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Nuggets
The biggest blog moment of the week for me was seeing Pete Townshend show up as a commenter on Tom Watson's blog. When your idols become your readers, well that's just super cool.
The reason for that action was the revival of Pete's Blog, Boy Who Heard Music.
That resulted in a Pete Townshend obession week. I've listened to basically nothing else this week. But not The Who, who I do love, but Pete's records; Empty Glass, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, and White City.
That required some work, because as much as Pete gets blogging, photos, and video, he doesn't get online music distribution.
These three records are not available on Rhapsody (damn), iTunes, or anywhere on the web (other than allofmp3.com which didn't even have all of them). But given all the talk about allofmp3.com being a pirated music site, I decided not to do that. I own all three of these records, but they are at my house in Long Island. So, I decided to go to Virgin Records (yes Jackson the itch was bad enough to get me into a record store!).
But Virgin didn't have them either. What does it take to satisfy a music fan who wants to hear some of his favorite music? C'mon Pete, get your music online!
Anyway, I went back to allofmp3.com got what I could get there, and then did what any crazed and unsatisfied music fan must do. File sharing baby.
And so I have been listening to these three great records all week. It's a hard choice to pick one out of the three. Empty Glass is closer to his late Who work (Who By Numbers in particular). Chinese Eyes is a deeply emotional record. And White City is influenced heavily by the 80s rock sound but it does have my favorite Pete Townshend solo song on it called Hiding Out.
Forced to choose, I am making Chinese Eyes my Nuggets pick this week. Face Dances (along with its Prelude), Slit Skirts, and his excellent cover of North Country Girl are all fantastic. The rest of the record is just a notch below. Really great stuff.
I honestly think you should do what I did. Get all three records and put them in heavy rotation for a week. You can't come away from that without realizing what an incredible songwriter Pete Townshend is, even in his post Who period.
Comments (8) | Posted June 9, 2006 in My Music
Comments
Which one is 'Rough Boys' on? I like that one, I bet it's on 'Empty Glass'. That was a great period for Pete. I'm not so hot on 'White City' though.
That's a shame that Virgin didn't have those records, I mean they had all three Rose Tattoo releases when I needed them. I blame Pete's record label, or at least the label he was on then.
Posted by: jackson | Jun 9, 2006 10:28:43 AM
They maybe the ONLY place that ahs all three Rose Tattoo releases. I'll put them on list to look for when I'm there next.
I laud your efforts to do the right thing and have just purchased "Empty Glass".
Posted by: Tony Alva | Jun 9, 2006 11:16:23 AM
Empty Glass (rough boys) is my favorite Pete record. I still have the vinyl--sounds great.
Don't forget the live record though: Live at the Deep End! It's a great record, and he does a fantastic cover of the Eglish Beat's Save it for Later.
Posted by: Charlie Crystle | Jun 9, 2006 11:49:00 AM
Is this a shameless attempt to get Pete Townsend to write to you?
Posted by: Gordon | Jun 9, 2006 1:54:32 PM
Slip Skirts is so awesome but I forgot about it. Thanks Fred , listening to it right now for the 20th time.
Posted by: Jim | Jun 9, 2006 4:33:23 PM
But does Mr. Windmill have all the rights? Having just taken a trip over to the Amazon page to which you link, I see that "Empty Glass" was released on Atlantic. If he doesn't have all the rights, then calling him out for not getting his music online seems a bit unfair. I'm not interested in verbally punishing those who worked within the only real system available to them at the time.
Today's musicians who sign on with labels could use a little verbal abuse though... now that another distribution option is truly viable. But fans have to show they're not going to treat them the way they did Stephen King. This is a transition period. A little handholding and encouragement could go a long way in helping musicians try other options. This is all very much a win-win or lose-lose for all parties afaic.
And yes, Pete Townshend is one of my favorites as well. Been a while since I've pulled out his stuff, but right now I'm going through some old Yes recordings.
Posted by: csven | Jun 9, 2006 8:46:39 PM
I agree all 3 of those albums are great for an obscure Townshend song on these albums I really love Brilliant Blues followed by Stardom in Acton.Sea Refuses no River is fantastic but Slit Skirts to me is Townshend at his best honest,heartfelt and human it's too bad radio never played it.I think it's one of my all time favorite Pete or Who songs.
Posted by: slappyjones | Jun 9, 2006 11:35:35 PM
"The Sea Refuses No River" and "Slit Skirts" are two of Pete's most under-appreciated great songs (at least, if we relate appreciation to airplay). Also, "Don't Let Go the Coat", if we discount its greater airplay for the fact that it was a Who song.
Query -- to what extent is "The Sea Refuses No River" influenced by T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding" and, for that matter, to what extent are Townshend's works more broadly influenced by Eliot? (Not just the obvious "Teenage Wasteland" v. "The Waste Land", but "All Shall be Well" v. that precise line from "Little Gidding", and the water images from "SRNR" and "Drowned" v. LG and Eliot's other uses of that theme.) There are many others, all of which must be considered against PT's Faber gig.
I raised this years ago at the TSE list (run out of the U. of Missouri), but didn't get much response. I doubt PT himself will enlighten us on this since, if I'm right and he is signficiantly influence by Eliot, he will likely follow the Possum's enignmatic lead. ("Q: What did you mean [in Ash-Wednesday' by 'Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree/In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety/On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained/In the hollow round of my skull . . .' A: 'I meant, 'Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree/In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety/On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained/In the hollow round of my skull'".
Any thoughts from TSE fans, PT/Who fans, or both, would be of interest to me.
Posted by: Tom K | Jun 12, 2006 5:36:38 PM
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