Posted on 05/07/2003 7:17:57 AM PDT by NYC GOP Chick
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7 minutes ago
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LONDON - Pete Townshend (news) was cleared Wednesday of possessing pornographic images of children. But The Who guitarist was warned by police not to access a Web site containing images of child abuse.
Townshend was arrested in January on suspicion of making and possessing indecent images of children. The arrest was part of Operation Ore, an FBI (news - web sites)-led crackdown on Internet child pornography.
After a four-month investigation, London's Metropolitan Police said Wednesday that the rocker "was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images," but had accessed a site containing such images in 1999.
The musician acknowledged using his credit card to enter a Web site advertising child pornography but said he was doing research for his autobiography.
The title character in Townshend's rock opera "Tommy" — a deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard — is sexually abused by an uncle, and Townshend said he believed he had been sexually abused as a young boy, while in the care of his mentally ill grandmother.
Police said it was not a defense "to access these images for research or out of curiosity."
As part of the cautioning procedure, Townshend's fingerprints, photograph and a DNA sample will be taken by police, and he will be placed on a national register of sex offenders for five years.
Townshend was one of The Who's four founding members, along with bassist John Entwistle (news), singer Roger Daltrey (news) and drummer Keith Moon (news). Moon died in 1978 and Entwistle died last year.
The group, founded in London in the early 1960s, was part of the first British rock invasion, alongside the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Their hits included "I Can See for Miles," "Pinball Wizard" and "Won't Get Fooled Again."
As part of the cautioning procedure, Townshend's fingerprints, photograph and a DNA sample will be taken by police, and he will be placed on a national register of sex offenders for five years
This doesn't exactly say "Cleared", imho... is this some kind of plea bargain?
Tough boys, running the streets, come a little closer
Rough toys, under the sheets, nobody knows her
Rough boys, don't walk away, I very nearly missed you
Tough boys, come over here, I wanna bite and kiss you
...
Gonna get inside you
Gonna get inside, gonna get inside
Gonna get inside your bitter mind
After that excerpt, is anyone surprised?
MD
Quadrophenia marked the beginning of the end for the WHO, in my opinion. 5:15, The Real Me, I'm One, and The Punk and the Godfather are good tunes, but the rest of the it is pretty much crap, including "Love Reign Over Me."
The should of hung it up after Who's Next. Moon was so ----ed up most of the time that he could barely keep time. Entwistle (sp?) had to do it for him. That's one of the reasons he was so great - because so much was demanded of him.
Gonna get inside, gonna get inside
Gonna get inside your bitter mind
Uh, "Rough Boys" was dedicated to the Sex Pistols and is about a rock star in his mid-30's trying to relate to being called a "boring old fart".
I would think the term "bitter mind" should be a giveaway that the song's about Johnny Rotten.
P.S. - "Who Are You" was written about a drunken Townshend encounter at a bar with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Pistols ("I remember throwing punches around and preaching from my chair").
Wow. And that's for getting cleared! I guess 'ol Pete is thanking his lucky stars he didn't posess any!
Quadrophenia is a Masterpiece, and my all time favorite.
I doubt there will ever be anything like it again, what a ride.
From stuff I've read, I think the Who as a group were "fair and balanced" in their political outlooks. Pete was the artsy liberal but not a mindless hippie-type, Roger, the blue collar 'Labour' type, John the individual, subdued conservative, and Keith the looney anarchist. It really gave them a good mix.
Still pissed off at the Ox snorting his life away with a heart condition. I always wanted to see his band live and never got around to it. Only in the last couple of days could I put in any CDs of theirs.
That for ME is kind of the point..
This album is the WHOs very soul, the mod scene from where they're whole anger / rebellion is derived.
Go back and read the lengthy liner notes
http://www.thewho.net/articles/townshen/quad_ln.htm
( if you have the actual vinyl ) of Petes drunken dingy ride out to the ROCK, and his self diagnosis as not a schizophrenic but a "bleedin Quadropheniac".
Not an accident that each band member has his own personal theme identified theirin.
A lot of people who only listen to the "pop" hits ie: 5:15, Real Me, have only seen the flashy cover of what is a brilliant novel.
All that ROT said, the band f-ing rocked and WHO'S NEXT is the best SINGLE album ever produced.
(White) Was 'Rough Boy's written for the Who?
(Townshend) "No, no. How could 'Rough Boys' be written for the Who? It's about homosexuality."
(White) The party line has been that the song was triggered by Jimmy Pursey of Sham '69, the punk band, after he'd put the Who down in public.
(Townshend) "No. What, in a sense, 'Rough Boys' was about was almost a coming-out, an acknowledgement of the fact that I'd had a gay life, and that I understood was gay sex was about: it was not about faggetry at all. It was about violence in a lot of senses. It leans very heavily into the kind of violence that men carry in them.
(Townshend)And then I realized maybe that was just pride. That in a way it was a coming-out. That it was a real acknowledgement of the fact that I'd been surrounded by people that I really adored - and was actually sexually attracted to - who were men. And that the side of me that responded to those people was a passive side, a subordinate side.
And from a later interview with Playboy also courtesy of Google:
"I started to get letters from young gay men who were delighted with Rough Boys, because they thought that I had come out, so they were in the audience, too."
"It was that song, which is ironic because the song is actually taunting both the homosexuals in America--who were, at the time, dressing themselves up as Nazi generals--and the punks in Britain dressing the same way. I thought it was great that these tough punks were dressing as homosexuals without realizing it. I did an interview about it, saying that Rough Boys was about being gay, and in the interview I also talked about my "gay life," which--I meant--was actually about the friends I've had who are gay. So the interviewer kind of dotted the t's and crossed the i's and assumed that this was a coming out, which it wasn't at all."
Make of all that what you will. I suppose the more-than- denial-non-denial in the ladder interview would be necessary to assuage all of his insecure male rock fans, at least. Perhaps that's how the story about the song being about "confronting about a punk rocker" originated.
The best thing about Quadrophenia is that it set up "Krustophenia" on the Simpsons. Krusty, of course, was on the scooter. I never have been able to tell who is in the four mirrors.
If you weren't struck by it when you were 17, it's too late.
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