Here are some reviews and links to interviews and articles about
Glenn Tilbrook: One For The Road!

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Interview - Jonathan Ross Radio Show - BBC Radio 2 (UK) - February 2, 2006 (MP3 2.79MB)

Interview - The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show - Virgin Radio (UK) - January 31, 2006 (MP3 2.59MB)

Interview - David Jensen - Capital Gold (UK) - January 28, 2006 (MP3 8.75MB)

Interview - Tom Robinson - BBC 6 Music (UK) - January 23, 2006 (MP3 11.2MB)

Interview - Robert Elms - BBC London (UK) - January 23, 2006 (MP3 5.4MB)

A new documentary, filmed partly in Portland, will debut March 22 on VH1 Classics. Based around Squeeze singer/songwriter Glenn Tilbrook, Glenn Tilbrook: One for the Road was directed by Squeeze friend/fan Amy Pickard and shows Tilbrook touring the country and going about his life post-stardom. Pickard explains, "Here was this quintessentially English pop star who once sold out Madison Square Garden, touring in an RV and staying in trailer parks instead of fancy hotels. The reality is you have to be creative in trying to get your music out these days and Glenn works really hard at introducing himself to people as a solo artist."

It happens to the best of bands. The fickle music industry shifts, popularity wanes, and former stadium headliners become has-beens, playing to small crowds in tiny venues. For Glenn Tilbrook, lead singer and songwriter for '80s New Wave favorites Squeeze, it could have been catastrophic. But as this fine documentary shows, Tilbrook is alive and well, casting a quizzical eye over the surreal, downsized proceedings, and having the time of his life. Director Pickard traveled with Tilbrook throughout his Fall 2001 solo tour, and captured the ordinary, mundane and sometimes magical moments that comprise touring life. The concert footage is fine, and reminds us how great those Squeeze songs really were. But the real highlights are a temperamental RV that breaks down several times during the course of the tour, a guest shot on an early morning news program where Tilbrook performs just before the Pet of the Week segment, and Tilbrook's eternally bemused outlook on life. Great fun. -- Andy Whitman

Over two hours spent in the company of the former Squeeze frontman, trailing around small town America, in an old campervan? Hardly the most enticing proposition, but director Amy Pickard’s eye for surreal detail makes this an engaging study of a lapsed pop star adjusting to life beyond limos, groupies, flash hotels. Tilbrook himself, makes for amiable company and stark solo renditions of those kitchen sink hits “Up The Junction” “Take Me I’m Yours” “Black Coffee In Bed” provide boundless delight.

Here's a breath of fresh air. Rather than just slapping together a few old videos and live performances for his music DVD, the Squeeze man has allowed those prying cameras into every area of his touring life.

And it's certainly not all glamour on the road as Glenn makes his way across America - and its campsites - on his first solo tour.

Put together by a massive Squeeze fan, it's more intimate, detailed and entertaining than most other similar releases. And it also shows that the pop star existence isn't all about champagne, silk sheets and adoring groupies. 5/5

Amy Pickard's road movie is a delightful thing, as modest as its star and just as charming. Indeed, Glenn Tilbrook actually is the hell-of-a-guy he comes off as here -- a man who, as co-singer and co-songwriter in Squeeze, used to sell out arenas, but is delighted nowadays to lead a packed club in a rousing sing-along of "Tempted" or "Goodbye Girl" that ends up in, oh, a parking lot or somebody's house. The doc's full of those funny moments, as Tilbrook and his gal-pal/manager tour the States in an RV, mingling with the common folk, who treat him like their best friend. The movie's best moment occurs in a trailer park outside Dallas, where Tilbrook small-talks some folks who flip when they find out who he is. The music's stellar, too, a collection of Squeeze best-ofs and Tilbrook's solo stuff, which is no less essential. -- Wilonsky
 

Early on, we're reminded that Squeeze once played Madison Square Gardens; now we see the band's great vocalist touring the US in a camper van. But is Tilbrook downcast? Not on the evidence of this warming portrait.

As the powerhouse behind Squeeze, Tilbrook and his songwriting partner Chris Difford mined a rich vein of classic and quirky pop. This DVD chronicles Tilbrook's first solo tour of the US, and the joys of being a quintessentially English pop star traversing America soon become apparent (five-star hotels and big tour buses are eschewed in favour of a mobile home and campsites). This has all the hallmarks of an alt.classic road movie - and that's before you get to the music. Included here, alongside his criminally underrated new material, is footage of stellar performances of Squeeze classics such as Up The Junction, Tempted and Hourglass. Seeing Tilbrook in full flow is a heartwarming experience and seeing him undertaking the kind of schedule that would break musicians half his age makes you root for him all the more.

When Squeeze fan Amy Pickard decided to film GT during his one man American tour, she was looking for an excuse to legitimise what she jokingly describes as 'stalking' her hero. Yet first time filmmaker Pickard's portrait of Tilbrook is charming, genuinely heart warming and follows him as he works his way across the US in 2001, to promote his debut solo LP. Pickard is righteously miffed at the record industry who, having profited by Tilbrook's early work in Squeeze, have now left him with no option but to take the independent route.

In the spirit of a traveling troubadour, he plans to travel from gig to gig in a mobile home but on arriving in NYC the vehicle is nowhere to be found. Unbowed, Tilbrook goes on the road playing small shows to the faithful. At one date, whilst performing 'Goodbye Girl' he leads the audience into the street where they all join in song together. One has the rare sense that Tilbrook is performing for the love of music and the rapport with the crowd rather than the lure of money. Happily, he realises his mobile home dream and gets a mighty Cruise Master after signing autographs at the dealership. It breaks down 30 minutes after leaving the lot, but is fixed by Christmas. This is a December kind of film, a pleasant surprise that enables one to leave cynicism at the door and simply enjoy.