Photo © buschenhenkeThere was an article a while back on Billboard.com that I’m just coming around to writing about now…
I would never say that The Who is the most technologically forward-thinking band out there nowadays but Pete Townsend would be on that list. He had started to webcast The Who’s live shows from their recent tour — all financed with his own money — and then seemingly pulled the plug for no reason.
Well, his reason is as follows: Roger Daltrey “seems to be unconvinced that the Web has any real contribution to make to our career.”
My first thought when reading this is, “how is that even possible? don’t they see how powerful the internet is?” My second thought is, “well, fans of The Who didn’t really grow up with the internet so I’m sure that they weren’t logging onto webcasts every other night and watching their favorite band religiously like Phish fans or something…”
I’m not sure which thought is really overpowering the other, which explains why I wanted to do a post on this topic. In 2006, how can anyone with any sort of brain not understand that the internet can have a huge effect on a musician’s career? Ever heard of MySpace, Roger?
I guess we’ll see how it works itself out.