Passion is no ordinary word

Rip It Up, Issue 22, 1 May 1979, Page 15

Passion is no ordinary word

Graham Parker and the Rumour

Squeezing Out Sparks Vertigo

It’s over three years now since Graham Parker, ex-petrol pump attendant and full-time nobody, made his break. It’s also three years since the hallelujahs that were heaped on Parker’s first two albums Howlin Wind and Heat Treatment dried up into the critical indifference that greeted his subsequent projects.

Squeezing Out Sparks then marks a Significant chapter in the can-Graham-Parker-and-the-Rumour-find-t rue-happiness-in-rock'n’roll-saga, as it represents the first new material from GP in over a year and a half and a further attempt to establish him as the major artist so many know he deserves to be. Well the news is both good and bad. For while Squeezing Out Sparks is the best album since the first two, it is I suspect less than the album it ought to be. One of the problems here seems to be with the production work of veteran studio-man, Jack Nitzche. On paper he would have seemed an ideal choice as an arranger with Phil Spector and later as producer on the Mink de Ville albums, he seemed to have a foot in both the grand Spector style and simple small scale production work. With Parker, however, he has aimed for simplicity and a unity of sound rather than the subtle interaction of instruments that was the feature of the best sounding Parker album, Heat Treatment. As a result Sparks seems to be built around Martin Belmont's choppy rhythm guitar work an idea which works fine on the upbeat songs but which robs the more dramatic numbers like “Passion is No Ordinary Word" and “Love Gets You Twisted" of a great deal of their authority. The Nitzchean production method has also buried Bob Andrews keyboards to the point of inaudibility, apart from some obtrusive in doodlings on "Protection”.

Indeed it’s those songs which I’m most familar from the tour last year that I find the most disappointing here. The single, “Protection”, is literally a failure Parker’s singing seems curiously detached and the arrangement only falls into place when Steve Goulding’s disco drum pattern hauls it together in the chorus. And "Passions” and "Twisted”

seem to suffer from a crisis of confidence. These are emotional songs that deserve to be played in the technicolour, larger than life style in which Parker delivers them on stage. Here they seem underplayed and it's only by reaching for the ridiculous that you can sometimes achieve the sublime. But my criticisms arise out of my own high expectations. For me, Graham Parker has been one of the artists of the last few years, uncompromisingly clawing his way out of the rubble of 70’s rock’n’roll on his way to the next decade. And Squeezing Out Sparks is his strongest collection of songs in some time. From his package tour view of the Orient in "Discovering Japan”, till the album pulls off with his ode to indifference in "Don’t Get Excited”, Parker is prepared to cauterize his wounds on vinyl in a way which reveals his humanity and connects to our own. This is the best new Graham Parker you’re likely to hear this year and that’s almost enough. I wouldn’t live without it.

Alastair Dougal

The Rumour

Frogs Sprouts Clogs and Krauts

Stiff The Rumour, along. with The E Street Band and the Blockheads, are everyone’s dream rock backing band. They ventured alone in late 77 with Max, a straight-shooting honest blend of R & B and Band influenced rock’n’roll, but they showed few signs of being able to achieve greatness in their , own right, even if they [^anted^tdnß|HßMSEraSNQHS@AMS|ji . The heart of the band was formed from the remnants of Ducks Deluxe (Belmont) ' and Brinsley Schwarz (Schwarz and Andrews) and back then they had little opportunity to delvelop any. distinctive songwriting, mode under the egotistical Tyla and the copious talents of Nick Lowe. On Frogs Schwarz displays (or maybe just shows) understandable heavy Lowe influence on "Euro” and “Frozen Yea. Good songs but they would have been more appropriate on Jesus of Cool. Belmont’s songs have always been orderly and level-headed veering towards tough love emotions and “Loving You” is no exception, but on “Leaders” and "One Good Night" even he falls prey to Lowe vocal phrasing. If the Rumour are to evolve their own songwriting identity then their best chances lie with Bob Andrews. On the album he sounds as if he's just discovered the synthesiser which gives Frogs the desired European feel as opposed to the • American. leanings of Max. His songs, particularly '"Emotional Traffic” and "We Believe in You/New Age" are definite and full of good ideas, mostly his own. Frogs is an enjoyable album of borrowed music, glossier than Max but posing a few problems for the Rumour if they ever attempt to make it on their own.

George Kay