Illegal Foreign Object

From ’96-’01, I worked in a record store in Texas. I was initially hired because before 25 years of anxiety and depression turning my brain into Swiss cheese, I was a walking music encyclopedia. About a year into my time there, I bought into the business. Eventually, I all but took over the store. To keep costs low, I worked 77 hours per week. It was a weird, cool, terrible, freeing, pathetic, amazing time.

My regular customers were a cast of characters; a melting pot of wannabe gangstas looking to steal anything from Master P’s No Limit Records roster, heroin addicts trying to sell off their dad’s CD collection for their next score, middle-aged white guys trying desperately to feel anything even remotely real, rich kids pretending to be poor, poor kids pretending to be rich, and dudes who were “doing it all for the nookie”. Then, there was Raymond, an alcoholic VP of a toy manufacturer from California who, at least briefly, played bass guitar in the surf punk band Agent Orange (supposedly).

Once every couple of weeks or so, I’d meet Raymond at a nearby bar after work. We’d talk music and watch Dallas Stars hockey. Then, I’d breathe into the breathalyzer gimmick attached to his car so I could either drive him or follow his tipsy ass the two blocks to his house (I fully acknowledge I was an idiot for doing this).

I still remember the night he played me something that made him break down into a bawling, drunken mess. It’s an album I still play from start to finish a few times a year.

It was just a normal night for me. I shut the store down and I went by his place after work to have a beverage and listen to some tunes. We liked to play shit that the other cat hadn’t heard. Truth be told, I still love turning people on to good music. That night, I remember I played him Corrosion Of Conformity’s Deliverance album. He played me Rough Mix, a 1977 release from the Small Faces’ Ronnie Lane and the Who’s Pete Townshend. Fifty-five seconds into “My Baby Gives It Away” lurching forward and smacking me in the face, I was fully invested.

Initially tapped to produce the album (Glyn Johns ended up producing after it became a full-blown collaboration), Townshend seems comfortable with his background role throughout the record. It surely didn’t hurt having fellow Who member John Entwistle, Bad Company’s Boz Burrell, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, and Eric Clapton contributing to the sessions, but everything about the vibe of the record lends one to believe that Pete was glad to get away from the ceaseless Who madness. I’ve always thought the peace Pete found during Rough Mix all but sealed the Who’s fate as a creative juggernaut. Rough Mix feels like Pete saying, “I don’t need all this insanity”. The madness would continue, of course, as Who drummer Keith Moon would die less than a year after the release of Rough Mix, but since Moon’s death, Townshend has released one more solo record (5) than he’s put out with the Who (4).

Ronnie Lane was quietly dealing with his demons all his own. He, his mother, and his brother were all diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at different times in their lives — Ronnie learned of his diagnosis during the Rough Mix sessions. After leaving the Faces in 1973, Lane had been a whirlwind in the recording studio, churning out five albums between 1974-’77. I wonder if there was something in the back of his mind telling him to work as much as possible — that something evil is just around the bend.

Rough Mix is Ronnie Lane and Pete Townsend at their best. The boozy joy in Ronnie croaking out lines like “All the homemade liquor’s left me here/Just like some old bottle that the tide has left/Washed up beneath the pier (There’s a message in here somewhere)” over the top of a killer Ian Stewart boogie-woogie piano is palpable. Townsend also sounds like he’s having a ball, more so than on anything I’ve ever heard him record with the Who. Pete turned over the reins to much of the actual songwriting on the album and it feels like a weight lifted. The buried banjo at the 33-second mark of “Nowhere To Run”, his “chicken pickin’” on the title track, the countrified “April Fool”, the beautiful, Don Williams cover “Till The Rivers All Run Dry” — it all just works.

I still have the clearest vision in my mind of Raymond smacking his hands on the big oak table in his dining room to the beat of “Catmelody”. He was up on his feet, just slapping away at that table like he was the great Charlie Watts, himself.

When Raymond and I reached the Townsend-penned “Heart To Hang Onto” part of the evening, however, he fell to pieces right before my eyes.

🎶Johnny Boy, he’s always proppin’ up the bar
He sees life crystalized through his jar
Says he only lives for beer
But deep in his heart is a cry of fear
Give me a heart to hang onto🎶

I didn’t have the emotional maturity to know what to do, so I just let him cry. Thinking about it, maybe that was the right thing to do, I don’t know. I just remember how bloodshot the tears mixed with the alcohol made his eyes — they looked like fireballs sitting inside his head. It was a hard, sorrowful cry — a cry with thousands of miles of hard road attached to it.

I think about Raymond from time to time. I wonder if he ever found any peace. It took me twenty years before I found any and I don’t know if he had that much time left in him. He was a good dude, just fraught with bullshit like the rest of us. I think that was a lonely time for him. I know it was a lonely time for me, dealing with an on-again, off-again girlfriend, work stress, and school issues, all while struggling with insomnia and fighting to hide my mental turmoil from those around me. So, in whatever small way, I’m glad we were there for each other. I’m thankful to Raymond for all the music he turned me on to, especially this record (which always make me think of him), all the fellowship, and all the lies he told (because you never, ever let the truth get in the way of a good story).

Track List:

1. My Baby Gives It Away 10/10
2. Nowhere To Run 9/10
3. Rough Mix 10/10
4. Annie 8/10
5. Keep Me Turning 7/10
6. Catmelody 10/10
7. Misunderstood 6/10
8. April Fool 7/10
9. Street In The City 8/10
10. Heart To Hang Onto 9/10
11. Till The Rivers All Run Dry 10/10

Grade: 85