"We'd play some gigs where the whole front row was swarming with kids who read somewhere that i was the Godfather of Punk...so I had to keep up by being more angry.
By 1979, Graham Parker had ditched the Rumour horns and a lot of his beloved R&B tricks. Instead, the vicious rocker part of his personae dominated what may be Parker's defining work, Squeezing Out Sparks and the under-appreciated 1980 follow-up, The Up Escalator. The problem was that anger had begun to lose its currency against the flighty values of the ascendant New Romantic bands like Spandau Ballet. Like every other great artist in the early 80's, Parker would be forced to grapple with the epidemic of synthetic mediocrity that had infected the musical culture.Graham Parker
This 1980 concert shows off Parker and the Rumour as flat-out rockers, playing almost exclusively tracks from their two most recent albums. Like The Ramones, they're speeding everything up (check out "Manoeuvres" above for proof) but they're disciplined, never letting the sheer velocity knock them off their game.
Live at Rockpalast CD
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And don't forget Parker's current home Bloodshot Records,where you can order this new old live album or some of his blood-stirring recent work.
For some more 1979-era live Parker/Rumour madness visit the ever-generous PVAc to 44.1 khz.
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Ah, "The Up Escalator" - that's where I come in. I remember hearing from some supposedly reputable source that it was a "lesser work" but it always sounded furious and sure to these ears. True, it doesn't top "Squeezing Out Sparks", but I don't think there's a whole lot that does.
ReplyDeleteI've said it to you before but "the Up Escalator" mostly suffers by being not as unequivocally great as "
ReplyDeleteSqueezing Out Sparks" more so than because of any real shortfalls.
first time i saw parker was on the squeezing out sparks tour so this brings backa a whole load of memories
ReplyDelete