Latest news with #Townsend
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Kansas City Public Works fixing road after at least 12 accidents
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – 'It's been exciting to finally see Public Works show up to repair what they actually started when their sand truck crashed into my ditch in front of my house,' Kansas City homeowner, Kevin Townsend shared with FOX4. Townsend says in October of 2023, a City worker veered off the road. The incident damaged the road and Townsend's front yard. He lives on North Brighton Avenue in Kansas City, says, a month later, a crew came out to repair the road, but it wasn't done adequately.'Since then, we've had a lot of accidents,' Townsend said. 'Two in the last week, actually a week and a half, of cars going off the road and wrecking in the ditch.' Kansas City man charged with murdering ex-girlfriend on her 21st birthday He showed FOX4 remnants of a car that had veered off and landed in his ditch, as recently as Sunday. He says there have been a dozen wrecks within the last year and a half. 'A lot of times they're going fast enough, they hit on my bottom driveway, and they go airborne into the ditch and sometimes they're able to get out.'He says, there's been one instance, prior to October 2023, when someone veered off the road. Since then, that number has grown. The City said there have been 2-3 reports made in relation to this. The homeowner shared correspondence via his myKCMO account, with nearly 50 updates, including when notes are added by a staff member or if an update in the case has been made, saying he's reached out numerous times for some help.'They actually had me in their system as a flag repeat caller even though I've called on the same issue.' WATCH: Second car in 3 months crashes into roof of Excelsior Springs Veterans Hall His ultimate hope is the road is repaired, and no one gets hurt.'It's always interesting when we're sitting watching TV at night, when we hear a noise like somebody could be dead out front, a lot of times they're able to correct and get back on,' he shared. 'It seems like they could have done this a long time ago.' The City shared with FOX4, Public Works will repair the ditch line within the next few weeks. Work done Wednesday was a temporary fix, while crews prep for a long-term repair. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
The Who star makes cryptic comment about 'the end' after farewell tour unveiling
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend, the mastermind behind anthems My Generation and Substitute, shows no signs of slowing down after marking his milestone 80th birthday Legendary The Who guitarist Pete Townshend, who wrote the 1960s rock anthem I Hope I Die Before I Get Old, has just turned 80 – but says he feels like a new man. Or at least part of him does. 'That song wasn't a state of mind – it was a threat!' he laughs. 'I don't feel old – I just got a new knee.' And Townshend reveals that although he's not planning to retire just yet, he admits that The Who's days of going on the road are numbered. After 58 years since first touring America, one of the greatest – and loudest bands in rock history – has announced its farewell US tour, aptly titled, The Song Is Over, this summer. 'Whether it's the end of The Who…?' Townsend muses, before adding, 'It's certainly the end of touring in America. I asked Roger if it's the end of touring Europe, and he said. 'We'll have to wait and see'.' Speaking to My Cultural Life on Radio 4, Townsend reflects on the dark times in his life that created his wild man of rock persona, trashing guitars on stage and wrecking hotel rooms, but says even at 80, he has an edge. 'I feel like a diamond with a flaw. I am a dangerous f***er,' he reveals. 'I was a proponent of rock and roll as a philosophy. But when I started exploring my inner darkness on stage, my stage persona – smashing guitars and turning it all up – I was very detached and I didn't enjoy doing it.' He also acknowledges now that after years of a long-running feud with his 81-year-old bandmate Roger Daltry, the balance of power between them has shifted. 'Roger has said in the past that we would go on touring until we drop dead – but the needle has shifted,' he says. 'It was always me who said that, 'I reserve the right to stop,' and I have stopped twice – once for 11 years when I worked with Faber and Faber as a book editor. 'So I always thought I was holding the cards – but I think Roger holds the cards now." Although Daltry founded the band in 1964 when the pair met at Ealing Art College, Townsend wrote the rock group's huge teenage anthems including My Generation, Substitute and I Can See For Miles. He admits his co-founder thinks he's pretentious when he says The Who was an art project for him as much as a pop band. 'What was difficult was the other three members didn't (feel that way),' says the father-of-three. 'If Roger and I were sitting together and I was doing an interview now about My Cultural Life, he would spend most of his time laughing.' While Townsend planned to be an artist, it was Daltry who asked him to join The Detours – which became The Who. 'Roger sees it as his band to this day – he started it. He had been expelled and came back and asked me to be in his band. 'And that's true, and I'm grateful, but for me, the beginning of my life as a musician and an artist was when I wrote the first song I Can't Explain.' While the band played pubs and weddings, Townsend kept his hobby a secret. 'I wasn't serious about being in a band,' he admits. 'Roger was lead guitarist – but he wasn't a particularly good player. I was gawky and had a big nose and just strummed. 'But we had a good looking lead singer who the girls liked and we became quite successful. ' The young, confused Townsend was so sure he didn't want to be in a band, he even forecast its demise. 'I wrote myself a manifesto – 'The Who are a band who are chopping away at their own legs'. Then one day I'm driving home in my mum's yellow van and heard my song, I Can't Explain, come on the radio, and I thought, 'My manifesto! I don't want to be in a rock band. No – this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. But wow – people are listening to this'.' By now Daltry was lead vocalist and the line-up included drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle, and along with guitarist Townsend, released their 1969 rock opera album Tommy to huge critical and commercial acclaim. But a decade later, in true rock and roll style, Keith Moon died, aged 31, in 1978 from an accidental overdose of the prescription drug Hemineverin, prescribed to combat alcoholism. Then in 2002, bass player John Entwistle's dodgy ticker gave out after the 57-year-old took cocaine in a Las Vegas hotel room. 'The Who is a clumsy machine because we've been missing two members for a long time,' says Townsend. '(Roger and I) are very dependent on each other. We're getting old and we have different needs. 'But if Roger wanted to perform MY music, if I can put it as bluntly as this, I would be honoured. It's not about there being an argument between – we're just accepting our current situation. And he adds, 'We've never agreed on very much, but that's not to suggest there's a war on, because there isn't.' Age has finally mellowed the old enmity between him and Daltry, but Townsend says the abuse he suffered as a child created a dark side to his personality. He was officially cautioned for accessing a website containing images of child abuse in 1999, which he explained was for his autobiography. Born into a musical family right at the end of the war, Townsend first went out on the road with his musician parents aged just 13 months old. 'They were in very popular swing dance bands,' he recalls. 'My first memories are passing out beer bottles to band players on the tour bus. 'When The Who first started touring in the UK, I knew my way to all of the gigs because I'd done it so many times with my dad.' But his happy childhood came to a sudden end when his mother went on tour and sent him to live with his grandmother in Margate. 'Why my mother sent me to my grandmother who had abandoned her when she was seven, I don't know, but I left my friends and school behind in Acton,' he says sadly. 'It was just horrible and I don't remember a lot of it – I kind of black it out. She was nuts and abusive and cruel and surrounded by extremely pervy men all the time who interfered with me. It was a really shitty time and in the end somebody reported my grandmother for abusive behaviour. 'My parents saved me – they got back together and eventually I had two brothers,' he says about returning to his home in Acton, West London. 'As far as I was concerned, that was when my childhood began.' Despite his father being a musician, Townsend says he didn't encourage his son to join a band at school. 'My father didn't think I had any musicality,' he admits. 'My mum was very encouraging. When our band started, she lugged our kit around, helped us get gigs.' The rock legend has been open about his lifelong battle with depression and substance abuse, but he has been sober for 40 years now. 'I sometimes wonder if my parents knew I was damaged – I've done all of the things that people do who have fallen into addiction and bad behaviour,' he speculates. And explains how his 1965 hit My Generation was about him pushing back against his dad. 'I drew the line with My Generation,' he explains. 'Dad's music was his generation – love and romance after the war. We didn't have that reason for being – we needed to reinvent ourselves. Rock and roll was our generation. I was overthrowing my dad's big band generation.' The Who created some of the most powerful moments in rock and roll history especially when they performed at Woodstock in 1969 – and the hair-raising refrain of Tommy's Feel Me See Me Touch Me played out across the half a million festival goers as the sun rose in the sky. They went on to sell-out stadiums around the world, but Townsend felt that by the late 1970s, they'd begun to lose themselves. 'The band had turned into a prog rock outfit. I felt we have to reconnect with our roots – and I wrote Quadrophenia about the Marquee and Shepherd's Bush – where we'd grown up.' Again, Townsend's creative philosophy behind the 1979 rock concept album which tells the story of a young mod Jimmy set in 1965 was lost on his bandmates. 'The other guys didn't identify themselves with Jimmy at all. They didn't care about the manifesto that was buried in the middle of it.' It was the first album Townsend had total control over, but tensions between him and Daltry boiled over. 'It led to the only incident in which Roger and I have actually had a physical fight,' he admits. 'I'd been working all night on stage tapes and was late for rehearsal and we had an argument and I behaved badly and he knocked me out. 'But when I finished it, I thought, 'Wow, you know, they've let me do this'.' Like Tommy, Quadrophenia was adapted for film, and recently has been staged as a mod ballet. Townsend adds, 'Jimmy being vulnerable expressed the universality of what teen boys seem to go through. So it has new relevance.' The 80-year-old has as much creative energy today as he did 60 years ago, but he says it's time to do new things. 'I'm proud The Who have been able to create a form of music that lasted, and I'm not disowning my past, but I'm driven by the need to be creative. The idea that I could retire and go sailing and stop writing feels like a waste of time. 'I might have five, or 10 or 15 years if I'm really lucky at being able to work with music and art. Nothing is off the map now – I might even do some dancing when I get my other knee done!'
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Rockford Rivets jump on Traverse City early and improve to 2-0
LOVES PARK, Ill. (WTVO/WQRF) — The Rockford Rivets are off to a 2-0 start to their Northwoods League season after defeating the Traverse City Pit Spitters 10-3 Tuesday for a two-game series Rivets got their ten runs on only six hits. They struck for six runs in the bottom of the first inning. One of them scoring on a bases loaded walk to Tommy Townsend. Townsend, a native of Sycamore, Illinois, reached base four times. He had one hit and three walks. He scored three baseman Tate Shimao had a pair of hits for the Rivets, and he drove in two pitcher Danny Cercello was more than solid in his Rivets' debut on the mound. He pitched 2.2 innings allowing one hit and one earned run while striking out three Allred did not allow a run in 1.1 innings. Gideon Motes pitched two innings allowing one run, and Aidan Wagley went three innings without surrendering a highlights, watch the media player above. The Rivets are now off to Green Bay for a two-game series against the Rockers. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Auto Car
7 days ago
- Automotive
- Auto Car
Why motorists are facing waits of a year or more for crucial car repairs
'You can see, just for a windscreen replacement, the complexity goes up, and the number of parts required and the skill that's required, all of that. Do that for headlights, do that for radars and the amount of parts that logistics companies have to carry goes up massively.' On top of this, suggested Townsend, car makers are no longer stocking a large surplus of spare parts, due to various factors affecting their finances. 'The biggest pain point for the incumbent vehicle manufacturers is cash flow,' he said. 'Because of the challenges coming from the likes of China and with [import] tariffs in America, Dieselgate, electrification and all of this, they simply don't have the cash flow to have millions of pounds sitting in stock. 'They're having to reduce their stock holdings across Europe that would traditionally have supplied the market, because they simply can't afford to have millions of pounds sitting in a warehouse not doing anything.' This point is particularly pertinent at a time when the market is demanding broader choice, explained Townsend, because with each type of powertrain comes a different assortment of parts, dramatically increasing the cost of keeping a healthy supply of spares. He said: 'If we were all buying electric vehicles, the problem would go away, because they would just move from one [powertrain type] to another. But the market isn't quite ready, so manufacturers have to serve the market by producing plug-in hybrids, normal hybrids, electric variants etc. So it's hugely complex at a time when manufacturers are cash-constrained.' The wait times also put pressure on insurers to declare crashed cars a total loss when they have suffered only minor damage, explained Townsend. This is because the cost of a courtesy car may outweigh the value of a repair if the part will take weeks or months to arrive. He said: 'We had an incident with an EV in the middle of 2023. Somebody bought an EV brand new in July for £35,000. Then it suffered a third-party hit. The door and the wing mirror were damaged. The vehicle manufacturer couldn't provide a lead time [for a replacement mirror], so that car was written off for a wing mirror.'
South Wales Argus
22-05-2025
- Sport
- South Wales Argus
Newport County reveal their leavers and offer four new deals
Talks are ongoing with the experienced figures with a hope of them agreeing to stay on under a new boss following the departure of Nelson Jardim. The Exiles did the same last season when midfielder Wildig signed new terms but Ryan Delaney, Scot Bennett and Harry Charsley all turned down offers in favour of fresh challenges. Wildig was a hugely influential figure at the start of 2023/24 but ruptured knee ligaments in November and is targeting a summer return. The 33-year-old helped out on the coaching team at the end of the campaign along with 35-year-old centre-back Clarke, who would be a back-up option for the defence if he signs on for a fifth season in Newport. The versatile McLoughlin has been a huge hit since being signed by Graham Coughlan and is comfortable as a full-back, wing-back or midfielder down either flank. The Irishman was also deployed as a makeshift central midfielder when options were limited in the run-in. Goalkeeper Townsend is a County legend and brought up his 200th appearance for the club in March. Without the 30-year-old Antigua & Barbuda international's exploits then the Exiles would have been a lot closer to the relegation fight, or potentially be preparing for National League football. The Exiles are closing in on a new boss - Manchester United U21s coach David Hughes is expected to be appointed - but have been building the squad through owner Huw Jenkins and head of football operations Chris Finn. Deals have been offered to the influential quartet, but Townsend and McLoughlin in particular could have interest from other clubs. GOING: County defender Kyle Jameson (Image: Kian Abdullah/Huw Evans Agency) County have announced their leavers with centre-back Kyle Jameson the most senior player to go after two seasons at the club. Academy graduate Kiban Rai, who spent the second half of the campaign on loan at Merthyr, is another notable player to go after failing to truly push on. Goalkeeper Lewis Webb, defender Josh Seberry, forwards Nathan Wood, Josh Martin and Geoffroy Bony and strikers Hamzad Kargbo and Luke Jephcott also head for the exit. Former Notts County attacking midfielder Martin arrived in January on a contract to the end of the season with an option for an extra year but only showed flashes of his talent. Webb spent the second half of last season as Townsend's back-up after moving ahead of Jacob Carney, who is still under contract, in the pecking order. The writing was on the wall when loan moves were made by Seberry (Weston-super-Mare), Wood (Penybont), Kargbo (Chippenham) and Jephcott (Truro) while Bony was a fringe figure after signing in November. Daniel Barton, who joined last summer but never featured in the senior squad, is also listed as a leaver. The loan quartet of Noah Mawene (Preston), Kieron Evans (Cardiff), Kyle Hudlin (Huddersfield) and David Ajiboye (Peterborough) have gone back to their parent clubs, although the Posh have already announced that winger Ajiboye will leave when his contract expires. Offered deals, with discussions on-going: Shane McLoughlin Nick Townsend James Clarke Aaron Wildig Released players following the expiry of contract: Lewis Webb Kyle Jameson Luke Jephcott Geoffroy Bony Joshua Martin Hamzad Kargbo Kiban Rai Josh Seberry Nathan Wood Daniel Barton Players returning to parent clubs: Noah Mawene Kieron Evans Kyle Hudlin David Ajiboye County players under contract: Jacob Carney, Joe Thomas, Cameron Evans, Matt Baker, Ciaran Brennan, Jaden Warner, Nelson Sanca, Anthony Glennon, Tom Davies, Cameron Antwi, Kai Whitmore, Keenan Patten, Jac Norris, Michael Spellman, Bobby Kamwa, Oliver Greaves, Courtney Baker-Richardson. County academy players offered professional contracts: Moses Alexander-Walker, Riley Lonergan, Sam Watkins, Corey Evans, Morgan Evans.
