Elvis Costello

I'm not sure where this came from - it says it's a "webcast" but at the end it looks like whoever's streaming it is actually communicating with EC, as if they were doing a Zoom interview. Regardless, a nice cover of a Specials song, and not the first time EC has taken one of their songs and turned it into a solo acoustic number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NldP_cUP1yU

It's amazing how much these songs hold up melodically and lyrically without the ska beat propelling them forward - it really is a great credit to the songwriting.

there's a 'live in studio' set that has been released in the past few weeks to streaming at least, appended to Boy Named If, that is really good; his voice sounds excellent, makes me want to catch him live again (it's been a good 18 years at least)

I may have posted this in another thread, but he and the Imposters are definitely still in excellent form, or at least can be. The one thing that's a bit bizarre is EC's preference to sing behind the beat on most numbers. For a while, I thought it was unintentional and due to things like his age, his past illness, etc. but it's now clear that's not the case at all - on tour this year, he showed he was more than capable of singing right on the beat for fast, demanding songs.

He's talked a lot about jazz singers in recent years (at one point, he had been listening primarily to Jack Teagarden's records, specifically the ones where he takes the lead vocal), and it seems like he's trying to do what they do in terms of experimenting rhythmically. To be fair, a lot of his best singing in the past shows how much he's learned from his favorite jazz vocalists like Chet Baker, but it's sounding too awkward now when he's trying to step back from a beat that's propelling forward. Anyway, just a warning, it could seem like a mixed bag as a result.

man speaking from experience when a singer get the idea that he wants to sing behind the beat either his band tells him "man, I hear what you're trying to do, but the singers that can actually do that are just a different kinda singer than you" and he eventually accepts that...or he's the marquee name and he just does what he wants

Willie Nelson does it- maybe he says he learned it from Sinatra?- but for EC it is mostly yet another annoying affection for those korny olde souls who still prefer his earlier work.

They only let him go so

long

yeah - I think the issue is that Nelson as a vocalist is on Sinatra's level, he's inside a geometry that Costello would like to be in -- but while he's a good singer, he is not there, he just knows that "there" is elevated air

Yes, exactly.

I get the feeling that describes Costello's faults in general. On the one hand, I think what made those first ten years of his career so great and fascinating was his willingness to push himself out of his comfort zone and explore. R&B in Get Happy!!, his love for the Beatles and Tin Pan Alley crossed together for Imperial Bedroom, and even a failed experiment like Almost Blue is understandable - the same scholarly love for country music led him to record King of America. (A long album that's padded with a few clunkers, but I think a lot of that album may be the best stuff he's ever recorded.) I listen to those records and I hear someone who's able to submerge himself into these genres and learn how to find his voice organically within them. But that became less the case after he signed with Warner Bros. - I'm not too familiar with his process composing and recording classical music or jazz, but so much of his career from the past 30+ years feels like dilettanism. He clearly knows great music when he hears it - his Allen Toussaint collaboration works best as a tribute to Toussaint and even Lee Dorsey - but it's not necessarily music he's entirely suited for. I think someone made the point that until his recent burst of activity with the Imposters, he didn't record that many albums since 1989 that weren't collaborations or side projects of some kind (i.e. a record that had to be put out on a label like Deutsche Grammophon).

I'm sure I've said it elsewhere but most of his albums post All This Useless Beauty are, in fact, close to useless for me, until this most recent one, where it sounds like he remembered his strengths. at times it does sound pastiche ('turn the red rose blue' sounds an awful lot like 'town cryer', parts of the 'the difference' sound just like parts of 'sulky girl') but that shit works; lots of other things he's tried in the past 25 years just do not, IMO.

The four I like after he left Warner Bros. would be Painted from Memory (which took a while to grow on me...it sounds like it could've been Dusty Springfield's late career masterpiece had she sang it), When I Was Cruel (which could benefit from losing a few cuts), The Delivery Man and the new one (The Boy Named If), and except for that first one, they're basically the ones that fall within his comfort zone and generally weren't rushed or over-embellished.

In his defense, I think a lot of his albums following All This Useless Beauty have some good tracks on them - no way this would've happened, but had he released a series of EP's where he picked the four or five best songs from The River in Reverse, Momofuku, Secret, Profane, etc, National Ransom, Wise Up Ghost, the Look Now sessions and Hey Clockface (and spared us North, Il Sogno, etc.), I think he'd have a pretty consistent and enjoyable late career discography.

Painted from Memory is great, as are a handful of tracks on Cruel and Momofuku; I really can't get into the Delivery Man, or Secret, Profane, Sugarcane and National Ransom albums (which are like the same album to me, and seem to be trying to do a King of America thing again, but failing). I went back to Momofuku after liking this most recent one so much and I can see good things in it, but it doesn't stick in my memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR0unhJZ46A

The new one's good, all.

Dig the Swap Shop video. Could that Armed Forces art style in the background (pastel geometric shapes and squiggles) be one of the first instances of that very specific 1980s design style?

Agree that “useless” was his last great record - I like “painted” but don’t enjoy his singing style on it.

Those plastic upper-torso models are featured in the Armed Forces album artwork, I wonder if they also made up part of a stage set, or something.

When I Was Cruel was so close to being amazing but he allowed all this mid-paced filler to stay making the album drag on for well over an hour FFS Elvis

The Boy Named If is brill though. An improved take on Momofuku

xp Yup. It's basically a double LP at 63 minutes across 16 tracks. He definitely had at least 40 minutes of top-shelf material in there, he just needed to cut like four songs.

Finally picked up the vinyl and checked the liner notes, am Surprised to see that everyone basically recorded their parts separately in different studios. covid I assume; but it’s as cohesive sounding an album as he’s ever made.

I’m not sure what distinguishes the new one from the other Imposters records but I like “Trick Out The Truth” a lot.

Complete details about the upcoming box set, The Songs of Bacharach & Costello.

I've grown to like this album quite a bit, but the projects inspired by it are a mixed bag. Having good jazz artists re-interpret this material isn't a bad idea, but I can't say I'm thrilled by the idea of a stage musical written by Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre or a stage musical adaptation of Austin Powers, neither of which appears to have happened (yet).

I’m not sure what distinguishes the new one from the other Imposters records

the songwriting is good this time

Generally akm is correct - much late EC is pretty interchangeable. When I was Cruel was fine but I didn't need three of them.

Definitely don't need more Norths.

Given that we have all this output - from My Aim Is True to All This Useless Beauty - dayenu, that would be enough.

Painted from Memory is very good, but I don't need an expanded version of it

Yep. Got the idea, thanks. No disrespect to EC for doing what he feels like doing. I just don't need to follow every twist and turn anymore. I've gone a long way with this fellow since 1979, and frankly I'm plenty sated.

my read on the swap shop stage art is that it's a TV set designer lifting and deploying specific elements from the (very rich and dense) barney bubbles sleeve design for armed forces: BB's primary-colour jackson pollocks, the zebra-skin shape etc -- with the mannequins from this years model. i quickly googled to see if he ever did set design (my paul gorman barney bubbles book is packed away in a box at the moment) and the answer is yes he certainly did, so it might simply be him? except i don't feel that ensemble of zigzags and scribbles etc (tho certainly they're stuff he worked with)* have anything like BB's spatial dynamism?

*mostly with artists other than costello tho (like in the cartoon kandinsky's he did for the damned or whoever)

his late 70s work is one root of the pop TV background style that chuck is talking about, keith haring's early 80s street art is probably another -- and that vivid neon hypercolour is a very new wave signifier

Uploaded fairly recently, audience recording of Elvis and the Attractions from The Beverly Theatre in Beverly Hills, California on October 1, 1986. "First-generation cassette transfer"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HotBDR3pU-g

Great show, and they do "Love Field" so well, it even sounds great - too bad they didn't another crack at recording those songs, but I guess that would've been a costly luxury.

("those songs" meaning the ones from Goodbye Cruel World)

Switch off the news and watch Paul McCartney effortlessly playing an astonishing bass line, while goofing around to make @ElvisCostello laugh pic.twitter.com/UUPhmsbnCo

— EggPod 🍏 (@IAmTheEggPod) March 3, 2023

marvellous to hear EC sing 'my brave face' in the original sessions.

Aw. Such a corny-ass goofball but he really is an astonishingly complete musician.

Whenever I see Paul doing astonishing things on the bass I think of what Lennon said: "Paul was one of the most innovative bass players ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period. He is an egomaniac about everything else about himself, but his bass playing he was always a bit coy about."

Truth. Lots of people play bass as root, or root/five. Or they play an arpeggio.

Paul often played counter-melodies, which is next-level shit.

That it looks so effortless and that he was so coy about it (to me) suggests he didn't think about it much. My suspicion is that those lines were just what he came up with instinctually, without knowing how astonishing they were and are.

In those days, no guitarist really wanted to play bass; it was just like "well, we can't have three guitarists." That he accepted his role reluctantly - but innovated in that role - remains one of the great stories of music.

McCartney's bass playing alone is pretty ingenious. Obviously he can play everything at least pretty well, but as a bassist he was revelatory. Kind of telling that he was frequently tapped to play the weirdest Beatles guitar solos, too, like Taxman and iirc Hey Bulldog.

hey, even Harrison liked Paul's "Taxman" solo.

"He put in a little Indian bit for me," he said.

Whenever I am among highly trained musicians (which is frequently) I try to remember that Paul and Elvis are both decenty good advertisements for not being formally trained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JOjdaIRfFQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYQQQQRZY-g

That OGWT video is grebt, thanks.

Costello's current US tour includes guitarist Charlie Sexton playing with his band. They were in Baltimore last night with Nick Lowe opening and I couldn't make it. I have not been wowed by Sexton's blues-roots-rock and whatever with Dylan or others or on his own, anybody else think he has added something good to Costello's sound when he 's with him? Maybe I am wrong and should give him a chance . I see he's played with Costello on and off since 2021

Wow, not even on Love & Theft?

yeah, i saw Nick open for EC last month in Reno and was wowed by Charlie. He's just such a professiona and seems to elevate bands he plays in but i don't really know how to express any better in writing. there was one Dead-like jam they did, can't remember what song it was, but the interplay b/w the guitarists (EC and CS) seemed organic and it went places. Was my first time seeing him, but Elvis seemed in great spirits and had good banter. Told a story about pulling in to Reno that morning at 5am and seeing "the saddest clown you can imagine" on the street. Then proceeded to play a song about sad clown that he said he wrote that morning. It was great!

I've never seen his father interviewed before (and this is the first clip I've seen of him outside of that performance film that's been shown quite often).

Ross McManus, EC's father, talks about how the singer got his stage name. pic.twitter.com/mji6ddBrNm

— Elvis Costello (@ElvisCostello) October 19, 2023

It's very sweet to see him have that connection with his father. I feel like so many of the musicians I listen to most don't have any musical connection with their parents or worse. (At least in rock music - it's a different story with other types of music, but I think it's far more common in rock due to the generational divide that's much more prevalent within different eras whether it was at the beginning of rock or later with the counterculture and then punk and then the '80s underground/'90s alternative rock, etc.)

well, there's Paul McCartney, whose mom died but whose dad in part shared his musical knowledge.

Yeah, I didn't mention him but he was the first to come to mind as another example.

Bonnie Raitt's another (and FWIW, her father's great in The Pajama Game, a great, under appreciated film musical). But when I try to think of more examples, I usually go past many others like John Lennon or Kurt Cobain who had terrible relationships with a parent and found music as an escape, in some cases a path said parent might vehemently oppose (Springsteen).

Several years ago, Bruce Thomas did an interview where he said he and Elvis were actually on good terms ("I just talked to him" etc.) and for a split second, I thought, "hey, maybe they'll do at least a one-off reunion with the Attractions someday." That was also before I stumbled on to Bruce Thomas's social media account, where it turns out he has gone off the deep end with far-right conspiracy nuttery, so I guess I missed my chance of ever seeing the original quartet playing together.

which accounts? his instagram appears to be almost 100% boxing posts, manh of them the same fucking post over and over, which makes me think he might have some cognitive issue

I semi-randomly spent a little time with Ron Sexsmith last summer, and he was telling me about being on tour with EC & the Attractions in Japan when Elvis fired Bruce. He said from his perspective they looked like they were getting along and being friendly, but in retrospect it was just EC politely telling Bruce good luck and be on your way. I guess Bruce's playing had been erratic and he insisted someone had spike his drink?

Anyway, looks like Thomas literally wrote/self-published (?) a book about conspiracy theories:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/619+JEwAeaL._SL1293_.jpg

It’s no coincidence that anyone who begins to take responsibility for their own life is suddenly called ‘a conspiracy theorist.’ The term itself was invented by the CIA to dismiss and ridicule ‘tin-foil hat wearers’ questioning the official narrative of world history or current events.

This book exists to follow trails that’ve been obscured, questions that were never answered, and stories quietly rewritten.

It not for those who think that parroting mainstream narratives or Wikipedia’s ‘pseudo-history’ makes them enlightened. And if you only read to find a reason to troll, or play the ‘debunking’ hero, then you’re missing the point.

The stories presented by governments and the mainstream media are rarely true or complete — just daily examples of hidden agendas and collusion, engineered crises, and the censoring of any information that threatens established power.

Stories are prepared and outcomes arranged long before they reach our eyes and ears. Those who attempt to look behind them are mocked and excluded — or, in extreme cases, killed.

The subjects that follow may appear random, but in reality, they are pieces of a bigger picture. Whether it’s music, entertainment, royalty, medicine, politics, or whatever, you’ll find a common link. Everything is shaped, filtered, and managed. The details change, but the intention never does.

Conspiracy theories aren’t suppressed because they’re nonsense, but because they hold a great deal of truth. There’s a well-known saying that the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is only a few years. The ideas sneered at the most are usually the same ones that are later confirmed, quietly, and without apologies.

The truth will never be fully known. But there’s a need for scepticism as much as there’s a need for answers. Whether you believe any of these theories or not, they highlight the importance of critical thinking.

You don’t have to accept every idea in this book, but being willing to explore them sets you apart from the herd as someone who considers things for yourself — and you can congratulate yourself that at least you didn’t swallow a trillion dollars’ worth of propaganda.

And yes, it's that Bruce Thomas:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bQJyW0FIL.jpg

oh he thinks he knows Bruce Lee does he

How to be Dumb indeed

How many Paul McCartneys are there?!

the one who's alive and the one who's not

xp buy his book to learn the shocking secret!

Thomas wrote... five books about Bruce Lee? Okay, then.

Lol WmC

tbh I used to side with Bruce Thomas on this beef but he just seems to get weirder and weirder

xps I was going to say Facebook but Josh’s post covers it. You’d have to go back months to see hints of it dropped, but I didn’t pay attention until I saw his book on “McCartney”.

48 years and 5 days later i remain unreasonably annoyed by the fan at the el mocambo who kept yelling the high-pitched WOOOOOO

hope that wasn't you, clemenza

lol

xpost is that the same noisy git that's on the "Sid Sings" version of "I'm not your Stepping Stone", and Television "Little Johnny Jewel" the live version on the 12" ?

Because those are only the ones I recognise on disc, he must have done that on every NY gig ever!

El Mocambo was in Toronto iirc

^

Man travels!

(or maybe it's a different guy / noise)

(i don't want to go to) chemtrails

since I cannot imagine reading it does he promote any gyre at conspiracy takes? maybe he just born to podcast

lol autocrekt “great” not gyre

gimbles in the wade