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Nick Lowe, producer of Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, was in high spirits half-way through his first American tour as a headliner with Mink DeVille and Elvis Costello.
"I have a great time," said the slender British rock star as he chain smoked Senior Service 20s while lounging in a suite at the Driskill Tuesday. Later, Lowe opened the bill for Costello and DeVille and he got a standing ovation even though it was just an opening act.
Fun, for Lowe, is a crucial part of pop music, as his first solo album, Pure Pop For Now People abundantly indicates.
"The worst thing that's happened to pop in the '70s is that the stupid sods took the fun out," he has explained. Now take Jefferson Starship, for example.
Lowe, it seems, loathes the new "Count On Me" sound of that ancient band. "It really gets my beak up," he says about Marty Balin's singing, which he terms "wimpy." "Pop music has got to have piles of sex and piles of humor. The best rock music has got to have a sense of humor."
Lowe, who is nicknamed the Basher, has injected both qualities in his Pure Pop, which was a top selling British LP under the name The Jesus of Cool. (U.S. Record execs felt religious groups would protest, thus hurt album sales, so the name was changed.)
The album is a combination platter of pop music styles, not unlike the Beatles' White album. "Nutted By Reality" sounds like Wings; "Rollers Show" — a tongue-in-cheek bopper about going to see the Bay City Rollers — is an update of the Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love" with a Phil Spector production style; and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" is pure David Bowie.
The music is captivating ear candy that hooks your brain with every pop music cliche — but with a twist.
On "Marie Provost," for example, you hear a pleasant sounding ditty, until you catch the words. (And who listens to the words of those songs blaring from the car radio anyway?) The songs tells of a decomposing silent film star who is eaten by her pet dachshund in a Hollywood hotel.
The music is meant to be taken lightly, Lowe insists. "It's like a K-Tel greatest hits package," he says.
Lowe, who declares that he can write pop songs in his sleep, has a production philosophy he calls "bash it down, tart it up." "I don't make records for record executives and musicians," he remarks. "I make records that sound great on crappy stereos."
Lowe, 29, used to play bass and sing with Brinsley Schwartz, an influential British band that broke up in 1975. Since then he has made his mark working with such "new wave" artists as Elvis Costello and Graham Parker and the Rumour.
But Lowe is not punk rock, far from it. No anarchy in the U.K. for him. "I want to make hit singles," he has revealed. "There's no greater challenge for a songwriter than getting it all down in under three minutes of perfection and creating a classic pop single."
Like David Bowie, whom he admires, Lowe is capable of changing his musical mantle like a chameleon changes its colors.
Whatever arena of pop he decides to stride into, you can be sure Lowe will do it with at least the flourish and humor he imbued in his Ted Nugent imitation at the Driskill.
Lowe was bouncing on the bed, ravaging an imaginary Stratocaster, emitting an occasional Nugent-like howl as he recreated what he had seen Ted do on a recent television show.
"What I want to know," Lowe wondered, "is why don't they turn off his amp?"
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