Perhaps I expected too much of Graham Parker live.
As a sophomore in high school in 1979, I was entirely, bitterly distraught that I was not able to go to Indianapolis to see Cheap Trick. They were white hot with the Budokan album, and I was feeling the apostolic flame of ROCK as only a teenager properly can. However, I did not have a drivers license, much less a car to drive the 60 miles into Indianapolis.
As a consolation, I bought an album by the opening act, some guy named Graham Parker. It was Stick To Me. Holy cow, was that record good. Heck, this guy was maybe even better than Cheap Trick. This made me only more bitter about having missed them.
This show was Parker's first known return to Indianapolis since then. Perhaps I had too much anticipation beyond reasonable expectations bottled up these decades. In any case, the show disappointed me worse than about any major act (by my definitions) that I've ever seen.
In fairness, he did a perfectly competent, professional show. He looks great, and his voice sounded about as good as ever.
The main problem was his selection of songs. He played hardly any of his good songs, seemingly perversely determined to play only his crappiest songs. He has a new album, Your Country. He insisted on playing most of it, and it just sucks. There wasn't a decent hook or memorable melodic line in any of it.
He even insisted on playing crappy OLD songs. I understand some of wanting to feature your new record, but he played several songs from the 1988 Mona Lisa's Smile album- without playing the one real memorable song ("Get Started, Start a Fire"). Why?
He played hardly any of his better known material. He's had exactly ONE honest-to-god Top 40 Billboard single: "Wake Up." Not mentioned.
Even the couple of songs he played from his better albums were the lesser known cuts, but I was glad to hear "You've Got to Be Kidding" and "Love Gets You Twisted."
One good song that he did play was "The Three Martini Lunch." He also answered my confusion. I know this from the classic and highly recommended Live - Alone in America album. I've never been able to find the studio version. This turns out to have been because there ISN'T one. That solo acoustic performance is the only one he's published.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
I think he's done some good stuff in the last 15 years, although it may not be up to the first 10. Sorry to hear it wasn't that good. I saw him a couple of times with the Rumour and they were great, but it's been a while.
2 - Rodney Welch
I agree Stick to Me is a blisteringly fine disc -- from the title cut to "Problem Child" to "Tear Your Playhouse Down" to "Soul on Ice" to "Clear Head" to "Thunder and Rain," it's some kind of messy and sadly unheralded masterpiece that still cuts as deep as it dig 25 years ago.
3 - Steve Barger
I was close enough to G.P. to notice what chords he was playing. It seemed that ALL the new songs used THE SAME THREE OR FOUR CHORDS, and not very adventuous chords, at that: E, em, G, C, and D,in simple, guitar 101 open-chord positions.
Interestingly, he seemed to only use barre chords of any kind, (and a greater number + variety of chords), on his 70's songs.
It wasn't just total lack of melodic invention on the new songs, either. Tired old lyrical cliches, like the title imagery of his song, "High Horse", (as in, "get off your high horse".. .) sucked, too. In listening this week again to Squeezing Out Sparks, one is impressed not only with his melodic invention AND the killer, brilliant riffs, but also with his originality in lyrical imagery, and, equally importantly, the craftsmanship of the lyrical development.
"Love Gets You Twisted" is an excellent case in point. Lyrically, it begins as a bitter, sarcastic dismissal of love-a true punk anti-love song, (only a hundred times better than any other punk song, just about,that you can name).
But wait! With one line, he brings it from the general to the personal level, injecting his own deep vulnerability, (very soul-like, and very UNpunkishly), with the line, ". . .When she's in my arms I get tangled up, it's true. . ."; and then, brilliantly, flips STRAIGHT back into the sarcasm. But it's too late! He's now let us all know that his whole 'love sucks' stance is a mere defense-mechanism: He's really singing about himself, and how it SUCKS that love makes HIM so vulnerable.
It's even more brilliant due to the fact that he does not dwell on his vulnerability. Rather, he bounces straight back into the sarcasm. If he'd dwelled on his own pain, he'd be risking sappyness; (Although there would be ways to both dwell on your own vulnerability/pain, and avoid sappyness, but that's hard for most songwriters to do).
It's certainly excellent craftsmanship that the image of getting "tangled up" parallels the image of getting "Twisted".
"Love Gets You Twisted"'s lyrical craftsmanship of going from the general to the specific (from the notion that Love, in general, gets people 'twisted', to the notion that love has gotten ME twisted), reminds me of Ira Gershwin's brilliant lyrical craftsmanship on his song with brother George: "They All Laughed".
Ira starts out, "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round/ They all laughed when Edison recorded sound". Well, that's great, Ira, (you might respond), but what does Edison and Christopher Columbus have to do with ANYTHING? Thanks for the history lesson, but. . .We want a pop song, not a history lesson.
But Ira finally, after dropping several more famous names from history, succinctly pulls it all together, bringing to the personal level: ". . .They laughed at me, wanting you. . ." A-HA! This song is really about YOU, (i.e., the singer)!
I'm not sure that G.P. is in the same league lyrically as Ira Gershwin, but G.P.at one time was a brilliant lyricist.
Discuss this amonst yourselves:
G.P.'s lyrics on Squeezing out Sparks were more brilliant than lyrics on any Elvis Costello album from the 70's.
Any thoughts on this? How about:
Squeezing out Sparks is better than any single Elvis album from the 70's.
Any thoughts on that?
4 - Jeff Brokaw
I saw G.P. Friday night in Chicago, and he was great, and I thought the new songs were very good. No, it isn't G.P. and the Rumour any more, sadly, and I wish I could have seen them at their peak too, but he's still writing vibrant music 25 years later, judging by the concert itself.
Not only has he aged well, but so has his music, and how many "New Wave" artists from the late 70s can make that claim? In reality, he wasn't New Wave at all, he was a creation of the pub rock scene and was heavily influenced by R&B. His band was easily one of the best of that decade, in the U.K. or the U.S.
Rather a lot to live up to. Accusing him of no longer being one of the most compelling artists writing some of the best music and lyrics of his time is not much of an accusation at all.
Squeezing Out Sparks was, musically at least, largely the creation of the producer, Jack Nitzsche.
For my money, Howlin Wind is the best G.P., then Heat Treatment, then Sparks.
And "You Can't Be Too Strong" brought tears to my eyes, again. He was so far ahead of his time with that song. Way, way out in front.
I'm really glad I went to the show, and will go see him again if I can. YMMV, obviously!
5 - Donny Breed
I think your review is pretty horrible. That is the most poorly written piece of shit i've ever seen. Boo Hoo, you had to pay ten dollars to see Graham.
Maybe someday, someone will read something that you have written in the future and say "That guy Al was once a good writer".
I doubt it.......
6 - Dave Nalle
The Up Escalator is one of the most coherent and uniformly excellent albums I've ever listened to and Squeezing Out Sparks is pretty damned good as well. I had the pleasure of hearing GP as part of a pretty amazing line-up a few years ago (with Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Dion D'Amucci) here in Austin. He concentrated on mostly older material and it kicked ass. But frankly his newer material just isn't up to the same level of quality. Some songwriters mature and get more interesting with age - like Nick Lowe - others like Parker just coast slowly down hill and lose their edge. So I'm not surprised his concert wasn't great.
Dave