Namesakes #84: Squeeze

I've only got a handful of artists with the same name this week, but it's still a bit of a Squeeze...

SQUEEZE #1

In 1973, Chris Difford stole 50p from his mum's purse (stealing is wrong, kids) and used it to pay for an advert in the local sweetshop window. This strikes me as being rather an expensive advert in 1973. The web of lies tells me that 50 pence would be worth £7.58 today. That sweet shop was raking it in. Anyway, Chris's advert was for a guitarist to join his band. He didn't actually have a band, and only one person replied: Glenn Tilbrook. 50p well spent, though I hope he paid his mum back when they got famous.

Later joined by drummer Paul Gunn and the ivory-tickling Shoot-yer-nanny bloke himself, the group started out calling themselves Captain Trundlow's Sky Company and then Skyco, before settling on a name cheekily lifted from the final, much-derided Velvet Underground album (the one recorded by Doug Yule after everyone else had left the band). 

Squeeze have recorded many great songs... but there's arguably none finer than the one that became a smash hit despite its complete lack of chorus.

SQUEEZE #2

Aussie soft-rockers from the 70s who arrived on the scene a year or so after the first collaboration between Difford & Tilbrook, and later became known as The Australian Squeeze. This is pretty groovy if you ask me (which nobody did).

SQUEEZE #3

Italian DJ / producer Salvatore Caltabiano has the distinction of being the first Squeeze to sign up to Discogs, forcing Glenn and Chris to make do with a Squeeze (2) designation. He also describes himself as a "contemporary dance music teacher / historian". I think I skipped that class, sorry. I listened to a couple of his tracks, and this was the most interesting, largely because of the African samples.

SQUEEZE!! #4

Japanese Ska band from the 21st Century. These guys made me smile; they're clearly living their best lives. (I hate that expression. Don't know why I used it.)

THE SQUEEZE #5

Aussie psychedelia from 2013...

 

SQUEEZE #6

Contemporary pop from Boston in 2020. Not bad, I suppose, for what it is...

SQUEEZE #7

And finally today, a London-based punk band from last year who don't appear to have found themselves a singer. Clearly they need to put an ad in the local sweet shop window...

Which one is your Main Squeeze... and which one makes you go Squeeze, Louise!? (Which was actually the name of a female punk band from the US in the early 80s.)