Vlog 041 - Squeeze

In mid-2010 Squeeze made another of their musical comebacks, releasing an album called "Spot The Difference" and playing a series of high profile gigs in Europe and North America. It took a while to make it to the trading community, but when we received a DVD copy of their NYC Bryant Park concert a few weeks back, filmed as part of PBS's Artist Den series, we knew it was time for a retrospective of one of England's best loved and most literate post-punk bands.

We set up the Squeeze story with some choice interview clips from the Sky Arts show "Songbook". Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, two musical friends -- one providing lyrics, the other melody -- swap cassettes by mail, sign to a label and suddenly find themselves heralded as the next Lennon and McCartney. After a disastrous initial recording session with John Cale (their debut album yields only one memorable track -- "Take Me I'm Yours") but they find their way with their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th records which are rightly considered pop rock classics.

"Another Nail In My Heart", from the aforementioned Bryant Park concert, finds the group sounding as fresh as ever in July of 2010, while "Slap and Tickle", from the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1979, is one of the earliest video documents of the band at the peak of their new wave prowess. One of the only full length video concert documents from the 80s period is a BBC "In Concert" taping recorded at the Regal Theatre in Hertfordshire; we play a verse from the bouncy and biting Difford-sung number "Cool for Cats".

"Tempted", from the masterful "East Side Story" is here represented by a clip from the NBC show "Sunday Night" (later renamed "Night Music"). Jools Holland does double duty as both presenter and performer, and saxophonist David Sanborn, who would later host the show himself, also joins the group on stage. "I Got Everything In the World But You" is representative of the groups 90s output, and we're lucky enough to have a clip of it from the Late Show with David Letterman, taped on November 1st, 1993. ...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Squeeze
• band
• songbook
• Artist s Den
• Difford
• Tilbrook
• Jools Holland
• Tempted
• Sunday Night
• Night Music
• Take Me I m Yours Cool
• Pulling Mussels John C
• Live Music
• RockPeaks