Graham Parker ~ 2009 March 25 ~ Sculler's Jazz Club, Boston, MA
Graham Parker accompanying himself with Fender electric guitar, Gibson acoustic guitar, and harmonica
Setlist (with guitars indicated)
Review
I wondered about this one, as Concert Going Partner and I arrived in the big city. A jazz club? That didn't sound like an appropriate venue for GP. But it was easy to find, just off the Mass. Pike Cambridge exit, and there was plenty of parking in their garage, which was a good beginning to the evening.
Sculler's is on the second floor of the fancy Hilton Doubletree Hotel. Outside the venue hangs a very long skinny rowboat on the wall -- a scull, get it? Promptly at 7:00 we were allowed in. Several tables in front of the stage were reserved but we were able to get a good front seat just at the side of the stage. I had opted out of the reserved table option when buying the tickets because I was under the impression you got these reserved tables by promising to buy dinner -- and their dinner menu had items I can't pronounce, and no prices (and you know what that means). But then no one that I could see ordered any food, so I remain baffled by their policy. We ordered coffees which turned out to be a mistake since they were 4 dollars each. But another good sign was the fact that each table was accompanied by four chairs, and they had been set up so that the chairs were in a half moon facing the stage. It was expected that the audience would listen to the music and watch the performer. An announcement was made during the intro to please keep conversation to a minimum during the show. I like that!
Present in the audience were former Latest Clowns Mike Gent and Scott Janovitz. Mike and Scott sold merch at a table in the lobby after the show (Jimmy Merchboy was not present). I purchased the Carp Fishing on Valium CD and a cute button with the cover art from the CD.
Just at 8:00 on came Graham, dressed in an '80s shirt with the stars and planets viewed through a window, carrying his Gibson acoustic, and opened with the wonderful "If It Ever Stops' Rainin'" and my four GP shows in four nights adventure began.
The sound was excellent in this club. There was an extra microphone set up at the level of Graham's acoustic guitar to gather extra sound. Graham's voice sounded really good, probably partly due to the acoustics, but maybe he was also singing particularly well that night.
GP mentioned he had acquired some copies of Acid Bubblegum from the record company, so wanted to play something from that album. When he couldn't remember the exact year it had come out, somebody in the audience shouted out "1996." There was another fan (or maybe the same guy) who shouted out a story about GP playing the Paradise in Boston four nights in a row way back in the 1970s. There were some real Parker experts in this particular audience. Anyway, GP said for a song from 'AB' he had tried "Character Assassination," but it was long and ponderous. I agree with that assessment; I was there when he played it, Joe's Pub, Jan. 9 of this year. He decided to do "They Got It Wrong (as Usual)" instead. Much better choice! For a song that was written in the mid-'90s, the lyrics are eerily relevant to the religious right of today -- one could almost imagine the song is about that lady governor in Alaska. "They shot the wolves in the wild tundra, 'cause man has to be top dog .... they elevated the ignorant as if they were gods" ... the whole stanza about plucking out eyebrows and painting them back on, "now she's a clown."
GP mentioned that he had played a show in Maryland on March 20, which gave him the perfect excuse to dust off "First Day of Spring." He referred to it as the "venal equinox" which was pretty funny -- an audience member supplied the correction ("vernal" equinox). That song is a beautiful one -- "the closest I have to jazz, with some of the chords."
After a rousing "Heat Treatment," Graham asked if anybody had heard of Tex Skerball. There was a tentative murmur from the audience. Geep asked the audience for a baseball cap. "Tex always wears some kind of headgear." He put the hat on backwards, took off his sunglasses (I think it is so funny that Tex disguises himself by removing sunglasses), and put a crazed hillbilly look on his face, and guess what? He became Tex Skerball. He no longer looked like Graham Parker. He sang the ridiculously funny, over the top "Glue and Chickens," that song that contains the brilliant line "we're not Druids, Pagans or Wiccans" -- to rhyme with chickens -- a Parkeresque rhyme if I ever heard one. The audience laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks.
This was the second time I've seen GP do a Skerball song and it worked much better this time. At the Joe's Pub show he did "God's Big Chess Game" which is a much more normal song -- not anywhere near as absurb as "G+C" -- and at that show Graham didn't impersonate Tex, he just sang the song. This time it worked much better. I might even start becoming a Tex booster, not a basher.
The audience was enthusiastic all night. After "G+C" Graham returned to himself with sing-along-able "Local Girls" to end the show. While receiving the cheers of the crowd, GP hid his face behind his electric guitar. This has become a standing joke with him -- rather than going off the stage and coming back for the encore, he likes to hide his face behind something. (If I can't see you, then you can't see me ... right?) The encore set included "Crawlin' From the Wreckage," sounding a bit livelier than the slowed-down version on Your Country.
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