{"id":1992,"date":"2009-02-04T23:51:37","date_gmt":"2009-02-05T04:51:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-05T11:49:03","modified_gmt":"2009-02-05T11:49:03","slug":"i-am-ready-to-forgive-nick-lowe-for-his","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-am-ready-to-forgive-nick-lowe-for-his\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am Ready to Forgive Nick Lowe for His Cowboy Outfit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Here&#8217;s a story that&#8217;s been told before, in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/08\/28\/what_a_drag_it_is_getting_old\">one way<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/05\/23\/like-a-fine-wine-or-like-a-wedge-of-smel\">another<\/a>, but it&#8217;s worth telling again.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XKR9IjCVZLk?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe whole Pub Rock\/Pure Pop for Now People Dream was running its course. <strong>Nick Lowe<\/strong> put out an album called <em>Nick Lowe &amp; His Cowboy Outfit<\/em>. Nick assembled what, on paper, looked to be a band worthy of the legacy of <strong>Brinsley Schwarz<\/strong> and <strong>Rockpile<\/strong>. His Cowboy Outfit included Rumour guitarist <strong>Martin Belmont<\/strong> and Ace lead singer-turned-session man and super-sub <strong>Paul Carrack<\/strong>. Rockpile guitarist <strong>Billy Bremner<\/strong> even played on a couple of tracks!<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nMy close personal friend, <strong>Townsman Andyr<\/strong>, bought the album when it came out. I had already been keeping my distance from Nick since a string of mediocre albums following the exquisite <em>Labour of Lust<\/em> and the energetic if not great Rockpile album, <em>Seconds of Pleasure<\/em>. There was too much music, new and old, to explore, and I didn&#8217;t need something called <em>The Abominable Showman<\/em> to bog me down. It was hard not to groan at the site of this new album with a new, desparately tongue-in-cheek title. Nick seemed to be following his worst impulses, going for the easy basket with, what, his 12th recorded version of &#8220;Half a Boy and Half a Man&#8221;? <\/p>\n<p>Or maybe it just felt that way after countless remakes of &#8220;I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock &#8216;n Roll)&#8221; and &#8220;Heart of the City.&#8221; Also, during these years when Nick was grasping at the gifts he once had in the palm of his hand, the tongue-in-cheek\/hokey side of Lowe&#8217;s music was coming naturally to our old Philly music scene friend <strong>Ben Vaughn<\/strong>. Ben had been hitting on the charming side of Nick&#8217;s work without already having set us up with a view from the mountaintop (ie, with no songs as majestic and pure pop perfect as &#8220;Cruel to Be Kind&#8221; &#8211; no offense to Ben). That day Andy brought home the latest Nick Lowe album we gathered around Andy&#8217;s turntable and were duly unimpressed by Nick Lowe &amp; His Cowboy Outfit. (Andy, did we see this outfit play live around the release of that album, or am I getting mixed up with that solo Costello\/Lowe show we saw at the demi-Spectrum?)<\/p>\n<p>For the next 6 years I stayed away from Nick&#8217;s releases, only dipping a toe back in Lowe waters with 1990&#8217;s decent <em>Party of One<\/em>. Finally, in 1998, Lowe released <em>Dig My Mood<\/em>, an album that saw him confronting down-to-earth adulthood and shucking almost all the schtick, which <strong>Huey Lewis<\/strong> had regrettably poisoned for all wiseass roots-pop guys in the &#8217;80s. I&#8217;ve been told that the album right before that one, <em>The Impossible Bird<\/em>, was the first of Lowe&#8217;s low-key, all-business releases, but it just sounded boring the first couple of times another friend played it for me &#8211; and I haven&#8217;t heard it again since!<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yC3DA3v8Ii4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAnyhow, <em>Dig My Mood<\/em> has stuck with me. The two albums that followed, <em>The Convincer<\/em> and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/06\/28\/that_s_cool_nick_lowe_lemgat_my_agel_emg\">At My Age<\/a><\/em>, have continued in this vein. I listen to those three albums as much as I listen to any albums released over the last 10 years. Nick&#8217;s grown up. He sounds comfortable in his own skin. He&#8217;s no longer in need of any sort of &#8220;outfit.&#8221; I listen to these albums and hope that I&#8217;m shucking any outfit I felt I needed to get through awkward, difficult, painful times. It&#8217;s a good feeling, and it&#8217;s a good feeling to know that I am ready to forgive Nick Lowe for His Cowboy Outfit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a story that&#8217;s been told before, in one way or another, but it&#8217;s worth telling again. The whole Pub Rock\/Pure Pop for Now People Dream was running its course. Nick Lowe put out an album called Nick Lowe &amp; His Cowboy Outfit. Nick assembled what, on paper, looked to be a band worthy of <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-am-ready-to-forgive-nick-lowe-for-his\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[4,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}