It must be tough to be the son, daughter, brother, etc. of a famous rock star and try to have people take your own music career seriously. It's even easier to get written off by critics before you even had a chance to get your music heard (I think of some of Julian Lennon's releases). Simon Townshend, the younger brother of The Who's Pete Townshend, has actually been performing since the early 80's. I remember his first release, "Sweet Sound", from 1983 was promising but a bit uneven. Thinking that he was out of the music field completely, I was impressed to see him perform with The Who as a second guitarist during 1996's "Quadrophenia" performance in Chicago. His knack for playing guitar like his older brother, yet having a very original singing voice impressed me. I was further inspired to purchase one of his cd's, so I decided to listen to 1997's "Among Us". Simply blown away from this effort, I was happy to buy 1999's "Animal Soup". It's refreshing to see that Pete isn't the only one in the Townshend family to write introspective lyrics along with a very powerful guitar driven sound.
"Somewhere Out There" starts the cd off with a bang. The gritty sound and strumming that is similar to Pete's reminds me of The Who's sound, but it's still uniquely Simon. The lead in to song two, "Our Time", is equally as impressive. Featuring solid drumming from Simon's son, Ben Townshend, the song deals with the uncomfortable reality of staying in abusive relationships because we are desperate for love and attention, and finally being able to break out of it. "For the Money" reminds me of something The Clash would have done back in the early 80's. The guitar sound here is flat and almost out of tune, but the effect works perfectly. "Blind as a Bat" is a straight-ahead rock song that features your basic four rock instruments. I can always respect a band that sounds fresh and original with just two guitars, bass, and drums. The guitar melody reminds me of something you'd find on an early Pretenders album. Townshend slows things down a bit towards the end of the cd with "Until Tomorrow". This is a cleverly written song about looking back at your youth: "Cause if I knew then, what I know now. But you must never look back. Cause the reason for that, lead to this... just to exist." Any true gifted songwriter should be able to sing a song with just an acoustic guitar and make a very powerful statement, and Townshend is no exception. A nice bonus on this cd is the re-recording of "I'm The Answer" from his debut 17 years ago. A true love song, the song comes off much looser and melodic than his previous effort.
Townshend has four different releases on his website to choose from, including his latest "Ages". I own three of these, and I haven't been dissapointed with any of them. It would be nice to see Simon get a little more recognition for his music. Until that time, I consider him to be one of the better "underground" artists that are out there. All of his cd's can be purchased directly through his website, so give one of them a listen.
