Graham Parker C/D

'Twas a good show!

Happy Birthday Martin Belmont!

Interviews with the birthday boy:
http://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/the-rock-town-hall-interview-martin-belmont
http://jeffcramer.blogspot.com/2011/04/very-candid-conversation-with-martin.html?m=1

It was impossible to read that without stopping to watch or listen to 30 things I didn't know about or hadn't thought about in eons.

So you listened to some Carlene Carter too?

By which I mean to say I did exactly the same

Mor US East Coast touring with the Rumour in April

Saw that. Debating whether to go again

Yeah, it was great, but don't know how different it will be, given all the songs he must play. But the fact that he is Rumour-izing non Rumour stuff is intriguing.

DC area show sold out so quick last time, I hadn't gotten a ticket. Got tickets right when they went on sale this time. Had seen him with the Rumour back on the Squeezing Out Sparks tour, and once years later with his own band.

Finally saw him with the Rumour again (since 1979). Good show -- I didn't know the new album stuff, but enjoyed the selections from the first few albums.

"Don't Ask Me Questions" was very passionately delivered. I could have done without "Lady Doctor"-- kinda generic musically and lyrically.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/graham-parker-and-the-rumour/2013/rams-head-on-stage-annapolis-md-33d8d485.html

1.White Honey
2.Fool's Gold
3.Howlin' Wind
4.Coathangers
5.I'll Never Play Jacksonville Again
6.Long Emotional Ride
7.Lady Doctor
8.Get Started, Start A Fire
9.Black Honey
10.Snake Oil Capital of the World
11.Soul on Ice
12.A Lie Gets Halfway 'round the World
13.Watch the Moon Come Down Play Video
14.Discovering Japan
15.Don't Get Excited
16.Protection
17.Stupefaction
18.Local Girls
Encore:
19.Last Bookstore in Town
20.Don't Ask Me Questions
Encore 2:
21.Soul Shoes

Cool. When was this, Steve? Last night? I guess that website would tell me.

Actually a little while back-- April 6th, but I suddenly realized I never mentioned it here. He just played even closer to me more recently (but that might have been when I was in New Orleans).

Has anybody seen Graham Parker's current duo tour with guitarist Brinsley Schwarz (of his own band and The Rumour)? They're in DC tonight.

http://www.grahamparker.net/Tour.html

East and Midwest US plus Canada

Iow, he is still alive..

I wasn't able to make it to their local gig. Wonder if they did any interesting pub rock covers together?

Don't think I'll ever get this guy.

You kinda do

Ha, was thinking that too

After 1979’s inexplicable Pazz & Jop winner Squeezing Out Sparks he had no reason to sustain a cult, but there he was and here he is.

https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres76.php

And even the much-maligned Stick to Me made it to #19 in 1977.
https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres77.php

The stuff right after Squeezing Out Sparks was pretty terrible apart from “Temporary Beauty” but eventually he kind of righted the ship.

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.

Now that it's all online somewhere, if ye be starting the maiden voyage, try Howlin Wind, and proceed chronologically 'til sick of it, but know that after the first 2-4 albums at least, it's cherrypickin' time all the time.
However, that's studio---live can be a different matter: if you can stand the original ten-track Squeezing Out Sparks at all, or maybe even if you can't, look for Live Sparks, which was originally promo-only, but very eventually (mid-90s) released on CD w the studio original. Worth hearing that whole disc for comparison, although Amazon for one lists even used copies for $19.99. Anyway, the live also has his kiss-off to label, "Mercury Poisoning" and a cover of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back"(would not have guessed he'd pick that one).
And YouTube may well have his late 70s set w the Rumour on Soundstage, the old Chicago PBS show--no interviews, no patter, nothing but the music under hot lights for like 50 minutes, as I dimly recall (if I can remember it at all, and supposedly I can, must have been pretty damn good, though he made it look like all in a day's work, pretty cool).
GP *live* with the Rumour, can't go too wrong with that.

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.