Trouser Press, July 1982

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Ray Gun The Record Relix Revolution Rock Around The World RockBill Rock Scene Rock World RockBill Rolling Stone Spin Star Hits Trouser Press Vibes — Nick Lowe's wonderful world of pop Scott Isler The Nerd is around, and Columbia Records is in a panic. The Nerd is a New York rock columnist, and he sniffs Nick Lowe in Columbia's offices. He's right, too; Lowe is chatting away with an interviewer while his publicist worries about getting him to Brendan Byrne Arena, across the river in New Jersey, in time for a sound check. Being waylaid by the Nerd could be disastrous, as Lowe is too affable to know when to pry off his admirers. A Columbia staffer strategically buttonholes the Nerd for small talk while the publicist hustles Lowe out of the building and into a waiting limousine. The singer/songwriter/Pure Pop exponent is dressed for intrigue. Lowe wears a wrinkled raincoat that looks closer to dirty-old-man garb than Nick the Knife chic. A small yellow rose, harbinger of spring, is stapled to his lapel. Lowe absentmindedly left the coat in a Houston restaurant three weeks earlier, and is overjoyed with its near-miraculous return. Rumpled but comfortable, the coat might bear analogy with Lowe himself. Before leaving the interview he carefully places an open, half-full bottle of Heineken — one of several adorning a desk top — in his coat pocket. It is the day after Lowe's 33rd birthday, and the final night of a seven-week tour opening for the Cars. To escape the euphoria backstage at Byrne Arena Lowe selects his band's parked tour bus for an interview location. The wood-paneled, compartmentalized interior resembles a Victorian railway carriage. A small white cake on a table toward the front carries the legend "Happy Birthday Basher" around an anatomically impressive female figure in high relief. "That's from last night's party," Lowe remarks. It is untouched. A moptop of hair, spilling over his collar, is almost as devoid of color as Lowe's eyes. He stares out a window as darkness falls and hordes of kids troop by, oblivious to the bus or its inhabitants. While he talks he idly shuffles a deck of cards, doodles on a matchbook cover and fools around with a wind-up toy. This nervous agitation also suffuses his conversation with witty remarks, comic accents and a plethora of profanity. As it turns out, Lowe and his new backing band, Noise to Go, don't get a sound check at Byrne. Such is the peril of opening-act status. The last time Lowe was in the US he was headlining venues as one-fourth of Rockpile, but he doesn't seem perturbed by his change of fortune. "I like being the damned opening act," Lowe protests in nasal British tones. "If I got in a position where I could fill up any of these damn barns we've been playing I'd do it differently. I wouldn't go to see the sermon on the goddamn mount in one of these places. I wouldn't go see the fucking Beatles if they got back together in a place like this. I think it's horrendous; how can anyone watch a rock 'n' roll show in a horrible gap meant for ice hockey?" But he has no bad words for the Cars. "They're paying us a lot of money to be on this damn tour with 'em, and I'm very pleased about it. They've been bloody good to us as well, the old Cars. They're sports. [Sports cars! — Bloody old Ed.] Their road crew has been really good to us as well. Road crews can make your life absolute hell. You hear all these stories: They only give you a candle to light the stage, and about three watts of power." Is Lowe himself, then, a big Cars fan? "Big cars, well, yes, I like big cars," he harumphs distractedly, and it's time to change the subject. Nick Lowe was a forces brat. Although born in a village 25 miles west of London, his father's career in the Royal Air Force took young Nick to Cyprus and Jordan before he was carted off to a British boarding school. "I spent most of my life on RAF camps when I was a kid," Lowe reminisces. He pauses. "That doesn't make any sense, does it?" Lowe enjoyed singing as a child, and his mother taught him to play guitar. "She knew a few chords. We used to sing harmony to Kingston Trio songs, quite harmless stuff." Lowe's first record purchases were equally unprophetic: "Magic Moments" by Perry Como and "Sink the Bismarck" by British cover artist Don Lang. In common with most of his generation, Lowe was profoundly affected by the double whammy of adolescence and the Beatles (and the groups following in their wake). "I realized I wanted to be in a band when I saw these groups getting fucked so much and taking tons of drugs. I thought it would be a far more exciting way of earning a living than what I had going for me." Before turning pro Lowe traveled the usual emulation route: "I was in a number of bands that used to imitate West London groups like Creation and the Birds (with Ronnie Wood). They were like the Who: three-pieces with a singer, R&B-based with a bit of Motown but a wild guitar sound. Every group used to do 'Heatwave.' I wanted to be in Creation; we used to do all their numbers. "I was in some bands where I knew only the first names of the guys in them. In those days it was like, 'Let's form a band. I know a bloke who's got a guitar!' You'd ring a doorbell and say, th, have you got an electric guitar?' Yeah. "You wanta be in a band? I know a bloke who's got an amplifier.' It was just getting people who had some equipment." One of Lowe's schoolmates was Brinsley Schwarz, who had an electric guitar and was putting a group together. "He'd only let me join if I got a bass. I did a bit of singing—I thought I was Wilson Pickett for a time—but mainly I played bass. No one wanted to play bass because you had to have a group to go along with it. You couldn't just sit at home and get off playing bass." Lowe's professional fortunes (the term is used loosely) then followed upon Schwarz' for the next decade, first in Kippington Lodge and then the eponymous Brinsley Schwarz. Turning solo artist of necessity after the Brinsleys broke up, Lowe signed aboard Stiff Records in 1976. For once he was in the right place at the right time. As Stiff rode the crest of Britain's new wave, Lowe gained a reputation for his warped pop sensibilities and production knowhow on albums by the Damned and Elvis Costello, among others. By 1978 Lowe was juggling his solo career with membership in a shadowy organization called Rockpile, including guitarists Dave Edmunds and Billy Bremner and drummer Terry Williams. Due to different record company affiliations, Edmunds and Lowe released their own solo albums and played back-up on each other's, with the other Rockpilers in tow. When the contractual problems were resolved in 1980 Rockpile released a "debut" album and toured the US to much press hoopla. A couple of months later the band broke up. Lowe is tired of answering Rockpile questions even though the split has never been explained consistently by the parties involved. Warning that he is about to rattle off a stock answer ("but it's the truth"), Lowe proceeds: "We used to hate rehearsing. It was all simple stuff we used to do, and the air of spontaneity was part of the 'Pile's act: It looked like friends having a good time, which we were. Especially over here, people liked the fact that we were under-rehearsed and kind of scruffy. But whereas a lot of bands who are better rehearsed and have a slicker show can stay together even if they hate each other because there's a dollar bill in it, when we started losing it we really noticed. Maybe we could have done another tour and pulled the wool over people's eyes, but we were all such good mates that we couldn't lie to each other. We'd just done it for too long. "It happens to all bands. You get carried away with the euphoria of starting a group. Then there comes a time when you get Remaining text and scanner-error corrections to come... << >> Trouser Press, No. 75, July 1982 Scott Isler profiles Nick Lowe. Jim Green reviews the single for "I'm Your Toy." Images Cover and page scan. I'm Your Toy Elvis Costello Jim Green Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "I'm Your Toy" b/w "Cry Cry Cry" & "Wondering" — (UK) F-Beat XX21; "I'm Your Toy" b/w "My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You" & "Blues Keep Calling" & "Honky Tonk Girl" (12") — (UK) F-Beat XX21T; "Sweet Dreams" b/w "Psycho" — (UK) F-Beat XX 19. On Almost Blue Elvis Costello came across as an enthusiastic neophyte a bit overawed by his material, producer Billy Sherrill and even Nashville itself as an institution. "I'm Your Toy" (aka "Hot Burrito #1") has a complex lyrical stance; the Burritos' stiff, spare backing put the focus squarely on Gram Parsons' vocals, which somehow sounded effortless. Costello almost trips over himself trying to sound convincing; he isn't. John McFee's obsequious pedal steel guitar makes matters soggier. This live take (the same on both 7-inch and 12-inch versions) recorded with the Royal Philharmonic mistakes bloatedness for aggrandizement and puts EC a giant step closer to unintentional parody. "Toy" 's various B-sides, all from the Almost Blue sessions, are almost uniformly lackluster. El almost gets up a head of steam on "My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You" but can't sustain it. At least Almost Blue had its zippy moments. "Psycho," a three-year-old live take from LA's Palamino club, is a straightforward country reading from someone whose own material and style are more effective at evoking living nightmares. ("Sweet Dreams" is on Almost Blue; I know, you forgot.) Instead of buying these, seek out the Burritos' Gilded Palace of Sin — and maybe a George Jones LP, too. Page scans. Page scans.

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