CHAIRMAN PARKER ON THE GP/R 2012 WINTER TOUR/MOVIE RELEASE

The 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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
It was all good.

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. 

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.

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.

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.
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.

Thanks to Primary Wave, thanks to Shorefire.  Thanks to everyone.

GP

THREE CHORDS GOOD/THIS IS 40 TOUR

It’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.
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.
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.

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? 
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.)
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. 

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.
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
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.

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.

“THREE CHORDS GOOD” release date 11/19/12

All the best,

GP

¡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.
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.

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.

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).
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.

(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)."

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.

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.

Enjoy,

GP

FIVE LOOSE SCREWS

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. Well, not strictly true, but it sounds like a good story.

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.

Who cares if they're crap? Certainly not me!

(note: “Harridan Of Yore” appeared on the Bloodshot compilation “For A Decade Of Sin.”)

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. 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.

Our own John Howells had the sterling idea of coupling this with my Youtube output.

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. I didn't even know you could combine these two elements together so easily, but John assured me it wasn't rocket science.

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.

"Area 51 (in your heart)" was undoubtedly recorded with the "Your Country" sessions, and that's where anyone interested should look for the credits. 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.

"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. The tune was recorded in a stand alone session, and I played all the instruments.

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.

According to Mike Gent, "Harridan Of Yore" was from the SONC sessions with the Figgs, and "The End Of Faith" recorded with Latest Clowns members in Boston's Q Division studios, minus Brett Rosenberg.

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. As Al told it, she soon signaled the end of their little chat with a curt "We're through!" Later, when asking a friend or colleague who had knowledge of that fine lady's personality, the friend told Al that, yes, she was indeed a harridan. What a fine word, I thought! I simply must use it immediately. 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. After the show, I spoke to them at the bar and they admitted that they were in fact "conservatives." They were fans of my work they insisted, but thought that "Harridan Of Yore" was "the worst song you've ever written."

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. And I do hope those folks got to read my blurb for "The End Of Faith." That would probably have had them apoplectic!

(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. 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!)

So, there you have it. Please enjoy "FIVE LOOSE SCREWS." What? The Rumour? The Movie? Is that what you're asking me? 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. 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. No brainer.

In the meantime, please enjoy “FIVE LOOSE SCREWS.” It’s damnably quirky.

GP

“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