townshend sound off about the importance of arts funding, an issue that’s close to his heart as an Ealing School of Art alumnus.

“If there’s a drum to bang, it’s more critical now than it’s ever been in my lifetime: it’s the lack of subsidies for the arts (and) the lack of recognition of the value of the arts," he says. "Music is being undercut in normal schools (as is) dancing, writing, painting, poetry, everything. We’re in a crisis and I understand that we haven’t got any money but, you know, they should first fix the potholes then they can open some more universities.”

And the 79-year-old guitarist also has an interesting take on the upcoming Oasis reunion. “Well, I’m disappointed,” he says of the Gallaghers’ return. It’s not because he wasn’t able to get a ticket either: “No, because I really like their solo albums,” he says.

Roger Daltrey has been sounding off again.

This time he’s concluded that the internet has “ruined” live music. The object of his ire? That’ll be websites like Setlist.fm that log artists’ setlists date by date. In an interview with Billboard, Daltrey said that this means that: “there’s no surprises left with concerts these days, ’cause everybody wants to see the setlist... I’m fucking sick of it.”

“The internet’s ruined the live shows for me. Who wants to know what’s coming next? People forget about surprises. I can’t stand it.”

When the interviewer suggested that at least it meant that fans knew when they could pop to the loo, the singer shot back, albeit with a smile: “Why not just start to listen to the bloody show in the toilet, then?”

He also revealed that he’s done with the famous scream on one of those setlist staples, Won’t Get Fooled Again. “I’m not gonna do the scream. I’m gonna get the fucking audience to do the scream. I’ve done that scream for 55 years, and I’ve had enough of it. I don’t even want to try it now; it’s brutal on the vocal cords... I’m more into singing these days. At the age of 80, I think I deserve to be.”

He was speaking before an 11 date ‘semi-acoustic’ North American solo tour which kicked off last night in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

Daltrey has never been shy of voicing his opinions. He is one of a handful of musicians to openly champion Brexit and in 2018 criticised the MeToo movement, asking in a Daily Mail interview: “why would any rock star need to push themselves on women? Usually it’s the other way round.”

He turned 80 in March and recently stood down from his central role organising the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts, declaring at the time that “I’m on the way out.”

However, in the Billboard interview he openly talks about future projects such as the Keith Moon biopic and a second memoir to follow his 2018 autobiography Thanks A Lot Mr Kibbelwhite. 

He also appears to open the door to future Who activity, declaring: “I’ll do it if Pete wants to do it, really wants to do it and do it properly. As far as I’m concerned, do we need another Who tour? We were a great group and two of our members died, and it’s been different since.”

“Equally, there’s a chemistry between Pete and I. I love him dearly. There’s something special there, but it needs us both to be on fire and both wanting to be there. So if he really, really wants to do it I’m gonna turn up even with a broken leg, and I’ll deliver for you.”

Pete Townshend's latest reflective interview with Mojo magazine is a typically forthright affair: The Who's icon doesn't flinch from an opportunity to be honest. Even to the point of revealing he had nothing to do with choosing the musicians who have toured as The Who in recent years.

"The interesting thing about Roger and I is it's not a band," says Townshend, while also revealing his current relationship with and singer Roger Daltrey is "better than it's ever been".

"It's a group if musicians that Roger has chosen," adds the guitarist, when asked how he'd describe The Who now. "I have not chosen any of the musicians I tour with – not even [drummer] Zak [Starkey}. When Roger brings me onstage I am filling the shoes of a guy called Frank Simes, who Roger tours with solo, and who is a guitar player and musical director."

Townshend admits he's "not 100 percent happy" with the situation but counters he's still out there celebrating his life and music regardless of who occupies the other roles in the touring band. 

"So I am happy to do it," he adds. "Someone reading this will say, 'Stop fucking complaining, Townshend, and put a band together of people you do want to use.' But that scares the shit out of me.

"I'd get Simon Phillips on drums and Pino Palladino on bass, and I'd dig 'Rabbit' [keyboardist John Bundrick] out of his bed," muses Townshend. "And I'd get some fabulous shredding guitar player… but the problem is, they'd all be far, far superior musicians to me.

"Look, although I said I wouldn't pick this current band, they're still great musicians," he reasons. "It just feels easy and safe. But there are still places in the show where I get to express myself. I'm no Joe Satriani, but I'm playing pretty well, and Roger is singing great. His voice went for a few years, but he fought to get it back."

This is in contrast to comments to The New York Times earlier this year where the musicians suggested he didn't enjoy playing live anymore. Townshend also assures Mojo that The Who aren't necessarily over yet, and for any shows he can't make – he has a stand-in waiting in the wings.  

"When I can't pull it off, guess who pops out and says, 'I can do it! Me!'? My brother, Simon [laughs]"

One thing Townshend won't be doing is hiring Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam producer du jour Andrew Watt to helm a new Who album.

"I would certainly not consider going into a studio with Andrew Watt," he tells Mojo. "He is a very good friend of mine, but I know he would put me to work, and in two weeks he'd end up with an album he'd be very happy with and I wouldn't [laughing]. However fun one might have, it would be too much like hard work.

Read the full interview in the new issues of Mojo magazine.   

• "It was a fair fight that I got thrown out of the band for, because Moon came for me with a tambourine": When Roger Daltrey was fired from The Who at the worst possible time in 1965

We love a classic interview where someone famous either nails a future prediction or, better still, they fail miserably at it, so we can gently mock them. We've discovered one that definitely sits in the former camp, and it's with none other than Beatles legend George Martin.

Back in 1983, Martin had, of course, moved on from producing The Beatles and onto other projects including setting up AIR Studios in Montserrat – a fascinating story in itself, which we go into here. That didn't mean he would ever stop getting asked about the band though, but he was always more than willing to talk about them. 

It was also the year Martin had written his book, Making Music: The Guide to Writing- Performing and Recording, a compilation of his own "little tricks of the trade" and those from a vast number of his contacts, from Adam Ant to Hans Zimmer. And it was this book that he was being interviewed about in the November issue of Home & Studio Recording. 

In the first part of the interview Martin revealed details about his ongoing love for innovative studio technology, a notable example of which was his employment of one of the first synthesisers, a Moog Series 3, in the recording of The Beatles Abbey Road album. (Check it out in the track Maxwell's Silver Hammer above.)

"Consequently as each new thing came out I was very anxious to learn what it could do for me," he said in the interview of his subsequent embracing of new technology. And he then revealed that, as well as being one of the first producers to record the synthesiser, he was also one of the first to experiment with the then all-new sampling power of the Fairlight.

"There are so many new tools, so many little toys. I tend to have my favourites, I mean there are certain things which are so marvellous but they do take time, a thing like the Fairlight for example. A Fairlight is a marvellous machine, you can waste an awful lot of time with it, it's great to play with."

In the second part of the interview, the questioning inevitably turned to The Beatles, with the interviewer asking which of the then current crop of 1983 artists Martin considered were comparable to the Fab Four. 

"One of the difficulties is that so many people are so good and the competition is getting so fierce," he responded, "that I doubt whether we will have anyone breaking through in the kind of monumental way that The Beatles did, or like The Who or The Rolling Stones.

"To get into that kind of classic category, I think you've got to be head and shoulders above the rest, but the rest are so tall now that it's very difficult."

Which could be read that The Beatles were only huge back in the 1960s because the bands around them weren't, but knowing Martin as we think we do, he was really just bigging up the bands of '83, not dissing those of '63.

Martin's prediction has arguably become true, but not perhaps for the reasons he spelled out. The massive shift in the way music is now consumed has meant that it's virtually impossible for any band to now sell the kinds of records The Beatles once did. Because streaming is now such a widely used way of consuming music, it is truly unlikely that anyone will ever match those sales again. 

However, success is measured very differently these days too, often in touring stats rather than in record sales, so in that sense, there are probably a few Taylor Swift fans out there who might not agree with us or Martin. 

Other Martin predictions in the interview are probably best left back in 1983, like one where he foresaw the demise of decent lyric writing, "I'm afraid the golden age of lyric writing is slipping from us". 

However, Martin's final comment on technology was particularly noteworthy, and probably as relevant today as it was 41 years ago.

"We've now got our technology into such a state that we can make virtually perfect recordings and that throws even greater emphasis on the content, which means we are back into the business of making music and not making technical things. Making music is the most important thing of all."

• Read more: "We take the original image and split it through a double vibrocated sploshing flange with double negative feedback": The Beatles, Les Paul, or Larry Levine? Who really discovered flanging?

Pete Townshend is quite the quote machine this week as he promotes Tommy The Musical opening on Broadway, as he is whenever he speaks to the media – these times simply aren't used to musicians who speak their minds so openly and consistently. And while he admitted to the New York Times about how he doesn't really enjoy touring with The Who anymore, his visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon saw him opening up about his past reputation for smashing guitars during live shows with the band.

He may be mostly reformed now, and suggested in the past it was a marketing ploy, but Townshend's ideology about the place of guitars that fuelled his onstage antics hasn't changed.

"Young kids that get their first really good guitar end up in a love relationship with it – I've never had that," the songwriter explains. that hasn't changed either, though at Townshend's destructive peak there were practical concerns to consider. 

"I'd fix them with glue," he confirms to Fallon in the clip above when asked what the protocol was if The Who had back-to-back shows featuring guitar smashing. "When we first came to New York we did this thing called the Murray The K Show [in 1967] and you had to do four shows in a day. And I only had the one guitar so I had to break it and fix it four times in a day. In the end it was more glue and string than guitar."

Townshend is unrepentant about it all over 50 years later – and maybe he shouldn't be as he's still the most iconic example of it ever being done. "You know I don't apologise for this," he tells Fallon. "I should do but I don't. I think a lot of people struggle to buy their first instruments, they build up a relationship with them but I never had that but I don't know quite why that is.

"In those days it was every kid wanted to be Elvis Presley and they all wanted these cheap guitars – and they were trash guitars, to be honest," Townshend reflects."The kind of guitars your grandmother would buy you for Christmas and they'd be unplayable."

Then Townshend began to dig into his first guitar-owning experience that may have prevented him from romanticising about the instruments themselves from then on – because it's not a positive one.  

"My dad was a professional musician – clarinet player and sax player – and I said to him, 'Please dad, you buy me my first guitar' but he said, 'No your grandmother wants to buy you your first guitar.

"And she bought me a guitar from the Greek restaurant in Ealing where we lived – off the wall!" recalls Townshend to laughter. "Nobody's gonna tell that a hunk of wood with strings stretched across it is sacred. Not to me."

During his appearance on Fallon's show he joined the Tommy musical's cast for a medley of songs that you can see below. 

• The Who – Tommy: Pete Townshend guitar lesson

Whether you agree with him or not Pete Townshend might be the most publically honest musician of his generation. In a new interview with the New York Times he laid bare his feelings on touring with the Who nowadays, and even drew contrasts with AC/DC when it comes to the band's creative modus operandi.

"I do and I think I will," he said of his desire to make new music. "It feels to me like there’s one thing the Who can do, and that’s a final tour where we play every territory in the world and then crawl off to die. I don’t get much of a buzz from performing with the Who. If I’m really honest, I’ve been touring for the money. My idea of an ordinary lifestyle is pretty elevated."

He also touched upon something he said back in a 1990 interview regarding being pigeonholed by audiences when he made solo music that wasn't received well. 

"I’ve been immensely creative and productive throughout that period," he says of the last few decades, "but I haven’t felt the need to put it out. And if I can make it personal, I don’t care whether you like it or not. When White City came out [in 1985] and the sales were so slow, I thought, Screw this. Nobody wanted me as I was — they wanted the old Pete.

"AC/DC made 50 albums, but all their albums were the same," he added. "It wasn’t the way the Who worked. We were an ideas band."

Townshend has no shortage of ideas to draw from and is currently mulling over releasing them and embracing the artist he is now – rather than people's perceptions of the past.

"I’ve got about 500 titles I might release online, mostly unfinished stuff," he revealed. "We’re not making Coca-Cola, where every can has to taste the same. And it’s turned out, surprise, surprise, that rock ’n’ roll is really good at dealing with the difficulties of aging. Watching Keith Richards onstage, trying to do what he used to do — it’s disturbing, heart-rending, but also delightful.

"When I was a kid, my dad’s band supported Sarah Vaughan for two weeks. To me, she was really old and not sexy. Time shifts; I’m now older than she was. In every rock documentary, there are bald men who look 100 years old, talking about doing loads of cocaine with David Bowie. What do young people think?

"The Who isn’t Daltrey and Townshend onstage at 80, pretending to be young. It’s the four of us in 1964, when we were 18 or 19. If you want to see the Who myth, wait for the avatar show. It would be good!"

• "It was a fair fight that I got thrown out of the band for, because Moon came for me with a tambourine": When Roger Daltrey was fired from The Who at the worst possible time in 1965

Keith Moon played drums with the same hyper-kinetic intensity that he lived his life: frenetic to the point where chaos could erupt around him at any given moment. When it comes to the excess and antics of rock ’n’ roll, Keith Moon didn’t just partake, he wrote the playbook. 

Sadly, Moon died on this day in 1978, taken far too early his 200mph lifestyle having taken its toll. Keith packed more into his 32 years than most people could manage in a couple of lifetimes, cruelly losing his life to an overdose of prescription pills designed to help alleviate the alcohol withdrawal he was experiencing while attempting to get sober.

Moon left a wealth of drumming, inspiring generations to come as one of the most energetic and exciting drummers of his (and of all) time, but he also left a lot of crazy stories. 

Some reportedly true, many doubtless embellished, and a few that are entirely disputed. Here, we take a look at five crazy, funny, and often dangerous Keith Moon moments.

1. Banger O'Riley

When The Who featured as guests on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in September 1967, the band was asked by the hosts in advance to destroy their instruments. The Who performed two songs that night - I Can See For Miles, the band’s first Top 10 hit in the US, closing with My Generation. 

Moon’s bass drum was rigged for a rehearsal of the finale, where a dramatic flash would signal the, ahem, explosive ending, but this was apparently too tame for Moon, who insisted the charge be made more impressive. 

With the cameras rolling, the final notes of My Generation arrive and Moon’s bass drum explodes with the force of a small bomb, much to the shock of bandmates Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend. Townshend was immediately in front of the bass drum, and just moments before the explosion had his head parallel to the resonant head. 

Famously, Townshend blames the explosion on his permanent loss of hearing in one ear, as well as setting his hair alight. Moon suffered a slice to the arm from a flying cymbal, while bassist John Entwistle survived the ordeal unscathed.

2. Herd (not) Immune

Ever the prankster, Keith Moon enjoyed performing practical jokes while on tour. When Peter Frampton’s band, The Herd served as The Who’s opening act in 1967, it was open season. 

Frampton remembers, “At one theatre, Keith Moon stuck his head out of the dressing room window and the girls outside started screaming. He said to me ‘Here Pete, shove your head out’. The next thing I knew I was dangling out the fourth-floor window. Keith had one leg and John Entwistle had the other. There I was full dangle.”

But the antics continued on-stage, with The Herd’s keyboard player Andy Brown subjected to having his keyboard rigged with firecrackers, detonated remotely by a backstage Moon. 

However, the most comical (and least dangerous) incident involved double-act Moon and Entwistle apparently setting up a wire and pulley on drummer Andrew Steele’s gong. Whenever Steele went to hit the gong throughout the show, it was moved just out of reach. 

3. Substitute

There are plenty of tales of rock ’n’ roll excess, but few culminate in the termination of a gig mid-set. That’s exactly what happened during The Who’s gig at San Francisco’s Cow Palace in November, 1973.

Moon reportedly arrived at the venue, and began suffering from pre-gig nerves - something he’d become used to dealing with regularly. In order to calm him down, Moon’s female accomplice offered him something to take the edge off.

What that substance was, exactly, is the stuff of rock folklore - some say horse tranquilliser, some claim it was elephant sedative, Daltrey has even said it was monkey tranqulliser. 

Regardless, it was found to contain PCP - commonly used to sedate large animals. Moon took the substance, washed down with a glass of brandy and began the gig. During The Who’s set, Moon’s friend had a seizure and was taken to hospital, before Moon collapsed about 20 minutes later during Won’t Get Fooled Again.

“If you could just bear with us for about three weeks, we’re just going to go and revive our drummer by punching him in the stomach. He’s out cold." Pete Townshend told the crowd. "I think he’s gone and eaten something he shouldn’t, it’s your foreign food. But I’m afraid the horrible truth is, that without him we’re not a group and you’ll have to f***ing wait!” 

Moon was revived backstage by the band’s roadies before insisting on returning to the stage. However, he didn’t last long before collapsing again and being taken off stage for the rest of the night.

Townshend addressed the crowd, asking if there was “somebody good” at playing drums in the crowd, and up stepped then-19-year-old Scott Halpin, fulfilling every rock fan’s dream of being invited on stage to rescue the gig. 

“My friend was pushing me forward and saying, ‘Come on man, you can go up there and play, you can play,’” Halpin said. “He’s really the one that got me into it. It was ridiculous. The tom-toms were as big as my bass drum. I only played three numbers, and I was dead.”

“He was out for 24 hours, and as this drug left him we had to push him around in a wheelchair because his legs didn’t work." Daltrey told Howard Stern. "[His mouth and eyes] still worked, so we could give him some stick while we were pushing him in the wheelchair. 

"It used to destroy him when he did it, he’d be really upset when he let us down, incredibly unhappy. We used to get pissed at him because we cared about him…but he seemed to have nine lives. 

"I’ve seen Keith Moon dancing on top of an air conditioning unit 16 storeys in the air.”

4. Talking ’bout Pie Generation

When Oliver Reed too the role of Frank Hobbs in The Who’s rock-opera, Tommy, it kindled a friendship between the likeminded booze titan buddies that lasted for the rest of Moon’s life. 

As Daltrey told Howard Stern in 2020, Moon allegedly beat Reed in a drinking competition. “Oliver had a kind of legendary name for being the drinker. He’d outdrink Richard Harris, Richard Burton…he’d put them all under the table. Until Moon came along."

“Moon challenged Olly Reed to a drinking contest. Olly lived in this great big monastery in Surrey, and he had a pub at the end of the drive. They got down to about the third bottle of brandy each and Oliver Reed passed out under the table. Moon stood up and said “F**k you, Olly! I’m going to the pub for a real drink!”

Skip to 1975, and Reed found himself walking down the red carpet at a film premiere in Hollywood, before a lemon curd pie was thrust into his face. Upon removing the pie remnants, Reed was greeted by a stranger who handed him a card, which read “Pie in the Face International” on the front. 

On the back of the card were the words, “You have been selected by Mr. Keith Moon to become a member.”, with a certificate enclosed reading “You are a member, sponsored by Keith Moon".

5. Won't Get Pooled Again

One of Moon’s most infamous antics centres around his 21st birthday, where he allegedly drove a car into a swimming pool whilst trying to escape a police raid on a hotel party that turned feral in Flint, Michigan after The Who’s support slot with Herman’s Hermetts. 

Moon’s version of the story involves him evading the law, jumping into the Lincoln Continental and letting the handbrake go before rolling into a swimming pool where his secondary school physics lessons kicked-in, allowing him to remain calm, eventually exit the car and float to the safety of the surface.

It’s a mad story for a number of reasons - first, it’s a car in a swimming pool. Chuck-in the fact that the car-obsessed Moon didn’t hold a driving licence, then add the confusion over whether it was a Lincoln, Rolls Royce or Bentley. But more than anything, it may not have actually happened at all.

The Herman’s gang deny it happened with drummer Barry Whitman claiming “There was no car in the pool, only all the pool tables and chairs, and Keith never came back dripping water.” 

Singer Peter Noone backs up his bandmate, saying "That never happened. He would tell stories. He just forgot what happened.”. Even The Who’s late bassist, John Entwistle refuted Moonie’s claims, saying "He never drove a car into the swimming pool. He couldn’t even drive." 

Meanwhile, Roger Daltrey remembers the incident, vaguely: "I saw it. We paid the bill. It was $50,000. It’s vague now, but I just remember the car in the pool. But then I read in the biography [Dear Boy by Tony Fletcher] that never happened, so maybe I’ve been living someone else’s life, I don’t know."  Either way, it’s a great story.

Jeremy Clarkson is known as many things - the figurehead of the classic Top Gear presenting team, the host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and of course, being a divisive personality who sometimes really, really craves a steak. However, you might not know him as well for his love of playing the drums. 

Clarkson has showcased his drumming abilities numerous times, perhaps most notably during the Top Gear of the Pops show in 2007 for Comic Relief. Accompanied by James May (keys), Richard Hammond (bass) and The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins, the Top Gear Band ran through a rendition of Billy Ocean’s Red Light Spells Danger, which you can watch below.

But now, the car-enthusiast-turned farmer has taken to social media to shine the light on his window cleaner, who apparently spotted Clarkson’s collectable Premier Spirit of Lily kit while working at Clarkson’s Oxfordshire home and couldn't resist having a bash.

Sat at the eight-piece, double-bass drum kit, Jason Carter — who plays in Oxfordshire-based band, Man Make Fire — unleashed some Dave Grohl-style flams around the toms before thrashing his way through a Grohl/Bonham-inspired beat and trashcan ending. 

The short clip impressed Clarkson fans enough for some people to comment that he’s “overqualified” to be a window cleaner, and that it’s more like Clarkson’s “Personal drummer decided to clean the windows." 

Meanwhile, other followers reminded Clarkson that the red tape is never far away, warning, “A councilman will have a problem with this.” and “West Oxfordshire Council Noise prevention officers are on their way.”

Clarkson’s kit is a Premier Spirit of Lily replica of Keith Moon’s iconic Pictures of Lily kit. Based on Moon’s original (taking its name from The Who’s song of the same name), the drums feature an artistic portrait of actress, Lily Langtry, known for having had an affair with King Edward VII. 

The ‘pictures of Lily’ are interspersed on each shell with The Who’s logo in fluorescent print, as well as Moon’s self-moniker the “Patent British Exploding Drummer” following the infamous gunpowder-in-the-bass-drum incident during The Who's appearance on The Smothers Brothers Show in 1967.

Moon's over-rigged pyrotechnics went off with a bigger bang than anticipated, with Pete Townshend claiming the incident left him permanently deaf in one ear.

The replica drums were released in limited edition quantities over 14 months starting in 2006 — one month for every year that Keith Moon played Premier drums — with a retail price of £4,995.

Pete Thorn is a king of tone – and anyone who has seen his gear demos on YouTube will know his technique, touch and composition make him one of the leaders in the game. But he's also a touting pro player who was once part of Chris Cornell and Melissa Etheridge's solo bands, and he currently lends his talents to UK covers act The Classic Rock Show, performing songs by Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Queen, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, AC/DC and more. So what effects pedals does he choose for it all?

Pete's just posted a handy video to tell us, and we're going to breeze over his Suhr, Leo Scalla and Frankenstein guitars and two Suhr amp setup because we can't afford them (check the video below to find out more and hear some incredible tones). Instead we're paying close attention to some more obtainable gear on his pedalboard. And there's some new additions from the last time he did a rig tour.

Pete is a gigging tonehound so his choices are well worth taking note of. Alongside The Crazy Tube Circuits Starlight fuzz pedal there's the new Unobtanium – combining a Klon-inspired overdrive pedal one side and a Dumbleon the other. "These are the kind of main alternate drive pedals that I'm using through [the Suhr Bella amp]," says Pete, who uses these drives for the sounds that aren't the "straight up rock" tones. For those he leans on his Suhr SL68 amp (£3,500 in the UK… ouch).

He will use DryBell's Unit67 EQ pedal with that amp for its Dallas Rangemaster-style qualities though. "It's kind of more to kick the SL68 a little bit, some of the Rangemaster-style boost to kick the front of the amp a little bit and just liven it up – more harmonics, and a bit more gain. It's really fun."

Pete uses a Boss FV-30H volume pedal in front of the whole rig and it helps for the iconic riff in Journey's Don't Stop Believin' that fades in. He also has a second one going into his Bella amp for swells. 

Eventide's incredible new H90 pedal makes a debut on the 'board, in front of Pete's Bella amp. "I'm using it for Harmonizer, as well as spring reverb which is beautiful on this pedal, I'm using it for some delay, a slow rotary sound and it's great for that." 

Alongside a Strymon TimeLine for delay, there's also a Mobius for modulation. We can also spy MXR's Duke Of Tone and the Dunlop Echoplex delay on there too. 

• Our 11 favourite effects pedals of 2022

The Who’s Roger Daltrey has accused Jimi Hendrix of “completely stealing” Pete Townshend’s stage act, and having enjoyed a ringside seat when two of the greatest players ever to pick up the electric guitar were making their bones, he would be in a position to know.

Daltrey was sitting down with The Coda Collection for a career-spanning interview, when he made the claim – in good humour, it has to be said – but he offered an almighty caveat: that neither invented firebrand guitar hero stagecraft. That honour goes to the blues great Buddy Guy, whom Daltrey not only considers the pioneer of guitar showmanship, but the greatest male blues singer of all time.

“I’ve always stuck up for Pete,” said Daltrey. “Jimi stole Pete's stage act completely, which incidentally, I think he did. But there again, I’m sure Jimi had seen Buddy Guy previously, as I am sure Pete had seen Buddy Guy, and embellished it.”

On Guy, Daltrey was fulsome in his praise. He is peerless. “You watch Buddy Guy in the early days,” he said. “You have to really look for the inventor of all that stuff. It was probably Buddy Guy… I take my hat off to Buddy Guy and he deserves the accolade and I just love him.”

Daltrey discussed a number of issues, proclaiming himself “the number one hater of the internet,” talking about how he often felt belittled as a singer, and opened up about the heated arguments he had with the band when their use of amphetamines affected their performance.

“For them to take it before a show was a complete no-no because here was this brilliant band of musicians,” said Daltrey. “Townshend was an absolute original on the guitar. Entwistle was an original on the bass. What can you say more about Moon [than] being totally original? 

“When they got on the amphetamines, the music just turned to a load of crap. The songs were too fast. When rock gets too fast, it’s not rooted. The band thinks it’s good because they’re all, ‘Oh yeah, we'll speed it up.’ But when you listen back to it you go, ‘Yeah, but it’s come off the ground. It’s not slamming to the floor.’ That’s what was happening.”

• 5 crazy Keith Moon moments

Daltrey also admitted being envious of Robert Plant, whom he said had some “time to relax” during Led Zeppelin compositions, and weighing on Paul McCartney’s disparaging assessment of the Rolling Stones, he said “it’s like comparing cheese with apples.”

“They’re both very tasty, but the cheese does one thing and the apple does another,” said Daltrey. ‘I’ve always thought that you cannot take away the fact that Mick Jagger is still the number one rock and roll show. The only other people I'd put up against him would be perhaps James Brown, maybe Jerry Lee in his day, or Little Richard, but Mick Jagger, you’ve got to take your hat off to. He’s the number one rock and roll performer.”

Head over to The Coda Collection to watch Daltrey’s interview in full. 

Keith Moon was a legendary prankster and storyteller. And maybe sometimes he'd exaggerate a story for comic effect - never more so than with the story of his 21st birthday party at the Holiday Inn, Flint, Michigan in 1967.

Talking to Rolling Stone in 1972, Moon recounted a tale of destruction that began with him starting to drink at 10am.

Later that day, The Who played a show, supporting Herman's Hermits, that Moon had no memory of, and when the after-show party at the hotel developed into a food fight, fire extinguishers were set off, and the police were called.

Confronted by the sheriff, Moon said: "I ran out, jumped into the first car I came to, which was a brand new Lincoln Continental. It was parked on a slight hill and when I took the handbrake off, it started to roll and it smashed straight through this pool surround [fence] and the whole Lincoln Continental went into the ‘Oliday Inn swimming pool, with me in it."

Stuck underwater as the car fills, Moon claimed that, "In a startling moment of logical I said, 'Well, I can’t open the doors until the pressure is the same . . .' It’s amazing ‘ow I remembered those things from my physics class! I knew I’d ‘ave to wait until the pressure was the same.

"When there’s just enough air in the top of the car to take a gulp, I fill up me lungs, throw open the door and go rising to the top of the pool. I figured there’d be quite a crowd gathered by now. After all, I’d been down there underwater for some time. I figured they’d be so grateful I was alive, they’d overlook the Lincoln Continental. But no. There’s only one person standing there and ‘e’s the pool cleaner and ‘e’s got to have the pool clean in the morning, and he’s furious.

"So I went back to the party, streaming water, still in me underpants. The first person I see is the sheriff and he’s got ‘is ‘and on ‘is gun. Sod this! And I ran, I started to leg it out the door, and I slipped on a piece of marzipan and fell flat on me face and knocked out me tooth. Ah-ha-ha-Ha-Ha-Hahaha!

"I spent the remainder of the night under the custody of the sheriff at a dentist’s."

The story grew, the Lincoln became a Rolls Royce, and the Rolls-in-the-swimming-pool has since become a mainstay of rock mythology, a perfect image of rock'n'roll excess. Oasis recreated the image for the cover of third album Be Here Now. But did it actually happen? Even the people who were there aren't sure.

DJ Peter Cavanaugh of WTAC Radio was at the party. "I heard the ruckus," he says, "and I went outside, and the first thing I saw was the vehicle in the pool. We’d all had several beers, and some other stuff too, so things can get a little cloudy, but I clearly remember seeing the vehicle in the pool."

Barry Whitwam, the drummer for Herman’s Hermits, remembers differently: "There was no car in the pool, only all the pool tables and chairs, and Keith never came back dripping water."

Peter Noone, the Herman's singer agrees: "That never happened. He would tell stories. He just forgot what happened."

By all accounts, Herman's Hermits were hit with a bill for $25,000 for new carpets, wallpaper and ceilings.

The Who's Roger Daltrey, however, remembers it differently: "I saw it," he says. "We paid the bill [for the damages]. It was $50,000. It’s vague now, but I just remember the car in the pool. But then I read in the biography [Dear Boy by Tony Fletcher] that never happened, so maybe I’ve been living someone else’s life, I don’t know."

His bandmate John Entwistle disagreed: "He never drove a car into the swimming pool," said Entwistle. "He couldn’t even drive."

Read the full story, by the people who were there.

MusicRadar readers have voted Geddy Lee as the greatest bassist of all time, with the Rush frontman joining drummer Neil Peart on the hallowed pantheon of GOATs – and, by implication, proclaiming via democratic process that the Rush rhythm section is the greatest of all time.

Of course, calling Lee and Peart a rhythm section almost sells their contribution short. Besides being a one-man rhythm machine with forensic sense of the pocket, Peart – or the Professor as Rush fans know him – was the band's main lyricist, and helped lead from behind the kit. Geddy Lee, meanwhile, was its frontman and master of ceremonies, whose dynamic bass style offered both rhythmic and melodic counterpoints to Alex Lifeson's guitars.

Peart, who passed away on 7 January 2020, aged 67, was followed in second place by the late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, with Buddy Rich in third. Ginger Baker, another great who is sadly not with us, came in fourth, and what we would give to hear his comments on finishing behind anyone. Ginger never missed.

As for the GOAT bassist poll, Lee edged out second-placed Jaco Pastorius, with The Who's John Entwistle in third. Paul McCartney, who enjoyed some success with a Liverpudlian modern beat combo named the Beatles, came in fifth. Macca can at least console himself knowing that none looked cooler sipping tea in a Fair Isle sweater.

MusicRadar's GOAT hunt is still ongoing, however. We will be opening the polls to find the the GOAT guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist in due time. Which begs the question whether Alex Lifeson will join Peart and Lee, and if so, can democracy pick suitable collaborators on keys and someone to front this Rush+2 supergroup?

As for Lifeson and Peart, scarcely has there been a more productive collaboration. With Alex Lifeson, the trio remained a tight unit across a career of constant evolution. With the Canadian trio so consistently fascinating and life-affirming on record or on stage, who could pick a highlight? Limelight? YYZ? But what about La Villa Strangiato, Xanadu, Tom Sawyer... ? And so on. That's the sign of greatness. The polls agree.

Bookmark our GOAT hunt landing page and be sure to cast your vote when the polls open for guitarists, keyboardists and vocalists.

Welsh bass virtuoso Pino Palladino has enjoyed a prolific career as a session musician, recording with pop superstars such as Adele and Ed Sheeran, playing bass in The Who after John Entwistle's death, and collaborating with the likes of D'Angelo, John Mayer, Elton John and many more.

What Palladino isn't is a prolific interviewee, preferring to let his bass guitar do the talking. But in an interview published today in The Guardian, he has spoken of the moment in 2002 when Pete Townshend called. John Entwistle had passed away: would Palladino fill in on the tour? 

“I flew to LA, thinking, what are you doing? You don’t even know many Who songs,“ said Palladino. Townshend was prepared, presenting him with a stack of CDs. 

As a session player who had overcome imposter syndrome to sit in with the likes of David Gilmour and Elton John, there was no question Palladino would get The Who's set down pat. But only after some helpful advice from Townshend.

“At the first rehearsal, Pete comes over and says: ‘You’re going to have to play louder’ – because I’m used to being the sympathetic musician, who fills in, doesn’t make a racket,“ said Palladino. That’s the one instruction you keep getting when you work with the Who: ‘Fucking turn it up, we can’t hear you!’”

Palladino also speaks about his career through the 80s, when he was on speed dial for any pop star who needed some four-string flair in the low end. But in a career that saw him play on some of the top-selling albums of all time, Palladino considers his collaboration with neo soul pioneer D'Angelo, as bassist of the Soulquarians, the personal highlight.

“D’Angelo – I’d mention him in the same breath as Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway and Sly Stone,“ said Palladino. “It’s incredible, to be a Welsh guy, having no real connections to these guys other than music that we loved and played.“

Palladino has just released Notes With Attachments with the Californian guitarist and composer Blake Mills, available now through New Deal Records. You can read his interview with The Guardian here.

Ian Haug is the guitarist in Australian rockers Powderfinger. He's currently locked in a legal battle with a Brisbane casino that allegedly assaulted him, injured his wrist and, as a result, forced him to change his guitar playing technique.

Now, we're not going to concern ourselves with the ins and outs of the case, but when an established guitarist is forced to re-learn his trade because of an accident, we should sympathise. Or should we? Ian Haug is not the first, and certainly won't be the last.

In fact, some guitarists have overcome far worse, with astonishing results. Here are six guitarists who've overcome their injuries, adjusted their style and carried on regardless…

6. Pete Townshend gets impaled on a whammy bar

This is kind of self-inflicted, hence its early inclusion in the list. In 1989, The Who's Pete Townshend impaled his right hand on his Strat's whammy bar when performing the infamous 'windmill' move. While we're on the subject, he also broke several bones in his hand from 'punching a wall' in 1981 and shattered his wrist in 1991 from a bike accident. Luckily, he's still playing fine.

5. Johnny Greenwood's RSI

RSI (repetitive strain injury) is a common complaint among guitarists and can seriously hamper playing. Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood often wears a wrist support. It seems to do the trick.

4. Dave Mustaine's CTS

Dave Mustaine was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (an injury to the channel in the palm side of your wrist) apparently after 'sleeping on his arm'. The guitarist feared he would 'never play again' although his fears were unfounded: he's still knocking out Megadeth albums now.

3. Dorian Cox's 'bionic' arm

The former Long Blondes guitarist suffered a stroke aged just 27, but underwent neurological physiotherapy sessions with the help of a 'bionic' hand. Science is amazing.

2. Django Reinhardt's two-fingered solos

At the age of 18, the gypsy jazz guitarist escaped from a burning caravan with first and second degree burns over half his body. He recovered, and - although the third and fourth fingers on his left hand remained partially paralyzed - so did his guitar playing. He relearned his craft from scratch using just two fingers for chords and, perhaps miraculously, solos.

1. Tony Iommi's plastic thimbles

Tony Iommi was working his last ever shift at the sheet metal factory when he lost the tips of the middle and ring finger of his right hand in an 'industrial accident'. After attempting, and subsequently failing to play right-handed, Iommi put extra-light strings on his guitar, plastic thimbles on his fingers and played through the pain. He went on to (practically) invent heavy metal music with black Sabbath.

Between 1965 and his death in 1978 Keith Moon was a loyal Premier endorsee. Premier was eager to cater to Keith's whims, building him some of the most memorable kits ever seen. The Pictures Of Lily kit was certainly the most colourful.

Pictures Of Lily was a 1967 Who single, inspired by Lily Langtry (the 'Jersey Lily'), an actress who had an affair with King Edward VII and died in 1929. The Who's publicity for the single featured an 'artistic' photo of Lily and Keith seized the idea of adorning his latest - and at that time biggest - kit with it.

Keith described the drums as his 'exploding' kit and himself as the 'Patent British Exploding Drummer'. This legend became the second of three alternating graphic panels, the third being The Who's logo, rendered in Day-Glo Fluorescent paint. Premier's 2006 Spirit Of Lily kit is authorised by Keith Moon's estate, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, and replicates the original graphics.

Premier offered the kits over 14 months, one month for each year of Keith's contract with them. Each kit includes a collector's booklet and a set of soft cases.

Authenticity

Spirit Of Lily is basically a top line Premier Series kit in Keith's original configuration, adorned with the Pictures Of Lily graphics. Premier toyed with the idea of an exact replica, but it really didn't make sense. It is unfeasible to make some parts from the '60s, the shells for starters. Back then Premier produced thin Finnish birch shells with beech glue rings. These have been superseded by Premier Series six-ply birch shells without glue rings.

Premier's Colin Tennant says: "The original three toms in the Victoria And Albert Museum (V&A) didn't have glue rings either, so we stayed true to the original".

What about the hardware? Well, Moonie's kit had Gretsch and Rogers Swiv-O-Matic fittings, so you can't expect Premier to fit them today. Premier's hardware has moved on light years since the flimsy days of the '60s and it would be impossible - and ridiculous - to make '60s hardware now, so the kit has Premier's best bass drum spurs, tom-tom legs and bass drum tom mounts.

The lugs are the oval Premier Series design. It would have been great to have seen the original '60s arrow lugs, but apparently they've gone AWOL. Premier does still make the original, low profile die-cast rims and these have been fitted, which is just as well as the cast rims have eight lug holes and the original Lily kit had eight graphic panels on every drum, positioned between the lugs.

Facts and Figures

The kit comprises two 22"x14" kicks, three 14"x8" and two 16"x16" toms, and a steel shelled 14"x51/2" Spirit Of 2000 snare. The 14"x8"s were a Premier peculiarity, as every other company made 13"x9"s. Keith's original two floor toms were 18" deep, but Premier no longer have the moulds for them.

However, Keith also had a single 16"x16" floor tom, which can be seen in some photos. The positioning of the legs around the floor toms is odd, but once again faithful to the originals. Instead of being equally spaced, two legs are set close together with the third spaced at some distance. No one seems to know why.

The Spirit Of 2000 snare is inspired by the '60s 2000 snare drum. Keith generally used Gretsch and Ludwig snares, but the 2000 snare can be seen on stage with the Lily kit in at least one photo. The Spirit snare has a chrome plated steel shell and eight tube lugs and is fitted with the original 2000 internal parallel snare mechanism. The curved throw-off lever is elegant, but stiff and noisy, and aligning the snares is not easy. Authentic yes, but also outdated.

Sound

With its thin birch shells in '60s sizes, original die-cast rims and coated Remo Ambassador batters the Spirit Of Lily should approximate Moonie's sound pretty well. The 14" deep bass drums give the appropriate fast smack and then there's the question of the three 14"x8" toms. Adjusting the trio to get a good range of intervals is obviously limited.

However, a big part of Moonie's blamming, timpani-like tom sound was due to these uniquely dimensioned toms, and there's no doubt you could get one hell of a clatter. The Premier Series is, in any case, a premium kit with a proven great sound.

Lily graphics

Let's get to the critical part of the exercise, the Lily graphics. Premier has done a thorough job. Colin explains: "We tracked three toms down to the V&A, so we got a good foundation for the artwork, sizes, etc. We found a bass drum head on another one of Keith's drums in the V&A, so that was relatively easy to reproduce.

Close examination revealed unexpected details. The pinky-red part of 'exploding drummer' on the bass drum wraps around the Union Flag but doesn't on the toms, the three tom brackets are mounted through one each of the three panels, and the Premier 'P' logo badges were always positioned at the bottom of the shell on a Lily panel. All these details have been meticulously copied".

Finally Colin says, "The covering is digitally printed onto plastic wrap and contains UV varnish for protection. The colours are consistent with no variations in shade - every batch will always be exactly the same - and it won't fade or yellow under stage lighting".