Pete Townshend says Roger Daltrey not the bad guy in webcasting flap

Just one day after publicly saying Roger Daltrey was against the Who webcasting plans and asking fans to e-mail Daltrey about it, Pete Townshend is now defending the singer. Townshend wrote on his official petetownshend.com website, "I don't want Roger to appear to be a completely against webcasting. He has mixed feelings about it, and as a result would be happiest for a major sponsor to take it over... Roger offered to contribute to a website once it was up and running, but he reserved the right not to do so some times. What he will definitely not do is pay for it... I will continue to discuss with Roger what we might be able to do... However, I do not want to bully anyone. Roger is my partner in the Who. He is not my partner in anything else. We love each other but we are not regular social buddies like (U2's) Bono and (the) Edge, we do not discuss or share ideas, and we have no unified joint vision or strategy for the Who or for creative projects in general."

Townshend also wrote, "Webcasting the Who, whether live or pay-per-view, and donating profits (nor proceeds) to various causes, was entirely my idea. I was unable to share my plan properly with Roger prior to the tour because we were having such trouble meeting our recording deadlines... I had hoped that Roger would fall more actively behind me, and we could secure a solid sponsorship deal that would make everything flow smoothly, and repay some of my initial investment... But with no promise of any investment from inside or outside the Who... I feel I have no alternative but to let go of my ambitions to see live webcasting of all or part of every Who show."

The guitarist did admit that a deal was on the table with computer chip maker Intel, but he passed because of the amount of work he thought it would take.

The e-mail account Townshend set up for people to write to Daltrey is full, and the guitarist said that of the 250 megabytes of messages in the folder, only two had anything negative to say -- one was about the price of concert tickets, and the other was from the Who's music publisher, who said the band had no right to give away something the band technically didn't own.

The Who wrap up their European tour with two shows in Spain, one on Thursday, July 27th in Madrid, and the other Saturday (July 29th) in Zaragoza. The band's North American tour gets underway September 12th in Philadelphia.
Submit the above story to:

Del.icio.us   Digg   reddit   StumbleUpon   Facebook