to ”audition” to comment anyone’s silly blog…

Here’s my response on this post Idolator did right here. 

20+ years ago, I was Queen, I said the QUEEN of Squeeze fans.

At my high school.

Because I was the only one who had heard of them.

Oh, my fellow students pointed and laughed (or ran away screaming) as I would, out of nowhere, burst into the chorus of “Pulling Mussels from a Shell”.  dance to a strain of “Wrong Side of the Moon” in my head, boogie with my Walkman to “Take Me, I’m Yours” or “Messed Around”.    I finally silenced my AC/DC-or-nuttin’ critics with a smackdown of “Labelled with Love” at my junior year talent show that brought me a nice set of claps, as I recall.

I finally got to see them in, I think, ‘89 at the Warfield in SF, after Jools Holland rejoined the band.  As I recall, they seemed a bit low on energy that night, but it was probably the closest I would ever get to that dream king of all British post-punk pop, Glenn Tillbrook…sigh…

The last I heard of these guys was around 2004, when Aamer from the late, perhaps-not-so-lamented VH1 show Bands Reunited tried to get these guys back together for one more go around.  I hadn’t even heard that they had broken up, but, apparently, Difford and Tillbrook had a falling out in the late-90’s, and hadn’t/wouldn’t talk to each other since that time.  Can’t say that I blame them; I’d be sick and tired of touring with the same guys over 20 years, myself.

But now, not only are 80’s bands back, but so are their re-issues: Universal is re-releasing Squeeze’s output, and the band has apparently gladly put their differences aside and is going out on the road to support the new old CDs.

You know, as much as I wish I had seen the Police come through somewhere NEAR my current town, I’m more looking forward to seeing these guys come around.  I really do miss them, and kind of songs they write.  They were very much a formative part of my growing up experience, even though I had to defend the right to keep them in my tape collection.

Youtube apparently doesn’t have a video of my two fave songs by them: Labelled with Love and “Take Me, I’m Yours”.  So here’s my third: