Graham Parker C/D

Been a while since I've heard them, but I really like the playing on those first two GP albums. Really confident, swinging, airy pub rock stuff. It sounds like a road-tested band at their peak. The playing on Squeezing Out Sparks is a little more claustrophobic, jittery. Which is OK, just different. So basically those first two work as great groove albums, even if the good-to-great song ratio might be better on Sparks.

i think HW has more of a singer/songwriter vibe going as it does a pubrock feel. also, "you've got to be kidding" may be my fave song on it and it didn't get a nod above so i guess we just don't see eye to eye on this guy.

relistened to the up escalator this week for the first time since ~1981, and it really does fall flat. his next one (grey area) was even more sub-par; but the real macaw, crappy album cover and all, has a bunch of good songs.

Yeah, The Real Macaw seems to be Xgau's favorite of the '80s, too. (Originally gave it an A-, docked to a B+ in his '80s book -- wow, he was even more indecisive about Parker grades than Madonna grades!)

Jon Young in that Trouser Press guide says "Parker somehow lost his sense of purpose on The Up Escalator." But he doesn't like the production or playing on Macaw; in fact, of the early to mid '80s albums, he seems to like Another Grey Area from '83 (partially produced by Jack Douglas apparently) and Steady Nerves from '85 best (apparently because they rock a little bit harder?)

Live Alone in America is the one I like the most. One of the few solo-electric singer-songwriter albums I can think of.

In 2001 I saw Dave Edmunds perform solo a few weeks after 9/11 in some little bar way downtown near Chambers Street I've never been to before or since. He had been teaching himself to play fingerstyle since he had recently recovered from some kind of heart attack and/or heart surgery so he was playing a bunch of material that was enjoyable to listen to but unfamiliar and kind of low key. At some point he was having some sound problems with his acoustic guitar so he switched to electric and kicked it into high gear with "Crawling From The Wreckage." Don't know if there was any intended significance or he was just playing one of his "hits" but it was an awesome moment nonetheless.

So, turns out two of the toughest-sounding songs -- maybe even the two toughest-sounding songs -- on Graham Parker's 1982 Spanish best-of LP Historia De La Musica Rock are from Stick To Me (the title track and "New York Shuffle.") Guess it's possible that album was actually uneven, but I'm starting to develop the theory that rock critics gave it iffy reviews when it came out because they were a bunch of wimps. (I remember really liking "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" and "Problem Child," too -- why'd I get rid of my copy, again?) (Actually, looking back at a couple record guides on my shelf, apparently what critics disliked about it is that it was slapdash due to being cut in a week, Nick Lowe's production is supposedly muffled to the point of inaubibility, "Watch The Moon Come Down" is "maudlin," and "Heat In Harlem" is overblown and seven minutes long.)

I dunno, I think it was because by then, Punk had broken and Elvis Costello did a lot of the same things as GP, but better.

"Stick To Me," "New York Shuffle" and "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" is a pretty formidable trio, all of which I heard many times on WPIX back in the day. Don't remember hearing "Problem Child." Don't know if in the end it was even Nick Lowe's production, maybe somebody else fiddles with it after the fact or something like that.

by then, Punk had broken and Elvis Costello did a lot of the same things as GP, but better.

Maybe, except that Stick To Me actually charted, in the U.S. anyway, a month before My Aim Is True (11-5-77 to 12-3-77, according to Joel Whitburn; don't know about release dates; Wiki lists Aim as coming out in July in the UK but not til March '78 in the U.S., which can't be right, can it?) Also, when GP later made his most blatant EC move on Squeezing Out Sparks, critics lapped it up. (Was surprised how much "Local Girls" seemed like a "This Year's Girl" rip when I was listening to that Spanish best-of yesterday. Also gotta admit that that song and "You Can't Be Too Strong" sounded a little thin to me in the company of the earlier stuff; guess I need to pull out Sparks again sometime soon to figure out whether I've been overrating it all along -- it was the first Parker album I heard.)

Well, obviously that Wiki release date "can't be right"; if it wasn't out until three months later, no way it could have charted in December.

And Mark may have a point, either way, in Costello's votes cutting into Parker's when it came to, say, year-end critic polls in 1977, obviously.

how does The Up Escalator stack up against Trust? xhuxk?

I'm not the one to ask! (Assuming I ever actually heard The Up Escalator when it came out -- which I must've, right? -- not a single detail has stuck with me about it, almost three decades later. Except that somewhere along the line, I decided it was pretty lame.)

I wonder if The Rumour even plays on The Up Escalator?

Or maybe he had already fired them by then. I guess the point is that even if Trust is problematic, the Attractions hadn't been fully reined in yet. Trust was part of a a downward slope whereas The Up Escalator was complete shark jump.

Trust is his best album after TYM, to my ears.

Then what's the point in comparing it with The Up Escalator?

I got it backwards with Stick To Me, Nick Lowe was called in at the last minute to record after the original tapes were unusable and probably didn't have time to add his usual gloss.

I've actually always kind of liked Trust, fwiw -- more than Get Happy!! or Imperial Boredom, at least. (And I say that as a onetime Costello obsessive who actually played Taking Liberties and Almost Blue a ton when they came out, but who never cared about anything after Punch The Clock.) So maybe, bringing this post back in line with the thread, The Up Escalator was more Parker's Goodbye Cruel World. Or something like that.

Then what's the point in comparing it with The Up Escalator?

Released within months of each other?

Really? I guess so. I guess at the time it felt like the Elvis fanbase kept growing and growing whereas for the other guy the public was losing interest and the record label was trying a few things to pretty him up before they dropped him.

Haha, xhuxk on the money.

You too, James.

Hm, Wikipedia says the 80s were his most commercially successful years.

man, this stuff just doesn't stick. and his vocals grate.

I've got Stick to Me and liked it but haven't listened to it in ages. His '80s and later stuff has been pretty hit or miss as y'all have noted.

X-post re "vocals grate"...Maybe I listened to too much hardcore punk and heard too much avante-garde noise stuff at my college radio station, but vocals have to be pretty extreme for me to find them grating. Although I guess many define "grating" differently-- I've seen vocals from Bob Dylan, Eddie Vedder, Daughtry, and also Rihanna on "Run this Town" described as grating.

So I'm gonna see Graham Parker Friday night ...

Call out requests for obscure old songs from the front!

I'm not really, I just thought that thread was funny.

This thread made me realize that in the eighties I was much more likely to see various members of The Rumour touring with Dave Edmunds or Nick Lowe or- wait for it- Nick Lowe plus Paul Carrack. One time I showed up to see Nick Lowe open for Elvis Costello at Radio City Music Hall and to my horror the only guitar player on stage was Martin Belmont, who was required to solo during every song! It was not a pretty site. I enjoyed Martin Belmont much more when I saw him at Toad's Place and either Dave Edmunds or Brinsley Schwarz was handling the solos, so that Martin could stick to playing rhythm guitar whilst loudly and visibly singing to himself.

So as promised, I stumbled across a dollar-bin copy of Stick To Me. Still has the cutout bin snip from the upper right hand corner, just like the copy I used to own before probably did. And turns out it's almost definitely his toughest sounding LP -- at least of the early ones, but I assume ever, since I assume ones from the '80s and beyond were a lot slicker. Definitely don't hear what problem people had with the production, and don't notice any appreciable dip in consistency from Howlin' Wind (and what I know of Heat Treatment), and "New York Shuffle" (maybe my favorite GP track ever, for certain the one I'd play in a DJ set if I wanted people to dance) sounds as good to me as anything he put out before it. And like I said, this album rocks like Howlin Wind (probably Squeezing Out Sparks too) doesn't. But I can see how critics might've heard the lyrics as uninispired -- it's clearly a New York record, much more than I'd realized (assume he moved there at some point?), and also a really petulant woman-baiting one, but I'd say there are a few too many weather metaphors for its own good. (Black people are cold in "Soul On Ice" and hot in "The Heat In Harlem" -- which heat is "in the soul" doncha know, and I guess that one's quasi-jazz stretching out to seven minutes is supposed to aurally conjure Harlem's unrelenting summertime swelter but it doesn't really work; also "lovers get caught just the same {same as what????} in the thunder and rain," and the tight and fast closing cut may be called "The Raid" -- as in "where were you when the raid came down" -- but I swear it sounds like "the rain" to me, so maybe somebody smart made him switch it at the last minute.) Thing is, I'm still not convinced his earlier LPs' writing was any more inspired than this one, and I'd say it's likely now that this is the one I'll pull out when I want to hear him. So: uneven, but underrated.

Convinced beyond a doubt, after four or so listens to a dollar copy, that Heat Treatment (Xgau "A", Rolling Stone Record Guide 5-stars, Pazz & Jop #2 in 1976) is the least memorable/most mediocre of G.P.'s '70s LPs. Completely stumped that critics seemed unanimous at the time in considering Stick To Me a big step down from it. Best thing you could say is that it has a consistently pleasurable if mostly subtle lilt ("groove" is too strong a word) -- vaguely Staxish/reggae-ish most of the time, especially on side two I guess. Title track is the punchiest cut; most notable song overall is probably "Hotel Chambermaid," with its roller-rink keyboard push out of some early Bob Seger single and possible hidden clues to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. (Though it's still not nearly as good as Pink Fairies' "Chambermaid.") I get the idea "Fool's Gold" was considered another key track, but damned if I can hear why. Record's nice enough; I'll keep it. But I don't at all understand what about it people found exciting. You could maybe forgive critics just for craving something to be excited about in the supposed pre-punk doldrums of the bicentennial, but I could name scores of 1976 rock albums that leave this in the dust. So maybe critics were just lazy.

I like "Sparks," and "Stick to Me" more, but I think Heat Treatment's "Fool's Gold" is kinda catchy and I think I recall nice harmonies on a version of it. Here's a live rendition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhP6YGw6h8Q

I finally got Howlin' Wind a few weeks ago. Agree with xhuxk about the rote blooze stuff, but, damn, if the title track and "Don't Ask Me Questions" aren't killers.

I have fond memories of seeing Graham do "Don't Ask Me Questions" live.

After more than three decades, Graham Parker and The Rumour have reunited and will tour the U.S. this November and December. Upcoming dates will support their first album together in 31 years, 'Three Chords Good,' out November 20

He's also got a starring role in the upcoming Apatow flick.

Reunion is neat news, but frankly I was more excited about the Joe Jackson reunion a few years back (and I didn't see that, either).

To each his own, but I'll take Parker over Joe Jackson.

Me too! But I like those first three - two? - Joe Jackson discs more than most Graham Parker discs.

Tickets for this went on sale on Friday. Thinking hard about going.

Knockout cold going round the Redd household but I have managed to pick myself up off the canvas and plan to crawl from the wreckage to the show this evening. To any NYC ilxors interested in attending, I may have an extra ticket.

There's a huge feature on him in today's NY Times

.. and a big feature in this months mojo ...

I guess you mean this nyt feature http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/arts/music/graham-parker-and-the-rumour-reunite.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Haven't read MOJO in a while, maybe it is time to start up again.

Hm, I've met the guy that wrote that Times article.

The DC area shows sold out too quick. Grrr

That was fun. Now if only someone could get Rockpile to reform.

Too bad, curmudgeon, you could have taken the Acela up and sat in my extra seat

So yeah, they are all over this new Judd Apatow movie so no doubt a few random googlers will catch the Mercury Vapors and show up here.

The reunion album is really rather good - I'm especially fond of the final track, 'The Last Bookstore In Town'. It could just be argued as the second-best GP & the Rumour album (after 'Sparks', natch). Having seen the reunion tour setlists, I really hope he brings the show to the UK. Haven't seen him since Blackbushe in '78.

I saw a guy on the subway after the show who had a GP shirt on and he told me he had flown in from England that day just for the show and was going back in the morning. New stuff was surprisingly good.

the show last night killed. GP and the R were all "on" and the new stuff WAS surprisingly fine but closing 4-5 Sparks songs and "stupefaction" was well stupefyingly great. got tix at the last minute, mostly because my wife wanted to go, and have to say I wasn't expecting much and got blown away, this is about as good as grey haired rock reunions get. fwiw I saw Neil Young & Crazy Horse last week too and GP and co >>>>>

That Rhino anthology is a solid collection, but yeah, a lot of his later work wasn't so hot. Howlin' Wind, Squeezing Out Sparks and to a lesser extent Heat Treatment are great albums.

I took a listen to the Rhino collection again. The first disc is impeccable - nearly all of the highlights from Howlin' Wind, Heat Treatment and Squeezing Out Sparks are on that first disc, as are the original single recordings of "Mercury Poisoning" and "I Want You Back (Alive)." Pretty much everything is awesome.

The second disc is a good listen for the first 20 or 30 minutes, but it gets a LOT worse, so much that it was tough finishing the disc. I didn't look at the booklet until I was close to the end, but it's pretty stunning how mediocre those last few albums were when you look at his collaborators - not just key members from the Rumour but Rockpile, Elvis Costello's Attractions (Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas) and even Garth Hudson of the Band. To be fair, they're not awful but the songs are. They still sound like Graham Parker songs, but it's like everything that made him so great and enjoyable had evaporated. It really sounds like a hollow shell of what Parker used to be like.