The Washington Post

Graham Parker: 'Acid Bubblegum,' 'Live Sparks' and 'Live From New York, NY'

"I don't appeal to the masses," Graham Parker sings on "Sharpening Axes" from his new album, "and they don't appeal to me."

The album's very title, "Acid Bubblegum" (Razor & Tie), suggests his deep mistrust of mass success and popular taste in a world where poisons are marketed with cartoon camels. Popular acceptance has barely touched Parker in his 20-year career, but the London pub-rocker remains one of pop music's most cantankerous, most insightful misanthropes -- and one of its best singers as well.

Parker, who appears Saturday at the Bayou, is still working with the same rock-and-roll building blocks he used 20 years ago -- Motown or reggae rhythms, Rolling Stones guitars and Dylanesque vocals -- to vent the same working-class resentments. Two things have changed: He has evolved into a singer who can do Smokey Robinson crooning as effectively as he does Bob Dylan snarling, and he now distrusts youth culture every bit as much as he has always distrusted the Establishment. "Acid Bubblegum" falls far short of his best work ("Squeezing Out Sparks," "Howlin' Wind" and "The Mona Lisa's Sister"), but contains several moments as compelling as one is likely to hear this year.

Those moments include the catchy, rocking anthem that advises us to take our apathy and alienation and "Turn It Into Hate." "She Never Let Me Down" and "Girl at the End of the Pier" are both gorgeous soul ballads that reveal how poignant and captivating Parker can be when he wants. "Obsessed With Aretha" is a fascinating song that claims that no matter how many try, none match the Aretha Franklin of the late '60s, not even Franklin herself. Many of the other songs are generic Parker exercises with dull production values, but the album does benefit from the stripped-down arrangements played by the quartet of Parker, Blondie keyboardist Jimmy Destri, Rumour bassist Andrew Bodnar and Dylan drummer Gary Burke.

Graham Parker Live
"Squeezing Out Sparks" was not only Parker's finest moment, it still stands up today as one of rock's best albums. When it was released in 1979, Arista simultaneously released "Live Sparks," a collection of live radiocasts that featured the same 10 songs in the same order, plus the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" and Parker's kiss-off to his former label, "Mercury Poisoning." The latter package was made available only to radio stations and critics, but it was a riveting record worth all of the $40 it commanded on the collectors' market. Now Arista has reissued the studio tracks from "Squeezing Out Sparks" and the dozen live tracks from "Live Sparks" on an invaluable single CD. Included are two versions each of rock's best pro-choice abortion song ("You Can't Be Too Strong") and best Hiroshima song ("Discovering Japan").

Parker has also released a live album from two June 1995 dates at the Bottom Line in Manhattan. Credited to GP & the Episodes, "Live From New York, NY" (Rock the House/Razor & Tie) includes 15 mostly obscure songs from all phases of Parker's career, plus "Crawlin' From the Wreckage," a song he had written for Dave Edmunds, and Nirvana's "In Bloom." While not as scalding as "Live Sparks," "Live From New York" showcases some of Parker's superb but overlooked material with the help of a no-frills bar band.

Reproduced with kind permission from Geoffrey Himes.

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