{ Lick That Riff! }

Hello everyone and welcome to another Hero Worship post. I know it’s been a while on the old worship front so I thought you guys deserved a lil Hero Worship. This weeks legendary guitarist is a real corker. Inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, voted 50th in Rolling Stone Magazines 100 Greatest Guitarists and the godfather of smashing guitars and a windmilling picking arm. He’s also wrote several rock opera’s from Tommy to one of my favourite films of all time, Quadrophenia. He still tours with his band, The Who even though hes had to see the passing of two former member, John Entwhistle and the amazing Keith Moon on drums. The guitarist of course is, Pete Townshend.

What Total Guitar Said:

You Know Him By His: Guitar smashing antics, windmilling right arm, masterful control of feedback and that thrilling rock opera

Greatest Moment: The timeless opening riff of Substitute

If there was ever a song lyric guaranteed to haunt its writer to the grave, it’s the pilled-up mod declaration of “Hope I die before I get old,” from The Who’s ‘My Generation.’ Of course, when Pete Townshend wrote the song he was an angry young man, rallying his teenage followers against the horrors of comfy slippers and a quiet Sunday morning spent reading the newspapers. He certainly didn’t consider for a moment that he would still be performing said song 40 years on.

Balding head and worn out kneecaps aside, Townshend never allowed himself the luxury of growing old gracefully. Taking the stage at Live 8 (with other surviving Who member, frontman Roger Daltrey) Townshend played his guitar and stalked the stage exactly like that young mod who thrilled audiences at the Marquee and 100 Club in London, back in 1964; all vicious chord stabs and seat-of-his-pants improvisation. Yet, while Townshend’s songwriting credentials have never been in question, his important contribution to guitar playing is sometimes overlooked.

By the time The Who released ‘Substitute’ in 1965, Townshend had already perfected his onstage persona – the windmilling arm and countless guitars sacrificed in the name of auto-destruction – and his ‘Morse Code guitar’ and amplifier feedback technique on early singles ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ and ‘My Generation.’ He also found time to persuade Marshall to build their first 100-watt amp head, ‘accidentally’ invent the amplifier stack, and introduce British guitarists to the joys of the powerchord.

Townshend set the scene for all the disaffected punks who followed, most notably Paul Weller and The Sex Pistols, and recorded one of the greatest live albums of all time, Live At Leeds. Not bad for a man once described by his own bandmate, Roger Daltrey, as being a “nose on a stick.”

So thats what Total Guitar had to say about Pete Townshend, the legendary windmilling, guitar abusing Guitar God. I hope this weeks Hero Worship has been good enough. Personally I think Townshend should be a lot higher in Rolling Stones list but that’s just me.

I bid you farewell

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