STACK NZ Jul #64

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Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, ‘82), the furious
Face the Face (White City, 1986) and two new
songs, Guantanamo and How Can I Help You.
It’s a decent single disc compilation but, as
with his autobiography – and his sometimes
pugnacious demeanor in interviews – there
are not a lot of laughs to be had with Pete
Townshend, although some might say he’s
having fun with us right now.
Because just released – and no one asked
for this – there is Pete Townshend’s Classic
Quadrophenia, the classic Quadrophenia rock
concept album from 1973 delivered by the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra with Townshend, Billy
Idol, Phil Daniels (the original Jimmy kid in the
’79 film version) and others.
Do loyal old Who fans want to hear an
orchestral version of a rock album? Does the
R.P.O audience have any interest either?
In truth the orchestral passages are very
powerful. But tenor Alfie Boe’s Broadway-cum-
opera vocals are pretty grating and lack the
edge required to convey a story about teenage
confusion, anger and angst.
It does seem an odd and unnecessary album,
and for a man who wrote, “Hope I die before
I get old” – words which have unfairly dogged
him and will appear in every obituary – Pete
Townshend seems more and more intent on
trawling through his past.
Maybe it’s too much to ask of a man who
recently turned 70, “Let’s see action”?
30
visit MUSIC
JULY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
FEATURE
Pete Pushes
Repeat Play
Again
Graham Reid gets into
the head behind The Who.
A few years ago, before
Christmas, I bought two
rock autobiographies to
read over the break. One was Rod
Stewart’s Rod which was howling
funny and charted the life of a man
for whom booze, blondes and a
bloody good time were written into
the contract of being a rock star.
So he obliged. The other could
not have been more different, it
was Pete Townshend’s earnest
Who I Am which read like open-
heart surgery on his emotional life
and was mostly free of humour
and good times. It’s an excellent
book, but I concluded the reason
Keith Moon in The Who became
so outrageous was he had to fill
the fun-gap left by Pete.
The jury will always be out
on whether Rod or Pete made
the better music either in bands
or as solo artists, but outside of
The Who we might observe that
Townshend’s album were always more highly
regarded, if way way less popular, than Rod’s.
Pete Townshend makes the case for himself with
a new compilation drawn from his solo albums
(about half a dozen that are relevant, the ones
to his guru he, and we, set aside). Only one of
his albums made any wide impact, that was
Empty Glass from 1980 and for the compilation
Truancy: The Very Best of Pete Townshend he
taps it for two of the most obvious songs; Let
My Love Open the Door (a hit in the US and on
movie soundtracks) and Rough Boys, a sexually
ambiguous lyric and a song he
dedicated to The Sex Pistols and
his own children, the implication
being that the Pistols were part
of The Who’s offspring.
Disappointingly the compilation
doesn’t include the finest song on
Empty Glass, his beautiful And I
Moved in which he poetically sang
of his spiritual conversation. He’s
never included it on any previous
collection either. The collection
opens with three songs from his
solo debut Who Came First (‘72):
Pure and Easy which he described
on the original album cover as a
pivot for his fraught Lifehouse
project, the raw acoustic folk of
Sheraton Gibson and the rollicking,
expanded and over-long demo
of the Who’s Let’s See Action
(also from Lifehouse). It serves
to remind that Townshend was
always happy to share his working
drawings of songs, especially on
the Scoop album series of home recordings and
demos. (He includes You Came Back from that
source.)
Many longtime Townshend fans would argue
his best solo outing was his most relaxed, the
terrific Rough Mix (1977) with his longtime pal
Ronnie Lane, bassist in the Small Faces/Faces.
Pleasingly three from it appear on Truancy -- My
Baby Gives It Away, A Heart To Hang Onto and
Keep Me Turning – and you can feel the ease
between them. Elsewhere are some memorable
solo songs: Face Dances No. 2 (from All the Best
For more reviews, overviews and
interviews by Graham Reid see: