Nick Lowe – His aim is true
Like fellow pub rockers Ducks Deluxe and Eggs Over Easy, Brinsley Schwarz never sold many records. But with Lowe’s increasingly irresistible melodies, punctuated by Schwarz’s snaking guitar lines and the pinwheeling organ of keyboardist Bob Andrews, Brinsley Schwarz’s back-to-basics approach to pop music presaged the coming of punk and stood in refreshing contrast to the album-oriented art rock of the period.
“If you will put up with the premise that pop music started in the mid-’50s — I’m talking about rock ‘n’ roll — I would contend that by about 1974, it all had been done,” Lowe says. “And I don’t actually think that really anything new has been done since. It’s just that every generation has sort of reinvented the styles that were done before it.
“And this was bang on the time when I and my contemporaries were the next generation. And we were most dissatisfied with what we saw. The pop business was full of these dreadful groups, Genesis and Journey and REO Speedwagon and people like that. And it was all safe and run by these bean counters and know-nothings. That’s why, over here, the pub rock thing started up.
“When punk came along a few years later, that was the thing that it really needed, but I would say that pub rock was spawned for the same reasons — dissatisfaction that it was all rubbish and needed to be pulled down. Because it had gotten to a point where you just couldn’t have another concept album or triple bullshit thing.”
In 1974, just months before Brinsley Schwarz threw in the towel, the band cut a new Nick Lowe song, “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love And Understanding”, that in many ways anticipated Lowe’s future. In 1978, of course, Elvis Costello would cover the song in a way that made it unmistakable just how pissed off he felt that the question should even need to be asked.
Lowe’s version with Brinsley Schwarz is harder to read. Its good-time melody, tommy-gun drums, sweet harmonies and primal power chords make for some irresistibly straightforward rock ‘n’ roll — even though those chords have been lifted from The Who’s AOR staple “Baba O’Riley”. “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding,” Lowe asks repeatedly. And then, after he’s got you searching for the answer, he launches into a recitation delivered with such hyper-sincerity that it pulls the rug out from under the entire proposition: “We must have peace, more peace and love — if just for the children of a new generation.” You have to wonder: Is this record in love with the power of rock ‘n’ roll, or is it parodying it?
After Brinsley Schwarz, parodies and musical jokes became Nick’s specialties. In a ploy to get out of his contract with United Artists, which remained interested in him despite his former band’s lack of sales, Lowe brought the label a preposterous little cheerleader called “Bay City Rollers We Love You”, a record he was confident would dampen the label’s interest.
Instead of cutting him loose, though, UA released the single under the pseudonym the Tartan Horde. It actually sold fairly well, particularly in Japan, forcing Lowe to resort to “Let’s Go To The Disco” (by “The Disco Bros.”), which was apparently more than unpopular enough to get him shown the door. “I really needed a complete change,” Lowe told writer Alan Robinson in 1999. “I wanted to get fired.”
Next, Lowe hooked up with his old manager Dave Robinson and his new manager Jake Riviera to start Stiff Records in 1976. Modeled after the American independents Riviera had observed while touring the U.S. as manager for pub rockers Dr. Feelgood, Stiff focused on singles, and Lowe was its flagship artist. His “Heart Of The City”, the label’s first release, was a sonic manifesto, a manic guitar-and-drums attack that sprinted through its two minutes and two seconds, trailing garage-pop sparks all the way.
Lowe became the de facto house producer for the new enterprise (“If it’s a Stiff, it’s a hit” was the label’s tongue-in-cheek battle cry) for a simple reason: He was the only one who’d ever produced a record (the Tartan Horde scam), an interest he’d first acquired while watching new pal Dave Edmunds produce Brinsley Schwarz’s last recordings. Employing a “bang it out, tart it up later” approach, Lowe produced such notable records as The Damned’s “New Rose” (often credited as the first British punk record) and Elvis Costello’s debut album, My Aim Is True.
In 1977, Lowe’s own Bowi EP combined Stiff’s flair for winking promotion — to create as much confusion as possible, its cover design was a dead ringer for David Bowie’s Low — and his increasingly sardonic songwriting, the most obvious example being the notorious “Marie Provost”. A hilariously dark comedy that now comes off like an out-of-sequence sequel to Robbie Fulks’ “She Took A Lot Of Pills (And Died)”, “Marie Provost” recounts the tale of a silent film star who fell out of favor, grew old and killed herself, only to be eaten by her hungry pet dachshund. “She was a winner/Who became a doggie’s dinner,” Lowe sings as Beach Boys-styled harmonies “ooh” and “ahh” behind him like an angelic laugh track.
It’s a hilarious send-up, particularly dangerous if you should hear it for the first time just as you’re taking a sip of soda. Each time you encounter it, though, its humorous effect dulls just a bit. That’s the trouble with punchlines; with repetition, they tend to lose their punch. Nearly a quarter-century on, though, what continues to stand out is the expert pop sense Lowe fashioned to frame his jokes — and the song’s one moment of plain empathy. “She never meant that much to me,” Lowe confesses. “But now I see. Poor Marie.”