GROPERS GAZETTE TEXT VERSION

[Afterglow <Mick.Taylor@cwcom.net>]

TOWNSHEND/LANE 
         Sing The Almost Middle-Aged Blues 
 
That Peter Townshend should pick the quiet setting of an unassuming,
one-shot collaborative album with Ronnie Lane in which to work out some
highly personal and private thoughts about his own life is probably the
most interesting thing about Rough Mix. This record has the feel of
Mahoney's Last Stand, the soundtrack LP which Lane and Ron Wood worked
up on some back porch a while back - plenty of acoustic guitars, banjos
and dobro. 

Its so meek and humble that it almost belies the character of Townshend,
at least the one most of us know from his work with the Who. Yet
Townshend is undeniably one of the most complex individuals in the rock
world and, other than a small collection of songs from over the years
("Sunrise," "The Song Is Over" and his one solo LP), we really haven't
seen that much of Peter Townshend as mastermind/mentor of the Who. 
                                      
********************************************************************** 
*TOWNSHEND DID                             THE ONLY CLEAR CUT 
*NOT DIE BEFORE                             ROCKERS HERE ARE LANE'S 
*HE GOT OLD.....                                 "CATMELODY' 
**********************************************************************                                      
And so Rough Mix is a rather startling album because, as a writer who
most of the time hides himself behind narratives, allegories and
personaes, one is totally unprepared for the nakedness which Townshend
shows here. I hesitate to call the rock album a rock album, because
though there are certainly rock elements abounding (if only for the
backgrounds of both Townshend and former Face Lane), they are mostly
atmospheric. The only clear cut rockers here are Lane's Faces-styled
"Catmelody" and the title track, an instrumental featuring Eric Clapton
on lead guitar. 
 
Most of Lane's songs are ballads, a bit country flavoured ("Annie," with
its rustic violin) and folksy ("Nowhere To Run" sounds like a Dylan song
- a good Dylan song, too). As for Pete ( the dropping of the "r" seems
significant here, for Townshend has not died before he got a bit old),
his contributions here amount to some of the best songs he's written
since - well, in retrospect I'd have to go back to The Who Sell Out as
far as songs that hit the heart rather than the gut. 
 
Townshend is looking back here, not at the Who, as in Quadrophenia
disaster, but at himself, and the closest one feels between the singer
and the song on his composisions here is truly affecting. "Heart To Hang
Onto" is a haunting track about loneliness, with Lane singing the versus
and Townshend the choruses. Each verse tells of someone who's defending
himself against the world through different means. There's a drunkard, a
fat women and finally, in the last verse, a gyuitarist who finds that
"his whole life is just another try." Townshend's voice almost cracks on
the last chorus, as he sings "Give me a heart to hang onto/give me a
suit that's tailored true/Give me a heart to hang onto." 
 
There are key lines everywhere that remain: "They saw the Messiah, but I
missed him again/That brings my score up to a hundred and ten, from
"Keep Me Turning", "I wanna be either old or young/Don't like where I've
ended up or where I've come from," from the half smiling half sad
"Misunderstood." On "My Baby Gives It Away," Townshend comes into Ray
Davies territory, and more noticeable so on "Street In The City," more a
show tune than a regular pop song. Performed with only Townshend's
acoustic guitar and string section. Townshend sings of watching the
world through the window (Waterloo Sunset revisited), but the view is
one in which the protagonist wishes that a man on a ledge was an
attempted suicide rather than a window washer (I'm gonna...pray for him
to fall"). 
 
Its interesting that Townshend alienation, as expressed on Rough Mix, is
no longer the alienation of the young but the alienation of the near
middle-ages. Being older and wiser, it seems, is just as confusing as
being younger and more reckless. Whether Townshend will ever work out
his jigsaw puzzle is as unknown as exactly why these songs wound up on
this record. Nevertheless, Rough Mix is a rather softly intense album,
and certainly one of this years best. 
 
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taken from the dec 1977 issue of "CREEM". 
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MICK TAYLOR