Wednesday, August 30, 2006

For Pete's sake!

Play it: Pete Townshend - Scooped (Best of demo series)
Play it: Pete Townshend - Gold (chronologically reshuffled)

The greatest rock band of all-time will release their first album in nearly 25 years this coming Halloween (Endless Wire.) In anticipation of that event, yesterday saw the reissue of a significant amount of Pete Townshend's back catalogue of solo material (on Universal imprint Hip-O Records.




Of particular interest is the collection of demos called Scoop (along w/ Another Scoop, and Scoop 3) which show Townshend's recordings of the songs prior to bringing to The Who. There's a collection called Scooped which compiles the best/more interesting cuts from the three Scoop releases, which serves as a good big toe dip for the series. Since it's not in Rhapsody, I've taken the liberty of reassembling it for you here. Some of the more revealing tracks are the ones that Daltry would end up singing ("Can You See the Real Me" and "Magic Bus,") with Townshend pulling off a pretty good impression of his singer (or is it the other way around?) Others still sound better in arrangment then The Who would do them later, specifically the song "Eminence Front" which is a beautiful moody piano-based piece in this earlier version. There's also plenty of material that never made it to proper release, which is where the gold is to most Townshend worshippers.

Speaking of gold, he best of the proper solo reissues are already well covered in the Hip-O records comp Gold, but that album has a maddening track order which has no rhyme or reason to it. So I've re-ordered in chronological order here. Although, I can't imagine not mentioning/recommending listening to Empty Glass all over again... it's still damn good.

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2 comments:

Shawn Anderson said...

Pete Townshend - Scooped (culled from demo series Scoop, Another Scoop, scoop 3)

* "Pinball Wizard" - Pete Townshend
* "Can You See The Real Me" - Pete Townshend
* "Dirty Water" - Pete Townshend
* "Zelda" - Pete Townshend
* "Pictures Of Lily" - Pete Townshend
* "Body Language" - Pete Townshend
* "971104 Arpeggio Piano" - Pete Townshend
* "Brooklyn Kids" - Pete Townshend
* "Substitute" - Pete Townshend
* "Elephants" - Pete Townshend
* "Eminence Front" - Pete Townshend
* "Baroque Ippanese" - Pete Townshend
* "Magic Bus" - Pete Townshend
* "I Like It The Way It Is" - Pete Townshend
* "Unused Piano: Quadrophenia" - Pete Townshend
* "Bargain" - Pete Townshend
* "Lonely Words" - Pete Townshend
* "So Sad About Us/Brr" - Pete Townshend
* "Tough Boys" - Pete Townshend
* "You Better You Bet" - Pete Townshend
* "Mary" - Pete Townshend
* "Begin The Beguine" - Pete Townshend
* "Piano: Tipperary" - Pete Townshend
* "How Can You Do It Alone" - Pete Townshend
* "Football Fugue" - Pete Townshend
* "Behind Blue Eyes" - Pete Townshend
* "Never Ask Me" - Pete Townshend
* "Circles (Instant Party)" - Pete Townshend
* "Holly Like Ivy" - Pete Townshend
* "Variations On Dirty Jobs" - Pete Townshend
* "Cat Snatch" - Pete Townshend
* "You're So Clever" - Pete Townshend
* "Love Reign O'er Me" - Pete Townshend

Shawn Anderson said...

Pete Townshend - Gold (reshuffled to reflect chronological order)

* "Pure And Easy" - Pete Townshend
* "Let's See Action" - Pete Townshend
* "Time Is Passing" - Pete Townshend
* "Sheraton Gibson" - Pete Townshend
* "Parvardigar" - Pete Townshend
* "My Baby Gives It Away" - Pete Townshend
* "Keep Me Turning" - Pete Townshend
* "Misunderstood" - Pete Townshend
* "Street In The City" - Pete Townshend
* "Heart To Hang Onto" - Pete Townshend
* "Rough Boys" - Pete Townshend
* "Let My Love Open The Door" - Pete Townshend
* "Jools And Jim" - Pete Townshend
* "Keep On Working" - Pete Townshend
* "A Little Is Enough" - Pete Townshend
* "Empty Glass" - Pete Townshend
* "The Sea Refuses No River" - Pete Townshend
* "Exquisitely Bored" - Pete Townshend
* "Uniforms (Corp D'esprit)" - Pete Townshend
* "Slit Skirts" - Pete Townshend
* "Give Blood" - Pete Townshend
* "Brilliant Blues" - Pete Townshend
* "Face The Face" - Pete Townshend
* "Secondhand Love" - Pete Townshend
* "Crashing By Design" - Pete Townshend
* "White City Fighting" - Pete Townshend
* "I Won't Run Anymore" - Pete Townshend
* "A Friend Is A Friend" - Pete Townshend
* "All Shall Be Well" - Pete Townshend
* "English Boy" - Pete Townshend
* "Outlive The Dinosaur" - Pete Townshend
* "Now And Then" - Pete Townshend
* "I Am Afraid" - Pete Townshend
* "Don't Try To Make Me Real" - Pete Townshend