ANOTHER SCOOP
  Produced by Peter Townshend and Spike
  Produced at EEL PIE STUDIOS London 1985l6
  Engineered by Bill Price
  Assisted by Chris Ludwinski and Tony Phillips
  Mixed at Eel Pie Recarding Studios, Twickenham
  Orchestral Arrangement by Ted Astley
  Research, assembly and production supervisor: Spike
  Remix and praduction-master engineer: Bill Price
  Enigineering Assistance: Chris Ludwinski
  Technical Assistance: Roger Knapp
  Sleeve by lan Wright

Brrr This instrumental was recorded just for fun. 16track at home in Twickenham. 
Squeezebox Obviously recorded for fun and intended as a poorly aimed dirty joke. I had bought myself an accordian and learned to play it one afternoon. (That is not meant to be flash, I don't mean I learned to play it properly, just to manage to work it without falling over!). The polka-esque rhythm I managed to produce from it brought forth this song. Amazingly recorded by The Who to my disbelief. Further incredulity was caused when it became a hit for us in the USA 
Melancholia Recorded at my Ebury Street studio this is a pre TOMMY demo written around the time the band were facing a void in their career. It's a tremendously haunting song, but was obviously totally wrong for the band at a time we had just failed to get a hit with the glorious I CAN SEE FOR MILES. I suppose I was really melancholic when I wrote it. My first attempt at tape phasing or 'flanging' can be heard on some elements of the track. I'm pretty sure The Who didn't even hear this song. 
Cookin' An'early attempt at playing pedal steel, an instrument I finally abandoned. I used a secret open tuning on the accoustic guitar,(which I then gave away in a music book called DECADE OF THE WHO ) and invented a drum sound that I hoped would sound like a steam train. It sounds like a wash-board. A chauvinistic little ditty, but I'm chauvinistic towards men as well so it's OK isn't it? 
You're So Clever Recorded 24 track in my studio at our country place this song was written for my first solo album EMPTY G LASS . I first put the lyric together at the same time as AND I MOVED for submission to Bette Midler. Neither song ever reached her. It didn't seem to impress the producer CHRIS THOMAS, maybe it was ahead of it's time. It sounds a little behind it now, but I still think it's great. The electro-pop sound was all done in a single pass performance) on a Yamaha home organ with the bass pedals, drum machine, upper and lower keyboards and arpeggio units all laid onto separate tracks. Modern home organs are really very complex computer synthesisers that are a damn sight easier to 'programme' than the so called real thing. I love 'em and will buy more as soon as I get enough space. 
Initial Machine Experiments This piece was played on my Yamaha CS80 synthesiser to test a TEAC half inch eight track machine. This is very much indicative of the kind of meandering I get into when locked away with a synthesiser. Someone once said that when you play around with synthesisers you end up suffering from a disease called 'synthesiseritis'. I suffer happily. 
Mary A track from LIFEHOUSE this was a song intended to bring some romance into the sci-fi plot. Mary was a character in the script. The song wasn 't recorded for WHO'S NEXT by The Who as we decided to make it a single album rather than a double. 
You Better You Bet This is the reference mix I made straight after cutting the demo at my studio in Soho. Format: 24 track. 30 ips. Instruments: The usual rock ensemble stuff. I used a Yamaha E70 home organ for the arpeggio synth track. Venue: Eel Pie Studio, Soho, London. (Engineer: Chris Ludwinski). March/April 1980. 
Girl In A Suitcase One of the songs submitted for and rejected from WHO BY NUMBERS. I suppose this is not really a typical 'Who' song at all, but it is about the road, groupies, inflatable women, etc. most of all the rather crinkled family photographs we travellers all hand around. 
Format: 16 track. 30 ips. Instruments: All acoustic except Fender Bass. Venue: Eel Pie Studios, Thames Valley, Berkshire. (Engineer: Dick Hayes) 7th April 1975. 
Brooklyn Kids I had a nasty vision one sunny afternoon - a beautiful girl walked past my studio window in a white dress, behind her walked a young black kid; hip and hungry. Their relative states of self-absorption produced the idea of the rape of a lonely girl by a lonely man. The piano demo was enhanced by a beautiful orchestral arrangement by Ted Astley (my father-in-law). Format: 24 track. 30 ips. Instruments: Bosendorfer piano. Large string section. Woodwinds. 
Venue: Piano and voice at Home in Berkshire. Orchestra at Abbey Road, London. (Engineer: John Kurlander, Executive Producer: Kit Lambert) September 1978. 
Football Fugue Ted Astley composed this track over which I wrote a lyric. It reminded me of an orchestral battlefield, with the muelclaw wearing big heavy boots. Hence the analogy witll football hooliganism. Format: 16 track. 15 ips Dolby. Instruments: Large string section. Percussion. Venue: Olympic studios, Barnes. (Engineer: Glyn Johns) September 1978. 
Holly Like Ivy Written and recorded in Dallas after a post-show party at some restaurant at which a girl called Holly shook hands with me. I received a very large shock of static electricity at the time. I think I stood on her hair. 
Format: TEAC Portastudio 224 with DBX. 3,75 ips. 2X Uric LA3A Limiter/Compressors. 1 Roland SDE 2000 Digital Delay. 1 Soundworkshop 262 stereo reverb. Instruments: Roland 808 Drum machine. Prophet 10 (Bass part). Yamaha CP70 Piano. Fender Jazzmaster via effects. 
Venue: Hotel room, Dallas, Texas. Winter 1982. 
Cat Snatch This is one of the many experimental sequences from SIEGE. (See ASK YOURSELF). The random bass part was carefully and tortuously transcribed and played by my Colombian friend Chucho Merchan. The other elements were produced almost by chance and embellished and mixed at my studio in Twickenham. Format: Portastudio 4 track transferred to 16 track 30 ips 2" studio master tape. Instruments: Prophet 10. Fender Telecaster (1952) via Roland Digital Delay. Roland Compurhythm via various cheap digital delays. (Including one miraculous device by Electro Harmonix called a 'Memory Man Chorus Delay'). Venue: 4 track in Cornwall - completion at Eel Pie Studios, Twickenham, London. (Assistant Engineer: Chris Ludwinski). August'82 through January '83. 
Prelude # 556 This short prelude was written, recorded and mixed in Florida while the other guys in the band were playing hockey with a load of schoolgirls. I felt greatly superior at the time. After all, I was writing a prelude. This should really be described as a fanfare: "...for the entry of Roger Daltrey in a gym-slip!" Format: TEAC portastudio 224 with DBX. 3,75 ips. Instruments: Prophet10and Jupiter 8 synths. Roland Delay DLE 2000. 
Venue: Hotel room, Tampa, Florida. 27th November 1982. 
Baroque Ippanese I've always loved Cornwall. In August 1982 I took some demo recording gear down to the holiday cottage we rented. After a day's sailing on a laser dinghy in the heavy, blustery sea off Falmouth I came home and recorded this piece. It tries to suggest the splendour of an archaic 'tall ship'; great square-rigged sail-training ships often dominate Falmouth harbour. This piece is dedicated to 'The Marques' and her crew lost in the Bahamas last year in a storm. Format: TEAC portastudio 224 with DSX. 3,75 ips. Instruments: Prophet 10. Roland Compurhythm. Roland Delay. Venue: Cornwall. August 1982. 
Praying The Game This song was written in Cornwall in 1976, a long hot summer. I wrote STREET IN THE CITY (which appeared on ROUGH MIX the album I recorded with Ronnie Lane) at the same time. I wanted to record a complete album of similar pieces. The orchestration is by Ted Astley. Format: 24 track. 30 ips. 
Instruments: Gibson J200 with open tuning and high strung on both low E and A strings to produce the lopsided arpeggios. Large string section, Woodwinds, Percussion. Venue: Studio1, Abbey Road Studios, London. (Engineer: John Kurlander. Executive Producer: Kit Lambert). September 1978. 
Driflin' Blues Recorded at the kitchen tabfe of the house I was living in at the time. I've always loved this song. I heard it originally by John Lee Hooker and later by Snooks Eaglin. Format: Sony TCS 300 stereo cassette machine with built-in microphones. 1'/s ips. Instruments: Fylde Guitar. Venue: Home, Thames Valley, Berkshire, England. May 1981. Christmas Certain clumsy lines in this song still annoy me to this day, but I like it a lot, especially for hearing my old upright Marshall 8 Rose piano that was never quite in tune but still sounded so ceremonial and grand. Format: Revox G36 stereo 2-track with sync-head. 15 ips. Instruments: Piano. Gibson J200. Venue: Home, Twickenham, London. Sometime in 1968. 
Don't Let Go The Coat Recording demos for FACE DANCES, I got to A.I.R. Studios early one Tuesday morning and wrote this song. Kenney Jones added the drums in the afternoon. 
Format: 24 track. 30 ips. Instruments: Yamaha E70 organ. Rickenbacker 12-string. Fender Telecaster. Fender Bass. 
Venue: A.l.R. Studio One, Oxford Street, London (Engineers: John Walls, Renate Blauel). January 1980. 
Prelude. 'The Rlght To Wrlte' In early 1983 I was desperately attempting to come up with a concept for the projected Who album that year. While I settied my mind, I did some inventing. I organised a synthesizer whose sixteen unison 'string' voices were reproduced through what I called a 'MYRIAD SPEAKER SYSTEM'. This was simply sixteen separate small speakers on mike stands at about head height, distributed around the recording studio in formal string section grouping. As soon as I played a note I knew I'd hit on something. The synthetic string sound was rich and spacious. I recorded it in real stereo with the natural ambience of the room. It's a wonderful system, but is complex and takes many hours to set up. The prelude itself was intended to precede a demo of a song that I sadly never got finished. Format: 16 track. 15 ips with Dolby. Instruments: Bosendorfer piano. ARP 2500 16 voice studio synthesizer and 2 X ARP 2600 compact synthesizers (for strings). Yamaha SY1 touch-sensitive mono synth (for flute and oboe parts). Soundcraft 1624 mixing desk. 16 Visonik Oavid speakers each separately amplified. Venue; Eel Pie Studios, Twickenham, England. (Engineer: Chris Ludwinski. Technician: Roger Knapp). January 1983. 
Ask Yourself One idea! hit on while culling ideas for the aborted fast Who album was called SIEGE. It was rooted in the idea that each of us is a soul in siege. I abandoned the idea in March '83. ASK YOURSELF (with CAT SNATCH) was one of the few pieces I worked on. SIEGE was based musically on a series of five black note repetitions. ASK YOURSELF contains an hypnotic exploration of one of these repetitions. This track was recorded in Cornwall in August 1982 and in early '83, I continued to work on it in Soho, London. 
Format: 3M 24 track. 30 ips. (Basic track recorded on Portastudio 224 DBX). Instruments: Guitars, vocals and echo effects added in Soho. Prophet 10. Roland compurhythm and 808 drum machine. Jupiter 8 via 'Myriad Speaker System'. Venue: Cornwall and Eel Pie Studio, Soho, London. (Engineer: Russell Webb (Armoury Show). August '82 through February '83. 
The Ferryman This song was written for an amateur production of SIDDHARTHA at Meher Baba Oceanic Centre during the opening celebrations in June 1976. Ted Astley later composed this absolutely stunning impressionistic orchestral setting for my simple, droning, open-tuned guitar. The lyric tells of Siddhartha's first meeting with the ferryman who is to become his spiritual master. The song closes as the ferryman explains that Siddhartha must replace him and learn his art of selfless service. (SIDDHARTHA is a short novel by Herman Hesse.) Format: 24 track. 30 ips Instruments: Gibson J200 (strung and tuned as in PRAYING THE GAME). Large string section. Woodwinds. Percussion. Venue: Abbey Road Studio 1, London. (Engineer: John Kurlander. Executive Producer: Kit Lambert). September 1978. 
The Shout The most recent demo, recorded slowly through the night on one sleepless occasion. "I miss you; I miss you. I remember lying by your side Up in the eery waters of Paradise. N' then one day you walked out. Now I have nothing to do but shout. And I want my voice To cut over mountains And I want my soul To gush up like fountains To where you reside." Format: Portastudio 224 DBX. Old Gretsch White Falcon 
Instruments: Roland drumatix. Small Martin guitar. Gibson Bass. Yamaha piano. Venue: Home, Twickenham. March 1984.