NBC: Master songwriter still going strong after almost 4 decades of rock
SMBalloon
May 3, 2007
Graham Parker packs a lot into songs
Master songwriter still going strong after almost 4 decades of rock
By Scott McLennan
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
Graham Parker & The Latest Clowns
document.write(""+WT_stars+"");When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: The Bull Run, Route 2A, Shirley
How much: $20 in advance, $25 the day of the show
Graham Parker concedes that nothing is ever quite normal for him.
Writing songs forces the prolific Parker to step outside the regular
flow of living, and he writes a lot of songs.
"Songwriting is about observing. You become separate from other
people. I pick things out. It's rather predatory. It's not real life,"
Parker said.
Then when it comes time to record and perform those observations,
Parker said he must become larger than life, noting, "When you're on
stage, you have to command life. It's always unreal. Nothing is quite
right. It's an interesting thing."
And interesting not just for Parker, but for anyone with a taste for
literate, detailed pop music. Over the past 30-odd years, Parker has
been responsible for numerous songwriting gems, cutting through
whatever trends surrounded him with material that stands on its own
irrespective of the particular time or place it was conceived. Whether
listening to Parker's old pub-rock albums made back in the mid-'70s
when he was burning up England's music scene or his latest material
filtered through the rustic tones of Americana twang, there is no
mistaking the genius at the core.
In March, Parker released "Don't Tell Columbus," his third batch of
new songs for Bloodshot Records since 2004 (there was also a live
record put out in that time frame). The "Columbus" record, he said,
represents a culmination of the stylistic ideas he started working
with on its predecessors "Your Country" and "Songs of No Consequence,"
the former an excursion into country music and the latter a blast of
power-pop cut with The Figgs.
"Don't Tell Columbus" pulls on those influences, but also veers off
into the likes of the eight-minute "The Other Side of the Reservoir."
"Don't Tell Columbus" makes for rich listening as it includes stabs of
nostalgia ("Suspension Bridge"), bitter political satires ("Stick to
the Plan"), shots of love ("Somebody Saved Me") and blasts of cryptic
impressionism ("I Discovered America").
Parker's raw talents hold together the diversity of the material, and
those talents have gotten better with age.
"If you're under 30, you can't do your best work in pop," he said.
"You don't have the flashes of insight and you can't make the
connections that you get when you've lived a little."
Age has also brought better judgment, Parker said.
"The song `Somebody Saved Me' is three chords, but they are the
perfect three chords for that song," he said. "If something is
mediocre, I won't pursue it. In the past, I'd spend a year tooling
around on something to make it work. Now I write, and I can tell
pretty quickly if the song will be any good."
Parker's track record of turning out the good stuff is stellar. His
earliest work with The Rumour yielded such signatures as "White
Honey," "Local Girls," "Passion Is No Ordinary Word" and "Don't Ask Me
Questions," songs that were both tough and smart. Alongside Elvis
Costello and Joe Jackson, Parker helped shape a late-'70s rock 'n'
roll British Invasion.
Parker survived the hype and produced a couple of dozen albums, each
achieving varying degrees of commercial success, though all built on
his reputation as a writer and performer.
Parker's current tour features a band called The Latest Fools, which
reunites him with The Figgs' Mike Gent, who will be playing drums,
plus guitar player Brett Rosenberg, bass player Ed Valauskas, and
keyboard player Scott Janovitz, collectively all-stars of Boston's
underground pop scene.
Graham Parker & The Latest Clowns will be at the Bull Run, Route 2A,
Shirley, tomorrow.
Parker noted that it has been several years since he lasttoured with a
keyboard player, but without one he claimed the new songs especially
would be missing something given their moody ebb and flow. The song
"Suspension Bridge," for example, is all about the mood changes
created by shifting from major chords to minor chords.
"Once I had the atmosphere, it was easy to complete," he said.
Parker is making up for a three-year gap between studio albums that
occurred between "Deepcut to Nowhere" and "Your Country." During that
time, though, Parker published two books, the short-story collection
"Carp Fishing on Valium" and the novel "The Other Life of Brian."
The burst of songwriting over the past few years, though, put Parker's
literary work on hold.
"I have some short stories, but when songs are coming like this, I
need to focus on that," he said. "This is my day job."
(end of article)