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Zak Starkey's Work with: |
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Dec
22 2005 - The 2006 Tour OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED
Nov
2005 - Who 2006 rumblings in blog-land
Nov
8, 2005 - Release date for DVD "Tommy And Quadrophenia
Live"
July
2, 2005 - The Who (sans Zak) perform at Live 8
17
May 2005 - Just when you thought you could believe Pete's
"no Who '05" statement ...
Nov 10, 2004 - Pete posted a diary
entry on his site to clarify his current and future projects both with and
without The Who:
In his "I need to clarify a few things I think" post, he states that:
- The new Who Album (working title WHO2) will NOT be a concept album
- (The Boy Who Heard Music is a seperate project - a continuation of Lifehouse)
- He and Roger will meet in December to play what they've written:
- "If we move ahead from there, we may have a CD ready to release in the spring"
- "If the recording works out we will tour with the usual band in the first half of 2005"
So once again we are left at the close of a year, being promised a new Who album. It's got to come true one of these times, no? -- keeping the faith...
John 'Rabbit' Bundrick serves up some live blog-type diaries through his official site. Here are a few excerpts reguarding upcoming Who activities:
Dec 13 2004: "I seem to be staying up later again, and not sleeping. Funny thing is, I get this way whenever I feel a Who thing lurking around the corner." - read more
The Guardian published an interview/article
with Roger called "Who's
Back" (by Dave Simpson, Jan 28, 2005). Details of Who activity that surface
in the article include:
"... since December they have been holed up in Townshend's London studio, working on the first album of new Who material since 1982. Fans will be intrigued at the revelation that the pair are bickering just like they did in the old days. 'Let's just say we don't please each other all the time,' says Daltrey."
and that he and Pete "already have two songs down for the new Who album. One is about Beslan, another about the redemptive power of music. And that, he beams, is 'classic Townshend'."
"Some will doubt whether Townshend and Daltrey on their own can really be the Who. ...Surprisingly, Daltrey agrees with the critics. Townshend is toying with calling them Who2; Daltrey, typically contrary, jokes about 'Who's Left'.
More seriously, he sees this as an attempt not to revive the Who, but develop it. ..."
Who
rumors again surfaced concerning the 2005 TCT Week at the Royal Albert Hall. Initial
rumors involved Pete, Ray Davies and Robert Plant all on the bill one night. However,
according to the lineup that was posted at VH1(UK)
does not list THE WHO (but Monday night looks interesting ...)
Mon April 4
- Gibson Guitars Night with Robert Plant and special guests
Tues April 5 -
Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Cheifs and Graham Coxon
Wed April 6 - AM: Pop Show
matinee (TBA)
Wed April 6 - PM: Comedy Night - Peter Kay & special guests
Thur April 7 - Keane and special guests
Fri Apr 8 - UB40 25th Anniv show with
special guests including Eric Clapton and Roger Daltrey.
In the end Pete never materialized, and Roger only handled very minimal MC duties.
In Pete's 21 March
2005 Diary (www.petetownshend.co.uk)
explains that:
1) the new WHO album has been delayed - not cancelled
2)
"No shows as 'we lost our drummer to Oasis until January 2006' - ( a kind
of snarky comment that will later attract much press attention)
3) He is committed
to his solo Boy Who Heard Music, and finishing his autobiography
4) Lots of
plans with out a schedule, makes things hard to execute ...
5) Roger has done
some 'sketch vocals' on a few tracks that are promising
6) "But I feel
I cant tour any more with the Who without a new record. So until that record
is actually in my hands, I must hold my breath and live in hope."
--
read the entire text at Pete's
site
This diary entry, as many are, was picked up and sensationalized in the press, leading to headlines like: "Zak Flees The Who" and "No Who album as Starkey Joins Oasis", etc - basically placing the lack of LP and tour on the drummer !?!? wtf ??
Interestingly, while promoting TCT on BBC Radio 5 in April, Roger had some heavily self-edited comments in response to questions prompted by the above diary entry:
Paul Williams: One of the stories I've heard is that you've had to cancel a Who tour this summer because Oasis knicked your drummer. Is that true?
Roger Daltrey: Well, it was a Who tour that kinda was only talked about by...umm...certain members of the band. I didn't really ever consider it to be a proper Who tour. It was never locked in stone so, no, that's not really true.
PW: But Zak had been approached, had he?
RD: He's going to do Oasis, I mean, he's been offered the job. Nothing was in writing for us to be doing anything. Good luck to him, I can't blame him for doing it.
PW: Is there any Who stuff in the offing for fans?
RD: I don't know what's going on with The Who at the moment to be honest. I just take it as it comes. I really don't know anything about it anymore.
PW: Why is that? How come?
RD: Well, it's just...umm...you get to a point where things become plans and they get dropped and they get changed...I just go with the flow, man. I'm too old, I just can't be...
PW: You didn't just say you're too old, did you?
RD: Well, you know, I've just been in the business too long to be frank, with all the chopping and changing and all that. If you've got a gig and we've got to do it, I'll make sure that when we get on that stage, we'll be brilliant and that's all I care about. The other stuff drives me nuts.
Then
on April 17th, a new Pete Diary entry ("Glimmers" 17 April 2005) announces
that he is just too busy for any Who activity, and if Roger wants to, he can "work
with my brother Simon to complete the tracks I started at home, ... They will
have to work without me." He concludes with "but I've done a lot already,
there
is plenty there for a good album. A glimmer of music?" - [ oh
really ??!! remember this statement as it will be refered to later down the
page!]
Amazingly (surprise, surprise), two days later, (prolly after
Roger read it?!) the Diary Entry vanished from his website !
News broke May 17th that "The Who" was to take part in the Samsung's Four Seasons of Hope charity dinner at New York's Gotham Hall. This is an umbrella charity that donates money to children's organizations. Tickets were priced at $1,500 each. You could have spent even bigger bucks to be seated at a table with one of the honorees - as high as $30,000 got you a seat one of the honorees like former basketball star Magic Johnson, New York Yankees Manager Joe Torre, golf legend Arnold Palmer, former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, rocker Jon Bon Jovi and former ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky.
NOT
"The Who" but literally "The TWO"
It was announced
by Matt at Petetownshend.com, that The Four Seasons of Hope would actually be
Pete and Roger together in New York on June 13th. It was Pete and Roger's very
first stripped down show and they were backed by Jon Carin on electronica and
keyboards.[when initially announced as "The Who"
many speculated as to Zak's availability - crammed inbetween Oasis dates, but
too crowded to be "do-able" ]
There a 'goodie bag' handed
out at the event that contained a DVD sampler of an upcoming
release of Tommy and Quadrophenia concerts!The release is tied to Samsung's
INHD music series, due to premiere in October 2005.
- Oh well, "No Who
2005" still holds... but wait ...!
May 31st brought the official announcments for Live8 - The Geldof initiative to bring World Poverty to the forefront of the world leaders minds as they meet for the G8 Summit in July near Edinburgh. Line-ups were announced for London, Philly, Paris, Rome, Berlin. The Who were NOT initially listed on the confirmed acts, but were mentioned in almost every press article. Tickets to the concerts would be free.
On June 10th, (after Geldof had already told Jonathan Ross' TV audience that same day) Matt's Diary entry on Pete's WHO section announces that "The Who have confirmed that they will appear at this year's Live 8 event in London's Hyde Park." (The post later disappears!) While fans were still wondering if this was "The Who" or "The Two", many press articles were quoting the full cast of usual suspects - Pete, Roger, Zak, Pino & Rabbit.
In
the end, it was a WHO show, with Pete, Roger, Simon, Rabbit and Damon Minchella
on bass and Steve White on drums. [Zak was playing with Oasis in Manchester and
Pino is in Japan playing with Jeff Beck.] Although originally slated to play 4
songs, the evening was running over 75 minutes behind, so they cut 2 songs from
their set (apparently to allow the Pink Floyd reunion enough time to do their
entire scheduled set!)
Setlist: Who Are You, Won't Get Fooled Again
The Live 8 DVD 4 disc set will be released Nov 8th. The first 3 contain
footage from the London & Philly and world broadcasts. Disc 4 has extras.
The two song Who performance appears on Disc 3. Disc 4 contains what is being
listed as "The Who - 'Who Are You?' film" (speculation is that this
is the footage that was shown behind them on the screens when they played)
On Aug 6th, Pete posts a Diary about doing lunch with Roger, and how they talked about "possible work in the coming six months", focusing on "celebration of the past and the creative future", waiting for Zak to finish with Oasis, saying he's not sure what or when or where any of this "work" will occur, and AGAIN reminding us of his rather SLOW process. He concluded with "we have agreed to reconvene next February". Basically it looks like Pete and Roger have simply agreed to "do lunch" again sometime in February 2006.
Ten days later, a rather overly optomistic stretch of the cryptic info in the above diary was picked up and repeated over and over on Internet "news" sites (such as contactmusic - the worst offender) as "Veteran rockers THE WHO have promised their loyal fans they will take to the road next year (06) after recently abandoning a series of planned gigs because their drummer was unavailable" - geez, did they read what everyone else read? Even the SUN Online didn't take it that far - they simply hallucinated about a "promise to take to the road". At least Rockradio.com got it right with "The Who: No rush to work again" headline of what was simply a re-quote of the entire diary.
Then on Aug 23rd, (The Endless Wire) Pete's Diary rambles on about his girlfriend, blogs, language translators, his writing, his girlfriend again, and then ... his writer's block when it comes to the Who - "But I only have one problem and that is writing for what Who fans - and that includes me - call The Who." And then goes on to a maths lesson about how he needs to write volumes of material to end up with one to offer up to Roger. And how they all have to be elaborately demo'd, and that just would be too costly, and that this is how it's always been done and doubts the process could be changed, and that "what stops me in reality has been ... more about my artistic sensitivity ... I cannot abide that any of my music is 'rejected' in this filtering process even though this has always been what happened..."
Where is that "glimmer of music" and the "plenty for a good album" that he so boldly spoke about in April? Maybe,the "eggs" he thought made for a "good album" in April, have since been put through the Roger "filtering process" described in this August entry, and did not survive to fertilization? (Perhaps the uterine environment is a bit too acidic?). But he does see fit to conclude with some of that purely Pete brand of twisted optimism: "I can handle some rejection these days. I must continue to write an awful lot. If I keep at it, with luck we should see a great new Who record before I drop dead. What helps is that I love Roger and he loves me and we are both willing to work and wait."
In September, Rachel Fuller launched her In The Attic series of informal, home-grown, fly-on-the-wall, internet-video-chat-performance, waynes-world-meets-real-world, live-blog type of get togethers, broadcast over Who TV. Frequent guests included her band members, Simon Townshend, and Pete. The programs (10 in all) were well received by many Who, Rachel, and Simon fans, and were tightly related to Rachel's rather prolific Blog activity. Both on the programs and in her blog, she has repeatedly refered to upcoming 2006 WHO TOUR plans (like explaining how she'd like "doing In The Attic on the road, following The Who around the world." (Oct 25th Blog) ... thus fanning the flames of hope. Even Pete in the infamous 'c*nts' episode (Nov 3rd), did not really downplay the tour idea, though he did fall back on the 'need to work out the logistics' conditional statements. Pete in his Nov 21st Diary, even talks about how The Who is considering setting up "a GRATEFUL DEAD style recording/filming area" ...
In mid-November 2005, reports that some UK ticket touts were already taking orders for provisional dates in April and June [as of Dec 3 they are - April 30 - Wembley, May 2 - NEC, May 4 - MEN and May 6 - SECC]. And an article on popmatters.com about the UK band Dogs indicates that Daltrey raved about them, leading to a call from Who management to "come play with the Who" at the Royal ALbert Hall Teenage Cancer Trust in March 2006.
Rollingstone.com reported on Dec 22nd that:
The Who will launch a world tour this summer that will bring the band to North America for its first extended trek in nearly four years. "We plan to visit the USA, Europe, Japan, Australia and also South America," manager Bill Curbishley says.
The group -- which now consists of Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend backed by bassist Pino Palladino, keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick, drummer Zak Starkey and guitarist (and Pete's brother) Simon Townshend -- was forced to take a hiatus in 2005 due to Starkey's touring commitments with Oasis and Palladino's stint with the John Mayer Trio.
However none of the reporting outfits so far have mentioned specific dates, or even if specific dates had been disclosed.
In classic Pete-isms, he posts a diary on Dec 24th titled "I will go on tour ....." on his website (www.petetownshend.co.uk)
"As it seems everyone in the world is already making announcements about a forthcoming Who tour I figured I should make my own statement.
I have said many times, repeated up until a few days ago, that I am reticent about committing to a tour without a completed new Who album under my belt.
As things stand I am still pushing to produce some more songs. So the announcement may seem premature. It is not."He goes on to talk about not caring if any new material is a hit, or gets airplay - only that Roger is comfortable with it.
And talks about a grand Curbishley sceme to circumvent the need for a full cd release, nor even an EP to be announced at a later date.
"What his brilliant idea means is that if I don't have a full thirty tracks ready to go, we can settle on what I do have. So I can commit."Other ideas are for free and pay-per-view internet broadcasts of gigs on the tour!
He also mentions that Casbah Club (Simon Townshend's current band with Bruce Foxton (Jam) and Mark Brzezicki (Big country)) will most likely be the opening act!
"I also have a very, very cool surprise to announce in June, just before the tour kicks off."
[Let's hope it's not what one Who mailing lister predicted: "The June announcement will be Pete will announcing that his December announcement was premature!" - LOL!!!]
Other
Who related sections on Kathy's Zak Starkey Site:
Quad Hyde Park and MSG * Quad
USA '96 * Quad Europe '97 *
Quad USA '97
Who's Serious? * Daltrey
Sings Townshend * Who convention '95
Pete's Olivier Award Party * John
Entwistle's The Rock * Pete's 98 solo
gigs
* Who 1999 shows * The
Who 2000 * Tony Ashton Testimonial Show
* The Who 2001 * The
Who 2002 * The Who 2003 * The
Who 2004 *
* The Who 2005 * The
Who 2006 *The
Who 2007 *
* The
Who 2008 *The
Who 2009 *The
Who 2010 *The Who 2011*
* Kathy's Simon
Townshend Pages *
Related Links:
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Created: Nov 10 2004
Copyright ©
Kathy VanTassell
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