It's tempting to refer to singer/ songwriter JOHN PARKES as a 'lost' British treasure of sorts. After all, this Sheffield native has previously played a part in a whole manner of John Peel-sponsored bands such as The Sinister Cleaners (with Colenso Parade's Andrew Middleton and Wedding Present drummer Simon Smith), Greenhouse and Fuzzbird. He's even done the Noel Gallagher bit, roadie-ing for The Weddoes, Cud and even Buffalo Tom for two weeks, though one hopes unlike Gallagher senior that he didn't sprinkle his cornflakes with cocaine while employed in such a capacity.
So, Parkes is a man who is no doubt overly familiar with the phrase 'so near and yet so far' for his endeavours, and you could say he added another intermittently interesting effort to his CV with Whole Sky Monitor's debut album "Just Let Me Talk To Her" last year.
Yet, funnily enough, it seems that it's when Parkes is left to his own device that he really shines, for his debut solo album "Faithlessnessless" - ostensibly a bare bones acoustic guitar and voice affair - is a terrific record: full of wryly-observed satire, intriguing social commentary, healthy reserves of humour and the occasional sliver of unalloyed sadness like the terminally crestfallen "Darkness."
So if this sounds far more engaging than a supposedly sketchy acoustic guitar and vocal record should be, then...well, yes it is, but then John Parkes is hardly your average just-starting-out, open mic night fare. He's a skilled and likeably off-kilter songwriter who can wring a range of emotions out of the most unlikely subjects.
Opener "Goodbye Ms.Jones" is one of only two tracks (the other being the concluding "You've Never Heard Of Me", but we'll get to that later) to feature any additional embellishment, with snatches of blazing blues harp joining a stripped-down Bo Diddley rhythm and Parkes' witty invective. It's a good start, and when he digs deeper for the obsessive love metaphors of "Cigarette" (obvious, but still clever), the fleeting temptations of one-night stands and their wider implications ("This Tonight") and the hilarious "Hippy Father" - with its' parent and child role reversal scenario - he really scores and also reminds this reviewer of Vinny Peculiar: that other brilliant UK singer/ songwriter who's still stupidly under-rated.
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Elsewhere, Parkes sticks his knife in and twists gleefully when discussing socio-political issues like the beyond-dark ASBO blues of "To Go Round" (sample lyric; "I owe it to the Home Secretary/ they gotta crack down so they need me/ Got to at least go on a killing spree") which concludes with a no-punches-pulled line about "there's not enough paedophiles to go round." Equally effective is "Politics", which is a brilliantly-observed diatribe on the very recent past and specifically the 80s ("we believed in equality, there was just one Tory party and there were MPS on the left") which segues beautifully into a little snatch of "The Red Flag" as it hits the fade.
Arguably, though, Parkes keeps his best in reserve for the home stretch, with "Move On" and the aforementioned "You've Never Heard Of Me". "Move On" is a bitter, end-of-the-affair recrimination which positively reeks of hurt, with Parkes singing "I'm gonna move on like the beast I am/ the lone representative of all that is worst in man". Ooyah. Considerably more self-deprecating and tongue-in-cheek is the wonderful "You've Never Heard Of Me" : an all-too-familiar tale of total obscurity suddenly taking a turn for mild celebrity full of all manner of hilarious observations such as "I can't have you people talk to my people/ there's no DVD with extra features of me". Fittingly, it ends with a tribute to John Peel, without whom Parkes and many like him would never have persevered this far.
Hearing this solo record, though, you're truly glad that John Parkes has slogged on regardless of the slings and arrows. I've no idea whether he has any expectations at all of this album (ahem) raising his profile - probably not judging by that last track - but if there's any justice he deserves something of a heads-up at last. "Faithlessnessless" is - at tne very least - worthy of lengthy dalliance and flirtation.
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