Pete Townshend
On May 19th, 1945, Peter Dennis Blanford Townshend was born... but we like to call him Pete! His parents spent a large portion of their marriage fighting and they were sperated at times, so Pete ended up spending much of his younger days with his Grandmother. When Pete was but a teen, his younger brothers, Paul and Simon,  were born. This caused the attention to shift from Pete, who was once an only child, to his new brothers. What made this worse was Pete's father would make remarks about Pete's rather large nose, of which Roger would later refer to him as a "nose on a stick" which Pete resented. Verbal salt to the wound of childhood emotional trauma.
At the age of 13, Pete got his first guitar. It was of poor quality and given to him as a Christmas present. Pete was far from pleased and his discontent was obvious. "I smashed up my amplifier. John Entwistle and I were rehearsing at home, and I didn't like my grandmother. She'd bought me my first guitar, and it was a piece of shit -- not electric, a kind of Spanish thing that you'd put on the wall in a restaurant. And I was angry at my father for letting her buy me my first guitar. I said to him, 'Dad, I wanted a guitar, not this thing with two inches between the neck and the string.' And he said, 'If you can get a tune out of that, I'll buy you a proper one,' but he never did. So I was pretty angry at that woman. I knew that I was a musician, and my father was a musician and I knew that he should have taken a more active interest in what I was doing. Anyway, it turned out that my grandmother took the active interest. She bought me this piece of shit, and she thought it meant that she could criticize my work. One day, I was about 14, John and I were sitting playing something together in the front room, not very loud, and she came in and she said, 'Turn that bloody awful row down.' And I said, 'Get out now or I'm going to kill you, you fucking old bag.' She yelled, 'How dare you talk to me like that!' So I picked up my amplifier [mimes grabbing a cabinet and heaving it across the room] and threw it at her. She ran to the other side of the door, and the amplifier landed there in a big heap and it fizzed and went off. And I'd just bought it. I'd worked delivering newspapers for three years to buy it. And John looked at me and said in that low voice, 'That was good. Done it now, haven't you?' [laughs]. But, I got it repaired." (~Pete; Guitar.com interview)
The guitar smashing started up in 1964. Pete accidently broke the guitar against a low ceiling while playing at the Railway in 1964. "They're delicately built instruments and there was not a lot of wood in the thinnest part that flares out into the head stock -- it was very, very narrow. So I banged it against this low ceiling and it fell off. I just literally went bam! and it fell off. A couple of people sitting in the front row looked like they were thinking, 'That's what you get for being a show-off.' But I thought, 'Right, I've been here before.' I suppose I saw my grandmother's face or something, and if I'd really been in the right frame of mind, I probably would have smashed the guitar right over the guy's head in the front row and maybe killed him, which would have been an interesting departure for my career. Instead, I just decided to just finish it off in a kind of a very carefully considered act of artistic destruction, and I smashed it up. I realized then that there was this incredible excitement in the audience. And then I picked up my other guitar, which was a 12-string, and finished up the show." (~ Pete; Guitar.com interview)

"I had no recourse but to completely look as though I meant to do it, so I smashed the guitar and jumped all over the bits. It gave me a fantastic buzz. Luckily, I'd brought a spare guitar, the 12 string. I picked it up and carried on as though nothing had happened." And so he did. The stage antics caught on and became a tradmark event. People began to expect him to smash something. "I think I justified it in terms of being noticed. And fuck it, I wasn't going to stand on stage and play rock & roll, if it was just the music; because that's not what rock & roll is, anyway. It might be what the blues is, but rock & roll is something else again." During Woodstock in 1969, Pete continued with the legacy of smashing the guitar when Abbie Hoffman interupted their set. Pete, who you can hear shouting to Hoffman to "fuck off [his] fucking stage" on the Maximum R&B set, smashed his guitar over Abbie's head. Pete wasn't too happy with the concert as a whole. "Woodstock changed me, I hated it".
Album after album of explosive guitar work and outstanding song writing was released, sparking both interest and question along the way. In 1965, My Generation was released with the line "I hope I die before I get old" written long before the meaning became evident and sung in a song expressing youth hostility and establishing a revolutionary stance. Pete became a "leading commentator on Rock and Roll". And in 1969, the rock opera "Tommy" was released. The story of the deaf, dumb and blind kid who sure played a mean Pinball. The controversy surrounding several aspects of the story would resurface numerous times to haunt Pete over the duration of his career, along with his worsening hearing loss. The influence and strenth of Tommy would not deminish either. The rock opera would be made into a motion picture and later a Broadway production. The next major rock opera, Quadrophenia, was released in 1973. The story of Jimmy, a Mod in his time, who took a third-person look at his life. Quadrophenia was also made into a movie, but not a very impressive one. In 1985, Pete released White City - A novel... the album and the movie. The story focused on Jimmy, the former Quadrophenia Mod. Life goes on, and Jimmy is now a father in his late 30's with a failing marriage.
In 1967, Pete heard of Meher Baba became a devote follower, and he would be the focus in much of Pete's work. A large portion of his solo albums would have a strong influence from the Avatar. Who Came First in 1972 being a tribute and the first of many to come. The Oceanic Concerts, released as an album much later, featured Pete and a fellow Baba follower, Raphael Rudd, preforming to an audience of fellow followers. The song lineup consisted of songs by both Pete and Raphael with strong influence by the Avatar.
Life does go on... even if it does stops suddenly. September 8th, 1978... the death of Keith Moon, the beloved drummer and dear friend rocked the world and Pete. Yes, life goes on. As hard as it was, Pete, and the Who, managed to work past that difficult period.
Over the years, some things in Pete's career remained the same classic stuff as ever before, as others changed. Still a follower of Meher Bana, and still continuing with his career, even with his hearing loss. Pete is now a father of three. His oldest daughter, Emma, following in her father's footsteps. The man who once wrote "I hope I die before I get old" has gotten old, but his life is far from wasted.
Soon after, Pete got a banjo and later met Roger Daltrey, who's band, the Detours, John and Pete would later join. John on the bass and Pete playing rhythem guitar. Later on, Pete switched to lead guitar and Roger to lead vocals.
Pete's creativity and master of the guitar in the modern Rock and Roll era never ceased to impress and amaze. During his time as the Detours, he created the windmill after watching guitarist Keith Richards, swing his arm in an arc during a warm up when the Detours opened for the Rolling Stones.
"Your eyes explain the story
That never had a start
Your brow reveals the glory
That's hidden in your heart"