Graham Parker C/D

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 >>>>>

Yeah, when he started doing all the Sparks stuff I started getting chills, which might have been just a symptom of my illness but I don't think so.

Choice stage patter:

"The movie opens on December 21, which is the day the world ends, so you should try to go to a matinee"

"This is a single. Now I don't know what a single really means anymore, I suppose it means that you can steal it individually"

Also some business about:
"We were trying to remember where we played the last time we were in New York, was it The Ritz or **didn't catch the other venue's name**?"
Man hands him a piece of paper, he looks at it
"The Bottom Line? That was 1976!"
Man stands there.
"What, you want it back?"

The are co-headlining with Ian Hunter on Long Island this weekend. Here is some Ian Hunter stage patter for comparison: free summer shows of NYC 2009

I believe IH and GP did a double bill
earlier at a benefit for the great Graham Maby, bass player for Joe Jackson and many others, including Marshall Crenshaw, who was left with a large medical bill after his wife's losing battle with cancer

stage patter was priceless

society for ethical culture was an interesting choice of venue though the sound was good - vey clear and we sat in the next-to last row all the way up in the rafters. seats resembled pews but cushions made em comfortable. i know about the ethical culture school etc but the auditorium had a pseudo-church vibe that's hard to explain, the statues seemed *vaguely* biblical, depicting guys who almost kinda sorta looked like jesus or some prophet w/o being too specific. like unitarian but more secular, maybe?

How were The Figgs?

(xp) I was way up there too, but in the second row from the rail. I hope you didn't mind my loudness during The Figgs sing-a-long to "Victoria."

I loved the way he held the audience off. Somebody requested the material we were all waiting to hear early on and he said "We'll get to that." Then there was that moment when there was a little pause he said "all right, there is an album we did back in 1979 and now we are going to side one track one off that album." Then there was still a heart-stopping moment of hesitation before they started up. Then he did a little bow and had all these choreographed dance moves he did during that part of the show. Actually I think there was a tiny hole in the mix during "Discovering Japan" because he wasn't playing guitar anymore but I think they probably boosted Brinsley after that so it wasn't a problem.

DIdn't really know from The Figgs before this, I had only seen GP solo before, but they won me over.