Press quotes - Live Reviews
Glenn Tilbrook. A man cast from the same sacred mould as other classic British songwriters such as Ray Davies, Elvis Costello...delivers a blistering, irrefutable, unrestrained, totally unpretentious hour of joie de vivre to an ecstatic audience. The man's called Glenn Tilbrook. His band is called The Fluffers and they ROCK. Tight as f**k and lovin' it. Unburdened by the über-cool inflicted on and dished out by so many fly-by-night 'stars' Tilbrook and his band's passion and enthusiasm is contagious. In fact it's outrageous.
Official Glastonbury Festival web site
Tilbrook continues to create melodic power pop that's buoyant, brainy and balls-out fun...Live, Tilbrook is loose, funny and unpredictable--and great at energizing a crowd.
Nashville Scene
Tilbrook's former band Squeeze's influence still resonates today in the work of many of today's practitioners of three-minute powerpop tunes. Catching him live a few months ago at Housing Works, I was treated to one of the very best solo appearances I've ever seen pulled off, bar none. A powerhouse of humor, punch, and energy...Catch him!
Village Voice
Tilbrook is not simply one of the preeminent talents of his generation. He's one of the finest singer-songwriters in all of rock and roll. Don't miss him.
-Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington)
The highlight of my week, and one of the highlights of my concert-going life, was last Friday's show by Glenn Tilbrook and the Fluffers
Creative Loafing (Atlanta)
Best Concert [2001] - Glenn Tilbrook at Iota. For an encore, the former Squeeze vocalist and songwriter led the crowd of 100 out the door and into Iota's parking lot, where he serenaded everyone under the moonlight with unplugged versions of "Goodbye Girl" and "Pulling Mussels From a Shell." He briefly made Wilson Boulevard feel like the center of the universe.
The Washington Post
A jubilant and hilarious entertainer as well as world-class songwriter.
All The Rage/The Tennessean
|
| |
Three reviews of Transatlantic Ping Pong
MOJO - Review - Transatlantic Ping Pong
Tempting new music from ever-affable Mr Tilbrook.
This follow-up to 2001's The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook finds the singer/guitarist settling in nicely to musical life without longtime Squeeze mate and collaborator/lyricist Chris Difford.
Recorded in numerous UK and US locales (hence, presumably, the title), the collection nonetheless hangs together on the strength of Tilbrook's most dependable qualities- shining on brightly vocals and a pop-smart knack for finely detailed melodies-and-hooks embroidery.
While the infectuous Untouchable and the breezy There For Her conjure up welcome memories of past triumphs, others composed solely by Tilbrook show him moving forward- most notably, with the adult themed Hostage and Domestic Distortion, concerning a disconnected father and child's tentative reunion.
Don't fret too much about ageing perspectives, though: any album that features songs called Hot Shaved Asian Teens and Genitalia Of A Fool can't be too serious.
(Awarded 3 stars out of 5).
From the June 22, 2004 issue of USA Today
Glenn Tilbrook, Transatlantic Ping Pong (***)
Question: Are Hot Shaved Asian Teens and Genitalia of a Fool the titles of a) popular video rentals b)recent Howard Stern segments or c) songs on Tilbrook’s new CD?
If you guessed “c,” there’s no need to explain that the former Squeeze frontman hasn’t lost his, um, cheeky sense of humor. Luckily Tilbrook has also retained his sweetly plangent tenor and keen melodic savvy, as more wistful, winning tracks such as Untouchable and Ray & Me confirm. The singer/songwriter’s occasional indulgences in blue-tinted humor are hardly offensive, but blue-eyed soul continues to be his strong suit. -- Elysa Gardner |
Not Lame Records - Review
Glenn Tilbrook - Transatlantic Ping Pong
Fabulous, surprisingly strong 2004 solo release from the Squeeze man (well, one of them, at least). After 30 years producing finely-crafted pop vignettes with Chris Difford and Squeeze, Glenn Tilbrook`s got nothing left to prove. Before you even put Transatlantic Ping Pong on the CD player you KNOW it`s going to be packed with neat tunes, tasteful harmonies and lyrics that tell real stories of real people.The good and bad news is, of course, that there are no surprises here. This is a surprisingly fresh and solid outing."
4 1/2 stars... his second solo album and his best record in a long, long time. Simultaneously looser and more focused than Incomplete, Transatlantic finds Tilbrook returning to the hooky, direct power pop of the best Squeeze albums, but instead of sounding like a retread or a last grasp for glory, he sounds comfortable, as if he knows this is the sound that suits him best.
Most important, it sounds like he`s having fun, and that`s the sentiment that rules the album. It`s not just that the music is bright and catchy, the sound of a top pop tunesmith working at full strength; it`s that the songs themselves are often larks.... that kind of boozy, good-time humor is evident not just in the words, but the raucous, full- bodied performances that make Transatlantic Ping Pong a joy on the sheer sonic level. Plus, those off-color jokes are tempered by the fine craftsmanship of songs like "Untouchable" and the bittersweet "Ray & Me," both of which are bolstered by the lively performances and recording, and the whole thing winds up as his most likable and alive record in quite some time.
|
Glenn
Tilbrook - Biography
“I’m not reinventing the wheel / I just like the way it
makes me feel,” Glenn Tilbrook sings on his latest release Transatlantic Ping Pong.
When the wheel in question is the perfect three-and-a-half minute
pop song, Tilbrook is a certified patent holder and member of that
elite group that includes such tunesmiths as Lennon & McCartney,
Ray Davies and Elvis Costello. As one half of the songwriting ampersand
behind the beloved band Squeeze and now a successful solo artist,
Tilbrook has perfected a signature style marked by brilliant melodic
invention, cheeky humor and slice-of-life pathos, all wrapped up
with unshakable hooks and his golden boy tenor. From chestnuts like “Up the Junction” and “Pulling Mussels (From the
Shell)” through stunning new tracks “Untouchable” and “Ray and Me,” he has amassed a veritable Sears Catalog
of memorable songs.
After the release of his solo debut, 2001’s The Incomplete
Glenn Tilbrook, he hit the road, making his bid to become the new
hardest working man in show business. For three years, he ping ponged
between Europe and the U.S. He burned up the tarmac in a 1987 Cruisemaster
RV (Hey, James Brown never did his own driving!), wowing audiences
with solo acoustic shows that combined rousing sets, spontaneous
requests (Is there a song Glenn doesn’t know?), fast-paced
humor and parking lot sing-a-longs.
“The thing I love most about playing solo is finding I could
talk to an audience rather than just saying ‘This is’
and ‘That was’ and ‘Thank you very much,’ which
was probably about the extent of my communication before then,”
Tilbrook says. “It’s great, if you’re in a band and
you’re powering through a set, that’s sometimes all that
you need, but I love talking to people in this new kind of environment.”
During spare moments, Tilbrook began to lay the groundwork for solo
album number two, and as the title suggests, 'Transatlantic Ping Pong', it came together on
both sides of the pond. “The recording was done in short bursts,”
he says. “The Nashville stuff was done in August, and the rest
of the stuff I did in England in February. And then I took it back
to my studio, and worked on it in Austin and New Orleans. I worked
on it all over the place. I worked on it in my RV, in a field, in
the middle of nowhere!”
If a vocal session in the middle of an open field hints at a more
relaxed approach to record-making, that’s in keeping with Tilbrook’s
sonic vision for the project. He says, “What I wanted to do
was approach it with a much more live feel and to keep it a lot
simpler. And also, to go back to quite a basic approach, which is
something I haven’t really done for a while. To properly look
at the songs, but to also keep it simple. That was very invigorating
for me to do. All the songs that we did were arrangements that we
worked on at the most two days before we recorded them. So it was
very fresh. On quite a few of the songs, it’s a live vocal,
and it really captures what was happening in the studio.”
What happened in the studios is a tantalizing smorgasbord of styles
and textures, from the power pop wallop of “Untouchable” and percolating funk of “Lost in Space” to the whipsmartaleck
sass of “Hot Shaved Asian Teens” and the dreamy reflections
of “Ray and Me.” There’s even a Ventures-like instrumental, “One for the Road,” as a good-humored parting shot. The
scaled-back live band approach, with its splashes of Farfisa organ
and bracing electric guitars, harkens back to the days of Argybargy and East Side Story - a warm, friendly sound that will undoubtedly
please ardent Squeeze fans.
Tilbrook comments, “I don’t really see a dividing line
between Squeeze and what I’m doing now. Squeeze was a band,
and though we changed members, whatever the line-up was became Squeeze.
Now, this new album feels like a band album. Everyone put their
ideas in. But it’s under my name, because my name is the biggest
thing I have to advertise myself. It’s certainly nowhere near
as big as Squeeze. But there’s very much a continuity flowing
through everything from Squeeze to the stuff I’ve done. Live,
I don’t feel that I have to play the old songs. I want to play
them. I want to dip into all parts of my career because I’m
proud of it.”
It was with the same openness and affection for the past that Tilbrook
reunited with songwriting ex- Chris Difford for the moving “Where
I Can be Your Friend,” their first collaboration in five years.
Tilbrook: “After Squeeze fell apart Chris had said a lot of
things about how he wanted to apologize to me, and it was very sweet.
I really love Chris and I felt sorry for him that he felt so bad.
Now we’re in a different place, and I think we realize what
we do and don’t want to do. Chris and I are really at a stage
now where we are rekindling our friendship and that’s a great
place to be. We’ve got such a lot of history together.”
Transatlantic Ping Pong is the latest chapter in a rich history
that spans Squeeze’s explosion out of the late ‘70s new
wave movement to their continued presence on FM radio with staples
such as “Another Nail in My Heart,” “Tempted,” “Black Coffee in Bed” and “Hourglass” and through
their influence on contemporary artists such as Blur, Weezer, Aimee
Mann and Fountains of Wayne.
As Glenn Tilbrook prepares to turn another page in his storied career,
hitting the road with his three-piece band The Fluffers, he says, “I’m very happy with this record. My hopes are that more
people get to hear it than heard The Incomplete... I always like
to get across to more people, but I’ve learned to live with
the possibility that that might not happen. But nevertheless it
doesn’t in any way dent my enthusiasm for carrying on doing
it, because I really really enjoy it.”
|
|
