name your favorite elvis costello imitator

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I'll kick it off: Donnie Iris.

― mike a, Monday, 8 November 2004 19:06 (twenty years ago)

Joe Jackson for me

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:09 (twenty years ago)

(note I'm referring to the early EC - in the wake of This Year's Model/My Aim Is True, there were suddenly dozens of literate nerdy songwriters in thick glasses)

Graham Parker

― mike a, Monday, 8 November 2004 19:10 (twenty years ago)

but graham parker pre-dates elvis.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago)

the guy from the jags.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:12 (twenty years ago)

Life, Sex & Death vs Platinum Blonde

― dave q, Monday, 8 November 2004 19:17 (twenty years ago)

Fastball!

― Huk-L, Monday, 8 November 2004 19:18 (twenty years ago)

yeah fcc - the jags are great

― peter smith (plsmith), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:19 (twenty years ago)

ted leo

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:20 (twenty years ago)

Buddy Holly.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:22 (twenty years ago)

Clive Gregson circa the first Any Trouble album.

Are the Jags worth exploring? I've only ever heard "Back of My Hand," but I'm a sucker for obscure new wave power pop.

― mike a, Monday, 8 November 2004 19:29 (twenty years ago)

Joe Jackson seconded.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 8 November 2004 19:50 (twenty years ago)

Ron Sexsmith

― briania (briania), Monday, 8 November 2004 20:00 (twenty years ago)

Marshall Crenshaw!

― Salmon Pink (Salmon Pink), Monday, 8 November 2004 22:42 (twenty years ago)

Hot Hot Heat at times.

― Asthmatic Cajun (Asthmatic Cajun), Monday, 8 November 2004 23:05 (twenty years ago)

Jenny Toomey.

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 8 November 2004 23:05 (twenty years ago)

http://www.wrench.f9.co.uk/elsie/images/Natasha.jpg

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 8 November 2004 23:18 (twenty years ago)

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 8 November 2004 23:24 (twenty years ago)

Marshall Crenshaw

― Dave Gutowski (largeheartedboy), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 03:04 (twenty years ago)

I like El Vez Costello, the Mexican Elvis Costello.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 05:02 (twenty years ago)

People always say I look like him, which I find annoying - it's only because I wear specs. Having said this (this is true, I promise), an old friend once approached him and started chatting thinking he was me!

― Jez (Jez), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 13:26 (twenty years ago)

Brains from Thunderbirds

― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 13:34 (twenty years ago)

Oh, what was I thinking? Aimee Mann!

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 13:56 (twenty years ago)

bingo! Aimee Mann seconded.
least favorite EC imitator-- John Wesley Harding

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 14:04 (twenty years ago)

Was the guy in the Sports (the one who sang "Who Listens to the Radio") an Elvis Costello imitator, or merely an imitator of Joe Jackson imitatating Elvis Costello. If the latter, then he deserves to be mentioned. Though I guess, yeah, Joe Jackson (on his first two albums) still wins. Unless Graham Parker, who actually came before Elvis, does. The Jags' "Back of My Hand" I remember as being wonderful, but have never heard anything else by them. I'm pretty sure Billy Falcoln put out a really good Elvis C imiation album once (around 1979), too. I completely forget what Jo Jo Zep and the Falcolns sound like, or if they even belong on this thread, however.

(Donnie Iris, who put out a couple good albums and used to be in the Jaggerz [in which he had a hit called "The Rapper" which had nothing to do with rap music] not the Jags, never reminded me of Elvis Costello, despite his glasses. In fact I would say that *Glass Houses,* the Billy Joel album with "Doing it All for Lena" I think it was called on it, was more Costello-esque (see: "Sometimes a Fantasy," "Sleeping With the Television On," etc) than the Donnie Iris album with "Ah! Leah" on it, even though the two songs are easily confused. And the Linda Ronstadt album with all those Elvis C covers on it - *Mad Love* - is way way way more Costello-esque than anything that bore Aimme Mann has ever done. She was less boring when she was in Til Tuesday, I guess, but I don't think that stuff counts.)

In fact, as turn of the '80s Pittsburgh new wavers go, I would also have to say that Joe Gruschecky of the Iron City Houserockers reminded me more of Elvis C than Donnie Iris ever did. But as rustbelt Springsteen imitators go, actually, those real early John Cougar albums come to think of it had LOTS of great Costello ripoffs.

So come to think of it, Johnny Cougar wins! No fucking contest.
(And don't even mention Marshall Crenshaw, okay? That'd just be dumb.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:04 (twenty years ago)

huey lewis!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:06 (twenty years ago)

(For John Cougar, start with his "Radio Radio" rewrite {"Cheap Shot") and his "Miracle Man" rewrite ("Don't Misunderstand Me") and his "Mystery Dance" rewrite ("Ain't Even Done With the Night") if you doubt me.)

xpost - and yeah, I like Huey's new wave period, too.

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:09 (twenty years ago)

Actually I wrote that long incoherent spiel (which has lots of mistakes in it) before reading the rest of the thread and noting that many of those people had already been nominated, whoops. As for Graham Parker, though, it should be noted that, inasmuch as he became more Costello-like AFTER Elvis came around (see: *Squeezing Out Sparks*) he probably counts despite the chronological weirndess. (And I hadn't thought of the Any Trouble guy; that's a good one. What did the Mental As Anything guy sound like, though? I always got those two bands mixed up.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:14 (twenty years ago)

well, John Hiatt sounds like him.

Marshall Crenshaw--I don't get that at all. For one thing, he's about ten times as good as Elvis Costello. Better songwriter, singer and guitarist, and smarter to boot.

As I recall, Chuck, Mental as Anything sounded like Brinsley Schwarz or someone like that...

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:15 (twenty years ago)

I wonder if Costello lived to regret his unkind statements about Ronstadt's covers (somthing like "She doesn't even understand what the song's about."). He was biting the hand that fed him in those days.

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:20 (twenty years ago)

Kanye West

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:23 (twenty years ago)

Hell, if Kanye counts, I pick Axl Rose, then.

But yeah, I forgot Hiatt. (Same rule as Parker: He preceded Elvis but got more Elvis-like after Elvis came around; fun new wavey LPs in the late '70s and early '80s {though GP didn't do jackshit after '79 I think -- well, there was that one "Wake Up" soul-ish single hit or whatever I guess), after which he turned into a boring old coot. Which makes perfect sense seeing how Elvis did the exact same thing!)

Crenshaw just polite anal-compulsive powerpop prisssiness in my book, though (but Eddie and I differ on the Big Star question, so maybe that goes without saying.) I'll take pub rock over powerpop anyday.

I *really* am missing my Ducks Deluxe album right now, damn...

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:24 (twenty years ago)

(Metal Mike Saunders would probably nominate Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, by the way, but I don't know if I agree with that.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:27 (twenty years ago)

yeah, Chuck, I read the book my pal Yuval Taylor did on you a while back, "Accidental Evolution." I mean tell me why you don't like Big Star? Sure, they've been co-opted by power-pop geeks everywhere. Me, I basically like the '60s stuff like the Easybeats and the Move, Big Star, some Raspberries tunes, early Cheap Trick, and the dBs. And the first 2 Crenshaw albums. But the Shoes and all those guys, Teenaged Fanclub, I don't like as much. Anyway, Big Star: because they don't "rock hard enough" or something? I'd like to know...

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:29 (twenty years ago)

no to marshall crenshaw simply because he had nothing whatsoever in common with elvis costello EXCEPT for those glasses. oh, and they both liked old soul records. but whether you like him or not, and i sort of do like him, but don't love him, he wasn't an elvis imitator.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:34 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, "don't rock hard enough" has a lot to do with it, Eddie. I like "Septemeber Girls" okay, but they were TOTALLY responsible for the "powerpop does not have to have any power in it" rule, which is one of the worst rules in the history of music. Why anybody would have taken them over the Raspberries or the Sweet (much less Slade, who had more power and pop than just about anybody) has never made any sense to me. But then again, I'll take pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys over Pet Sounds-and-later Beach Boys any day of the week, not to mention the Knack over the Shoes. So there you go. (The Pop, 20/20, the Beat, and the Records all had their moments, however; I admit it. And I have never had anything against Nick Lowe's first two albums.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:35 (twenty years ago)

glass houses era billy joel is a great call.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:35 (twenty years ago)

never understood the dBs at all. And always thought the first and third Cheap Trick albums were way better than the second one. Etc.

(best powerpop band of the '80s: probably .38 Special, no shit.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:38 (twenty years ago)

well, yeah Chuck. But the whole point of power-pop is subtlety, in my estimation. The name itself, power-pop, is kind of stupid. That style comes from yeah, the Beatles, but also from the Everly Brothers' mid-'60s Warner Bros. recordings like "I'll See Your Light" and so forth. And the Left Banke. I never followed that Bomp! magazine line of power-pop coming from the Who, actually. It's pop music and it's supposed to be light, not heavy. The Sweet really isn't power-pop; the Raspberries were good, real good at their best. Slade? The Knack? The musical values just aren't the same, and I don't care if it's rock and roll or not myself anyway--power-pop at its best is quasi-rock. Sure, the early Beach Boys stuff has more energy than what came after, and "Pet Sounds" has been Canonized into the dirt. But I sure like "Wild Honey" and "Love You" as much as anything they did pre-'66. And again, what fucked up Brian Wilson was being a rock and roll musician, which he really wasn't, so his precious tone poems and so forth I look at without worrying about whether or not they conform to some idea of what rock is and isn't. And obviously, I can't abide heavy metal for the most part. I don't buy into the notion that rock and roll needs to advance or co-opt other forms to legitimize it, but I don't see how playing it and being somewhat more subtle about it are in any way opposing values.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 18:53 (twenty years ago)

I guess the thing is, Eddie, the whole (if not only?) point of this kinda stuff is that it's supposed to be catchy catchy catchy (right?), and for me anyway, depleting it of energy and turning its melodies more amorphous and its lyrics into acrostic puzzles (all of which Big Star and their descendents clearly do) almost inevitably makes it *less* catchy. Which kinda defeats its raison d'etre! (I do like "Walk Away Renee," though. Never had any use for the Left Banke beyond that one. Actually, to be honest, I totally forget what they even sounded like. By the way, did anybody else notice W's asshole frog-baiting "far left bank" joke about Kerry's supposed political leanings in the third debate? I don't think anybody mentioned it later, but it actually made me chuckle at the time, I have to admit.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 19:19 (twenty years ago)

Plus I guess I just am not a huge fan of "precious tone poems." (Best recent album with a version of "Heroes and Villians" on it, if anybody really wonders, is the Rubinoos' *Crimes Against Music.*)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 19:22 (twenty years ago)

or okay, maybe i just like my precious tone poems with heavy metal attached, more likely. (or droned in german accents.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 19:28 (twenty years ago)

Pwecious Doan Poems.

So, Dubya was calling Kerry a Pretty Ballerina then?

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 19:36 (twenty years ago)

How about a young Estonian guy? Look and voice is exact the same, attitude maybe very much.
www.ewertsundja.com

― Margus Kiis, estonian rock critic (Margus Kiis, estonian rock cri), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 09:51 (twenty years ago)

Jarvis Cocker

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 09:54 (twenty years ago)

How about this young Estonian guy?
http://www.ewertsundja.com/

― Margus Kiis, estonian rock critic (Margus Kiis, estonian rock cri), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 10:17 (twenty years ago)

Graham Parker and Nick Lowe would have been the most obvious answers here, hadn't it been for the fact that both predated Elvis...

Marshall Crenshaw may looks like Elvis Costello, but sounds nothing like him musically. The only thing they have in common is strong tunes.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 21:28 (twenty years ago)

Elvis Costello — his last several records anyway

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 21:51 (twenty years ago)

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