When I was a young teenager “kitchen sink” songs like “The Prisoner” helped me understand how day to day life could lead to an intolerable situation, as in my own parent’s divorce. They also helped me see why being in love (new to me!) could be so hard.

When I was in my late 20′s and my eight-year relationship ended I listened to “It’s Over” (and the entire Some Fantastic Place and Play albums) until I finally believed that it was.

And when things started to get better after that very painful breakup, “This Summer”, “If It’s Love”, and many other songs helped me express what was happening inside me: optimism, possibility, fresh hope!

Squeeze songs are not simple. They are about complicated situations. Who would ever choose to be the couple in “Letting Go”? But at the same time, who doesn’t know exactly how it feels?

For many of us long term Squeeze fans, listening to their albums has been a journey we’ve taken while experiencing our own ever-changing lives. When you put all the songs together you get a tremendous tapestry of human experience, relationships, situations, and of course a whole spectrum of emotions.

A few years ago a large scale poll was conducted to find out what Squeeze fans’ favorite songs were, but the results were never widely published. Taking everything into account, with all the songs to choose from, which ones do we like best? These are the top 20 songs, which represent 61% of the total votes. The top 5 spots took a whopping 30% of the total votes!

1. Some Fantastic Place
2. Up The Junction
3. Another Nail In My Heart
4. Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)
5. Tempted
6. Is That Love
7. If I Didn’t Love You
8. Piccadilly
9. Annie Get Your Gun
10. Take Me I’m Yours
11. Maidstone
12. Black Coffee In Bed
13. Labelled With Love
14. Walk Away
15. In Quintessence
16. The Truth
17. Letting Go
18. Woman’s World
19. The Elephant Ride
20. Cool For Cats

Squeeze is touring in the US right now! Enjoy the shows, everyone!

I mused to myself, “I’m sure it has been at least TEN YEARS since I’ve seen Squeeze on tv,” and then quickly realised that of course that was true since they had disbanded for ten years. What a treat to see them now! When Regis finally introduced the band, I was thrilled they were going to do Goobye Girl! Great choice for national television exposure: so recognisable, so timeless, and one of my very favorites!

…And then my tv reception started to crap out.

The timing was impeccable. Regis was crystal clear as he introduced them, but by the time the camera had swung over to the band, things were already getting a little blurry.

From that point things gradually (yet swifty!) degenerated, so that by the time Glenn played the final chord it looked like this.

So, although I agree with David that it’s vital someone in America upload the show to YouTube, I think you’ll all thank me for not volunteering!!

This is the third in his trilogy of autobiographical albums, and opens with the typically frank “1975″, referring to that heady year after Squeeze was born.

Difford explains: “The 1975 period of my life was probably the most exciting year of youth because you don’t know what’s coming, how long life’s going to be, and I jumped in with both feet.”

If you haven’t joined Chris’ Saturday Morning Music Club yet, check out David’s post about 1975. It contains a clever video of the new song which includes all the lyrics, and there are lots of comments on the music club from people who have joined.

Chris also mentions that he and Glenn still intend to try writing together again soon!

Photo by Teri Pengilley

"Strong in Reason" starts out mellow

With less than a month left before setting out on their US Tour, Squeeze have started doing a few live gigs together. They played a free, unannounced gig at the Anchor & Hope in London June 8th, and Snipturn came through for us with a video of “Strong In Reason.” I was really surprised at how much I like this song from the first album, which they have sort of de-punked. It’s a lot easier to appreciate the lyrics in this less aggressive interpretation.

Snipturn’s camera work has always been so very appreciated by those of us who haven’t been able to get to the gigs, but I am amazed at the quality of his shooting for this video. He’s working from one angle in what appear to be extremely cramped circumstances, but still manages to get a lot of footage of everyone, including details of the guitar and bass playing, while still keeping Chris and Glenn’s faces in all the important singing parts. The result is very professional looking, despite having only one take and one camera!

He comments in his review of another gig last April , “Whilst filming I try to be quite disciplined and concentrate on the shot and this tends to make you “focus” on the task of getting a good result. This means that I end up enjoying the night, but in a slightly different way to everyone else. Through the camera lens though, it really was true craftsmanship at work that I was watching” I’d add that we’re treated to some very fine craftsmanship of your own, Snip!

The band appear to be in excellent form, and played at The Isle of Wight Festival a few nights after the Anchor & Hope. You can read a few short reviews of it here on the site, and a slightly longer (and better) one here.

Lots of fans gathered at the Anchor & Hope gig, and their contributions to the site are overflowing (thanks, everyone!). They include several more videos courtesy of Snipturn, a lovely set of pictures taken by our David, a detailed review by Mark, a setlist from Liz, plus lots of comments. Check it out!

Remember that you can always use the search box (in the upper right hand corner of the front page of this site) to find any gig ever played by Squeeze, Glenn, or Chris. Many of them have reviews, photos, and even videos.

The official Glenn site still says that there are more US tour dates to be added, but I’m not sure whether that information is up to date or not. It’s hard to keep track because not all the sites (GT.com, SqueezeOfficial’s MySpace page, etc) have all the current dates listed. In fact, at the moment only the Squeeze Official web site seems to have the latest ones: The Fillmore in SF, The Showbox in Seattle, and Seneca Falls Casino in Niagara Falls, NY.

Squeeze are playing at Leamington Spa July 2nd, and at the Cornbury Festival July 3rd. They hit Columbus, Ohio on the 9th and play 20 dates across the U.S.!

Miles Connolly, of the Prince Albert in Stroud, is travelling 700 miles in the star’s tour bus to pick him and his family up in Madrid, Spain. Miles, who works part time for Glenn as a tour manager, got the call for help on Sunday after the musician was left stranded by the airspace shutdown crisis.

Miles said: “Glenn had been in Morocco, and obviously he can’t fly back, so it made sense for me to go down to London to get his tour bus and drive it down to pick him up. He’s there with three of his children, his girlfriend Suzanne, his father and his father’s partner, and he needs to get back.”

Miles and his partner Lotte Lyster, who runs the pub, set off on Monday night.

You can read the rest of the article here. This explains Glenn’s recent tweet, which I initially found a bit perplexing due to lack of context (and because I had assumed “ash” was a typo…)

In marrakech staying at the amazing Riyad Darhani in the centre of all the souks. Looks like we may be scoring some ash & be staying longer. -Glenn

Glenn: not a fan of double parking

FluffersTV has posted a new video, that features a new-to-most-of-us song by Glenn! It’s called “0-60″, and was apparently released on some import versions of Pandemonium Ensues, but I’d never heard it before. The song is about an encounter Glenn had with the long arm of the law when he staged a one man “artistic protest” against a double parked car. He tells the story in more detail in this clip from The Wright Stuff, at about the 3:20 mark, and reveals that he is now on the DNA database – and not happy about it!

The song is surprisingly catchy considering the subject matter, and I love how at the end he concludes that he’ll be counting to ten from now on if he feels the urge to act on his anger! (Even artistically.)

Now, I’m gonna level with you and tell you that I didn’t know anything at all about social networking before this. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I figure you might be just the same, in which case you may think this is not for you. When David told me about it I was like, “What’s it for?” The only real answer to that question (and the one he gave me) is that the easiest way to learn is by doing, so just go sign up for it and have a look around. It’s fun!

In order to have anything to look at you need to make some friends, but that’s not very hard. In fact, David set it up so that everyone is my friend by default! (I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are also his friend automatically…) So far there are 36 people there, and they’re all very friendly; I’m pretty sure any one of them would respond to a friend request from a fellow Squeeze fan!

Once you have some friends you can just choose “wall posts” from the drop down menu at the Yap Yap Yap link, and go see what people are talking about! Current chatter is about the UK tour dates for Squeeze, guessing the name of Squeeze’s new US label, and questions about Yap Yap Yap itself such as, “Will it work on my mobile device?” (Yes!)

If you have any questions or problems getting set up, just ask them in the comments for this post. That way if anyone else has a similar issue they will get the answer they need too. Come on over and yap with us!

As Quixotic Records mentioned, Squeeze were honored today with a heritage plaque commemorating the first venue they ever played, back in 1975. I thought the speech by the chairman of PRS for Music was really quite touching! I guess I should have expected a lot of Squeeze love, considering this is only the fourth plaque they have done. Snipturn put up a video of the ceremony on YouTube, so we can all see!

Later in the day, Squeezeliveblog put up a great video of Chris, Glenn, and Stephen Large doing Up the Junction (with Glenn ending up lying on the piano no less!) from the concert that followed the award ceremony.

And snipturn, who never lets us down, followed it up with a fantastic video of Goodbye Girl, featuring an amazing solo by Stephen, and a rousing version of Take Me, which includes improvised percussion from the whole band, and eventually the whole audience! These are both very lively, fun videos, so don’t miss them!

It is great to see Glenn and Chris (and the rest of the band, of course!) receive this well-deserved award, and then clearly enjoying themselves playing afterwards. I know that many of us feel like they don’t get anywhere near the recognition they deserve for their amazing talent and the influence they’ve had on the bands that have followed them. Congratulations, guys!

I have to hand it to Sarte’s Lobster, who took the slight Middle Eastern feel and ran with it! The funky and driving instrumentation now sounds like something I might overhear while ordering a falafel from a stand on the street. The singer’s style is quite…aggressive! He sounds ready to conquer the listener (and then Constantinople), which provides an interesting new perspective for most of the lyric. However, the line “take me, I’m yours” just doesn’t seem to work when you’re a hard-ass, and I am scared to even know why there’s a heaven in my kiss!

On the other hand, once more I have to commend the band for making the complicated and convoluted lyrics sound crystal clear, and I think Gill and I wouldn’t be suffering from “Temptemptulation Syndrome” if we’d heard this version first. (She and I both recently admitted on the Glenn List to having heard one line in the song as “a great temp-temptulation”, rather than “a grape to tempt your leisure,” and never thought to question it until Gill actually had to sing it on stage one day!)

Overall, although this might sound like a bad review, I do like the song, and have listened to it many times already. I am getting used to the scary singer, whose bark is, I suspect, worse than his bite.

In this recent interview promoting Alice In Wonderland, Johnny Depp looked genuinely thrilled to be gifted a Squeeze CD by some nameless but ardent field staffer. It’s an interesting interview, because he tells us that he gets into his characters by finding a song or album that seems to embody the character, and then plays it a whole bunch until he gets the character down.

If I had been interviewing him, I would have withheld the Squeeze CD (likely dangling it over his head like a carrot on a stick) until he divulged the name of the song or band that inspired Captain Jack Sparrow’s character! Perhaps, as Roger Ebert suggested so many years ago, it really was a drunken drag queen…but one with a recording contract!

And as for PRS for Music? They have made a lovely commemorative plaque to decorate the first building where Squeeze ever played, the Greenwich Dance Hall. (Click to read an article about it and see a cute picture of Glenn of unknown vintage, but that I suspect is from a festival during the early naughts.) It will be unveiled on 23 March at 2:30 PM, with Chris and Glenn in attendance.

It is an interesting take by the Canadian band, Black Turtle Dove – a very slow version that goes back to the song’s blues roots, which I feel really emphasises the lyrics. The band talks a bit about their inspiration and motivation for choosing that song.

The song spoke deeply to Roberto and Cynthia, as both had been “messed around” in their earlier lives – they had both been through difficult relationships in the past before meeting each other.

Cynthia says, “We always loved Squeeze! We felt that the song, ‘Messed Around’ spoke to us. Roberto’s lead vocal is defending me in regards to being abandoned with two young children and my vocal was meant to comfort him through his own trials. It felt completely natural to us”.

Roberto adds, “I’m still a big fan of Squeeze. Messed around is how I felt. I know that Cynthia felt the same way. We came together and leaned on each other to record this track. We stood up for each other.”

To read the entire blog entry about the song, go to Songs of Squeeze Myspace. The song itself is on the main page (I had to reload it to get it to appear).

The aim is to have all 48 songs from Squeeze’s first four albums finished in the next two months, but then of course there is the cover art and many other details to be finished. Burning Sky Records still expect to release the 4-album set this year.

I am going to be particularly interested to see the cover art, as a matter of fact! The covers for the other Burning Sky Records releases have been amazing, and just like everything else, they’re done by volunteers.

Cover art for JellyFish, Posies, and Roxy Music tribute albums

For the Roxy Music tribute album, entitled Take Refuge in Pleasure, they searched the globe for cover models, and had to do four completely different photo shoots, because in addition to the one-album main release, there was also a three-album “Deluxe and Delightful” release. The resulting covers are really quite spectacular, with elaborate costumes and sets, featuring models from Australia, Slovakia, and Ireland. You can see them all here at Burning Sky Records. I wonder what they will do for Squeeze!

]]> http://www.packetofthree.com/2010/03/01/messed-around-tribute/feed/ 11 http://www.packetofthree.com/2010/02/04/slap-and-tickle-cover-from-the-squeeze-tribute-project/ http://www.packetofthree.com/2010/02/04/slap-and-tickle-cover-from-the-squeeze-tribute-project/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:43:34 +0000 babylonandon http://www.packetofthree.com/?p=2139 [...]]]>

Black Sugar Transmission: Spiky on the outside, Squeezy on the inside?

As fascinated as I was to hear about the massive 4-album Squeeze tribute project, Squeeze Revisited, I really had no idea what to expect from the resulting tracks.

After all, the participants are largely unknown artists (although Chris Holland is doing a song!), and they’re basically unpaid too. They are people from all over the world, recording the songs with whatever tools they have available to them, and sending the almost-finished product to Burning Sky Records to be mastered into a cohesive album collection. Kind of a pig in poke!

But as David mentioned recently in the comments to my original post, the first song is up now on the Squeeze Revisited MySpace page, and I have to say, I love it! Because I don’t want to make this too long, I will simply tell you three things I love about it:

- It still really sounds like Slap and Tickle, but it also feels fresh and new
- It has a dance beat, but there’s also something sensuous about the song – it’s sexy Slap and Tickle!
- You can hear every single word clearly

That’s all. Go listen for yourself; I think you might like it too!

Many keyboards are necessary for electronic Funkytown!

The band seem to be having a fantastic time, and so do the audience! There have been tons of people writing into the Glenn List about these very popular shows. They like to mix things up, for example last Tuesday Glenn announced it would be an “electronic evening”, and Mark from the Glenn list was there.

What a bizarre, brilliant, bonkers evening. Glenn had promised an electronic evening this week and joked about Kraftwerk but I thought he just meant not acoustic. However, true to his word, the only guitar in sight was Lucy’s bass. Even Simon was playing keyboard drums.

The set was a mixed bag, some old, some new, some borrowed and some blues. Rehearsals appeared to be minimal, but the show was a riot of laughs, fluffed lines, robotic moves (Simon & Lucy), surprised looks when a song didn’t work, more surprised looks when they did. Incredible, terrible, fantastic, sometimes in the same song.

Oh, did I mention the make up? They all wore eye liner.

Thanks to the miracle of modern YouTube, you can watch some of these songs for yourself! Val posted Another Nail, fully electronic (eyeliner sadly not visible in the low lighting), Funkytown, and Don’t You Want Me, to which Glenn doesn’t appear to know many of the lyrics, but he gets lots of help!

That’s nothing. The week before Glenn was ill and couldn’t show up at all, so The Fluffers played with whoever wanted to guest vocal! Many of the volunteers were really very fine singers, especially the pub landlord, who knocked my socks off with Stand By Me. So did Stephen Large with his great melodica solo! The song is swiftly followed on the same video clip by Valerie, which is also excellent.

That last one was uploaded by snipturn, who has posted tons of great live YouTube videos of Glenn (solo, with the Fluffers, and with Squeeze) in his channel! I particularly love this clip of Glenn singing The Waiting Game at a solo show in Nottingham on December 12. An especially fun video is from the previous December, when Glenn and the Flufffers played Tempted to a fan from the audience, who ended up joining them on tambourine and backing vocals. Everyone’s dancing, joking around, and having a great time, and the audio and video quality are both very good.

Just go see it!

The Anchor and Hope shows will be continuing through February and admission is free, so get down there if you can! They’re packed; advice from the Glenn list is “Be early, or be tall!”

He’s now gearing up for an 9-date Solo UK Tour and then he’s off to Ireland! Here are the Irish dates:

Waterford – The Forum, Wednesday 24th March Tel: 051 871 133
Cork City - The Pavilion, Carey’s Lane, Thursday 25th March Tel: 021 427 6230 (This gig is Glenn with Nine Below Zero!)
Belfast - The Spring & Airbrake, Friday 26th March Tel: 02890 325942 (Also with Nine Below Zero!)
Dundalk – The Spirit Store, Sunday 28th March Tel: 042 935 2697
Dundalk – The Spirit Store, Tuesday 30th March Tel: 042 935 2697
Naul, Co. Dublin – The Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre, Wednesday 31st March Tel: 01 802 0898

Tickets are available either from the venues or from ticketmaster and CDC Leisure

There are also some miscellaneous dates, including a few shows in France, so be sure to keep an eye on his tour page at GT.com.