The Who Sell Out on Stern; Petra Haden picks up the slack

Deja vu all over again: Who at Garden

Petra: keeping her mouth shut.

Not like we can afford satellite radio or anything, but thanks to Sirius's freebie campaign we heard Pete Townshend walk off the Howard Stern show this morning in a huff, after Robin made mention of those old child-porn charges (like we're supposed to forget about 'em just because he was acquitted.) Townshend enemy/"business partner" Roger Daltry stuck around and did a few verses with Fred Norris on guitar. This, folks, is what passes for all the promotional hype anyone can muster in support of Wire and Glass, which brings them back to the scene of earlier crimes on December 2. Even if you care not a whit, you ought to read James Parker's fantasmagoric review, of which we will lend you a snippet:

It’s been 24 years since the Who released a studio album. To put it another way, their last full-length, the 1982 stinker It’s Hard, is old enough to be this one’s father. And the Who are now two: with the death of bassist John Entwistle, coked to pieces in a Vegas hotel room in 2002, the strange marriage of Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend severed its last tie to history and became pure dialectic — big chest versus big nose, the pint-sized blusterer against the looming boffin who writes all the tunes. Endless Wire is their latest synthesis: 19 tracks, the last 10 of which form a full-length mini-opera — yes, that’s right — called Wire and Glass. And it is a true child of the Who-niverse, immediately recognizable and as thrillingly up-its-own-ass as anything they’ve ever done. >>MORE

And if Howard needs replacement Whos, hell, we got plenty. For starters there's Petra Haden -- daughter of Charlie, sidewoman to Foo Fighter and Decemberist alike -- who's at the MFA tonight playing one of less than a half-dozen concerts in which she attempts to pull off a live version of her insane all-acapella album Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out. She's offered a tip on her next direction by also working up a version of the Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows" for the tour, which will feature her with the Sellouts, a 10-piece choir comprising members of various LA bands that she and her sister have befriended in the years since That Dog. And, just in time for Halloween, she's also posted this fucking amazing version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to her site (go here to hear the stream . . . web rip, anyone?)
>>PETRA HADEN SHOW DETAILS.

Really, Petra should hook up at some point with Boston's the Silver Lining, who seem to share a few -- OK, all -- of her touchstones. As heard on that song we posted a while back, the Silver Lining know their way around a Beach Boys harmony, and for Halloween they're dressing up/playing out as -- you guessed it -- the Who, at TTs on Satuday. (That's the same gig as the Rudds doing their Hall and Oates set. Monsterous.)
>>SILVER LINING SHOW DETAILS.

DOWNLOAD: Petra Haden, "God Only Knows" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: The Silver Lining, "Cemented Steps" (mp3)