Pete Townshend's OBE

[Ninshub]

I've just been on a musical Who binge recently, and started watching various old interviews.

Interesting right this moment I'm came upon this point in this interview where Townshend recalls having taken STP (stronger than acid) to "accompany" Keith Moon having taken it, and it was so horrible that he left his body.

I've queued it to where the story starts:
https://youtu.be/HwHMUrcjFh8?t=1671

I love the way Melvin Bragg instantly dismisses it as hysteria lol

[Ninshub]

Yes and more frustratingly he derails where Pete was going with that.

https://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/m...body.3094/

Thanks Stan.

Since things online have a way of disappearing, I'll repost one of the links from that thread:

From waybackmachine page (article dated January 1998):
http://web.archive.org/web/2012052812223.../mag3.html

Out of my mind with terror

For years Melvyn Bragg secretly lived in fear of "out of body experiences". For the first time, he tells how he overcame his nightmare

Thanks Stan.

Since things online have a way of disappearing, I'll repost one of the links from that thread:

From waybackmachine page (article dated January 1998):
http://web.archive.org/web/2012052812223.../mag3.html

Well I didn't know that about Melvyn...

The mid 90's, what a beautiful time on the internet, people freely gave their time, and you rubbed shoulders with may different and interesting people across the world... although my phone bills were horrendous!

... in this interview where Townshend recalls having taken STP (stronger than acid) to "accompany" Keith Moon having taken it, and it was so horrible that he left his body.

There is a slightly different description of the experience here. It might even be considered to have characteristics of an NDE.

Remembering The Who guitarist Pete Townshend’s near-death experience from LSD

While lead singer Roger Daltrey and Entwistle declined the pills, Moon grabbed one, and not wanting him to do it alone, Townshend and his wife split one—that’s when things turned strange. “After 30 minutes, the air hostess, whose turned-up nose had made her look a little porcine, transmogrified into a real pig, scurrying up and down the aisle, snorting. The air was full of faint music… I finally traced the sound to the armrest of my seat,” remembered Townshend.

He added, “After putting on a headset, I felt I could hear every outlet on the plane at the same time: rock, jazz, classical, comedy, Broadway tunes, and [Country & Western] competed for dominance over my brain.”

While his other bandmates remained seemingly unphased around him, he continued to spiral further into the psychedelic abyss. “I heard a female voice gently saying, ‘You have to go back. You cannot stay here.’”

“But I’m terrified. If I go back, I feel as if I’ll die.”

“You won’t die. You cannot stay here,” said the voice.

“As I drifted back down toward my body,” Townshend recalls, “I began to feel the effects of the LSD kicking back in. The worst seemed to be over; as I settled [into] the experience, though extreme, [it] felt more like my few trips of old: everything saturated by wonderful colour and sound. Karen looked like an angel.”

[Ninshub]

Interesting. Although here he says it was LSD, whereas in the other interview he says it was STP, much stronger than LSD apparently. Frustrating not to know the indication of the year the quotes here come from. Unless it's from his autobiography. I have it, so I'll check it.

[Ninshub]

Yes as I thought it's from his autobiography, which was 2012 (the TV interview from 1974), which I read but didn't remember that part. p. 121-122 in my edition. (Who Am I, Harper Collins: Toronto).

It was coming back from the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He split half a pill with his wife Karen, to accompany Keith Moon.

At one point I tried to console Karen, who was terrified, telling her I loved here. 'Ah!' Keith sneered, and John (Entwistle) cynically joined in.

Then the air hostess porcine nose thing. And then he adds.

The air was full of faint music, and I wondered if I was experiencing my childhood musical visitations again, but finally traced the sound to the armest of the seat.

Shortly after:

I was on the verge of really losing my mind when I floated up to the ceiling, staying inside the airframe, and watched as everything changed in scale. Karen and Pete (my note: himself) sat below me, clutching onto each other; she was slapping his face gently, figuring he had fallen asleep. From my new vantage point the LSD trip was over. Everything was quiet and peaceful. I could see clearly now, my eyes focused, my senses realigned, yet I was completely disembodied.

I looked down at Keith picking his teeth, characteristically preoccupied, and at John reading a magazine. As I took this in I heard a female voice gently saying, You have to go back. You cannot stay here.

Then the rest as the article quotes.

I would think it very possible that since this was written decades later, he forgot it was STP and remembered it as LSD again.

[Ninshub]

In those quotes he mentions musical visitations. I traced that back to page 34. At this part of the book it's the mid-fifties, so he's around 10, 11. He would "play" his Aunt Trilby's piano when he would visit her.

The instrument was never quite in tune, but I explored the keyboard until I found whatever combination I was after.

One day I found some chords that made me lightheaded. As I played them my body buzzed all over, and my head filled with the most complex, disturbing orchestral music. The music soared higher and higher until I finally stopped playing, and came back to the everyday world.

'That was beautiful', said Tril, looking up from whatever she was doing. 'You are a real musician.'

Because of Tril's faith in me, I became a bit of a mystic like her. I prayed to God, and at Sunday school I came to genuinely love and admire Jesus (...)

I'll confidently say music was part of this soul's abilities and life plan!