Perhaps it was the first two eps of Fox's Fast Eddie, both of which included a prime track from the glory days of post-pub Brit-pop (Ian Dury and Madness), but I was inspired into re-enjoying Dave Edmunds and Rockpile recently - their 1978 release Tracks on Wax 4 (Swan Song), especially.

Edmunds had long been a fave among the Trouser Press crowd, for his bravura guitar work as a member of the sixties group Love Sculpture and his do-it-all-myself solo elpees (from whence came his biggest hit, his remake of Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knocking"). But it was when he hooked with bassist/songwriter Nick Lowe, guitarist Billy Bremner and take-charge drummer Terry Williams that he produced his most consistent work: rockabilly-drenched trad rock that kicked the crap out of any of the pretenders who would try and follow in the eighties (c.f. Brian Setzer and co.) The trio of Edmunds releases which resulted from this collaboration (Get It, Tracks and Repeat When Necessary) showed - punk loyalists to the contrary - it was still possible to make self-reliant old-fashioned rock 'n' roll without just coming across purposelessly revivalist.

Befitting its roots rock idiom, most of the songs on Tracks deal with traditional lyrical concerns - pledges of could-be-love, unattainable teen queens, declarations of loneliness. Unlike cohort Nick Lowe (who would soon produce the more sublimely adult Labor of Lust with the same crew), Edmunds comes to the material as a fan first and a grown-up distant second. What keeps things from becoming excessively Peter Pan-ish is the band's tautness and the commitment with which the Rockpilers approach their material: this kind of stuff may not change the world, but it could make you forget about it for a while.

The album kicks off with a Cochran-esque burst: Bremner's "Trouble Boys," a rockabilly song about standing up to bullies at a teen dance (you can practically visualize a scene out of some black-and-white AIP drive-in pic), then goes into the first of Nick Lowe's witty compositions: Edmunds harmonizing with himself in a hyperactive blend of Everly Bros. with Sam & Dave. Bremner's "Not A Woman, Not A Child" follows, with Edmunds starting with a growling lower register on verse then swooshing into higher range on the chorus: the song's a slightly earthier lyrical update of "Sweet Little Sixteen" ("You're gonna get 'em in a rage/When they get to know your age") with a tone of amused detachment that keeps it from leering too much. These may be geezers playin' teen-focused tunes, but they know their ages.

This comes across most succinctly in Lowe's "Television," a funny broken-heart song that describes the wonderful sedating power of extended tube-sucking: "I don't care what's on/If it's happy or sad/I don't give a damn if it's good or bad/I sit and watch it 'til it drives me mad/Just so long as it's on I'm glad." Rant about the dangers of the electronic age all you want, but when it comes down to it, sometimes teevee is the only friend you've got - and these guys know it. Dave and co. follow this with the disc's most countrified number, a pure bit of Everly crooning that anticipates the tribute EP Edmunds & Lowe would include with the only credited studio Rockpile album would release: Seconds of Pleasure. Next up - and the original elpee's side one closer - is "Readers Wives," a sardonic hard-rockin' tribute to amateur pin-ups ("The little ones stand at four foot three/While the big ones stand at forty-four feet.") with some great piercingly melodic rock guitar.