LOOSE MONKEYS, 1999

Loose Monkeys: Spare
Tracks And Lost Demos

This rarities collection was only available over the internet. Download the liner notes in Adobe Acrobat format for a great printout. For more info also check this ICE article.

Transfer & Editing by Chris Andersen & Shari Weingarten at Nevessa Production

Mastered by Elliott Federman at DSW, NY

Photos & Design by Jolie Parker

Art Direction by Murray Brenman

All songs Written by GP and Published by Ellisclan Ltd. & Administered by Bug Music, except "There's a Ghost in My House" written by Taylor, Holland, Dozier, Holland and Published by Stone Agate Music.

Thanks to Bill Harrison, Ralph Baker & Al Dutton

Also to Cliff Chenfeld and Craig Balsam at Razor & Tie for the use of "Guillotine of Guadeloupe"

March 1986, with Brinsley Schwarz, Andrew Bodnar & Jimmy Copley
1. There's a Ghost in My House (R. Dean Taylor/Holland/Dozier/Holland) 3:17
2. Burnin' on a Higher Flame 3:43
3. Durban Poison 3:21
- Those songs were taped just prior that GP had signed his Atlantic contract. All songs would have ended up on that abandoned Atlantic album, I guess, and were performed on GP's 1986 summer tour of Europe. The cover of "There's a Ghost in My House" was a single case where GP and Atlantic agreed, but when the release was delayed by Atlantic and The Fall hit the UK hit parade with their own cover version of this song in 1987, it was the last straw for GP to try to get free of the Atlantic contract. Of course "Durban Poison" was included in a solo version on "Live! Alone In America" already.

1993, demo with musicians
4. Tortured Soul 3:35

1983, Real Macaw sessions
5. Wherever You Are 3:07
- This song is a lushly orchestrated number with a keyboard part that reminds me a lot on the one later heard on "You Got The World (Right Where You Want It)."

December 1985, demos
6. Dead to the World 3:17
7. Hormone of Love 3:01
8. Everything Goes (Version 1) 3:32
9. I'm in Love with You 3:27
10. Natalie 3:09
11. I Just Can't Capture Her Imagination (Version 1) 3:06
12. Corporate Rock 2:24
13. Love in the Air 3:06
- "Dead To The World" is another song that was frequently played on GP's 1986 Euro tour, and that surely would have had good chances to be on that Atlantic album if it wouldn't have been for, unbelievabely, Ahmet Ertegun.

September 1986, demos
14. Waiting for the Next World 2:53
15. I Just Can't Capture Her Imagination (Version 2) 3:45
16. She's Been Working 3:13
- The December 1985 and the September 1986 demos "just" have GP with an acoustic guitar and some overdubs.

1994
17. Still Got My Faith 3:56

February 92, demo
18. Don't Kid Yourself 3:11

November 1991
19. The Invisible Woman 3:32

1996, from Acid Bubblegum sessions
20. Guillotine of Guadeloupe 4:18
- A solo version of this song that GP has performed regular in concert had already been aired in at least two different "Acoustic Cafe" radio broadcasts.

People often ask me the question, "When are you going to release the aborted Atlantic album?" For those of you who don't follow the intricate details of my professional history, I signed with Atlantic Records sometime in 1986, only to extricate myself from the contracts' stifling confines less than a year later.
       This bright new recording contract had the usual guff about "creative control" and "artistic decisions" etc., but I convinced myself that these noisome terms were there to be ignored, present only in the event that the artist insisted on releasing a 'throat singing album,' or perhaps 12 tracks of white noise. Both Atlantic and my well-meaning manager, however, had been - at least to some degree - conspiring in an attempt to delicately shoehorn my errant creativity into some direction other than my typical approach, which is to write a bunch of songs and record them, period. And so for the first time in my career, THE CONTRACT was being upheld to the letter and my scruffy demos were (allegedly) being scrutinized thoroughly by People Who Really Know A Thing Or Two About Successful Records.
       Naturally, as the Atlantic staff showed no enthusiasm for the songs I reluctantly submitted, and my meetings with Ahmet Ertegun, the top cat at the label, grew increasingly strained and confrontational, I, being (as history will tell you) a rather surly little fellow, began to get really pissed off. (For further details of this interesting fiasco please check my liner notes on Buddha Records' upcoming reissue of The Mona Lisa's Sister.)
       Both sides dug in intractably and the only way out was out, which Atlantic eventually conceded to due to the pressure brought forth by my manager who had finally realized that "working with the record company" was not old GP's cup of tea.
       Therefore, the "Atlantic album" that some people hope is tucked away in my private vaults, does not exist.
       Almost.
       But what you have here on Loose Monkeys could be considered, with a slight tweak of the imagination, that ethereal wraith of Parker legend, the lost Atlantic album. Plus a lot more. The first three tracks were recorded just prior to my signing with the label and later rejected. Demo tracks 6 to 16 were submitted and also rejected. In effect, it was more than enough material to fill two sides of vinyl.
       How those first three tunes came to be recorded was part of the reason Atlantic and I could not see eye to eye in the first place. Tiring of using people with the word "Producer" stamped across their foreheads, I enlisted Brinsley Schwarz for the job and we booked time in London's Ramport studios, taking along Andrew Bodnar on bass and Jimmy Copley on drums. At this point in the '80s, Atlantic, like every other major record company, were in a sort of all-reverb-and-trousers big-snare heaven, and did not respond favourable to our rather gnarly production, even though young Jimmy's drums do whack along rather meatily. Perhaps it was the buried vocal approach that put them off! Whatever, let's leave Atlantic back in the mid-'80s where they belong, before I start foaming at the mouth and end up filling these supposedly informing liner notes with scads of hideous bile (admittedly, that would be more fun, but as a mere employee of UpYours records, I'm not, unfortunately, being paid by the word).
       Track 1, "There's A Ghost In My House," is a song some mysterious man named R. Dean Taylor had a hit with in the UK. I have no idea what year this was - probably late '60s - but I have yet to meet an American who has heard this weird, punkish tune. R. Dean Taylor was, at the time - so my friend Martin Belmont once informed me - the only white act signed to Motown. Someone appears to be playing organ on this. I believe it's Brinsley.
       Track 2, "Burnin' On A Higher Flame," is a strong enough number to appear on any of my albums, but either because I usually write a mid-tempo soul/r&b groove for almost every album (and one is enough), or because I would find it too boring to record it again, it has languished in a climate controlled storeroom in London until now. "Durban Poison" popped up later on the Live Alone in America solo album, but I think it's better here, with the accompaniment.
       Let's move forward in time to track 4, "Tortured Soul." In 1993 I was hanging out in the French Caribbean, working the coral reefs and stuffing myself stupid on langouste and boudin. One humid, drowsy afternoon, whilst downing Carib beer in a local bar, I bumped into some Rastas who claimed to run a little studio. We got to talking because I was obviously digging the ancient ska that Winston "Skarfs" Parker (no relation), the barman, was blasting through the system. After some rather oblique discussion about Roland Alphonso and Prince Buster, two pink and Hawaiian-shirted Americans suddenly appeared at my side, looking like vicious candy bars. The rotters loudly blurted my identity to all and sundry, gleefully informing the Dreadheads that I was some bigshot muso and that my repertoire was absolutely stuffed full of reggae. About an hour later, I found myself in the Rastas' decidedly lo-tech home studio, jamming on grooves that were just a little outside my normal orbit. I bluffed it as much as I could, but eventually the boys, in some stoned, elliptical fashion, asked me if I'd got anything new I'd like to play. I should have lurched into "Don't Ask Me Questions" or some other pseudo-reggae number from the past (for they surely would not have recognized any of my material and were only going on the word of the tourists that I had in fact actually made records) but chose instead to launch into this new thing that I'd been playing around with recently entitled "Tortured Soul." Well, those fellas picked up on the groove in no time and before the sun had dropped to the horizon on the azure and millpond-still ocean that could be viewed through the window beyond the quiet, dusty town below us, we'd cut a pretty fair basic. One of these guys played drums and the other piano, of which there was a fine example in the shape of a colourless, much hurricane-saturated pub upright on the premises. I paid them for the tape (they would accept nothing for studio time) and launched myself out of the door to my hired jeep. Needless to say, I had been shitfaced on huge amounts of their primo "lambsbread" weed the whole time and had only left in such a hurry because one of them, the drummer, pulled out a very large gun when the doorbell rang. This surreal behavior caused me to suffer an almost exquisite paranoia attack, but it turned out that our visitor was merely a studio client carrying a horrible spanking-new red guitar of unknown lineage, and a gunfight was deemed unnecessary. Despite pleas to hang out and do some backing vocals, I got out of there faster than a greased monkey, sweat beading forehead, master tape in hand.
       When I got back to New York state, I booked time in Nevessa Studio with engineer Chris Andersen and dropped some bass and lead guitar on the track. Then I stuck it in the attic and forgot about it, throwing myself into some serious gardening.
       Sliding back to 1983, "Wherever You Are" is another strange one. This tune was recorded for The Real Macaw sessions but I'm sure I had no intention of including it on that album. As far as I remember, I had some fantasy about getting it to Michael Jackson, but even though I have a very good friend who was involved with the Gloved One during his Thriller heyday - a record company exec who accompanied Michael to many prestigious events honouring the monstrous commercial achievements that that album garnered - I never bothered to use this connection to get the track to him. A networker, a mover and a shaker, I am not. I just can't be bothered!
       "Wherever" is a rather sticky piece of work, for sure, but some commerce-doll like Celine Dion could surely have a hit with it in a perfect world, a world where angular melodic structure is still understood - which it ain't. To enjoy this tune to the full, get out your pipe and carpet slippers. (See The Real Macaw for credits, if "credit" is the appropriate word.)
       I was busy in December 1985, nipping around London with my trusty tour manager of the time, Al Dutton, dropping songs down in any small-time demo studio that happened to be available. I told Al to find the funkiest, most down-at-heel joints in the scruffiest sections of the city, because these shoestring establishments - I convinced myself after years of top-flight recording - would provide the measure of gritty ambiance I needed to shake off the sloth of garish prosperity that seemed to surround the typical '80s recording experience. Funky they were. So much so, that after leaving my brand new Honda Accord Executive (for about 6 hours) outside the pub across the road from a particularly dungeon-esqe gaff in some nameless borough of north London, I emerged from the studio's perpetual twilight to find the bonnet (hood) of the motor had been stoved in good and proper. When I reported this incident to the police at my local station back home in yuppified Maida Vale, the cop on duty looked at my drivers license, noticed that the address it carried was not the same as the address I now resided at, and fined me fifty quid! Needless to say, I gave up on the idea of pursuing the culprits in order to extract restitution, and sullenly stomached the loss. As the olde English football chant will tell you: "All coppers are bastards!"
       But I digress. As I vaguely recall, the first track in this batch, "Dead To The World," was meant to be a song that would spearhead some kind of ernest, overbearing environmental concept album that I mistakenly believed the world was ready for. Luckily I gave up this irksome idea after completing only one song, in the same way that I gave up the idea of writing a whole album of Mercury Records hate songs after "Mercury Poisoning" was penned. One is often one too many, and "Dead To The World" seems perilously opaque to me. Nifty tune though.
       Now "Hormone Of Love" is a little beauty. "I'm not a rocket scientist, but my synapses fire like anything." I mean....come on! Or how about..."I'm no dermatologist, but I know beauty ain't just skin deep." Yesss! Another Atlantic/Ertegun rejectee. It's a sad thing to discover that one of your heroes is actually a humourless old bugger.
       You may have heard "Everything Goes" on the Human Soul record. This is it's prototype, a dark tale of suburban foibles set to a pure '60s melody, the like of which has not been heard since the days of The Ivy League or The Tremelos. A little too claustrophobic for an official album though. But dig the way the cheap studio compression sucks that final, stacked backing vocal back in on itself like it was disappearing down a black hole. It's sublime. No amount of money, no modern studio, not even Lenny Kravitz himself could produce an effect like that anymore. Demos are always better than records, or at least they used to be before digitization and the ensuing refinement of engineers' ears.
       As for "I'm In Love With You," if a song bearing this patently loathsome title had been released officially by Yours Truly, my alleged career would have never recovered. That the chords and melodic structure are of genuinely stunning originality, and the lyrics are none too shabby either, would probably have mattered not a whit. But you've just got to push your luck sometimes, whatever the outcome. This chestnut features my first ever attempt at single-digit synth playing, and what a fabulous, farty sound it is. I've since mastered the two-fingered approach, but when I tried to move on to chords recently, I very nearly broke my hand. Watch out Russ Conway - I'm gunning for you.
       "Natalie," was recorded when my daughter was 11 months old, and written, I estimate, 2 or 3 months earlier, so please, if you will, forgive me. I just got a bit carried away.
       "I Just Can't Capture Her Imagination (version #1)" has a fairly decent Motown-like groove, but I don't see much point to it. "Corporate Rock" is better, using a "Back To Schooldays" rhythm and sporting a classic pissed off GP lyric about the cretinous contents of the American charts and the bilious radio programming of the era. Somebody had to say it. An interesting period piece.
       Whoa! What on earth can "Love In The Air" be about? (Well, it was slightly more comfortably than that hotel elevator back in the '70s, but anyone over 40 might want to check first to see if a chiropractor's on the plane.) For some strange reason, I thought this song might be perfect for Cindy Lauper and I seem to remember getting a tape to someone in her record company. Needless to say, I never heard another thing about it. But I'll tell you, I wouldn't want to risk a falsetto of that magnitude again without a hernia specialist present.
       The next three tracks are from September '86. I can still visualize the dinginess of the studio. Odours of a faintly rotting vegetable origin tickle the nose of my memory, but I can't come up with a vicinity. A roadie who worked for me briefly had something to do with the joint and I believe he engineered the session, but I can't quite get his name across my rapidly dissolving recall system. I remember something about The Human League, though. I think this fella went on to play keyboards with them. (Now don't nod off on me, this stuff is important. ) Talking of bothering to send songs to people, I'm damn sure I used my connections to get "Waiting For The Next World" to the Bangles, of all people. Seeing as they were doing extremely well at the time, I expect they were too full of themselves (as pop people who are doing extremely well usually are) to bother to check it out. Or more likely, one of their minions gave it a cursory listen and dismissed it instantly, and the B's didn't even get to hear it. But can you imagine a very likable (apart from the singers ridiculous rolling-eyeball tactics on video, of course) pop fluff hit act releasing a single (don't tell me they did albums too? That must have been tiring for them) that appears to be about man's infinite spiritual nature and seems to actually be hinting that it might in fact be better to be dead? In your dreams, pal. In your dreams.
       "I Just Can't Capture Her Imagination (version #2)" is most bizarre. Not satisfied with version #1, and, I suppose, temporarily running out of ideas, I must have come up with this sublime chord sequence and melody, then copped out, repeating a lyrical motif that I probably thought had a hell of a lot of legs attached to it. Like "Everything Goes," it's real saving grace is in the creamy, rich sound of cheap analog gear and no drum kit.
       "She's Been Working" could have been on almost any early GP and The R. album. It would have fit right in.
       Now let's move forward to 1994/95 and Graham Parker's Christmas Cracker to reveal the genesis of "Still Got My Faith." Jon Tiven, who produced Cracker and in fact prompted me into writing its contents, had some plan to do a Christmas album (which subsequently fell through) featuring various singers and songwriters, and at the mention of those magic words "Mavis Staples", I zapped off this little corker in the time it takes to sing it. I believe Mavis has a religious bent, so I tailored the lyrics accordingly. Just shows you what a phony I really am.
       From '92 and '91 demo sessions respectively, these two are my favourites. I still can't work out what the chords are in "Don't Kid Yourself," but "The Invisible Woman" is coming back to me and will be included in my upcoming solo shows. These quirky items must have slipped through the net just before I hit the open tuning method and blurted out, in a very short space of time, the 12 Haunted Episodes songs. I kind of wish I'd saved them for a future album, but couldn't resist coughing up some good stuff. And anyway, recording them professionally would probably have turned them into stiffs. Dig the nutty chords in "Kid" and chuckle at the utterly gonzo guitar and (possibly, I can't tell) keyboard solo on "Invisible."
       Finally, regulars of my recent live solo gigs will recognize "Guillotine Of Guadeloupe." Here it is with accompaniment from the Acid Bubblegum sessions. John Yates, the engineer, plays keyboards, and Andrew contributes a stunned guitar riff that tucks in with his bass line. Wish I'd put it up in the mix. (Actually, listening to the track again, I'm not even sure if it's on there.) My distorted guitar riff which recurs as a hook throughout the number is of course a devilish cop from The Archies genre-defining "Sugar Sugar." I played "Guillotine" to Gary Burke and Andrew Bodnar once only in the studio lounge, and we went right in and cut it in one take. Didn't fancy it for the album though. (For full credits see Acid Bubblegum.)

Enjoy.
GP

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