My Top Ten Albums of 2012
I'm still in awe of this album -- the best reunion yet.
Graham Parker & The Rumour:
Three Chords Good
"Old Soul"
So here we come to the tenth day of my Top Ten Albums countdown -- and even though I said it was in no particular order, I saved this one for last because it IS my favorite album of the year.
I'll admit I'm a bit biased when it comes to Graham Parker. Okay, more than a bit. But I have to say, this reunion with his original backing band The Rumour has exceeded all my expectations. Live, they are absolutely smoking, as anybody can attest who's seen them on their current tour. And the thing I really love is that they are not just trotting out the old Squeezing Out Sparks hits -- nearly half their set has been drawn from this brand-new album of Parker-penned winners.
So even if you've missed the tour, you don't have to miss all the fun. If you aren't already on the bandwagon, this album could make a believer of you. These songs are soulful, they're wicked smart, they're funny, they break your heart (but in a good way). They're vintage Graham Parker, in other words.
Here's my original post about my favorite track on the album. Since writing this post, I've been told it's Graham's current favorite song, too. I hope you'll see why.
Showing posts with label bob andrews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bob andrews. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Old Soul /
Graham Parker & the Rumour
I HATE lame reunions, don't you? The Half-Who, the Pink-ish Floyd, the Beach Codgers, the Mercury-free Queen -- we all want them to be as good as they once were, and they hardly ever are. (One notable exception: The Zombies.) As much as we Kinks fans yearn to have the brothers Davies back together, what if they reunited and they -- gasp -- sucked? Better never to know.
Yet I never for a minute doubted that Graham Parker & the Rumour would pull it off. GP has been working at the top of his game for so long, I knew his gift hadn't deserted him. More than that, when I saw most of the band play together a couple of years ago, it was clear that the old fire was totally there. I saw Graham and keyboardist Bob Andrews perform together a couple months later and it was magic. As the old Magic 8-Ball would say, All signs point to yes.
But even I didn't predict just HOW good this reunion would be. And now that Three Chords Good, the reunion album, is out, I'm gobsmacked by its brilliance.
Pick a track, any track -- they're all fantastic. Okay, let's go with this one:
One of the problems with many reunions is that the bands are all trying to act like they're 25 years old again. Screw that! We fans aren't 25 anymore either -- why not acknowledge that? In the interim, Graham Parker has expanded the horizons of his soul-infused rock with country and folk, so slipping into a jazz mode feels incredibly logical. (I would too, if I had Bob Andrews' supple piano to back me up.) And by labeling it "Old Soul" -- as in, the precursor to soul -- it makes perfect sense.
But we're still dealing with GP's deliciously cynical world view. "They said you was an old soul / They say a lot of things," he gruffly confides, still puzzling over a relationship that was doomed from the start. That gap between what "they say" and what we feel to be true -- we'd love to buck it, but we are only human and time and again, we fall for the hype. And even though it doesn't work out, we can't help but be intrigued by what transpires. As he says in verse 2: "You wore a lot of strange masks / and clipped a lot of wings / like venom in a shot glass / like liqueur in a hot flask." Despite the acerbic edge to his voice, the poetic imagery infuses this fraught affair with its own dark glamour. He knew in his heart of hearts that she was no good, but what is life if we take no risks?
Best couplet in the song comes in the bridge: "Why am I left half alive / when you're only half dead?" This is so typical of Graham Parker's lyrical genius: yeah, it refers to the old trope about the glass being half-full or half-empty, but it gives it a fresh twist that invokes vampires, clinical depression, and years of couples therapy. And the way he marries it to the melody -- "half alive" rises as a cry for help, while "half dead" circles down in despair -- well, this is art, folks, and I'm telling you that this phrase has already lodged itself in my personal ledger of Phrases That Sum It All Up. .
He's willing to acknowledge his own willful blindness in the last verse -- "I thought you was a sweet child / I think a lot of things." (I love that rueful inversion of the first verse.) And yet, would he have given up the experience? "You took me on a wild ride / all bumper cars and swings" -- sounds memorable to me. Raise your hand if you've ever had a relationship like this, where the thrills are almost -- but not quite -- worth the emotional torment that was bound to ensue.
And sure, in the end it took its toll -- "You swore that you was high class / But you brought me down so low" -- but he knew it was a gamble. "I knew that love could not last / With an old soul like you."
"Old soul" -- it's a cliche to admire people, especially children, by saying they are old souls. We imagine that old souls are more compassionate, or wiser, than the rest of us. But Graham Parker loves setting cliches on their heads. Really, why are old souls any better? What if the "oldness" they embrace is like medieval brutalism or Renaissance duplicity or Gilded Age callousness?
The world-weariness of that jazz tempo is our key. None of us are punked-up kids anymore; a song like "Don't Get Excited" (from Squeezing Out Sparks) would simply not apply. Rather than trotting out the old sound, Graham Parker & the Rumour have cut a new groove, one that's just as magnetic as the old one.
Mere nostalgia is so irrelevant. This is an album you could love even if you didn't have Howlin' Wind or Heat Treatment on your turntable in the late 1970s. These guys aren't trying to fit themselves back into their old soul shoes -- they've all lived interesting lives and done interesting things in the interim, and they've brought all that to the table. It's almost irrelevant to think of it as a reunion album -- better to simply say they're working together again, better than ever.
Graham Parker & the Rumour
I HATE lame reunions, don't you? The Half-Who, the Pink-ish Floyd, the Beach Codgers, the Mercury-free Queen -- we all want them to be as good as they once were, and they hardly ever are. (One notable exception: The Zombies.) As much as we Kinks fans yearn to have the brothers Davies back together, what if they reunited and they -- gasp -- sucked? Better never to know.
Yet I never for a minute doubted that Graham Parker & the Rumour would pull it off. GP has been working at the top of his game for so long, I knew his gift hadn't deserted him. More than that, when I saw most of the band play together a couple of years ago, it was clear that the old fire was totally there. I saw Graham and keyboardist Bob Andrews perform together a couple months later and it was magic. As the old Magic 8-Ball would say, All signs point to yes.
But even I didn't predict just HOW good this reunion would be. And now that Three Chords Good, the reunion album, is out, I'm gobsmacked by its brilliance.
Pick a track, any track -- they're all fantastic. Okay, let's go with this one:
One of the problems with many reunions is that the bands are all trying to act like they're 25 years old again. Screw that! We fans aren't 25 anymore either -- why not acknowledge that? In the interim, Graham Parker has expanded the horizons of his soul-infused rock with country and folk, so slipping into a jazz mode feels incredibly logical. (I would too, if I had Bob Andrews' supple piano to back me up.) And by labeling it "Old Soul" -- as in, the precursor to soul -- it makes perfect sense.
But we're still dealing with GP's deliciously cynical world view. "They said you was an old soul / They say a lot of things," he gruffly confides, still puzzling over a relationship that was doomed from the start. That gap between what "they say" and what we feel to be true -- we'd love to buck it, but we are only human and time and again, we fall for the hype. And even though it doesn't work out, we can't help but be intrigued by what transpires. As he says in verse 2: "You wore a lot of strange masks / and clipped a lot of wings / like venom in a shot glass / like liqueur in a hot flask." Despite the acerbic edge to his voice, the poetic imagery infuses this fraught affair with its own dark glamour. He knew in his heart of hearts that she was no good, but what is life if we take no risks?
Best couplet in the song comes in the bridge: "Why am I left half alive / when you're only half dead?" This is so typical of Graham Parker's lyrical genius: yeah, it refers to the old trope about the glass being half-full or half-empty, but it gives it a fresh twist that invokes vampires, clinical depression, and years of couples therapy. And the way he marries it to the melody -- "half alive" rises as a cry for help, while "half dead" circles down in despair -- well, this is art, folks, and I'm telling you that this phrase has already lodged itself in my personal ledger of Phrases That Sum It All Up. .
He's willing to acknowledge his own willful blindness in the last verse -- "I thought you was a sweet child / I think a lot of things." (I love that rueful inversion of the first verse.) And yet, would he have given up the experience? "You took me on a wild ride / all bumper cars and swings" -- sounds memorable to me. Raise your hand if you've ever had a relationship like this, where the thrills are almost -- but not quite -- worth the emotional torment that was bound to ensue.
And sure, in the end it took its toll -- "You swore that you was high class / But you brought me down so low" -- but he knew it was a gamble. "I knew that love could not last / With an old soul like you."
"Old soul" -- it's a cliche to admire people, especially children, by saying they are old souls. We imagine that old souls are more compassionate, or wiser, than the rest of us. But Graham Parker loves setting cliches on their heads. Really, why are old souls any better? What if the "oldness" they embrace is like medieval brutalism or Renaissance duplicity or Gilded Age callousness?
The world-weariness of that jazz tempo is our key. None of us are punked-up kids anymore; a song like "Don't Get Excited" (from Squeezing Out Sparks) would simply not apply. Rather than trotting out the old sound, Graham Parker & the Rumour have cut a new groove, one that's just as magnetic as the old one.
Mere nostalgia is so irrelevant. This is an album you could love even if you didn't have Howlin' Wind or Heat Treatment on your turntable in the late 1970s. These guys aren't trying to fit themselves back into their old soul shoes -- they've all lived interesting lives and done interesting things in the interim, and they've brought all that to the table. It's almost irrelevant to think of it as a reunion album -- better to simply say they're working together again, better than ever.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Chills and Fever / Bob Andrews
OR: MY NIGHTS AT THE IRIDIUM PART II
Watch out, City Winery -- the Iridium is threatening to steal my loyalty as my favorite New York City music joint. A scant three weeks after Marshall Crenshaw & Co. blew the roof off the old jazz club, my musical hero Graham Parker showed up for a weekend stint -- billed as half of the Graham Parker Duo, a musical act that reunites GP with his old Rumour keyboardist Bob Andrews.
Now as some of you may remember, almost exactly one year ago I saw the historic gig at NYC's Lakeside Lounge wherein Graham Parker unofficially reunited with most of The Rumour (they billed themselves as the Kippington Lodge Social Club -- like anybody would be fooled by that!). We should have known they wouldn't stop there, and a few weeks ago we finally got the big news: that the Rumour and Parker have reunited for a role in a Judd Apatow movie, and have recorded a new album, to be released next December to coincide with the movie's release. Now, the fact that these tracks have already been laid down and we won't get to hear them for another YEAR is excruciating. But in the meantime, hopefully we'll get a few more delicious sneak previews like Graham and Bob's Iridium show.
That night the Lakeside was packed beyond the fire laws; I had to watch through the front windows from the sidewalk. But since the band was playing right next to the window, I could see everything. And when they burst into "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass," I was absolutely riveted by Bob's virtuoso organ break. That's when I really began to understand that, great as Graham is, the Rumour were far more than just a backing band, and Bob Andrews was one of their most essential treasures. (Not to mention what he brought to his pre-Parker group, Brinsley Schwarz, one of the great jam bands of the pub rock era.)
Fast forward to 2011 and cruise uptown to the Iridium. It was just Graham and Bob this time around (although Rumour drummer Steve Goulding, it turned out, was sitting right next to us!) but if anything they were having even more fun than they did downtown. Laughing, dancing, wisecracking, goofing around -- they brought such joy and high spirits to the stage, we were all infected. And I thought to myself: This is why I love rock and roll. This is why you have to see music live. Who cares if neither of these guys will ever see 60 again, or if they haven't a head of shaggy hair between them? Once they started rocking, they were 22-year-old wild men all over again, only a whole lot smarter and funnier.
The setlist was a healthy mix: Graham's solo stuff, a couple superb new reunion songs, and a few greatest hits, including "You Can't Be Too Strong" -- one of my favorite cuts from Squeezing Out Sparks, which I've always longed to hear Graham perform. Now I realize why he doesn't sing it more often: It absolutely, ABSOLUTELY, requires Bob's brilliant little piano fills. And with those fills, it was positively shivers-up-the-spine beautiful.
And they did some of Bob's solo numbers too. If you're lucky enough to visit New Orleans in the near future, check out where Bob's playing -- he hops around his adopted home town, playing at various clubs, letting les bons temps roulez. Another reason to love New Orleans.
I took a crappy video that night, not worth posting, but here's something I cribbed from the Interweb, taken at the House of Blues down in New Orleans:
Come to think of it, this vid isn't much better than the one I took, but it does have the virtue of being shot from the keyboard side. (D'oh!) At any rate, it gives you the idea of Bob's inimitable loose style and lightning fast fingers.
Now here's the full track from Bob's solo CD, appropriately enough also named Chills and Fever:
There's not much to critique about this song -- it's just an insanely catchy R&B artifact, toe-tapping and full of spunk. It's built on a tried-and-true pop metaphor, where fever stands in for love/lust/passion -- a metaphor older than the hills but still apt indeed. But above all, it's a song admirably suited to a barreling roadhouse piano, which is no doubt why Bob Andrews felt compelled to give it a whirl.
"Chills and Fever" first hit the airwaves as an atmospherically spooky 1961 single by Ronnie Love, jazzed up with voodoo-inflected shivering saxes. Apparently -- Bob shared this nugget of information with us -- no less than Allen Toussaint played the piano on that original Dot Records recording; that's what I call good bloodlines. But the song is perhaps best known as Tom Jones' first single in 1964. Though it would take his next release -- "It's Not Unusual" -- to make him a star, Tom Jones' trademark sweaty passion is already all over his heated-up cover version.
Bob takes the horniness back down a notch (whew!); his version is considerably more sprightly than either Ronnie's or Tom's. It's simply a fine excuse to peel off some show-stopping boogie-woogie piano riffs. He's almost like a salesman dropping open his sample case: Who knew one man could wring that many different sounds out of one piano? Like I said, a musical treasure -- and if we are very good children, we just may be hearing a lot more from him in the months to come.
OR: MY NIGHTS AT THE IRIDIUM PART II
Watch out, City Winery -- the Iridium is threatening to steal my loyalty as my favorite New York City music joint. A scant three weeks after Marshall Crenshaw & Co. blew the roof off the old jazz club, my musical hero Graham Parker showed up for a weekend stint -- billed as half of the Graham Parker Duo, a musical act that reunites GP with his old Rumour keyboardist Bob Andrews.
Now as some of you may remember, almost exactly one year ago I saw the historic gig at NYC's Lakeside Lounge wherein Graham Parker unofficially reunited with most of The Rumour (they billed themselves as the Kippington Lodge Social Club -- like anybody would be fooled by that!). We should have known they wouldn't stop there, and a few weeks ago we finally got the big news: that the Rumour and Parker have reunited for a role in a Judd Apatow movie, and have recorded a new album, to be released next December to coincide with the movie's release. Now, the fact that these tracks have already been laid down and we won't get to hear them for another YEAR is excruciating. But in the meantime, hopefully we'll get a few more delicious sneak previews like Graham and Bob's Iridium show.
That night the Lakeside was packed beyond the fire laws; I had to watch through the front windows from the sidewalk. But since the band was playing right next to the window, I could see everything. And when they burst into "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass," I was absolutely riveted by Bob's virtuoso organ break. That's when I really began to understand that, great as Graham is, the Rumour were far more than just a backing band, and Bob Andrews was one of their most essential treasures. (Not to mention what he brought to his pre-Parker group, Brinsley Schwarz, one of the great jam bands of the pub rock era.)
Fast forward to 2011 and cruise uptown to the Iridium. It was just Graham and Bob this time around (although Rumour drummer Steve Goulding, it turned out, was sitting right next to us!) but if anything they were having even more fun than they did downtown. Laughing, dancing, wisecracking, goofing around -- they brought such joy and high spirits to the stage, we were all infected. And I thought to myself: This is why I love rock and roll. This is why you have to see music live. Who cares if neither of these guys will ever see 60 again, or if they haven't a head of shaggy hair between them? Once they started rocking, they were 22-year-old wild men all over again, only a whole lot smarter and funnier.
The setlist was a healthy mix: Graham's solo stuff, a couple superb new reunion songs, and a few greatest hits, including "You Can't Be Too Strong" -- one of my favorite cuts from Squeezing Out Sparks, which I've always longed to hear Graham perform. Now I realize why he doesn't sing it more often: It absolutely, ABSOLUTELY, requires Bob's brilliant little piano fills. And with those fills, it was positively shivers-up-the-spine beautiful.
And they did some of Bob's solo numbers too. If you're lucky enough to visit New Orleans in the near future, check out where Bob's playing -- he hops around his adopted home town, playing at various clubs, letting les bons temps roulez. Another reason to love New Orleans.
I took a crappy video that night, not worth posting, but here's something I cribbed from the Interweb, taken at the House of Blues down in New Orleans:
Come to think of it, this vid isn't much better than the one I took, but it does have the virtue of being shot from the keyboard side. (D'oh!) At any rate, it gives you the idea of Bob's inimitable loose style and lightning fast fingers.
Now here's the full track from Bob's solo CD, appropriately enough also named Chills and Fever:
There's not much to critique about this song -- it's just an insanely catchy R&B artifact, toe-tapping and full of spunk. It's built on a tried-and-true pop metaphor, where fever stands in for love/lust/passion -- a metaphor older than the hills but still apt indeed. But above all, it's a song admirably suited to a barreling roadhouse piano, which is no doubt why Bob Andrews felt compelled to give it a whirl.
"Chills and Fever" first hit the airwaves as an atmospherically spooky 1961 single by Ronnie Love, jazzed up with voodoo-inflected shivering saxes. Apparently -- Bob shared this nugget of information with us -- no less than Allen Toussaint played the piano on that original Dot Records recording; that's what I call good bloodlines. But the song is perhaps best known as Tom Jones' first single in 1964. Though it would take his next release -- "It's Not Unusual" -- to make him a star, Tom Jones' trademark sweaty passion is already all over his heated-up cover version.
Bob takes the horniness back down a notch (whew!); his version is considerably more sprightly than either Ronnie's or Tom's. It's simply a fine excuse to peel off some show-stopping boogie-woogie piano riffs. He's almost like a salesman dropping open his sample case: Who knew one man could wring that many different sounds out of one piano? Like I said, a musical treasure -- and if we are very good children, we just may be hearing a lot more from him in the months to come.
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