Pete Townshend: "Scoop" (1983)

I actually heard the second volume, Another Scoop, back in 1989. My Dad got the cassette copy of it from the library. As I was hearing it (and not knowing about the first volume, let alone the overall concept of these collections), I didn't understand the concept of it. I thought Pete was re-recording the songs on his own to his liking, or had re-mixed the songs, leaving only his voice and guitars...or something like that!

Flash forward ten years later, and having become a born-again Who fanatic for the past few years, I found this 2-CD bootleg collection of demos for Lifehouse (Who's Next) and Quadrophenia. I found it interesting that not only did Pete write all of these songs, but played all of the instruments on them as well...and very well, I might add! It was fascinating to hear how he originally constructed the songs; "Bargain" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" were both done at a kind of medium tempo, but when the songs got into Keith Moon's hands, he kicked them up a few notches, tempo-wise.

After my 23rd birthday, at 2nd Time Around, I found sealed cassette copies of the two Scoop collections. I snapped them right up, and couldn't wait to play them. I was completely floored by the range of songs, playing and recording of the songs on the first collection...so much so that I played this cassette virtually nonstop for about three months in my Walkman whenever I went out anywhere. Songs like "Mary" and "You Came Back" would have sounded quite interesting had the Who done them on any of the albums.

The second volume had some brilliant moments, but had tendencies to go off into synthesizer-driven territory that didn't really hold my attention. There was a third volume, called Scoop 3, but I never did get around to picking that one up. I did, however, find Lifehouse Elements, a sort of sampler from the 6-CD boxed set that Pete had put out of a radio play, plus tons of home demos from that period. It was nice to hear them in their intended form, not bootlegged from scratchy old acetate discs, sometimes at the wrong speed.