squeeze Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Squeeze “6 Squeeze Songs Crammed Into One Ten-inch Record”

sfilzen — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 18:07:31 +0000

Squeeze “6 Squeeze Songs Crammed Into One Ten-inch Record” 1979. Today, January 24th, is Squeeze keyboardist Jools Holland’s 65th birthday (b. Julian Holland, 1958). This 10″ EP is a comp of Squeeze’s early singles housed in a die-cut 12″ sleeve designed to precisely accommodate a 10″ record. The fists are startling life-like! Squeeze’s early era is my favorite: fun power pop, good-time new wave songs. Side A has a rollicking live version of “Goodbye Girl” from ’78 (#63 UK), the most excellent “Cool For Cats” which went to #2 in the UK in ’79 and a remix of “Up the Junction” from ’79 which also hit #2 in the UK. Those two from 1979 both appear on Squeeze’s second LP Cool For Cats. Side B has the driving beated, synth-heavy “Slap & Tickle” (#24 UK, also from ’79 and on the LP Cool For Cats) and two singles from their ’78 debut s/t album: “Bang Bang” (#49 UK) and probably my top Squeeze track “Take Me, I’m Yours” which was their first ever single; it hit #19 in the UK. 6 Squeeze Songs Crammed Into One Ten-inch Record is a US-release and I’m guessing it was primarily promoted to the college radio market; our copy has KESD-FM stamped on the cover. That station used to be South Dakota State University’s station but is now a public radio station.

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Squeeze “Take Me, I’m Yours”

sfilzen — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 14:27:50 +0000

Squeeze “Take Me, I’m Yours” 1978. We picked up Squeeze’s debut single at a great little record store in Brighton, England last week, a place called Vinyl Revolution which I just learned is closing its doors this weekend. It’s a sad situation when global economics and politics, legal and transportation issues all combine to push a lovely independent record store out of its brick-and-mortar business. One of the shop owner’s, Simon Parker chatted with me for a bit upon checkout and what a lovely guy! They will still have an online shop: here is their website link.

Me in front of Vinyl Revolution, Brighton

Joe digging through the 7″ singles.

Anyway, Squeeze’s “Take Me, I’m Yours” is a fantastic early new wave track. It hit #19 on the UK charts and appears on their debut album Squeeze. John Cale produced that LP but did not produce “Take Me, I’m Yours” nor the other single, “Bang Bang.” The b-side, “Night Nurse,” is a rockin’ rhythm and blues scorcher which features Jools Holland on vocals and boogie woogie piano and, according to the video, The Invisible Man on saxophone.

They had a fairly long video about the reasons for the closure on YouTube that I originally posted here but either they took it down or someone in the gov’t decided it wasn’t cool. Oh well.

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Squeeze “Cool for Cats”

sfilzen — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 19:14:58 +0000

Squeeze “Cool for Cats” 1979. I’ve pulled Squeeze’s second album today for a couple of random reasons: 1) we were on vacation out of the country last week and it was amazing and gorgeous but I really missed our cats and 2) because the Vault doubles as a guest room and my folks had to spend the night due to crazy early/late flight departures, the large boxes of overflow records that usually occupies the floor in front of the “S” section is currently vacant to make space for visitors allowing me to more easily grab a record from that section. By April, when the 40th anniversary of this record’s release hits, I have a feeling Cool for Cats won’t be as effortless to procure.

Cool for Cats was very successful in the UK; it went to #45 on the album chart with four hit singles. Overall the album is very Britishly bright early new wave with pub rock roots, a little goofy (especially tracks like “It’s Not Cricket” and “It’s So Dirty”) in the spirit of Monty Python, The Young Ones, etc. – oddball and delightful with the addition of some boogie woogie piano. The first single, “Goodbye Girl,” went to #63 though a different version appears on the LP. The title track “Cool for Cats” became one of Squeeze’s biggest hits, going to #2 in the UK. I don’t think it charted in the US but I totally remember hearing this song back then. “Up the Junction” was the third single and also went to #2 in the UK. The final single, “Slap and Tickle” went to #24 and apparently is either a euphemism for sex or police brutality (based on the lyrics I’m guessing Squeeze meant the former).

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Jools Holland “Jools Holland and his Millionaires”

sfilzen — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 19:18:03 +0000

Jools Holland “Jools Holland and his Millionaires” 1981. Today, January 24th, is Jools Holland’s birthday (b. Julian Miles Holland 1958). Jools Holland and his Millionaires was his first full-length release after leaving temporarily leaving Squeeze in ‘80 (he returned as Squeeze’s keyboardist in ‘85 and played with them until ’90). This is my first spin of the record – Joe just picked it up this past weekend – and it surprised me by being a mix of Squeeze-like jazzy new wave tunes (“Much More Hope Than Me”), piano-pounding, upright bass-slapping rockin’ rhythm and blues (like “Dynaflow”) and gospel-inspired, raise-the-church-roof Jerry Lee Lewis-level rollicking boogie woogie (“Let Me In”). I’m not sure the mix flows particularly well as a cohesive album, but several of the tracks work well as single-listens, especially the crazy “Bumble Boogie,” a ska’d out hyper speed track with a jogging bass line worthy of a madcap caper flick and a lightning-speed piano solo.

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Squeeze “Argy Bargy”

sfilzen — Fri, 15 May 2015 15:29:42 +0000

Squeeze “Argy Bargy” 1980. Squeeze released two different albums on this day, May 15th: “East Side Story” in 1981 and “Round and A Bout” in 1990, but we do not have either of those albums so “Argy Bargy,” the band’s third studio album, it is.

This LP is the US release, differing slightly from the UK version in its Side 2 track order: “If I Didn’t Love You” moves up to the first slot, shifting “Farfisa Beat” to track two. The best known track is of course “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” which reached #44 on the UK charts. It did not chart in the US, though the band did perform it on Saturday Night Live in 1982.

Poppy, peppy upbeat new wave, melodic and harmonic, Squeeze received much critical acclaim and moderate commercial success over a very long, if somewhat changeable (21 different members floated in and out from 1975 to 2015!), career.

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