Townshend in search of a young rock sound
Pete Townshend Empty Glass Atco XSD 32-100 Straight Eight No Noise From Here El Mocambo Records 750
The '70s were hard on Pete Townshend, so his official biography goes. He was uncertain, confused. Being The Who's lead guitarist had propelled him into the big time, all right, (witness the band's two sold-out Maple Leaf Gardens' shows Monday and Tuesday nights) but it hadn't helped him come up with his own musical identity. A while back he tried sorting things out with a solo album called Who Came First, then through a collaboration called Rough Mix with Ronnie Lane. The first was a hodgepodge (not unpleasant, certainly, but not a cohesive work), the second sounded like a demo. It would appear he had to get the '70s, where his "confidence was at a low ebb," out of the way before coming up with something recognizably his own.
Stylistic traits
Empty Glass is part of the answer, but then again, so is the debut record called No Noise From Here by Straight Eight, the young British quartet he helped produce. Certain stylistic traits from The Who appear through Empty Glass; yet on the whole, it's lighter in tone and texture and far less melodramatic.
As for No Noise, it's as raunchy a rock 'n' roll record as you're likely to find these days. In fact, it almost sounds too raunchy, for Townshend at least, a usually fastidious and at times elegant musician. Featuring the writing of lead singer-guitarist Rick Cassman and lead guitarist Boot Kingsman, No Noise is full of wonderfully disheveled music with certain pieces — Tell Me If You Wanna Bleed, being one — approaching the chaotic by the most direct route. You could imagine Mick Jagger helping out this band, maybe, but not Townshend.
Yet the two albums do have something in common. Townshend knows rock is a young man's game. In Empty Glass, the lyrics constantly bring up the subject of youth or its opposite number, growing old. The title song itself has a certain world-weariness with such lines such: "I've been there and gone there ... I stand here at the bar. I hold an empty glass." Another piece, Rough Boys, dedicated to his children, Emma and Minta and to the Sex Pistols, is full of need to find out what they're all about: "Gonna get inside your bitter mind," he sings.
Inside heads
On Straight Eight's No Noise From Here, he has done just that — gotten inside the heads of some younger musicians. Like the former hockey great returning to coach a suburban minor midget team, Townshend possibly makes a connection with his own youth through Straight Eight. I'm only guessing at this, but in recent years, with Quadrophenia's Mod revivalism and The Kids Are Alright, The Who's own retrospective, it would appear that Townshend has almost been obsessively interested in his younger days and in youth in general.
This obsession casts the glaze of nostalgia over Empty Glass. The album rocks hard, with certain songs (Let My Love Open The Door and Jools And Jim, being two) joined
Peter Townshend: He's got the '70s out of his system, says Peter Goddard.
