Pete, We Can Hear You

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

By the time he was 24, Pete Townshend, the guitar-spinning auteur of the ! seminal 1960s rock group the Who, had secured a permanent place in the annals of pop culture. His song My Generation, with its juvenescent proclamation, "Hope I die before I get old," had become the anthem of the Woodstock era. And his "rock opera" Tommy, about an abused child who liberates himself by becoming a pinball wizard, had been adopted as the definitive parable of its time by every would-be rock rebel with a cause.

Fast-forward more than two decades. Townshend, his hairline receding and his temples gray, is now well into middle age (48) and surviving it very nicely, thank you. An eye-popping, updated production of Tommy is currently the hot ticket on Broadway, having last month earned Townshend a Tony for best score. And Townshend has just released PsychoDerelict (Atlantic), a brand-new concept album that, through a mixture of narrative dialogue and thematic songs, tells the story of Ray High, an aging rock star who attempts to stage a comeback. Like Tommy, the new work is part autobiography, reflecting Townshend's concerns about the burdens of celebrity, the power of the media and the struggle for artistic integrity. "I never really ever wanted to be a celebrity," he explains. "And I constantly try to work out how it occurred."

The 11 songs on the new album are nifty. Tracks like the dynamic opener, English Boy, showcase Townshend's talent for mixing metaphysical lyrics with hyperphysical music. The dialogue, presented in the style of a radio drama and performed by actors, wears out its welcome more quickly. But the dramatic format appeals to Townshend, whose love for the theater dates back to boyhood memories of watching from the wings while his musician parents performed in British music halls. "I'm proud of the way PsychoDerelict works as an oral piece," he says. "It's not to everybody's taste, but I knew that wouldn't be the case."

Starting this week Townshend takes the 63-minute work on tour to six cities, ending with a concert in New York City that will be carried nationally on pay- per-view TV.

Whatever the response to the new work, the success of the Broadway production of Tommy has made Townshend hip again. Over the years, there have been symphonic performances and dance interpretations of Tommy as well as the flamboyant 1975 film version, directed by Ken Russell. But the Broadway version marks a special coming of age for the work and its creator. "I've been waiting for this for a long time," Townshend says. "I felt I only had one more opportunity, and it had to be the right guy and the right place."

He found both in Des McAnuff, artistic director of California's La Jolla Playhouse. McAnuff's staging, which opened last summer, quickly sold out and prompted the move to Broadway in April. Baby boomers who aren't traditional theatergoers are queueing up for seats and rocking in the aisles. "There's a hunger in the rock audience," says Townshend. "When you're my age and you want to go to a concert, you think very hard about whether it will be a relaxing experience or a disturbing one. So you tend to go to the movies, to restaurants. You don't go and watch rock-'n'-roll shows. A lot of people are looking for a doorway into the theater."

Old Broadway hands are delighted that Tommy is providing it, but some of the rock faithful complain that the piece has been overly domesticated. They say its hero, Tommy Walker, has been transformed from a '60s rebel into a '90s wuss who at the end of the evening embraces his dysfunctional family by telling them, "You don't have to claim a share of my pain -- you're normal after all." Townshend says his critics should grow up. "What I mean by normality is freedom from disability," he says. This version of Tommy, he explains, rejects "the great visceral rock-'n'-roll dream that refused to ever come back down to earth, that refused to address reality. I'm landed. I'm here back on earth."

Right now earth is a pretty pleasant place for Pete Townshend to be. Once a heavy drinker, he has been largely sober for 10 years, temporarily lapsing about six months ago but recently straightening out again. His 25-year marriage is in good shape, and with his two daughters grown he is enjoying a new round of fatherhood with son Joseph, 3 1/2. This winter, the Young Vic in London is scheduled to mount a production of The Iron Man, the 1989 musical that Townshend adapted from a fable written by British poet Ted Hughes. In the meantime, he is working on a musical adaptation of playwright Arthur Miller's 1987 autobiography, Timebends. All of which is enough to give this self- described dinosaur rocker a new outlook on life. Now, he has decided, "I don't want to die before I get old."