Graham Parker "Heat Treatment"

Coming less than a year after the debut album, you couldn’t help suspecting there are issues with the material, but when you’re talking something as strong as Fool’s Gold, that’s not an issue. It’s very much a more of the same exercise, with Parker’s impassioned vocals leading the way as The Rumour does a mighty job of matching The Band’s example in the ensemble playing department.

A little more time might, of course, have been helpful when it came to assembling the material, but of the original ten tracks (the 2001 remaster tacked The Pink Parker EP’s Hold Back the Night and (Let Me Get) Sweet on You onto the end) the only two that might have been liable for the chop were Something You're Going Through and Help Me Shake It.

The relevant Wikipedia article cites Parker’s reservations on  on one of his least favourite recordings, due to inexperienced vocal technique, rushed songwriting (see above), and stiff production by Robert John "Mutt" Lange who’d been slotted in by the record company instead of Nick Lowe, who’d looked after production duties on Howlin’ Wind.

Lange was still new at the production caper, with a handful of credits (Richard Jon Smith, City Boy, Kevin Coyne and Mallard, drawn from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band) but went on to significant success (Supercharge, The Motors, The Boomtown Rats, The Records, AC/DC, Def Leppard, The Cars, Michael Bolton and Shania Twain) so he must have been able to get some things right. But, despite the fact that he sat in the chair for the first album by The Rumour (1977’s Max) he may not have been the best man for this job.

That’s fairly obvious when the horns kick straight in at the start of Heat Treatment, three and a bit minutes of impassioned R&B that doesn’t swing the way White Honey does at the start of Howlin’ Wind. The critics didn’t seem to mind all that much, though, and when the Village Voice compiled the critics poll of the year's best albums Heat Treatment finished second, with Howlin’ Wind coming in a very respectable fourth.

Not as much swing, but there’s definitely a bit of arrogant swagger in the Dylanesque putdown of an old lover in That's What They All Say, and while things drop back a notch for Turned Up Too Late, there’s a fairly withering assessment of a failing relationship in a cutting lyric in a song later covered by the Pointer Sisters.

Howlin’ Wind started with an upbeat and swinging White Honey, but Black Honey here is a dark, downcast, desolate outpouring of soulful emotion in bitter lands where the singer’s a face without a voice. Great melodic guitar work from Brinsley Schwarz, though.

Your mileage might vary when it comes to Hotel Chambermaid, depending on how you read the randy rooster strut. If you’re cool with that sort of thing you’ll find it spirited and celebratory, but I’m inclined towards the shuffle button. Sexist throwaway for mine, and reminiscent of a certain French politician from a few years back.

On the other hand, Pourin' It All Out is an anthemic statement of what Parker’s all about, a mission statement if you like.

And while Hotel Chambermaid, for mine, borders on the ugly, Back Door Love delivers a lighthearted strut that’s close to irresistible with a string of interesting rhymes at the start and stereo metaphors in the middle.

Something You're Going Through, on the other hand, along with Help Me Shake It, is a little too close to by the numbers proceeding through the motions. Two that mightn’t have made the cut if Parker and company hadn’t been in such a hurry. Just about anything off Stick to Me would have been a perfectly acceptable substitute for either.

But there’s no questioning the quality of the album’s concluding number. The anthemic Fool's Gold has Parker vowing to keep searching for perfection. He’s probably talking about a woman or a relationship, but you can apply the theme and the lyric to almost any search you know to be  impossible, or likely to be regarded with a scratch of the head by friends and acquaintances..

The 2001 remastered reissue tacks two bonus tracks from The Pink Parker EP after Fool’s Gold, a spirited cover of the Trammps’ Hold Back the Night and Parker’s (Let Me Get) Sweet on You which swings enough to have slotted nicely onto the first album. Pleasant enough ways to pad out the length and persuade someone to shell out for the reissue, but a slight letdown after that magnificent closer.

Coming back to an old favourite after a long time doesn’t always work out the way it should, but here, having worked my way through Howlin’ Wind several times before progressing to the next, it’s obvious that advances had been made, both in terms of the writing, which has progressed towards what was to come later (Squeezing Out Sparks) and the playing, which I suspect, reflects a more collaborative approach between writer and band when it comes to arrangements. The sound is a lot fuller, and there’s a level of aggression that wasn’t there in Howlin’ Wind, which sounds subdued by comparison.

At this point Parker's still a relative novice at the songwriting caper, but there’s an increasing confidence that ties in with a degree of conviction that stood out like a beacon among the overblown likes of post-Atlantic Crossing Rod Stewart. He provided a template that was picked up and modified by the likes of Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and, by the end of the second album, it’s close to fully formed.

There was, of course, still room for refinement.

Graham Parker "Howlin' Wind"

What we have here is the intersection of a band looking for a front man, a singer-songwriter looking for a band and a musical environment shaped by the intersection of Bob Dylan, The Band, old school rhythm and blues or soul music, Van Morrison, the singer-songwriter movement of the early seventies and the London pub rock scene.

Graham Parker and The Rumour weren’t the only figures on this particular musical landscape and their debut album isn’t the only musical milestone that emerged from it.

Shift the balance of influences slightly, downplay the Dylan/R&B and build up the singer songwriter bit (think Jesse Winchester) and you’ve got Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers. Change London pub rock to New Jersey seaside bars and you’ve got Springsteen and Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes. Put those factors into an Australian setting and you’ve got Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons and The Sports.

Together those acts represented some of the few lights on the horizon in the dire days of the disco-dominated pre-punk mid-seventies.

While Howlin’ Wind came out in 1976 to widespread critical acclaim and ended up in fourth place in the Village Voice critics poll of the year's best albums (the follow-up, Heat Treatment, ran second) it didn’t connect with the wider public and all involved ended up as also-rans despite the fact that they provided much of the template successfully employed by, among others, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and the New Wave end of the seventies punk spectrum.

The key point here is, I think, that The Rumour (Brinsley Schwartz survivors Brinsley Schwarz on guitar and keyboardist Bob Andrews, rhythm section Andrew Bodnar and Steve Goulding from an outfit called Bontemps Roulez, and Ducks Deluxe guitarist Martin Belmont) could definitely play, Parker could definitely write, and delivered a fine spray of impassioned vocals but the combination was never going to hit the heights unless something significant intervened.

They weren’t alone in that regard. While just about everyone cited above is still around and most of them have managed to create a niche in the contemporary musical landscape the only one who has managed to wangle his way into prominence is Springsteen, who accomplished the feat on the back of a string of marathon concert appearances between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town and the radio-friendly behemoth called Born in the USA.

But Parker & The Rumour could have been contenders, and Howlin’ Wind’s intelligent and artful blend of rock, R&B, reggae, and folk elements behind music, behind intelligent lyrics and impassioned vocals simultaneously suggests what could have been and indicates why it wasn’t.

White Honey opens the proceedings with three and a half minutes of Van Morrison-influenced bop and bounce, Bob Andrews’ Hammond crooning away to drive the groove and the horn section adding drive and punctuation. There’s a statement of intent in the soulful, brooding  Nothing's Gonna Pull Us Apart and things are sweetened slightly by the swingingly infectious Silly Thing, uncharacteristically upbeat and affectionate..

But the intensity’s back for a passionate Gypsy Blood. Between You and Me actually dates back to a 1975 pre-Rumour demo session, when Parker was cutting material future founder of Stiff Records Dave Robinson could shop around the record companies. They tried to re-record it later, but couldn't match the demo, so that’s what you get folks.

Dave Edmunds sits in on guitar on Back to Schooldays, a three minute assessment of Parker's experience of the British education system and how he’d fix it if he was given the chance. There hadn’t been too much evidence of Parker’s supposedly angry young man persona to date, but it’s here in spades. It worked a treat for Edmunds too when he cut the track on the rather impressive Get It collection.

After that little statement, Soul Shoes comes across as an unremarkable but committed rocker, while Lady Doctor delivers a nice line in lighthearted carnal fun. Hardly a classic, but, boy, does it swing.

There’s a bit more intensity to You've Got to Be Kidding, a sort of half an hour later riposte to Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart, a cynical response to a question about longevity in a relationship delivered in a Dylanesque drawl. Howlin' Wind bristles with impassioned intent and Not If It Pleases Me is three more minutes of the same.

But the album’s highlight arrives with the reggae groove of Don't Ask Me Questions. There are reggae influences elsewhere on the album, but here they come to the fore as Parker makes it perfectly clear that he’s not the one with the answers. As a closing track to a rather good album (Parker’s quite definite about it being the best album released in Britain in 1976 in the liner notes), it’s almost perfect. He revisited it a bit later on The Parkerilla, and that version, with the benefit of a couple of years road exposure is probably better, but the prototype packs plenty of punch.

Tacking the obligatory bonus track on the end diminishes that final punch slightly. You can see why I'm Gonna Use It Now missed the cut the first time around, but there’s still commitment aplenty on display.

As an announcement of a significant talent, Howlin’ Wind delivers the goods and most of the cuts survived in the live setting, even after newer material turned up. Parker’s still not, at this point, fully formed, and not quite as angry or dismissive of fools as he became later, but it would be unreasonable to expect anything more than this from someone who was still, at this point, sorting out the nuts and bolts of his craft.

Nick Lowe’s production delivers a tough, spare bar band feeling and the result is an invigorating fusion of traditional rock from a writer with significant singer/songwriter chops, and something that would be identified around a year down the track as punk spirit.

One of the classic debuts of all time that manages to shine while suggesting significant room for improvement as a brash young man gets his direction sorted.

Graham Parker & The Rumour "Three Chords Good" (4.5*)

The cynics among us would probably be inclined to ascribe the reunion of Graham Parker and his original band the Rumour for the first time in thirty-one years to pecuniary mercenary motives but it seems we’re looking at a rather remarkable slice of serendipity.

Parker has worked, on and off, with various members of his old band over the years, presumably on the basis of what felt right and who was available at that particular time, and with Three Chords Good’s dozen tracks written Parker apparently decided bassist Andrew Bodnar and drummer Steve Goulding would be really something as the rhythm section on the new album. Goulding suggested bringing guitarists Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont and keyboard ace Bob Andrews aboard as well and without any prior planning there’s a full-blown Graham Parker & The Rumour reunion.

That was May 2011, and the recording, produced by Parker and Dave Cook and cut in upstate New York was finished by August. At that point, movie writer/director/producer Judd Apatow turned up on Parker’s doorstep with the offer of a role in his new film, This Is 40, a comedy that updates the story of the duo from 2007‘s Knocked Up and features Parker, cast as himself, performing in a duo and with the Rumour.

The sessions for Three Chords Good and their spell on the set of This Is 40 also provide also provide a dramatic climax for the Gramaglia Brothers’ (End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones) feature-length documentary Don’t Ask Me Questions, a profile of Parker’s career that’s been ten years in the making.

It’s been twenty years since Parker recorded for a major label, but he’s spent the intervening period in DIY cottage industry mode, releasing a string of albums and official bootlegs and a book of short fiction (Carp Fishing on Valium) all of which feature the man’s pissed-off snarl and cynical attitude, which comes straight into play on the opening track here.

Snake Oil Capital Of The World appropriates the intro to Hey Lord, Don’t Ask Me Questions, arguably Parker’s best known track, and pursues that loping reggae-derived groove through a fittingly trenchant diagnosis of what’s going down in twenty-first century America, pointing out that the old, weird America (the one of medicine shows, snake oil salesmen, carnival barkers and opportunistic carpetbaggers) never went anywhere.

It’s the sort of thing that would have had the younger Parker seething, but as he points out on the following track the thirty-plus years since he came to prominence have been a Long Emotional Ride (Maybe I’m just getting old or something/But something broke down my resistance) so despite the fact that he sees snake oil everywhere he realises there isn’t a whole lot he can do about it.

Long Emotional Ride has a fair dose of the confessional about it as Parker looks back on his career and notes recently acquired wisdom with a degree of wistfulness and a rough-hewn tenderness that runs on into Stop Cryin’ About The Rain. The totally self-explanatory She Rocks Me works a snappy semi-skiffle groove while Three Chords Good would have fitted comfortably on any of those earlier GP&R albums. There’s a touch of Mose Allison to leaven the Van Morrison influences on the slower, moody Old Soul, a track that swings sensuously with Bob Andrews’ Hammond B-3 organ to the fore (as it is throughout).

Andrews is there again on A Lie Gets Halfway ‘Round The World, a track that shows Parker can still rant with the best of them, Mercury Poisoning revisited while he takes aim at the music industry and the mainstream media again. There’s a touch of the doo-wops and Sam Cooke about That Moon Was Low and we’re into boppier territory for Live In Shadows before the trio of tracks that take the album out with a definite bang.

America’s role in Afghanistan and the apathy that has come as the conflict grinds on gets the once-over in Arlington’s Busy (And Arlington's busy and business is brisk, not that you'd notice ‘cos ignorance is bliss) a bristling track that decries lying military officers and politicians in a measured statement of impassioned disgust. Coathangers shows whose side of the abortion debate he’s on and manages to rock out while it does so, and Last Bookstore In Town delivers a wry commentary on the decline of small town niche businesses.

The Parker who emerged from obscurity and a string of dead end jobs in the Channel Islands, Chichester and Gibraltar and a hippy band that gigged in a Moroccan night club was in many ways a reincarnation of the ’50s English Angry Young Man, articulate, antiestablishment and extremely pissed off at the world in general and his social circumstances in particular. The Rumour, a collection of pub rock veterans who’d been around the ridges long enough to know what worked and what didn’t locked right in behind him to provide a worthy antidote to the increasing blandness and orthodoxy of mid-seventies rock.

Thirty-odd years after The Up Escalator it’s good to see the combination back as a unit, with Bob Andrews behind the keyboards (he’d left before Escalator and been replaced by Nicky Hopkins and the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan). Given their circumstances over the intervening decades (Brinsley Schwarz had been working as a luthier in London, while fellow guitarist Martin Belmont was a Yorkshire librarian) you mightn’t be expecting the old fires to burn quite so bright but taste and an understanding of nuance are timeless and one suspects it’s something like learning to ride a bicycle.

Once you know how, the ability doesn’t desert you.

Parker’s lyrics still bite and there’s a hint of the old snarl, though the anger’s tempered by a curmudgeonly resignation, Andrews’ keyboards weave their way through the melodies, the guitars add crunch and the supple rhythm section sets things up just right.

The result is an album that hearkens back to a pretty damn glorious past, delivers a continuation of the old vibe into the present and leaves this long time fan hoping for more of the same in the future.

That may end up being a case of living in hope and dying in frustration but, in the meantime, at least I’ve got Three Chords Good, a reinvigorated interest in past glories and an inclination to catch ip on what I’ve missed in the interim.

Graham Parker & The Rumour "Live at Rockpalast 1978 + 1980"

The continuing non-appearance of the new Graham Parker and the Rumour album in the iTunes Store (and, coincidentally, it still hasn’t managed a general release in Australia) was what pointed Hughesy towards The Up Escalator, and it was that same Escalator that pushed me in this direction when I made another fruitless visit to iTunes a couple of days back.

A glance at what they had listed under The Rumour (I’m after a legitimate copy of Max) revealed these Rockpalast shows and a squiz at the track listings showed the second show featured most of The Up Escalator, so the natural curiosity took over. Escalator, after all, was widely panned on sonic grounds, so I was interested in seeing how that material sounded in a live setting.

That, such as it is, is my excuse anyway.

The hard copies of these two shows (also available on DVD) have the 1980 show as Disk One, and the earlier show on the second, which is strange, but ultimately not as annoying as the transposition of Thunder and Rain and Watch the Moon Come Down on the download, something that’s easily fixed but shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Apart from that, the download has the shows in the right order, with the earlier one featuring what amounted to The Rumour horns (Albie Donelly and John Earle on saxophones, Dan Ellis on trombone and Dick Hanson, trumpet) while the 1980 version features the post-Bob Andrews Rumour with Nicky Hopkins on keyboards,

As far as the performances go, there isn’t anything here that will surprise, apart from the fact that the Escalator material works rather well in the live setting, which hardly comes as a surprise given Parker’s reputation as a white hot live act and The Rumour’s status as one of the better instrumental combos to emerge from the New Wave ruckus.

Parker delivers his regular archetypal angry young man posture, spitting the lyrics and declaiming his venomous disdain of anyone who sticks their head above the parapet. Fevered, impassioned and, ultimately, the prototype for much of what followed, he comes across as an Anglicised Springsteen or Southside Johnny, working the same sinewy post-Stones and Van Morrison as his stateside equivalents, driven on by a band that’s every bit as good as The E Street Band or The Asbury Jukes.

So, no surprises, just a reminder of how good this outfit actually was, and a scratching of the head as to the continuing non-appearance of Three Chords Good, an issue that will hopefully be dealt with at some point in the concert-going future.

Track listing:
23 January 1978

Heat Treatment
White Honey
Soul on Ice
Back to Schooldays
Heat in Harlem
Fool’s Gold
Watch the Moon Come Down
Thunder and Rain
Stick to Me
I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down
Don’t Ask Me No Questions
Not If It Pleases Me
The New York Shuffle
Soul Shoes
Hold Back the Night


18 October 1980

Stupefaction
No Holding Back
Jolie Jolie
Love without Greed
Discovering Japan
Passion Is No Ordinary Word
Howlin’ Wind
Thunder and Rain
Manoeuvres
Don’t Get Excited
Beating of Another Heart
Empty Lives
Devil’s Sidewalk
Endless Night
Can’t Get No Protection
Nobody Hurts You
Don’t Ask Me No Questions
Tripe Face Boogie
Soul Shoes

Graham Parker "The Up Escalator" (4*)

News of a new album by Graham Parker & The Rumour had me scanning the landscape around the end of November, once I'd spotted the odd reference to Three Chords Good on the interwebs. For some reason, however, it doesn't seem to have wormed its way into the iTunes Store, at least not into the Australian branch (though it’s already there in the US store) but then it took a while for that to happen with Little Feat's Rooster Rag, which explains why the review here features a photo of an actual CD jewel case rather than a shot of an iPad screen.

Despite the absence of Three Chords Good the search reminded me I really liked Mr Parker’s work back in the day, and there’s a swag of material that could well justify a bit of further exploration. Had they been there I might have started by going right back to Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment, but since they’re not this seemed to be the right place to pick up the thread.

Parker’s previous albums, the aforementioned duo, Stick to Me, The Parkerilla and Squeezing Out Sparks all featured The Rumour, a classy outfit whose members cut their teeth in pub rock bands Brinsley Schwarz and Bontemps Roulez and went on to back, apart from Parker, various pub rock and new wave acts including Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Garland Jeffreys and Carlene Carter.

While guitarists Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont were still on board, as were the rhythm section of Andrew Bodnar (bass) and Stephen Goulding (drums), keyboard player Bob Andrews had left the band in 1979, so when  the time came to cut The Up Escalator keyboard duties were handed to Nicky Hopkins (piano) and The E Street Band’s Danny Federici (organ).

From the start of No Holding Back on my first run through there was something missing, and the first thing to spring to mind was, of course, Andrews. There was a fairly trademark GP & The Rumour sound, and most of it was still there, so the first inclination was to look in obvious directions. I suspect the thought processes may have been influenced by recent exposure to Andrews’ recent solo efforts, Shotgun and Invisible Love, but subsequent run through (or should that be along?) The Up Escalator with the volume cranked substantially were much more satisfactory.

Squeezing Out Sparks had gone close to breaking Parker into the US market, so it must have made sense to Arista to do something that’d convert the breakthrough into major commercial success with the follow-up. On that basis it may have seemed like a good idea to match Parker and what remained of The Rumour with Jimmy Iovine, who’d produced or engineered Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes, Dire Straits' Making Movies and Springsteen's Born to Run, a sort of pairing that’d deliver critical acclaim and commercial success. Throw in some guest vocals from Springsteen and things should be close to signed, sealed and delivered.

Commercial and critical success are, on the other hand, rather tricky little beasts. For a start, when you’re seen to be positioning an artist for glory you’re also setting them up as a target for those who might have their own axes to grind. Parker & The Rumour had been sitting quietly on the periphery as far as popular success was concerned, attracting A and A+ ratings from the likes of Robert Christgau, the (self-proclaimed) Dean of American Rock Critics. Christgau reviews Sparks here and, interestingly, fails to note the existence of Escalator.

As things proceed through that first run through I was inclined to agree with assessments that panned the material and described the sound as flat, poorly detailed, mushy and just a bit dull but again, with a substantial crank in volume they sounded a whole lot better. Definitely not as good as you’d like, but definitely better. Play the bugger loud.

And volume doesn’t just add punch to the music. Lyrically, The Up Escalator delivers another solid bracket of vitriolic Parker rants against conformity and associated mind-numbing and dumbing down (Devil's Sidewalk and Stupefaction) and  everyone who has questioned his abilities and denied him his just rewards and then want him to fill in the gaps in their Empty Lives.

You could pick a similar source of righteous anger in any of the other tracks. The loveless bastards who’d want to drown out The Beating Of Another Heart, the pull of obsessions and the denial of ambitions through the Endless Night, ineffective responses to demands and unexpected circumstances in Paralyzed and Manoeuvres. He might want to express love for a new bride in Jolie Jolie, but even that comes across as paranoid and can’t be expressed without an and don’t you forget it. You can’t, in the words of the last title on the album, have Love Without Greed, or maybe lust without emotional imperialism.

The bonus tracks, a vehement Women in Charge that suggests he’s got his tongue firmly in cheek when he suggests this is a fortunate development. A live reggaefied reworking of Hey Lord, Don’t Ask Me Questions mightn’t burn with the same incendiary passion of the Parkerilla version, but it isn’t exactly lacking in bite either.

Putting everything together, and accepting that it’s no Squeezing Out Sparks (which is fair enough from where I’m sitting, neither is anything else in his discography) played at a decent volume it’s not that bad.

I’m inclined to dismiss the contemporary critical response as a case of expectations set that were never likely to be filled, the sort of thing that happens when our little secret positions himself (or is positioned, same horse different jockey) for a shot at mainstream mass market success. A case, I suspect, of you can do it, but when you try, you’d better make sure the product really delivers, sonny Jim. The Up Escalator didn’t quite deliver at that level, and mightn’t have quite made it to the top of what might have been possible, but it’s not broken down in the basement either.