“80’S REVERB RULES OK!” Graham Parker and the Fact: an odd career intermission

I had signed with Atlantic Records, either in 1985, just after the “Steady Nerves” tour with Eric Clapton, or early 1986, and things weren’t going too well. My meetings with the legendary Ahmet Ertegun and his German sidekick had been underwhelming and — Ahmet being a hero of sorts — very disappointing. (They always had
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.)

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. I should not of course have been allowing them to be privy to new songs at all. In previous years, with my first manager Dave Robinson in charge, we kept a lid on everything until the album was in the can. 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. (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.)

Much of the material I’d foolishly handed over became the “Loose Monkeys” spare tracks record, released years later by Razor & Tie. 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.” They didn’t like these any better. At this point, the alarm bells in my head became a cacophony.

All Ahmet could talk about was Whitesnake and Phil Collins, or whatever other acts Atlantic had that were currently in the charts. Yes, the ‘80’s were grim. 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.

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. It’ll either be good or great, depending on the breaks.”

Good old RCA went for it and “Mona Lisa’s Sister” arrived in ‘88.

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.

Best way to deal with this, I figured, was to put a band together and play some gigs. 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. No keyboards. 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.

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. I’m presuming that this gig was recorded professionally for radio — that’s no board tape. This thing has real fidelity and is mixed well, although the vocal is a bit low for the first few songs. 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). And what a chorus it is. 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).

And what about the songs on this set? 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.” 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. 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.

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. 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.

I typically find my vocals on these live shows to be thin and flat lining, but not on this. 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.

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. 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. 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. “Hendrix, I said, it’s a Hendrix thing.” Time well spent, no question.

(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. Our apologies, but that’s the way it came.)

It’s also nice to hear Brinsley’s backing vocals in prominence throughout; they were typically buried on GP & the Rumour shows.

Yeah, I like this record.

(Many thanks to Johannes at the “Struck By Lightning” website and our own John Howells for this one.)

GP

SPIRITUAL, 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.
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.”

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!

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.
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.
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.

What a challenge! I’m at work, as we speak, monkeying around with the set lists.
Go to the “Tour Page” for more details.

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…

The last shows before the holidays. See you there.

GP

"DON’T ASK ME QUESTIONS,” THE GP DOCUMENTARY. “GP AND THE FIGGS LIVE AT THE FTC.” THE “BOX OF BOOTLEGS"

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. 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. Turns out I was very wrong. I’m moved and humbled by the incredible response. Thank you all sincerely.

Below is a rambling description of the events that led to the film and beyond.

On the 27^th 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!). The rather excellent Elliot Murphy opened. 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. He claimed to be in the midst of creating a film about the Ramones. 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. “No one’s gonna be interested,” I asserted forcefully. “The Ramones? Now that’s a story.”

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. 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. Their recent lionization begged a proper recounting in film. 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? 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. I was finally learning my trade: rather dull stuff for a documentary, I reckoned. Yes, it was all very boring.

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. 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 real heyday— in a word: iconic.

A film about me would be like watching paint dry, I assured these blokes. Forget it.

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.

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. 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. In a moment of delirium, I called Michael and suggested that here might be something of actual interest. Forget the down-the-rabbit-hole music career, I said, how about filming some gigs on this tour?

Now this is interesting!

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.” But the Gramaglia Bros had no intention of just making a film about my book. They had at last wheedled their wicked way in and there was no turning back. The filming would continue…for ten years! Talk about watching paint dry.

On Friday 22^nd 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.” I don’t want to give away too much, but it seemed to go down extremely well. The film makers had managed to find a delicate balance of emotion and informati

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

I didn’t even know existed that had been there all the time.

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. Quite simply, I give a big thumbs-up to the Gramaglia Brothers.

Regarding the release of this film, the Brothers are going to target a few film festivals first, and they often want an “exclusive.” Therefore, we have to see how that plays out before a general release on DVD. So you might still have to wait a bit before it is available. The item be

low, however, is almost in your hot little hands already, or at least in time for Christmas…

…On to the next cinematic event.

As some of you know, one of the GP and the Figgs shows was filmed by a professional crew in Fairfield, CT. This film was put together by Primary Wave and Image Entertainment. The DVD is already available for pre-order on Amazon. 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

f my career. Release date is December 7^th.

To say I’m pleased with the sterling performance of the Figgs and the excellent camera and sound

quality would be an understatement. It is what it is: a rocking good show filmed and recorded by experts. Not much else to add. Don’t miss it.

Box of Bootlegs

Floating World and Evangeline has released a “Box of Bootlegs,” featuring six of our official bootleg CD’s — you guessed it — in a box. It’s a great pleasure to have our eclectic bits and pieces licensed by a European company. Looks like a tasty collectors’ item to me.

“Carp Fishing on Valium” will also see a separate European release.

GP

Sunglass(es) - The Graham Parker Show - Episode Two

“ONE STOP CLEARANCE” AKA “STICK IT TO THE MAN”

Mike Gent on drums, guitar, backing vocals
GP on guitars and backing vocals
Ed Valauskas on bass
Professor “Louie” Hurwitz on keyboards and accordion

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 and 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.

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).

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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!

Regarding the folks who are making money selling this: please cease and desist or I will sue your ass.

Thank you,

GP

Paint Drying #1 - Graham Parker and the Figgs On Tour

Sunglass(es) The Graham Parker Show - Episode One