http://www.youtube.com/coachella
Squeeze playing live at Coachaella rebroadcast on the Coachella YouTube channel – seen it?
http://www.youtube.com/coachella
Squeeze playing live at Coachaella rebroadcast on the Coachella YouTube channel – seen it?
Listen to Maurice’s ‘Love That Album’ discussion podcast about Chris Difford’s ‘Cashmere If You Can’.
From the mid 70s through to the late 90s, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook had a songwriting partnership that had the pundits comparing them to Lennon/McCartney. Don’t feel under any pressure, guys. As mainstays of the band Squeeze, Tilbrook’s music and Difford’s lyrics covered a multitude of subjects including spouse abuse, living under cramped conditions, infidelity, and wanking. They survived the new wave label and later on, the AOR label to just make great songs till Squeeze’s demise.
Both men have recorded great solo albums, and different to their Squeeze output. Difford’s lyrics have become very personal, and on his latest album “Cashmere If You Can”, he sounds like he’s been listening to a lot of Loudon Wainwright III records.
On episode 18 of Love That Album, I talk about “Cashmere If You Can” and how it sounds like a public type of therapy of Difford.
Download the show from either http://lovethatalbum.blogspot.com or by searching for “lovethatalbum” in the iTunes store. Send written or mp3 feedback to rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au
Fancy a great night out for a fantastic cause?
NICK HARPER with support from Siobhan Parr & Dave Sutherland
Charity Concert in aid of
SOUTH LONDON SPECIAL LEAGUE
Friday 20th April 2012
Recital Room, Blackheath Halls
Buy tickets on-line here: www.blackheathhalls.com
Son of the legendary UK singer-songwriter Roy Harper, Nick has played the guitar from the age of 10 and was surrounded by the likes of Keith Moon, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Dave Gilmour as he grew up, so it was no surprise when Nick made his recording debut on his father’s ‘Whatever Happened to Jugula?’ in 1985. Nick’s talent and energy entranced Roy’s fans and it was inevitable that he would begin recording and touring in his own right.
In 1996 Nick met Squeeze frontman and songwriter Glenn Tilbrook. Tilbrook was so impressed that he offered Nick a job playing with and supporting Squeeze and promptly signed Nick to his own label, Quixotic Records. Following tours in the UK, USA and Japan, Nick recorded the 1998 album Smithereens with Tilbrook as producer. This album and subsequent 40 date solo tour, including dates in New York and Glastonbury, confirmed Nick as a formidable talent in his own right. “If imagination, energy and bags of talent were the only factors in making a successful pop career, few would deny that Squeeze man Glenn Tilbrook has backed a winner in Nick Harper…Splendid stuff” – MOJO magazine. He teamed up with Tilbrook again on 2000′s highly acclaimed album Harperspace. This is the album that confirmed his position at the forefront of a new generation of British Acoustic Performers. “Nick Harper has a quality that stands head and shoulders above anything else you are likely to encounter…The Verse Time Forgot from the new album ‘Harperspace’ is as close to a perfect song as you are likely to get.” Edinburgh Evening News
To call Nick a superlative singer/songwriter could put his highly lauded guitar talent in the shade, and to call him a guitarist’s guitarist might slight his distinctive, soulful voice and passionate songs. Not forgetting the wild ride that is one of his live shows – from personal introspection to biting political satire via a charmingly caustic wit. He often segues from his own compositions to well-loved covers he makes his own – he takes on Presley, Zappa, Jeff Buckley, Led Zeppelin, Monty Python and Public Enemy (yes, on an acoustic guitar).
For over 15 years, he has been dazzling audiences and reviewers alike with his heady mix of virtuosity, boyish charm, showmanship and sheer bravado. His talent and showmanship were recognised in with a (Glasgow) Herald Fringe Angel award for excellence in live music during his Edinburgh Festival run.
“Harper has so much musicianship in him that it just leaks out all over the place.” The Times
“Frank Zappa would have been impressed” Robin Denselow, The Guardian
www.harperspace.com
www.myspace.com/siobhanparr
www.myspace.com/blindboydavesutherland
Visit interview at: Phoenix New Times blog
Coachella is a weird beast: In addition to hotly tipped acts like Avicii and Justice, big name standard bearers like Radiohead and The Black Keys, and holy-hell-they’re-reuniting bands like Refused and At the Drive In, there’s always a few bands that have just kept soldiering on, whose break-ups and hiatuses have been quiet or nonexistent. This year’s no different. Look closely at the lineup and you’ll see classic bands like The Buzzcocks, Atari Teenage Riot, Madness, and Squeeze.
If that last name gives you pause, just think about it for a second. “Tempted?” “Pulling Mussels from The Shell?” “Black Coffee In Bed?” All stone cold classics. The UK band — lead by songwriter Glenn Tilbrook and lyricist Chris Difford — harnessed the energy of punk and pub rock and paired with with melodic sophistication, wry wit, taut R&B rhythms, and New Wave sheen. The band is still going, too. In 2010 they released Spot the Difference, which featured their greatest hits re-recorded. A strange choice, sure, but a smart one (for licensing) and it gave keyboardist Stephen Large a chance to play the first iPad solo in the history of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
The record also gave the band a chance to get back to the head-space of their early years.
“In those days we were touring and recording a lot,” says Difford over the phone, in the midst of a move and prepping for tour, which finds the band visiting the Indio festival and a stop at the Crescent Ballroom in downtown Phoenix. “You didn’t question what you did, you just were somebody in a band. Speaking for myself, I didn’t really fuss about it, I just did it. But here one is, all these years later, you can’t help but try and by philosophical about what you did and what you’re doing.”
Difford has a new batch of songs in the work (tentative title: English Love Affair), and plans to release two solo albums (one comprised of pre-Squeeze demos) this year, but was more than happy to discuss the band’s approach and why he tries to make his lyrics sound like a conversation.
Up on the Sun: How are you, Chris?
Chris Difford: Well, I’m in the middle of a move…
Moving is never fun.
I’ve been doing it every six months for…pretty much my entire life. [laughs]
So does that help you pare down any hoarding impulses or are you lugging things like a record collection around?
My record collection is in storage. I still don’t know what to do with it. I’ve got tons of vinyl, and when you show it the younger generation they just wonder what the hell you were doing playing it. Just so much effort [laughs]. But there you go.
There’s a vinyl resurgence going on here in the States…but as resurgent as it may be, it’s still an antiquated format. I have a bunch of records, but every time I move I find myself thinking, “Maybe these iPod things aren’t so bad after all.”
I’m actually bringing out two records on vinyl — my own solo stuff –this year. Because [a label] approached me and said, “You can produce 500 copies of this and people will buy it.” There are enough people out there. So in this country people are interested in it. That’s my plan for the year, coincidentally.
So you’re issuing two records this year?
Well, my first solo album is coming out on vinyl for the first time. That brings up all kinds of possibilities. It’s kind of long, so it needs to be on four sides. And there’s not enough music for the fourth side, so I found some old demos and they’ll go on side four. And I found some demos, pre-Squeeze, that I made when I was a teenager. I don’t know whether I’m brave or stupid, but I’ve been talked into putting those out as a stand alone vinyl record. That will come out in August…
What kind of stuff is that?
It really…I love listening to my voice, because I sound like someone who really wanted to be successful sounding like David Bowie. Lyrically I’m kind of a little bit all over the place…but I love the sort of passion there is in my voice, like this is a young kid who really wanted to be in a music industry. This is pre-meeting Glenn, so I sound quite intense and busy on being me.
I was in the grocery store last night, and I heard “Pulling Mussels from the Shell” over the radio. I was struck how fresh that sounded; it sounded very current, like it could be on a Spoon record or something.
You’re hearing young men who are passionate about the journey they are about to take. They don’t know where they are going, but they’re kind of happy making records. In those days we were touring and recording a lot; you didn’t question what you did, you just were somebody in a band. Speaking for myself, I didn’t really fuss about it, I just did it. But here one is, all these years later, you can’t help but try and by philosophical about what you did and what you’re doing. And then that kind of hinders sometimes.
In what way?
Well I mean, if you over-think your game, you end up tripping up. You kind of just have to be in the present and go with what you’ve got, despite your possibilities. Which is kind of difficult when you know what your possibilities are.
Co-operative Tour Dates in May
4/15: Squeeze’s Difford reflects on legendary band, in Phoenix
“When we arrived in America, we turned on the radio and it was ‘Baker Street’ and REO Speedwagon and Styx and Zeppelin. Not that there’s anything wrong with hearing Zeppelin, obviously.”
Washing up on U.S. shores at roughly the same time as fellow pop classicists Elvis Costello and XTC, Squeeze never enjoyed the commercial success in the States that had greeted the previous generation of British Invaders a decade or so before. But back in the day, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were frequently looked upon as the Lennon-McCartney of their generation, packing Squeeze albums with literate pop gems as timeless as “Take Me I’m Yours,” “Goodbye Girl,” “Cool for Cats” and their eventual U.S. breakthrough, “Tempted.”
Difford recalls the uphill battle they faced in the States.
“When we arrived in America, we turned on the radio and it was ‘Baker Street’ and REO Speedwagon and Styx and Zeppelin. Not that there’s anything wrong with hearing Zeppelin, obviously. But that was the bulk of radio. It did change, though. College radio became huge, and we managed to sort of wing our way through college radio and do lots and lots of U.S. tours.”
Reminded that he and his songwriter partner were seen as a lesser-paid version of Lennon-McCartney in those days, Difford responds with brilliant self-effacing British wit that when he heard that kind of talk, “I was thrilled, although I didn’t know which one I was.”
Because of when their early albums hit the streets (and possibly the fact that they were fairly young and British), they were seen, like Costello, as part of the New Wave revolution, a tag they’ve spoken out against on more than one occasion.
“Looking back on it, what does it matter?” Difford says. “A label is a label. For a long while on American radio, it was difficult to say, ‘Well, what is Squeeze? They sound like the Beatles. They sound like New Wave. But they’re not either of those.’ So it was frustrating, I guess, for people who were programming radio stations. We definitely weren’t punks, but people sometimes said we were, which I found quite interesting.”
Their self-titled debut, retitled “U.K. Squeeze” in the States, was produced by an artist whose music proved a crucial inspiration of the New Wave era, John Cale of the Velvet Underground.
“I’ve become a huge fan of it, oddly enough,” Difford says of the 1978 release. “I went through a period of thinking, ‘It’s too far back for me to have any emotional attachment to that.’ And also I thought it was a bit scruffy. It was a production by John Cale, which was amazing. But it wasn’t really Squeeze as I knew it. It was quite a bizarre mixture of tracks. But now I look back on it with new eyes in some ways. I think ‘Wow, that’s amazing. Here’s a bunch of young kids making their first album and having such a great time.’ ”
The band’s second album, “Cool for Cats,” was even better, but they really hit their stride with 1980′s “Argybargy,” which gave the world “Pulling Mussels (From a Shell),” returning the following year with “East Side Story” and the single “Tempted.”
Difford sizes up that early burst of creativity three decades later.
” ‘East Side Story’ was probably the pinnacle of our holding hands as songwriters, if you like. That was a pretty terrific time, and we had a fantastic guide in Elvis Costello. Then, I think we got lost a bit. We were tired from touring, and we were all over the place. But then, I think it came back again for a while when we made the ‘Some Fantastic Place’ album,” released in 1993.”
Hold on. Does this mean Difford dismisses 1982′s “Sweets from a Stranger” album, with such songs as “When the Hangover Strikes” and “Black Coffee in Bed”?
“I like a couple tracks on that,” he responds. “But overall, I think it’s quite dark. It was right before we split up for the first time.”
“Black Coffee in Bed” gave Squeeze their second minor U.S. chart hit, followed that same year by “Annie Get Your Gun” and 1985′s “Hits of the Year.” But it was 1987 by the time they went Top 40 on the Hot 100 with a song called “Hourglass,” a breakthrough Difford says had more to do with MTV than anything.
“We made a fantastic video,” he says. “And it was getting played constantly in rotation on MTV and VH1. So there was a lot going on, and it sort of helped steamroll the track onto radio.”
A second Top 40 hit, “853-5937,” was pulled from that same album, 1987′s “Babylon and On.” And they’ve managed a handful of modern-rock radio hits since then. But Squeeze’s biggest-selling album here remains the early ’80s greatest-hits collection, “Singles — 45′s and Under.”
It could be argued that the album is a pretty decent advertisement for the live show, but Difford believes the upcoming “Live at the Fillmore” does the best job of that.
“I think the live album is much more a testament to this band,” he says. “… It’s just a very strong representation of Squeeze as it is today.”
Their last album of newly written material is “Domino,” which hit the streets in 1998.
“It was at the end of a run of really good recordings,” Difford says of “Domino.” “And I think we just got tired, or I got tired anyways, of the constant touring. I wasn’t concentrating. I took my eye off it, really. And I don’t think I was giving it my all.”
Asked if there’s any hope of new material emerging, Difford says, “We talked about it at the beginning of the year, but we’ve not really found that spark. …
“When you’re younger and you’re in a band and you have to make a record by September or something, you knuckle down and you make records. In this day and age, it seems to me like there’s no urgency because the record industry doesn’t exist for a band like Squeeze anymore, so you don’t stay up all night thinking, ‘I’ve got to write another song for tomorrow,’ because you don’t know what you’re chasing.”
With US dates coming up and a huge UK tour in November and December 2012 it’s time to hear your ideas on your Fantasy Squeeze Setlist. You’ve seen the band before – you’ve seen different lineups – you’ve seen them acoustic – you’ve seen them electric – you’ve seen them in tiny venues – you’ve seen them in megadomes – maybe you’ve never ever seen them before. It doesn’t matter. We just want to know: what are the songs you just MUST hear them play – and what’s your Fantasy Squeeze Setlist? Pick ten songs – and don’t forget the Ultimate Encore!
Why not post it below? – and you never know, Squeeze might just be looking :)
London songwriters club
The Wapping Project
Wapping Wall
London
E1
The London songwriters club comes to Wapping East London each Wednesday, a feast of friends and fellow songwriters. Come along and enjoy the cathedral of food and music which is the Wapping Project.
This week the leap year show. 29th Feb.
Mark Nevin
Chris Difford
Arcelia
Here’s Chris’s blog about it:
The Wapping project is a wonderful place to eat, i have been going there for 10 years. Art and music join together with food very well i think, and last night we had a great time feeling our way around this new venue. Charlie Wood who comes from Memphis delivered a fine set of self penned songs on the piano, he swings from many styles and nestles well in the jazz. One day i hope to write with him but i fear his lyrics are too good for me. Chris Sheehan, who i love as a friend and co writer sang two songs and as ever his voice lyric and all round loveliness embraced us all. Paul Aiden sang with great voice, a new talent with great songs. Check him out, he is tall. The room was mostly filled with people noshing and tipping wine, as you might expect. Some had come just to watch and swig beer, others had come from the book reading in another part of the building. This is a cool place, a great home for anyone who loves food, and song. I played for half an hour and for some reason played all the Squeeze songs i could like they were written by the Velvet Underground. It was fun to play around with the tempo and cast a dark veil over some very pretty melodies that i normally find hard to sing. Im about to work on a new set for the tour in May, so im trying this and that out where i can. The room is so large that the voice just sits in mid air up near the mirror ball and the steel rafters, the room cathedral like empowers the heart to strive for the real. A tough room, but a chance to try something new and open. And yum too. A good night had by all i think. Norman Lovett came along to say hello, he lives next door, he will be on my tour in May, so watch out for our stage presence. Come along next week on the 29th to see the Leap year show with my good friend Mark Nevin, and some more velvets. Wapping Wall London E1.
Squeeze are confirmed at the Coachella Festival this year in the USA in April – but more unconfirmed dates are being advertised.
Unconfirmed, but it looks like Squeeze may well be coming to Baltimore 27th! April!! Ramshead Live. Great venue.
On the songkick website the following dates are also posted:
10 April 2012 – House of Blues, San Diego, CA with the marvelous Steve Poltz as support – see him!
11 April 2012 – The Coach House, San Juan Capistrano
13 – 15 April 2012 – Coachella 2012 (in Indio, CA)
18 April 2012 – Uptown Theatre, Napa, CA
19 April 2012 – The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
20 – 22 April 2012 – Coachella 2012 (in Indio, CA)
27 April 2012 – Rams Head Live, Baltimore, MD
The Ramshead gig is supposed to be with The English Beat. Here is the link for all the dates:
http://www.songkick.com/artists/267703-squeeze/calendar
As Corina says:
On Glenn’s web site the only dates above that are listed are Coachella on the 14th and 21st, so apparently none of the others are confirmed yet. But Californians should be very happy!! You guys don’t usually get this much Squeeze (or Glenn).
Squeeze rumoured to play Hampton Court Palace Festival on Tuesday 19 June 2012 – details at hamptoncourtpalacefestival.com
Not confirmed by Squeeze yet – so wait before making long distance travel arrangements!
TEN SUMMER NIGHTS OF OPEN-AIR CONCERTS IN THE SPECTACULAR SETTING OF HAMPTON COURT PALACE
Latest announcements – TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
The fantastic SQUEEZE are confirmed to play on Tuesday 19th June at the Hampton Court Palace Festival.
Squeeze are one of the finest songwriting partnerships. Their contribution to music was noted in 2010 with the site of their first gig being awarded a prestigious ‘PRS For Music’ Heritage Plaque, which has so far commemorated the debuts of Blur and Dire Straits.
It joins an ever-increasing list of Squeeze accolades alongside their recent Ivor Novello for Outstanding Contribution to British Music and their Nordoff-Robbins Icon Award. Chris Difford’s lyrics and Glenn Tilbrook’s music have survived everything over the years, from the ever-changing musical landscape to their own internal reshuffles and acrimonious break-ups – but Squeeze is here to stay, still going strong and still loving every moment.
The Hampton Court Palace Festival returns for what has become the highlight of the summer calendar. 2012 will be our 20th year and we will be marking this occasion with this very special line up.