(idea) by waterhouse Wed Aug 22 2001 at 4:27:49
"I was at my most brilliant and I was at my most effective and when people say I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about what they're actually doing is revealing their own complete idiocy, because the idea was SO FUCKING SIMPLE! It is not complicated."
-- Pete Townshend

Lifehouse would have been the third rock opera written by Pete Townshend and performed by the Who, but due to politicking by such figures as the Who's manager Kit Lambert and Universal Pictures, the album was not released in the manner Townshend had intended.

The story behind Lifehouse (or the basic one anyway, over the lifespan of the project the story evolved into many many different mutations) is similar to the Who's other operas, in that it is a story of youth's struggle to define itself and mature, but the Lifehouse project had a distinctly harder science fiction edge. It goes something like this:
The story is set in the near distant future, where an ecological disaster has caused pollution levels to rise such that human beings can no longer exist in the normal atmosphere and must live inside of "lifesuits". These suits would allow individuals to experience anything possible on the outside world without leaving the confines of their lifesuit, and are plugged into a Grid which is owned, maintained and controlled by a company called Plus Bond. This corporation patrols the Grid and the streets, ensuring that everyone within high pollution areas stays within their lifesuits.

The protagonist of the story, Bob Snow is fighting against the control of Plus Bond. He breaks into the Grid and discovers a way to broadcast a live concert to the residents of the Grid, whose experiences are mostly pre-recorded. The concert, which will be staged at the Cut theatre (or the Life House), will allow the band and the audience to "merge" and therefore, release the minds and bodies of those who are trapped inside the Grid with the help of others who either lived as drifters or as farmers on the outskirts of civilization.
Although the story behind Lifehouse is interesting, the events which transpired during the production are even more so. Townshend began writing Lifehouse as not only a concept album, but a concept album with an integral film counter-part. His motivation for this was two-fold. Firstly, he wanted to branch out personally and creatively into venues which he felt would more accurately portray his artistic vision. Secondly, he and the rest of the band were looking for a way to take an extended break from their grueling touring schedule without simply abandoning their fans.

While their management was eager to give the Who and Townshend the room to create new material, their manager Kit Lambert was hell-bent on releasing Tommy the motion picture (the script to which he wrote) to such an extent that he was willing to go ahead with the project without Townshend's involvement. Townshend, however, was adamant that he would do no more with Tommy because he was "sick of the deaf, dumb and blind boy." As a consolation, Lambert pitched Universal Studios with the prospect of two pictures featuring the Who, one being Tommy and the other a yet unnamed project which was Lifehouse. When relations between Lambert and Townshend degraded, Townshend feels that Lambert sacrificied the concept of Lifehouse in order to get Tommy produced. Tommy, the motion picture, ended up being made and being made quite badly.

Despite the politics between management and Universal Studios, the Who continued producing the project. Townshend made major investments in it, such as buying high-tech hardware and synthesizers, which he felt would be the link between the audience and the experience the Who were trying to convey onstage. He also chose the Young Vic Theatre to be the filming location for the Cut and made arrangements for the Who to perform there, unannounced. He felt that this would allow the band to present the work in progress in front of an unbiased crowd, one which was not expecting the traditional power-packed Who experience. Townshend felt that these performances would concretize the film script, which was recently finished but which he was unsure of. He felt that the audience would, in some respect, take over the performances and that their experiences might be included in the fiction of the film. The audience, however, had no idea what they were supposed to do and as such neither the band nor the audiences came away from those performances satisfied.

At this point, more than a few people were having their doubts, including Townshend. Universal Studios, who had agreed to fund the project along with the motion picture release of Tommy, never put up the money they had promised and thus the Who could not complete the film aspect of Lifehouse. They did, however, record some of the material which Townshend wrote for the project and released it as the album Who's Next, which is considered to be a landmark album.

The Lifehouse project remained dormant for many years. In 1999, the BBC released the project, along with Townshend, as a radio play. This version is, supposedly, accurate to the vision Townshend had for the project, less the film aspect obviously. To coincide with the airing of the radio play, Townshend released the Lifehouse Chronicles through his record label, Eel Pie. The six CD box set contains all tracks even remotely thought to be connected with the project, as well as multiple versions of Teenage Wasteland/Baba O'Reilly, experimentations by Townshend related to the project, the full orchestral versions of the songs used in the radio play and the radio play itself. The box set is available exclusively at www.eelpie.com.
I like it! 2 C!s