Disc-cussions
Top Townshend
Special to the Press
Pete Townshend/Empty Glass/Atco SD32-100/$5.98 at the Outback.
Peter Townshend's glass is actually brim full these days, if the 10 tracks on his newest effort are any indication.
With the rock 'n' roll '60s pantheon more or less in ruins — Lennon jabbers incoherently as McCartney, a leisure product of Transamerica, rolls across the TV screen for the umpteenth time and Jagger, still forceful but a caricature of his former dynamism — the Who's Townshend can still make your socks roll up and down.
He does it on Empty Glass with both lyrical and instrumental assaults on the musical and mystical status quo. The recording invites certain comparisons with Townshend's first solo effort, Who Came First and the connective tissue, his devotion to the teachings of avatar Meher Baba, is there, along with the inevitable digs at the medium, found, in this current case, on the lead-off cut, "Rough Boys."
Townshend makes some strange dedications. "Rough Boys" goes out to his kids and to the punk rock group, the Sex Pistols, a put down of sorts that nonetheless leaves the door open to a touch of empathy.
Also saluted are Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records who wooed Townshend away from a decade-and-a-half's relationship with Decca and MCA, and "to Remy Martin Cognac for saving my life by making the bloody stuff so expensive."
If Who Came First was stiflingly "cozmic" Townshend has unleashed his delightfully perverse sense of humor on Empty Glass: it plays with his religious leanings on "I Am and Animal" and "Keep on Working."
The anger of "Behind Blue Eyes" emerges on "Jools and Jim," a commentary on Who drummer Keith Moon's death and the coverage his life got in the newspapers.
Empty Glass is one of the most listenable discs Townshend, either in solo or with the Who, has served up. There is a certain casualness, breeziness in this release that was stomped out of Quadrophenia and Who Came First by overproduction. Here, the range is from a nearly disco sound on the title cut to pure, energetic Who. Both sides are an encouraging indication that Pete Townshend is alive and well, thank-you, and you can expect more to be forthcoming.
