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career of glenn tilbrook
By Joseph Sullivan
Tilbrook began his songwriting in 1973 when he met Chris Difford. Together, along with pianist Julian ‘Jools’ Holland they formed the group ‘Squeeze’ which was to be the vehicle for most of his work for the next twenty years. At this stage in his career the stress was on the performing side of his music rather than the compositional. He played lead guitar and shared the singing with Difford. The band played covers of songs by musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Kinks and *********. This was a stage in the development of the band of great importance. By 1976 they had established a steady line-up, with experienced drummer Gilson Lavis and Harry Kakoulli on bass guitar. They were fortunate in procuring a manager which enabled them to gain valuable experience playing live together. At this stage live playing was certainly the driving force behind the band. They developed a quite improvisational style on stage that is still evident on the album (UK) Squeeze. Audio Extract 1 - ‘Model’
Although the extract is perhaps not improvisational in the way the live shows were, it shows their live style of the time, based more on instrumental flair than multitracked songwriting. Elements of the declining punk trend are evident in early Tilbrook music despite his main influences being artists from some time prior to the advent of the punk movement. This music was always more New Wave than heavy punk though, with Difford’s lyrics always lacking any sort of trendy anarchy. This marketing policy was due in no small part to the band’s new manager, their first manager having disappeared with the proceeds from the band’s Anglo/Dutch tour. This new manager, Miles Copeland, took on the band after hearing them play in their home of Deptford. He was a lot more commercially minded than the band and decided that New Wave was the style that the public wanted at the time. He was also the manager of The Police; a vast job which would cause problems later. For the time being however, the band was progressing nicely with Tilbrook and Difford beginning to write music to this suggested New Wave style as well as continuing to play covers in their live shows. By 1977 they were ready to hit the recording market. Without a label, they released a 7 inch EP of three songs on Miles Copeland’s label, ‘Deptford Fun City’ mainly in order to be ‘spotted’ by a record company. Remarkably, Miles Copeland managed to procure the services of John Cale (of the Velvet Underground) to produce the EP of this hitherto unknown band. Ironically, Squeeze was named after one of the Velvet Underground LPs that did not feature John Cale. The band recorded five Difford/Tilbrook songs with Cale at Pathway Studios choosing Cat On A Wall for the A side, with Night Ride and Backtrack on the B side. Cale undoubtedly had a major influence over the band, still in its formative years both in his production of Packet Of Three and later their first album (UK) Squeeze. He encouraged them to experiment with new instrumentation and different styles and forms of music both in whole songs such as the innovative ‘Wild Sewerage Tickles Brazil’ and also in simple ways such as having no chorus, an example of which is ‘The Call’. Although this latter point was by no means unique, it was unusual which is exactly what the band (and Miles Copeland) wanted. Small things to elevate Squeeze above the thousands of other bands trying to make it. Packet Of Three sold phenomenally relative to the circumstances of its release (no label, first release, little distribution, little promotion). It has the most consciously punkish of Difford’s lyrics on it, although whether this helped the sales or not is debatable and ultimately will never be found out. Despite (or due to?) these atypical lyrics the record achieved its aim. Several major labels came forward to sign Squeeze. A&M emerged winners, anxious for a new big success story having recently lost the Sex Pistols. Their expectations were high. For the twenty year old Tilbrook this was a big step up from playing in the Deptford Arms just a year earlier. He started work with Difford immediately on their first album. In part due to a sense of inexperience which led them to accept advice more readily than usual (in particular from Miles Copeland once again) and in part due to a desire to succeed they wrote their most purposefully commercial album. However it is certainly not heavy punk in the way the Sex Pistols or The Clash were. (UK) Squeeze consisted of punk/pop and punk/rock songs - one of the first New Wave albums. Within the genre though the album does explore different avenues. There is the more pure punk of ‘Sex Master’ with a suitable degree of vulgarity in both lyric and an unusually harsh vocal from Tilbrook. Then there is the calmer, more melodic ‘Strong in Reason’, certainly a pop/punk song if punk at all. ‘First thing Wrong’, a blues rock and roll number is a tip of the hat at Tilbrook’s influences, if a little Status Quoesque. At yet another end of the spectrum there is the instrumental ‘Wild Sewerage Tickles Brazil’ something a ‘proper’ punk band would never have contemplated, written purely for the music and with no discernible message. This harks back (in style at any rate if not in execution) to the live shows of bands such as The Who and Cream. Due to the era of course it sounds different as there was more technology available and to do a replica of the 13.39 min guitar extravaganza of ‘Steppin` Out’ (Bracken) performed by Cream for example would be moving backwards. Audio Extract 2 - ‘Wild Sewerage Tickles Brazil
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John Cale had originally intended that half of (UK) Squeeze would be instrumentals. ‘Wild Sewerage Tickles Brazil’ was the only one that eventually made it onto the album. ‘Take Me I’m Yours’ got into the top twenty of the UK charts (it got to number nineteen), a remarkable success for a first single. Squeeze were not about to rest on their laurels though, and prepared for an onslaught of the top ten. To this end a single was written and recorded at Britannia Row studio. This single, Goodbye Girl, which was produced by the band was a big disappointment saleswise, reaching only number sixty three. The song is vastly different to everything on (UK) Squeeze. Synthesisers feature prominently, electronic drums, and there is not a distorted guitar to be found. The song is not one that would gain the band credibility in Miles Copeland’s view of the world Squeeze should have been aiming for. The verse of the song consists of just two chords (D and A) but the simplicity of the song is not what immediately comes to mind when one hears it, as is unfortunately the case with some other two or three chord songs. This is part of Tilbrook’s genius. He can write incredibly simple songs but embellish them to make them sound fantastic such as ‘Goodbye Girl’ but he can also write very complicated songs while once again not drawing the listener’s attention to the difficulty of the song, such as ‘House Of Love’ from the album Play. For example, this song opens with an introduction of I - IV four times. Then it changes to the major seventh of the original key and continues in the new key with I - V - VII - IV. The vocals are in for these four chords. This in itself is a typically ingenious Tilbrook manoeuvre, doing the intro. to the song in a different key to the one in which the song properly starts. One wonders how he came up with the idea. Shrugging off the disappointment of ‘Goodbye Girl’, Squeeze got ready for 1979, which was to be their most commercially successful year. After the lack of success in the self production of ‘Goodbye Girl’, the co-engineer of (UK) Squeeze, John Wood was brought in to produce some songs with the band, with a view to the next LP. The first release from this partnership was A&M’s biggest selling UK single ever, 'Cool For Cats'. Sung by the bass of Chris Difford, the song stylistically is a mix between the traditional guitar/drum driven music in the verse and chorus sections and an experimental middle section. This is certainly the most interesting part of the song to a critical listener. It is essentially a piano solo over drums followed by a guitar solo over drums. Going right through the section however is an almost train-like synth sound, allowing the drums to have a more free role than would normally be possible when accompanying a solo. In effect, the drums are soloing as well, especially in the first part of the section, although the sound does not assault itself on the listener’s ears as ‘a solo’. Other synth sounds are also present in the section, which enhance the overall effect in a subtle way. Unfortunately this section was made shorter for the release of the song as a single, being viewed as not ‘catchy’ enough and likely to lose the listener’s attention, whatever its musical value. Fortunately the album version of the song kept the full length version of the section. Audio Excerpt 3- ‘Cool For Cats’ (album version)
Cool For Cats had another huge hit for Squeeze in the shape of ‘Up the Junction’ which again reached number two in the UK charts. Such a high chart position was a particularly noteworthy success for squeeze because the song has no chorus. No anthem for people to sing along to even if they didn’t know the rest of the song. The success relied almost entirely on the whole verse musically and Difford’s typically descriptive lyrics. I say almost entirely because in actual fact the song has something to replace a chorus… a riff. Just as fans of the Lightning Seeds chant “Football’s Coming Home” at a gig as a request for the famous song, Squeeze fans can be heard chanting ‘dadn da daa da, da dadn dadn da’ as a request for ‘Up The Junction’. This is a particular talent of Tilbrook, the short, simple yet in it’s simplicity immensely clever, riff. One would be equally likely to hear “dadn da da dad n dadn da da” (‘Black Coffee In Bed’) or “Dan dadn da da dadn da. Da da” (‘Hourglass’) Although this last riff (the synthesised saxophone riff of the 1987 hit ‘Hourglass’) is actually quite a complicated syncopated melody, it is as catchy and as ‘sung along’ as the crotchet and quaver rhythm of the ‘Black Coffee In Bed’. Tilbrook can write to two such contrasting levels of difficulty and still keep the melodies catchy and not too involved for the casual listener. After Cool For Cats bassist Harry Kakoulli left the band to pursue a ‘try his hand at disco’, or so the press release said. After rather a lot of auditions (73 unsuccessful bassists) John Bentley was decided upon. After a brief break, the new album Argybargy went into recording with John Wood once more assisting in the production. This took longer than expected so two singles were released in the meantime. These were a remix of ‘Slap and Tickle’ and the less successful but far more interesting ‘Christmas Day’, Squeeze’s bid for a Christmas number one. Lyrically this is a modern take on the traditional Christian Christmas story. Musically the song visits many styles. The, what is in my opinion, rather promising introduction consists of a solo piano playing a suitably majestic chord sequence of *****************. At this point Tilbrook begins to sing the vocals, backed by large broken chords on a harp (in all probability synthesised but in any case very realistic). Next the harp and piano join together in backing the vocals. The polyphony of the harp compliments well the homophony of the piano and visa versa. All is well up to this point in the song. Then however, the chorus comes. It has an unfortunately unappealing melody and is accompanied by a sound one would associate with a Commodore 64 computer game. The bass and drums also come in at this point but whatever they add to the song is obscured by the strange keyboard sound! After the chorus another verse comes in, different to the first. It is a swing-like more upbeat sound, with bass, drums and less offensive keyboard noises than those in the chorus. Yet the chorus makes a re-entry after this verse and I’m afraid wrecks any good points the song has. The next album, Argybargy, released in February 1980 is probably the most upbeat of Squeeze’s albums musically. Described by James Henke in ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’ as being, ‘full of … clever, hook-laden pop songs’, the album, with a couple of exceptions (‘I Think I’m Go Go’ and ‘Here Comes That Feeling’) bounces from start to finish while still containing, continues Henke, ‘some relatively intricate song structures’. On the whole the album is more like UK Squeeze than Cool For Cats in that there is little use of synthesisers, with more traditional instruments being the norm. In fact it is probably even less technology laden than UK Squeeze. The comparisons with UK Squeeze end with the instrumentation though. Despite the apparent universal appeal of the album, neither of the singles from it released in the UK did outstandingly well (‘Another Nail In My Heart’ got to number 17 and ‘Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)’ got to number 44). This could well be due to the second-rate nature of the two previous singles still being in the mind of the public. In the August of the same year the band’s contract with Miles Copeland ended and they decided not to renew it. In a surprise move, Jools Holland decided to stay with Copeland and resigned from the band. After auditioning 65 budding replacements with no success the band were about to give-up trying and go on tour with just the four of them when some mutual friends suggested Ace’s Paul Carrack, famous at that point for his lead singing role in Ace’s hit ‘How Long (Has This Been Going On)’. He agreed to join and immediately accompanied the band on a US tour with Elvis Costello and the Attractions. There were a number of ideas floating around for the next album. ‘The original plan for their next album was to release it as two 10-inch records with Paul McCartney, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Elvis Costello each producing one of the four sides.’ according to Geoffrey Himes, writing in the Musician Magazine in 1982. Another idea was to release a double album completely produced by Paul McCartney. An interesting idea given Difford and Tilbrook’s frequent label as ‘the new Lennon and McCartney’. Indeed, the new album turned out to be in many people’s opinions their most Beatlesque record. In the end just one 12 inch record was released with Elvis Costello and Roger Bechirian sharing production duties. The making of this new album, East Side Story was markedly different to the making of Argybargy. Difford and Tilbrook had a large amount of material already written and so little writing had to be done. The album was recorded altogether in about three weeks. Elvis’s production of the album was to leave a lasting impression on Difford and Tilbrook. His ideas were extreme, in many instances too much so and had to be ruled out by the more steadying influence of Bechirian, but he made the band, Tilbrook in particular consider things that he had never thought of before. It was no longer just song writing, it was song creating. Each song was worked upon until it was as good as it could be, rather than just recording it and then moving on, not that this is what Squeeze had always done in the past, but on occasion had. And if a song, after working on it still did not sound as good as might be expected, then they would start again and rebuild the song completely. A prime example of this is the classic ‘Tempted’. Thanks to the recent release of previously unreleased material in the compilation ‘Excess Moderation’ (1996), the originally recorded version of ‘Tempted’ is available to compare with the released and recognised version. Audio Excerpt 4- ‘Tempted’ (rejected version)
Audio Excerpt 5- ‘Tempted’ (final
version)
The difference is astounding. What is a soulful, driving, powerful Motown song began as something that would be particularly suited to being the theme tune to a children’s television programme. Both versions have exactly the same chord structure, are in the same key and have basically the same melody. The differences are wholly in instrumentation, different parts for the instruments to play in accompaniment, a different vocalist (Carrack as oppose to Tilbrook). Rather surprisingly they have almost identical tempos; one would think from a non-analytical listening to the two versions that the final version was somewhat slower than the rejected one. In actual fact this impression is given solely by style and not by tempo. The clipped guitar chords and the Hammond organ give the final version a distinctly soul feel that has made the song a Squeeze favourite, covered by other artists several times. Among the many notable songs on this album, another I am going to pick out is ‘Vanity Fair’. This more than anything shows just have far Tilbrook’s music had evolved since the rather (without being condescending) simple, uniform, UK Squeeze (in comparison with other Squeeze albums). The only instrumentation is orchestral; there are no drums or keyboards, in fact nothing requiring electricity. There are upper strings (probably violins), cellos, french horns, a harp and oboes. On top of this Tilbrook sings. There are wonderful interludes between parts of the singing, driven by oboe runs. The texture of the whole piece evinces a warmth of tone that would do credit to a dedicated orchestral composer. Tilbrook’s faultless vocal perfectly suits the orchestral harmony. Audio Excerpt 6- ‘Vanity Fair’
It was at this time that Tilbrook first began using a Fender Telecaster after having been told by Elvis Costello to try one out. The Telecaster has become an integral part of Squeeze’s sound. Both Tilbrook and Difford have now used them for a number of years as their main guitars. Pride of place in Tilbrook’s collection is his black 1963 Parsons-White B-Bender Telecaster; one from the first batch to be released. “It weighs about twice as much as a normal tele,” says Glenn, “but it’s worth it.” It helped rectify a technical problem in his guitar playing. The way the B-Bender works is that when the guitarist pulls on the strap of the guitar, a mechanism in the back of the guitar pulls the b string of the guitar to a tone maximum usually. When playing this Glenn realised that he pulled down on the guitar strap when playing, “which obviously you can’t do” he explains, as the b string keeps bending when you don’t want it to. A guitar that he has only used in recent years is a Washburn, bought in the early eighties. This white guitar has a single humbucker and is famous to Squeeze fans for its use in the ‘Some Fantastic Place’(1993) solo. “The pickup actually isn’t up to much,” Glenn remarks, ‘but if you really drive it hard, like on the ‘Some Fantastic Place’ solo, you get a really nice sound.” The other good thing about this guitar according to Glenn is that, “it sounds good really high up the neck. The high bits on ‘Cold Shoulder’ is the only other thing I used it for.” The country and western waltz ‘Labelled With Love’ released in the September of that year boosted Squeeze back into the limelight as it reached number 4 in the UK charts to critical praise. Prior to the release of this, Carrack had left the band to join Carlene Carter and once more the band had a space in the keyboard department. This was hastily filled by Don Snow, formerly of the Sinceros. The next album was practised and recorded in early 1982 and produced by Squeeze themselves helped by Phil McDonald. It didn’t receive the unmitigated critical success of East Side Story. It was generally written of reasonably favourably but there were a few dissenting voices. Mr. Rowland, writing in Creem magazine thinks that the album has a ‘…relentlessly rococo style…’ which ‘…tends to shroud any vestige of personal conviction.’ He writes basically that Squeeze should not change the sound of the more commercially successful Cool For Cats, continuing that their ambition is ‘…misguided…’. He thinks that the album is in many places a ‘…flirtation with unsuitable genres…’. Unsuitable perhaps to his tastes, but we can thank goodness that his tastes did not dictate Squeeze’s musical direction or indeed their writing may have become moribund. In what Rowland has criticised as a flaw lies Squeeze’s greatest strength. The real diversity of style that Tilbrook can write, and write successfully. It is true that he can write the straightforward pop present in abundance in Argybargy that Rowland so admired. But to tell him to never alter this style in his writing would be to tell Da Vinci to forget his painting and everything else he did and stick to inventing. Certainly his inventing is good and definitely he should do it but had he not painted and worked on all of his other projects as well as inventing the world would without a doubt be a worse place. The orchestral finesse of ‘Vanity Fair’, the luscious blues of ‘When The Hangover Strikes’, the stomping soul of ‘Love’s Crashing Waves’ are equally as important and of an equal quality to ‘Cool For Cats’ and the like. It is likely that, had Mr. Rowland been born a
century or so earlier he would have been one of the critics applauding
John Field to high heaven while complaining with Rellstab that, “Where
Field smiles, Chopin makes a grinning grimace; where Field sighs, Chopin
groans.” I am not saying it would have been wrong to praise the work of
Field. Quite the opposite, his work is enjoyable and calming. Yet the extension
of the form (I am obviously talking of the Nocturne here) that Chopin’s
work in the area encapsulated, is infinitely more interesting. Listening
to a new Chopin Nocturne is full of suspense and surprise; listening to
a new Field Nocturne is enjoyable, but not exciting. There is no suspense;
merely fulfilled expectation. Of course, not all of the new things Chopin
put in his music worked, just as with Squeeze. I am sure most people can
forgive Chopin’s occasional failures when they consider what wonders came
from the same musical philosophy.
At the end of 1984 Tilbrook joined Holland and Lavis on stage during a pub gig the pianist and drummer were doing. They decided to reform the band with the same line-up as Argybargy, but for John Bentley who would be replaced by Wilkinson. They also required an extra keyboard player for live work as the material they would be playing would be quite complex. Jools’ brother, Chris joined for some live shows but when the tour started Andy Metcalfe took the job. Their first album after the reformation, Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti was produced by Laurie Latham and released in August 1985. It had a good critical reception at the time although afterwards when the next album was released (Babylon And On) some critics looked back on ‘Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti’ as Squeeze trying to be rather too clever. In an official A&M biography in 1987 the band themselves looked back on the album with some disappointment, with Tilbrook stating that, ‘We were all so excited about being back together that we didn't put all that much thought into how we'd do the Cosi album…’. A reason he gives for the somewhat stilted sound of the album is that, ‘…we were rarely actually in the room playing at the same time.’ For their next album the band decided to remedy this situation and so as much as possible of it was recorded live and the whole thing was written with a view to what could be played live on tour. The album sounds a less complicated and self-involved than the band had done for some time. The songs are less flabby and so sound more purposeful than those on Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti. This is due in a great part to the choice of producer, Eric Thorngren. He had previously helped do the remixing on Difford And Tilbrook. His philosophy on this album was one of simplicity and minimalism. In his own words, ‘When I sit down to mix…I turn on the drums and the voice. Then I find out if it needs the bass and go from there. The least amount of things you can do with a song and still get the song across is the secret.’ Yet even though the album was written with a view to simplicity, the styles within the album remain varied, although they are more varied within a genre rather than varying between genres. To classify the genre is difficult. It is really specific to the album. All of the songs have a certain feel of similarity in essence, although there are explorations within that. The almost funk sound given by the horns on ‘Hourglass’; the French feel on ‘Tough Love’ given by the accordion coupled with a ¾ time signature. The band’s third post-reformation album was yet again quite different to any of their previous albums. Frank, which had Eric Thorngren once more in the producer’s chair, has a distinctly jazzy feel to it. One of the tracks on the album, written by Holland rather than Tilbrook, is even called ‘Dr. Jazz’! Jools’ piano playing features quite heavily on the album and his boogie woogie/jazz style is perhaps the most noticeable factor in the album. Audio Excerpt 7- ‘Peyton Place’
It is a musically upbeat album, once again recorded quite live. Yet even this apparently major role Jools was given in the latest album was not enough and in 1990 after a tour he resigned from the band. He cited a difference in musical ideas as the reason for his departure. He wanted to do more improvised, solo based music, whilst Tilbrook wanted to keep things the same, saying that Squeeze was first and foremost a song-based band. The timing of Holland’s exit is somewhat surprising given that the last album contained more piano solos than any other Squeeze album and was on the whole the most solo based. On the last tour with Jools an album was recorded from two of the shows and a video was made. Again Jools seemed to be kept quite busy and the songs were generally arranged differently from the album versions with a lot of solos. Video excerpt 1- ‘Slaughtered, Gutted
And Heartbroken’
In this excerpt the improvisational part of the band is foremost, both in Holland’s piano playing and in Tilbrook’s guitar playing. Video excerpt 2- Intro. to ‘Black
Coffee In Bed’
This excerpt is a prime example of Tilbrook’s guitar playing. Although in some songs he solos with distorted guitar it is his use of the ‘clean’ sound coupled with a Telecaster that will always be his special style. Although not as impressive maybe as a Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton solo, the clean sound he uses is far more difficult to master. There is no distortion to cover mistakes, every note is clear. It requires more thought in order to make the solo fluid and interesting. There was no official replacement for Jools for the next album, Play. Instead, various people contributed, including Steve Nieve and Bruce Hornsby. It was produced by Tony Berg and was released on Reprise/Warner after a breaking of company with A&M. It received critical acclaim as well it might. It is my own favourite Squeeze album. The words and the music blend together incredibly well and it is on the whole a particularly moving album. Incorporating some of the most complicating Tilbrook songs, both in structure and arrangement, ‘Play’ is not swamped down by any pretension. The difficulty of the songs does not force itself upon the listener and although the album is quite heavy on production, this enhances the album in my opinion rather than blanketing the songwriting, which happened on earlier albums. Audio Excerpt 8- ‘Sunday Street’
The chord changes under the lines, “I look for trousers that will fit me,/she buys a yellow shirt that’s sickly” are especially effective and the change from minor just before the chorus to the major of the chorus gives an air of expectancy and suspense. The chorus itself is powerful Squeeze; rousing backing vocals, synth brass runs, infectious piano scales. 1993 saw the return of Paul Carrack to the keyboards of Squeeze for the album Some Fantastic Place. It also saw the departure of Gilson Lavis again from playing the drums to be replaced by Pete Thomas of the Attractions and the return of Squeeze to A&M. This album was written differently to all of the others. Difford and Tilbrook wrote the songs in Tilbrook’s new studio, in the same room, together. The result, according to the official biography is that the pair, ‘have seldom been as perfectly synchronised as on Some Fantastic Place.’ It is true that there is a cohesion in the writing, but this was present in similar quantities on Play so it is not really new. The album has typically good Squeeze songs on it, the most notable in my opinion being the title track. A good version of this song is on the Royal Albert Hall performances released as B-sides in 1996 and later as an album. It contains a rather atypical, yet outstanding, Tilbrook guitar solo. Audio Excerpt 9- ‘Some Fantastic Place’
(2nd guitar solo)
The band’s most recent album, Ridiculous was released in 1995. In yet another return, Don Snow, now going under the stage name of John Savannah, took over from Paul Carrack who wanted to pursue his solo career. He only toured with the band however, Tilbrook played all keyboards on the album. Pete Thomas returned to the Attractions to be replaced in Squeeze by Kevin Wilkinson (no relation to Keith). A&M decided to only release the album in the UK and its release in the US was only brought about by the intervention of their former manager Miles Copeland and his record company IRS. The album itself is one of heavy production. It is Squeeze’s least instantly likeable album, with a great deal of depth to the songs that need a number of hearings to be fully and properly appreciated. An exception to this is the song ‘This Summer’ which achieved Squeeze’s first top 40 hit in eight years reaching number **. Another single from the album, ‘Heaven Knows’ which featured in the film, ‘Hackers’ also got into the top 40, peaking at **. Despite these successes A&M decided not to offer Squeeze another contract and they parted ways. The band have not released any new material since Ridiculous and have not toured since 1996 although Difford and Tilbrook have toured acoustically and Tilbrook has toured on his own. They have just re-assembled Squeeze in order to tour and record a new album. They are going to try to get a new record deal on the merits of the album. Difford and Tilbrook are the only surviving members from the Ridiculous album, with the other two having to find other work after such a long period of inactivity. Hilaire Penda will play bass guitar in the new band and Ashley Soan, formerly of Del Amitri, will play drums. The band will also once more have a full time keyboard player in the shape of Christopher Holland, Jools’ brother. The musical history of Glenn Tilbrook and Squeeze
is so long and varied that the dissertation only scratches the surface.
I have tried to pick out points of interest and importance along the route
of Tilbrook’s career whilst trying to represent all of the different styles
his music incorporates. Given the changeable nature of Tilbrook and Squeeze’s
music, the anticipation for the new album is great. Although a record company
might wish for another Argybargy or Cool For Cats, I think
that musical enthusiasts are especially anxious after a longer than usual
break to discover the next episode in the squeeze saga.
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