It's been a pretty bad time for musicians I like and admire recently,
Joey Ramone was the first to toddle off this
mortal coil before even reaching a half century, Later followed by his bandmate
Deedee Ramone, who by all accounts was off the
smack but managed to drop dead on his couch to be found by his wife. He did manage to make it to the big five-oh however, but he didn't make it past that. Likewise with Clash frontman and reggae lover
Joe Strummer (can't anyone from the first wave of punk make it to 51?).
John Lee Hooker also passed away, although at the more reasonable age of eighty-three.
John Entwistle did not live to see 2003 either, moving to the next life at age 57 in a hotel in
Las Vegas.
More disturbing was his bandmate, Pete Townshend who on the
13th of January, 2003 was arrested on suspicion of 'possessing and making indecent images of children'. His story was that he was in possession of the material for a study on paedophilia. He was caught when he used his credit card to gain access to a
child pornography site, along with about 7,000 denizens of the
British Isles. While the case remains to be heard, if he's found guilty he could be facing a sentence of five to fourteen years in prison. The scope of his case has been blown out of proportion however; saving a file onto a
computer and resizing it, or saving it under a different filename or file type is tantamount to "making indecent images". Hopefully he'll get off (no pun intended), and parents will not have to worry about their children being photographed by the former guitarist of
The Who. In fact, in my eyes, the biggest crime here is that it allowed music 'journalist'
Julie Burchill to shoot her fat, three chinned mouth off with another long winded pontification on morality in rock'n'roll.
Although, if he's found guilty (and he still wouldn't be as bad as
Gary "Leader of the Gang(bang)" Glitter), we should have seen it coming:
The Kids Are Alright
My Generation
Pinball Wizard A "blind, deaf and dumb kid" indeed
A Legal Matter Did he see this debacle coming?
What was Happy Jack so happy about...
Glittering Girl
Glow Girl
Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand
Pictures of Lily
Magic (school) Bus
Young Man Blues
Tommy
Slip Kid
Pure and Easy
The Love Man
My Baby Gives it Away
Annie
Rough Boys
North Country Girl
English Boy
Update: Townshend was cleared at the end of January. Previously, he claimed that before performing the transaction with his credit card and the pornography site, he contacted the
Internet Watch Foundation, who initially denied his claims. Later, they acknowledged them and provided copies of his emails.