NO HOLDING BACK, Demon 3 CD Digipak Book, 9/1996, UK


In that period just before Punk / 'New Wave' / call-it-what-you-will broke from being an underground phenomenon into a full-blown Big News thing (circa 1976), Graham Parker & The Rumour emerged as one of the best live bands of their time. Combining the best elements of the London "Pub Rock" scene, The Rumour boasted the contrasting but complementary styles of guitarists Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont, a crack rhythm section in Andrew Bodnar (bass), and Steve Goulding (drums), and the keyboard skills of Bob Andrews, laying down a faultless musical backdrop to the distinctively soulful vocal pipes of Graham Parker. On their night (and there were a good many of those), the band were simply superb. Of course, all of them had been around a bit. As Dave Alvin of The Blasters once put it, "Old enough to know the score, young enough to still want more"; dues had been paid in such notables as Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, and, in Parker's case, Black Rockers and Deep Cut Three. But they were far from the 'old farts' popularly derided by the younger acts, such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned who were emerging at the same time.

Parker was just bumming around, basically, and legend has it was a petrol pump attendant when he sent a demo tape of material to Dave Robinson, who owned a small studio in the same building as the famous Hope & Anchor pub in Islington, North London. Robinson, who was closely involved in the Stiff Records label, and had managed Brinsley Schwarz at the time of their infamous 'hype' in 1970, liked what he heard, and put The Rumour together. There was still enough of a Pub Rock scene for the band to quickly find work and accrue a substantial following, and, under the astute patronage of Radio London deejay Charlie Gillett, a record deal was secured with the Phonogram label. "Howling Wind", the resultant first fruit of the deal, came out in '76 to all round general acclaim. Mixing trenchant soulful vocalising with some excellent ensemble playing, topped off with a Nick Lowe production, things looked set fair for the band.

Their second album, "Heat Treatment", took things a stage further, refining the sound a little, but with the added punch of some more consistently strong material. The band toured remorselessly, but hits proved elusive. "The Pink Parker EP" (on pink vinyl), which featured a cover of The Trammps 1975 hit "Hold Back The Night", charted, but was not a really substantial smash. By the time of the third album, "Stick To Me", where an altogether more commercial approach was taken, there were signs that all was not going according to plan. The live double set, "The Parkerilla", equally divided critical opinion, and bitter, public quarrels with their record company did nothing to stop the rot.

Despite a move to Arista Records (in the USA) for 1979's wonderful "Squeezing Out Sparks", Parker found a home with Stiff Records for 1980's "The Up Escalator", which is where our voyage starts. Although the album proved to be the swansong for Parker's partnership with The Rumour, there was much to enjoy on the album. The single, "Stupefaction", ranked with Parker's best, and there was no lack of vocal or instrumental fire from artist and band. Despite the presence of a more widescreen production by Jimmy Iovine, the partnership was sundered. Parker decided to concentrate on working in The States; he signed to RCA, for whom he produced several albums, such as "Another Grey Area" (1982), "The Real Macaw" (1983), and "Steady Nerves" (1985). The material was at times desperately thin gruel, as Parker struggled to find new things to say and a different format by which to say them. By and large, the UK forgot about him, his returns infrequent as he sought to carve himself a new life abroad.

Then, in 1988, came "The Mona Lisa's Sister", Parker's roundly-trumpeted return to form. The spark was back, and the man hit a new, rich vein of form. A succession of albums followed - "Human Soul", the excellent "Struck By Lightning" amongst them, the best moments of which can be found within this selection. He now plys his trade elsewhere, but the recent "Christmas Cracker" EP, rich in the man's trademark sardonic humour, shows an artist still in control of his creative faculties. Give the man a knighthood.


A word from the artiste:

Playing "No Holding Back" to the recently ousted Bob Andrews in the womb-like "listening room" at Stiff Records' palatial London offices, I felt twinges of both apprehension (on my part) and sour grapes (on his) simultaneously, as he uttered in a knowing monotone, "Hmm .... weak bass sound."

To have spent two months in New York and the Caribbean with the twitching, bullshitting Jimmy Iovine (producer) and the twitching, nailbiting Rumour (substance abuse), only to have my ex-keyboard player drop this insidious assessment into my lap was not my idea of impending superstardom. There again, if you will shout at the public, "you got empty empty, empty lives!" over and over again, it's unlikely that they'll buy into it either.

Nevertheless, these things have to be said, and both "Under the Mask", a song about a guy who murders his pregnant wife and two daughters and "OK Hieronymus", a ditty to the 16th Century Flemish genius Hieronymus Bosch whose paintings depicted a perpetual Sodom and Gomorra, are perhaps not the best way to get the thickarsed proletariat to reach for their wallets. (A young man with a head like a pumpkin recently accosted me and demanded to know who this Hereonamouse chap was. A typical fan, strangely enough: none too bright, ignorant of all things cultural and spiritually uplifting, not in the slightest well-read, and with a fizzog like an overripe cantaloupe to boot.)

OK, I know, I know, "My Love's Strong" is a misfired attempt to portray a kinder, gentler me. But it all unravels by the bridge with its dark reference to the "veil of forgetfulness" (armchair Buddhism), bondage (whoops!) and being nailed to the wall with a dart (nasty!); a pity really, perhaps Millionaire Paul Young or Rod Stewart could've covered a number like this if only I hadn't thrown in the grenades just when everyone thought they could relax.

In the year of "Silence of the Lambs", one pundit pointed out, the lyrics "Pull your skin like wrapping paper round my heart", punchlining as it does a rather sweet, melancholy triad of verses, is not a pleasant one to roll around the mind and succeeds only (as the bridge in "My Love's Strong" does) to throw a vicious monkey wrench into the proceedings. This tactic pops up again and again perverting the course of love songs, poignant reflections on childhood (check "Butterfly Net": the bit about "bleeding" - a reference to puberty perhaps? Ugh.) and let's not forget, while we're at it, the brutal "carnal switchblade" of "Burning Questions" Ouch.

Alright. Acknowledged: "The Sun is Gonna Shine Again" is unmarred by these unprovoked outbursts of twisted bile, but do I really believe it? Do I really think "Oh wow man yeah - everything's gonna be really nice one day!" No sir, I do not. Make no mistake about it, this thoroughly affecting piece is mere artifice, a confection, an exercise in pleasantness, a personal assignment to see if I could do it. (Capture the essence of "People Get Ready", of course.)

Well it goes on and on for three CD's in this curious manner and there's all this weird live stuff with me on an acoustic guitar saving money and doing all too literal versions of oldies for the beard-and-bifocals brigade and the chopsticks song about the rain forest destruction that even Sting wouldn't understand and the oute waltz-time version of "Mercury Poisoning" and the obligatory cover and watch the bloody moon yet again with a harmonica this time as if that makes a difference and blah blah blah and then there's the seasonal nonsense that's meant to give you a warm gooey feeling all over but has the effect of killing the Xmas spirit stone dead but gives a few wry chuckles to the miscreants and naysayers and bah-humbuggers like Yours Truly and after all wry chuckles is what it's all about governor, right? I could go on ...

GP, June 1996

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