LATEST ADDITIONS

This collection of mostly home recordings, originally issued on Atco in 1983, strips away the rock-star glam and reveals Pete Townshend's inner geek: a techno-dweeb who plays with recording equipment. Gotta love that! On the first LP's inner sleeve Townshend does a version of what audiophiles like to do: he lists his gear history. For example, "Studio One Ealing 1964: Above parents home. 2 Vortexion mono tape machines. 1 microphone (a Reslo)." Or "Studio Six Twickenham 'Home' 1969: Built my first separate control room/studio in two tiny adjacent rooms. Bought Dolby A301s for my REVOXES and later a small NEVE desk and a gorgeous 7'4" BOSENDORFER grand piano. The WHO did some work here when I went 8 track in 1971."

The Beatles and The Stones took '50s American blues, country, and R&B, absorbed it, transposed it, and gave it back to a generation of white middle-class American kids from whom the originals had been purposefully kept. Pat Boone redid Little Richard's "Tutti Fruiti" to make it "acceptable" to white America, and, well, surely you know the rest of the story, so I won't repeat it here.

LPs are back, but they can be expensive--I don't have to tell you that. One of the great frustrations of their return is finding a bin full of unknowns and not knowing which might be worthwhile. That's why you come to this site. But where do I turn? To find this moody, evocative album I turned to a guy working the crowded floor at Rocks In Your Head, a densely packed Prince Street LP emporium in NYC's Tribeca area.

Oops. I mistakenly called this Basie Jam in the March Stereophile's "In Heavy Rotation" listing. How's that? This was sent to me, along with others in the series, as test pressings in plain white jackets. Of course I have written often about the original Pablo issue of this monster of a record, so I have no excuses. Anyway, Basie Jam, another Pablo great, has yet to be issued at 45 rpm, so many of you have figured out my mistake and sent me e-mails about it. Sorry.