Lifehouse Biography

Lifehouse is a sci-fi rock opera double album by The Who intended as a follow-up to Tommy. It was abandoned as a double album rock opera in favor of creating the traditional rock album, Who's Next, though its songs would appear on various Who albums, singles, and Pete Townshend solo albums. In 1978, the Lifehouse project was revived by John Entwistle with a slightly changed plot; it was scrapped and its remains are included on Who Are You.

In the year 2000, Pete Townshend revived the Lifehouse concept with his set The Lifehouse Chronicles and the sampler The Lifehouse Elements.
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The Lifehouse Chronicles boxed set has six discs: two discs of music from the Lifehouse project, one disc of experiments and remixes of the Lifehouse songs, a disc of classical works by Pete Townshend, Scarlatti, Purcell, and Corette that were used in the Lifehouse radio play, and two discs containing the radio play itself. The radio play was also released separately on a double cassette.

In 1970 The Who released Tommy and were set to carry it around the world. ‘Pete has recalled that on May 29, 1969 at the Grande Ballroom in Dearborn, Michigan, during the tour in which Tommy was first performed in the US, the audience – who’d had little opportunity to hear the album and therefore familiarize themselves with the music – rose at one point and remained standing, simply grooving to the music.’ Chris Charlesworth, Live at Leeds liner notes.

By this time Pete Townshend has started writing more meaningful songs and concepts: He began to use a theme of music throughout his three Who rock operas. The Lifehouse story was inspired by his experiences on the Tommy tour: “I’ve seen moments in Who gigs where the vibrations were becoming so pure that I thought the whole world was just going to stop, the whole thing was just becoming so unified.” He believed that the vibrations could become so pure that the audience would “dance them-selves into oblivion”. Their souls would leave they’re bodies and they would be in a type of heaven; a permanent state of ecstasy. The only reason this did not happen at Who gigs was because there was a knowledge in the listeners’ mind that the show would end and everyone would wake up and go to work the next morning. These ideas were directly linked to the writing of Philosopher Inayat Khan, who had written about the connection of vibration and sound with the human spirit. Another source of inspiration for Pete Townshend was Meher Baba, who claimed to be an avatar of Brahman (God).

What Pete Townshend was aiming to achieve in Lifehouse, was to write music that could be adapted to reflect the personalities of the audience. To do this he wanted to adapt his newly acquired hardware, VCS3 and APR synthesizers and a quadraphonic PA, to create a machine capable of generating and combining personal music themes written from computerized biographical data. Ultimately, these thematic components would merge to form a ‘universal chord’. To help this process, The Who would encourage individuals to immerge from the audience and find a role in the music. A slight example of this can be found on ‘Disc Two: The Young Vic – Live’, of ‘Who's Next (Deluxe Edition)’. Hence Audience Participation Rock Music: "About 400 people will be involved with us and we aim to play music which represents them." Pete Townshend, Melody Maker Jan 23 1971

Pete Townshend decided that The Who would make the first real rock film: “The Lifehouse idea really was very simple: it was a portentous science-fiction film with Utopian spiritual messages into which were to be grafted uplifting scenes from a real Who concert.” Pete Townshend, Who's Next liner notes. His idea was to spit the film into two barrels: fact and fiction. The fiction was to be similar to the ideas developed in Tommy. This would make up the plot with the Lifehouse. The Fact barrel would be Townshends’ ideas about Audience Participation Rock.

In the album, pollution is so bad, the populace are forced to wear Lifesuits, suits that could simulate all experiences so that the person wouldn't have to leave their homes.

The suits are plugged into a huge mainframe called the Grid, similar to today's Internet, but it also contains tubes for sleeping gas, food, and entertainment; supposedly, someone could live out tens of thousands of lifetimes in a very short period. The grid is controlled by a man named Jumbo.

The story begins when a farming family in Scotland hear of a huge rock concert called Lifehouse that is occurring in London, a sort of post-apocalyptic Woodstock, if you will. Their daughter, Sally, runs away to join the concert. They don't wear Lifesuits because they are supposedly out of the pollution's range and they farm the crops that the government buys to feed the Lifesuiters. Bobby is the creator of Lifehouse, he is a hacker who broadcasts pirate radio signals advertising his concert, where the participants personal data are taken from them and converted into music, quite literally, 'finding your song'. At the climax of the album, the authorities have surrounded the Lifehouse, then the perfect note rings forth through the combination of everybody's songs, they storm the place to find everybody has disappeared, a sort of Nirvana through music, and what's more, the people observing the concert through their lifesuits have completely disappeared, too.

LIFEHOUSE PICTURES

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LIFEHOUSE BIOGRAPHY