Parker is still battling against the 'agenda'
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
July 28, 2005
'You've got to own every channel, if you want to own every mind," rails Graham Parker in his trademark gravelly voice on "Vanity Press," the opening track on his 2005 album "Songs of No Consequence."
The latest barrage in a career full of sharp literate lyrics, "Vanity Press" takes a sardonic look at an overbearing media.
Parker's been cutting to the chase with his songs for 30 years. On his 1976 debut album ("Howlin' Wind"), he sang: War mongers laughing loud behind a painted face / Throwing tidbits to the crowd then blowing up the place. On 1988's "Don't Let It Break You Down," he sang, Some people are in charge of pens that shouldn't be in charge of brooms / They have the nerve to rip up a man's life in a paragraph or two.
"I think there was so much pent emotion and rage when I was young," said the 54-year-old songwriter from his home in upstate New York. "There are very intense songs like 'Don't Ask Me Questions'; people have described it as political in a way. It's railing against establishment and 'war mongers' and all that stuff. But I'm doing it in a way that isn't literal.
"'Vanity Press' is much more literal because it mentions current events and the current media (environment), but it still doesn't put it in a bland folk singer kind of way," continued Parker in his gritty British accent. "Right now, basically (the novel) '1984' is here. It's all fake news. Basically, Jon Stewart is more accurate than what you see on most of these networks. There's very little real reporting that gets through now. People are too scared. There is too much agenda going on."
After recording 16 full-length albums, songwriting has always been Parker's strength. As a lad growing up in London, he listened to underground ska and American soul music. After a brief interlude into '60s psychedelia, Parker rekindled his love for Motown and ska legends like Desmond Dekker. And that's when he found his voice as a songwriter,
"I think I wrote my first song when I was 13; it was a sort of Beatles rip-off," remembers Parker. "But I couldn't play guitar. I'm a very slow learner in everything, and I'm still learning. It's probably the reason my career has such longevity, because I'm still figuring it out."
By immersing himself in the soulful pop hooks of the Supremes and the Four Tops while staying true to the edgy British music of the '70s, Parker found widespread fame with his band Graham Parker and the Rumour. With his 1976 release "Howlin' Wind," British critics discovered Parker's ability to turn a phrase and stick a chorus in your head for weeks. But the band's fourth studio album -– 1978's "Squeezing Out Sparks" -- is a portrait of a songwriter and a band hitting their stride. The group went their separate ways after 1980's "The Up Escalator," but the experience of working with the Rumour helped Parker's abilities as an arranger.
"The songs that became my first album, they were skeletal. The Rumour werevery experienced musicians, so they basically taught me through osmosis what arrangement was and how to make a song full of detail," said Parker. "So that comes naturally to me now."
This year, Parker teamed with Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based trio the Figgs for "Songs of No Consequence," 12 tracks that highlight the songwriter's words in tight rock packages like "Vanity Press," "Bad Chardonnay" and "Chloroform." He's currently touring the West Coast with Figgs guitarist Mike Gent as the Graham Parker Duo, playing acoustic sets.
"Everything I do is a rock 'n' roll record," says Parker, who performs with Gent Tuesday at the Casbah. "Even if it's very acoustic oriented, it still rock 'n' roll, 'cause rock 'n' roll is an attitude not a tempo."
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
