Friday, August 20, 1999

Alan Kellogg
Edmonton Journal

Ian Jackson, Edmonton Journal Graham Parker in Edmonton: "Get your audience and hold on to them, feed them -- it's not a bad life."

Graham Parker, trademarked shades intact, is built for speed, close to the ground, with a tennis sweatband and determined gait. It was midday Sunday, and Parker was headed for his last performance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, singing warmup scales (something like that) as he strode purposefully toward the equipment lockup. It's been fun, but he's had enough. Music of a Celtic nature wafts over from a workshop stage. "If I hear another f------' fiddle"... he mutters, saying goodbye.

Classic crankiness -- if perfectly on the mark -- from one of the truest, angriest, most original voices of the fabled British pub-rock scene of the '70s, a milieu that presaged and morphed into punk, New Wave, power pop, R&B revivals, etc., and involved a colourful, iconoclastic cast of characters. Parker stood out. Close your eyes and listen sometimes, and you can hear something a lot like Elvis Costello -- and you know who was there first.

Parker albums, like Squeezing Out Sparks of 1979, which regularly appears on Top-100-Rock-Albums-of-All-Time lists, stand up to this day, and any accurate history of pop music is obliged to pay due homage to GP. I don't know how many times I wore out vinyl copies of Another Grey Area.

On the other hand, the star-making machinery's tendency to blithely totemize its brighter lights remains the stuff of mythology, as opposed to chronology -- as Parker will be the first to tell you.

"You read these bios and they'll have me growing up in [tough, working-class] East London. They do that because it fits the myth they want to send up."

In fact, Parker grew up quite happily as the only child of a soccer player-turned woodworker in the pleasant village of Deepcut, Surrey, surrounded by a leafy military reserve then-wide open for youthful explorations, since closed due to a perceived IRA threat. "They called it that because of [a deep cleave in the earth]. I used to walk above it on a narrow ledge, taking my chances. It was a wonderful place to grow up, with woods for miles, filled with many species of hawks, snakes, frogs and bird life."

All of which partially explains his comfortable life as a 48-year-old who's been married for 19 years, with a 14-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. Some years ago, Parker "took the money that remained instead of blowing it on my career or something equally stupid" and purchased 10 acres just outside Woodstock, N.Y. A flat in London's gorgeous Little Venice district is also maintained. There's a ranch-style house, a barn, swimming pool, and plenty of room to watch the raptors soar. Next year, he'll be rising at 6 a.m. each weekday to drive his daughter to town to catch a bus for her private school in Poughkeepsie.

Music? Well, yes, he keeps releasing albums, the latest, Loose Monkeys, a collection of "spare tracks and lost demos" on the Razor & Tie label, only available on (www.punkhart.com/gparker/), his Web site. Much to his surprise, Parker spends a lot of time in cyberspace these days. His wry "Thoughts from Chairman Parker" columns appear regularly, as do his communications with fans. Piss & Vinegar, a CD of Parker songs interpreted by younger bands is out, and although the subject hoped several of his higher-profile fans -- Bruce Springsteen and Joe Jackson among them -- might have been contacted, he stayed out of it. A collection of 25 new songs wait for full demo treatment.

"My fans? Well, I like to joke that they're ... 48-year-old men, who drag women along with them. And sometimes I look out there and wonder. But there are 20-year-olds, too, here and there.

"What can I expect? I don't buy records any more, either. I loved John Prine's first album, but I've never bought another. Sometimes I'm asked advice [by other musicians] about record companies and all that. And I tell them, if you're not there at a certain point, forget about it -- you can't compete with the mainstream. Get your audience and hold on to them, feed them -- it's not a bad life. I learned to be my own manager, even my own road manager. I can read a map of Nebraska as well as the next person. And it's you that's keeping the money, hearing things first-hand and sorting it out. I don't really have to do this to make a living ... that will come later, when I'm 55 or 56," he laughs.

Parker's initial literary efforts stretch back nearly 20 years to the futuristic illustrated novel The Great Trouser Mystery, a tome that still shows up on collector's lists and chat rooms, bearing the imprint of Stiff Records. These days, a collection of short stories looks good to show up on the tony St. Martin's Press list soon, and his literary agent has hired an editor to help clean up a novel, long in the works. The subject? "An ageing rock star, of course."

The solo act? In fact, he likes performing alone, has done it for years and is far better at the craft than the vast majority of former rockers wielding acoustic Gibsons and Martins. "I like it. It's taught me to sing, not shout, as I did for years. And that has saved my voice. I used to go out on these big tours and it would be shot after a few nights, and I didn't know why. Idiot! Stop screaming!"

Those still hoping for evidence of a washed-up rocker pumping pain in a grimy garret somewhere will be further disappointed with the knowledge that the putative angry young man is also something of a jock, proudly so.

"I ski, play tennis. And my soccer team, the Roundout Knights is at the top of our nine-team league. Not long ago, a reporter from the Woodstock Times did a story on the team, and there I was, being interviewed as one of the players -- I'm a demon at the left-foot cross -- with no mention of music. I got the clipping and sent it right off to my Dad -- finally, I've made it! Life is complete ..."