Happy Birthday, Pete Townshend

Brilliant writer.

Ferocious guitarist.

Amazing talent.

Tortured soul.

Reluctant bandleader.

Destructive personality.

Easily one of the five biggest influences in my life.

 

Damn. Knee pants?

Looks like you can't pretend growing old never hurts.

 

Outside of The Master, the guy whose music has meant more to me than anyone else's.
And, what the hell, another excuse to post this:

"There once was a note, pure and easy, playing so free like a breath rippling by."

 

Here's how old we are Pete Townshend is:

He's been alive longer *since* he wrote about getting old in Slit Skirts than the rest of his life before Slit Skirts.

I was just thirty four years old and I was still wandering in a haze

 

What's a birthday without pictures:

The birthday boy's a little hard to see in this one, but it's one of my favorites: the band doing a little promotional work with models in miniskirts and Keith Moon in charge of an elephant, a guaranteed recipe for disaster. From 1968.



And hate to be a birthday buzzkill, but saw where Entwistle has been dead almost 6 years now. Damn, has it been that long?

 

Keep him away from the MySpace!

(too soon?)

 

I can see pictures of Lily and Mary-Ann with the shakey hand, for miles.

H' Birthday to St. Peter.

 

I find it refreshing that he has always been willing to sell his music to commercials, without thinking that doing so lessens it somehow, which is an absurd thought, anyway. He's always said something like, "they're my fucking songs, I can do whatever I want with them."

 

entwistle died a few month after the comvert for 9/11, didn't he? ???

happy birthday, pete! as a soon-to-be 51-year-old, lemme say that 63 ain't old at all!!! 8) 8)

 

Kiddie porn for EVERYBODY!

 

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/9/94/180px-TownshendWindmill.gif

Oh, what the hell, it's the guy's birthday.

(Don't turn away until 3:54. Trust me.)

 

I remember at Denis Leary's roast, Leary made a great joke that the only reason Pete Townshend got busted was because he had Mario Cantone's computer. I about pissed myself.

Oh, and happy birthday Pete. You are, and will always be, the coolest guy in rock.