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A Conversation with GRAHAM PARKER Rock's Premier Songwriter and 'Dark Horse' Sacrifices Mass Appeal for Quality By Alan Sculley As Graham Parker was considering the 12 songs that comprise his new CD, "Deepcut To Nowhere," he realized he may have done something that hasn't happened in his career. He thinks he's made a CD that touches on virtually every song style he has used on the dozen-plus studio and live albums that make up his prolific career. "It was completely unselfconscious. The songs came out that way," Parker said. "It is like hitting a certain kind of peak for me, the record, putting everything together. Everything came together. Apart from my old swing style, the 'White Honeys' and the 'Lady Doctors' (two songs from his 1976 album "Heat Treatment), those are gone for me. But there again, we kind of brought that into play with 'Socks And Sandals.' It's written in that kind of swing style." "Deepcut To Nowhere," in fact, may be Parker's most varied work to date. And long-time fans will find themselves revisiting key points in Parker's career as they listen to the CD. Those who liked the fusion of rock and soul that Parker brought to his earliest CDs -- "Howling Wind," "Heat Treatment" and "Stick To Me" -- will hear some of that sound in "Socks 'N' Sandals" (which is a folkier take on the swing style of a song like "White Honey") and the brisk "I'll Never Play Jacksonville Again." Fans of "Squeezing Out Sparks," the classic 1977 album that remains Parker's finest hour (not to mention one of the best albums of the entire punk/new wave era) will hear echoes of that album's crisp guitar rock and biting lyricism on new tunes like "Dark Days" and "Syphilis & Religion." The kinder, gentler and more romantic Parker that emerged on such first-rate largely acoustic albums as "Struck By Lightning" (1991) and "12 Haunted Episodes" (1995), will be drawn to new tracks like "Depend On Me" and "Blue Horizon," the former a promise of trust and commitment, the latter a sweet tale that finds Parker reflecting on his parents, his childhood and friends whose lives took them on divergent paths. Albums that struck a winning balance between the rocking and acoustic sides of Parker's music, such as the underrated 1983 release, "The Real Macaw" and "Burning Questions" (1992), are recalled in new tunes like "If It Ever Stops Raining" and "Tough On Clothes." Parker is especially proud that he was able to bring such variety to "Deepcut To Nowhere" and still make the CD sound cohesive. He acknowledges that this is something he didn't always achieve with his past records. "I had so much material for this record, I had these choices of directions to go in," Parker said. "And I could have taken something more extreme, like everything being more let's say rock-pop oriented. I had to really make hard decisions. 'Blue Horizon,' for instance, will that fit this album that also has 'Dark Days' on it? "I think that sometimes when you do albums like that -- and I know I've done them in the past -- they have kind of a scattershot approach, as it were," he said. "It sounds like a bunch of disparate material thrown together, whereas with '12 Haunted Episodes,' it's really one piece. Those are the records that I find hardest to come up with because my songs are very varied. I don't know if that's something people really understand about my work. There's nearly always a number of styles represented on each record. And it's hard to make that sound like it's something, it's hard to make that flow as one album." For Parker, "Deepcut To Nowhere," marks his third studio CD for the New York City-based independent label Razor & Tie Records, after nearly 20 years with stints on six different major labels. The move has given Parker the artistic freedom that sometimes was difficult to come by with other labels -- particularly with his contentious stints with Mercury Records (immortalized on the vitriolic but hilarious song "Mercury Poisoning") and Atlantic Records (a label with which he never did release an album after he rebelled against the company's involvement in the record-making process). Life with an indy label may mean a lower recording budget, but that hasn't been a problem for Parker, who recorded and mixed "Deep Cut To Nowhere" in less than three weeks -- a lightning quick period by major label standards. "I just find these days it's not necessary to take any longer than that, if you've got a good basic lineup of musicians and the songs are well prepared, which mine usually are these days," Parker said. "We only did one day's rehearsal, otherwise I think you're just laboring the point," he said. "And basically in the studio we were getting tracks down, usually on the second take. We'd run through, roll the tape, 'OK, let's try it again' and bam, we'd have it. I was playing live with acoustic guitar. The vocals, for the most part are live. Nearly everything is absolutely live." Long-time fans will also be pleased to see that one member of Parker's backing band on "Deepcut To Nowhere" is drummer Stephen Goulding, a member of Parker's original backing band, the Rumour. Parker split from that group after the 1980 album, "The Up Escalator," and Parker hadn't played with Goulding since then. While a full-fledged reunion with the Rumour is unlikely, Parker welcomed the chance to work with his former drummer. "I'd bumped into him in Chicago many times over the years. He had just moved to New York, and I was doing the album in upstate New York. We just occasionally said it would be great to do something together again," Parker said, noting he had played or been in contact on various occasions with the other members of the Rumour over the years. "So if any of these guys are in the vicinity and I'm making a record, it's going to tickle my fancy, as it were. Steve just had to come up the road a couple of hours." Other musicians included on the CD were keyboard player Professor Louie, a long-time associate of members of the Band, and Pete Donnelly, a member of the group the Figgs and a musician Parker considers one of the best bassists he has heard. The Figgs, who backed Parker on the rocking 1996 studio CD, "Acid Bubblegum" and on the 1997 live CD, "The Last Rock And Roll Show," will again tour with Parker this fall as he promotes "Deepcut To Nowhere." Parker has simple reasons for once again choosing the Figgs as his road band. "(Guitarist) Mike Gent knows some of my songs better than I do. That always helps when you go into rehearsal," Parker said. "The guy can tell you what the chord is. I mean, I listen to my records to check out a song and I'm like 'What the hell was I doing? What is that?' So I've got Mike Gent to tell me. "That's basically why I'm using the Figgs. "(Also) a couple of tours I'd done with them in the '90s were so good, they were a lot of fun," Parker said. "And they're younger than me, shall we say, so it's not about money. It's not about feeding a family and that thing. They're a cheap date." "Actually they get more expensive every year as they get older. Yeah, they rock great. There's a rawness to them which is always going to be there, as opposed to getting the high end session guys. "To lose $20,000 on a tour is not my idea of fun."
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