Graham Parker and the Rumour (with Steve Goulding, second from right) have reunited after more than thirty years
GRAHAM PARKER & THE RUMOUR
Saturday, December 1, the Concert Hall at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th St., $45-$75, 8:00
Sunday, December 2, the Paramount, 370 New York Ave., Huntington, $25-$49.50, 8:00
www.grahamparker.net
Since the mid-1970s, Graham Parker has been making his unique brand of pub/punk/pop music, featuring smart, incisive lyrics in all-out rockers and sweet, tender ballads. Although he has never stopped putting out outstanding albums and touring with various backing bands or playing solo, the London-born, New York-based Parker came out swinging, releasing a string of seminal records between 1976 and 1980 with the group he is most associated with, the Rumour. Consisting of Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont on guitar, Andrew Bodnar on bass, Bob Andrews on keyboards, and Steve Goulding on drums, the Rumour helped define Parker’s angry-young-man sound on such classic discs as Howlin’ Wind, Heat Treatment, and Squeezing Out Sparks, ending their five-year run with 1980’s The Up Escalator (without Andrews). After thirty-one years, Parker and the Rumour have reunited for Three Chords Good, another exceptional record on which Parker examines the current state of America, taking on the conservative movement, war, and love in these critical times as only he can. (You can stream the new album here.) “I practice mass hypnosis / You’ll get sucked in by osmosis / But here comes my gnostic gnosis / (and guess what my gross is),” he sings on “Snake Oil Capital of the World,” continuing, “I’m suffering from psychosis / But I’ll give you my diagnosis / You need my medicine (in massive doses).” On the lovely “Long Emotional Ride,” Parker, who just turned sixty-two — and plays a musician named Graham Parker in the upcoming Judd Apatow film This Is 40 — acknowledges his past in a song that relates to the Rumour reunion. “I thought I was a cold, cold man / As a writer you have to be / Got to observe everything from a distance / Record it for posterity / But lately I’ve been feeling things / That I’ve never felt before / Maybe I’m just getting old or something / But something broke down my resistance / And opened the door.” Graham Parker and the Rumour will be playing the Concert Hall at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on December 1, with Parker’s previous backing band, the Figgs, opening up, followed by a highly anticipated show December 2 at the Paramount in Huntington with another British legend still making great new music, Ian Hunter & the Rant Band. As Parker and the Rumour rehearsed last week in Poughkeepsie for the tour, which began November 24 in Tarrytown, we corresponded with the irrepressible Goulding, a drummer’s drummer whose wide-ranging resume includes playing with the Mekons, the Cure, Poi Dog Pondering, Elvis Costello, Carlene Carter, Gang of Four, Nick Lowe, and many others.
Drummer Steve Goulding and the Rumour are back with Graham Parker and playing two area shows this weekend
twi-ny: How did you first find out about the reunion?
Steve Goulding: Graham asked me and Andrew Bodnar to play on his new album, so I said, “If you asked Martin and Bob and Brinsley, you’d have a band!” So he did, and much to my surprise, they all agreed, even Brinsley, who used to be hard to get on the road.
twi-ny: Is it something that you ever thought would happen?
Steve Goulding: I didn’t really think we’d get back together until I heard Brinsley had agreed to do the album.
twi-ny: Did you guys gel instantly upon getting back together, or did it take a while to find the old magic?
Steve Goulding: Yes, it was pretty instantaneous. The recording sessions were like buttah.
twi-ny: The tour is about to start. What are your expectations for the live show?
Steve Goulding: I just hope an audience turns up! The show will be more, er, mature. If we remember the beginnings and endings of the songs, and play the bits in the middle okay, I will be happy.
twi-ny: Will it be odd having one of Graham’s other backing bands, the Figgs, opening some of the shows?
Steve Goulding: I think opening the shows may be odder for the Figgs than for us, as they’ve now played with Graham about three times as long as we did. I hope they don’t feel too bad about it.
twi-ny: How is the Graham Parker of 2012 different from the GP of 1976?
Steve Goulding: Graham is probably a bit happier and has a bigger song catalog to choose from. But he’s really not much different from 1976. He still has a certain prickly energy about him.
twi-ny: What about you?
Steve Goulding: I’m much nicer than I was in 1976. And fatter.
twi-ny: Who are some of the drummers who most influenced you?
Steve Goulding: My early influences were Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Ringo, Charlie Watts — the usual suspects. Later I got into Bernard Purdie, Max Roach, Jim Gordon, Tony Williams, Al Jackson, and a whole bunch more. Everybody I listen to influences me a little bit. It’s hard to stop things sliding into one’s subconscious.
twi-ny: You are also a member of such bands as the Mekons and the Waco Brothers, and you regularly play with such solo artists as Megan Reilly, Laura Cantrell, and Garland Jeffreys. How is your approach to playing the drums different, if at all, in so many musical genres?
Steve Goulding: I try to listen to what people around me are playing and go along with that. The artists you mention are stylistically very different but they all have similar points of reference. So it’s not that difficult to play with all of them. If Sonny Rollins and Slayer were in there, that’d be much more impressive!