Pete Townshend - In the Attic, Volumes 1 and 2 - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (2005-2007)

How is it that every Who / Pete Townshend fan doesn't know about Townshend's In the Attic performances?! It should be a must have bootleg for every such fan who collects bootlegs, and yet I don't know of any such bootleg that exists (until now, with this). Luckily, there are a bunch of YouTube videos, so I was able to collect them together. That means the sound quality isn't awesome, but it's more than acceptable since the songs were recorded in studio conditions.

So what exactly are the In the Attic performances? If want you to know the full story, check out Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Attic_(webcast)

As well as Townshend's website:

http://petetownshend.net/in-the-attic

The short version is that Townshend's then girlfriend Rachel Fuller (they finally married in 2016) posted musical webcasts on the Internet about once a week from 2005 to 2007. Townshend performed one or more songs in nearly all of them. This is a dream come true for serious Who / Townshend fans, because instead of performing the same old songs done hundreds of times in concerts, he played some real obscure gems, many of which he's never played before or since (not counting the original recordings). Furthermore, all of his performances are solo acoustic! Only two of his performances were ever publicly released, on an album about In the Attic that's gone out of print.

I collected these songs a few years ago, and I've sequenced them in the order they were performed. Because there's so many, I've split them into two albums of nearly an hour each. Unfortunately, by the time I discovered these YouTube videos existed, some of them disappeared, judging by the lists of all the shows on Townshend's website. More rare gems like "Time Is Passing," "Imagine a Man," and "Keep on Turning" were played but aren't included because I couldn't find them. If you have them and can share them, please let me know.

Occasionally, Townshend performed with other guests, though I only included one of these - Chris Difford of Squeeze. (There are a few others I didn't include because they wouldn't fit the all acoustic format here, such as him playing a rocking version of "The Seeker" with Jack White and the Raconteurs, or where he had only a minor role, such as singing back up for Lou Reed on three of Reed's songs.) His future wife Fuller was usually in the room whenever he played. She joined him for a couple of duets, though if you listen closely she sometimes added a little bit here and there on other songs, for instance some backing vocals on "A Quick One while He's Away."

You can still watch many of these videos on YouTube (including the ones with White and Reed) - just search for "Pete Townshend" and "In the Attic." Usually, the videos are much longer, with lots of talking and/or other people playing their songs. I cut all that out so one just gets Townshend's songs.

Sometimes, Townshend and Fuller took their In the Attic thing on the road and played short sets in small clubs. Whenever I took a song from such a performance, I tried to reduce the audience noise down as much as possible to maintain a studio recording feeling. I generally succeeded in getting rid of all the clapping.

Most of the webcasts were done in 2006, the same year the Who put out their album "Endless Wire." So there are a handful of songs from that album (as well as others that have disappeared from YouTube). One song, "How Can I Help You," would come out on Townshend's 2015 greatest hits "Truancy," and another, "Uncertain Girl," is still unreleased. "Devil in Disguise" is an Elvis Presley song. "Here for More" is a Who song, but one of the very, very few written by Roger Daltrey. "Ambition" was meant for a 1972 album by the Who called "Rock Is Dead - Long Live Rock" that never came out. There is a Who version of the song, but it's never been released or played live.

VOLUME ! - 2005-2006:

01 Sunrise (Pete Townshend & Rachel Fuller)
02 Heart to Hang Onto [Live] (Pete Townshend)
03 Let's See Action [Nothing Is Everything] [Live] (Pete Townshend)
04 I'm One (Pete Townshend & Rachel Fuller)
05 How Can I Help You (Pete Townshend)
06 Blue, Red and Grey (Pete Townshend)
07 God Speaks of Marty Robbins (Pete Townshend)
08 Real Good Looking Boy (Pete Townshend)
09 Two Thousand Years (Pete Townshend)
10 Man in a Purple Dress (Pete Townshend)
11 Tattoo (Pete Townshend)
12 Uncertain Girl (Pete Townshend)
13 [You're The] Devil in Disguise (Pete Townshend)
14 Ambition (Pete Townshend)
15 Barefootin' (Pete Townshend & Chris Difford)
16 Let My Love Open the Door (Pete Townshend)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15983950/PeteT_2005-2006_InAttcVol1_atse.zip.html

VOLUME 2 - 2006-2007:

01 Here for More (Pete Townshend)
02 Sheraton Gibson (Pete Townshend)
03 Cut My Hair (Pete Townshend)
04 Too Much of Anything (Pete Townshend)
05 Save It for Later (Pete Townshend)
06 Bargain (Pete Townshend)
07 A Quick One while He's Away (Pete Townshend)
08 Sensation (Pete Townshend)
09 Acid Queen (Pete Townshend)
10 In the Ether [Live] (Pete Townshend)
11 Endless Wire [Live] (Pete Townshend)
12 Greyhound Girl [Live] (Pete Townshend)
13 Drowned [Live] (Pete Townshend)
14 The Real Me [Live] (Pete Townshend)
15 I Can't Reach You (Pete Townshend)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15983952/PeteT_2006-2007_InAttcVol2_atse.zip.html

Originally, I had Peter of the Albums I Wish Existed website make a very literal cover, since all the photos I could find of Townshend in an actual "In the Attic" session came from low resolution YouTube videos. I've kept that, lower in this post. But I have since tried to make a cover using the best of those low res pictures I could find. That's at the top. It features Townshend with his wife Rachel Fuller, which was common in those videos (I don't know who is in back). For the text, I took that from an official compilation of "In the Attic" performances (which unfortunately only feature one song from Townshend).

Since this is a double album, you might want to use both covers.