Albums of My Life - 1979 - Graham Parker and the Rumour "Squeezing Out Sparks"

by Steve Pick

Three weeks ago, when last we checked in with Graham Parker in this series, he had just released his debut album, Howlin' Wind, and revealed a fresh voice in a highly rooted pub rock approach. Now, two studio albums and one strangely enervated double live album later, we come to Squeezing Out Sparks, in which Parker discovers his voice to be even more exciting when applied to his own sound.

During all this time, Graham Parker and the Rumour - Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont on guitar, Bob Andrews on keyboards, Andrew Bodnar on bass, and Stephen Goulding on drums - developed into one of the most torrid live bands walking the earth. I saw them in summer of 1979, touring behind this album, and to this day that 45 minute opening set remains a standard of comparison for any rock show I ever see.

For Squeezing Out Sparks, Parker turned in ten spitfire songs full of intense observation, anger, and dense wordplay. The titles alone evoke the intensity of the music - "Passion Is No Ordinary Word," "Don't Get Excited," "Nobody Hurts You," "Love Gets You Twisted." And the music kicks the titles in the butt.

Where to start? Bodnar and Goulding are on fire on this album, never content to lay in the pocket as perhaps they did sometimes (to great effect) on earlier records. Here, they play as if they are the focus of the music, with Bodnar's bass lines often providing highly effective counterpoint to the crackling rhythm guitar and Parker's melodic catch-phrases, and Goulding driving the choruses to greater and greater levels of intensity with constantly surprising invention on his kit.

Bob Andrews left the band after this, perhaps because he was feeling less important to the overall sound, but his keyboards, mixed behind the other instruments much of the time, add evocative colors and emotional nuance to what could otherwise be roars of power. Schwarz and Belmont, meanwhile, have worked out a perfect connection - Schwarz contributes almost as many guitar hooks in his brief but incandescent leads as Parker does vocal hooks, while Belmont's overdriven chorused guitar chords chop and throttle the rhythm parts.

Which brings us to Parker himself, spitting out lyrics fast and furious, never stopping to let us ponder such bon mots as "I draw a blank every time I think the football crowd is going to give me a boot" or "We're dying to be invaded and put the blame on something concrete." Parker is at heart a moralist who demands the world live up to his ideals, and if that sometimes puts him on the side of those who can't see complexity, it also puts his heart and soul into attempting to force passion into a world which often settles for going through the motions. Graham Parker wants to make us feel what he feels, and Squeezing Out Sparks is just about the most emotionally riveting rock album I know.

I'm not going into the politics of "You Can't Be Too Strong," the ballad from whence the title of the album derives, because the subject is too divisive, and my opinions on it don't effect my opinions of the album as a whole. Graham Parker and the Rumour never sounded more exhilarating than they do throughout Squeezing Out Sparks, and anger never sounded more alive.