The Giant Panther

Another one of my favorites from Days of Future Passed is Graham Parker. He had a couple of different backing bands over the years, but there is no mistaking his voice. I have remarked in the past about my college years basically transforming what I thought were my musical tastes. Graham Parker & The Rumour were a British "New Wave" (I get so tired of adhering to the labeling of bands, but if nothing else it gives it a bit of a time stamp I suppose) act that had three relatively well known records by 1979's Squeezing Out Sparks. All I know is that when I was leafing through famous used record store Nuggets in Kenmore Square in the early 80's I saw a lot of these album covers; Heat Treatment, Howlin' Wind and Stick To Me. The argument could be made that the more you saw particular records the poorer the quality or they wouldn't be there. Respectfully disagreeing I always went home and tried to find out more about artists that had more records in their section than most. There was no Internet, obviously, in those days so I had to go back to my DJ friends at the restaurant where I worked to get the skinny on some of the UK bands I was really just learning about.

The thing is, I went home to New Jersey for the summer of 1979 and worked in a factory that made those horseshoe things you see on the back of big truck cabs. They're called fifth wheels. It was a filthy disgusting job that I worked with other so-called respectable college kids home for the summer. I'll bet I was making $4.50 an hour tops to assemble these monstrosities on big chains hanging from the ceiling. If you did 25 a day you were considered a hard worker. I will say that since college kids are often too stupid to stay home the night before a 7:30 AM factory job, there were many days that seemed like weeks to this clock puncher that summer. The regular year 'round employees basically had a good chuckle at our expense and we knew we didn't want to end up like them so it was a volatile three month mix as the foreman chased us around trying to make sure my friends and I weren't dogging it (which we were as often as possible if memory serves). The reason I relay this intensely boring tale of 1979 is because the kids I was working with didn't all necessarily come from the same school district. Many times we were gladiators on the sports battlefield of The Delaware River Conference (DRC) in rural NJ. Once we put that aside there were always interesting exchanges about music. We used to sit in our cars during our fifteen minute breaks or half hour lunches and listen to, gulp, eight track tapes. One kid I didn't know at all before I started working at this factory played Squeezing Out Sparks and I liked it. I remember he was big Tom Petty guy too so maybe he started me down that path as well. I still love "Listen To Her Heart" to this day.

In 1979 some of the top records, not really counting The Clash's London Calling since it came out with a couple of weeks to spare in the decade, were Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, Gang of Four's Entertainment!, The B-52's debut album, The Police's Regatta de Blanc, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Damn The Torpedoes, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Elvis Costello's Armed Forces, Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps, Public Image Limited's Second Edition, David Bowie's Lodger, Supertramp's Breakfast in America, Joe Jackson's Look Sharp, Talking Head's Fear of Music, AC/DC's Highway To Hell, Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, Blondie's Eat To The Beat, The Cars' Candy-O, The Eagles' The Long Run, Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door, Cheap Trick's Dream Police, Roxy Music's Manifesto, Iggy Pop's New Values, The Patti Smith Group's Wave, Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle, Marianne Faithfull's Broken English, Ian Hunter's You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic, The Kink's Low Budget, Wire's 154, Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage, The Jam's Setting Sons, The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys, Dire Straits' Communique, XTC's Drums & Wires, Prince's debut album, Tim Curry's Fearless, Van Morrison's Into The Music, Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming, Molly Hatchet's Flirting With Disaster, Van Halen II, The Alan Parsons Project's Eve, The Undertones debut album, ZZ Top's Deguello...and that doesn't include records by Michael Jackson or Donna Summer and others that weren't my style. Why did I list them all? I know I'm old, but does it strike anyone else that the top 100 records in this day & age just don't seem to measure up? It might be a case of the older I get the better it was, but that is one heckuva lot of great music concentrated in one era for some random year thirty years ago no? Maybe it's just me, but I'm not somebody who says "in my day" contrary to the occasional Giant Panther eye roll as I wax poetic about a long lost body of work. I love today's music just as much as if I grew up on it if it strikes me, but explaining what struck me in my formative years in here on this blog is very difficult to do without sounding like some clueless middle aged guy. Which I'm not...clueless that is...

The first time I heard "Local Girls" by Graham Parker I was on the bandwagon no questions asked. But Squeezing Out Sparks has other great songs like "Passion is No Ordinary Word, Nobody Hurts You, Discovering Japan, You Can't Be Too Strong, Saturday Nite is Dead and Love gets you Twisted." Anyone who followed Graham Parker's career knows full well this guy has a boatload of great songs like "Soul Shoes, Don't Ask Me Questions, Heat Treatment, Stupifaction, Temporary Beauty, You Hit The Spot, Mercury Poisoning, Don't Let It Break You Down, Get Started, Start a Fire and countless others. His Passion is No Ordinary Word compilation is a nice place to start if you would like more information about Graham Parker. For now though don't bother with the "Local Girls." Here endeth the Rumour, er, lesson...