Fact #148805
When:
Short story:
Thunderclap Newman release a new single, Something In The Air, on Track Records in the UK, Europe. The single has been produced by Pete Townshend of The Who.
Full article:
Pete Townshend (producer) : I'm very organised when it comes to recording. I mean I've got a studio here that I work in and write in. I built it myself and run it myself and service it myself and I do that because I enjoy it – it's like a hobby but which is an extension of my work... much more fruitful a hobby than playing golf. I get all the exercise I need playing on the stage, thanks. Look – it's part of what I'm normally involved in and I think Thunderclap Newman were more a part of that than my own creative processes. In other words, they were of their own making. A lot of them would say, if asked now, that we were a figment of Pete Townshend's imagination – but they weren't. It's not true. Independently, all three of them came to me with a view to helping them and then suddenly I realised – or rather, again, it was Kit Lambert who said to me, "you haven't got time for all of them, why not try them together." I thought, "impossible, three more unlikely people you couldn't get," but they got in a room together, they played together on some film music for a friend of mine and they were really great and I played them back the tapes and they said "Yeah, seems to work," and they liked it and they were all enthusiastic about it as a concept, as it were.
He (guitarist Speedy Keene) wouldn't play me Something In The Air because it was originally called Revolution, so Speedy wouldn't play me Revolution which was a No1 hit. We just changed the title to Something In The Air and it was alright. That's the sort of phobia he has. Like, a lot of the songs he won't play me because I don't take drugs any more and he does and he thinks I'm gonna get all upset if it's a song about drugs. That's the sort of guy he is. There was an incredible amount of misunderstanding, because I suppose they did look like a manipulated group, or a dreamed-up group. But a lot came out of the top of their heads. Stuff like Hollywood Dream.
We recorded, we made Something In The Air, it worked out great, it got to No1 and from then on it was a downhill slide.
Thunderclap Newman did the f**king playing. All I did was play engineers. They played. I came up with the arrangements. Jimmy played every solo on that album straight off. Some of them are fantastic, spontaneous chipped solos, considered solos.
(Source : interview with John Tobler and Connor McKnight, for Zigzag June 1974)
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He (guitarist Speedy Keene) wouldn't play me Something In The Air because it was originally called Revolution, so Speedy wouldn't play me Revolution which was a No1 hit. We just changed the title to Something In The Air and it was alright. That's the sort of phobia he has. Like, a lot of the songs he won't play me because I don't take drugs any more and he does and he thinks I'm gonna get all upset if it's a song about drugs. That's the sort of guy he is. There was an incredible amount of misunderstanding, because I suppose they did look like a manipulated group, or a dreamed-up group. But a lot came out of the top of their heads. Stuff like Hollywood Dream.
We recorded, we made Something In The Air, it worked out great, it got to No1 and from then on it was a downhill slide.
Thunderclap Newman did the f**king playing. All I did was play engineers. They played. I came up with the arrangements. Jimmy played every solo on that album straight off. Some of them are fantastic, spontaneous chipped solos, considered solos.
(Source : interview with John Tobler and Connor McKnight, for Zigzag June 1974)