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Sounds like a Kew for a song
Valentine Low and Elizabeth Hopkirk23.07.08
The partner of Who guitarist Pete Townshend is spending a week in Kew to produce an album of songs inspired by the area.
Singer-songwriter Rachel Fuller will record her work on a simple eight-track cassette recorder and make it available as a free download.
Fuller, 34, will write about everything from her coffee addiction to the local hairdresser.
Her inspirations will be recorded on a dictaphone, and each day the lyrics will be written on the walls of a studio flat she has bought in Kew. At the end of a week she will perform the tracks in the flat, with her boyfriend acting as studio hand and guitar tuner.
Fuller, a classically trained musician, met Townshend, 63, in 1996 and they now live together in Richmond. She has written songs with him, toured with The Who and presented a webcast music chat show, In The Attic, from Townshend's Oceanic studios in Lavender Hill.
Her most recent project is cowriting a musical, ASH, which will be performed at the Arcola in Dalston next month. But she felt her songwriting had been neglected.
Fuller said: "Having earned some money on the road last year, and determined not to just buy handbags with it, a few months ago I purchased a tiny studio flat in Kew Village - not only as an investment, but as a place for me to be creative.
"My [inner] artist was thrilled and I said, 'You do whatever you like. We have no record company to please, no restrictions, I'm letting you out of the box. If you want to play the church organ naked then so you shall.' So I packed my little bags and have come to live in the flat for a week.
"In the week I live in my room, I intend to write a complete album entitled Kew.
"Each track will correlate to a store [in Kew], what it sells, the kind of people who shop and hang out in it and my relationship with the people and the products.
"God knows why, but my artist is insisting that the lyrics are written on the white walls of the apartment in pencil. "
Townshend visits every day and they dine at Ma Cuisine, the bistro.
Fuller said: "I'm not sure Pete thought I'd go through with it but he thinks it's great and loves that I am writing on the walls."
She persuaded him to add his own message, which says: "You are so beautiful and clever and I love you. Now surely it must be time to come home."
Fuller joked: "I'm going to get him to sign it and if it goes wrong I can sell the room on eBay."
