the squeeze reader


Packet of Three Squeeze Picture of the Week: www.packetofthree.com

Monday, April 30, 2007

Chris talks about Squeeze getting back together

Talking Shop: Squeeze

From the BBC:

Squeeze are reforming for the first time in eight years for a UK tour, and are releasing an album
of their greatest hits.



The London band, which formed in 1974, chalked up a string of hit singles in the late '70s and early '80s, including Up the Junction, Cool For Cats and Black Coffee In Bed.

In 1982 Squeeze split up, but returned with a variety of line-ups before stalwarts Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook played the band's final gig in 1999 and launched solo projects.

Difford, who is reuniting with Tilbrook for the revival, discusses returning to the band and his quest for old footage of Squeeze.

Are you getting back together for the love of it?

Universal approached us and said we'd be foolish
to miss this window, as they were pushing the boat out to promote the album. Glenn and I didn't plan it this year as we had solo plans.

But we've downed tools, we are getting the band together and we are going to do it. Squeeze has been our lives, so it's important that we show people we care.

Are you prepared for working together as a band again?

I'm looking forward to it - I've been saving up for an electric guitar as I haven't had one for years. I think it's going to be good as it's 24 shows, so you can plot how it's going to work.

Is there a possibility of a full-scale reunion on the back of your tour?

To make another Squeeze record we'd have to take six months out of our solo careers and neither of us can afford to stop at the moment. It's like we're "courting" again, showing each other our feathers. I'd love to write lyrics for Glenn again - he's one of the most inspirational people I've ever written for.

Do you prefer being a solo artist or a member of a band?

Being on my own is like being a skipper of a small yacht - Squeeze is like an ocean liner.

Have you been putting in any extra traini
ng for the tour?

I'll have to go to the gym as I don't want to be seen as an old man. I probably won't be jumping around on stage, but I'm hoping to embarrass my children as much as I can.

Are you in tune with the rapidly-changing music business, including downloading and the new chart?

My homepage is the BBC News entertainment site, so I get a lot of information from there. I can keep up with the charts from the comfort of my living room too. I don't look to see where my records have charted, but I'm always on the hunt for Squeeze videos I've never seen.

What are your long-term plans after the Squeeze tour?

My solo album is out next year and I'm working on the new Squeeze musical - we had one back in 1984 which was called Labelled With Love.

Essential Squeeze is released in the UK on 30 April. The band will embark on their reunion tour in November.

Squeeze's Chris Difford was talking to BBC News entertainment reporter Michael Osborn.




A squeeze reader amendment to the BBC article-

"I'm working on the new Squeeze musical - we had one back in 1984 which was called Labelled With Love."

Chris has posted to Diffworld to say that he:

"would like to work on one but not working on one at the moment, it should read

Cd"

Thanks for clearing that up!

BBC article
The Official Squeeze website
The Official Squeeze MySpace
Chris Difford's Website
Chris Difford's MySpace
Diffworld


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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Lily Allen goes Up The Junction (You can watch it!)

Lily Allen performed Up The Junction as part of a special Yahoo performance... and we have the link for it!


Yes, we do our best here at squeezereader towers to bring you all things Squeeze-like, and we sent out our dedicated team to search high and low*** to find this video for you, our groovy readers.

*** OK, so I was reading the Glenn Tilbrook Yahoo List, and the lovely Sian posted up the link!


So without further ado, here's the link to Lily!...

Lily Allen Sings 'Up The Junction'


Thanks again to Sian for the link :0)

Lily Allen Website
Lily Allen - MySpace

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Video interview with Glenn!

Glenn chats Down Under!



Yes, our very own GT gives a fine interview to those nice people at undercover.com.au, whilst reclining on a zebra*

*Well a zebra is a bit of an expansion of the truth, but it sounds rather good doesn't it?!!

Anyway, Glenn talks about lots of things including:

His 30 years in music, One For The Road,
working with other songwriters like Ron Sexsmith, his relationship with Chris, the Crowded House/Squeeze tour rumours, the idea of a new Squeeze album, the Squeeze tour line up, those Lennon & McCartney comparisons, his solo career and upcoming album... complete with lots of great chat about the songs!

Undercover's Interview with Glenn

After watching that, I really think GT should call his next album The Title's Always The Last Thing! :0)

PS- Great to see a Super Furries T-shirt!


Thanks to Helen from the Glenn_List for the link to the video.
Check out her GT Reviews site here!

The Official Glenn Tilbrook Site
Babylonandon - The Unofficial Glenn Tilbrook Website
The Official Squeeze Website

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

A difficult choice

Over at myspace.com/squeezeofficial they're running a little poll.

What are the five best Squeeze songs?

That's tough. It's like asking what are the five best glasses of wine you've had in your life? I've had so many good ones....

But I like this sort of game, so let's play.

Two are easy for me:

Up The Junction - Hands down, one of the best songs ever written. It's got a story, it's got some wicked images in the lyric, and the music complements it so completely.

Maidstone - The hidden gem of pop music. A throw-away B-side (note to kids: We used to buy small vinyl records that played on a turntable. They had one song on each side, the "single" and the "B-side.") that should never have been thrown away. It combines the best of Difford and Tilbrook: a fistful of chords that drags you into a story, a wistful lyric about young love, and a sense of place. We're so lucky this has been on best-of compilations. It could have been lost forever.

The next three are harder to pick. They're probably more dependent on my background with Squeeze's music.

Another Nail In My Heart - It's New Wave, it's got the octave-apart vocals thing, it's got the country music drunk and lost love thing, it's got Jools playing every key on the piano, how can one group cram so much into one song? They do. Amazing. I remember spinning the Argybargy album, wondering whether the Gs were hard or soft, and listening to this song and knowing that my life was going to be different because of it.

Labelled With Love - It's hard to believe some guys from London could write one of the best country songs ever, but they did. And they didn't even mean to. Chris wrote the lyric, passed it to Glenn, and for some reason he put it to some old honky-tonk--type tune. Love, loss, and drunkenness: you can't go wrong those as your themes.

Electric Trains - For every Squeeze fan, I think what we really want is to be Chris Difford's friend. Really. He writes such interesting words, he must be the most interesting person to sit down and chat with. What he's been through and where he's going just fascinate me.

So Chris lets us in a little to his life and see some of his childhood. It's got the octave-apart thing. A piercingly personal lyric. Soaring music. I could listen to it every day for a million years and not get tired of it.

Anyway, so there you go. Those are my five, what are yours?

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Piano-player requests....

Jools Holland is asking his Web site viewers to tell him what tracks to put on his next album and what concert-goers enjoy. It's like the Internet version of requesting something of the piano guy.

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Difford on duff lyrics- I’d like to teach the world to cringe


So what do you think are the world's worst pop lyrics?...



Well Life by Des'ree must feature in pip's personal top ten..


" When there's no one else around
Oh I get the shivers
I don't wanna see a ghost
It's the sight that I fear most
I'd rather have a piece of toast"

Erm... yeah!



Anyway Mr Difford features in an online article that talks about those lyrics that you'd quite happily throw in the nearest river (weighted down and padlocked in a safe for good measure!)

I'd Like To Teach The World To Cringe (The Times)

A snippet:
"
Squeeze’s Chris Difford knows a thing or two about separating good lyrics from bad. Revered by Lily Allen and Jamie T for Up the Junction and Pulling Mussels (From the Shell) , Difford has also hosted a string of songwriting get-togethers that have attracted the likes of Cathy Dennis and Suggs. “There’s a difference between choosing a bad lyric and a bad melody,” Difford argues. “I think most of us would agree what constitutes a poor tune and, as a result, they tend not to stick in the mind too long. But a lot of good tunes with bad lyrics end up becoming successful.”

Difford couldn’t possibly be pushed to name examples. Oh, all right then, just a couple. He endeavours to keep a straight face when a couple of Sting clunkers are thrown his way, in particular the Police’s Don’t Stand so Close to Me : “He starts to shake and cough/ Just like the old man in/ That book by Nabokov.”

“Well, it’s very Sting, isn’t it?” smiles Difford. “He’s not always the greatest lyricist — although, in fairness, you can’t knock a song like Message in a Bottle ."

Mr D, you are a gent!


The Official Chris Difford Website

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Glenn's demo cd gets released... AT LAST!!!

Cast your eyes upon this little beauty!...


Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you!... it's Glenn's demos from East Side Story.

The
release date is April 30, and I can't wait to hear it :0)

It's already listed on Amazon and Play.

Track List:

1. Is That Love
2. Depression
3. Someone Else's Bell
4. Someone Else's Heart
5. There's No Tomorrow
6. F Hole
7. Labelled With Love
8. Tempted
9. Woman's World
10. Vanity Fair
11. Heaven
12. Mumbo Jumbo
13. Messed Around
14. In Quintessence
15. I Don't Like Love
16. Misunderstanding
17. Holiday Makers
18. Trust



Thanks to the groovy Packet Of Three site for the info!


Other GT links:

The Official Glenn Tilbrook Website

The Official Glenn MySpace
Squeezefan
The Official Squeeze MySpace
Babylonandon - The Unofficial Glenn Tilbrook Site
Packet Of Three - MySpace
One For The Road
One For The Road - MySpace

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

tilbrook to be on top of the world?

Or pretty close there. Billboard reports that Glenn is set to attempt a climb on Mt. Everest, with Nick Harper no less, for a cancer charity:

The event also served as a precursor to another major trek for the Love Hope Strength Foundation. On Oct. 9, several other musicians -- including Squeeze's Glen Tilbrook and English songwriter Nick Harper -- will attempt to climb Mount Everest. The journey will be filmed for a VH1/MTV special and a BBC prime-time documentary.

Could that possibly be true? I checked out the Love, Hope, Strength Web site and they confirm that Glenn has confirmed to be one of 45 musicians who will make a 12-day trek to the base camp at Everest and then perform a concert there. How awesome. It will be filmed for VH-1 and BBC. According to that site, here are the acts:


Mike Peters – The Alarm
Jimmy Barnes
Billy Duffy – The Cult
Slim Jim Phantom – The Stray Cats
Dave Wakeling – English Beat / General Public
Glenn Tilbrook – Squeeze

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About time, bitterspice?!

Well, I finally got my tickets to the Saratoga show at the Mountain Winery. I had to wait until I knew I could afford them. Then I bought floor tickets because, though I am still at an age where I have to worry about being able to afford concert tickets in another state, I also am old enough to want a back on my chair. I don't even know if I have that day off work, but that is a minor detail that will take care of itself.

But, holy crap. I'm going to see Squeeze. I can't believe it.

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L.A. Date Added

And the California dates keep a-comin.

The Greek Theatre, according to Ticketmaster. Here's the info:

Mon, 08/13/07 07:30 PM Squeeze Greek Theatre Los Angeles, CA
on sale: Sat, 04/21/07 10:00 AM

And if that picture on the Greek Theatre Web site is to be believed, that's one nice venue!

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Friday, April 13, 2007

Four dates so far....

I knew they wouldn't ship Chris and Glenn all the way to America without adding more dates to the Saratoga show. Ticketmaster is showing at the very least, a week-long bi-coastal Squeeze tour with four dates. Woohoo!

Tue, 08/07/07 - 08:00 PM - North Fork Theatre at Westbury Westbury, NY
Wed, 08/08/07 - 06:00 PM - Pier Six Concert Pavilion Baltimore, MD
Sat, 08/11/07 - 07:30 PM - Viejas Casino Concerts in the Park Alpine, CA
Tue, 08/14/07 - 07:30 PM - Mountain Winery Saratoga, CA

These are definitely event kind of shows, with tickets ranging from $45 in Baltimore to $85 in Saratoga. This makes me hopeful that they're going to ship a band out with Chris and Glenn. (I heard on one of the lists that Glenn told one of the BBCs that John Bentley was going on tour. Hope someone can confirm?) And, for anyone who saw them with a band (me=SFP Tour, I think 1992 or 1993) or saw A Round and A Bout remembers how freakin' awesome that can be....

Glenn's Aussie P

From his Myspace page, Glenn announced a few weeks ago (sorry, didn't have time to blog it at the time) the release of "Aussie P," what appears to be an Australia-only EP in conjunction with his tour. Unfortunately, the poster on his page has type too tiny for me to read to find out what the track listing is. Fortunately, there's David Bailey's Packet of Three site which helps us out....

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

Jools and Gilson will be at the Palace Festival

Hersham News and Mail Online: Stars line up for Palace festival

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

No Cal Squeeze!

They are coming to The Mountain Winery in beautiful Saratoga (not quite spitting distance of where I spent much of my childhood in NOrthern CALifornia, actually). But, if they're shipping all the way to the 408, then other West Coast dates must surely be in store! At least one can hope.

The SJ Mercury News also has a mention.... Tickets are kind of spendy --- up to $85 each (plus parking). I hope they drop by the Fillmore or.... maybe even a venue up in Washington?!

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