OTHER TECH

Y'know, the function of the Who's music was to demand something to fill the gap of that lack of information about the past. It was to keep screaming, What is the answer to this? What is this about? What don't we know that we should've known? How do we build, how do we go on from here? How do we avoid making the same mistakes you guys made?

So, the function of the band was very clear. Well, now we're 60 years old. And this is the new pitch: I wake up in 2007, and I look around me and I realize that this "anger" today, this symbolic guitar smashing, this tendency to violence, to put a shotgun in your mouth and blow the back of your head off - all these big, violent, noisy acts - they're not valid anymore. I'm not saying that we have to be gentle, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have teeth, I'm not saying that our music shouldn't have edge, I'm not saying that our music shouldn't be political. But if it's going to be political, let's make it f---ing political.

The function of rock, the function of pop music - whatever we want to call it, the music that we all play and that we're all dedicated to - what does it need to do now? We've got more information, more strength, more power than we've ever had. And knowledge helps you to do the right action.... Good thoughts, good deeds, good actions.... We're better equipped than we ever were. My generation, we were driving blind, I swear to you. We were driving blind.

ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY TODAY

Before I came to Austin, I spoke to a big record-company CEO in New York who said: "Rome ... is ... burning." Back in the late 1960s and early '70s, I was always excited about what might be different and new. And today, it has arrived: The Internet is here, the World Wide Web is here, the grid is here - and by "the grid" I mean the grid that holds us together. An Austin music festival, SXSW, built on top of a really solid, healthy Internet is a very different music festival from one built just on the fact that people in Austin really like to drink beer and listen to live bands.