Graham Parker and the Rumour changed labels and simplified their sound for the angry eloquent urgency of this pub rock classic. The band's rapid fire succession of soulful albums ('Howlin' Wind', 'Heat Treatment', and 'Stick to Me') had steadily built an audience even as Parker's willingness to sing with his cockney accent influenced punk rockers. Frustration over the lack of support from Mercury Records, Parker signed a sweeter deal to Arista and set to work on their next album without the horn sections that featured so prominently on his previous albums.
'Squeezing Out Sparks' was recorded with producer Jack Nitzsche at Lansdowne Studios in London and featured Graham Parker on lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Brinsley Schwarz on guitar and backing vocals; Martin Belmont on rhythm guitar and backing vocals; Bob Andrews on keyboards and backing vocals; Steve Goulding on drums and backing vocals; and Andrew Bodnar on bass.
'Squeezing Out Sparks' became Parker's biggest commercial success, hitting number forty in the US and eighteen in the UK. It received widespread critical acclaim and was embraced in the college scene; but failed to break him on the pop charts. The album remains his most popular and well known. Parker reflects: "A strong album is probably the one people will say is like the top of the list there, which is fine by me. I think it's good. And a lot of people discovered me on that album. What people don't know is that me and the Rumour had made two albums in '76 and my career was already well in gear before something called punk and new wave came along, which was ostensibly in the mid-to-late '70s, whenever that actually broke. So then some of the people locked me in with other angry young men and all that. I was out there doing this with the Rumour for a year and a half before other angry young men really came along. So I was on the road a lot and I was just going through this great period, really, where this was now my life of playing music and having a career. I was thinking of myself as successful, and touring places like Australia one minute and Japan the next. And then sitting on an airplane in Tehran wondering if we'll ever take off, 1979. Will we take off? Will we live? So it was a lot of excitement. 'Squeezing Out Sparks' was fueled by all this, really. I can remember coming back from Japan having all these words flying through my head that came to make the song "Discovering Japan" for instance. I didn't write the songs particularly on the road, because I'm not good at that, but I definitely got the balance for the album from living such a crazy lifestyle, from coming from 1975 when I was living with my parents in a village in the country working in a gas station. Before that, I'd traveled as a hippie to Morocco, to France and Spain, and I was a bit of a nomad. And then I decided okay, no more traveling until I get paid for it. Now I'm going to become a professional musician."
http://www.grahamparker.net/
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Squeezing+Out+Sparks/628029
https://myspace.com/grahamparkermusic/music/album/squeezing-out-sparks-live-sparks-8076686
"Local Girls" – 3:44
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXvBivGcMo&feature=kp
"Passion Is No Ordinary Word" – 4:26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPQWPxfPYKo
"Love Gets You Twisted" – 3:02
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0QTdkoe3UA
"Protection" – 3:54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSzJNQSkbi8
"Waiting for the UFO's" – 3:08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPvau0RBYPk
"Don't Get Excited" – 3:04
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhiLqwdbDAs
bonus
"Mercury Poisoning" – 3:09
refers to his relationship with his former label.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws_DmRZXWBw
"I Want You Back" (The Corporation) – 3:26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLfyERYg1Y
'Squeezing Out Sparks'full album:
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