Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Lifehouse by Pete Townshend Pete Townshend Turns Unmade Album, Lifehouse Into a Graphic Novel With Heavy Metal. Back in 1971, prog(ish)-rock band The Who were planning a rock opera movie with Universal Studios called Lifehouse as a follow-up to Tommy . It never happened. Abandoned as a rock opera in favour of the album Who's Next , its songs would appear on various albums and singles by the Who, as well as Pete Townshend' s solo albums, including Behind Blue Eyes, Won't Get Fooled Again, and Baba O'Riley . Fifty years later, it is fully coming to fruition as a graphic novel with Heavy Metal Magazine . And may even get back on the screen as a result. Lifehouse will be published in July 2020, as a 150-page graphic novel based on Pete Townshend 's screenplay and music, written and drawn by Little Nemo's James Harvey, set in a dystopian world that relates to today's themes of politics, global warming, and technological reliance. In liner notes at the time, Townshend described it, "a fantasy set at a time when rock 'n' roll didn't exist. The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. In a way they lived as if they were in television programmes. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who'd kept rock 'n' roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle." "Under those circumstances, a very old guru figure emerges and says 'I remember rock music. It was absolutely amazing—it really did something to people.' He spoke of a kind of nirvana people reached through listening to this type of music. The old man decides that he's going to try to set it up so that the effect can be experienced eternally. Everybody would be snapped out of their programmed environment through this rock and roll-induced liberated selflessness. The Lifehouse was where the music was played, and where the young people would collect to discover rock music as a powerful catalyst — a religion as it were." Which does sound a bit like Ben Elton's Queen: We Will Rock You doesn't it? He said that "then I began to feel 'Well, why just simulate it? Why not try and make it happen?'" Lifehouse's story was inspired by Pete Townshend's experiences on the Tommy tour, saying at the time, "I've seen moments in Who gigs where the vibrations were becoming so pure that I thought the whole world was just going to stop, the whole thing was just becoming so unified." He believed that the vibrations could become so pure that the audience would "dance themselves into oblivion". Their souls would leave their bodies and they would be in a type of heaven; a permanent state of ecstasy. And that the only reason this did not happen at Who gigs was because there was a knowledge in the listener's mind that the show would end and everyone would wake up and go to work the next morning. Lifehouse was intended to be a piece of music that could be adapted to reflect the personalities of the audience. To do this, Townshend wanted to adapt his newly acquired hardware, VCS3 and ARP synthesisers and a quadraphonic PA, to create a machine capable of generating and combining personal music themes written from computerised biographical data. Ultimately, these thematic components would merge to form a "universal chord". To help this process, the Who would encourage individuals to emerge from the audience and find a role in the music. The plan was for the Who to take over the Young Vic theatre with a regular audience, develop the new material on stage and allow the communal activity to influence the songs and performances. When the concerts became strong enough, they would be filmed along with other peripheral activity from the theatre. A storyline would evolve alongside the music. Although the finished film was to have many fictitious and scripted elements, the concert footage was to be authentic and would provide the driving force for the whole production. And so Townshend worked out a complex scenario whereby a personal profile of each concert-goer would be compiled, from the individual's astrological chart to his hobbies, even physical appearance. All the characteristics would then be fed into a computer at the same moment, leading to one musical note culminating in mass nirvana that Townshend dubbed 'a kind of celestial cacophony.' This philosophy was based on the writings of Inayat Khan , a Sufi master musician who espoused the theory that matter produces heat, light, and sound in the form of unique vibrations. Taking the idea one step further, making music, which was composed of vibrations, was the pervading force of all life. Elevating its purpose to the highest level, music represented the path to restoration, the search for the one perfect universal note, which once sounded would bring harmony to the entire world. Well, the theatre itself wasn't available on a regular nightly schedule that Townshend insisted was necessary for the band to sustain a "euphoric level" of performance. No one else in the band seemed to understand what he as going on about. And his inability to translate the ideas in his head to those around him eventually led to a nervous breakdown. Townshend said that "The fatal flaw…was getting obsessed with trying to make a fantasy a reality rather than letting the film speak for itself." The film was indefinitely postponed until the album had been issued. Which never happened. In 1978, aspects of the Lifehouse project were revisited by The Who on Who Are You . In 2000, Townshend revived the Lifehouse concept with his set Lifehouse Chronicles and the sampler Lifehouse Elements and in 2007, he released online software called The Lifehouse Method in which any "sitter" could create a musical "portrait". Townshend also revisited the concept, in modified form, in his radio play and recording Psychoderelict , which incorporated outtakes from the Lifehouse/Who's Next sessions and demos. In the plot of Psychoderelict , a reclusive rock star named Ray High is lured out of retirement by a fan- letter hoax between his manager and a gossip columnist, ultimately staging and broadcasting a virtual reality concert similar to the Lifehouse climax. He continued discussion of these themes in his later opus The Boy Who Heard Music. Townshend told Variety that "A graphic novel based on my very first 1970 concept for The Who's abandoned Lifehouse project is perhaps the most exciting creative development in my long career. Lifehouse always had a strong and important visual story that was never even touched on" while. Heavy Metal CEO Jeff Krelitz looked to the art, saying "Harvey's storytelling, an infusion of graphic design, mod and Japanese styles, exactly fit what we were looking for". Heavy Metal has been putting out an increased number of music-based comics of late. including for Iron Maiden and Megadeth. We can expect more. While Townshend it seems had his own comic book plans. "If I had completed my art studies, instead of staying with The Who, I might have made my own graphic novels. I am excited then, with huge anticipation, that at last Lifehouse can be realized visually, and as a story –- part science fiction, part spiritual allegory." The book will be edited by Bleeding Cool's former EIC Hannah Means-Shannon, and Tim Seeley. The Lifehouse Chronicles. Everybody who hasn't been sleeping under an umbrella on some beach in the Greek Islands or on some rock off the coast of New Zealand has heard by now of the Lifehouse Chronicles. Lifehouse was a rock opera Pete Townshend worked on feverishly and then abandoned -- due to outside tinkering and betrayal -- between the issues of Tommy and Quadrophenia. According to legend, Townshend couldn't get anybody interested in his allegedly disjointed ideas. The truth was all wrapped up in music and film-biz politics. Townshend's Lifehouse was to be a rock opera all right, but it was to be a musical for screen with footage of the Who performing the story's soundtrack. This desire of Townshend's to move into film had a practical purpose: in part, it was to get the Who off the endless slogging of the road for sometimes years at a time. It was also Townshend attempting to move himself into other areas like fiction and theater and away from the constrictions placed on him as a "rock musician." This contradicted the ambitions of the Who's then-manager Kit Lambert, who wanted to make a film of Tommy by any means necessary -- even without the approval and participation of Townshend -- as his first feature, a project Townshend wanted nothing to do with. In short, according to Townshend, who had made contact with Universal about Lifehouse, Lambert made his own film, the disastrous Tommy, by derailing the Lifehouse project using his influence with people at the band's label and elsewhere by telling them the entire thing was too big and unruly for pop music, that Lifehouse was unworkable. The project was abandoned, but never let go of. The Who recorded a number of the songs for Lifehouse, produced by Glyn Johns, who talked them out of a concept album and into a strong pop album. Those sessions, minus the classic "Pure and Easy" also recorded then, resulted in the record Who's Next. Townshend eventually became obsessed with telling the story of his greatest failure, the same great failure that gave us Who's Next, "Pure and Easy," and other Lifehouse ideas such as "Sister Disco" and "Who Are You?" Even later, when Townshend's radio play Psychoderelict was released in 1993 as an album, it contained ideas that had been adapted from the Lifehouse sessions. In 1999, Townshend worked with collaborators to create a two-hour BBC radio play for Lifehouse. The box set tells the story of the failure and presents the evidence for what he believed was possible in 1970 and up until the time Who's Next was recorded and released in 1971. Lifehouse is the story set in a "near distant" future, where government was no longer interested in interpersonal relationships between humans; their interest was the complete dependence of the individual on the power structure. To that end, they manufactured a story of a pollution crisis so bad, everyone was required to wear "lifesuits." Lifesuits were articles of clothing that simulated all experiences so the person wearing it wouldn't have to leave her or his dwelling place if he or she didn't want to. They were designed, programmed, and plugged into a huge mainframe grid by a media mogul named Jumbo, who was more powerful than the government who appointed him to head this project. His media company provided medicine, sleeping gas, food, and programming so intense and compressed it would allow, according to Townshend's notes, "an individual to live out tens of thousands of lifetimes in a very short period." It also did away with any need for art. (Yep, virtual reality 15 years before William Gibson's novel Neuromancer.) The story begins when a dropout farming family in a remote part of Scotland hears about a subversive rock concert in London that their daughter runs away from home to attend. The farmers don't wear lifesuits because they live far to the north and are supposedly out of the pollution's range. They are tolerated by the power structure because the farmers grow produce the government is only too happy to buy. Bobby is the story's hero. He hacks into the grid and discovers its fatal flaw. He plans to stage a concert called the Lifehouse in which each individual will be able to become a unique, blueprinted part of a piece of music, a song that hacks into the mainframe of the grid, distorts its data, and short circuits its fictions, allowing everyone to shed their suits and start living again. That song would have the power of liberating not only their minds, but also their bodies from the lifesuits as well -- all through the power of rock & roll -- which would have been supplied by the Who, of course. His experiment succeeds better than he could have ever dreamed with totally unexpected results -- I'll leave the rest to those of you actually interested enough to purchase the set. The Lifehouse Chronicles are six CDs of all the material associated with the project, past and present, including the original demos for the songs Townshend planned to include as he was developing it. It is divided into two CDs of demos of songs such as "Teenage Wasteland" -- that later evolved into "Baba O' Riley" -- with somewhat different lyrics -- at one time an instrumental conceived as a different song altogether. Others include virtually every song from Who's Next, and "Slip Kid," "Let's See Action," "Relay," as well as "Sister Disco" and "Who Are You?" among many, many others. The first two discs are worth the price of admission alone. There isn't a weak second on either of them, and the sound is pristine, professionally recorded from the jump, and remastered for CD. Perhaps nothing is more revelatory about Townshend that hearing his sketch "Teenage Wasteland" become the "Baba O'Riley" we know -- a nine-minute instrumental version of "Riley" is on the demos, and it's awe inspiring. The song's lyrics and the tune's melody set out the story of a transition so profound it changes everything. It's the story of people moving into something from outside, having no idea what awaits them on the other side of "teenage wasteland." The instrumental track is more anthemic than anything the Who ever recorded. "Pure and Easy," "The Song Is Over," "Behind Blue Eyes," and others are not sketches, but fully realized versions of songs before they were given to the Who. Hearing Townshend sing them sends chills down the spine as the songs take on even deeper meanings. "Sister Disco" is radically different than the one the Who recorded -- the later one served the aims of a pop song far better than Townshend's original -- but in his hands, it's a novel. Disc three is full of experiments and themes Townshend worked and reworked as he revisited the Lifehouse material years later. There is a remixed version of "Who Are You," and redone versions of "Baba M1" and "M5" as well as a redone "Pure and Easy" that is far superior to the originally released version. All of the material here was recorded in 1998 and 1999 when Townshend was conceiving and working on the radio play. The fourth disc consists entirely of orchestral themes and arrangements employed both in the original concept and augmented in the radio play. The works are not only by Townshend, but by classical composers Henry Purcell, Corette, and Domenico Scarlatti as well. This CD might seem a stretch as interesting to some, but given Townshend's vision and sense of drama, it fits perfectly inside it. The emotional and dynamic range of the pieces, their colors and textural elegance in this particular sequence make for a deep -- and rousing -- listening experience. Finally, there are the last two discs that comprise the radio play. These are what everyone is wondering about, if they're "worth it" for the price tag; if it is possible in the "sound and word byte" age to sustain listening to an almost two-hour bit of aural theater. Make no mistake, the radio play is brilliant, an essential addition to the literature of Townshend and the Who. Concept goes out the window when the voice of a young boy introduces the work, and gives way to a short orchestral reading of "Baba O'Riley." What replaces it is pure drama, worthy not only of a radio play, but if reworked slightly, for stage as well, and perhaps even a film. Whoops, been there already, better to let sleeping dogs lie. But the work is so compelling it would be wonderful as a film, with only one catch, finding the proper vintage footage of the Who performing the soundtrack, and melding it in, because it wouldn't work with any other band performing the material. Lifehouse is a chilling vision of a future where control and individuality no longer have a place in everyday life. This is the film the Matrix without the special effects or kung fu, and as a result, Lifehouse is far more subversive and instructive. The Lifehouse Chronicles is a bit of rock history that finally gets its proper hearing and as a result begs the question in capital letters, "What if?" It's fitting that it's only available from Townshend's own website. The price is a bit steep, but the package was far from cheap to assemble and is a lavishly designed wonder. The set comes in a 12 by 12 box, with a corrugated impressed sleeve with and folds into a triptych. The CDs are laid out in individually colored and lettered glossy sleeves, four on the left panel, two on the right (the play), and a handsome 50-page book slips into its own spot in the middle bridging them. The book, with a long, no-holds-barred introduction by Townshend also contains Matt Kent's own, somewhat more objective history of the project, contains complete lyrics to all the songs, and the script for the radio play. Everything printed lavishly on different colored pages with no regard for expense. There isn't another item on the rock or pop market that resembles The Lifehouse Chronicles or even comes close to its vision or integrity. Lifehouse by Pete Townshend. Issued in corrugated slipcase marked only with artwork, no writing, with tri-fold hardbound book inside, each CD housed in separate sleeve. Includes 44-page booklet with tracks, credits, notes, lyrics, radioplay script, and photographs. Originally sold via www.petetownshend.co.uk and eelpie.com. Discs 5 and 6 comprise "Pete Townshend's Lifehouse," a radio play adapted for radio by Jeff Young, recorded July 1999, and originally broadcast 5th December 1999 on BBC Radio 3. Each CD is punctuated with cues, which approximate to every 6 pages in the playscript. Lifehouse to be published as a graphic novel! Pete Townshend and Heavy Metal Magazine are teaming up to produce a graphic novel of Lifehouse, which is slated to be published in July 2020. The new project is based on Pete’s original 1971 screenplay about a dystopian world set in the future, that was written for Universal Pictures but was never produced into a film. The story will also draw from the songs Pete wrote for the unreleased Lifehouse rock opera, some of which ended up on the Who's Next album. The 150-page book will be written and illustrated by artist James Harvey, who worked on Little Nemo. Pete discussed the project in a statement to the press, "A graphic novel based on my very first 1970 concept for The Who’s abandoned ‘Lifehouse’ project is perhaps the most exciting creative development in my long career. ‘Lifehouse’ always had a strong and important visual story that was never even touched on. Even by 1971 when ‘Lifehouse’ was written, it had to be treated as a film script, which was entirely beyond my skill set, and beyond the financial scope of The Who,” he said. “If I had completed my art studies, instead of staying with The Who, I might have made my own graphic novels. I am excited then, with huge anticipation, that at last ‘Lifehouse’ can be realized visually, and as a story –- part science fiction, part spiritual allegory." Heavy Metal CEO Jeff Krelitz said, “Pete Townsend is a master storyteller in musical arts. His music changed the way the world views rock ‘n’ roll. After a 50-year wait, Heavy Metal is excited to help him realize his vision with this timeless story. Harvey’s storytelling, an infusion of graphic design, mod and Japanese styles, exactly fit what we were looking for." Comic illustrator James Harvey commented, “Lifehouse is the last great artifact of the counterculture of the mid-20th century. I’m taking my duty as custodian, curator and shepherd of this unique project with the seriousness and the sense of joy it requires. Going over the treasure trove of notes, scripts and unheard music, it’s clear that Pete’s vision was 50 years ahead of its time. A story for our generation and the generations beyond as much as it was a story for his.” Lifehouse illustration by James Harvey - courtesy of Heavy Metal. Pete Townshend has revisited his Lifehouse project a few other times over the years. In 1999, a Lifehouse radio play was broadcast on BBC Radio 3, that was adapted for radio by Jeff Young. Pete followed that up in 2000 with a solo concert of Lifehouse songs that he performed with his band at Sadler Wells in London, which was released on DVD. He also released the excellent Lifehouse Chronicles 6-CD boxset in 2000, that he sold from his Eel Pie website. In 2007, Pete launched the groundbreaking Lifehouse Method website with Lawrence Ball, based on concepts from the Lifehouse story. The website was designed to generate music processed from users personal input into the system. The project spun off the Method Music album by Lawrence Ball in 2010, which contained music inspired by the Lifehouse Method system. For more information, please visit the Lifehouse Method page. Pete discussed Lifehouse in the liner notes for the Method Music. In 1971 I wrote a film script of Lifehouse for Universal Pictures. It was never realised as a film or any kind of theatrical narrative drama until 1999, when it was developed by my company Eel Pie and broadcast as a radio play by the BBC. Many of the songs intended for the Lifehouse project as originally configured are of course familiar to listeners as staples of rock radio, television, and more: Baba O’Riley, Won’t Get Fooled Again, Behind Blue Eyes, The Song Is Over, and many more were all part of what was to be Lifehouse. The idea of Lifehouse originally centred on an idea about a self-sufficient drop-out family group farming in a remote part of Scotland who decide to return South to investigate rumours of a subversive concert event that promises to shake and wake up an apathetic fearful British society. Integrated into society is a Virtual Internet Grid through which users are delivered, via government-mandated ‘experience suites,’ everything they need: safety, energy, nourishment, and lavish entertainment programming so highly compressed that the subject can ‘live out’ thousands of virtual lifetimes in a short space of time. A young composer called Bobby intends to hack into the Grid and offers a festival-like music concert – the Lifehouse – which he hopes will impel the audience to throw off their suits (which are in fact not necessary for physical survival) and attend in person. The family arrives at the concert venue early and takes part in an experiment (represented in what I would come to call the Lifehouse Method) that Bobby conducts in which each participant is both blueprint and inspiration for a unique piece of tailor made music based upon his or her own specific personal data. Bobby hacks into the Grid and plays the music of all the participants of the concert, sharing them and their music with the world, and calling each other together to celebrate. Pete Townshend Opens the Lifehouse Door. The distinguishing characteristic between casual fans of the Who and their diehard devotees is how much they know about the saga of Pete Townshend’s “Lifehouse” Project. A casual Who fan might simply think of Who’s Next as the band’s best album — and indeed one of the most brilliant rock albums ever produced — but a diehard can tell you a long and quite dramatic story about how the songs on that 1971 masterpiece were originally written for the high-concept “Lifehouse,” which Townshend first envisioned thirty years ago as a rock opera follow-up to Tommy . And it was those diehards who packed into Townshend’s two “Lifehouse” shows this weekend, at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre. They came ready to see their hero triumphantly realize three decades of storm and stress, and they weren’t disappointed. Townshend has always sworn that the idea behind “Lifehouse” was relatively simple, even as his articulations of it over the years have been somewhat confusing. The nuts and bolts of it is a story about a futuristic society where everyone lives indoors and experiences a “virtual reality” (a truly visionary idea thirty years ago!) via their attachment to a system known as “The Grid,” a concept which many think was predictive of the Internet. A young rebel persuades members of the society to attend a real live event — a rock show, of course — held at a theatre known as the Lifehouse. There, the band’s ability to communicate with the audience replaces the role of the Grid and constitutes a powerful spiritual involvement with the world. It was Townshend’s hope that the Lifehouse story would be made into a film, and after Universal Pictures dropped their funding of the project, Townshend lapsed into a serious depression. Shortly thereafter, the Who wound up recording several key “Lifehouse” pieces — including “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Bargain” — for Who’s Next . Townshend never really abandoned “Lifehouse,” though, and over the years continued to write new songs and made a couple more attempts to get it to the big screen. Fast forward to December 1999, when the BBC broadcasted a radio play of “Lifehouse,” adapted by Jeff Young from Townshend’s original idea. It was the first real headway Townshend had made in bringing “Lifehouse” to life. More exciting still was the news that Townshend was readying a six-CD box set, The Lifehouse Chronicles — just released via his Web site www.eelpie.com — full of demo versions of “Lifehouse” songs, live recordings, orchestral pieces, as well as the radio play. But, because the real meat of the project was always the idea that performance could be a spiritual experience, the most important piece in the puzzle came this past weekend, when Townshend took the stage and played two and a half hours worth of “Lifehouse” material to sold-out crowds. Love may not be for keeping, but you wouldn’t have known it sitting amid the throngs of affectionate Townshend lovers at the Sadler’s Wells. The audience could barely contain their enthusiasm and, the instant he walked onto the stage at Friday night’s opening performance, one zealot howled “Pete, we loooove you!” Even when Townshend and his band flubbed their parts — starting a couple songs over from the beginning — the audience’s support was unrelenting, and they clapped along and hollered loving approbations. From where I was sitting on Saturday, I could see the back of John Entwhistle’s noggin, and he seemed to be digging it, too. The crowd’s approval may have been unconditional, but it certainly wasn’t unjustified. Backed by both the London Chamber Orchestra and a band of crack musos — keyboardist John “Rabbit” Bundrick, percussionist Jody Linscott, bassist Chucho Merchan, guitarist Phil Palmer, harmonica player Peter Hope-Evans — Townshend offered a brilliant set, full of emotion and resounding proof that the man can still play the fuck out of his guitar. He played only acoustic guitar, having said at a small Q&A session a couple days earlier that if he got his mitts on an electric, he would become too absorbed in his instrument to keep control over the proceedings. But even without the extra electric oomph, his playing was as amazing as ever, as he gave himself room at the end of a couple songs to riff with complete abandon. And even with the bright stage lights shining on his balding dome, Townshend looked young and vibrant as ever, swaying with his acoustic and stomping his feet and even launching into a momentary windmill during Saturday night’s performance of “Who Are You.” Townshend’s guitar-god status has never been in question, thus the real treat was to hear what a goosebump-raiser he is as a singer. In fact, considering that his voice has nearly the same timbre as Roger Daltrey’s, with even more soul and subtlety, you’ve got to wonder why he never took over the mic more often during his Who days. Aside from a couple of orchestral numbers — each beautiful, but largely a distraction from the rock & roll main event — Townshend’s set consisted mostly of familiar favorites like “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Goin’ Mobile,” “Baba O’Riley” (played as both a straight-up rock number and as an elaborate orchestral piece), “In Tune,” “Pure and Easy” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Because the orchestra joined in on some of these songs, they occasionally sounded a bit more VH1-ready than the classic Who versions. My date on Friday night dared to utter the name “Phil Collins” in describing the event; I was aghast, but not in complete disagreement. But the fact remains that as soon as those first synth bits kicked in on “Baba” and “Fooled,” they still induced the same visceral reaction they always have. And the band really did rock out with admirable zest, particularly Linscott, whose assortment of percussive devices seemed never-ending. There were a few weak spots in the production, particularly the staid backing vocals and uninspired guitar work by Palmer that so paled by comparison to Townshend’s playing that it was somewhat embarrassing. (“No, Phil, this is how you do it,” you kept hoping Townshend would say.) Yet the sense that we were all witnessing Townshend’s realization of a project that has consumed him for more than half his life made it easy to ignore those flaws. Townshend had his most glorious moments during “Bargain,” and a brand new song called “Can You Help the One You Really Love?” He introduced the former by explaining — in the kind of relaxed manner that characterized most of his between-song chatter — that in the course of revisiting his “Lifehouse” demos, he had found that while some songs would benefit from further musical elaboration, others were impossible to better. So, for “Bargain,” he had the tape of his guitar part from a thirty-year-old demo piped through the speakers, and the band played along with it. The man was playing along with himself! It was a truly inspiring — if somewhat chilling — moment, and listening to the riffs floating from those speakers, you had to agree with his appraisal that this was as good as it gets. The show closer, “Can You Help the One You Really Love?,” is Townshend’s latest tune; so new, in fact, that he said he’s still making it up as he goes along. It was the perfect ending to the performance: Townshend standing there with his acoustic, playing without accompaniment for the first time all night. Sounding a bit like a Bob Dylan tune, with its repetitive lyrics and rhythmical vocal melody, the song is raw and beautiful — proof that while Roger Daltrey and John Entwhistle wait in breathless anticipation to see if Townshend will crank out some new Who songs for them to parlay into a minor fortune, Pete will continue to pick up his guitar and play, just like yesterday.