Nick Lowe sees second coming of "Jesus of Cool"

By Derek Caney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "I never liked any of that punk rock music. I thought it was awful."

Those words sound strange coming from Nick Lowe, whose early music helped pioneer the punk and New Wave sounds of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Lowe, 59, was behind some of the most potent music of the era, recording his own songs and writing and producing for the likes of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and The Damned.

His first solo album, "Jesus of Cool," was recently reissued by Yep Roc Records to commemorate the 30th anniversary of its release, which some see as a landmark in the evolution of punk -- fast, hard, rebellious rock music.

"That horrible beat and that screaming about absolutely nothing. It was the worst aspect of white music writ large," Lowe told Reuters in a recent interview.

"What I did like was the mischief it caused. That interested me much more. I wanted to do something that was a little more insidious and change things a little higher up the food chain."

Far from the nihilism or amateurish nature of punk, the music on "Jesus of Cool" encompasses a variety of styles -- power pop, British Invasion, rhythm & blues, reggae or hard rock -- and filters it through Lowe's mischievous wit and irreverence.

The songs are hard to confuse with punk, but listeners can clearly see the source of punk's inspiration.