Running on Empty Jackson Browne

Rip It Up, Issue 8, 1 February 1978, Page 10

Running on Empty Jackson Browne

Francis Stark

Asylum If I asked you what was last year's record industry cliche, you'd have to say the live album. If I then asked you what was the worst cliche of the art rock debacle, you'd have to say the concept album. What then are you going to make of Running on Empty, which is nothing less than a live concept album? In fact, if you have any faith in Jackson Browne, you shouldn't expect anything because you're going to get a surprise. While the tag ‘live concept album' might conjure up visions of Thick as a Brick played at Madison Square Garden with a liberal sprinkling of ‘improvements' added afterwards, Running on Empty can only be described as a whole new type of record. I don’t think I have ever heard a record, with the possible exception of Neil Young’s Tonight's the Night, which so accurately mirrors its content in the way it is played, and recorded. Running is unquestionably a

record about touring in a rock and roll band, and so Browne has recorded himself and his band on tour. That didn’t involve setting up all the facilities of the Record Plant in some stadium, but instead we have tracks recorded in hotel rooms, on stage, backstage, and best of all, on the tour bus. So, if the song is about the rigours of travelling everywhere by bus "Nothing but Time" then record it on the bus itself, with the driver throwing in gear changes in time with the chord changes. If its a song about missing out on the girl you had your eye on during a rehearsal, record it at rehearsal, like "Rosie". Virtually every song on the album, right down to the shambling, hotel room version of the Rev. Gary Davis’ "Cocaine" not only has a place on the record, but a definite and important location.

Of course, another side of crawling around the country for a songwriter is the difficulty of writing new material. This must be especially noticeable for Browne who has confessed to taking up to five years to get a song right. Rather than skirt around this by retreading old favourites, he has fil-

led the album with collaborations, songs by others, and songs which show a similar instantaneous roughness to the recent output of Neil Young and Bob Dylan. This more vigorous approach, along with the conspicuous absence of Jon Landau from the producer’s chair marks a welcome turning back from the almost-formula slickness of The Pretender. I only hope that Bruce Springsteen also escapes Landau’s cottonwool clutches.

The band basically The Section (Kortchmar, Sklar, Kunke' and Doerge) with David Linley added has to be good to come up with the goods under these kind of conditions, and as you would expect from L.A. s finest, they come through, with an extra edge you seldom get from them on more familiar territory. I saw Jackson Browne and David Linley perform together here early last year, and swore then that I'd sell my grandmother to sit in the front row of a real full-scale concert by them. Now I’ve heard one I’m in no mood to change my mind.