tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3038896609261757752024-03-24T23:09:23.781-07:00Graham ParkerThe Thoughts of Chairman ParkerUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-10816138334725827952022-08-04T11:54:00.003-07:002022-08-04T12:27:02.690-07:00<h1 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">THE MIDDLESEX DEMOS</span></h1><p style="text-align: justify;">The sequence of events, the years, the dates, and even how I came to find myself in a studio in Hayes, Middlesex, a rather suburban part of London I’d never been to before, is hazy, but I do know that a small-time music publishing company was involved and Stuart Johnson, the man with the recording studio in Hayes, had invited me to record there for free, and something almost professional was now in motion. 1972/73 seems about right, with maybe a bit of early 1974, a time of songwriting transition for me. The lighter, sweeter vocal style I was using (a remnant of the burst of 70’s songwriters, James Taylor and Jackson Browne being two of my most prominent influences) is still present, but the growling, gruffer sound is showcased, too. You can hear it creeping in on “Time Bomb Blues” and “I've Got My Soul.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Noel Brown, a guitarist I’d met after placing an ad in the Melody Maker appears on some tracks here, as well as some musicians provided by Stuart on a few other tracks, including “Watching All The Rainbows Run,” a tune I’d had since 1970, if not before. I don’t recall the names of those musicians but knew well at the time that they were not going to be backing my songs any further - they really didn’t have what I needed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the early 70’s, I would read the ads in MM now and again and wonder if anything came of it: did people ever find the kind of accompaniment they were looking for? Judging by the ads, I thought it unlikely. Lots of mentions of “must have own gear and transport,” and “no bread heads” seemed <i>de rigueur </i>in the 70’s, and I expected a motley bunch of no-hopers to respond, if anyone. I was right. There was the guy from Crowthorne, Surrey who allegedly played bass and arranged to meet me in a pub near his home called “The Houda Thodit,” at least that’s what it sounded like on the phone at the petrol station in Surrey where I was working part time between weekends in London squats with a loose circle of freaks, which sometimes included a few friends I’d made when I was living and working in Gibraltar. When I got to the pub, which was actually named “The Who’da Thot it,” I met the scruffy fellow but nothing he said seemed encouraging, so I continued my quest which included a girl from somewhere further out in the wilds who only played about two riffs, both of which were poor impersonations of Paul Kossof, the guitarist from the band Free. She was followed by a number of phone conversations which didn’t even amount to as much as a meeting in a pub. The suburbs/country scenario was turning out to be infertile ground for anything more than a dour mix of blues/prog rock played by longhairs in drab denim bell bottom suits, and other non starters. My work was now a long way away from all that, and I had the shorter hair and tight black jeans to prove it and had left the musical meanderings of the loon pants period in the dust.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">OK, then, up to London I went to check out this character Noel Brown, who on the phone at least, sounded vaguely promising. This is where things changed for the better. Noel, who sadly passed away recently, was enthused by the tunes I played on our meeting at his London flat where his wife Val kindly brought in a cuppa and a salad for us. Noel joined in on “Let It Rain,” “Time Bomb Blues” and “I've Got My Soul” as if he already knew them, using dobro or Fender slide guitar. Very soon after this “Soul Shoes,” “Back To Schooldays” and “Not If It Pleases Me” came along and Noel was in his element on those numbers. It wasn’t long before he introduced me to some musicians of the calibre of Paul “Bassman” Riley and Paul “Diceman” Bailey who had played in a band I’d actually seen in February 1975 - the Red Hot Chilli Peppers who had appeared at Guildford Civic Hall in my home county of Surrey, a band who were billed with Kokomo and Dr Feelgood on the “Naughty Rhythms” tour, my first exposure to an alleged genre called “pub rock.” What I saw that night was three bands of varying influences from the past, none of which had anything to do with the still ruling aforementioned long haired denim suit crowd who were still stuck in styles that I considered over and done with. In further meetings with Noel and the two Paul’s a drummer would join in and we would play around in someone’s back room with some of my tunes like “Time Bomb Blues” and ”Sunny Side Down,” two songs that would not quite cut it with me by the time I got a record deal and recorded “Howlin’ Wind,” but were nevertheless pointing in the right direction.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At some point Paul Riley gave me an introduction to Dave Robinson, an Irish fellow who had a small eight track studio above a pub I’d seen mentioned in the Melody Maker, the Hope & Anchor. Paul thought I needed to get this thing moving, and I’m eternally grateful for that. “Robbo” jump started my career at <span style="white-space: pre;">a </span>spectacularly quick clip, and two tunes from our demo sessions were aired on the Charlie Gillett radio show on London Radio, a channel previously unknown to me. Nigel Grange from Phonogram made immediate contact and I was signed to a major record deal, just like that.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The rest has been well documented, history, as it were, so I’ll let you research that if you don’t know the details from then on. I’ll leave you here to enjoy a peek at a slice of my formative years, all captured in a studio, in a garden, in Hayes, Middlesex.</p><p style="text-align: left;">GP</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Note: the long haired cover photos of me were taken in 1971 before the time these songs were recorded. Taken at a youth club near Chichester by Tony the Cortina.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">For more information, go <a href="http://www.grahamparker.net/The_Middlesex_Demos.html" target="_blank">here</a></p><p class="paragraph_style_61" style="font-family: Futura-Medium, Futura, "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; padding-bottom: 0pt; padding-top: 0px;"></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-7183564644703666182021-10-04T11:16:00.001-07:002021-10-04T11:32:40.731-07:00<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">PRETEND IT’S A BUSINESS: how touring works and why I’m not playing in “your town.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">The title of this piece is a paraphrase of the title of the Netflix documentary series about Fran Lebowitz, “Pretend It’s A City.” In case you haven’t seen it, this first class Martin Scorsese production refers to Lebowitz’s marvellously irritated attitude towards almost everything, including the behaviour of some visitors to New York City who act…well, just like tourists - which means they can be quite annoying to the locals. Watch it, it’s very good.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Therefore, think of the touring business in the same way as the title of this documentary, hence: “Pretend It’s A Business.” This pretty much explains touring for most professional musicians, because it is a business, but I’ll throw a few basic parts out there below anyway. Why not? I mean, I don’t know how business works for an astrophysicist, or a plumber, come to that.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">From the beginning of my career I have almost never chosen the venues or locations I’ve played in. Those very early shows with the Rumour, for instance, were most probably booked by my manager, Dave Robinson, who had plenty of contacts in suitable small venues after his years of managing the band Brinsley Schwarz, among other acts. At some point after that when we quickly moved up from playing a small scattershot variety of pubs and clubs with the occasional college gig thrown in, some booking agency or other would have been involved regarding our work as the headliner in theatres and universities, etc. Booking agents negotiate with the promoters/owners/managers of various venues and haggle out the prices, trying to get the act they represent the most money for each gig. I don’t do this work and have very little input. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">There are a few exceptions to the rule. When my agent is sending out the memo to various venues showing he’s looking for bookings in order to scope out who’s interested, we may have a discussion about the choices of venue and what they’re offering in certain towns, but only in territories where I receive interest from more than one venue, places where I have a good fan base, in other words. Also, something else of importance should be added here: the “avails.” This is not the 70’s anymore and there are now massive amount of acts constantly touring now that record sales are not a thing. The agents of all those acts are feverishly vying for the same venues, often six months or more before a proposed tour is due to start. This means from small clubs up to stadiums, the competition is hot. Tours are better if they make sense logistically. It’s very hard to do this with all that traffic on the road which is why you’ll see an act playing somewhere one night, then heading back towards the territory they played two nights ago, only to play somewhere in the middle. From the outside of this industry, you'd think that whoever booked the tour must have a rather weak grip on geography, but it’s because of venue availability, or rather lack of it, that this happens. Trust me, the artists don’t like it, but it occurs frequently.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">And when I find an unfamiliar venue fronted on a proposed itinerary that I don’t know a thing about but the routing and the guarantee make sense, I often won’t even look it up to see what it looks like, or what kind of joint it is, or what their sound system consists of. If the guarantee is in the right area and the routing works, I’ll just walk in door on the date and hope for the best, at least when I’m using a tour manager. I don’t choose this stuff, it chooses me. (This isn’t the same for everybody. Some acts don’t have an agent, but they’d probably rather they did. Agents don’t just take any act on.)</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">To add to the “avails” problems, on any given tour schedule of mine long before we actually get the gigs confirmed, there could be as much as, or sometimes more than two “holds” on some of those venues before they have cleared for me. Other agents had their acts pencilled in but didn’t pull the trigger on them and they may or may not drop out of the equation, and after a certain amount of time the promoters will go back to the other agents to see if their act still want the booking. Hence the squiggly nature you might see on any given tour schedule. A real pain, but this is normal. You sometimes have to wait, which can really mess with your routing. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Furthermore, I have a certain worth in the marketplace, like any other act that acquires a cachet of some sort based on their level of international recognition, record sales and in the case of touring, the volume of ticket sales they are likely to achieve in certain markets at certain times. This holds true to this day. (Pretend It’s A Business!) With social media now prevalent in the promotion (more like letting people know than promotion) of my tour schedules, it’s come to my attention that some fans - well meaning I’m sure - appear to express an attitude of mild accusation (OK, sometimes real annoyance!) when a tour schedule doesn’t include their state, or their town, and hasn’t done for some while. In fact I see more “why aren’t you playing here"s to “Looking forward to seeing you"s! (Keep reading that, it’ll make sense eventually.) Venue availability, market value in different territories in different times - there’s a whole mess of vagaries involved.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">If I am unpopular in an area, a promoter may want to book me anyway, often because they like my work, but the offer will probably be well below my usual worth (and rightly so), and too far out of my way to make it any more than a break-even situation, or near as damn to it. It might be good to realise I’m just slightly older than I used to be; I’ve done masses of one-off solo gigs throughout my career, often in places where I might have had to go through the rigours of travel, the menagerie of airports and all rest of it, just for one show. We all do, no biggie, but it might help to remember I’m not in my twenties now, and I now feel the need to be selective (yes, like Spinal Tap!) </span>and to pace myself and play places where I not only get paid what I’m worth, but also have a good chance of pulling a fairly busy, maybe even sellout, crowd. There’s no doubt that a good house feels like an event. It all works better. It might also be good to take into account that when I’ve got twelve shows on my itinerary, as I have on this latest American solo outing (October 2021), it feels like quite enough to me. I’ve done my work in the trenches, and as you can see here, I have not been idle: </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://homepages.uni-regensburg.de/~dej09534/gparker/gig-list.htm"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">https://homepages.uni-regensburg.de/~dej09534/gparker/gig-list.htm</span></a></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">A few people mention the recent lack of shows in Los Angeles and other places in that area of California. If my agent had received any offers that made sense in that part of the state he would have put them in front of me. </span>But they’ve just not been coming in now for a few years whereas shows in the more northern areas have. I’m not the only artist whose worth goes up and down in various territories. It happens. It’s not because either my agent or me “don’t like” the southern part of the state. “When are you coming back to Nashville?” I’ve been asked lately. Here’s a clear picture of why it may not be for a very long time: I played in the small room (just a 100 seater) at the City Winery there on both of the last solo tours I did (2018 & 2019). The first one sold out, so they repeated the offer for the following year. It stiffed. The exact same thing happened in Atlanta, which I also did on both tours. That was packed in 2018 but thin on the ground the next year. Neither of these towns are a stronghold for me, never have been, but if they are left alone for long enough (I’m thinking five years at least is realistic) I might be able to pull a respectable crowd. I knew this would probably happen going into the 2019 tour but hoped for the best anyway, glad to be shown the confidence by the promoters to have me back so soon. But promoters can’t keep throwing money away on an act who has a limited audience, like myself (Pretend It’s A Business!), they can’t keep losing money backing a losing horse. The same fans won’t keep coming back in the same numbers. Seeing anyone lose money on my behalf does not feel good. Most promoters/venue owners are not sharks and a hell of a lot of them really like my work and know that I’m a class act and always put on a good show. They’re just running a business, just like me.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I’ll never be able to write enough explanations of how this thing works and be able to convince some people that I’m not bullshitting here, I get it. There’s just not enough words to make it clear enough. And I’m betting that I’m still going to get a few “But why don’t you…?” - in other words, someone might kindly be offering ideas as to how I can play “in their town.” I understand and am flattered, always, that people really do want to see me play, and I’m thankful for that, but maybe it would be less frustrating to just accept my description here, and that I’m not playing somewhere because I don’t like where you live. And if you think I’m not playing a particular state because of political reasons, you’re wrong. That never enters my head.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Whatever the system is, I still feel strongly that the part of this business that cannot be beat is the show - that part that isn’t a business. The satisfaction - even transcendence - and all the other complicated emotions that live work brings, is the end result. These are the real rewards - It’s the show and the response that brings the delight. And It usually helps when it’s a well-attended house. I often wish I could see a string of dates in other areas, but I’m a pragmatist and I fully understand that in the Northwest of America, for yet another example, is an area that I’ve had mixed success in throughout my career but that has now waned to not really enough to make a viable run of it. Times change, it happens. I’m just not going to get the bookings from some areas anymore. Same with Texas. I love going to Texas! I’m not ignoring anywhere deliberately, but that particular state has always been a bit up and down and right now, a small venue in Austin is probably all that is realistic. It would be nice to be popular in Florida (including Jacksonville!), but I’m not. Hell, I’d like to see a string of dates in Arkansas! But I flew in for a one-off gig in Little Rock once and it died a death. I don’t think that particular state is going to pop up on my itinerary any time soon. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yes, yes, I can hear it: why not be an opening act on tours that play these other places? Do you know what being an opening act usually pays? Usually not much. Even without that little matter, it’s all working uphill, being an opener, and it’s gotta be exactly right to make sense and it can be dispiriting for someone who isn’t young and trying to get somewhere to slog through against the wind of an audience that looks up at you on the stage like you came from another planet, singing in an incomprehensible language. Been there. It doesn’t kill ya, but…</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I hope you can take this explanation at face value. It is what it is.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Or maybe a public service announcement.)</span></p>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NIXON’S RULES - </span>A SINGLE</div>
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About four years ago, I emailed a local Labour MP in London asking what the current stance of the party was regarding the “war on drugs.” Now that anyone with half a brain in their head can see that the policy is a demonstrable and disastrous failure, surely, the political party whose central beliefs revolve around caring about, and seeking to help, the very people the policy deliberately targets - the lower classes, the most vulnerable, and now in keeping with the American model, almost entirely young black males with a few other inconvenient skin shades thrown in - it seemed a no brainer that Britain’s Labour Party would be at the forefront of supporting drug law reform. Not so much, it turned out.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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We met in the canteen in the Houses of Parliament, surrounded by security cops having tea. The Labour MP turned out to be woefully clueless on the subject, even quoting the current Prime Minister David Cameron, a Tory, who I’d noticed had recently said on TV, “Our policy is working, drug taking is down this year.” He’d said this after a petition to legalise cannabis had been handed in that had attracted at least 100,000 signatures, which meant that some form of Parliamentary debate might be in order. My Labour MP appeared to take Cameron’s comment as a victory and that the “problem” of drugs was well on the way to being addressed and beaten. (Of cannabis, she also said: “but it gives you psychosis, doesn’t it?” Ah, I thought, that’s why me and practically everyone I’ve known for about 50 years is completely bonkers. Well, that explains a lot.)</div>
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Continuing to support ruining lives whilst criminalising people whom their Party allegedly represents seemed all well and good to this MP. What else would you? It seemed to be the settled idea of both major parties, even though all the evidence shows that this has zero impact on reducing the sheer amount of gear floating around the nation (and now, in the intervening years since our conversation, Britain is number one in Europe for drug deaths). This failed policy of social injustice was treated as normal behaviour by a Labour Party MP. But what really left me with my jaw hanging was that after about 40 minutes of conversation, the MP suddenly came out with what some drug law reform organisation members - as I’ve heard since - hear privately from MP’s from both sides: “Well, we can’t say anything anyway, we’ll get killed in the press. The Daily Mail? Cuh!” This is what a government representative I voted for and is paid by the British tax payer said. I honestly didn’t know how to respond to this. (And this particular MP really <i>does </i>work tirelessly helping some of the most challenged people in the area.)<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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My Labour representative had actually uttered those words, expressing concern of pissing off a right wing organ of the gutter press tabloids in which every woman is described as having “An ample cleavage and a pert bottom!” Oh my god, how terrifying they are, run away, run away, tiny English brains can’t take it! </div>
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Yes, the people we vote for are hamstrung, in mortal fear of trash right wing tabloids. “We can’t possibly annoy them,” was clearly the MP’s main worry regarding a failed and worldwide disastrous policy! A policy that has made Gt. Britain the number one drug death capital of Europe, and our government have made it clear that well documented harm reduction programmes used in other countries such as safe injection facilities will not be tolerated. The punishment addicted Home Office have zero interest in public safety, and the chances of getting something of indeterminate strength and purity regarding heroin/opioid products and many other drugs in the black market is high. It shocked me that the tabloids are still wielding so much power in Britain, no less than they were when I was a kid. (Talking to some old friends after the Brexit vote, I realised the right wing tabloids’ power was not only limited to affecting the decisions of MP’s, but also the working classes. But that’s another jaw dropping phenomenon - don’t get me started.)</div>
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After this illuminating conversation with a British MP I decided I needed to investigate the matter, and if possible become as weaponised with knowledge as the word “drugs” has been weaponised by propaganda, so I attended an event held by LEAP UK (<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff;"><a href="http://ukleap.org/about/">http://ukleap.org/about/</a>)</span>, an organisation consisting of people working diligently against the continued U.K. government support of what are, essentially, Nixon’s Rules.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Comprising of plenty of ex and current police officials, including former drug squad members like Neil Woods (help, I’m sleeping with the enemy!) and the odd ex MI5 agent. I chatted with a few LEAP members after hearing them talk passionately about the inhumanity of the policy and its catastrophic results. After the talks, one of the LEAP UK members, director Jason Reed, vaguely suggested - in what was more of a loose aside that anything else - “A song would be good.” Well, wave a red flag at a bull...</span></div>
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Which brings us to the song itself - Nixon’s Rules.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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The Nixon administrations hugely emblematic War On Drugs announcement and the follow up tactics cannot be minimised in the sense that, although it was well after the modern architect of the War On Drugs, Harry Anslinger, codified it in the ‘30’s, the Nixon administration further enlarged upon the basic methods of its execution: demonise the arbitrary list of inconvenient illegal psychoactive substances with blunt force and classifying them, as Nixon exclaimed, “America’s number one enemy: drugs.” Then you get the public in a state of moral panic, using both right wing press and the often gullible left wing press to back up this claim with the usual exaggerations and hugely inflated dangers that date back to the ‘30’s <i>Reefer Madness </i>propaganda film, then coerce the United Nations into brutally prosecuting the policy throughout the world in an act of imperialism that the Americans learned only too well from us. As we speak, Nixon’s Rules are alive and thriving in British Government policy.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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Now, I’ll hand it over to Nixon aide at the time, John Ehrlichman to explain how this warlike model works in simple terms: <span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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JOHN EHRLICHMAN<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“But in 2016, when former Nixon aide and domestic policy advisor, </i><a href="https://www.merryjane.com/news/nixon-aide-war-on-drugs-invented-to-repress-blacks-and-hippies"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff;"><i>John Ehrlichma</i></span></a><a href="http://www.merryjane.com/news/nixon-aide-war-on-drugs-invented-to-repress-blacks-and-hippies"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff;"><i>n</i></span></a><i> was quoted in an interview given 22 years ago, he claimed that the War on Drugs had nothing to do with preventing addiction and that the administration knowingly used drug enforcement policy to actively target anti-war leftists and the black community. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” said Ehrlichman. “You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalising both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.</i>”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">“Of course we did.” If this doesn’t clarify the matter for you, you might want to call a brain surgeon and ask if they have a better one lying around somewhere that they can insert into your thick head. </span>The above statement nails the entire essence of arguably the most crushing policy of social injustice in modern history. A policy that is to this day largely adhered to in the United Kingdom and many other parts of the world. In the case of the U.K., it is still used for nothing much more now than political expediency. Saying “We’re the ‘Tough On Drugs’ Party when decades of being “tough” have created a Britain where a 14-year-old kid can get illegal drugs easier than the legal ones is finally, not quite cutting it anymore. If you’ve walked past a corner store and an underage kid asks you if you could go in and buy something for them then you know that the store sells drugs - alcohol and nicotine - and your response would be the same as any decent person, and unless you were a sexual predator, that would be a resounding No. Scoring illegal gear for that kid, however, is much easier, with no inconvenient ID checks.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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As Nixon liked to say, “When you think of marijuana it’s all Jews and niggers.” But he also felt the need to add heroin as the latter’s main choice of immoral behaviour, just to make sure. This kind of comment was on the White House tapes, but in the ‘30’s; however, our aforementioned unhinged prohibitionist warrior Harry Anslinger did not need to hide his racism so much and he told it like it is:<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">“</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">.”</span></div>
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Oh yes, a real doozie was Harry! This quote is one of many from this lovely fella, but the basic terms of it, although less harshly expressed now, are still applied by our very own British Home Office; essentially Anslinger’s manifesto is still adhered to in its basic principles of classism and racism but dressed up in slightly more opaque terms as presented on a daily basis to the fearful and ignorant British public. Worse still, the Home Office (largely comprised of Old Etonians) employs only one real policy, which is simply: We can’t send the “wrong message,” or: We must send the “right message.” Have you noticed that? They seem awfully keen on repeating those phrases. That’s because their idea of the “right message” is basically: “If you take the drugs we consider immoral, then die already.” There’s not a lot else they do, except shout the occasional “Crackdown!” (They <i>love </i>that one, too.) That’s basically it, that’s the sum of the Home Office/UK government’s sterling attempts to make sense of the subject of the arbitrarily illegal drugs that flood the U.K. <span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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Despite this paucity of honesty and intelligence and their wilful ignorance, things are changing. Lately, largely due to the decades of work from reform groups going back decades via the early champs RELEASE (<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://www.release.org.uk/">https://www.release.org.uk</a>)</span>, this fakery has not been holding up too well, even to your average Joe. The British Government know they’re holding up a flimsy mishmash of desperate excuses - they <i>know </i>it’s all gone tits up on them - and it’s good to see at last a Labour Party drug law reform group out and about the country discussing the now clearly monstrous failure, even if top-down the party has been complicit in this travesty all along: <a href="https://www.labourdrugpolicy.com/about"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff;">https://www.labourdrugpolicy.com/about</span></a> <span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And even the conservatives are having a little stab at it: <a href="https://www.cdprg.co.uk/blog"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff;">https://www.cdprg.co.uk/blog</span></a></span></div>
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In one of the LEAP events I attended two members of the bravest reform organisations of them all spoke - <a href="https://anyoneschild.org/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff;">https://anyoneschild.org</span></a><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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To hear people who have lost kids to overdoses due to prohibition who now rightfully consider that only legal regulation and education is the safest way to deal with this matter in order to minimise the damage was not easy. Any parent is going to empathise with someone who has lost a kid or loved one due to the continued irresponsibility of backwards, moralising, and often hypocritical government, many of whom jokingly admit their illegal drug use in the hallowed halls of Eton and other lofty educational establishments when they were younger, knowing full well that their elite status and surroundings gave them complete immunity where law enforcement is concerned. The very idea of what would more accurately be described as “the war on people thinly disguised as a war on drugs” relies on arresting and criminalising people who cannot adequately defend themselves and who more often than not, are absolutely fucked once they have been stigmatised for life in the form of a criminal record that will stay on the PNC (Police National Computer) for their entire lives. And, if you read the aforementioned drug squad expert Neil Woods’ books, <i>Good Cop, Bad War </i>and <i>Drug Wars </i>you will also clearly see how arresting a cell of really nasty dealers, <i>real violent criminals </i>that the flow of illegal drugs in the particular area that they’ve been operating in is interrupted by not much more than <i>two hours. </i>Those gang members will by then be replaced by another team, often by definition more nasty than the last lot; this appears to be an endless stream and will continue that way if the police are continually given the pointless job of dealing with this issue. And your tax money is funding this.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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The public’s lack of cohesive thought on this subject is not surprising. Decades of systemic propaganda, deliberate misinformation and outright lies have weaponised the word “drugs” so thoroughly that whenever I have a conversation about the drugs policy with those rather rare old friends who have never and wouldn’t even consider taking an illegal substance, it’s obvious to me that every word and thought that comes out of them has been implanted by propaganda. This is not an accident. They don’t have a thought in their heads that is actually their own. In any other country, on any other subject, we’d call this brainwashing, plain and simple. But in 2019 it is still the weapon of choice for governments all over the world.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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There’s scads of information about the power of propaganda on the human mind that is worth a look at. Here’s just one example: <a href="https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/propaganda-and-human-mind">https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/propaganda-and-human-mind</a><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<i>“The wonder is less that we bought the initial tale, but that for many the belief in the tale persisted even as the evidence spoke decisively against it. Once the comforting falsehoods had taken hold, they had vice-grip on our beliefs. This vice grip is the result of what social psychologists call confirmation bias -- the tendency to notice and seek out what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, avoid, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs. Confirmation bias often leads us to subject putatively disconfirming evidence to very severe criticism or outright dismissal.”</i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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And here’s something worth examining. For people who have enthusiasm for the arbitrarily illegal drugs, Great Britain is a giant funhouse, and practically a tourist attraction. The incredible amount of variety in the UK of available cannabis strains alone, much of which equals the high quality gear available in America’s medical and recreational pot, is something that folks who discovered this plant in the 60’s could not have begun to imagine back then. Cocaine is half the price it was in the late 70’s and through the 80’s and so common as to be labelled “pub dust.” </div>
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Thank you, war on drugs! You’re welcome!<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">I can assure you that a large amount of lovers of illicit gear of many kinds do not want the laws to change. Why hand it to the government, they’ll ask?, they’ll only fuck everything up. They’ve got a point: of course they will. And high end international criminal organisations would of course agree: billions in tax free money to be made - supply and demand rules. They’d rather that not go away. </span>And I’m not directly arguing for legal regulation in this song. The lyrics certainly don’t suggest it in any concrete terms. Reform orgs such as <a href="https://transformdrugs.org/"><span style="color: #212020; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://transformdrugs.org</span></a> do that much better than a song can.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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I haven’t lost a kid to a dose of ecstasy that was knocked up by Chinese chemists on the orders of international criminal groups and died because it was something else entirely or was a dose many times stronger than is safe. Legal regulation would obviously be better, but when just cannabis alone is finally legalised in this fuddy duddy backwards nation it will be with as much deliberate contempt as the fake “legalisation” the Home Office has managed with the recent “legalisation” of cannabis for medical use: only the British government could make the drug legal for medical purposes in the sure knowledge that it will still be impossible for anyone who isn’t filthy rich to get hold of it, unless of course they stick with the black market. Get it straight - there are no accidents in the war on people pretending to be a war on drugs.</div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;">As for the writing of Nixon’s Rules I didn’t have any trouble finding the perfect target.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;">After all, a song called </span><i style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;">The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 </i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;">doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and </span><i style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;">Harry Anslinger Was a Right Twat </i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 17px;">seemed similarly unwieldy.</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The Misuse of Drugs act 1971 </i>(1971? Where have I seen that year mentioned before) also seemed inappropriately dry.</span></div>
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The football chant of “England” worked perfectly although “Britain” is more appropriate, but comes over as clunky when performed, and seeing as the Home Office/Government is centred in London yelling “England” did the trick for me.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The aforementioned LEAP man Jason Reed, after hearing the recording, asked if I could change the “England” chorus to something more appropriate for the entire world because LEAP actually began in the USA and is a worldwide organisation, but when I recently went back to the studio where the song was recorded, Seth Powell the engineer asked me if I had taken the master tracks away on an outboard unit, but I had not. He asked this because he can’t find them on his computer anywhere! So there - I was stuck with the England-centric nature of the beast. That’s that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And in any case, when you’ve visited a state-legal pot shop in America, although it might feel ironic that the country that enforced this prohibition junk all over the world is now streets ahead of us, it still felt like entering a sensible, adult world, and to see people walking out of that dispensary swinging sealed paper bags of fine dank right past an on duty cop (the easiest cop job in the world - there ain’t no trouble from legal pot smokers!), you tend to think that the glass ceiling in that country is not far off from receiving a good punching. </span></div>
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I’ll clarify here that this song was recorded in August 2017 but put on the back burner when I began to write the songs on the “Cloud Symbols” album, which obviously could not possibly include a song like this, the stylistic disparity negates that option. The reason I went back to the studio last July, 2019, was to edit the mix, creating in a short pop single style A side and letting the B side go on until the band fall apart after a ton of ripping harmony guitar work from the great Mike Gent of the Figgs. The other musicians were the Figgs’ Pete Hayes on drums and Jon Powhida on bass. Everyone contributes backing vocals.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">I needed a video done in July before I returned to the UK and these guys proved difficult to schedule for the job so I thought it would be a bit of fun bringing in video “actors.” </span>Hence, Catskill Mountains local Wreckless Eric on guitar, Natalie Parker on bass, and her fella Zack Kerr on drums. Jimmy Parker worked the camera and editing.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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I’ve edited this blog to novella size from novel size because quite frankly, I could go on...and on. </div>
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But don’t get it from me, get it from the experts.</div>
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Books:<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<i>Chasing The Scream - </i>Johann Hari<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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There’s a lot to learn in this book, including Harry Anslinger’s contribution, something I’d previously missed altogether.</div>
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<i>The New Jim Crow - </i>Michelle Alexander<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The subtitle of this book 2010 book: <i>Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness </i>says it all. Find out how segregation is alive and thriving in modern America due entirely to the war on drugs. </span>It’s a simple equation, but a very disturbing read.</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Good Cop, Bad War</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Drug wars - Neil Woods with J.S. Rafaeli </i></span></div>
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If there’s one expert on the subject of on-the-ground drug activity in the U.K, it’s this guy.</div>
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<a href="https://filtermag.org/drug-policy-reform-movement/">https://filtermag.org/drug-policy-reform-movement/</a><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The above is a must read article and fully exposes the deliberate human rights violations of the war on drugs.</span></div>
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And follow the links to the drug law reform groups mentioned above and the many other interested parties. There’s plenty of them...<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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GP <span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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Twitter: @ItsGrahamParker<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.100-percent.co.uk%2Fcollections%2Fgraham-parker%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3u8iQWP5FuV-wXaeH4mzGntbFgQMlpff3JahkuFKRE7UaXylUpO1H7MsY&h=AT2Ni32Vu24T7tyl96jV6onqH3fS0VmonOo2emwEtGw5amF5MTGgB2AhGYSUYJd_Q_wOikmSbnGOtNufvOM4elyji8bu8nuPUSV3jVAslN4drDgBfuQ8UuEy6WWEnqVOBei8g1tAzrNKr5_0oWBNlrznniJEtIVbKbZnatMh5zjfBRtulQhTqH0Jy0Kek-Y6XNbXnpCkBO5NxiTcafvuEpdDO12pluf037lgvQegsJ7ZXItdX25Y0bAnoYLL2MQTg-Jys-mrOcm_C4k9b2kafUDFudinvIDjpttuSlArE5qoHWD_mpfC1kjYa16Om-sD01WY3tZuCOt3-hZtwODawYB9zynrztax73sOhoY6ZU_hvp5qxyVH5OOWkDVrXCQ_fXWHDhUJanqf5jLA6n4yvOmiMDxyaj2PlBiMVfFjPYTlQ1W_rElsbjWrZyoBTdhgDaFjLMZOvzh73Le4NsY_YWGTMXt8wkcCwnPsVJeyaH7g_EQiSm0yeznROkFiKqqrgjWSNB_gHYRLHRnR1t1U32qzN3flba_wbALxHFzUS2oRrLxlRAbBL7L_d0DQWlEDH_7vchvMdKR-37igBIIdr6oJ8K7KWz6Vp3ICtsZhpisl47ifFG75AlvQ2xx7">https://store.100-percent.co.uk/collections/graham-parker</a></div>
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<a href="https://youtu.be/THDumXOWP_o">https://youtu.be/THDumXOWP_o</a><br />
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By request, here are the lyrics:<br />
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>NIXON'S RULES</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b>SUMMER 1971 NIXON MADE HIS FATAL SPEECH</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>INSISTING ON A GLOBAL WAR ON DRUGS</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>WITH THE FURTHEST REACH</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AMERICA AND THE UNITED NATIONS</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PUSHED THIS ALL OVER THE EARTH</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>HIT THE POOR HIT THE BLACKS HIT THE FREAKS</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>HIT THEM FOR ALL YOU'RE WORTH</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b>CHORUS</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AND WE'RE LIVING UNDER NIXON'S RULES </b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>LIVING UNDER NIXONS RULES</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>YOU'RE ALL STILL LIVING UNDER NIXONS RULES</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>LIVING UNDER NIXON'S RULES</b></span></div>
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<b>ENGLAND! ARE YOU OK WITH THAT</b></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>I GUESS YOU ARE</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>ENGLAND! ARE YOU OK WITH THAT</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>WELL GO BACK TO SLEEP </b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>WHY DON’T YOU GO BACK TO SLEEP</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b>CHORUS</b><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;">
<b>THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT STILL LYING THRU THEIR TEETH</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PROTECTING THEIR FAILED POLICY</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>THERE'S MORE DAMAGE MORE DRUGS MORE DANGER</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>THAN THERE HAS EVER BEEN</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;">
<b style="font-size: 14px;">ENGLAND! ARE YOU OK WITH THAT</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>DON’T SAY YOU ARE</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>ENGLAND! ARE YOU OK WITH THAT</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>DON’T GO BACK TO SLEEP</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>NO DON’T GO BACK TO SLEEP</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b>CHORUS x 2</b></div>
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<b>IN THE SUBURBS, IN THE CITIES</b></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AND IN THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT </b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>STILL FLOGGING THIS DEAD HORSE</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;">
<b>CHORUS</b></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-49035741256605273732019-02-27T17:13:00.001-08:002019-02-27T17:13:56.952-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
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SQUEEZING OUT SPARKS</div>
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Solo Acoustic 40th Anniversary </div>
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After producing the excellent book, “The Songs Of Three Chords Good” and “Mystery Glue,” the complete acoustic, lead and rhythm guitar charts of both of those albums, Martin Belmont has now turned his highly skilled attentions to “Squeezing Out Sparks.” Brinsley was brought in to go over his parts on this album as well, which was released in March 1979. Yes, there was much head scratching going on as both guitarists tried to figure out just what the hell they’d been playing all those years ago. It’s typical that musicians who make an album, then go out on tour where they will play some of those songs, will change what they play very quickly, and often from night to night, to make the songs more suitable in a live setting. The parts they play are constantly morphing, so it’s often baffling to revisit the original form of any particular album. My job was easy - I played very little guitar on Sparks and mostly just had to proof read the lyrics.</div>
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On one of our regular get togethers over an Indian meal, Martin mentioned that “Squeezing Out Sparks” will be 40 years old in 2019. Well, with a glass of cheap wine inside me (from the extensive wine list - “Red wine, White wine”) and some dopamine producing madras heat rifling through my bloodstream, I foolishly blurted out that I should record the entire album solo acoustic, to go along with Martin’s book. D’Oh! What was I saying? What have I put my foot into? Over the years I’ve played a good few Sparks songs live, both with bands and solo, but this is not an acoustic guitar album; there is no easy swing involved - it’s almost all big guitar rock, a gruelling challenge to play alone. Still, I wrote the songs on an acoustic guitar, so “impossible” is not a word that was going to get me out of this jam. I had to pull it off now that I’d opened my big mouth, and that’s what I’ve attempted here, with varying degrees of success. “Don’t Get Excited” for instance was a real pig to get across on just an acoustic guitar when I wrote it, and that has not changed to this day. It won’t work well slowed down, turned into reggae, a waltz or salsa, and I can’t see a madrigal gambit paying off, either. I was pretty much stuck with it as is and slogged through it accordingly.</div>
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Here it needs to be mentioned that I’ve taken some liberties when it comes to certain passages of some songs. No one wants to hear a lonely acoustic guitar droning on forever on the “Passion Is No Ordinary Word” guitar solo without the actual lead guitar playing it, so that is truncated in the same way I employ when performing the number onstage. Not being one who enjoys listening to my own old material and slavishly copying what I did 40 years ago, “Don’t Get Excited” needed a similar pairing down and quite harshly, too, and I must confess, I bluffed the solo part all the way to the actual chords themselves and came up with something almost on the spot that gets me out of trouble and on to the third verse as quickly as possible. It also needs to be mentioned to anyone who wants to learn the correct arrangements that they should read Martin’s painstakingly accurate work in his book and not confuse my solo recording with accuracy. Martin is representing what actually happened, I decidedly am not! I didn’t even study the lyrics on some of the tunes, so there might be a few bits that just popped out of my mouth in the wrong order when that dread, red light that indicates recording is in progress on the virtual tape machine flashed on.</div>
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“Mercury Poisoning” did get a real reinvention, however, and I have in fact played it a few times live in 3/4 time, a sort of evil waltz, and that works quite decently here. This song was written almost to order, after my manager Dave Robinson insisted I write an entire album of hate songs directed at Mercury Records. I wrote this one tune on the subject and then made it clear the rest of the “I Hate Mercury” album would not be forthcoming. When an artist starts whining about their record label, fans should wonder whether that artist has lost the plot. It’s not a good look. And to be honest, Mercury or not, I was having a blast when we were out on the road in America in 1976 promoting “Howlin’ Wind.” Dave was the one who had to bear the brunt of Mercury’s obvious lack of interest. It was all new to me and the most exciting and unexpected time of my life, and I had an idea that more records would be forthcoming and that things would grow in their own way, Mercury Records notwithstanding.</div>
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(“Mercury Poisoning” was not on the original album and appears here as a spare track because it was recorded at the same time as the album but not considered good enough by me to make the cut. Martin has also added “I Want You Back (Alive),” a tune recorded in a mobile studio a short time before we did the album and something I’m unlikely to ever mess with on an acoustic guitar.)</div>
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Going back to lyrical accuracy, do not believe what you see on these lyric sites! There’s some odd stuff out there. “Grandfather’s money” in “Nobody Hurts You,” for instance. What? Or, “You know all my favourite bitches” in “Don’t Get Excited”. I would have been well ahead of the rappers if I’d used the word bitches in a song in 1979! Then there’s the chord charts. I’ve rarely seen one that’s anywhere near accurate. Anyone who wants accuracy must check out Martin’s work.</div>
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When it comes to the actual recording of these solo versions, Simon Edwards, the bass player on “Cloud Symbols,” has a nice home studio that worked perfectly. He put a couple of mics in front of the acoustic and I’d brought in a small Ibanez acoustic amp I picked up for £25 in a junk store near Hastings, and we put a mic on that for some heft. I had a feeling that odd little brown amp would earn its money one day! We did this because - as described above - this is not an album that lends itself to light acoustic versions and I’d decided somewhere in the run-up to recording that I wouldn’t be bringing an electric guitar into this.<b></b>Therefore, a bit of experimentation was needed to beef up my Gibson J200 acoustic and I think it worked pretty well, to the point where you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is more than one guitar playing. This entire album took two four hour sessions to record and one four-hour session to mix. Most of my takes were first takes. Now that’s how it’s done!</div>
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GP</div>
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<br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-53848547892881280022018-08-12T10:25:00.002-07:002018-08-12T10:25:52.415-07:00ODD BEGINNINGS, LOGICAL FUTURES<br />
<b>CLOUD SYMBOLS</b><br />
By Graham Parker and the Goldtops
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">WHILST ON A U.K. duo tour with Brinsley Schwarz in 2016, I got an email from Judd Apatow asking if I had any spare songs that might be considered for “one of” his new TV shows, as he put it. I presumed that meant something previously recorded with a band but not released, so I said I didn’t. But Brinsley and I had three days off and I returned to London where it occurred to me that of a bunch of tunes I’d been working on, one song, “Love Comes,” might be of interest, and I thought it was finished enough to send him. I stuck the iPhone on the counter up against the kitchen tiles (which produced a nice kitchen tile slapback effect) and recorded it, voice and acoustic guitar only. Judd loved it and asked how I would record it. I bluffed some kind of vague answer then promptly forgot about it! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A month or so later, Judd emailed me asking “Where’s my song?!” Oops, I better get busy quick. “Love Comes” screamed Martin Belmont on electric guitar to me, backed by brushes, bass, keyboards and maybe a clarinet solo (which turned out to be a melodica solo by Geraint Watkins). After describing the treatment I wanted to Martin, I asked him to recommended the right people for the job. He came up with Simon Edwards on bass and Roy Dodds on drums. He also mentioned Neil Brockbank, an engineer/producer I’d met a few times and who has worked on many recent Nick Lowe records. His studio was now located in fabulous Tooting Bec, south London. Not exactly the upscale neighbourhood of RAK’s St John’s Wood, a convenient walk up the road from me, where we did the last Rumour album, “Mystery Glue,” but suitably cheaper. I’d been thinking of Neil for a while and thought he’d be perfect to coproduce the kind of tunes I was now working on, and Martin’s recommendation sealed it for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We did a day in the studio and came out with one of the sweetest tracks I’ve ever cut, and by the time Neil had mixed it, I knew I’d got exactly the sound I needed for more recordings. “Love Comes” appeared on Judd Apatow’s HBO show “Crashing” and by the time I was back into the studio with the same band, I’d become very inspired by the next four songs I had ready to go (soon after recording, one of those songs, “Dreamin’ was used by Judd on his show “Love” on Netflix). After we’d recorded those tunes I listened to the rough mixes and continued writing songs that I thought would hang together as a conceptually consistent album, and then left it at that, to be continued after a four month spell in America. It was there that I got a terrible email from Martin telling me the sad news that Neil Brockbank had died suddenly of cancer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I had not known Neil for long but he was not hard to like being with, from both a working relationship point of view and a damn good bloke to hang out with. It was such a great loss and hit me hard, and those people who had known and worked with him for much longer than our brief association must have been devastated. I was so looking forward to getting back in the studio with Neil and the same personnel. One of those personnel was his assistant, a young American fellow named Tuck Nelson, who lives in London. He was in the USA working not long after Neil’s death, and I made it a point to get together and have a chat with him. Luckily, Tuck felt the same as I did: let’s get back into Goldtop studio as soon as possible and finish what we’d started, in Neil’s honour as much as anything. <b>CLOUD SYMBOLS </b>is dedicated to Neil. It’s no accident that we continued to try to create what Neil had such a big hand in. The first track finished was “Love Comes” and I thought it fitting to end the album with it, as the sound of that track is what Tuck and I did our best to echo throughout the record, even though we both agreed we couldn’t quite match Neil’s brilliant touch at capturing this kind of singer/songwriter music, of which Neil was specialist, but we gave it our all anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The end result captures <i>exactly</i> the kind of music I should be making today. There’s a few heavyweight emotional tracks it’s true, both “Maida Hill” and “Is The Sun Out Anywhere” being prime examples, and “Every Saturday Nite” is only thinly disguised as a jolly pop song by dint of its uplifting chorus groove, but the main thrust of the album is concerned with my signature swing and lyrical playfulness that goes all the way back to “White Honey” and “Lady Doctor,” from “Howlin’ Wind.” And there’s six songs with the Rumour Brass on! As stated earlier, Martin Belmont was the musical lynchpin and his suggestion of the basic rhythm section - Simon Edwards on bass and Roy Dodds on drums, was perfect. Roy’s drum kit seems to grow out of my acoustic guitar, Simon’s bass is endlessly inventive and Martin’s guitar work is tone perfect within every song. And with Geraint Watkins on keyboards we have a delightful mix of quirkiness and sweet country/soul riffs caressing every track. What a unique musician he is! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And in keeping with my current recording style that goes back to “The Mona Lisa’s Sister,” the vocals you hear are all live, played along with the acoustic guitar, not one single vocal drop-in took place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m very proud of this record, no question. And if your hips aren’t swinging two bars into “Girl In Need,” you might want to seek medical advice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Enjoy!</span></div>
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The album will be released on CD and hot pink vinyl LP. Signed copies of both are available for pre-order from the 100% Store (Link: http://found.ee/CloudSymbols_Store) . There is a money-saving discount for those who purchase both.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-41986440010513486082014-03-17T12:18:00.001-07:002014-03-19T23:51:32.188-07:00THE BOX SET<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: 24px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVsATJe-W5bqcwDonjiO0v2c_9a7r4Gf9LPYQLHfd0gRDjoe62qeQEmSZB9UuFeVS56ts_UYNdlZQRcDiCAGQR9qEzgotMwPwqwAVg-gK-OkjA7KFl0sKD9AtE3dY8CGN7IDh8fqTlDzA/s1600/711rqYHaJbL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVsATJe-W5bqcwDonjiO0v2c_9a7r4Gf9LPYQLHfd0gRDjoe62qeQEmSZB9UuFeVS56ts_UYNdlZQRcDiCAGQR9qEzgotMwPwqwAVg-gK-OkjA7KFl0sKD9AtE3dY8CGN7IDh8fqTlDzA/s1600/711rqYHaJbL._SL1500_.jpg" height="190" width="200" /></a>I can't claim to have listened to all this stuff. Very little of it, to be honest.</div>
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In fact, there are a few discs here that I haven't bothered to listen to at all.</div>
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I, perhaps pretentiously, consider myself to be a current artist involved with current songs, some of which my delicate artistic, yet dangerously gnarly, hands were strumming through a few hours ago in an effort to remember what the bugger I was thinking about when I wrote some of them, which was even before I mixed the last album, "Three Chords Good."</div>
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Yes, I like to be ahead of the game.</div>
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What does surprise me though - whenever I do actually bother to listen to an old live recording - is that even though my memory of those past brutal tours tells me that my voice was always as shredded as Parmesan cheese, it actually wasn't as bad as I think it was. Perhaps because of my complete lack of experience as a singer in the early days of GP & the Rumour, I could barely talk before many gigs, let alone sing, having done all the things you should not do with human vocal chords the night before. But with the audience in front of me and the fear of looking like a complete prat, I'd somehow find at least a little something in the vocal chords when I hit the stage. Judging from what I've heard here, I obviously found more than a little something. Sometimes, there's even a touch of nuance and soul in there, those elements, as Bruce Springsteen kindly pointed out on the documentary, "Don't Ask Me Questions," of all the things that "made the music so great," - that "soul and emotion" behind the "caustic" yell that took it above the level of some mindless rabble-rousing "a-pub a-pub a-rocka/pub-a pub-a rocka!" nonsense that some critics might think sums up my worth.</div>
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As for the Rumour, well, I never doubted that even on a night we considered to be pretty flat, they were always good, and often superb. We might be playing the songs at a pace that flatlines any hint of subtlety and swing, two of the prime ingredients of the band, but they still had alarmingly creative musicianship and made up for the amphetamine-on-steroids approach with some blinding coordination that defies logic. What a band! They should really be backing someone who can sing properly!</div>
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Luckily, here in this collection, we do have a modern performance that satisfies my "current" sensibilities in the two discs that make up our recent appearance at the lovely Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN.</div>
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New stuff, old stuff, it doesn't really matter. It was the last show on our second modern day tour of the US, so we're pretty hot, and I'm thankful that we were able to use the in-house recording gear to capture a real stonker of a night. Thanks to all at the Fitz to their help.</div>
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And finally, thanks so much to all the contributors who made this set possible, and of course to John Howells for wanting to do it and pulling it off with great conviction, determination and skill. And look at that brilliantly mad artwork!</div>
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Enjoy!</div>
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GP<br />
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Buy the Graham Parker and The Rumour Official Bootleg Box <a href="http://grahamparker.net/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=28&zenid=us6po9tp7fete58cur01cj1692" target="_blank">here</a></div>
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<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-ZN1W-rvOvgo%2FUydLaWGVsWI%2FAAAAAAAAAFc%2FkbnMVg-67Qc%2Fs1600%2F711rqYHaJbL._SL1500_.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVsATJe-W5bqcwDonjiO0v2c_9a7r4Gf9LPYQLHfd0gRDjoe62qeQEmSZB9UuFeVS56ts_UYNdlZQRcDiCAGQR9qEzgotMwPwqwAVg-gK-OkjA7KFl0sKD9AtE3dY8CGN7IDh8fqTlDzA/s1600/711rqYHaJbL._SL1500_.jpg" -->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-67876256175554874792013-06-22T12:09:00.000-07:002013-06-22T12:09:05.058-07:00"THIS IS LIVE""THIS IS LIVE"<br />GP & the Rumour on the set of "This Is 40."<br />USA release August 2013 (hopefully in the UK/Europe around then, too).<br /><br />(Being a blurb about the upcoming live DVD/Blu Ray featuring me and the Rumour's complete performances on the set of "This Is 40."<br />If you don't feel like reading my ramblings below, just go directly to Shout!Factory and make your order: https://www.shoutfactory.com/node/217652<br />It's very good.)<br /><br /> "Three Chords Good" had been recorded in July 2011, but the full band had still not been onstage together since the very end of 1979. The possibility of touring was no more than that: a possibility, but perhaps one with a certain inevitability behind it. But there was one gig that by now had become an intriguing certainty.<br /> We could tell that Judd Apatow was deadly serious about a shoot with the Rumour for his in-progress movie "This Is 40" when the cameras, manned by the Gramaglia crew, who were in the process of producing the documentary "Don't Ask Me Questions," turned up at the studio. This was Judd's idea, and so by now there was no reason to doubt that we would indeed all meet again for a two-day shoot in Los Angeles scheduled for the last day of August and the first day of September, 2011. As previously stated, this was going to be our first time onstage together since 1979, and compared with turning up at the Nag's Head in transit vans unloading our own gear in a thunderstorm in some depressed town somewhere, it seemed about as likely as us being booked in the Enormodome to an audience of thousands, but even cooler.<br /> I was vacationing on the coast way down in the south of North Carolina but had to vacate two days early because of Hurricane Irene. I got back to New York state in time to be greeted by Hurricane Irene, a monster storm that did less damage to North Carolina than it did to Vermont! The thing was getting worse as it moved north, and even had the classic eye going for it, which I walked out into in the eerie silence before the back end of it came through with winds hammering outside at an alarming clip.<br />As the power went out and the garage under the house filled with water and trees bent double, I was never more pleased to know that I was going to be getting on an airplane bound for the West Coast, but whether I'd actually get to the airport was becoming more questionable with every hour.<br /> The day after the storm, as people were assessing the damage, I called the driver who was sent up from the city to collect me, and told him to wait by the downed tree in the road about 500 yards away.<br /> "I'll bring my stuff and climb over it," I told the driver.<br /> It took two and a half hours longer than usual, due to I-87 closing down in at least one section, but I got there, and with the certainty that power would be out for a good eight days, I put the chaos out of my mind and enjoyed the flight, even though Jason Segal was sitting behind me and talked - I kid you not - for the entire 5 hours of the flight! (When the plane landed, the guy next to me said: "I cant believe that guy behind us talked for the entire flight!" I agreed, equally incredulous.) But I had put the headphones on to block out the racket and watched "Arthur," trying not to pick up too many of Russell Brand's mannerisms, because at some point in this upcoming two-day shoot, I was also going to be doing a little acting, my second attempt after having already been on-set for a couple of weeks previously when they shot the backyard party scene of Pete and Debbie's birthday celebrations (my bit with Charlene Yi in that session didn't make the cut, but there might be some of it as an extra on the Blu Ray; I don't know, because I haven't got a Blu Ray player) and I did not want to go all Russell Brand on its ass.<br /> So, I arrived in LA and checked into the Sunset Marquis, an old stomping ground for me, until the modern world - which favors only people of great wealth - made its prices beyond that of most people who aren't Hedge Fund managers, or Sting. I found my way to this whole new area of recent development on its now vast grounds, walking into my "room," which was big enough to house a small nation, where I studied the bathroom fixtures, wondering what had gone wrong with my life that a hotel room (more a cottage, really) like this was now something I would have to take a out a mortgage to stay in. "I thought I was doing alright!" I was thinking. "Oh, right, I am," my feverish brain reminded me. "I'm a principal actor in a Judd Apatow movie." (Jet lag...what can I tell you?)<br /> Once I finally got over my almost erotic fixation on the finer points of bathroom design, I put on some trunks and strolled down to the pool, where I found three Rumour members, two in the water looking svelte, one at full stretch on a couch about the size of the hotel rooms I usually crash in.<br /> The band members who had arrived from the UK recounted their pampered 1st class Virgin Airways flights, describing their onboard seats/beds as being about the same size as the hotel rooms they usually stayed in, and a jolly time was had by all as the rest of the band members drifted around, and there we were, GP and Rumour, in somebody else's element.<br /> After a day or two of rehearsal, we were picked up outside the hotel at the usual amusing movie-making time of around 6AM and were driven (in a behemoth Mercedes van) to the Belasco Theater, about 50 minutes downtown in the already miserable Los Angeles traffic. The parking lot had been taken over by the trailers, and I found my one (my name on the door, natch) and stepped inside into the air conditioned arctic temperature, did some vocal warm-ups, had a breakfast fit for a king followed by make-up and dress, followed by the call and a walk next door to the Belasco itself.<br /> It was probably about 9AM when we stepped inside the theater to be greeted by a large melee of crew members and extras milling about, all swathed in a cloud of dry ice, making it feel unsettlingly like it was actually about 10PM and the show was about to start. What a joint! This place had apparently been closed down since about the same time as me and the Rumour had called it quits and had only recently been reopened after an excellent refurbishment with many art deco details preserved.<br /> Judd and I had agreed on a set list of about 12 songs, which I knew we would have to perform over and over again in various configurations with a multitude of camera angles each time. Two long days. Singing "Protection" at 10 in the morning may not be ideal, but I'll take it, and we had a great time onstage hitting that natural musical symbiosis that we always had. And we looked pretty good, too, as good as you can make a bunch of blokes who can get bus and tube passes in London for free can look at any rate. Even extras, in the breaks, were asking me: "Are you on iTunes? You guys are great!"<br /> Well, a new fan is a new fan.<br /><br /> There was talk right off the bat of the possibility of the footage at some point being edited together and sold as a stand-alone DVD. The generosity of Judd and music supervisor Jonathan Karp did indeed come through, as it did with everything else they proposed, and some of the "This Is 40" folks who put in the time for this are noted in the credits, but I'd also like to thank all the producers and technicians who worked on the film and got behind us, some in big ways, some in small, and all of it important. And it's nice to have your show introduced by Paul Rudd.<br /><br /> The sound and visuals are really something to behold. This will not happen again...<br /><br />Enjoy,<br /><br />GP<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=punkhartprodu-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B00DCG36KA&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-32488941548268339872013-03-25T19:08:00.004-07:002013-03-25T19:08:57.214-07:00MORE DOSH FOR NATALIEIn 1984 a party was held in the the Natural History Museum in New York City to celebrate the record breaking sales of Michael Jackson's new album "Thriller."<br />The invitation granted to a select group of people was a white cotton glove, bearing the words: <br />"Walter Yetnikoff, Don Dempsey, Allen Davis invite you to a MICHAEL JACKSON THRILLER PARTY. 2/7/84 9PM. AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, CPW at 79th ST. BLACK TIE. RSVP Susan Blond<br /><br />I got this glove from someone who was attending the party. He was a staff member of CBS Records who was close to Michael at the time and accompanied the artist to the event.<br />It is in good condition, a little faded from time but the invitational words are still clearly visible. It has a very small tear on the the index finger, probably because I wore it to the event!<br /><br />Now I've given it to my daughter Natalie to sell - more dosh for her trip to the land of sari's and sandals. Rickshaw rides aplenty I shouldn't wonder. I hope she brings me back a T-shirt that says: "My daughter went to India funded by my valuable collectables and all I got was this crap T-shirt."<br />
<br />
Here's the link:<br />
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<a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261191049290">http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261191049290</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-30333740370433806502013-03-17T19:06:00.000-07:002013-03-17T19:39:04.360-07:00BUY MY WALKMAN PRO CASSETTE RECORDER!My daughter Natalie, world traveler that she is, is about to embark on a visit to India and other rather dodgy areas in the East, for what reason, no one really knows. She'll be traveling with her boyfriend - which affords a modicum of assurance - but he doesn't know what they're doing either. I'd feel safer if she had some financial cushion in order to buy her way out of jail, hostage situations, and other everyday trials of the mystic lands. Not that I had any safety net when I was legging it around Europe and Morocco etc., but times were different then. Knowing that she won't have to beg for food, however, is at least something that might provide me and her mother at least a modicum of comfort. Therefor, I've been giving her things to sell (hey kid, earn it!). One of them is my marvelous old Sony Walkman Pro Cassette Recorder WM-D6C. It's hard to let this awesome piece of hardware go, but now that I have a teensy MP3 recorder to do my rough demos on, a much easier device seeing as you can email the results to your band rather than snail mail them cassettes, which might baffle modern day band members anyway, it will just sit in a box doing nothing. <br />
<br />
I listened to a Sam Cooke cassette of greatest hits on it the other day through headphones and very nearly reneged on the offer. The sound was amazing. Bright, clear high-end, rich middle ground and deep bass greeted my ears, making digital MP3 recordings sound like the thin excuse for fidelity that they are.<br />
What am I thinking? I found myself thinking. Sell this, so that my daughter can get wasted on primo Indian black in some crap hole hotel in Calcutta?<br />
Whatever, it's too late to stop now.<br />
This is the very machine that I recorded the "Carp Fishing On Valium" tunes on, which eventually were turned into a CD sold on this very website. This is the machine that I recorded the demos for "12 Haunted Episodes" on, which I listened to over and over again on high volume in headphones and decided right there and then (after a few buckets of Bad Chardonnay) that I should record the album solo (albeit in a proper recording studio), then add the musicians later, an idea that would horrify my engineer when I insisted that this was the way this album was going down.<br />
This is the machine that I have recorded the rough demos for many albums over the years: "The Mona Lisa's Sister," "Struck By Lightning," "Human Soul,"...the list goes on.<br />
Well, here it is, a piece of GP history, sold off for a passel of stomach churning curries, served up by Hindus with their thin penance-earning arms held in the air and the ability to turn their bodies into pretzels at the drop of a rupee. <br />
<br />
One of these fine gadgets just went for almost $500 on eBay and they often go for something in that area, but no one on eBay has to my knowledge mentioned that I (or any other reasonably well-known rocker) has recorded tons of tunes on one, including an album made available commercially.<br />
<br />
This item will come with a signed copy of the CD, "Carp Fishing On Valium-the songs," recorded on this very machine.<br />
<br />
Here's the link:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Walkman-Professional-WM-D6C-previously-owned-by-Graham-Parker-/261187046124?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item3ccff60aec">http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Walkman-Professional-WM-D6C-previously-owned-by-Graham-Parker-/261187046124?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item3ccff60aec</a><br />
<br />
Put it in the hands of a GP fan (then I can borrow it and record a rendition of "Happy Birthday" on it, personally, for you) and my daughter can continue to spend much of her life in complete aimlessness, but at least she'll have a few bucks for a curry in her pocket.<br />
<br />
GPUnknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-17208521921453132122013-02-17T11:48:00.002-08:002013-02-20T18:45:43.617-08:00CARP FISHING ON VALIUM, reissued, with three more stories added<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihFG7WBY-61p_RdOoJTeukDDq6JzBA7x9lre5MwGV6jENWQ5FAj9P5xGdZT5F9TjRqvu7cT_JkPcpGsO_rWb2sVf6Ve5N8Uv3He7Ft4pwXXy6cSyMsygfiMhyphenhyphen0_9AA4mX1pmjf9qAss1A/s1600/CFVersion2Enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihFG7WBY-61p_RdOoJTeukDDq6JzBA7x9lre5MwGV6jENWQ5FAj9P5xGdZT5F9TjRqvu7cT_JkPcpGsO_rWb2sVf6Ve5N8Uv3He7Ft4pwXXy6cSyMsygfiMhyphenhyphen0_9AA4mX1pmjf9qAss1A/s320/CFVersion2Enhanced.jpg" width="214" /></a>After getting the rights back to "Carp Fishing On Valium" from ST. Martin's Press a year or so ago, I sat on it for awhile, rather distracted as I was by a few other things involving an old band of mine and a Hollywood movie.<br />
But with a bit of work behind it, it's out again, in both paperback, thanks to our own John Howells' Tangible Press, and also on Kindle and other E-reader formats, that marvelous new expression of light (in terms of weight) entertainment for travelers and people with weak arms. <br />
One thing I knew I had to do was punch it up a bit, give it a bit more heft in the form of more stories, something to induce the gullible to buy it twice (!), basically. And so I plugged the old computer in. You know the one: it's the size of the QE2, runs at sloth speed, looks like an old wooden TV set minus the rabbit ears and hums like a bee sting on a gout infected foot. Hauling that old thing out of the attic and out of its box is still compromising the couch-bent spine that resides in my back and the pain killers are to this day in constant use (not really), but it was worth it. Buried in the mounds of moulding bit-rot in the ancient Apple's innards were three unpublished stories in various states of (de)composition. <br />
It transpires that after the editing and re-writes of the ten stories that made it into the original Carp Fishing collection, I still had three other potential stories left over, one of which my editor, Tim Farrington had had a go at but bailed out when he found himself disgusted with the premise of what he called "the whole fucking Peter Pan crap" that the story was deeply invested in. Yes, Tim - who had called me "The Mark Twain of Surrey" - was not at all keen on the bent of this particular story and thought the sudden emergence of the 13-year-old Porker's magic powers was a travesty of the highest order. Well, this sowed the seeds of doubt in me as to the stories' veracity even though as Tim then said: "Paradoxically, this is some of the best writing you've done."<br />
That second assessment I agreed with ( who wouldn't?) but it turned out that my feeling anyway was that the ten stories we had both accepted were actually a fairly well-rounded collective in their own right and did not need any further additions, so I stuck with those and called it a book. <br />
But still I continued composing tales, in thrall of the idea that I was now in fact a "writer" and not just a song writer. Being a writer, I decided, was a man's job, and being a song writer was a boy's job, because it was so much harder to write stories, apart from the fact that you didn't have to use rhyme, something I conveniently overlooked at the time and which of course makes song writing pretty damn manly and tricky in its own right.<br />
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The three tales that missed the original boat are presented in the new format(s) as a trilogy entitled "KERNLEY DAYS," Kernley being the fictional village that Porker grows up in, which is touched upon in some of the previously published stories. One of the "new" stories is nice, one of them is naughty, and the other one is naughty, too. In fact the third one is actually filthy. Disgusting, really. Gross, perhaps. It's so hyper-sexual it should be banned. I think when I wrote it I had the mercenary idea that the book needed to be sexed up a bit, so I forced the issue and stepped into the abyss. That's supposed to sell, right? Of course, it wouldn't have worked for me anyway and the book would not have sold any more even if this particular piece had been at the level of Sade or Welsh. As it happens, the book sold over the amount of the advance anyway or it wouldn't have made a second edition in paperback, so it's worked out fine that "A Dearth Of Women," the grossly explicit story in question, has been hiding in that almost pre-Internet computer for all this time since about 1999 at least. <br />
The first story of the trilogy, "The Flat of My Hand," - the one that upset my editor so much - involves the acquisition of supernatural powers that the narrator wields to solve a womans' heinous violation by a Scottish Sergeant Major, with much abuse of the power along the way. Young Brian Porker can't resist a good old trouncing foray, most of it directed at a certain Mrs. Hooght, the mother of one of Porker's pals who our (anti) hero has recently left stuck up a tree which the poor fellow consequently falls from and breaks an arm (Hooght The Younger's older brother turns up in tale number two of the trilogy), an injury which the fishwife Mrs. Hooght squarely - and quite rightly! - blames Brian, ringleader and troublemaker that he is.<br />
The second story, "Did Otis Play The Big C," is the one of which I'm perhaps the most proud. Porker is now 17 and is clubbing it up in the "desolate southern suburbs" where he hears a rumor (sic) that Otis Redding played in a tiny club called "The Big C," a fairly new establishment he frequents quite regularly to dance to soul, Motown and ska and occasionally try his hand at picking up birds. A ham-fisted sexual encounter occurs in this story, too, but thankfully nowhere near as graphic as the examples in "Dearth." How could he have missed Otis, playing in the dank and minute quarters of a night club a mere ten minute bus ride from his home? Blue, blue, midnight blue are the colors (sic) he sees (like the background color of the "Otis Blue" album cover) on tattered shreds of posters - along with letters that echo the title of the parenthetical Otis volume - below newly ripped bills adorning the telephone poles on the way to the club as he goes to see the (to him) awful pop/psychedelic band Tomorrow and to meet the green-eyed blonde girl who will later help him with a surfeit of virginal spermatozoa. Oh, what fun I had writing this one! Fiction is fiction, which means that like song writing, it takes a grain of reality and blows it up out of all proportion, and somewhere nagging at my memory for years has been this idea that I did indeed (in real life) hear somewhere, from someone - back in those days when word of mouth was often all you had to go on to find out who was playing where - that Otis had in fact played the Big C! I'll never know (I've looked it up but can't find any evidence) but imagine if, somewhere around 1966/67, this had actually happened, that my (and Porker's) idol had graced the stage of a joint that held maybe a hundred people in a town called Farnworth (in reality Farnborough), a short bus ride from Porker's (my) youthful abode. And poor Brian (who?) missed it! After all, I (Brian Porker) did actually (really!) stand in line at this very club to see Martha and the Vandellas there in this approximate time period only to hear - as me and some mates stood in line - the announcement of one of the clubs' hirelings who had reluctantly, risking life and limb, appeared at the head of the line to shout: "Sorry, but Martha and the Vandellas can't make it tonight!" before ducking back down the venue's stairs leaving a lot of grumbling moddie boys considering charging down after him for a good old fashioned bout of severe agro (only halfheartedly it turned out: we simply went home). <br />
Now if Martha and the Vandellas were at least scheduled to play there - and they had had a much bigger hit than Otis ever had - why not The Man himself?<br />
This terrible memory haunts me to this day. What do you do with trauma like that? You write about it, that's what. And you turn it into fiction, because nothing else captures it so well.<br />
<br />
Enjoy.<br />
<br />
GP<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0985814004/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0985814004&linkCode=as2&tag=punkhartprodu-20" target="_blank">Buy from Amazon.com</a><br />
<br />
PS: <br /><br /> Well what do you know? Someone has unearthed the info I dreaded: Otis really did play the Big C. My meager and as always impatient research got me as far as the 1967 Stax tour of Europe featuring Sam and Dave, Eddie Floyd and Otis Redding, among others. My thinking was that in the unlikely event that Otis did indeed play the Big C (aka the Carousel) club in the humble town of Farnborough, a very short bus ride from where I grew up, it may have been a stray gig he did tacked on to the beginning or end of that tour. But it appears that he played there in September 1966, a couple of months before my 16th birthday.<br /> I don't know exactly when I started going to the soul clubs in the south of England but it most probably wasn't until '67 that it became something of a regular event, when I got a Lambretta and some of my older friends had graduated to cars. And so, even though I was immersed in Otis's music by then it would have been easy to have been totally unaware that my idol was doing a show right under my nose.<br /> You may be able to tell from the main body of this essay (see above) that if I did ever did find out that he played a gnats' whisker away from me, I would be, if not devastated, at least a tad bummed out. Very simply put: I am. Somewhere between devastated and bummed out, that is.<br />Yes, I'm bum-tated. Deva-bummed. Very fucking pissed off, describes it just as well.<br /><br /> Hey, but the story would not have existed if I'd known for sure about the Otis gig in a club the size of a shoe box and gotten to that show, which must surely have been mind blowing, like having Otis play your living room.<br /><br />Here's the proof:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.historicfarnborough.co.uk/gallockermemories.html">http://www.historicfarnborough.co.uk/gallockermemories.html</a><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-83600498749449311172013-01-14T20:02:00.003-08:002013-01-14T20:02:46.099-08:00CHAIRMAN PARKER ON THE GP/R 2012 WINTER TOUR/MOVIE RELEASEThe creaking knee joints and tweaky lower backs, the minor arsenal of rattling bottled medications, the cries of "Oh gawd, my bloody lumbago!", the fevered panic attacks that percolated through the ranks in seismic waves threatening to evince mass hysteria, as if we were about to face armed combat in enemy territory, the detached retinas wobbling like drunken black ants in jelly jiggled loose by the massive boinging of cavernous halls, aircraft hangers still unpeopled at soundcheck but hopefully (please, hopefully!) packed by showtime, the airplane-induced ear pressure failing to pop until deep into purpling night hours waking the near dead with a jolt like shotgun retort that kills all further sleep utterly, bringing abject exhaustion once again from sticky hotel breakfast time onwards through the long, dank misery of travel day...and did I mention knee joints?<br />OK, there might be some exaggeration involved in the above sentence, but seeing as my memory isn't what it used to be, how would I know?<br />It could be startlingly accurate. But not one of these largely imaginary complaints could have stopped me and the Rumour from giving it all and laying it all down every night of the tour, and in turn getting it all back from the most marvelous audiences we could possibly hope for.<br />It is true, however, that a frisson of nerves could be felt before we took the stage on our first gig in Tarrytown, but - for me at any rate - that all disappeared from the moment I walked on stage and heard that welcoming roar and the first chord struck of "Fool's Gold," which sat there fat as a hog without a hint of nervous speedy up, steady and nailed to the ground like a rock. I felt utterly confident of the band behind me, the strength of the set list, and sure-footed enough to strut around that old wooden stage like a monkey in heat the moment I reached the first song without a guitar strapped around my shoulders. No problem - this was gonna be a blast.<br />And so it continued to be from beginning to end (true, the turn-out in Poughkeepsie was as disappointing as I expected, but it didn't lower our intensity one iota), from the east coast to the incredible experience of the "This Is 40" Premiere and the jam-packed Roxy gig in LA, to the home away from home Park West venue in Chicago and the classic high-end concert hall airiness of St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater.<br />It was all good.<br /><br />We are all grateful for the support we've had, both in the area of record reviews for "Three Chords Good," very few of which have been silly (meaning no one has foolishly called it a classic and no one has foolishly called it rubbish either), and for the reviews of the live performances (meaning all have been positive and some have rightly called them classic). A gratifying result for all of us. <br /><br />This has not been about touring for touring's sake, or about making money (a six piece band with three crew members...staying in hotels? This costs money!), but we felt we had to get out there for a short while at least and be a part of the "This Is 40" entourage (I did a few panels with various cast members both before and during the tour, and then there was the Premiere...) and bash some instruments around for the heck of it.<br /><br />Talking of the Premiere, what a night it was on December 12th at Grauman's Chinese Theater in LA where all except for me (as I'd seen a screening in August) saw the movie for the first time with a capacity crowd and joined everybody there marveling at the quality of Judd's and all the casts' work on a screen so big, you had to keep moving your head from left to right in order to keep up with the fantastic camera work and editing. It really made you wish every cinema had a proper sized screen instead of these postage stamps in the cineplexes. Whatever size the screen, don't miss this movie. I think it's Judd Apatow's finest work, not to mention the incredible double bill of Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. They are just excellent in this film as are so many performances, too many to mention.<br /><br />Also got to give a big thanks to Conan O'Brien for having us on the show. My publicists were working hard on all the late night shows but only the Conan folks had the good taste (!) to go for it.<br />We also did some radio appearances on our "days off" and if they have not all been aired yet, keep an eye out for them.<br /><br />Thanks to Primary Wave, thanks to Shorefire. Thanks to everyone.<br /><br />GPUnknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-17415648186812365842012-10-21T12:41:00.002-07:002012-10-21T12:41:59.012-07:00THREE CHORDS GOOD/THIS IS 40 TOURIt’s safe to say that the lads and I are excited about having a bash onstage again. I wonder if we hold the record for time off? Certainly, every band and his brother seems to have reformed; it's like a contagious disease all of a sudden, but with over 30 years since the Squeezing Out Sparks tour, officially our last, this reunion surprised me as much as it probably surprised everyone else.<br />Just for the record, I had no intention of doing any of this. I did however have an idea that doing an album as a three-piece with Steve and Andrew might be a good idea musically, after doing a few too many in a row with me playing all the guitars and recording the basic tracks with just a drummer behind me. I e-mailed the rhythm section with this in mind and both guys were up for it. Then Steve made a little joke about how it would be good to get Martin, Bob and Brinsley, "...that'd be a proper band," he suggested, then said something like: "Kidding!" Well, maybe he was and maybe he wasn't, but without thinking (you can't think in these situations) I went to the e-mail machine and posed the idea to those three. Perhaps I did it in a fit of pique, a sort of "I'll show that Goulding!" idea. Something weird overcame me anyway, and judging by the swift "Hell yes!" replies of the band members they didn't think it through any more than I did. Damned if I wasn't stuck with it.<br />Well, I had enough songs written, although I couldn’t see what any of them had to do with a Rumour reunion, but there again, as someone pointed out to me recently, I didn’t write “Howlin’ Wind” for the Rumour, either. They didn’t exist then. <br /><br />It couldn't have been more than two weeks after this (April or May 2011) in which time I'd managed to fix a date for recording and get the engineer/co-producer and studio all lined up, that Judd Apatow got hold of me and we set up a meeting. As he gave me a rough outline of the script he was working on and my possible involvement in what became "This Is 40," I of course sprung it on him that me and the Rumour would be doing a new album in a few months time. How fortuitous, right? A week later Judd is telling me he wants me in his movie, playing myself, and that he wants me and the band in Los Angeles sometime in August/September for a two-day shoot. This does not happen to me. What happens to me is that I make albums, three blokes in duffel coats with nasal infections become strangely excited, and everyone else goes home for tea and crumpets. Well, might as well come back with a bang for once, right? <br />In Los Angeles, a marvelous time was had by all, and playing onstage with the lads again (in a beautiful old theater called the Belasco in downtown LA) was something I'll never forget, especially having to sing numbers like "Protection" over and over again at 9 in the morning. (And on my other visits there for my alleged “acting” parts, finding myself in make-up with Albert Brooks on one side of me and John Lithgow on the other — to name-drop just two of the fine talents on display in the movie — was quite interesting, too.)<br />So, a few gigs are in order. The Birchmere and the Ramshead are almost sold out and I'm hearing that ticket sales are off to a decent start in some locales (there again, I hear a lot of things), so get a jump on it. I have no idea if this will ever happen again. <br /><br />Also, I might add that although hardcore fans are used to me appearing at the CD table for signings and generally having a good yak after the show, this won't be happening on a tour of venues that are considerably larger than my usual hangs. So please, vinyl monkeys, leave the collection at home. This will be tiring enough for this old bugger and I will most probably be vanishing from the premises as soon as show time is done, possibly wearing a cape and a ski mask. You can always catch up with me when I’m back in the venues that have the words “Café” or “Coffee Shop” in their title, which I undoubtedly will be, because water always finds its own level.<br />Talking of merch, you may be interested to know that for the first time ever, there will be GP/Rumour T-shirts on sale, plus key rings, and of course “Three Chords Good” in both CD and vinyl formats<br />On another note, the GP documentary, which, by the nature of this new beast had to have some stuff added to it, including me and the Rumour filmed for the very first time working in the studio and in LA at the shoot (the entire “Three Chords Good” recording sessions were filmed by the Gramaglia Bothers at Mr. Apatow’s prompting), has had its release date delayed yet again. I’m sorry this thing has taken so long after so many chipped in to the Kickstarter fund so long ago, but it should be worth it in the end. It will come out, and with all this other stuff going on, 2013 seems more suitable a release period now.<br /><br />Then there’s “This Is 40.” I’ve been to a screening. It’s excellent, really exceptional I thought (here I could blather on about Judd Apatow and Jonathan Karp, the music supervisor for the film, and all the people I had the great privilege of being in the same space and time with on so many occasions, but maybe that’s for later down the line). The movie opens in cinemas December 21st. I’d advise getting to the matinee performance because apparently the world is coming to an end on that day.<br /><br />“THREE CHORDS GOOD” release date 11/19/12<br /><br />All the best,<br /><br />GP<br /><br /><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-90835757170184108362012-05-03T08:58:00.002-07:002012-05-04T17:52:53.829-07:00¡LIVE ALONE AT THE FREIGHT & SALVAGE!The first time I played the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, CA in 2009, I was very pleased to find a full house awaiting me. Since then, the venue has moved to a bigger room holding more people, and although I played this much larger space just recently, in November 2011 on a Sunday night, it was still pretty packed, and with a very enthusiastic crowd at that. I'd just done three shows in two nights, always a worry where the human vocal chords are concerned (when the voice winds down after an hour and a half show then is forced to crank up again for another show of the same length, it is like putting the vocal chords through a meat grinder), but my voice had hung together and maybe even gained more fluidity and nuance over the course of this long weekender, a good thing indeed when you know that the venue is recording the show.<br />
As soon as I heard the results, and that the folks at the Freight were gracious enough to let me release the recording, I knew a live "official bootleg" was in the works, hence "¡Live At The Freight & Salvage!" only available at the site and at gigs.<br />
<br />
This alone may be of some interest to followers of the string of these grahamparker.net releases, but something else also of interest, and perhaps with a touch of serendipity attached, came along with the package.<br />
<br />
When I released "Burning Questions" in 1992 I was - it is no secret - quite the fan of the ground breaking cartoon Ren and Stimpy. I won't go into a description of this fine work here, but suffice to say it was not something the kids should be watching, although of course they did, often due to the fact that their parents wanted to share this devilish piece of irreverence and subversion with them, despite their tender years, in order to encourage future comedic perversity and hopefully avoid breeding children hobbled by prudishness and the church-lady humor of boiled eggs. Yes, many a child’s future in the domain of goodness and light was thwarted by that rude and controversial episode "Stimpy's First Fart" (the original title) in which our poor perennially put-upon Stimpy spends an entire show searching the world for a lost fart which he believes is his child (that’s right, when children know that cats can fart too the world becomes an infinitely more humorous place).<br />
I credited Ren and Stimpy with percussion (actually performed by me) on "Burning Questions" and somehow the show’s creator, John Kricfalusi got wind (no pun intended) of this and graciously sent me a cell from the famous "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" episode which I still have, proudly displayed in a plain wooden frame.<br />
<br />
Not long after receiving this fabulous gift, I was playing the Troubadour in Hollywood and was approached by a fellow named Steve Loter who handed me a black and white drawing he'd done of Ren and Stimpy which depicted Ren wearing some suspiciously GP-like sunglasses and pointing his finger angrily at Stimpy in a very "Don't Ask Me Questions" pose. Steve told me that he was an illustrator for the show and judging by the accuracy of his work, there was obviously no doubt about it.<br />
I believe that this show took place on 10/22/93 because I checked the indispensable "My Gig List" section on Johannes Dieninger’s "Struck By Lightning" website.<br />
What the website does not note is that a young up-and-comer named Jewel was opening for me that night, solo. I recall that there was a major label bidding war going on for this girl, led by Atlantic, a label I had been on briefly in 1987 but was dropped from before I even made a record for them. The reason I was dropped was because I continued to insist to the label’s boss, a certain legendary figure named Ahmet Ertegun, that the age of bombast in the form of '80's production values whereby the sound of the snare drum, massive, glassy and out front, was about to end and that I should make a record that focused on the singer, the acoustic guitar, and the voice (albeit with a crackin' band behind it). Ahmet and his absurd German sidekick found this concept utterly unfathomable. But here they were about 6 years later in a lemming-like search for singer/songwriters wielding acoustic guitars and making simple, very non-80's sounding records.<br />
Jewel it seemed was a perfect candidate: she did indeed wield an acoustic guitar, did a bit of yodeling as a gimmicky bonus, and was undoubtedly a mammal.<br />
<br />
(I looked her up on the internets for this piece and, despite the fact that she has apparently sold 27 million records, found myself on various jewelry sites perusing some alarmingly outlandish handiwork that only an Italian lady from Long Island would dare grace upon her slender age-spotted wrist. Eventually I found the artiste herself and was astonished by her record sales, thinking, not for the first time, of the accuracy of my song title, "They Got It Wrong (As Usual)."<br />
<br />
The point of my rambling is that Steve Loter, who handed me that cartoon on that night, has been in touch with me and John Howells of late and kindly offered his services as an illustrator (he now works in a Disney studio) and so when the opportunity arose, as it did with this album, we took him up on it. And what a fine piece of work it is, with no less than four panels of lovely stuff from this talented fellow. I laughed like a drain when I saw the work, each piece exquisite and unique and full of the required humor it takes to get anywhere near a GP album cover, at least ones which involve cartoon-like illustrations.<br />
<br />
As for the songs, there’s a few on here that have only recently been added to my live solo canon, most notably “Endless Night,” “Dark Side Of The Bright Lights,” “Problem Child,” and a cover of Captain Beefheart’s “Too Much Time.” I listened to a lot of Beefheart in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s and “Clear Spot” was a real favourite, so about a year ago, feeling it was time to re-acquaint myself with some of his work, I bought a nifty two album compilation containing both “Clear Spot” and “Spotlight Kid.” I’ve often fumbled around with “Too Much Time” over the years with a view to cover it, but only recently did I find the groove and the key that worked. Here it is, portrayed on the trusty Telecaster at the Freight for your enjoyment. Like many of these covers I turn up with from time to time, this one will no doubt slip away from me and never be performed again. Glad I got it on record.<br />
<br />
Enjoy,<br />
<br />
GPUnknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-86008144772114755162011-09-30T00:20:00.000-07:002011-09-30T08:14:07.848-07:00FIVE LOOSE SCREWS<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Many artists are daft enough to prefer the off-kilter, weird tracks that they used to use as B-sides of singles, and now release more often as Internet-only tracks, over their actual best work, and I'm no exception.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Well, not strictly true, but it sounds like a good story.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Perhaps more accurate is the fact that it's more fun to put out oddities than it is to release the Tablets That Just Came Down From The Mountain, with all the pressures involved with that undertaking.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Who cares if they're crap?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Certainly not me! </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">(note: “Harridan Of Yore” appeared on the Bloodshot compilation “For A Decade Of Sin.”)<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Seeing as my premier recording endeavor is a state secret at the moment and will not be unveiled for quite some time (sorry about that, but the reason for the wait is a good one) (Um...whoops.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">You can see I began writing this piece before the cat popped out of the bag!), I found myself harkening back to an idea I've had brewing for some while: to take all the spare tracks from recent Bloodshot Records history and put 'em on a disc.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Our own John Howells had the sterling idea of coupling this with my Youtube output. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So, you get the complete Tex Skerball, a combined edition of "Paint Drying," and both episodes of "Sunglass(es) The Graham Parker Show," all on one disc.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I didn't even know you could combine these two elements together so easily, but John assured me it wasn't rocket science.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The dates of the musical recording section are most probably recorded on an old computer the size of a military cargo plane that sits in an attic than they are in my memory, so I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but here's a few clues.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> </p><p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Area 51 (in your heart)" was undoubtedly recorded with the "Your Country" sessions, and that's where anyone interested should look for the credits.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">This was my first record for Bloodshot, and I was having trouble sequencing the tune, but had the problem solved for me by the big guns at the label who thought it was thoroughly out of place on the record, which I, breaking character, agreed to, and so it was cruelly thrown into release via the Gulag of modern recording, the Internet.</span></p> <p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">"2000 Funerals" was of course written in response to the depressing news that that number of US military personnel had perished in Iraq, with much more to come.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The tune was recorded in a stand alone session, and I played all the instruments.</span></p><p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> </p><p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Way before this, in what was for many of us the early days of the Internet, just before even my son’s hermit crab had its own Facebook page, I wrote the strange and disturbing "Search Engine," which seems to be about some kind of Internet perv, trolling the chat rooms and whathaveyou for a bit of cyber stalking.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">According to Mike Gent, "Harridan Of Yore" was from the SONC sessions with the Figgs, and "The End Of Faith"</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">recorded with Latest Clowns members in Boston's Q Division studios, minus Brett Rosenberg.</span></p> <span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:Times;font-size:100%;" >I recall writing "Harridan" after hearing Al Franken, back in the days when he was on Air America, telling the story of how he met Barbara Bush on an airplane and found himself unable to stop from doing a quick impression of her son for her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As Al told it, she soon signaled the end of their little chat with a curt "We're through!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Later, when asking a </span> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --></style><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">friend or colleague who had knowledge of that fine lady's personality, the friend told Al that, yes, she was indeed a harridan.</span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">What a fine word, I thought!</span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I simply must use it immediately.</span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I played the tune for the first time live at the Turning Point club and a couple right in the front, who had seemed quite happy before, began to assume very soured expressions, and the female of the couple turned down her mouth and moved her head from side to side at me in obvious disapproval.</span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">After the show, I spoke to them at the bar and they admitted that they were in fact "conservatives."</span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">They were fans of my work they insisted, but thought that "Harridan Of Yore" was "the worst song you've ever written." </span></span><p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> </p><p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I smiled happily and continued to study these exotic creatures with an eagle eye, hoping to glean further inspiration in order to write more of the same at future dates.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">And I do hope those folks got to read my blurb for "The End Of Faith."</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">That would probably have had them apoplectic!</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">(A record producer/musician friend of mine who used to be in a band with Franken sent "Harridan Of Yore" to him, but neither he nor I got a response from the now senator.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Probably if he knows anything about me, it is that I make something called "pub rock" music so he never bothered to listen to it, because like Janeane Garofalo and those other radio liberals, he thinks that it was the Jam who made the real cutting edge stuff in the '70's!)</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:Times; mso-hansi-font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:.75in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> </p><p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">So, there you have it.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Please enjoy "FIVE LOOSE SCREWS."</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">What?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The Rumour?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The Movie?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Is that what you're asking me?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">None of that sees the light of day till late 2012, so, even though I was ahem, "on set" the other day, doing interviews along with the other, ahem, "actors," with the likes of Time Magazine and Entertainment Tonight (because the nice people working on the movie asked me nicely to), I feel it’s a bit too early to be blathering too much about it, although some publications (like those above that would not normally touch me with a barge pole) seem to be quite interested all of a sudden, so a few nuggets of information may soon be floating around.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">It's an excruciating wait till the end of 2012, but that’s when the movie release is scheduled, so I’m holding the album, too.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">No brainer. </span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the meantime, please enjoy “FIVE LOOSE SCREWS.”</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s damnably quirky.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">GP</span></p> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-60597634723564953012011-03-01T17:59:00.000-08:002011-03-01T18:16:51.053-08:00“80’S REVERB RULES OK!” Graham Parker and the Fact: an odd career intermission<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">I had signed with Atlantic Records, either in 1985, just after the “Steady Nerves” tour with Eric Clapton, or<img src="file:///Users/howells/Pictures/gp/limfjords-front.jpg" alt="" /> early 1986, and things weren’t going too well.<span style=""> </span>My meetings with the legendary Ahmet Ertegun and his German sidekick had been underwhelming and — Ahmet being a hero of sorts — very disappointing.<span style=""> </span>(They always had <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgITsEFnuKheK-cugXWH_sLAVy6-ACWHUHMjLUDO0PsWpX4GLHggMzu3OnMPklpTsFEHlA-QK8B8jAQfA6Y-AeY2HvbuyN446qPRnGpZMxP_qs5ka78VKoKaqirbxTBe7-lFM8lVW3VmQY/s1600/limfjords-front.jpg"><br /></a>a sidekick these big guns, a real Mutt and Jeff team, designed to confuse the artists with banal ideas about “rhythm sections” and the latest “hit producer,” ‘80’s record company blather trapped in layers of cliché, a million miles away from proper rock ‘n’ roll.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In those days, artists made demos that cost tens times more than your average album does now, and record company honchos didn’t understand the sound of a guy singing over an acoustic guitar with a couple of overdubs.<span style=""> </span>I should not of course have been allowing them to be privy to new songs at all.<span style=""> </span>In previous years, with my first manager Dave Robinson in charge, we kept a lid on everything until the album was in the can.<span style=""> </span>My second manager, however, thought it would be a spiffing idea to “get the record company involved” with the choice of material, producer, and most probably, if I hadn’t already been cultivating a shiny target on the back of my head, my haircut.<span style=""> </span>(If I had one piece of advice to give to new artists who are largely self sufficient in the songwriting department, it would be to not let anyone from a record company hear a thing until you’ve got their money and made your album.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Much of the material I’d foolishly handed over became the “Loose Monkeys” spare tracks record, released years later by Razor & Tie.<span style=""> </span>This in itself should not have caused too many alarm bells to ring, but after their lackluster reaction to these admittedly scattershot songs, I got pissed and wrote more tunes, songs that would eventually become “The Mona Lisa’s Sister.”<span style=""> </span>They didn’t like these any better.<span style=""> </span>At this point, the alarm bells in my head became a cacophony.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">All Ahmet could talk about was Whitesnake and Phil Collins, or whatever other acts Atlantic had that were currently in the charts.<span style=""> </span>Yes, the ‘80’s were grim.<span style=""> </span>Of course, about a year later they were all scrambling to sign acts who made records with an acoustic guitar and a few overdubs, but that’s another story.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And so I had this weird lacuna, a space to fill in whilst my manager extracted me from Atlantic and shopped around for a label that would play the game my way, which can basically be summed up as: “You give me the money, I’ll make the record I want and hand it in when it’s finished.<span style=""> </span>It’ll either be good or great, depending on the breaks.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Good old RCA went for it and “Mona Lisa’s Sister” arrived in ‘88.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Still, my confidence had been blunted by the Atlantic debacle, and in 1986 I had no idea which direction to go in, and no idea which of the songs I had been amassing to record.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Best way to deal with this, I figured, was to put a band together and play some gigs.<span style=""> </span>Get out there and bash around in front of a bunch of Danes, which I did, naming the band the Fact, consisting of Brinsley, Andrew and a drummer named Jimmy Copley, a solid guy who had come my way because he’d played with Jeff Beck whom my manager had managed for years.<span style=""> </span>No keyboards.<span style=""> </span>I was continuing to assert my presence as a guitarist after years of merely holding one, which was always buried in the mix with GP and the Rumour.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, it being the ‘80’s, there’s no getting away from that wallowing swishing sound, but in its own way, it’s quite marvelous.<span style=""> </span>I’m presuming that this gig was recorded professionally for radio — that’s no board tape.<span style=""> </span>This thing has real fidelity and is mixed well, although the vocal is a bit low for the first few songs.<span style=""> </span>At this time I was in the thrall of JC-120 Jazz Chorus amps with the chorus relentlessly on full bore (the models I had — and I’d sometimes have two onstage hooked up! — had no other level than full on).<span style=""> </span>And what a chorus it is.<span style=""> </span>A great swimming, washing machine effect, not far off a Leslie, which, for those who don’t know, is a wooden cabinet with a bloody great flappy thing inside that spins around and is largely used with a Hammond organ, creating that swirling effect (think “Howlin’ Wind).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And what about the songs on this set?<span style=""> </span>I must have recently been immersed in a Bobby “Blue” Bland compilation and for whatever obscure reasons decided to feature two of his tunes, “I Wouldn’t Treat A Dog” and “Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City.”<span style=""> </span>No idea why, but it must have seemed a good idea at the time (perhaps because the aforementioned Whitesnake also recorded the latter tune and I was sticking it to Ahmet?!), and they suit this band down to the ground.<span style=""> </span>Then there’s the Knight Brothers rather awesome “Sinking Low,” a brilliant lost song I discovered in the ‘60’s on a Marble Arch compilation entitled “Blues And Soul,” (still one of my favourite albums of all time) reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield’s classic “People get Ready,” but without the religious overtones.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Check out my lead guitar work at various points in this rendition, most notably at the beginning, which is then firmly trounced — as I get back to the basic rhythm — by Brinsley’s much more eloquent riffing.<span style=""> </span>Dig the rock solid bass and drums by Andrew and Jimmy, couching that arena-worthy vocal sound, swimming in a great big sucks-you-into-the-vortex compression, limiting and reverb effected hiss that helped me come up with the title for this effort.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I typically find my vocals on these live shows to be thin and flat lining, but not on this.<span style=""> </span>I’m grabbing the Danish festival crowd by the testes (I think they were all males) and hanging them out to dry with this one, possibly the best delivered and recorded live vocal of my entire career up till, and possibly beyond, this point.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it’s good to hear the only recorded band performance that I recall of the “Loose Monkeys” track “Dead To The World,” fat and greasy with the band behind it in full swing.<span style=""> </span>Also from “Loose Monkeys” is a killer take of “Burnin’ On A Higher Flame,” boasting that excellent chord sequence — particularly in the solo section — that proves that I was not wasting my time spending all those hours tripping out to Hendrix records.<span style=""> </span>Yes, I hummed those lead licks to Brinsley as he was learning the tune, right down to that final hammering-on at the solo’s conclusion.<span style=""> </span>“Hendrix, I said, it’s a Hendrix thing.”<span style=""> </span>Time well spent, no question. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(As mentioned on the awesome Spinal Tap-black cover, the beginning of this tune is unfortunately hacked up a bit, but it’s the only live version that I know of and had to go on.<span style=""> </span>Our apologies, but that’s the way it came.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s also nice to hear Brinsley’s backing vocals in prominence throughout; they were typically buried on GP & the Rumour shows.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yeah, I like this record.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Many thanks to Johannes at the “Struck By Lightning” website and our own John Howells for this one.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">GP </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-76024870070580971722010-11-20T19:56:00.000-08:002010-11-20T20:02:47.100-08:00SPIRITUAL, SOPHISTICATED, AND CARNAL. THREE GIGS, THREE SET LISTS.Yes, I’m biting off more than I can chew once again, playing three wildly different venues and working madly on three different set lists that will only overlap in certain places, pushing myself and a confused audience to the very limits of their patience.<br />The Rubin Museum on December 10th will kick off the weekend with a show that highlights the innate spirituality of certain songs, using a backdrop of Buddhist artwork and stories to illuminate our inherent material greed, the fleeting nature of human existence, and probably some uninvited acid flashbacks that may well knock me on my ass halfway through the set. The transience of our time on earth will be thrust into the eerily perfect all acoustic setting of the Rubin via such neglected gems as “The Kid With The Butterfly Net” and “Just Like Hermann Hesse,” not to mention such irreverent beasts like “Museum Of Stupidity.”<br /><br />The very next day, I’ll be plying my trade at the Towne Crier in Pawling, where you may find yourself sitting in its plush and sophisticated ambiance betwixt a male model and a Quaker, eating obscure pasta dishes and drinking fine wines way into the night. I’ll need to crank up the rock element on this one, but still a few lost gems from the Rubin may come in handy for balance. Opening will be Neal Gomberg. Do not miss him!<br /><br />And finally on December 12th, with the spiritual flights of gossamer and the elegant bourgeois left far behind, you can find me at the famous Jiggs’, surely the best biker bar in Butler. At least that was my assessment after a long, exhausting and wildly drunken weekend there once, trolling the pubs in the cause of science, trying to find a better one.<br />Here at Jiggs’ you can hang at the bar on any Sunday afternoon, chatting to some of the most brutal looking blokes you’ve ever seen, who will nonetheless wax nostalgic about their dear old grandmothers, tears forming daintily in their bloodshot eyes, pussy cats, all of them.<br />Expect a fiercely carnal set, heavy on the Telecaster, probably brimming with the likes of “Tornado Alley” “Lady Doctor” and “Hotel Chambermaid.” Perhaps the ultimate drinking and drugging tune, “Not If It Pleases Me,” will make an appearance. <br /><br />What a challenge! I’m at work, as we speak, monkeying around with the set lists.<br />Go to the “Tour Page” for more details.<br /><br />How many of you can make all three? Anyone who can, please let yourself be known at the CD sales area after the third show and I’ll give you a free…oh, I don’t know…“Christmas Cracker” CD? I give them away anyway. I’ll try to think of something else in the meantime…<br /><br />The last shows before the holidays. See you there.<br /><br />GPUnknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-56998225454414279552010-11-04T17:40:00.000-07:002010-11-13T22:56:51.619-08:00"DON’T ASK ME QUESTIONS,” THE GP DOCUMENTARY. “GP AND THE FIGGS LIVE AT THE FTC.” THE “BOX OF BOOTLEGS"<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style><p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">First off, I’d like to thank all the folks who contributed to the upcoming documentary, including the various artists who gave their time to be interviewed for it.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>When Michael Gramaglia informed me that they were going to use Kickstarter.com to try and raise funds to pay for the many clips etc. that have been used in the film, I had trouble getting my head around the idea that enough people would be willing to pay money to make this happen.<span style=""> </span>Turns out I was very wrong.<span style=""> </span>I’m moved and humbled by the incredible response.<span style=""> </span>Thank you all sincerely.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Below is a rambling description of the events that led to the film and beyond.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the 27<sup>th</sup> of August 1997 I did a solo gig at the Long Island Brewing Company on the Jericho Turnpike on Long Island, New York (thanks Johannes at the Struck By Lightning website gig list!).<span style=""> </span>The rather excellent Elliot Murphy opened.<span style=""> </span>At some point after the show, a fellow named Michael Gramaglia, along with his brother John, approached me and proposed the idea of doing a documentary.<span style=""> </span>He claimed to be in the midst of creating a film about the Ramones.<span style=""> </span>I had no reason to doubt him, but at that point in time, I considered the idea of a documentary about me to be quite ridiculous.<span style=""> </span>“No one’s gonna be interested,” I asserted forcefully.<span style=""> </span>“The Ramones?<span style=""> </span>Now that’s a story.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Although my career had had some international spread, not to mention a decent amount of following around America during the ‘70’s and into the ‘80’s, the Ramones couldn’t get arrested outside of New York City and London.<span style=""> </span>However, by the late ‘90’s they were slowing becoming iconic (leading to their status of household name today), and I was just out there hacking away on the circuit.<span style=""> </span>Their recent lionization begged a proper recounting in film.<span style=""> </span>But as far as I was concerned, a strange amnesia had set in and anything I might have helped throw into gear in 1976, a year before the punk rock/”new wave” phenomenon (basically three minute pop songs with attitude), had been almost entirely forgotten, so why would anyone be interested in a documentary about me?<span style=""> </span>I was just a working musician, something I’m rather proud to be to this very day, having been at the beginning of my career more of an impressionist, a dismantler of popular forms, regurgitating them into a more modern format designed to last into the distant future, but a long way from being a musician who could actually play not only the simple acoustic strumming behind almost all my songs with a bit of fairly clever stuff in open tuning (a la “Gypsy Blood”), but also lead guitar, bass, and now with a pretty good facility at producing, albeit on my own albums.<span style=""> </span>I was finally learning my trade: rather dull stuff for a documentary, I reckoned.<span style=""> </span>Yes, it was all very boring.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Although I didn’t know jack about them, to be honest, the lives of the Ramones — I insisted to the Gramaglia brothers — must surely be like a Greek Tragedy, an epic opera of failure and misconception until finally, not only the critics (and musicians) but also the public (even to the extent that it became not unusual to see the average 14-year-boy wearing a Ramones T-shirt) became fully aware of their great contribution after being ignored for so long.<span style=""> </span>There they were on the radio where they had never been featured much before, and popping up in adverts and other places where they were absent in their <i style="">real </i>heyday— in a word: iconic.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A film about me would be like watching paint dry, I assured these blokes.<span style=""> </span>Forget it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They seemed to not agree, to the extent that every now and again Michael would get hold of me and stick the needle in again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wasn’t budging, however, until the year 2000, when I reinvented myself as a short story writer and had “Carp Fishing on Valium” published by St. Martin’s Press.<span style=""> </span>Then I wrote a bunch of tunes to go with the tales and did a short tour, reading from the stories and singing the songs.<span style=""> </span>In a moment of delirium, I called Michael and suggested that here might be something of actual interest.<span style=""> </span>Forget the down-the-rabbit-hole music career, I said, how about filming some gigs on this tour?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Now <i style="">this</i> is interesting!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And so they filmed a gig featuring me with Tom Freund on the upright bass, singing the songs and telling stories, occasionally to the exasperation of the punters who would have rather heard “White Honey” and “Hotel Chambermaid.”<span style=""> </span>But the Gramaglia Bros had no intention of just making a film about my book.<span style=""> </span>They had at last wheedled their wicked way in and there was no turning back.<span style=""> </span>The filming would continue…for <i style="">ten years!</i><span style=""> </span>Talk about watching paint dry.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Friday 22<sup>nd</sup> October 2010, about 50 people, many of them heavy hitters in the donor department regarding the financing of this film, gathered together to watch a screening of “Don’t Ask Me Questions.”<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to give away too much, but it seemed to go down extremely well.<span style=""> </span>The film makers had managed to find a delicate balance of emotion and informati</p> <p class="MsoNormal">on that struck a chord with the viewers, and after around five minutes into it I even kind of forgot that it was about me and got sucked into some larger story, a story </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t even know existed that had been there all the time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know anything about making documentaries, but like making a record, this kind of balance and entertainment surely doesn’t come off every time.<span style=""> </span>Quite simply, I give a big thumbs-up to the Gramaglia Brothers.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Regarding the release of this film, the Brothers are going to target a few film festivals first, and they often want an “exclusive.”<span style=""> </span>Therefore, we have to see how that plays out before a general release on DVD.<span style=""> </span>So you might still have to wait a bit before it is available.<span style=""> </span>The item be</p> <p class="MsoNormal">low, however, is almost in your hot little hands already, or at least in time for Christmas…</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">…On to the next cinematic event.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043X1FMM?ie=UTF8&tag=punkhartprodu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0043X1FMM"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 300px;" src="http://grahamparker.net/Home_files/LiveFTC.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As some of you know, one of the GP and the Figgs shows was filmed by a professional crew in Fairfield, CT.<span style=""> </span>This film was put together by Primary Wave and Image Entertainment.<span style=""> </span>The DVD is already available for pre-order on Amazon.<span style=""> </span>This package also contains a bonus audio CD that includes songs that did not fit the visual format, and an interview that details an overview o</p> <p class="MsoNormal">f my career.<span style=""> </span>Release date is December 7<sup>th</sup>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">To say I’m pleased with the sterling performance of the Figgs and the excellent camera and sound</p><p class="MsoNormal"> quality would be an understatement.<span style=""> </span>It is what it is: a rocking good show filmed and recorded by experts.<span style=""> </span>Not much else to add.<span style=""> </span>Don’t miss it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://grahamparker.net/Home_files/ref%3Ddp_image_z_0ie%3DUTF8%26n%3D5174%26s%3Dmusic.jpg"><br /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Box of Bootlegs</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043A0UZ8?ie=UTF8&tag=punkhartprodu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0043A0UZ8"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 191px; height: 191px;" src="http://grahamparker.net/Home_files/ref%3Ddp_image_z_0ie%3DUTF8%26n%3D5174%26s%3Dmusic.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Floating World and Evangeline has released a “Box of Bootlegs,” featuring six of our official bootleg CD’s — you guessed it — in a box.<span style=""> </span>It’s a great pleasure to have our eclectic bits and pieces licensed by a European company.<span style=""> </span>Looks like a tasty collectors’ item to me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Carp Fishing on Valium” will also see a separate European release.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">GP</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-9867496359634115052010-11-04T17:36:00.000-07:002010-11-04T17:39:19.975-07:00Sunglass(es) - The Graham Parker Show - Episode Two<object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZuAOGaxqp18&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZuAOGaxqp18&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-82895445987965688572010-07-29T13:34:00.000-07:002010-07-29T13:41:51.019-07:00“ONE STOP CLEARANCE” AKA “STICK IT TO THE MAN”<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Mike Gent on drums, guitar, backing vocals<br />GP on guitars and backing vocals<br />Ed Valauskas on bass<br />Professor “Louie” Hurwitz on keyboards and accordion</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">A year or so back, my publishing administrators, Primary Wave came up with the idea of re-recording some of my older material specifically to push at TV/film and other media. The reason for this is that my old record deals were "in perpetuity," which means they (mostly all owned by BMG now) own the rights forever. Seeing as I was paid large advances and tour support by the companies that have now been swallowed by BMG, every time one of my old songs makes money, I only get the publishing share because, like many artists who did not get into the multi-million record sales bracket, I owe tons of money to BMG. They get the Master Recording share. Luckily, even in those draconian deals there is a clause that lets the artist re-record the songs after five years, and so I was free to do this. So, when any of these newly minted versions gets used, both the publishing <i>and</i> master rights monies are going to me and Primary Wave, not some fossil record company who doesn’t give a damn and will often actually hinder the process of usage by trying to up the money on the master rights end or not bother to get back to the potential placement customer in a timely manner, which results in them giving up and going somewhere else.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Primary Wave chose some of the songs (mostly stuff from before 1980, natch, apart from, unaccountably, “She Wants So Many Things”!) and I chose a bunch of the others, mainly songs like "My Love's Strong" and "Depend On Me" which I contend are far more usable than the old stuff (I was proved right when "Depend On Me" got used on the Fox show "Fringe" and earned me a pantload).</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Artistically, it was not a pleasant thought to commit to this project. I can't imagine any artist wants to go backwards and rerecord old tunes, and I'm no exception, but a chance to "stick it to the man" is always worth a go, and so I went along with the idea and tried to enjoy the process. Primary Wave want to up the value of my catalog, and the idea that such easy-going songs such as the two I've mentioned above are doomed to reach only a handful of fans is a shame, so it's nice to see them getting the chance of new life.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">This recording is not in any way an artistic statement. It is what it is. I am a working musician and just trying to make a living. Very simple stuff.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Obviously, you can't improve on or match the ferocious intensity of a ‘70’s GP/Rumour performance, and so my stance was to take my live solo treatments of many of these tunes and simply add instrumentation. I did not see this as a releasable product because I consider myself a current artist and was quite sure when I recorded these songs that a new creative mode could strike at any time and I would have to follow the muse and do a new album, which I did, hence “Imaginary Television.”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">At first, Primary Wave had an idea of releasing it on top quality vinyl which I would then promote by playing records stores. Right. I nixed this idea without a second thought. It has not been my experience that doing gigs gets one anywhere other than having a good time and hopefully pleasing an audience. It does not get your songs on TV shows.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">That does not exclude the idea that this might not be released in the future when I feel there is a gap in the output worth filling with an odd artifact. Perhaps we’ll be forced to eventually by popular opinion!</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Regarding the folks who are making money selling this: please cease and desist or I will sue your ass.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Thank you,</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in">GP</p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-73400210575857428582010-05-12T08:06:00.001-07:002010-05-12T08:07:05.375-07:00Paint Drying #1 - Graham Parker and the Figgs On Tour<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qGx9J9eS70A&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qGx9J9eS70A&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-91838349487131630362010-03-15T22:06:00.000-07:002010-03-15T22:07:38.186-07:00Sunglass(es) The Graham Parker Show - Episode One<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ru60Cu41F_U&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ru60Cu41F_U&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-8749188896608910502010-02-26T10:41:00.000-08:002010-02-26T11:19:16.729-08:00IMAGINARY TELEVISIONNot too long ago, I was courted by Primary Wave, a publishing company that specializes in finding “placements” for their artists’ songs. They insisted that I would fit in well with their “iconic” catalog, a portfolio that includes the songs of Kurt Cobain, Hall & Oates and John Lennon, among other luminaries.<br />Help, I’m an icon! I thought.<br />There are other perhaps less flattering words that they could have used to describe me and that might well be more accurate, but hey, I’m all in favor of a world where folks with money hoist me up to impossible heights, if only to experience the dizzying thrill of dropping like a stone when it is discovered that the rest of the world does not agree with their assessments.<br />OK, I’ll cunningly go along with their delusions, I figured. Let them waste a few bob on me. My songs have certainly been inert for so long weeds are growing between the stanzas. At least if I knew what a stanza was, and if my songs have any of them, I’d most certainly expect to find a jungle of invasive species crowding them out and blotting out the sunlight.<br />But the smart folks at Primary Wave have caught on bigtime to the fact that, although CD sales for most of us are, ahem, not very good (!), songs don’t go away. If they did you wouldn’t have to hear the insufferable “Somebody’s Watching Me” on the worst of the otherwise excellent Geico ads every five minutes. Not to mention having to stomach a Journey tune on the final Soprano’s episode, which I refused to watch out of spite. (Did they all get whacked? I’ll never know.)<br /><br />So anyway, early last summer I received an e-mail from a Primary Wave rep. who deals with the West Coast end of things, TV shows in particular. It was one of those missives that television music supervisors presumably throw out to all their music publishing contacts, requesting a “Main Title,” a theme tune for an upcoming show.<br />The rep. was unsure as to whether I’d be interested in writing something on spec, and certainly, it’s not an endeavor I’ve ever thought of attempting before, but the idea of the show in question must have got my juices flowing, for within about half an hour I had a ridiculously catchy tune that fit the bill perfectly.<br />I then booked time at a local studio and recorded a one-and-a half minute opus (that’s all they needed), guitars, vocals, keyboards and synth drums, and was well pleased with the effort.<br />Not long after submitting the track, I was told that the music supervisor on the show, although expressing high regard for my effort, had ultimately chosen something else.<br />Not much of a surprise, really, as my observance of TV usages has led me to the conclusion that they mostly either use trendy Indie acts right out of a Nick Harcourt playlist or, like — the Who. As always, Trend and Commerce rule, and their choice in this case was no exception, using as they did a tune by someone you’ve never heard of who nevertheless was in an “Indie” band with a very silly name.<br />Two weeks later, my contact sent me another request for a Main Title, and with the juices still boiling away, I wrote an even catchier piece (this time they only wanted 40 seconds) and repeated the steps listed above.<br />To be fair, the first show had at least picked a pretty decent piece of work, trendyness of the artist notwithstanding, but on this second show they chose the lamest instrumental imaginable, probably because they decided to go cheap and hired some hack to cobble something together instead of paying a decent chunk of change to an actual name artist.<br />So, two rejections, but two potential songs in the bag for me.<br />And here’s where it gets interesting. What if, I thought, I wrote my own treatments for TV shows — situation comedies for the most part — and then wrote the theme tunes to go with them? The only person who could reject them would be me, and that wasn’t likely to happen because they’d be so bloody good!<br />I plunged into the concept with some enthusiasm, knowing as I do that anything that gets me off the couch to pick up the guitar and to then return to the couch with said guitar to actually do some work instead of passing out on said couch in front of some highly dubious footwork courtesy of the Fox Soccer Channel would be a good thing.<br />Within a month or two I had ten songs, which included fleshed out versions of the ones that I’d worked on for the TV shows in the first place.<br />Then I took the skeletal treatments of the shows and tarted them up into more fully realized plots, recorded “More Questions Than Answers,” the stunning Johnny Nash tune from the early ‘70’s that I’ve had in mind to cover for about 40 years, and there it was, a new album, “Imaginary Television.”<br />In the booklet that accompanies the CD and Vinyl (yes, vinyl!), you’ll find TV show plots and fake press reviews instead of lyrics (Judd Apatow, call me….), so don’t cheat and ask someone to burn you a copy because by just listening to the songs you won’t have a clue as to what’s going on.<br />As well as some solo gigs, me and the Figgs will be doing the rounds, so please keep an eye on the Tour page.<br /><br />Back in the real world, Primary Wave have already been getting results, and the best part is (when it comes to TV show usage at least) that songs are often used in the background, so no ones knows about it. (The fame I don’t need, I’ll just take the dosh, thanks)<br /><br />Now, there may well be a Paleolithic among you who thinks that even wanting to have tunes placed on TV shows, in movies or in adverts, is a sell out, a morally reprehensible idea, a crass indefensibly offensive affront to the delicate sensibilities of both artiste and audience, a reproachable attack on the bedrock virtues of nonconformist ideology as espoused by 50 years of iconoclastic observance to unwritten codes of conduct evinced by a continual wellspring of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion (<span style="font-size:85%;">stop him…please…</span>) now well established and accepted as a hierarchy implicitly sanctioned in the embedded psyche of a generation of man/child (<span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);font-size:85%;" >…oh…</span>) torchbearers still gripping unflinchingly the flame of truth-against-power, a flame (<span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-size:85%;" >…the humanity…)</span> held dear to countless manifestations of the unadulterated poetics of musical purity, unencumbered (<span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);font-size:85%;" >no…no more I beg</span>) by commerciality, resistant to compromise, bound implacably to the concepts of art and simultaneously immune to the vagaries of market and acceptability, popularity (<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >…stop…</span>) and monetary gain, resplendent and intrinsically wedded to higher aspirations of artistic insularity and the (<span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);font-size:85%;" >…him…</span>) steadfast multiplicity of complex compositional profundities deeply inherent to the form as established in long-standing antiestablishment diatribes, agitprop and anti-nabob in both structural formulation (<span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);font-size:85%;" >…Can’t stand…</span>) (<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >…this…</span>) and density of sonic delivery, immersed in — for want of a better word — cool. <br />Well, then you’d be a twit.<br /><br />GPUnknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-80193208147522733352009-05-05T22:59:00.000-07:002009-05-06T13:00:06.350-07:00LIVE AT NEWLANDS TAVERN<em>And other parts of the puzzle</em><br /><br />Standing around in a rough circle with this bunch of blokes I hardly<br />knew and playing my songs to them on that long late summer day,<br />deep into the afternoon in 1975, was a little intimidating.<br />The sun slashed though the blue smoke of hash joints and cigarettes;<br />we drank pints of bitter that the owners of Newlands Tavern, located<br />in Peckham in the south of London, had kindly allowed us to pull<br />from the taps, with no charge that I can remember paying.<br />Things weren't gelling on that first rehearsal, I can tell you that<br />much. Martin Belmont actually mentioned it to me later, apologizing<br />for the lackluster nature of the band's attempts to pull off my<br />material without anything approaching excitement. It didn't matter;<br />it was our first attempt and compared with any bunch of musicians<br />I'd done half-hearted rehearsals with before, little imagination<br />was needed to tell that these guys were going to be very, very good<br />backing me up.<br />We worked in a back room when the pub was closed after lunch, and<br />the creaking, wooden stage of that venerable London venue, just a<br />few feet away, started to look like something that would soon be<br />within my reach, an idea hard to imagine mere months before.<br /><br />It all started with an ad I placed in the back pages of the Melody<br />Maker, one of the music rags that I devoured every week.<br />"Singer/songwriter needs band. Into Van Morrison, the Stones and<br />Dylan," it said, or something very close to that.<br />In no time, people were responding to the ad, calling the gas station<br />where I was working in Deepcut, my childhood home that I'd recently<br />moved back into after a few years on the Hippie trail, dossing<br />around in different countries with a guitar on my back, honing my<br />skills at a leisurely pace.<br />Some dick who billed himself as a bass player called, insisting we<br />meet at his "office," a pub a few villages away called "The Who'da<br />Thot It" (keep saying it, it'll come to you); I drove miles and<br />miles to meet a girl who could only play the licks of Paul Kossoff<br />(very badly, too), the late great guitarist from the band Free, who<br />I had seen a year or two before playing to about 30 people in the<br />Gin Mill Club in Godalming, Surrey, before they broke with "All<br />Right Now."<br />The trombone player whose ad seemed a permanent fixture in the <br />paper ("Trombone Player Needs Work") called, but my horn section <br />fantasieswere not in the front line of my transom yet; they would <br />soon emergeby the time I got to the recording studio, but first I <br />needed a rock 'n' roll band: drums, guitars, and keyboards.<br />Eventually, a guy named Noel Brown got hold of me. He lived in a<br />flat near Wandsworth, south London, and played great slide guitar<br />and dobro. At last I'd found someone who didn't have the taint of<br />progressive music hanging over him, a genre I'd long left behind<br />(well, two years ago anyway) and was determined to wipe off the<br />face of the earth with a whole new attitude; an attitude that at<br />that time seemed only to exist in my head and on records that were<br />made before 1970.<br /><br />Noel introduced me to one Paul "Bassman" Riley, a guy I'd actually<br />seen on stage playing bass in an outfit called Chilli Willi and the<br />Red Hot Peppers who were on the "Naughty Rhythms Tour."<br />I'd been reading about a band called Dr. Feelgood and went to check<br />out this extravaganza in one of my old stomping grounds, the <br />Guildford Civic Hall, a few miles from my village. Chilli Willi and the <br />other band on the bill, the soul inflected Kokomo, were very good, but<br />of course the Feelgoods were incendiary, and when I saw their suits,<br />short hair and wickedly angry performance, I knew I was already on<br />the right track.<br />You have to realize that progressive rock still ruled, and I was<br />probably the only guy in the room,* apart from the band members <br />on stage, who had got rid of his flowing mane for a near skinhead <br />cut. I may have been ahead of my time for the suburbs cum country <br />areas, but obviously this reversal of style was already happening in <br />London, hence the ad in the Melody Maker. I needed other people <br />who also knew that ELP were a load of bollocks, and I found them.<br />They were not Paul and Noel, though, who did rehearse a few times<br />with me, along with various configurations of their musician friends,<br />but when Paul introduced me to Dave Robinson, things changed <br />rapidly. He recorded my songs in his demo studio, located in a room <br />in the Hope & Anchor, an Islington pub with a cellar-like venue in the<br />bowels of the building.<br />Anyone who would play for a free pint was brought in by Dave to<br />have a go on the demos, but he was stealthily formulating ideas<br />about who my eventual backing band would consist of, and before I<br />knew what was happening, a bunch of guys destined to become the<br />Rumour were rehearsing with me in the aforementioned Newlands <br />Tavern. <br />On the third day of rehearsal, Dave brought down a lanky bird-nosed<br />fellow named Nick Lowe, who I would learn was another victim of a<br />mysterious genre known as "pub rock."<br /><br />(He was not the first contender for producer. Dave and I had had<br />lunch not long before those rehearsals with Tim Moore, an American<br />singer/songwriter who had recently scored a minor UK hit with a<br />song called "Second Avenue." Dave, in his inscrutable fashion had<br />apparently nixed that idea without much clarification in favour of<br />Lowe.)<br />It was here, in Newlands Tavern, that we took the democratic tack<br />of coming up with names for the band and then voting for the winner.<br />I came up with Graham Parker and the Questions, but Brinsley's The<br />Rumour obviously won.<br />The rest, as they say, is history, and if you want to read the most<br />definitive history of the events and situations that led to my break<br />into the music business, along with many others who gained from the<br />smarts of Dave Robinson, among others, read Will Burch's "No Sleep<br />Till Canvey Island: <em>the great pub rock revolution</em>"<br /><br />It was some months into the beginning of my career when someone, <br />a Rumour member or Robinson himself, gave me an actual Brinsley <br />Schwarz album. The inappropriate term pub rock had been appearing <br />in articles about me, and I was further confused when I listened to<br />the Brinsley's album: "What the fuck has this lame country music<br />got to do with me?" I wondered.<br />Whatever, it matters not when I point out to journalists the<br />exasperating irrelevance of this term, which I did just 4 days ago.<br />It will doubtless be used in my obituary.<br /><br />(*I guess I was not the only male member of the audience with short<br />hair at the Guildford Civic Hall that night. According to Burch's<br />book, a certain 17-year-old named Paul Weller was there, although,<br />who knows? Maybe he had hair down to his arse until after seeing<br />the show!<br /><br />The date of this auspicious event was January 12th 1975. Before<br />half the year was out I'd have a manager, a crack backing band, and<br />a record deal. When I saw this gig I was just some bloke working<br />in a gas station with no future that anyone, apart from myself,<br />would have guessed at.)<br /><br />Which brings us to this Official Bootleg, "Live At Newlands Tavern."<br />On the My Gig List section of Johannes Deininger's excellent "Struck<br />By Lightning" website, the first two gigs I did with the Rumour<br />appear thus:<br /><br />10 or 11/75: Newlands Tavern, London, UK<br />75: Nag's Head, High Wycombe, UK<br /><br />The time period seems accurate to me, but starting in a fairly<br />famous London venue runs counterintuitive to normal tactics in<br />exposing a new band and also does not jibe with my admittedly <br />dodgy memory. I'd say that we almost definitely performed in <br />High Wycombe first and followed up with the London show. <br />(I'll admit here that I could be wrong about the order!).<br />I can recall hanging around a soccer field or park in the afternoon<br />shivering in the cold drizzle, smoking a joint and riddled with<br />nerves about the upcoming evening. Why we were hanging around a<br />field I don't know, but that vague memory is in my head and we were<br />in High Wycombe, not London.<br />The audience that night was comprised mostly of pals of mine from<br />various villages in Surrey who would have found the proximity of<br />High Wycombe more appealing than a trek up to south London.<br /><br />As for the show featured on this disc: who was that masked man?<br />Whoever held the tape recorder appears to have been hanging out<br />near the bar, which was located on the right as you looked at the<br />stage. At the risk of sounding sexist I say "man" because surely<br />finding a woman with a tape recorder at a gig in 1975 would be like<br />finding a female Captain Beefheart fan in any era.<br />And what are we hearing on this tape?<br />Martin Belmont is doing the announcing (I don't say a word). And<br />this may well be the complete show as far as my performance is<br />concerned, but I'm sure the Rumour did their own set beforehand.<br />I also remember something that does not appear here: Martin <br />introduced me thus: "And now we'd like to bring on a friend of ours. <br />Please welcome, Graham Parker." Yes, to blunt the shock of this <br />unknown character taking the stage in a well-known London venue <br />and completely taking over center stage, I was introduced almost as <br />a sideman! Talk about hedging your bets! In retrospect, this was <br />probably a smart move seeing as Martin was from the classic Pub <br />Rock band Ducks Deluxe and Bob and Brinsley were from the Brinsley <br />Schwarz band, in many ways considered to be the epitome of this <br />alleged genre. Also, the next time we played London, after our profile <br />had been upped considerably and articles about us had been appearing <br />in the music press, Dave told me that some members of my growing <br />audience had been at that first London gig in Newlands, and that they <br />had hated my guts. It wasn't that they didn't like the music, and the<br />applause on this recording seems quite rousing. It was the idea<br />of this guy they'd never heard of, appearing from nowhere, and<br />fronting a class A outfit consisting of London's finest as if they<br />were a mere backing band that pissed them off.<br /><br />What strikes me most about this tape is the full-grown ferocity of<br />the performance. Not only do I sound as if I was already competing<br />with the punk bands that were not to fully emerge until over a year<br />later, but the Rumour sound as if they've been playing my stuff for<br />years, and are rocking in suitably ferocious form themselves.<br />After those brief rehearsals and only one gig, it amazes me just<br />how good we were already, and how far ahead of anything else going<br />on at the time (Dr. Feelgood notwithstanding).<br />Gone is the almost apologetic "let's just play the songs, man"<br />attitude of the pub rock scene that the band had come from, and my<br />new found angst (I was lying around watching the ceiling changing<br />shapes to a backdrop of "Dark Side Of The Moon" only a couple of<br />years earlier) seems to have been picked up by everyone and applied<br />with full force, making it seem as if we had planned this like a<br />military operation.<br />It's hard to imagine where I got the balls to even consider doing<br />"Chain Of Fools," and doing it as if I wanted to strangle the<br />offending member of the opposite sex that the song details.<br />And the arrangements of my own songs seem very close to those on<br />"Howlin' Wind," right down to some of Brinsley's sax lines (yes,<br />that's Brinsley on the sax!) that would appear on the album fleshed<br />out by a full horn section.<br />Even "Don't Ask Me Questions" has the brutal urgency of an anthem,<br />just as it does on the record. How did we get this act together<br />so quickly? Beats me.<br />Then there's the strange break in the show followed by a brief<br />appearance of the Rumour without me, doing an instrumental they had<br />been working on in rehearsals called "Rockin' Hawk" (don't know who<br />did this originally) and then I'm back on doing two more songs that<br />would appear on the first record and a song we probably never did<br />again called "Express Delivery," which appears to use drug smuggling<br />as a metaphor for lost love!<br />What also strikes me is the fantastic lead guitar work by Martin<br />Belmont. It is assumed that Brinsley was the real virtuoso of the<br />twin guitar attack and that Martin was more the rhythm player, but<br />most of the solos are handled by Martin, and what an underrated<br />lead player he is.<br />An interesting detail comes before "Questions," which Martin also<br />plays lead on. It's hard to hear what he's saying before we start<br />the song, but I believe Martin is commenting (and filling a rare<br />silent gap) on Brinsley's reggae guitar technique. Brins would<br />take a piece of foam and place it beneath his guitar strings near<br />the bridge to achieve a deadened, ring-free sound. Where he'd got<br />this idea from I don't know, but it was the early days of white<br />boys playing reggae (apart from GT Moore and the Reggae Guitars who<br />had made a great album in that groove that very year) and perhaps<br />the form was still a little mysterious.<br /><br />Although the sound of this recording is obviously of very low<br />quality, the intensity of our act comes through nonetheless, and<br />the noise of the audience ("white wine, white wine..." a woman appears<br />to be repeating sluggishly at the bar) imbues the experience with<br />that full-on London pub atmosphere, bringing a bygone era back into<br />sharp focus.<br /><br />Hey, it's gotta be worth ten bucks, that's for sure.<br />Available from this site and at gigs.<br />Enjoy.<br /><br /><a href="http://grahamparker.net/newlands.php">http://grahamparker.net/newlands.php</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-52472298432098943052009-02-09T18:24:00.000-08:002009-03-15T20:24:19.392-07:00CARP FISHING ON VALIUM: THE LINER NOTESJust before the release of "Carp Fishing On Valium," I was playing a gig in New York's Bottom Line. I mentioned my upcoming literary effort to my friend Alan Pepper, the owner of the venerable joint. "Write some songs to go with the stories and take it on the road," he suggested. I scoffed loudly at the impertinence of his idea and dismissed it out of hand, thinking that writing the book had been enough effort already and that St. Martin's Press would swing into high gear at its release and I could lay back and choke myself stupid on the copious amounts of champagne the royalties would bring in and not have to lift a finger again for a few years.<br /><br />However, once I got home I dug into the task with gusto and in fairly short order had a bunch of songs going, only cheating once with the previously released "Soultime," because nothing could beat it as an accompaniment for the moddy boy opus, "Aub."<br /><br />Now came the hard part. Getting the gigs would be easy enough, but getting a book publishing company to do anything other than hand me over to a clueless intern proved impossible, and so after tearing the hapless intern a new one when she informed me in an e-mail that picking up the phone and calling a few bookstores to invite them down to the venues to sell a few books was "all so complicated," I forgot about the company and just got on with it myself, treating it like any other tour where I do all the work anyway.<br /><br />One thing I've learned about book publishing companies: after the product is released the phone stops ringing.<br /><br />Approximately sixteen gigs were completed, starting in July 2000, many with Tom Freund as musical accompaniment, playing upright bass, guitar, and mandolin. Which brings us to this latest release in our "official bootleg" series.<br /><br />Many artists dream of releasing the rawest recordings they have, and preferably before they die when someone with less sensitivity will do the job for them and release the rawest crap that they have, material that the artist would rather remain safely rotting in a dank basement.<br /><br />These songs, however, fit the bill perfectly, having been recorded in the bathroom on my trusty 1980's Sony Pro Cassette recorder (with separate microphone requiring a triple A battery no less), and soon after dispatched to Tom Freund.<br /><br />I'd forgotten all about this until our webmaster John Howells -- who I must have sent a copy to for his amusement -- worked the sound a bit, dumped it on a CD, and sent it off to me for my amusement.<br /><br />Damn, it sounds fine!<br /><br />It has all the prerequisites of the raw demo scenario with strong vocal and guitar work, plenty of open tuning, songs that sparked off entire albums like "Blue Horizon" and "Anything For A Laugh," a tune called "Hot Ringlets" which I never even sang on the tour but ripped off later for "Go Little Jimmy," and of course six tunes never heard again until now.<br /><br />Please enjoy the real thing.<br /><br /><a href="http://grahamparker.net/carpfishing.php">http://grahamparker.net/carpfishing.php</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303889660926175775.post-58503978021717289572009-02-06T23:55:00.000-08:002009-02-07T09:08:44.582-08:00AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR PRESIDENT OBAMATell the Republicans to go fuck themselves. No, really. <span style="font-style:italic;">Tell-the<br />Republicans-to-go-fuck-themselves.</span><br /><br />America (and the rest of the world) has suffered eight years of<br />these assholes — the “we create our own reality” (Rove) crowd — who <br />were convinced after they defiled the horror of 9/11 with a phony war <br />and all the torturous trinkets they draped it with that they would <br />ultimately prevail in their quest to maintain Republican power for <br />many years to come. Mr. Obama, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth <br />after it has kicked itself in the balls. Give it another kick, just <br />to make sure it isn’t getting up again any time soon.<br /><br />These are the people who’s ultimate goal is to eradicate all social<br />programs, to privatize everything, and to keep America in the wild<br />west where Reagan placed it years ago with a policy of deregulation<br />which has finally imploded, leading to the current economic crash.<br /><br />These are the people who would stand up in a debate, as the <br />Republican candidates did in late 2008, and when asked if they <br />“believed” in evolution (as if evolution is something to “believe” <br />in, like a deity) would most certainly keep their hands firmly to <br />their sides. This is the type of nutter you are dealing with here.<br /><br />Conservative thinking is over. Its crushing, <br />one-small-portion-of-the-left-hemisphere-of-my-brain-is-all-I’m-using<br />approach to the complexities of this period in history are now too<br />flat-footed to be entertained by anyone who is using a modicum of<br />the other cranial areas. It might have been useful once, but it’s<br />not anymore.<br /><br />Look, Pres., the public chose you over a man who was so obviously<br />suffering the beginnings of some degenerative brain disease, the<br />like of which strikes our aged with such unfortunate regularity.<br />(Well done, old chap! You beat a man with Alzheimers!) Don’t let<br />these “ideology above everything” folks grind you down. Please<br />find your Huevos Grandes, and quickly.<br /><br />And so, President Obama, tell the republicans to go fuck themselves.<br /><br />Thanks you for your time today, sir.<br /><br />The ChairmanUnknownnoreply@blogger.com31