Graham Parker: Howlin’ Success!

Rip It Up, Issue 5, 1 October 1977, Page 10

Graham Parker: Howlin’ Success!

Francis Stark

Howlin’ Wind Graham Parker Vertigo Reviewing records is dead simple really. If it is a debut record, you can say whatever the hell you like, because nobody has heard enough of the artist to be able to call down too much wrath on you. If it is a second record, it is either an advance or a disappointment compared with its predecessor about which there is a generally-

accepted theory of worth anyway. If it is a third record or more, then the artist is by definition an old fogey, and is fair game. Dead simple. All this falls apart, however, in the face of the vagaries of the local record business’ policies on release. In the case of Graham Parker, for example, New Zealand first encountered his second album, and only now do we have the chance of hearing its predecessor. Where does that leave the Stark system then? After hearing Howlin' Wind, I now know all the things I should have been saying at parties about Heat Treatment. In fact, it is not a carbon copy of the second album so much as a first draft.

It is almost possible to match up the two records track for track “White Honey” with “Heat Treatment”; “Nothing’s Gonna Pull Us Apart" with “That’s What They AMI Say" and so on, the only difference being that the Rumour, interestingly not given equal billing on Howlin' Wind, seem to have mastered the style much better by the second time around. The record still has all the Parker trademarks, enormous energy, streetwise lyrics and suspiciously familiar melodies. It is just less confident in its working out of those elements than Heat Treatment.

Let me put it this way. If you know about Graham Parker, but don’t own any of his records, buy Heat Treatment. If vo;' have Heat Treatment and your neighbours are getting sick of hearing it ten times a day, buy Howling’ Wind. If you haven't heard of Graham Parker, gently return your head to the sand. Dead simple.