cheers, Buttressed.

I really hope I don’t get sucked into what has evolved into a dialogue with but one participant. OK, I’m done. Hope to see you all at the makeout room on next friday, june 6.

My Comments are as follows: Unlike Scott, I was a die-hard Who fan during the formative years of my musical education. To this day, I own an extensive vinyl collection of Who albums though I must confess, it’s been a long time since i’ve dusted them off. Nevertheless, these records were played and played both at high volumes and through headphones throughout my youth. Throughout our collaboration during the creation of La Guitarra, I saw Tommy, and to a lesser extend Quadrophenia as loose models for what a concept record should be. Not in the thematic sense, more so in the sense that a collection of melodies, combined with the artwork, record sleeve, liner notes and lyrics could be used to tell a story.

Now, it is entirely possible that my understanding of these works as coherent, linear tales could be fueled by the fact that I purchased both of these records long after their release, in fact they were purchased for the first time in both cases after that concept record had been turned into a motion picture and perhaps I have deceived myself into thinking that it was indeed possible to derive a real story from the album and that my understanding of the story was simply a result of having seen the film at some point.

On the other hand, I don’t think this was the case. True, Quadrophenia helps the listener by providing a 24 page booklet of photographs taken at the locations depicted in the songs (black and white photographs which incidentally show the 1973 era Who interacting with characters dressed up to look like 1964 london mods, although it is my position that such anachronisms don’t in any way detract from the overall oeuvre but, I digress .) That’s the beauty of the concept album – the jacket, sleeve, whatever is part of the overall storytelling vehicle. I remember as a kid riding my bike down to the record store to buy records. It was always such a major bonus when the record was more than just some vinyl in a white paper sleeve. A poster, extensive liner notes, a booklet (the Kids Are Alright soundtrack is an excellent example). In the age of instant digital downloads the “package” as opposed to the songs themselves is no longer part of the equation. At any rate, I do feel that my understanding (whether it’s accurate or not, or even close to what Pete Townshend was thinking when he wrote these stories) of the story line, character, thematic and musical connections between songs was fairly well fleshed out.

During the creation of La Guitarra, Scott and I both found out how difficult it is to tell a story through 14 songs (especially where one of them is an instrumental). Unlike a film (or even a short film for that matter) there simply isn’t room for that many words. Like the Who, in Quadrophenia we had to cheat, somewhat, by using the titles and subtitles for the songs (as well as Andy’s artwork) to help the listener that is, in fact, interested in trying to figure out the story, along. Perhaps my understanding of these earlier attempts at storytelling was simply a function of having seen them realized on the silver screen and that Scott and I, too, will have failed in our attempt to tell a story through pop music but, I think it is possible (if one has the desire) to figure out the story. In fact, Scott and I both set out to write something that could, with a little effort, be figured out – both in the literal as well as allegorical sense.

If you find my comments to be overly pretentious, so be it. If you don’t care about the story or the lyrics at all for that matter, that’s cool too. I hope that the songs (at least most of them) stand on their own and that only a few of them serve only to move the story forward or fill in certain blanks in the storyline that were necessary in order to make it possible to decipher the story. I feel like, after working for two years on the record, that I, in a sense, “know” the characters in the story. I hope that’s the case for others as well. love bill