Rachel Fuller's In The Attic With Pete Townshend
CD/DVD Set Highlights Music From Small Venues
In 2005, British singer/songwriter Rachel Fuller came up with an idea to promote her first album Cigarettes and Housework. She hosted a live weekly webcast via her popular blog featuring casual performances by her musician friends. Fuller called it In The Attic, and one of the show's regulars was boyfriend Pete Townshend, who has a little musical combo of his own, known as The Who.
With Townshend and her longtime friend and collaborator Mikey Cuthbert along for the ride, Fuller's show quickly became a popular musical web-destination. Guests like Martha Wainwright, The Flaming Lips and The Raconteurs performed on their own, with Fuller, or did their renditions of Who covers with Townshend playing along.
Fuller & In The Attic Tour With The Who
When it came time for The Who to tour their new album Endless Wire (an album Townshend says wouldn't have happened without the creative spark In The Attic provided him) in 2006/2007, Fuller and crew followed.
For the first half of the tour, In The Attic broadcast live from a 1950's Airstream trailer, backstage at some of Europe's biggest summer festivals. The variety of musicians playing these events guaranteed a full and diverse guest slate. It worked.
In The Attic Moves Into Small Clubs
When The Who's tour moved across the Atlantic to America, however, the cost of transporting the specially equipped Airstream (and other factors) made similar webcasts impossible. Instead, Fuller and Townshend booked a few tiny clubs in some of the tour cities, inviting talented friends to come play with them. It was a sort of Live In The Attic.
The recently released CD/DVD set In The Attic (officially titled Rachel Fuller Presents In The Attic with Pete Townshend and Friends) documents two of the eight stops along the tour, at L.A..'s Hotel Café and New York's Joe's Pub. The 3-disk package contains a CD from each of these venues, and a DVD of the highlights from both shows.
Highlights of the L.A. and New York Shows:
- Tenacious D playing a "Tommy" medley
- Joe Purdy performing "Daisy" with his dad, Dave
- Alexi Murdoch's mesmerizing "Orange Sky" played w/ Pete
- Ben Harper and Pete doing "I'm One", Harper simply awestruck by the moment
- Amos Lee's "What's Been Goin' On"
- Rachael Yamagata's soulful "Paper Doll"
- Jimmy Fallon doing "Carwash For Peace"
- Lou Reed w/ Pete Townshend on an unforgettable "Pale Blue Eyes"
Of course, Rachel Fuller plays a few of her own, including the "Sir Walter Raleigh" and "Cigarettes and Housework." The all-acoustic performances as well as the atmosphere are about as laid back as it gets, which is not to say most of them aren't moving, particularly when Townshend steps in. Andy Greene, of Rolling Stone called Townshend's four-song set at Joe's Pub "the single greatest solo acoustic performance I've ever witnessed."
All-in-all, the two sets come off as cozy, loose and inspired, as if these talented musicians were just jamming in your living room. At one point during the Purdy's father/son performance, Pete reaches up from off-stage to adjust a music stand. "Dad, look..." Joe says, "Pete Townshend's fixing your mike!" to much appropriate laughter. For those who may be fans of one or more of these performers, this package is a great way to get to know some others, and certainly worth the money.
Pete Townshend
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