22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Expanded Pleasure, July 26, 2004
Rockpile was formed as a backing band for Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds' solo records and as an outlet for the two the hit the road and play live. Along with Billy Bremmer on guitar and Terry Williams on drums, the unit played on great albums like Lowe's Jesus Of Cool & Labour Of Lust and Edmunds' Tracks On Wax & Repeat When Necessary which were essentially Rockpile records. Seconds Of Pleasure is the only official release under the Rockpile moniker. The album kicks off with a great one-two punch. First is an ode to teenage lust "Teacher Teacher" and then moves into an old Joe Tex rave up "If Sugar Was As Sweet As You". The third song is "Heart", which is probably more familiar in its later incarnation as a slowed down reggae song on Lowe's Nick The Knife album, is a fast-paced power pop tune, which is superior to the remake. Other standout cuts include "When I Write The Book", "Play That Fast Thing", "Now & Always" and the humorous "A Knife & A Fork". The original album contained a bonus 45 with 4 Everly Brothers remakes and they are included as the last four tracks on the disk. The best of the four is "Crying In The Rain". This remastered version has a great crisp and clean sound as great production is what Mr. Lowe is known for. The set includes three live tracks, "Back to Schooldays" and "They Call It Rock" which are from a 1977 BBC radio session and "Crawling From The Wreckage" which is from the live album Concerts for The People of Kampuchea which has sadly never been released on CD. All three songs give a glimpse into the band's live prowess. Unfortunately after this album and a supporting tour, Rockpile never recorded as a unit or played live again. They only sporadically worked on Lowe & Edmunds' solo recordings. Too bad we couldn't have had a few more albums from this fine band.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hours of Pleasure, July 10, 2000
This review is from: Seconds of Pleasure (Audio CD)
Rockpile was formed as a backing band for Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds' solo records and as an outlet for the two the hit the road and play live. Along with Billy Bremmer on guitar and Terry Williams on drums, the unit played on great albums like Lowe's Jesus Of Cool & Labour Of Lust and Edmunds' Tracks On Wax & Repeat When Necessary which were essentially Rockpile records. Seconds Of Pleasure is the only official release under the Rockpile moniker. The album kicks off with a great one-two punch. First is an ode to teenage lust "Teacher Teacher" and then moves into an old Joe Tex rave up "If Sugar Was As Sweet As You". The third song is "Heart" which is probably more familiar in its later incarnation as a slowed down reggae song on Lowe's Nick The Knife album. Here it is a fast paced pop tune, which I think is superior to the remake. Other standout cuts include "When I Write The Book", "Play That Fast Thing", "Now & Always" and the humorous "A Knife & A Fork". The original album contained a bonus 45 with 4 Everly Brothers remakes and they are included as the last four tracks on the disk. The best of the four is "Crying In The Rain". Unfortunately after this album and a supporting tour, Rockpile never recorded as a unit or play live again. They only sporadically worked on Lowe & Edmunds' solo recording. Too bad we couldn't have had a few more albums from this fine band.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Seconds of Pleasure, a Quarter Century of Delight, May 14, 2004
This was a reissue worth waiting for. The one official recording by Rockpile, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremmer and Terry Williams, this 1980 CD has been in my fave albums pile ever since it came out. Had this foursome not been bar and band mates for each other before "Seconds Of Pleasure," this platter would have been trumped as a supergroup. Edmunds and Williams had already been well established as far back as the sixties with hits, Lowe would be in the history books if only that he released Stiff Records' first single. That Lowe's albums ("Pure Pop For Now People," "Labour of Lust") and as well as Edmunds' solos ("Repeat When Necessary," "Trax On Wax 4") not already given them stature among the cognoscenti, their contributions to the sound of the period as individual producers would.
After all, between the two of them, they should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for their production library. Edmunds for Stray Cats, kd lang, Fabulous Thunderbirds and (fer crying out loud) Foghat; Lowe for Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Pretenders, and John Hiatt all but sealing their rep as a pair of men that made a decade sound the way it did. Yet for all that star power, when it came time to record a proper album as a group, Rockpile made it sound like no sweat.
"Seconds Of Pleasure" took all things great about basic bar band rock and made it sound fresh. It was almost as if they came at you with the credo that anything that they couldn't make sound as simplistic as a Chuck Berry riff or Everly Brothers' harmony wasn't worth the tape it took. To that end, the band cribbed from the best, covering a pair of classics (Berry's "Oh What A Thrill" and Joe Tex's "If Sugar was as Sweet as You"), then surrounding them with originals that were every bit as perfect ("Teacher Teacher" and "When I Write The Book"). They were even so hot a band that Billy Bremmer got the lead vocal on what should have been a classic single, they bouncy "Heart."
Albums this effortless sounding are rare jewels. If you're an aficionado of this style of buoyant 80's sound or Brit Pub rock, "Seconds Of Pleasure" is absolutely indispensable. The addition of the original album's bonus EP, "Nick and Dave Sing The Everly Brothers," two unreleased live cuts and "Crawling From The Wreckage" from the "Concerts of Kampuchea" make this an even better buy.
To paraphrase one of Edmund's albums. "Git it." Four and a half stars.
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