Nick Lowe Gets Better with Age

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nick Lowe made it big as a pioneer of what the English called “pub rock” and Americans usually call power-pop. Lowe had his biggest successes in the New Wave era but continues to release records and perform, and six of his middle-period records are being reissued this year on the Yep Roc label. In the opinion of one fan, staff writer Nick Paumgarten Nick Paumgarten, Lowe is as great as he ever was. Now Lowe is engaged in figuring out how to age gracefully in rock and roll. “Some of my colleagues and associates have to behave like they did when they were young, and I wanted to avoid that rubbish at all costs,” he told Paumgarten on a recent visit. “The thing was for me to accept the fact that I was getting older, and to actually embrace it and use it as an advantage instead of trying to hide it.” But, after the rocker recently lost close friends to illness, accepting old age might be getting a little harder. Plus: on-the-job horror stories from three great writers—Gillian Flynn, Akhil Sharma, and Alison Bechdel.

Transcript

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0:00.0	They didn't break that, but they have pretty good access to those people.
0:10.0	She actually, her image, she subconsciously mocks that lineage.
0:13.0	So that's happening?
0:15.0	Okay.
0:16.0	It seems like an incredible story here on many fronts.
0:19.0	From One World Trade Center manhattan this is the
0:22.6	new yorker radio hour a co-production of w nyc studios and the new yorker okay so this is downtown
0:31.4	piermore nice i think i'm able to get a fancy coffee here yes that's something you would you would like? Yes, I think it is. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Earlier this summer, the New Yorker's Nick Poundgarten met up with one of his heroes in music, the singer and songwriter, Nick Lowe. Hello. Hello, how are you? I'm well, thank you. Yeah? Yeah.
0:55.0	Graff.
0:56.0	I'm afraid that information is top secret.
1:00.0	Oh God.
1:01.0	I got.
1:02.0	I made it big as a pioneer of what the English called Pub Rock, and we usually call something
1:08.0	like Power Pop.
1:09.0	Oh, I can't take another heartache for yourself. we usually call something like Power Pop.
1:29.0	Nick Lowe and Nick Poundgarten met a few years ago,
1:31.9	and they went chopping for eyeglasses for some reason.
1:36.9	Lowe wears these big, thick, heavy black frames that are sort of his signature.
1:40.1	Poundgarten decided to catch up with Nick Lowe again. Nick Lowe is this tall, blonde, geeky guy with glasses
1:49.0	Except he's not blonde.
1:51.0	He's got this great shock of white hair
1:53.0	And he's not really geeky either
	...

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