RhoDeo1303 Aetix

Hello,  snow is a rarety around here, that's what i said last week, meanwhile it's still here after a whole week and it looks it will last even longer, considering it never lasts long in the city, truly remarkble.

Meanwhile, it's Aetix time for a frontrunner. Stereotyped early in his career as the quintessential angry young man, Graham Parker was one of the most successful singer/songwriters to emerge from England's pub rock scene of the early '70s. Parker developed a sinewy fusion of driving rock & roll and confessional folk-rock, highlighted by his indignant passion, biting sarcasm, and bristling anger. In terms of establishing a recording career in early 1976, Parker preceded two other new wave English singer-songwriters to whom he is often compared: Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson  .....  N'Joy

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After spending much of his early adulthood working odd jobs, ranging from breeding mice and guinea pigs to working at a gas station, Parker began seriously pursuing a musical career in 1975. Until that time, he had played in a number of obscure pub rock groups, including a cover band that had spent time playing in Morocco and Gibraltar. But it wasn't until 1975 that he began shopping his demos. That year, Dave Robinson, one of the co-founders of the new independent label Stiff, heard one of Parker's demo tapes and encouraged the songwriter, helping him assemble a backing band called the Rumour. Robinson rounded up several stars of the pub rock scene -- guitarist Brinsley Schwarz and keyboardist Bob Andrews, both formerly of the leading pub rockers Brinsley Schwarz, former Ducks Deluxe guitarist Martin Belmont, former Bontemps Roulez drummer Steve Goulding, and bassist Andrew Bodnar -- to form the Rumour, and the band was soon supporting Parker on the dying pub rock scene. The group landed a record contract with Mercury by the end of 1975.

Graham Parker & the Rumour headed into the studio to cut their debut album with producer Nick Lowe, who gave the resulting record, Howlin' Wind, an appealingly ragged edge. Howlin' Wind was greeted with enthusiastic reviews upon its summer release, as was the similar Heat Treatment, which followed in the fall. Despite the positive press, Parker was growing frustrated with Mercury, believing that the company was not properly promoting and distributing his records. His third album, Stick to Me, had to be re-recorded quickly after the original tapes were discovered to be defective prior to its scheduled release. As a result, Stick to Me received mixed reviews upon its fall 1977 release, which derailed Parker's momentum slightly. Furthermore, Elvis Costello, a fellow pub rock survivor who possessed not only a more pop-oriented style of songwriting, but also a more dangerous persona, soon eclipsed Parker in popularity.

Frustrated by his career hitting a standstill, Parker released the live-double album The Parkerilla in the summer of 1978 in order to get out of his contract. Following a short but intense bidding war, he quickly signed to Arista Records, where he released "Mercury Poisoning" -- a blistering attack on his former record label -- as the B-side of a promotional single as his first record for the label.
Squeezing Out Sparks, Parker's first album for Arista, put a halt to that decline. Sporting a slicker, new wave-oriented production -- it was the first of his records not to have any involvement from Nick Lowe -- the album was greeted with terrific reviews and, on the strengths of radio hits like "Local Girls," it became his most successful album, reaching number 40 on the American charts and selling over 200,000 copies.

Parker was poised for a major breakthrough, but that didn't happen. He followed Squeezing Out Sparks in 1980 with the Jimmy Iovine-produced The Up Escalator, which was considerably slicker than its predecessor. The Up Escalator didn't sell, and Parker decided to ditch the Rumour, who had already begun a solo career. For 1982's Another Grey Area, he hired producer Jack Douglas and a team of session musicians, resulting in a radio-ready production that received mixed reviews, yet managed to peak at number 51. The Real Macaw, which followed in 1983, suffered a similar fate. For 1985's Steady Nerves, Parker moved to Elektra Records and formed a backing band called the Shot with guitarist Brinsley Schwarz, who helped him deliver his most radio-ready collection. This time, the pop move paid off. "Wake Up (Next to You)" became his only Top 40 hit, and the album stayed on the charts for nearly as long as Squeezing Out Sparks.

Despite his moderate commercial success with Steady Nerves, the album wasn't widely praised, and he also ran into trouble with Elektra, leaving the label after just one record. He briefly moved to Atlantic, which dropped him without releasing a single record. Consequently, Parker wasn't able to deliver another album until 1988, when he signed with RCA and released The Mona Lisa's Sister in the spring. Hailed as a comeback by several critics upon its release, the album generated a college radio hit with "Get Started (Start a Fire)" and spent 19 weeks on the charts. Instead of being the beginning of a comeback, the album turned out to be a last gasp: it was the last time Parker was able to crack the Top 100. Live! Alone in America (1989) received positive reviews but was ignored, and 1990's mild worldbeat experiment Human Soul received mixed reviews and peaked at number 165 on the charts. Parker's final album for RCA -- and his last album to chart -- was the stripped-down Struck By Lightning (1991), and while it was critically praised, it didn't find an audience outside of his cult. The following year, he switched to Capitol and released Burning Questions, which was ignored.

Following the release of 1993's double-disc anthology Passion Is No Ordinary Word, Parker made the leap to independent labels -- he had spent time at all but one of the major labels (Columbia/Sony) with little success. In 1994, he released the Christmas Cracker EP on Dakota Arts, and then he signed with Razor & Tie, where he released 12 Haunted Episodes in the spring. Like The Mona Lisa's Sister and Struck By Lightning before it, 12 Haunted Episodes was hailed as a comeback, and it sold in respectable numbers for an indie release. Parker followed it with two albums in 1996, Live from New York, NY and Acid Bubblegum, which appeared within two months of each other late in the summer. Early in 1997, he released yet another live album, the double-disc The Last Rock N Roll Tour, which was recorded with the power pop quartet the Figgs. Parker continued to issue a steady stream of archive and live releases into the mid-2000s, and moved into singer/songwriter mode for the albums Deepcut to Nowhere and Your Country, the latter a roots rock-influenced affair released by the Chicago-based Bloodshot Records.

The Figgs were back for 2005's Songs of No Consequence, an album that Parker declared "rocks like safari park chimp" in pre-release publicity. Unreleased material, rare edits, and remixes were featured on Official Art Vandelay Tapes, Vol. 2, which appeared two weeks after Songs of No Consequence. Don't Tell Columbus arrived in March 2007. The clever Imaginary Television appeared in 2010, along with the DVD Live at the FTC. Parker unexpectedly reunited his original backing band the Rumour in 2011, recording a new album that became 2012's Three Chords Good. The reunion album appeared in November 2012, around the same time Judd Apatow's This Is Forty -- a movie where Graham Parker & the Rumour provide a plot point -- hit the theaters, thereby pushing the singer/songwriter into the mainstream spotlight for the first time in years.

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The music is blend of rock and roll, R&B, reggae, and folk music, behind Parker's searingly intelligent lyrics and passionate vocals. Critics likened Parker's spirit to British punk rock, then in its early stage, and retrospectively to that of singer-songwriters Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, who would release their debut records within a few years of Howlin' Wind. Instead of blindly sticking to the traditions of rock & roll, Parker invigorates them with cynicism and anger, turning his songs into distinctively original works. "Back to Schooldays" may be reconstituted rockabilly, "White Honey"'s white R&B bounce, and "Howlin' Wind" is a cross of Van's more mystical moments and the Band, but the songs themselves are original and terrific. Similarly, producer Nick Lowe gives the album a tough, spare feeling, which makes Parker and the Rumour sound like one of the best bar bands you've ever heard. Howlin' Wind remains a thoroughly invigorating fusion of rock tradition, singer/songwriter skill, and punk spirit, making it one of the classic debuts of all time.

Graham Parker and The Rumour - Howlin Wind (flac 267mb)

01 White Honey 3:36
02 Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart 3:21
03 Silly Thing 2:56
04 Gypsy Blood 4:36
05 Between You And Me 2:26
06 Back To Schooldays 2:56
07 Soul Shoes 3:16
08 Lady Doctor 2:51
09 You've Got To Be Kidding 3:25
10 Howlin' Wind 3:59
11 Not If It Pleases Me 3:12
12 Don't Ask Me Questions 5:39
13 I'm Gonna Use It Now 3:11

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The original recording was ruined, and all the songs needed to be rerecorded hastily."...for "Stick to Me," we had an 80-piece string section playing. But the whole album had to be scrapped because the master tape was leaking oxide or something. The producer, again, didn't seem to spot it. We saw this black stuff coming off the tapes but he didn't notice it. When we came to mix it, it was un-mixable." There are gems among the songs, and the album's atmosphere is intense, suiting the year of punk rock. The dramatic title track became a live staple. The stark ballad "Watch the Moon Come Down" is his most serious song yet and perhaps the closest a Parker song would come to expressing despair; it would be featured on solo Graham Parker tours over a decade later. Other tracks like "The New York Shuffle" and "The Raid" are humorous and fast-paced. On "The Heat in Harlem", Parker and the Rumour push the limits of their form, creating a sort of psychedelic R&B.

Graham Parker and The Rumour - Stick To Me   ( flac 224mb)

01 Stick To Me 3:27
02 I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down 3:26
03 Problem Child 3:26
04 Soul On Ice 3:00
05 Clear Head 2:56
06 The New York Shuffle 2:57
07 Watch The Moon Come Down 4:52
08 Thunder And Rain 3:14
09 The Heat In Harlem 6:57
10 The Raid 2:29

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Generally regarded as Graham Parker's finest album, Squeezing Out Sparks is a masterful fusion of pub rock classicism, new wave pop, and pure vitriol that makes even his most conventional singer/songwriter numbers bristle with energy. Not only does Parker deliver his best, most consistent set of songs, but he offers more succinct hooks than before -- "Local Girls" and "Discovering Japan" are powered by quirky hooks that make them new wave classics. But Parker's new pop inclinations are tempered by his anger, which seethes throughout the hard rockers and even his quieter numbers. Throughout Squeezing Out Sparks, Graham spits out a litany of offenses that make him feel like an outsider, but he's not a liberal, he's a conservative. The record's two centerpieces -- "Passion Is No Ordinary Word" and the anti-abortion "You Can't Be Too Strong" -- indicate that his traditionalist musical tendencies are symptomatic of a larger conservative trend. But no one ever said conservatives made poor rock & rollers, and Parker's ruminations over a lost past give him the anger that fuels Squeezing Out Sparks, one of the great rock records of the post-punk era. In 2003 Rolling Stone placed it at number 335 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Graham Parker and The Rumour - Squeezing Out Sparks  (flac 266mb)

01 Discovering Japan 3:26
02 Local Girls 3:34
03 Nobody Hurts You 3:39
04 You Can't Be Too Strong 3:40
05 Passion Is No Ordinary Word 3:15
06 Saturday Night Is Dead 4:26
07 Love Gets You Twisted 3:17
08 Protection 2:59
09 Waiting For The UFOs 3:51
10 Don't Get Too Excited 3:07
11 Mercury Poisoning 3:10
12 I Want You Back 3:27

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