Townshend turned down writing score for Blade Runner...

JF-30

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In '82 Pete and the boys put out It's Hard. I call it It Sucked. Prolly would have been a train wreck.
 

adorshki

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In '82 Pete and the boys put out It's Hard. I call it It Sucked. Prolly would have been a train wreck.

And so who wound up doing the Blade Runner soundtrack?
One of my heroes, Vangelis.
Granted at the time he'd also moved on to styles I no longer really liked, having already won an Academy Award for the Chariots of Fire score, but there are 3 albums I would never part with:
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JF-30

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Vangelis was almost a member of Yes, but they picked Patrick Moraz instead. I liked The Friends Of Mr. Cairo.
 

adorshki

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Vangelis was almost a member of Yes, but they picked Patrick Moraz instead. I liked The Friends Of Mr. Cairo.

Not exactly in the sense that they turned him down, but he wasn't available.
(From his Wiki page which I linked earlier):
"Several months later Vangelis travelled to England to audition with the progressive rock band Yes, after singer Jon Anderson had become a fan of his music and invited Vangelis to replace departing keyboardist Rick Wakeman. However, after problems with obtaining a work visa and the Musician's Union, and his reluctance to travel and tour, Vangelis declined. The band hired Patrick Moraz, who used Vangelis's keyboards in his audition."

And to tell the truth I'm glad they did, he was the reason for the first Yes album I ever bought: Relayer, for "Gates of Delirium".
To get an idea how big a move this was for me, in '76 I was living on a starving student's income and the only other album I bought that year was Jeff Beck's Wired
I was never a Wakeman fan although my 2 best buddies were huge Yes fans.
In fact one of 'em, a local performing keyboardist, actually got to know Anderson and visited him at his ranch near San Luis Obispo (CA) couple of times.
 

Bernie

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None of those guys can play ukulele like Pete Townshend, especially in his final explosive lead part at the very end of the tune... :encouragement: It is right he has been through difficult times, and hadn't any fine LesPaul or SGs left for that video :)friendly_wink:) , but that's where you see the genuine guitar-heroes : they can still do it, even with a cheap cardboard uke, and now they're back, with a whole new album... Okay i too liked these prog. rock bands, saw Yes in England (Reading fest.), and !ove Jeff Beck's Good Bye Pork Pie Hat version and more, but I find this "Won't Get Fooled again cover" real fun. Don't you ?
 

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Pete was wrong on this one IMO…Blade Runner is among my favorite films. It did take awhile for the script to come together, though. Coulda still been rough when he saw it. Pete c. 1970/71 coulda done it justice, I think—substitute ARP synths and Lowery organs for Vangelis' Yamaha CS-80—but his writing was different by the early '80s.

-Dave-
 

wileypickett

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If Pete Townsend had turned down, he might have more of his hearing left!

Saw the Who open for the Doors in 1968. (Pre-Tommy -- thank goodness.) Almost got scalped (I ducked!) by a hunk of Townsend's pickguard (w/ pickups still attached) which he Frisbee'd into the audience after the group smashed up their instruments.

Glenn
 

Bernie

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We had Demis Roussos (Aphrodite Child's ex-singer - Vangelis was on keyboards-) doing a solo career here in Europe, singing the most commercial crap you could think of...Possibly less dangerous than to have to avoid Pete Townshend's guitar's broken pieces, but only if you avoided committing suicide after hearing Demis... He had become real fat and looked quite disgusting really : that's may be why i missed most of Vangelis career...

A lot of Blade runner's interest was in the thrill carried out within the action throughout...It's likely that it wasn't obvious with the script only, to anticipate the result...Townshend explained he had a difficult and painful experience with movies from it's participation to Ken Russell's adaptation of Tommy, and then decided he was through with film making...
Some of his work under his name has been interesting too...
 
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Quantum Strummer

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A lot of Blade runner's interest was in the thrill carried out within the action throughout...It's likely that it wasn't obvious with the script only, to anticipate the result...Townshend explained he had a difficult and painful experience with movies from it's participation to Ken Russell's adaptation of Tommy, and then decided he was through with film making...
Some of his work under his name has been interesting too...

Yep. Here's an instrumental piece from 1993's Psychoderelict called Baba M4:

https://youtu.be/x9GAF_XHga8

Within the Psychoderelict story it's among some older pieces of music that've been rediscovered by the main character, Ray (also, BTW, the main character's name in the Lifehouse story…no accident, I bet). It's actually a piece Pete wrote & recorded in the late '70s while he was reworking Lifehouse for a possible *film adaptation. You can hear bits of Who Are You in it.

-Dave-

*This complicates the story of Pete losing interest in film work, of course. As does The Who's participation in the film adaptation of Quadrophenia. ;^)
 
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adorshki

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We had Demis Roussos (Aphrodite Child's ex-singer - Vangelis was on keyboards-) doing a solo career here in Europe, singing the most commercial crap you could think of...Possibly less dangerous than to have to avoid Pete Townshend's guitar's broken pieces, but only if you avoided committing suicide after hearing Demis... He had become real fat and looked quite disgusting really : that's may be why i missed most of Vangelis career...
Can't argue that, like most bands, I much prefer the early stuff myself, Vangelis no exception.
That issue about the band wanting to continue the money-making commercial career while Vangelis was going "progressive" is supposed to be what broke 'em up.
And to tell the truth there's some AC stuff I could easily live without. It's just that the really good stuff, I wouldn't want to.
 

Quantum Strummer

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I quite liked this : www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT8W6u81Ks
Even find he sings well (and better I would have thought - don't know much of his work under his own name-)

Yeah, that's a great video! Got played a lot on MTv in the '80s. Deserves a restoration, as has been done with The Who's video catalog. Empty Glass and All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes are my solo Pete favs. IMO they're stronger than the Who albums of the same period.

-Dave-
 

Westerly Wood

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Yeah, that's a great video! Got played a lot on MTv in the '80s. Deserves a restoration, as has been done with The Who's video catalog. Empty Glass and All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes are my solo Pete favs. IMO they're stronger than the Who albums of the same period.

-Dave-

last great Who album was Who By Numbers, 1975. IMHO
 

JF-30

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Quad.

Numbers was okay. Had some good stuff on it. Squeeze Box and the ballads I can do without. Who Are You is my favorite Who song of all time, but like Numbers was just an okay album in my opinion. Everything after that is just poo.
 

adorshki

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Quad.

Numbers was okay. Had some good stuff on it. Squeeze Box and the ballads I can do without. Who Are You is my favorite Who song of all time, but like Numbers was just an okay album in my opinion. Everything after that is just poo.

The synth on "Who Are You" sounds like a flatulent Martian.
 

Westerly Wood

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Who Are You is my favorite Who song of all time...

Who Are You would have been good on Quad. It kind of has a "5:15" feel to it, which is in my top 3 fave Who songs of all time. (5:15, A Quick One, Baba O'riley)
 
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