GRAHAM PARKER SEEKS PROTECTION
It was Toronto, a soft late May evening, and the Best Promo Girl in Detroit and I were watching Graham Parker and the Rumour fight a losing battle with the El Mocambo Club's sound system. They were able to blast out a handful of songs in between power blackouts, one of which, "Tear Your Playhouse Down," found Parker stalking a girl in the audience, a most intense erotic moment.
GRAHAM PARKER SEEKS PROTECTION
by
Susan Whitall
It was Toronto, a soft late May evening, and the Best Promo Girl in Detroit and I were watching Graham Parker and the Rumour fight a losing battle with the El Mocambo Club's sound system. They were able to blast out a handful of songs in between power blackouts, one of which, "Tear Your Playhouse Down," found Parker stalking a girl in the audience, a most intense erotic moment. He lunged out at her from the stage; she half shrank back, half froze in fascination as he caressed her face and sang, the ferocity of his words belying the tenderness of his hand. Then he drew back, withdrawing his hand so that their fingertips just barely touched...then, as the girl's fingers strained toward his; and you could feel the electricity snap in the air, he resumed the stage, the spell broken.
Hanging around after the show, the girl was no longer the mysterious she Parker was squeezing sparks off of; she was just a girl, chomping gum disconsolately and bleating to her chum, "Let's go home," when it looked like she wasn't going to score a dream date.