Let's resume the June swoon with a 40th anniversary thermonuclear assault of a show from a most underrated songwriter and performer.
This explosive 80 minutes of mayhem dates from one of this guy's acknowledged pinnacle periods, touring behind what most feel is his greatest record.
If I had to explain what Graham Parker is all about, or what his songwriting style is like, I would say he is like a cross between Punk and Motown.
That is to say, in the neighborhood of other such folks I've featured on here like Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson when their stuff veers toward the more Soul oriented.
But GP is totally his own thing, and his almost 45 years doing it distinguish him from the pack just fine.
This example was taped 40 years tonight at the Paramount in Seattle, although GP thinks he is in Portland, Oregon (and says so) for a good deal of the show. I'd imagine there were a few people there from Portland, so he wasn't completely wrong.
It makes no difference because he and his Rumour monger up quite a vicious hurricane, and the mix over the airwaves from KISW in Seattle -- save a very brief dropout in one song I could not repair or improve -- is pretty cracking.
Graham Parker & The Rumour
Paramount Theater
Seattle, Washington USA
6.24.1979
01 KISW-FM intro
02 Discovering Japan
03 Local Girls
04 Soul On Ice
05 Don't Get Excited
06 Back to School Days
07 Howling Wind
08 Heat Treatment
09 Stick to Me
10 Mercury Poisoning
11 You Can't Be Too Strong
12 Passion Is No Ordinary Word
13 Clear Head
14 (Hey Lord) Don't Ask Me Questions
15 Protection
16 Saturday Night Is Dead
17 Nobody Hurts You
18 Soul Shoes
19 encore break
20 I Want You Back (Alive)
21 Pouring It All Out
Total time: 1:19:44
Graham Parker - vocals & guitar
Brinsley Schwarz - guitar & vocals
Martin Belmont - guitar & vocals
Bob Andrews - keyboards & vocals
Andrew Bodnar - bass
Steve Goulding - drums & vocals
FM off-air master reel of the original KISW-FM broadcast
509 MB FLAC/June 2019 archive link
I shall be back to finish out the month this weekend, with three posts in a row to mark the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and Gay Pride.
Don't go away until you sample this Graham Parker set though... it's squeezing out some pretty emphatic sparks even four decades on.--J.
