Il Sogno - Coming in Sept.
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EC 2002 Journal available online
Remember that Journal Elvis had on the Island site in 2002? Sour Milk Cow on the Costello Fan Forum posted them online.
ELVIS COSTELLO JOURNAL ENTRIES
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FULL TEXT - BY ELVIS COSTELLO
Sunday, May 5, 2002 This is the first in a series of occasional dispatches about my recent adventures. I can’t promise to be a constant or reliable correspondent, in the sense of writing at regular daily or weekly intervals, but when I do get time to write I hope to offer the occasional report that you won’t read in the newspapers.
The week prior to the release of “When I was Cruel” was not a typical seven days in my life. I was rehearsing with my new beat group, “The Imposters” in the evening. This is the same band that plays on the album. The Imposters are Pete Thomas on drums, Steve Nieve on keyboards and Davey Faragher on bass. We are about to start a world tour that lasts from our first show in Portland, Oregon on May 18th to early November – taking in the U.S., Japan, Australia, Finland and Liverpool. Watch this space for further announcements.
We are currently hard at work adding to our repertoire of cuts from the new record with a variety of tunes recorded in the last twenty-five years. While we are still going to perform many better known titles, if you attend one of our concerts this summer, you are likely to hear one or two songs that have rarely been performed on stage until now. Needless to say, while three of us have played together many times, all of these songs are new to Davey and he has been encouraging us to consider tunes that I had long forgotten about.
Because of Pete and Steve’s involvement, some folk have been quick to point out that this group resembles The Attractions – a band that really broke up in 1986, despite a couple of attempts to work together a few years back. However, I tend to live in the present time and after careful consideration of several identities, including, “The Popular Trend” and “The Lovely Hooligans”, we settled for Pete’s suggestion: “The Imposters”, a suitably preposterous name.
Meanwhile, back in the week leading up to the release, I was attending sessions during the daytime at Abbey Road Studios where the Michael Tilson Thomas was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra for a recording of “Il Sogno” – my first full-length orchestral score. This was written in 2000 for the Italian dance company Aterballeto’s adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. It is hard to schedule something like this, so it was worth working day and night to get the recording done and rehearse at the same time. “Il Sogno” is due to be issued by Deutsche Grammophon in early 2003 together with some new songs that I am currently working on.
“Il Sogno” is entirely instrumental and contains plenty of drama and humour and some good tunes. It has been edited considerably from the version used at the Teatro Communale, Bologna premiere in November 2000. I’ve also re-orchestrated and re-composed some sections to make it work better as a purely instrumental piece.
John Harle is the featured soloist on soprano saxophone for a cue entitled “Tormentress”, while the great American drummer, Peter Erskine, joined the sessions and really got the symphony orchestra swinging on five or six of the titles.
Michael Tilson Thomas is one of the world’s finest conductors. He is also a player, composer and teacher and has been very generous with his advice about the interpretation of the music. Writing music down on the page is something that I only learned how to do about nine years ago. However, it is only a code to get your ideas across – as screaming, shouting and banging an instrument, my usual method, just doesn’t make it when you have seventy musicians in the room. M.T.T. did actually suggest it a couple of times but that was just so the orchestra could understand what was intended beyond the written dots. The members of the L.S.O. played very beautifully and gave so much of care and attention to the music.
It has become a fashionable posture to hold that if pop musician composes music for classical players then it must be the product of vain or deluded ambition, simply a way of being taken more seriously. I have to say that this makes me laugh as I have always been taken far more seriously than I could possibly deserve.
This score was written at the request of a very remarkable choreographer, Mauro Bigonzetti. You might think it an odd idea to take a play by Shakespeare and abandon the one thing for which it is most famous: the words but I’ve taken things a stage further and “abandoned” the dancing as well – at least for the purposes of this recording. However, the music is closely related to the narrative and the ideas found in the original play.
It was a unique experience for me to sit in a theatre, the lights to go down and for action to occur on stage that was being moved along by music that I have imagined and written down with a pencil. It was no less remarkable to hear this music performed in the giant space of Studio One. I hope that you give it a listen when the time comes for it to be released.
At the final session, we completed the last cue with thirty seconds to spare before several of the players had to leave for an evening concert. I had my own appointment that night with The Imposters and a dress rehearsal before our first show in the Paradiso, a club in Amsterdam. Right now I feel like playing what I can only describe as “beat music”. Some other time, I might feel differently.
In the last two weeks we have played four clubs shows to introduce, up close, both the new group and the songs from “When I was cruel”. We had pretty good nights in Amsterdam, London, New York and Chicago, finding which old songs best compliment the new tunes and where they should appear in the show. We are already discovering very different ways to play some of the songs from the new record. It has been great to hear that Davey gets plenty of applause when I announce him – even among people who might still be a little sentimental about my old band.
It was happy to see and meet so many people at the recent record store appearances. I’ve made a couple of these using the home set-up of beat-boxes and distortion devices on which I wrote most of the songs on “When I was cruel”. I want to send thanks all those concerned at the shops for making us welcome and also to those who brought gifts, smart remarks or just your beautiful selves.
Some readers may know that I occasionally appear John Kelly’s radio show, “Mystery Train” which is broadcast here in Ireland on R.T.E. and is available over the internet. John is kind enough to let me take over for a couple of hours now and again and play pretty much whatever I want, as the name of the show suggests. The good folks at W.X.R.T. in Chicago let me do something similar during my recent visit. They allowed me to raid the record library and even found me an excellent Muddy Waters collection on vinyl which sounded just as good as you’d expect it would. I think it should be the law that every radio station has to have this record.
On a visit to W.F.U.V. in the Bronx, I got to play a Jimmy Martin bluegrass record and the title track of one of the two new superb Tom Waits albums, “Alice”. I also stopped in at Y-100 on my way into Philly spun a couple of tracks from “When I was cruel” and later that night did my 21st. Century One-Man-Band thing at “The World Café” on W.X.P.N.
On May Day, I added to the world of musical distortion live on X-FM in London, while at Virgin and on B.B.C. Radio 2, the acoustic guitar was my instrument of choice.
Last week we recorded a concert in the tiny radio theatre inside B.B.C. Broadcasting House – more usually associated with the light music of the 1930’s. This seemed to be in the mind of the person who previewed the broadcast for the “Radio Times” (the near equivalent of “T.V. Guide” for U.S. readers) – who quaintly suggested that this likely to be a “mellow” concert with “no earplugs required”. While we do not wish your ears any actual harm – I can assure you that this was an entirely mistaken assumption that I can only think was based on the evidence of my 1999 recording of “She”.
The television appearances introducing “When I was Cruel” began with a performance and interview on the “Jonathan Ross Show” on B.B.C. One. As the members of The Imposters were fulfilling their previous engagements, I was accompanied on this occasion by a splendid Merseyside band, “Amsterdam” - augmented by a great new Liverpool singer called Steven Kennedy. Steven sings harmony on “45” and “My Little Blue Window”. For this take on “Tear off your own head (It’s a Doll Revolution)”, Steven was joined in the vocal group by Amsterdam’s Genevieve Mort - while main songwriter, Ian Prowse, lead the band in a storming version of a tune that they had only just learned that afternoon.
You can find out more about Amsterdam and their two albums, “Attitunes” and “Live, Left an Covered” at: www.amsterdam-music.com
Look out for a new record from them soon that includes the incredible “Glorious Day”.
You can read about Steven Kennedy and his new record, “Control Freak” at: www.blacksheep.ukcool.com
I make an appearance on “Control Freak”, singing vocal harmony on an acoustic version of the Steven’s song, “Autopilot”.
Over in New York, we played outside at C.B.S. Plaza on 5th Ave for the “Early Show” to a crowd of about 600 and a number of people hanging out of the windows of surrounding office buildings. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get arrested as we had hoped.
I also made my twelfth appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman” – which I understand has me in a tie with Bonnie Raitt just behind, the record holder, Willie Nelson. I don’t mind that kind of company. However, I think we can safely lay claim to the “most appearances with different bands (in different cities)” title, having played the show; solo and with The Attractions, Deborah Harry and the Jazz Passengers, Burt Bacharach and a string section, Anne Sofie von Otter and Her Sons of Sweden, The Fairfield Four and with Toshi Reagon and Big Lovely – as well as appearing when the show was “on the road” in San Francisco, L.A. and in London, on a night where both Chuck Berry and Little Richard were sitting in with the house band while I had guitarists, Marc Ribot and James Burton augmenting The Attractions.
After Pete tried to demolish his drum-kit during “Doll Revolution” on this occasion, I had a pleasant chat with Dave about my recent excursion to the Grammys - by the way, B.B.C. viewers who think I have taken up a career as a roving reporter might be amused to know that my “appearance” with Ms. Holden was entirely a creation of the editing suite.
These award shows are like a trip to the funfair – make yourself sick or win a teddy bear but don’t take them too seriously. It is my chance to meet some of the people who I dig, like Beyoncé Knowles and to see great men like Tony Bennett and Dr. Ralph Stanley, whose version of “Oh Death” was worth the journey alone. Only the last of these things had anything much do with real life, although I didn’t exactly have the worst company in the world in my real life co-presenters, Gwen Stefani and Diana Krall.
Our most recent performance for television was on the B.B.C.’s “Later with Jools Holland”. It was a particularly good edition of the show with a beautiful solo performance by the great Malian singer, Salif Keita and two fine young bands, one of which was a very droll bunch from Sweden. However, the star of the evening was undoubtedly Mary J. Blige. She and her superb band opened up the show with a phenomenally intense version of “Family Affair”. It should have been almost impossible to follow, particularly for the very young crowd of people jammed in between her stage and ours. I should explain, for those who have never seen it, the show is recorded in a circular fashion with all the performers present throughout the broadcast. However, these folk initially only had eyes and ears for Mary J.
Then a strange thing happened. During out second number, I noticed that Mary J., her singers and band were starting to groove on the Mina sample that drives “When I was cruel No.2”. Needless to say this was not lost on her fan club and by the our fourth number, Mary J. was leading her gals in some pretty fancy dancing which was doing us absolutely no harm at all in eyes of “her” audience. So, me and The Imposters want to send out our love and respect to Mary J. and her team for showing people how to let go of their feelings – not only is she wonderful singer but she can cut a rug like no-one else.
Before I close, a few more details regarding things that I’ve been asked about recently.
You may still be able to catch a re-run of the “Crossroads” concert special with Lucinda Williams on C.M.T. Lu and her band were just great to play with and it was a joy to sing on her songs “Blue”, “Drunken Angel” and “Changed the Locks” as well as harmonising on “Indoor Fireworks” and “Wild Horses”. If your T.V. station doesn’t show “Crossroads”, then write to them and tell to spend some of that money they waste on game shows.
The U.C.L.A. “Artist-in-Residency” season continues, despite press reports to the contrary. The next date is with The Imposters at the Ackerman Ballroom on 28th May. It will be my first standing-only show in Los Angeles for nearly 25 years. So we get the job done properly, the subsequent appearances in the series are going to take place in early 2003, after the “When I was cruel” world tour.
The first events at U.C.L.A. took place on 20th September 2001 with two Royce Hall concerts together the Charles Mingus Orchestra. The repertoire included some of my songs arranged for the jazz orchestra and a number of Mingus compostions – six of which were performed with my new lyrics.
One of these pieces, “Invisible Lady” was later recorded in New York and can be heard on the new Mingus Big Band record on the Dreyfus label. The album is called “Tonight at Noon”, which is also the title of Sue Mingus’ great and moving memoir which has just been published by Pantheon.
To find out more about all things Mingus related, go to this site:
www.mingusmingusmingus.com
The most frequent question that I’m asked, after “When are you playing next in Billings, Montana?” and “How did you get your name?” is about my current listening choices. So, this is what is rattling the windows in the kitchen, shaking the doors in the car and engaging the senses in late evening.
• “Alice” and “Blood Money” – the two superb new albums from Tom Waits.
• “The Cold Vein” – Cannibal Ox – hip-hop beats and harsh poetic words. Plus the “El-P presents Cannibal Oxtrumentals” version of the same album.
• “Mumu” – Steve Nieve’s lovely solo album of songs on the Silvertone label. Available from French Amazon or the FNAC sites, if you know a little French.
• “Buddy and Julie Miller” – “Little Darlin” is my favourite cut on this one.
• The “Ethiopiques” Series – cannot recommend these highly enough. There are currently eleven volumes available of a projected fifteen record series. My personal favourites are Volume 4 – the “Ethio-Jazz” of Mulatu Astatqé, Volume 9 – featuring the funk recordings of Alemayehu Esheté and Volume 10 – “Ethiopian Blues and Ballads”.
• “Sun is us” – Deidre Rodman. Unique jazz ensemble compositions from a pianist that I first encountered while performing in Roy Nathanson’s “Fire at Keaton’s Bar and Grill”.
• “Dickie Freeman and the Bluebloods” – a solo album by the mighty bass voice of the Fairfield Four.
• “Hava Narghile (Turkish Rock Music – 1966 to 1975)” – Sounds like two Yardbirds records playing half a bar out of synch with each other. Unbeatable.
• “Houndog” – Mike Halby and David Hildago’s slow groove blue masterpiece.
• “Don’t give up on me” – Solomon Burke – Anti’s upcoming record from the King of Rock ’n Soul, produced by Joe Henry and featuring songs by Joe, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Dan Penn and Nick Lowe. My wife, Cait and I also have a song on the record called “The Judgement”. Dr. Burke sings it even better than I could have imagined. Don’t miss this one when it arrives.
To read more about this album go to this address:
http://www.fatpossum.com/burke.html
This dispatch has gone on a little longer that I expected but I wanted to kick things off in style. More concert dates will be announced shortly on this site. I’ll be writing again once we get on tour.
Bye for now. E.C.
Sunday, May 19, 2002 It was a gloriously clear day as we drove down to Portland yesterday. There was a spectacular view of Mount Rainer as we left Seattle, where we have been rehearsing for the last week. As we approached the Oregon border we saw Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood with equal clarity. I’m told we were lucky to see all three so clearly on one day.
We open our tour here this evening at the Roseland before returning to Seattle for a show at the Paramount Theatre. For the Europeans in our party, the mild, vaporous climate of the North West is a gentle introduction to early summer in America.
I have been overwhelmed by the response to the “Ask Elvis” feature of this site and have got a kick out of reading your questions. I must thank you for so many compliments. It is obviously difficult to reply to every single enquiry individually and have time to play any shows but I thought that I would make some replies here to popular topics so people do not feel thwarted or slighted by not getting an answer right away.
Far and away the most common question is “Are you coming to…(insert your town here)?” It is great to know that there are people out there who want us to visit their neighbourhood but needless to say we do not have complete control over these matters. There may not be a suitable or available venue when we are passing through or your local promoter may simply be too cheap or hate my guts.
In future you can expect to see much more advance notice of upcoming shows (as well as of television and radio appearance that you may care to catch). I CAN say that the Japanese and Australian tours are now finalised and those dates will be posted shortly. The festival and concert dates in Europe and Scandinavia during August will be announced very shortly. I believe the Scottish tour starts in Glasgow on 5th September. The English tour starts in Newcastle the next day and ends the day before the Welsh tour begins. More precise information as soon as it is confirmed.
At lot of people have written in from towns in the U.S. to which I returned in 1999 after an interval of several years (and this means you all in St. Louis). I said I would come back and in most cases I hope that will be the case during a second American tour that is currently being booked for late September through to the first days of November. Whatever the news about your town, I hope you’ll hear about it here first.
The next most plentiful group of questions concerns possible collaborations. The door is also open and the phone is always connected to Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach and the Brodsky Quartet but these things will happen when they happen. The same certainly applies to all of those imaginative suggestions for my ideal co-writer. It is not as if I can invite myself into their life and work unannounced, nor would I wish to do so. Right now I am enjoying writing alone but keep the wild suggestions coming.
The final variety of question concerns the release of various albums and un-issued recordings from the vault. Many of these are about to be scheduled or under consideration for release by Rhino Records. Once again, advance notice will be posted on this site.
When it comes to enquiries regarding live recordings and the more loaded questions about downloadable material - the ugly matter of rights and ownership tends to make things a little more complicated.
There has been a vague plan to assemble a collection of live performances for a number of years. The truth is that many of the official recordings happen to be of the least memorable concerts. It was almost a standing joke between The Attractions and myself that if there was a mobile recorder outside the venue, the show was doomed. The concerts recorded when I was under contract to Warner Brothers are simply not mine to release without their agreement.
Nevertheless, there IS a considerable amount of decent material to be assembled one day, although it is difficult to imagine being able to judge the merits of nineteen versions of the same song at this distance. I am probably more attracted to the one-off event with special repertoire such as the album, “Deep Dead Blue” with Bill Frisell or the recent CMT special with Lucinda Williams. The future lies ahead.
If your eye should ever stray to the business pages you will no doubt read that the record business is in crisis. Let’s get this straight. The “record business” is in trouble, “music” is doing fine. People are full of apocalyptic predictions and generous advice as to how to separate a songwriter from the ownership of his compositions and recordings via the Internet.
Protecting your rights does not imply that you endorse the plunder of the known world by multi-national corporations. Just as some “righteous” independents and cyber-entrepreneurs turn out to be inefficient capitalists waiting for the day when they too can sell stock options. There are good and bad people all over.
It is lucky for us that we have the luxury of arguing about how we will hear the next song rather than how we will get our next meal - whether we buy it or steal it. The idea of people using the products of a major corporation – namely, a computer – to argue that all music should be “free”, strikes me as ludicrous.
There are many complications to presenting downloadable music is a coherent and accountable form (after all there are other musicians involved who have their “rights”). This does not mean that I do not have this option under review. Watch this space.
When I began making records, 8-tracks tapes were still in use and vinyl was the main medium, so I will not be surprised if I find my songs being issued in the form of a pill which we are all required to swallow before the time comes for me to leave this world.
It was good to see so many people at the appearance at the Easy Street store in Seattle – and I enjoyed playing D.J. at K.M.T.T., spinning some Buck Owens, Tom Waits, Solomon Burke and a couple of Imposter re-mixes. These tracks were also aired during the recording of a session with my beat boxes and fuzz tones earlier in the week at K.C.R.W. in Santa Monica. I believe that one can we heard on the ‘net.
Those who came to the recent record store events will know that I am more than happy to sign and meet with people for a couple of hours. I am equally glad to sign and talk at the stage door or backstage after the show. However, I find it necessary to make the following point clear as we hit the road. I make a clear distinction between these times and that which I need for myself.
It doesn’t come off as “enthusiastic” to find people hanging outside the hotel where we are staying or meeting the plane that we are arriving on. It comes off as intrusive and creepy. Genuine listeners may unknowingly get mixed up in this but I strongly suspect that most of items I am asked to sign in these locations are intended for e-bay. My refusal to sign a cheap guitar usually results in a sudden shift of demeanour to “who does he think he is?” Any workingman, woman or beast expects to be available at their place of work – they do NOT expect to find someone lurking on their doorstep unless they are a stalker, burglar or vacuum-cleaner salesman. The hotel is my house for the night. I am not on holiday.
So, let’s be humans abut this. Just a few people being pushy and stupid can really make me want to head for the hills. I apologise to the decent folks out there for even having to take up your time with this. If your intentions are genuine, please come to the show (or just to the stage door if you can’t get a ticket) and I will be happy to meet and do what I can. Either that or hail me as I pass YOUR place of work or pleasure.
So, that is all want to say about these matters. I don’t intend this part of site to become a debating society or, what I understand the young people call, a “chat room” – in the words of Errol Flynn, it is only “for fun and sport”.
You may get a kick out of the following site:
http://homepages.pavilion.co.uk/users/philthomas/biog2001.htm
The Story of Pete Thomas, drummer extraordinaire.
Bye for now. E.C.
Sunday, June 2, 2002 02/06/02
So the Pacific Coast section of the tour is over and we are about to depart for Denver and Mountain Standard Time.
It has been a great couple of weeks – we got quite a welcome up in the North West, opening the tour to a standing crowd in Portland before playing our first theatre show at the Paramount in Seattle. A big salute goes out to Peter Buck for joining us on Rickenbacker 12-String for an encore “(What’s so funny about) Peace, Love and Understanding?”
Next stop was the Bay Area – the first show was actually south of there at Saratoga in the kind of open air, mountain-top venue that is no doubt ideal on a warm summer evening but one that can be a little tough when the temperature is dropping into the 40s. After seven songs, I was looking at my fingers to see what chord I was playing but once people got to their feet, enough heat was generated to see us all through to the end of the night.
The Imposters and I build the show using different songs every evening. The sound of the hall, the mood of the day and the way my voice is feeling all have something to do with the choices. I frequently spend some little time writing the “perfect” set only to tear it up after five minutes on stage, as was the case in Saratoga.
The Berkeley show was the night when “Clowntime is over” re-appeared after fifteen years or more on the shelf. “You Little Fool” and “Tiny Steps” have also been included in these last days. The songs from “When I was Cruel” are great to play in concert and the arrangements and interpretations are changing constantly. There are still a couple of songs from the record that we have yet to perform on stage but their time will come.
Leaving San Francisco we took our first long road trip, travelling south, close enough Bakersfield to spy a sign for Buck Owens Boulevard and then across the Mojave Desert into Las Vegas. We stopped at a rest area, with Edwards Airforce Base off on the horizon, where tiny yellow birds were feeding on insects in the dry, hot air and ground squirrels sparred in the scrub. It was probably better not to investigate further as a notice warns that Sidewinders may be found coiled there at dusk.
I seriously doubt that there is a single theatrical set designer available in Hollywood as they must surely all be in Las Vegas designing casino facades. This was my second visit to the city for a concert, having once passed through the city out of curiosity in the early ‘80s. Those were the last days of the Old Vegas, well, if not the Vegas of Frank Sinatra then the Vegas of Hunter Thompson. Many of the original landmark institutions were still standing. I saw Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, playing at either ends of the strip in one evening. The enjoyment of strolling from block to block was something of a lottery back then – now you can walk for miles and never breathe the desert air but you can travel from Egypt to Camelot and from New York to Venice without leaving Nevada. You also have to consider that the members of the audience have passed up opportunities to see Britney Spears, The Marvelettes or several people who make large or wild things disappear.
Then we travelled to Reno – another remarkable desert drive, past a multitude of cacti and the pink painted palaces of sin – some rather joyless looking mobile homes set back from the highway. The sand must be troublesome. When the view did get less fascinating, I took the time to read through the questions that have been sent to the “Ask Elvis” feature of this site.
A few people have asked whether I read all the questions and how I select those to which I reply (and it is me answering, I assure you). I do read as many questions as time allows and try to respond to correspondents of all ages and nationalities. After all this is the “World Wide Web”. As the information about dates is available elsewhere it might not be possible to respond to every request to play your town or about that favourite song but keep the questions coming because it gives us the idea of where we should travel next and what people desire.
Once in a while there is a good question that is attached to such fulsome praise that it would be frankly immodest to re-print it along with my answer but I send my thanks for all those compliments. Needless to say, there are also a few cranky entries and crackpot theories out there but why should the site be different from anything else in this world?
At Reno we said farewell to American Hi-Fi, who had opened up all the shows since Seattle. They gave a good account of themselves every night and seemed to win over people who may not have heard them before. We wish them all the best on their travels and with their next record.
I closed my eyes for a few moments on the road out of Reno and when I awoke we were on a mountain pass with banks of ice and snow piled up by the side of the road and among the pines. We had climbed up to 9000 feet, passing still blue lakes and the evocatively titled, “Kit Carson Lodge”. Every bend in that road seemed to reveal a more spectacular landscape as we descended into California.
I understand that Calaveras County is famous for its giant jumping frogs and an association with the writings of Mark Twain. It is also a place where it still seems to be 1968 and this is not necessarily a bad thing. We were playing on a festival bill with Trey Anastasio, who I believe sometimes plays with a group called The Phish. I must confess that they have completely escaped my notice but he seemed a very decent fellow. We were required to play for a brief while in the early evening as the sun was descending. People seemed to like it best when we played one chord for a very long time. We were happy to oblige and then hit the road for Los Angeles.
The next show was part of my absurdly named “Artist-in-Residence” season at UCLA. Let’s get this straight. I am not living on the campus, neither am I teaching, just two of the misconceptions that this title seems to have inspired. The Ackerman Ballroom had all the charm and mystery that I recall from seeing Steppenwolf play at Liverpool University in 1971. It was a dark, airless shoe-box, so naturally it was perfect for our purposes. It was also briefly illuminated by the first of our opening acts, The Like. True to say that this teenage group contains Pete Thomas’ daughter Tennessee on drums and our pal Mitchell Froom’s daughter, Charlotte on bass and vocals but they more than deserved their place on the bill. The line-up is completed their companion, Z, on lead vocals and guitar and their songs have great charm and melodic invention. It was a big show for the gals and they did themselves proud and seemed to win new admirers.
The darker music of Autolux was also heard that evening and they continued with us to open the show in San Diego and the second Los Angeles concert - illuminated only by a striking arrangement of orange lightbulbs. They have one of the finest drummers around in Carla Azar. She helped me out last year playing drums on a demo version of “Daddy can I turn this?” Their music really reveals itself on repeated hearings and I have found myself turning a couple of their melodies over in my mind in the last few days.
The last show of the West Coast adventure was in the spectacular new Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. I resisted the constant temptation to announce each song with the phrase “…and the award goes to…” as it is best known as the home of the Oscars. Surprisingly, the management had a very relaxed view about people standing in the aisles – which is extremely uncommon in the fancier theatres. This and the great crowd of people contributed to probably the best atmosphere and our most enjoyable performance of the tour so far.
There was an old out-of-tune piano in the dressing room in San Diego and I started writing new melody on it. Hopefully, I’ll have time to work on the piece as we leave Denver for Minnesota. So, if you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m writing something else.
Bye for now. E.C.
Tuesday, June 25, 2002 22/06/02
It has been a while since I have written this journal. The distances between shows have been greater but the time for writing and reflection has been scant. I have been working on the liner notes of the next in the series of Rhino re-issues, including “Armed Forces”. It is curious to writing about a record from more nearly twenty-five years ago while bowling along exactly the same highways on which many of the songs were written. This is the first tour in a number of years during which I have been, literally, “on the road”. Ronnie, our driver makes safe and steady progress and the accommodations and features onboard are a great improvement on the old Silver Eagle that I purchased in the late 70’s and ran to a standstill on the narrow lanes of Europe.
Having said this, we actually left the West Coast for Denver by air and arrived in Colorado in time to make an appearance at a record shop. At best, these events give me a chance to create a club atmosphere in the store and
meet a few local people. Unfortunately, not every establishment can be adapted for performance and it is a thin line between low-key charm in which the evil conjurer reveals the working of the his trick and feeling like a
precocious performing child from the 18th Century perched on a table top.
Hopefully, nobody in attendance (or those who no doubt ran the event in good faith) was any the worse for my dismay but I resolved to only honour my next such engagement. In truth, my first responsibility is to those who have bought a concert ticket. It is fine to visit radio stations and make these appearances occasionally but there are other ways for people to learn of the existence of an album. The record company can always take out some advertisements.
I have visited Denver infrequently over the years being suspicious of high places that lie that far from the ocean. Our show at the Fillmore seemed to go well enough but we were in town too briefly to reach any further impression of the place other than that the streets of the city were
strangely deserted on the following morning. These must be hard working people.
On our way out to the airport we took a detour out to Boulder to visit to a radio station and I played a couple of songs on my newly acquired Gibson J-50 – replacing one of the guitars destroyed in the recent flood at our storage
facility in Dublin. The guitar sings very sweetly, I’m almost afraid to touch it as it surely contains a hatful of ballad melodies and I am enjoying playing rock and roll music again. The station had invited a number of listeners to lurk in the hallway listening on tiny speakers while I performed in a glass booth – an oddly impersonal compromise. That just about completed my perfect trip to Colorado. I came in like Mr. Waits’ “Table Top Joe” and
exited as a goldfish.
The next stop was Minneapolis, my favourite city between the coasts. The cooler weather and lake littered layout is good for the spirits. The Mississippi flows through a series of weirs and locks with more youthful force than the stately progress that one can observe at St. Louis, Memphis or New Orleans. We had enough time to make two visits to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, one of my favourite museums in the U.S. Almost every city contains riches but the one-day visitor has to be very selective in the larger collections. People familiar with the institutions of London would appreciate that a trip to the Minneapolis Institute is like seeing something of the National Gallery, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum all in one modest sized building.
I was particularly intrigued by the allegorical “King of Goats” engraving and the paintings of Max Beckman and James Ensor but the eye would also land on an exhibit of vintage telephones or Danish chairs on the way through the galleries. The lower rooms contained a spirit figure of wood and driven nails from the Congo more alarming than anything in horror cinema. Other objects echoed the themes of the superb exhibition of African art that we were lucky
enough to see in Seattle at the beginning of the tour. I will follow the example of Mr. Nieve, who includes links to places of interest in his internet journal and offer the following address if you should be heading up to the Twin Cities with time on your hands: http://www.artsmia.org/
Our cultural adventures were curtailed by the timing of my appearance in a record shop but on this occasion there was a small stage and I was able to perform at something like eye-level with those in attendance. I also played a small radio concert at an ideal recital room at Bobby Z’s studio at the edge of town. Then it was time for the concert at the great old Orpheum Theatre. The reaction of the audience was very strong although in truth, as is sometimes the case when you have high expectations of a show, I found it difficult to consistently find my voice that night.
Perhaps, this is why a member of the audience offered to assist by joining us out of the shadows during the encore of “I want you”. A plaintive cry or two had already interrupted to mood of the final verse so there seemed little point in ignoring the attempted duet. I invited the heckler down to see what would happen. Once the blonde and rather bewildered fellow appeared from the shadows and planted a kiss on my cheek, there was little else to do than return in kind and end the song on something of an unlikely comic note.
We now embarked on the longest road trip of the tour, driving out through the idyllic lakes and waterways of Minnesota and into the rural pastures of Wisconsin, including the apparent apparition of a herd of Bison. We also passed forests from which you might have expected the emergence of the occasional dinosaur. After crawling passed Chicago, we eventually stopped for dinner in Merriville, Indiana. We were happy to be a local curiosity and
amusement with our strange accents in return for the gracious welcome. A little further down the road into Michigan we stopped to get gas for the bus and stumbled into one of those rare truck-stops where all the CDs and
cassettes (and even a few DVDs) are weird cut-outs at the kind of prices that make you take a few gambles. I had spent several of the recent journeys catching up with movies that I’d missed over the last few years (“Wonder
Boys” and “Traffic” being among the favourites). To this we could now add a strange movie set in the 30s with Johnny Cash as a local sheriff bringing a local bigot and despot (played by Andy Griffith) to justice. I could always
imagine Big John in this kind of role.
The audio swag included a cassette copy of Neil Young’s “Harvest” (very welcome, at $5, as we had just been listening to “Old Man” on the “Wonder Boys” soundtrack), a great Blind Willie McTell compilation and “Super, Super
Blues Band”, a wild Chess session in which Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf try to outdo each other on a series of loose jams.
Music DVD’s get played pretty often during our journeys. The new edition of “The Last Waltz” makes very poignant viewing these days. The Attractions and I had what must have been bootleg VHS on our tour bus very soon after the
original release and we watched it until we knew every word of the interviews. Too many of the people involved have departed sooner than you would wish. I can barely watch the interview with Richard Manuel, he is almost transparent and the wildness that once seemed very attractive now seems
only fragile and tragic.
I am reminded of my love of these songs. Levon Helm’s singing and drumming on “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is a wonder but it is Rick Danko who stands out for me. His singing is superb on “It makes no difference” (a song that would surely be a “standard” without that weird rhyme about the “stampeding cattle” in the bridge) and there is an unnerving intensity about his performance of “Stagefright” and his verse of “The Weight”, a
performance that is also graced by the remarkable Mavis Staples. It is great to see Muddy Waters and Van Morrison in such rare form, so the lasting impression is a joyous one. I wish I could have seen the re-released film in a cinema during the recent theatre run.
Another beautiful release is “Down from the Mountain”, D.A. Pennebaker’s film of the Ryman Auditorium concert featuring music from the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. This film also has a melancholic edge as it contains the last performances of John Hartford. His laconic introductions
and beautiful singing and fiddle playing are more moving as he is clearly in the later stages of grave illness. After his passing, I was asked by the producers, T Bone Burnett and Joel and Ethan Coen, to M.C. the companion Carnegie Hall concert. I had the best seat in the house behind a lectern to the side of the stage, rising only to make a few impromptu remarks and introductions.
It was completely overwhelming to be just a few feet away from the supernatural Suzanne Cox as she floated her voice into the auditorium during “I am weary let me rest” with minimal amplification. However, when it came to Dr. Ralph Stanley’s terrifying solo rendition of “O Death”, there was
nothing else to do but withdraw to the wings and join the hushed cast of singers. Something of this intimacy is caught in the film with the beautifully concentrated close-ups on Willard and Suzanne Cox being the most affecting.
I’ve also been enjoying Dr. Stanley’s new self-titled album release (on DMZ). This is a beautifully recorded collection of traditional songs. I recommend “Little Mathie Grove” to give you a sense of the mood. A lot of my other listening and viewing consists of CD and tapes that I’ve been given
along the way. Just last night I received a gift of a Roscoe Holcomb collection that will accompany us on the final miles as we head down to Virginia and Georgia. Sometimes I get little chance to really thank people for their gifts, so I send my regards here. It is difficult to respond to every demo tape that I am given, as I honestly feel that my advice, certainly that of a practical nature, is of little value in this wicked world showbusiness. There is no easy answer. It seems that talent is never enough. Much luck is required to advance these days. I do try and listen to everything that I receive, although the system on the bus doesn’t seem to like CD-Rs.
My favourite gift was a compilation of blues performances from a noted archivist. It contains one number by Howlin’ Wolf (with one of my guitar favourites, Hubert Sumlin in support) that makes you realise that something has been lost in the modern performance of music. Hubert is still playing and recording today. He came to a concert of mine a short time ago and I was delighted to receive a framed photograph of the two of us backstage from Hubert’s manager just the other day. It will be hang in my music room when I
get home.
The epic journey finally concluded in Birmingham, no not the one in England, as it seemed it might and certainly not the one in Alabama but a small town outside of Detroit. So began a run of concerts predominantly in venues that are commonly called “sheds” and with good reason.
The choice of locations is made on the advice of promoters and my agent with regard to the realities of the touring economy. That groovy dive downtown may simply not support a band and crew on a cross-country tour. Detroit is a perplexing case in point. I truthfully favour the downtown halls but I am told that people don’t like to go there and prefer the semi-outdoor facilities during the summer months. Despite this our Detroit area appearance seemed to go well. It was also the second night of the tour for our new opening act, Billy Bob Thornton and his excellent band.
I ran into Billy Bob at Dublin airport a few months back and spent a couple of delayed hours talking about music (and even making a start on a country song once we finally got into the air). A week later he was back in town for
a show and my wife and I went with him to see the Monkees (well, Mickey and Davey) on the evening before his date. The next evening I made a guest appearance on the Leon Payne song, “Lost Highway”. Mr. Thornton is a real gent, loves music and has some fine songs. Our driver, Ronnie, picked up a DVD copy of Billy Bob’s film, “Slingblade”, which he wrote, directed and starred in. I hadn’t seen the film since it was released in the theatre and it is an incredible piece of work if you have not seen it. I was glad to have him along for a few nights.
It is not always possible to book dates in a logical order, so we next re-traced our route back to Illinois and a date at the Chicago Theatre. This is a venue at which I have had fine shows both with Burt Bacharach and on my 1999 tour with Steve Nieve but on this occasion there seemed to be an oddly distracted atmosphere. Perhaps we had returned to town too soon after our recent House of Blues club date. You know what they say about absence. It was harder to judge the evening as we had made our largest departure from the structure of show that had been the basis of all the concerts on the tour. We brought, “Clubland”, “Sulky Girl” and “Accidents will happen” back into the repertoire and gave our first performance the song that my wife and I had
written for Solomon Burkes’s new record. It is called “The Judgement”. Despite the changes, I believe we played pretty well in Chicago as the conclusion of the evening seemed to suggest.
We alter the show nightly but had retain certain combinations of songs to enter and exit the stage, if only so we don’t forget how long we have been playing and go beyond the inevitable theatre curfew that is the enemy of a
runaway concert. Whatever was in the air that night, I was somewhat surprised to hear that the autumn date at this venue has all but sold out in a couple of days. I’ll be looking forward to that return engagement.
Next we rolled into Columbus, Ohio for a torrid, humid, show down by the river. This is a town in which I left some very serious regrets about some idiotic drunken behaviour many years ago – something that I have no intention of discussing now beyond this observation. The generosity of the welcome and the success of the show felt like something of an exorcism.
I also visited the local radio station. They allowed me to broadcast the unreleased debut recording by our recent support band, The Like and also to spin some of Ralph Stanley’s album along with one of the Impostor re-mixes
from “When I was Cruel”, a track called “Revolution Doll”.
On our way out of town, we stopped at the family home of Columbus’ famous son, James Thurber. The Victorian house has been arranged as an intriguing walk-through museum and the garden contains stone likeness of some of Thurber’s famous cartoon dogs. I am rarely without a Thurber edition in my travelling bag (and I was given a beautiful vintage paperback earlier in the tour) and found myself re-reading and glancing through the cartoon captions once again. I realised that there is very little in the way of practical
advice and wisdom to be found in other more learned and pious books that one cannot receive through the gentle (and not so gentle) wit of this author and artist without equal.
You can read about the house and something of Thurber at:
http://www.thurberhouse.com/DefaultJamesThurber.htm
Once in Cleveland, we found ourselves in the re-claimed industrial landscape along the Cuyahoga River. The idea of a marquee-like structure at that location was no doubt well intentioned but it did not reckon with the high winds that threatened to use the stage backdrop as a sail. This risked the entire lighting gantry ending up in the third row, so the audience was treated to a backdrop of the slagheap located behind the stage and we were obliged to swallow clouds of coal dust whenever the wind direction changed.
Despite all of this, some of the people of Cleveland were persuaded to enjoy themselves and I bid goodbye to Billy Bob and all his crew with a reprise of “Lost Highway” at the end of his set.
The next day we left the country for a date in Toronto. After an unnervingly easy-going passage through Canadian Customs and Immigration we reached the partly covered venue to find the temperature plummeting after the humid conditions of Ohio. My last concert in Toronto had been one of my favourite ever shows. The venue on that trip, Massey Hall, was not available for this show but we did our best to keep people from freezing in their seats. I was
introduced to the fellers from Sum 41 at the end of the evening. Our pal, Ron Sexsmith, was also in attendance and he slipped me an advance copy of his new record that finds him in very fine voice on another collection of great
songs, recorded with a fresh sound.
It wasn’t long before we climbed aboard the bus for an overnight drive to Boston. I usually have to plan a maximum of three consecutive shows in order to get enough vocal rest but we were now heading for rural Massachusetts on
our “day-off” to make a video clip for “45”. I must have fallen asleep watching a movie and was awakened by a U.S. Immigration Officer looming over me and gently telling me that she had enjoyed my cameo appearance in the film, “200 Cigarettes”. When I work up again on the edge of Boston, I
assumed that it must have been a dream.
Director, Jesse Dylan and I had dreamt up the scenario back over the telephone and by e-mail. He had managed to assemble the crew and find the ideal location in a matter of days. This turned out to be the small town of Rowley, close to Salem. The original idea was to make a short silent movie that would be accompanied by the song “45”.
I portrayed a man dressed in a stovepipe hat, tails, white gloves and an evening coat, looking like a shorter Abraham Lincoln. I was also pushing a shopping cart full of clocks through town. In the film, the population gradually relieve me of my stock of clocks and the contents of my suitcase.
Eventually, just on the edge of town, I encounter three children who would demand my coat, my hat and my shoes. I have to say the people of Rowley, who were recruited for these roles, took to them with dedication and some relish.
Hardly any of the cast had any theatrical experience but they stuck with the inevitable multiple takes and coverage from a variety of angles with patience and fortitude despite the decreasing temperatures.
We began at the end. On the road out of town I passed another featured player, a cow being walked to the milking shed. Three local children did an excellent job of the final scene with just a few well-chosen words from Jesse.
We did not commence filming until the late afternoon, so that Francis, the cameraman, could give the appearance of twilight and night as the story progressed. We continued filming throughout the evening, first in the driveway of a house and then on the forecourt of a service station and
convenience store.
By now we had assembled a cast of twenty or thirty people, including sparkling cameo appearances by Paddy Callaghan, who looks after our security and the members of The Impostors. After a while it seemed as if the rest of
the town was driving by to watch the filming, the local newspaper sent a photographer to cover the story and it was apparently reported on the local radio station. At about 11pm the manager of the local ice-cream parlour sent one of his young staff to say that he would open up specially to offer us refreshments.
The elaborate timing of these forecourt scenes required more takes than expected and word reached us that the manageress of our final location, the Agawam Diner, was getting anxious to close. As I was not needed in the last
shot at the service station, I rode over to the diner with the producer, Danyi, to crave their indulgence for a short while longer.
I can only imagine how I must have appeared, in my now quite bedraggled costume, as I entered the vintage diner. I met with the two delightful gals behind the counter, Ethyl and Elaine, who told me that they had known bad experiences with film crews who say that want to film and then never turn up. I assured them that would not be the case and soon the place was full of forty cast and crew ordering coffee and pie.
While everyone took a short break, Jesse set up the camera behind the counter and we very casually shot an entirely different version of the video which consisted of me singing the song at my place at the counter while various
members of the cast took turns in the adjacent seats and did whatever Jesse directed them to do or what ever came into their head; “explain” the menu to me, tell me about their holiday, drum on the counter, try to steal my lemon
meringue pie. I made sure that Ethyl and Elaine made appearances along with the stars of previous scenes.
Nevertheless, once everyone was restored we continued with the original story. Out in the parking lot I was to encounter more townspeople, who remove the last of the clocks and a cheerleader, who has to settle for a drawing of the clock. Then an angry prom-queen runs off with the cart itself and I have my final confrontation with a gang of skateboarders who demand the contents of my suitcase only to be rewarded with a prison uniform, a cavalry jacket
and a pink tutu. The Agawam diner finally closed at 2.15am and we wrapped up the filming at about quarter to three.
When it was all cut together it was apparent that we actually had two films for the price of one, the original story about the clocks and a funny sequence of performances in the diner. Who knows where or when or if you will ever see either one of them on your favourite video music channel. Nevertheless, I have to say that everyone involved from Jesse and the crew to the people of Rowley and the even the local cow, (with assistance of the “cow-wrangler”, if that is the word), hit their marks better than I could
have imagined. It was a rare experience in itself to visit a small town in America and have this kind of fine adventure.
The next night some of the cast were our guests at the Boston show. I was very wary of this waterside venue, even though it had been re-named and slightly re-located. My previous visit to this neighbourhood had been my worst ever show on American soil, an experience so dispiriting that I very seriously entertained the thought of abandoning concert appearances altogether for some time. Despite the cold wind and rain and the inevitable distractions and restrictions of the venue, this show seemed to be a success.
We moved on to a theatre at Wallingford, Connecticut, a town that I imagined to be just outside Oxford, England. It was a pleasure to be playing indoors again and I think the show reflected this, allowing us to included, “All this
useless beauty” and “New Lace Sleeves” for the first time. We didn’t see much more of the neighbourhood as we were once again driving overnight to make another very crucial appointment.
The “Ask Elvis” feature of this site has received a number questions regarding the World Cup. I originally tried to put the competition out of my mind, knowing that it was going to be impractical to watch games in the middle of the night and still perform well on the following evening. As I
support the Republic of Ireland, this seemed the wisest course after the pre-tournament drama that saw Ireland’s captain, Roy Keane, banished from the squad after a furious row with the manager.
However, it got difficult to completely ignore the games. People who attended the Cleveland show may have noticed the Irish flags flying either side of the stage, courtesy of Liam and Jimmy, the two Irishmen on the crew. The team
surprised everyone by actually playing better than ever and advancing from the first stage and being very unlucky not to eliminate Germany while they were doing it, despite having to wait until the final moments of the game to
actually equalise, in typically contradictory style.
We arrived in Washington D.C. shortly before the second round match with Spain. It was another impressive performance in which a team featuring predominantly lower division players regularly out-performed the stars of Real Madrid and Barcelona. Unfortunately, there was to be no romantic ending and the team lost in a penalty shoot-out. It was a great effort and made me homesick for the first time on this tour, as the atmosphere during these campaigns is extraordinary.
Several of the crew, particularly our stage manger, Milo, were anxiously following England’s progress. I keep an eye on the games if only in the hope that the players from Liverpool do well and don’t get injured. I decided that
if Ireland were not to win the World Cup then I would support those other boys in green from Senegal. Unfortunately, they didn’t really do themselves justice in the game against Turkey and were also eliminated. However, I really look forward to seeing their amazing star player, El Hadji Diouf in a red shirt at Anfield next season as has been reported.
All of this football talk is a welcome distraction from thoughts of the show at Wolftrap. It was the best-attended concert of the tour and one of the most deeply felt performances but something was crucially missing. I fear that this sedate and rather smug institution is utterly unsuited to the type of show that we are currently playing. The sound restrictions themselves are rather unrealistic, as a rowdy audience might exceed the maximum decibel level before the musicians have played a note. It was one of those evenings in which the people most involved in the music seemed to be furthest from the stage and those who were trying to enjoy themselves in the front stalls were
being hemmed in by the rather fussy security. These ushers are only, as they say, obeying orders but it gets a little hard look at those weird kerchief decorated uniforms without thinking of some rather dubious scout corps from
the 1930s. The place is just too worthy for my liking. I’d like to thank those who threw themselves into the evening with gusto regardless and look forward to returning to the area and a show at a more viable location. On the whole I’d rather be in Baltimore.
New York came not a moment too soon. I have many friends in the city and know plenty of places that I like to visit, although on this occasion our schedule was pretty tight. It is one of cities in which I have seriously considered
living, although my decision not to go massively into debt to buy a loft on 12th Street in the late ‘70s was probably better for my health.
On both nights at the Beacon Theatre we were joined on stage by the horn players who worked on “When I was cruel”, Roy Nathanson having kindly transcribed the lines from the record as I forgot to pack the original parts. From the moment the mighty Ku-umba Frank Lacy hit the stage to play solo trombone on “Spooky Girlfriend”, I knew the evening was going to go well. At the first encore, we were joined by Roy on alto saxophone, Jay Rodriguez on tenor, Curtis Foukles on trombone with Frank switching to trumpet and Flugel horn for extended versions of “Dust” and “15 Petals”. Steve Nieve has been covering these parts with highly treated samples and it was great to hear the
“dub horns” and real thing trading lines. If we had been able to find more rehearsal time then we might have adapted the arrangements of a few more songs.
We planned to perform at least twelve different songs at the second Beacon concert but it was apparent almost at once that something was very badly wrong with the out-front sound system. The vocal sound on the stage kept altering and I knew from the audience reaction that the P.A was
malfunctioning. This the worst time for such a problem, when everyone’s energy and expectation is high. So we pressed on hoping that the crew could fix it without us having to leave the stage.
The sound in the Beacon Theatre is not ideal but the atmosphere usually makes up for such shortcomings. Now I was getting an urgent signal from, Milo to leave the stage. As I got a fairly nasty electric shock, the last time I
ignored his advice in Milan, I waved to the band to conclude our third attempted number, “Clubland”. Fortunately, I remembered that I had no trouble in projecting my voice without a microphone at the end of the concert for “Couldn’t call it unexpected No.4” when I played the theatre in 1999 with Steve Nieve. I got my Gibson J-50 acoustic and went to the edge of the stage for a solo version of “Red Shoes”. Not everyone seemed to realise that I was singing without amplification at first but by the second verse the audience were doing a fine job on the background parts and I got a signal that everything was in order and concluded the number back on my microphone.
Something like that gives you a tremendous rush of nervous energy and the set list was almost forgotten after that. We had to leave the stage after, what turned out to be only, 55 minutes as I was unsure how long we’d been playing
and didn’t want to run into problems with the house curfew before we had reprised the horn numbers. Fortunately, we had time to play most of the planned songs and given the circumstances there were no complaints from the house when we ran over by a few minutes.
Earlier that day we were at N.B.C. to appear on the Conan O’Brien Show. We performed “45” and I took part in a skit in which Conan serenaded me with a deliberately awful version (well, I hope it was deliberate) of “Alison”.
When I could take it no more, I was to snip the strings off his guitar with some pruning shears. It seemed to play pretty well. Our song also felt good, knowing that Julie in the studio’s mixing booth probably gets the best sound
on all of television. There was even time for a brief chat, the whole show was very relaxed and enjoyable.
I had last seen some of the band members from Conan’s show, was at a gig in Asbury Park. The ensemble was billed as the “Max Weinberg Seven” but that wasn’t fooling anyone. The evening was part of a season of Christmas Shows planned by Bruce Springsteen in the style of a soul revue with guest singers. The aim was to raise the spirits and some money for a local community that is clearly not doing too well. We attended as members of the audience but ended
up on stage, firstly for an impromptu duet with Bruce on “Alison” and then as part of the massed choirs of backing singers for “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. Cait was even persuaded out of retirement to join the encore chorus of the Phil Spector number, “Christmas”. It was a great night and I made a note that evening that I should try and play my own show at the Convention Center before too long.
Asbury Park very much features a seaside town of my own childhood, New Brighton across the Mersey from Liverpool. It also had amusements and attractions (including. at one time, the “World’s Largest Outdoor Swimming Pool”) that thrived from the 30s to the late-60s. After that it was the
familiar story of ruthless property developers and either incompetent or corrupt local government. There isn’t a viable venue left in New Brighton but the Asbury Park Convention Centre, which actually resembles an ice-rink more than anything else, is ideal for a rock and roll show. On the other hand, the town looks as of it has been through a particularly rugged conflict but unless people are prepared to play there is will remain that way.
Arriving in the area a little early, we were driven along the coast to get a little air away from the “construction” and found that the borderline from Asbury to neighbouring towns brings a remarkable change of fortunes. At Belmar we stumbled into a classic car gathering, where people parked their beautifully restored Cadillacs and Impalas along the boardwalk. It seemed like a rather more affluent version of a Bruce Springsteen song.
Rolling back to the venue we passed the “Madam Marie” fortune telling stand that is mentioned in Bruce’s great early song, “Sandy” and the club with which he is associated, the famous “Stone Pony” and the place where we
closed our very first American tour in 1977. Our show at the Convention Center was as clammy and rowdy as I had expected. Perhaps it was all these backward looking glances caused me to pull out a seven song run from 1978-79
toward the end of the show.Sometimes it just feels right to play these songs even though they’ve been heard many times before.
The Impostors are a new group despite the presence of Pete and Steve in the line-up. I made a joking reply to recent question about the extent of our
July 27, 2004
Australian Tour dates, Nov./Dec. '04
Complete Australian tour dates, including Hobart, Darwin & "A Day on the Green"
2004-11-20: Hunter Valley, Bimbagen Estate Concert, "A
Day on the Green" - with the Imposters
2004-11-21: Canberra, Commonwealth Park Concert, Stage
88, "A Day on the Green" - with the Imposters
2004-11-23: Melbourne, Palais Theatre - with the
Imposters
2004-11-24: Sydney, State Theatre - with the Imposters
2004-11-27: Melbourne, Yarra Vale, Rochford Wines
Concert, "A Day on the Green" - with the Imposters
2004-11-28: Hobart, Moorilla Estate, "A Day on the
Green" - with the Imposters
2004-11-30: Brisbane, QPAC Concert Hall - with the
Imposters
2004-12-02: Darwin - with the Imposters
2004-12-04: Barossa Valley, Peter Lehman Wines, "A Day
on the Green" - with the Imposters
2004-12-05: Perth, King's Park - with the Imposters
July 25, 2004
Latest re-issues on sale
Some of the latest re-issues from Elvis' back catalogue are on sale in Europe this Monday , July 26. Goodbye Cruel World and Almost Blue are now available with vastly improved sound and loads of extra tracks.
EC on Conan, Sept 24
According to Rock On TV,
Elvis is scheduled to appear on Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien,
Friday night, September 24. (aka Sept 25 at 12:35 am).
( Submitted by John Harrison)
July 24, 2004
Lurking in the wings
Elvis has rejoined the missus on her tour , as this account on a Krall fan forum tells -
Saratoga Mountain Winery
Diana stopped to talk at this point to introduce her next song that she "wrote with one of my favorite composers, Elvis Costello", and who happened to be off to the side in the audience sitting with Michelle (Krall). At that point everyone chuckled and someone shouted "Hi Elvis!!" which Diana quipped, "Hey - this is supposed to be all about me." Everyone laughed pretty hard and with an aw shucks kind of comment she said "I'm just jokin'."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe at one of these following gigs he may finally join her on stage , as opposed to all those charity/ceremonial shows-
July
21 : Saratoga, CA - Moutain Winery
23 : Portland, OR - Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
24-25 : Woodinville, WA - Chateau Ste. Michelle
August - 2004
10 : Milwaukee, WI - Milwaukee Theater
11 : Minneapolis, MN - Northrop Auditorium
13 : Kansas City, MO - Midland Theatre
14 : Saint Louis, MO - Fox Theater
15 : Louisville, KY - Louisville Palace Theatre
17-18 : Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
20 : Toledo, OH - Stranahan Theater
21 : Detroit, MI - Fox Theater
22 : Pittsburgh, PA - Heinz Hall
24 : New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall
July 21, 2004
a hubristic vanity project
Not every one liked Il Sogno. The Rest Is Noise , Salon and The Financial Times (London) begged to differ.
Extracts -
The Rest Is Noise
For me, Elvis Costello’s Il Sogno, which the Brooklyn Phil- harmonic played at Lincoln Center last night, was a scary blank. After half an hour, I did something I’ve never done in twelve years of reviewing concerts in New York: I got out a book and started to read. My brain needed something else to grasp on to — I felt like I was clawing the air and plummeting. It’s not that Costello is inept; the score actually showed a fair amount of skill, especially in the orchestration, which is usually the aspect of the art that newcomers master last (see Gershwin). It made a clean, lucid sound, whether in the faintly Stravinskyish neoclassical passages or in the jazzy vamps. But the content was bafflingly trite. On the radar screen of compositional authority, where Gershwin registers as a dominating blob, Costello would be lucky to show up as a blip. Portions of melodies wandered in constricted circles; sequences began unpromisingly and went nowhere. At its best, and this is not as big a compliment as it sounds, Il Sogno ranked with mediocre Sibelius — those purring interludes that the old man tossed off when he was trying to replicate the freak popularity of “Valse Triste.”
Salon
The first half of the program was devoted to a concert performance of
Costello's hour-long orchestral ballet, "Il Sogno," which it's hard to
view as anything but a hubristic vanity project.
My girlfriend and I, sans book and having read the
very dull program cover to cover, resorted to a lengthy thumb-war
tournament, much to the disgust of the rather starched-up couple
behind us. To be fair, while "Il Sogno" is boring, tremendously boring,
it's not bad. It's actually astonishingly competent for anyone's first
attempt at orchestral writing -- but it's the rare prodigy whose first
attempt at orchestral writing merits performance at the Avery Fisher
Hall.
The Financial Times
Having benefited from an escapade with the Brodsky Quartet, Costello is no primitive stranger in a sophisticated paradise. This is serious stuff, not to be confused with such ancient crossover misadventures as Jethro Tull's Switched-On Symphony and Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. Lean, clean and episodic, Il Sogno engages with dancerly syncopations, nifty modulations and melodic quirks.
To delineate contrasting universes, the composer provides mock-lofty music for the nobles, folkish naivety for the lower classes, swing for the fairies. The score rambles and rumbles sweetly, fits and spasms notwithstanding, and makes idiomatic use of the forces at hand. The orchestration remains essentially conventional, despite incidental use of progressive saxophone, cimbalom and a few (inaudibly) clapping hands. One recognises nods to Prokofiev here, to Gershwin there, and even traces of Mendelssohn. Still, enough original impulses remain to thwart the flattering spectre of imitation. If only those impulses were more brash, more brutal.
The Rest Is Noise
Still, better than McCartney
For me, Elvis Costello’s Il Sogno, which the Brooklyn Phil- harmonic played at Lincoln Center last night, was a scary blank. After half an hour, I did something I’ve never done in twelve years of reviewing concerts in New York: I got out a book and started to read. My brain needed something else to grasp on to — I felt like I was clawing the air and plummeting. It’s not that Costello is inept; the score actually showed a fair amount of skill, especially in the orchestration, which is usually the aspect of the art that newcomers master last (see Gershwin). It made a clean, lucid sound, whether in the faintly Stravinskyish neoclassical passages or in the jazzy vamps. But the content was bafflingly trite. On the radar screen of compositional authority, where Gershwin registers as a dominating blob, Costello would be lucky to show up as a blip. Portions of melodies wandered in constricted circles; sequences began unpromisingly and went nowhere. At its best, and this is not as big a compliment as it sounds, Il Sogno ranked with mediocre Sibelius — those purring interludes that the old man tossed off when he was trying to replicate the freak popularity of “Valse Triste.”
I’m all for flinging open the doors of "classical music" to pop sympathizers. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, the BBC's new composer-in-residence, is probably the most promising boundary-smasher right now; his Bodysong has wonderful Bartokian passages for string quartet. Björk could make the same transition if she wanted to. Back in the day, Ellington and Gershwin made nonsense of the distinction between "composer" and "pop musician": they weren't beyond categories so much as categories melted down. Costello, too, has an all-devouring mind, as he showed in a virtuoso Vanity Fair article about what to listen to at different hours of the day. But he has nothing urgent to say with instruments alone. He’s simply demonstrating another facet of his cleverness. More power to him, I guess, although if I were a young composer struggling to get my music heard I’d be angry at Lincoln Center for fawning over him. Now, if it were a symphony by Prince, that might be another matter…
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Salon review
Fallen angel
Thumb-wrestling my way through a concert by the once great Elvis
Costello.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Thomas Bartlett
July 21, 2004 | Last Saturday I went to the Lincoln Center's Avery
Fisher Hall to see a real live fallen angel, the once great Elvis
Costello.
His debased status was made official last year with his marriage to
Diana Krall: It's simply incomprehensible to me that a great artist
could fall in love with someone so artistically vapid, even insidious ...
ergo, Costello must no longer be a great artist.
The first half of the program was devoted to a concert performance of
Costello's hour-long orchestral ballet, "Il Sogno," which it's hard to
view as anything but a hubristic vanity project. Jon Pareles, in the New
York Times, described the work in a few sentences while diplomatically
avoiding any pronouncements on its quality, but the New Yorker's Alex
Ross, writing in his excellent blog, didn't pull any punches: "I did
something I've never done in twelve years of reviewing concerts in New
York: I got out a book and started to read. My brain needed something
else to grasp on to -- I felt like I was clawing the air and
plummeting."
I feel his pain: My girlfriend and I, sans book and having read the
very dull program cover to cover, resorted to a lengthy thumb-war
tournament, much to the disgust of the rather starched-up couple
behind us. To be fair, while "Il Sogno" is boring, tremendously boring,
it's not bad. It's actually astonishingly competent for anyone's first
attempt at orchestral writing -- but it's the rare prodigy whose first
attempt at orchestral writing merits performance at the Avery Fisher
Hall.
The second half of the concert was devoted, mercifully, to Costello's
songs. He sang accompanied by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, as well
as the always excellent Greg Cohen on bass and Steve Nieve on
piano. Nieve was the keyboardist in Costello's band, the Attractions,
and has been his almost constant musical sidekick, but he is a truly
horrendous and tasteless piano accompanist, and should never be
allowed near a 9-foot grand. The songs were uneven -- many were
culled from the less-memorable corners of the Costello catalogue
("The Juliet Letters," "North"), while some of the classics sounded
uncomfortable being dragged into this world of strings, dragging
tempos and turgid piano arrangements.
But for all that, I was spellbound. Over the last decade, Costello has
developed, quite unexpectedly, into a great torch singer. His vibrato
can go a little bit overboard, sometimes even making it ambiguous what
note he's trying to sing, but his phrasing is both impeccable and
distinctive. And most important, I always believe him.
The Financial Times (London)
Music: Elvis Costello's 'Il Sogno'
By Martin Bernheimer
Published: July 21 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: July 21 2004 5:00
So-called classical music is playing only a minor role at this year's Lincoln Center Festival and the facsimiles thereof are not particularly reasonable. The most prominent shreds and patches emanate from an unlikely source: Elvis Costello.
On Saturday at Avery Fisher Hall, the nearly-50-year-old wunderkind from Paddington demonstrated his rocky-jazzy-funky-symphonic eclecticism with the US premiere of a suite entitled Il Sogno. Sprawling over an hour, it entails moderate ado about A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Costello produced the score for the Italian dance company Alterballetto in 2000, and a recording by Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra is due in September. Unaided by collaborators of any kind, as the annotation proclaims, the composer toiled on the project for 10 weeks, scrawling 200 pages in pencil. The result, divorced from the Shakespearean inspiration, sounds pretty, crafty and a tad innocuous. Think Bernstein, as in West Side Story, without the slush but also without the flair.
Having benefited from an escapade with the Brodsky Quartet, Costello is no primitive stranger in a sophisticated paradise. This is serious stuff, not to be confused with such ancient crossover misadventures as Jethro Tull's Switched-On Symphony and Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. Lean, clean and episodic, Il Sogno engages with dancerly syncopations, nifty modulations and melodic quirks.
To delineate contrasting universes, the composer provides mock-lofty music for the nobles, folkish naivety for the lower classes, swing for the fairies. The score rambles and rumbles sweetly, fits and spasms notwithstanding, and makes idiomatic use of the forces at hand. The orchestration remains essentially conventional, despite incidental use of progressive saxophone, cimbalom and a few (inaudibly) clapping hands. One recognises nods to Prokofiev here, to Gershwin there, and even traces of Mendelssohn. Still, enough original impulses remain to thwart the flattering spectre of imitation. If only those impulses were more brash, more brutal.
Urged onward if not upward by Brad Lubman, the Brooklyn Philharmonic demonstrated much apparent respect, not so much bravado. The crowd, which did not quite fill the 2,738-seat auditorium, applauded politely when the performance ended, then added a cheering ovation when Costello strolled out for a bow. After the interval the conquering hero returned for some overdressed arrangements of his greatest hits.
July 19, 2004
a more ruthless Frank Sinatra
Elvis got great reviews from The Washington Post ,
The New York Times, Variety , ABC Madrid , New York Daily News, New Jersey Star Ledger and The New York Post
Extracts -
The Washington Post - Am I surprised? Totally. But if any rocker could pull off such an improbable feat, it's Elvis Costello, whose musical curiosity has always been boundless. What's more, "Il Sogno" doesn't sound like anybody else (except for a couple of lyrical passages that reminded me, logically enough, of Sir Michael Tippett's "The Midsummer Marriage"). It's not cut-rate Prokofiev or Bernstein, but a lively, ingratiating piece of mainstream modernism, with decorous snippets of symphonic rock and jazz thrown in from time to time to spice things up. If anything, it's too polite: Costello was clearly on his best musical behavior when he wrote it, and I'm sure he felt he had something to prove to all the "legit" musicians who took it for granted that no mere rock star could bring off so ambitious an undertaking.
Well, he proved it. Not only does "Il Sogno" work, but it stands up pretty well to the inevitable comparison with George Gershwin's concert music. Unlike Gershwin's wonderfully concise Concerto in F and "An American in Paris," it goes on too long (Costello should give some thought to spinning off a five- or six-movement suite) and lacks the high melodic profile that could have made it truly memorable. Even so, "Il Sogno" is more than good enough to recall Irving Berlin's envious remark that Gershwin was "the only songwriter I know who became a composer." If he chooses to, I have no doubt that Elvis Costello can do the same thing.
The New York Times -
Mr. Costello's music has long veered between American and European polarities: primal, stomping riffs versus elaborate harmonies and florid ornament. It's a tension that was built into his bands, the Attractions and now the Imposters, with Mr. Nieve's quasi-Romantic decorations surrounding Mr. Costello's cutting guitar. For the three concerts he chose ensembles that can do some shape-shifting themselves.
On Tuesday he was backed by the Metropole Orkest, a Dutch group, conducted by Jim McNeely, that augments a big band with a string section. It was equally at home with a hard-swinging Charles Mingus tune and with slow-motion ballads; for a few rockers the orchestra simply worked as a hefty horn section. It was the most varied concert of the three; in one stretch Mr. Costello followed a stately tribute to Henry Purcell, "Put Away Forbidden Playthings," with a bluesy rocker, "Dust," and then a shimmering ballad, "My Flame Burns Blue," based on Billy Strayhorn's "Blood Count." With the Metropole Orkest, he came close to becoming a more ruthless Frank Sinatra.
On Saturday the Brooklyn Philharmonic, conducted by Brad Lubman, played Mr. Costello's hourlong ballet score, "Il Sogno" ("The Dream," written for a dance adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream") and then provided an orchestral penumbra for a core trio of Mr. Costello, Mr. Nieve and Greg Cohen on bass. "Il Sogno" is a rhapsodic work, following the plot's juxtapositions of characters by switching among courtly pomp, folkish lilt, sweeping romantic lines and jazzy swing, along with eerie sustained interludes. As tuneful themes recurred and intertwined, it was easy to imagine "Il Sogno" as the latter-day descendant of ballet scores: a film soundtrack.
While Mr. Costello has now proved his skill at writing songs with labyrinthine turns and chromatic kinks and he has become a convincing ballad singer, it's still in his rock songs that the cerebral and the visceral connect best. Thursday's concert unleashed the Imposters, his rock band, with two members of his punk-vintage band the Attractions (Mr. Nieve and Pete Thomas on drums) plus Davey Faragher on bass.
Variety -
The piece, which made its North American bow on the final night of Costello's three-date stand at Lincoln Center, was at once remarkably dense and wittily playful. Commissioned by an Italian dance troupe, "Il Sogno" revels in physicality -- percussion, including syncopated clapping worthy of a big fat Greek wedding, plays a large role, as does a forceful celeste -- but not to the point where it demands terpsichorean accompaniment.
Costello had virtually no trouble converting the mastery of character development he's shown in his pop lyrics into orchestration, assigning each set of primary actors a distinct sonic personality. Opening in the royal court, the piece immediately takes on a romantic tenor melodramatic enough to suit a Douglas Sirk heroine, with sighing strings and teasing woodwinds at the fore. An abrupt but apt mood shift is signaled by the emergence of a brass-led counterpoint bursting with the sort of feisty jazz-age energy once employed by Darius Milhaud.
The two diametrically opposed styles -- leavened now and again by gentle Celtic interludes that relied heavily on the dulcimer playing of Lawrence Kaptain -- didn't exactly fuse, but that clearly was not Costello's intention. For the duration of the three-movement, 70-minute piece, the musicians kept up a vigorous dialogue, hemming and hawing, then breaking into lustful roars.
Now and again, an individual player would materialize with something of a monologue -- first violinist Laura Hamilton's regal dissertation, double bassist Greg Cohen's rhythmic leg-pulling -- but "Il Sogno" is categorically an ensemble piece. Conductor Brad Lubman maintained that tem-perament beautifully: He let the nuances of Costello's writing emerge, making for a surprisingly profound concert experience.
New York Daily News -
Nevertheless the score is full of delights, sometimes sounding like vintage jazz, other times like vintage Hollywood. Its most notable feature may be Costello's understanding of the riches of a symphony orchestra. One can only look forward to his future explorations of this great resource.
New Jersey Star Ledger -
Although episodic and a bit long at about an hour (but then many collections of dance cues seem that way), "Il Sogno" was also unflaggingly melodious, rhythmically vital and -- most impressive -- orchestrated with kaleidoscopic vividness. Reading music is one thing; orchestration is quite another (with most rockers who compose orchestral works ceding that all-important job to trained experts). Costello seems to have taken to this new art with as much panache as he did Americana, torch songs or other genre offshoots from his initial vein of combustible, if highly literate, rock'n'roll.
Commissioned for an Italian ballet company's adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Costello's score evokes the material's bittersweet humor and magical air. His soundprint alternated between Stravinsky's commedia dell'arte pastiche "Pulcinella" and the impressionistic big-band charts of Gil Evans. Throughout, there were beguiling sonic touches from bell-like tuned percussion, cascading cimbalom, arching trumpet and swinging trap drums, as well as much mellow-toned saxophone.
The Brooklyn Philharmonic under conductor Brad Lubman performed the jazzy parts with plenty of insouciance, shifting idiomatic gears between those and the more "classical" passages with aplomb. A younger, more rock 'n' roll crowd than usual for Avery Fisher Hall, the audience seemed thrilled, or at least genuinely impressed, by the fresh, tuneful "Il Sogno." But the reception for the concert's second half -- featuring Costello singing a brace of his songs with the orchestra, plus his longtime pianist, Steve Nieve, and double-bassist Greg Cohen -- was rapturous.
The New York Post-
But say this: Costello knows his way around an orchestra. The writing is full of color and variety, and solo instruments get their fair share of the spotlight — a beguiling trumpet song in the second movement still lingers.
There are all sorts of style references — luxuriantly romantic passages, outbursts of Ivesian exuberance, sudden turns into Latin rhythms, sturdy marches, a couple of hints of Elizabethan ballad. The work goes all over the place, but it's a fun trip.
Music
Elvis Costello The Classicist: His Aim Is True
By Terry Teachout
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, July 19, 2004; Page C01
NEW YORK -- Rock legend Elvis Costello has been flirting avidly with classical music in recent years, collaborating with Anne Sofie von Otter and the Brodsky Quartet to striking effect. Now he's pulled a much bigger rabbit out of his seemingly bottomless hat: "Il Sogno," an hour-long ballet score for symphony orchestra.
Based on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Il Sogno" was composed in 2000 for Aterballeto, an Italian dance troupe, and received its North American premiere on Saturday at Avery Fisher Hall as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. (A recording will be released by DGG in September.) Not only did Costello write it without assistance, he orchestrated it as well, and though the Brooklyn Philharmonic, conducted by Brad Lubman, was conspicuously underrehearsed, the performance was decent enough to leave no doubt that Costello knows what he's doing. The scoring isn't perfect -- the middle register is cluttered and thick-sounding at times, and the vibraphone is used to sugary excess -- but it's perfectly competent.
That alone made my jaw drop. Even Duke Ellington relied on professional orchestrators when writing for symphony orchestra, while Paul McCartney hired so many collaborators to help him produce the embarrassingly bloated "Standing Stone" that I described it at the time of its 1997 premiere as "the first as-told-to symphony." What's more, "Il Sogno" ("The Dream" in Italian), though it rambles a bit, is more than just a long string of songlike cameos placed end to end: Costello has channeled his thematic material into simple, formal structures that he uses in the disciplined manner of a bona fide classical composer.
Am I surprised? Totally. But if any rocker could pull off such an improbable feat, it's Elvis Costello, whose musical curiosity has always been boundless. What's more, "Il Sogno" doesn't sound like anybody else (except for a couple of lyrical passages that reminded me, logically enough, of Sir Michael Tippett's "The Midsummer Marriage"). It's not cut-rate Prokofiev or Bernstein, but a lively, ingratiating piece of mainstream modernism, with decorous snippets of symphonic rock and jazz thrown in from time to time to spice things up. If anything, it's too polite: Costello was clearly on his best musical behavior when he wrote it, and I'm sure he felt he had something to prove to all the "legit" musicians who took it for granted that no mere rock star could bring off so ambitious an undertaking.
Well, he proved it. Not only does "Il Sogno" work, but it stands up pretty well to the inevitable comparison with George Gershwin's concert music. Unlike Gershwin's wonderfully concise Concerto in F and "An American in Paris," it goes on too long (Costello should give some thought to spinning off a five- or six-movement suite) and lacks the high melodic profile that could have made it truly memorable. Even so, "Il Sogno" is more than good enough to recall Irving Berlin's envious remark that Gershwin was "the only songwriter I know who became a composer." If he chooses to, I have no doubt that Elvis Costello can do the same thing.
Mind you, Costello doesn't need to write large-scale orchestral works to be taken seriously as an artist. Rock has produced no better songwriter. But if he really wants to set up shop as a part-time classical composer, he'll need to polish his craft still further. After the unexpected success of "Rhapsody in Blue," Gershwin toiled for 11 years and ended up with "Porgy and Bess." Is Costello in it for the long haul? Or will "Il Sogno" turn out to be a fluke? I hope not.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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MUSIC REVIEW | LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL
Elvis Costello's 'Fondest Wish' Comes True
By JON PARELES
Published: July 19, 2004
There were only a few constants in Elvis Costello's three concerts for the Lincoln Center Festival last week. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights at Avery Fisher Hall, he wore black suits and played guitar; an unobtrusive music stand held his complex lyrics. Steve Nieve, who has been in Mr. Costello's bands since 1977, played keyboards at all three shows. Beyond that, everything was in flux: styles and structures, meanings and moods.
Mr. Costello is ceaselessly curious about music. He is inquisitive enough not just to listen widely, but to learn the makings of every idiom that moves him, from lieder to New Orleans rhythm and blues. In the three nights at Lincoln Center he was a crooner, a howler, a swinger, a brooder, an orchestral composer and a guitar twanger. Mr. Costello recognizes pop genres and what can be expressed by their particularities, but he refuses to be slotted into them. "This is my fondest wish," he sang near the end of Saturday's concert, "to go where I cannot be captured."
He delved into obscure corners of his catalog, tacitly demonstrating that some of his overlooked songs deserve to be heard. The concerts anticipated Mr. Costello's 50th birthday, on Aug. 25, and the lyrics were full of adult concerns: disillusionment, regrets, the shape of history, the persistence of folly. But there was more pleasure than bitterness in the music, if only the pleasures of clarity and distillation: of finding the turns of phrase, melody and dynamics that made some bleak insight linger. Mr. Costello, who married the singer Diana Krall last year, is still a master of songs about romantic entropy and breakups as parting shots, and he had plenty of them during the three concerts.
Mr. Costello's music has long veered between American and European polarities: primal, stomping riffs versus elaborate harmonies and florid ornament. It's a tension that was built into his bands, the Attractions and now the Imposters, with Mr. Nieve's quasi-Romantic decorations surrounding Mr. Costello's cutting guitar. For the three concerts he chose ensembles that can do some shape-shifting themselves.
On Tuesday he was backed by the Metropole Orkest, a Dutch group, conducted by Jim McNeely, that augments a big band with a string section. It was equally at home with a hard-swinging Charles Mingus tune and with slow-motion ballads; for a few rockers the orchestra simply worked as a hefty horn section. It was the most varied concert of the three; in one stretch Mr. Costello followed a stately tribute to Henry Purcell, "Put Away Forbidden Playthings," with a bluesy rocker, "Dust," and then a shimmering ballad, "My Flame Burns Blue," based on Billy Strayhorn's "Blood Count." With the Metropole Orkest, he came close to becoming a more ruthless Frank Sinatra.
On Saturday the Brooklyn Philharmonic, conducted by Brad Lubman, played Mr. Costello's hourlong ballet score, "Il Sogno" ("The Dream," written for a dance adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream") and then provided an orchestral penumbra for a core trio of Mr. Costello, Mr. Nieve and Greg Cohen on bass. "Il Sogno" is a rhapsodic work, following the plot's juxtapositions of characters by switching among courtly pomp, folkish lilt, sweeping romantic lines and jazzy swing, along with eerie sustained interludes. As tuneful themes recurred and intertwined, it was easy to imagine "Il Sogno" as the latter-day descendant of ballet scores: a film soundtrack.
While Mr. Costello has now proved his skill at writing songs with labyrinthine turns and chromatic kinks and he has become a convincing ballad singer, it's still in his rock songs that the cerebral and the visceral connect best. Thursday's concert unleashed the Imposters, his rock band, with two members of his punk-vintage band the Attractions (Mr. Nieve and Pete Thomas on drums) plus Davey Faragher on bass.
Mr. Costello and the Imposters played most of their next album, "The Delivery Man" (due in September), which is steeped in Southern Americana from Memphis soul to country ballads, and which sketches characters with terse empathy. They also went barreling through older songs from "I Hope You're Happy Now" to "Pump It Up," and let Mr. Costello roar and twang through a bluesy, extended version of "Love That Burns." He may chafe at the limitations of rock, but it's still his best outlet.
Mr. Costello can't do everything equally well. Some of his more complex songs are too attenuated; sometimes he accentuates details until they obscure the whole. But he's no longer overreaching by much, and his ambition trumps professional complacency anytime.
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Variety
Elvis Costello's Il Sogno
Sat Jul 17, 8:12 PM ET
David Sprague, STAFF
Avery Fisher Hall, New York; 2,738 seats; $65 top
Presented by Lincoln Center Festival 2004. Reviewed July 17, 2004.
Brooklyn Philharmonic conducted by Brad Lubman.
Elvis Costello has never been shy about collaborating, throwing his lot in with folks as diverse as Paul McCartney , Burt Bacharach and the Brodsky Quartet. The onetime angry young man really swings for the fences, however, on his latest "collaboration" -- transliterating Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a symphonic piece entitled "Il Sogno."
The piece, which made its North American bow on the final night of Costello's three-date stand at Lincoln Center, was at once remarkably dense and wittily playful. Commissioned by an Italian dance troupe, "Il Sogno" revels in physicality -- percussion, including syncopated clapping worthy of a big fat Greek wedding, plays a large role, as does a forceful celeste -- but not to the point where it demands terpsichorean accompaniment.
Costello had virtually no trouble converting the mastery of character development he's shown in his pop lyrics into orchestration, assigning each set of primary actors a distinct sonic personality. Opening in the royal court, the piece immediately takes on a romantic tenor melodramatic enough to suit a Douglas Sirk heroine, with sighing strings and teasing woodwinds at the fore. An abrupt but apt mood shift is signaled by the emergence of a brass-led counterpoint bursting with the sort of feisty jazz-age energy once employed by Darius Milhaud.
The two diametrically opposed styles -- leavened now and again by gentle Celtic interludes that relied heavily on the dulcimer playing of Lawrence Kaptain -- didn't exactly fuse, but that clearly was not Costello's intention. For the duration of the three-movement, 70-minute piece, the musicians kept up a vigorous dialogue, hemming and hawing, then breaking into lustful roars.
Now and again, an individual player would materialize with something of a monologue -- first violinist Laura Hamilton's regal dissertation, double bassist Greg Cohen's rhythmic leg-pulling -- but "Il Sogno" is categorically an ensemble piece. Conductor Brad Lubman maintained that tem-perament beautifully: He let the nuances of Costello's writing emerge, making for a surprisingly profound concert experience.
After an intermission, Costello and longtime pianist Steve Nieve joined the Philharmonic for a brief set of his pop material, most of it gathered from the more shadowy reaches of his catalog. Highlights included "I Want to Vanish" and a wrenching "She's Pulling Out the Pin."
"Il Sogno," as recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, will be released by Deutsche Grammophon in September.
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-- Apoteosis de Elvis Costello en el Lincoln Center de Nueva York
ALFONSO ARMADA, CORRESPONSAL/
ÁNGEL DE ANTONIO Elvis Costello cumple veinticinco años de carrera
ImprimirVotarEnviar
NUEVA YORK. El cantante y compositor británico Elvis Costello coronó el sábado en el Lincoln Center de Nueva York tres noches verdaderamente apoteósicas, en las que recorrió todas sus fuentes de inspiración artística, desde el rock más acerado al pop más lírico y ambicioso, desde las melodías para big-bang a la música sinfónica, y dejó la impresión, entre ovaciones y gritos de arrobo, de que está muy lejos de haber tocado techo.
Fiel a su tradición de rendir homenaje «a algunos de los más influyentes artistas de nuestra época», el Festival del Lincoln Center vendió todo el papel para las tres incursiones en la constelación de un músico que acaba de cumplir 25 años en la carretera. Abrió boca a lo grande el martes con el debut en Estados Unidos de la Netherlands Metropole Orchestra, con sus 52 intérpretes y su habilidad para sortear los escollos del jazz, el pop, la música para películas y la clásica. Acompañado por Steve Nieve, el pianista que escolta a este stajanovista de la música desde su primer «elepé», aquel lejano «My aim is true», de 1977, Costello y la formidable orquesta brillaron con luz propia con arreglos para big band y piezas más íntimas. En una asombrosa mezcla de Sinatra, Tony Bennet y But Bacharach (con quien Costello grabó en 1998 «Painted from memory»), el hijo del trompetista de jazz de clase obrera demostró por qué no le tiene miedo a nada. Reinventándose a sí mismo con cada nuevo disco de una carrera, que está lejos de concluir, y una excelente química con la orquesta, el público deliró cuando Costello reclamó su guitarra eléctrica para «Dust» y ante las explosivas versiones de «Watching the detectives» y, sobre todo, «Almost blue», como propina.
Euforia de los fans
Si el jueves fue el día en que los acomodadores del Avery Fisher Hall se las vieron y se las desearon para contener la euforia de los fans que se negaban a seguir sentados el recorrido que Costello hizo con The Imposters durante 145 minutos por buena parte de su repertorio, y el viernes volvió a probar su increíble resistencia y vitalidad, y clavó «Love that burns» y «Peace, love and understanding», el sábado acabó de darle la razón a un crítico que pidió para Declan McManus una placa que rece «Hombre del Renacimiento». Muy lejos queda aquel furioso rokero que decía que las únicas emociones que podía entender eran «la venganza y la culpa». La Orquesta Filarmónica de Brooklyn, con Brad Lubman al frente, interpretó durante una hora y diez minutos el primer trabajo sinfónico de Elvis Costello: la partitura que con lápiz y papel y durante diez agotadoras semanas escribió a partir del shakespeareano «Sueño de una noche de verano» para una compañía italiana de ballet. «Il sogno», que saldrá a la venta el próximo otoño en una grabación de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Londres, es una admirable vuelta de tuerca en su carrera. Con resonancias de Ravel, Chaikovski, Bernstein y Duke Ellington, el Costello compositor sinfónico mezcla estilos en la coctelera de su cabeza con una libertad y falta de prejuicios admirable, lo que a veces le lleva a incongruencias y a que la masa sinfónica, de una brillantez innegable, caiga en momentos fáciles que recuerdan a ilustraciones para una película del agente 007, aunque sí evidencia que no ha perdido de vista la intención de la obra: ilustrar, acompañar y ensalzar un ballet. Pero está lleno de vida, color y energía.
Con el público tan entregado como la propia Filarmónica de Broolkyn y su director, la segunda parte sirvió para que Costello interpretara algunas versiones para orquesta de algunos de sus temas que ya forman parte del pop clásico. Otra vez con su fiel Steve Nieve, responsable de algunos de los arreglos, al piano, y el propio Costello con la guitarra acústica, canciones como «Useless beauty» o, una vez más, «Almost blue», convirtieron el gigantesco teatro en una caverna íntima en la que el antiguo joven airado dejó claro que a sus 49 años es un hombre feliz, un artista en estado de gracia.
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Google translation
NEW YORK. The singer and British composer Elvis Costello crowned Saturday in Lincoln Center of New York three nights truely tremendous, in which she crossed all his sources of artistic inspiration, from the acierated rock more to pop the more ambitious lírico and, from melodías for big-bang to symphonic music, and left the impression, between ovaciones and shouts of ecstasy, of which she is very far from having touched ceiling. Faithful to his tradition to pay tribute "to some of the most influential artists of our time", the Festival of Lincoln Center sold all the paper for the three incursions in the constellation of a musician who finishes turning 25 years in the highway. He opened mouth to great Tuesday with the debut in the United States of the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra, with its 52 interpreters and their ability to draw for the stumbling blocks of the jazz, the pop one, music for films and the classic one. Accompanied by Steve Snow, the pianista that escort to this stajanovista of music from its first "elepe '", that distant "My aim is true", of 1977, Costello and the formidable orchestra shone with own light with adjustments for big band and more intimate pieces. In amazing mixture of Sinatra, Tony Bennet and But Bacharach (with who Costello recorded in 1998 "Painted from memory"), the son of the trompetista of jazz of working class demonstrated why he is not scared to him to anything. Reinventando to itself with each new disc of a race, that is far from concluding, and an excellent chemistry with the orchestra, the public was delirious when Costello demanded its electrical guitar for "Dust" and before the explosive versions of "Watching the detectives" and, mainly, "Almost blue", as he offers. Euphoria of fans If Thursday were the day in which the ushers of the Avery Fisher Hall saw them and were desired you to contain the euphoria of fans which they refused to follow seated the route that Costello did with The Imposters during 145 minutes by good part of its repertoire, and Friday returned to prove their incredible resistance and vitality, and nailed "Love that burns" and "Peace, love and understanding", Saturday finished giving the reason to a critic who requested for Declan McManus a plate that says "Man of the Renaissance". Very far it is left that furious rokero that said that the only emotions that could understand they were "the revenge and the fault". The Filarmónica Orchestra of Brooklyn, with Brad Lubman to the front, interpreted during one hour and ten minutes the first symphonic work of Elvis Costello: the score that with pencil and paper and during ten exhausting weeks wrote from the shakespeareano "Dream of one night of summer" for an Italian company of ballet. "Il sogno", that will on sale leave the next autumn in a recording the Symphony orchestra of London, is an admirable return of nut in its race. With resonances of Ravel, Chaikovski, Bernstein and Duke Ellington, the Costello symphonic composer mixture styles in the coctelera of its head with a freedom and admirable lack of prejudices, which sometimes takes to incongruencias and to that the symphonic mass, of an undeniable brilliance, falls at easy moments that they remember to illustrations for a film of agent 007, although yes evidence that is lost of Vista no the intention of the work: to illustrate, to accompany and to praise a ballet. But he is full of life, color and energy. With the public so given as the own Filarmónica de Broolkyn and its director, the second part served so that Costello interpreted some versions for orchestra of some of its subjects that already comprise pop of the classic one. Again with their Steve faithful Snow, person in charge of some of the adjustments, to the piano, and the own Costello with the acoustic guitar, songs like "Useless beauty" or, once again, "Almost blue", turned the gigantic theater an intimate cavern in which the old angry young person made clear that to his 49 years he is a happy man, an artist in grace state.
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New York Daily News
Saturday, as the Festival ended its Elvis Costello retrospective, the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Brad Lubman gave the North America Premiere of "Il Sogno," Costello's first symphonic work. Also, Costello sang some of his pop standards with full orchestral backup.
"Il Sogno," a version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," was commissioned by an Italian dance company and would probably make a stronger impression if we saw it as an accompaniment to ballet rather than music standing on its own.
Nevertheless the score is full of delights, sometimes sounding like vintage jazz, other times like vintage Hollywood. Its most notable feature may be Costello's understanding of the riches of a symphony orchestra. One can only look forward to his future explorations of this great resource.
Originally published on July 19, 2004
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Costello the composer
Popular singer turns a page with first orchestral work
Monday, July 19, 2004
BY BRADLEY BAMBARGER
Star-Ledger Staff
NEW YORK -- For pop musicians, there is a fine line between artistic ambitions and pretension. What enables one to earn the tag of intrepid, while another is labeled a poser?
A long litany of rock artists have sought to mature gracefully by composing "classical" music, whether or not they could actually orchestrate or even read music on paper. Unlike some of his illustrious peers, Elvis Costello took the trouble to learn skills that he could easily have done without as a successful singer/songwriter.
Costello's first orchestral work, the ballet score "Il Sogno" ('The Dream'), garnered its North American premiere on Saturday as the final panel in the Lincoln Center Festival's triptych devoted to his versatile muse and marking his 50th birthday. (On previous nights, he sang in front of a jazz orchestra and with his rock combo, the Imposters.) The piece brims with color and charm of a kind wholly distinct from Costello's pop music or even his classically oriented song cycle, "The Juliet Letters."
Although episodic and a bit long at about an hour (but then many collections of dance cues seem that way), "Il Sogno" was also unflaggingly melodious, rhythmically vital and -- most impressive -- orchestrated with kaleidoscopic vividness. Reading music is one thing; orchestration is quite another (with most rockers who compose orchestral works ceding that all-important job to trained experts). Costello seems to have taken to this new art with as much panache as he did Americana, torch songs or other genre offshoots from his initial vein of combustible, if highly literate, rock'n'roll.
Commissioned for an Italian ballet company's adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Costello's score evokes the material's bittersweet humor and magical air. His soundprint alternated between Stravinsky's commedia dell'arte pastiche "Pulcinella" and the impressionistic big-band charts of Gil Evans. Throughout, there were beguiling sonic touches from bell-like tuned percussion, cascading cimbalom, arching trumpet and swinging trap drums, as well as much mellow-toned saxophone.
The Brooklyn Philharmonic under conductor Brad Lubman performed the jazzy parts with plenty of insouciance, shifting idiomatic gears between those and the more "classical" passages with aplomb. A younger, more rock 'n' roll crowd than usual for Avery Fisher Hall, the audience seemed thrilled, or at least genuinely impressed, by the fresh, tuneful "Il Sogno." But the reception for the concert's second half -- featuring Costello singing a brace of his songs with the orchestra, plus his longtime pianist, Steve Nieve, and double-bassist Greg Cohen -- was rapturous.
In spectacular voice, from sotto voce to stentorian, Costello sang several songs that he orchestrated for his recent ballad album, "North." The one vintage number Costello brought out was "Almost Blue," which has become something of a modern standard, interpreted by more singers than just his new wife, star jazz chanteuse Diana Krall. The laconic Richard Harvey arrangement of "The Birds Will Still Be Singing," from "The Juliet Letters," was another highlight.
Costello also aired songs from his next Imposters album, which -- further illustrating his multi-faceted ways -- will come out the same September day as a Deutsche Grammophon disc featuring "Il Sogno." The concluding item brought out another side of the English artist -- that of the showman. He turned off the microphone to voice his Nino Rota-like waltz "Couldn't Call It Unexpected #4," leading the audience in a wordless singalong at the end. It was, to use an adjective rarely applied to Costello in his days as an "angry young man," enchanting.
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'DREAM' COME TRUE FOR COSTELLO
By SHIRLEY FLEMING
July 19, 2004 -- IT'S impossible to pigeon- hole Elvis Costello, and the Lincoln Center Festival has been smart enough not even to try.
The diverse talents of this very popular singer/songwriter/composer, just turning 50, could not really be contained in a single program, so the festival gave him three last week.
The Netherlands' jazz ensemble Metropole Orkest backed him in the first concert and his own trio, the Imposters, collaborated in the second.
The mini-fest came to its climax on Saturday as a tumultuous audience welcomed him to Avery Fisher Hall for the U.S. premiere of his first full-length symphonic work, "Il Sogno" (The Dream), performed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
The work started two years ago as a ballet score for an Italian company's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and proved rich enough to expand into an hour-long, three-movement piece that takes musical glances at various situations in Shakespeare's play.
The emphasis is on "quick." In the attempt to capture the spirit of no fewer than 21 incidents from the play, "The Dream" is inevitably fragmented, and often a particularly promising idea got nipped off just as you started to become absorbed in it.
But say this: Costello knows his way around an orchestra. The writing is full of color and variety, and solo instruments get their fair share of the spotlight — a beguiling trumpet song in the second movement still lingers.
There are all sorts of style references — luxuriantly romantic passages, outbursts of Ivesian exuberance, sudden turns into Latin rhythms, sturdy marches, a couple of hints of Elizabethan ballad. The work goes all over the place, but it's a fun trip.
IL SOGNO (THE DREAM)
Symphonic work from Elvis Costello at Avery Fisher Hall
July 18, 2004
Lincoln Center Setlist - July 17, 2004
Part I
The Brooklyn Philharmonic
Il Sogno - North American Premiere
Part II
Elvis Costello, Steve Nieve, Greg Cohen, Brooklyn Philharmonic
1) Still
2) All this Useless Beauty
3) Almost Blue
4) She's Pulling Out the Pin
5) You Lie Sweetly
6) Fallen
7) The Birds Will Still Be Singing
8) I Want to Vanish
9) Dirty Rotten Shame
10) I Still Have That Other Girl
11) CCIU4 (off-mike, with the orchestra - major goose-bump time)
July 16, 2004
Setlist, July 15th
Elvis Costello and The Imposters ,
Lincoln Centre ,
New York
I Hope Your Happy Now
Tear Off Your Own Head
Waiting For The End Of The World
You Belong To Me
Radio Radio
The Name Of This Thing is Not Love
Bedlam
The Delivery Man
Country Darkness
(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
Honey are You Straight
Nothing Clings Like Ivy
Monkey To Man
Indoor Fireworks
Heart-Shaped Bruise
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
Sweet Dreams
There's A Story In Your Voice
pounding rocker
The Judgement
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
Man Out Of Time
Either Side Of The Same Town
High Fidelity
Shotgun
Uncomplicated
Encore 1
Button My Lip
Needle Time
Encore 2
Scarlet Tide
Encore 3
Love That Burns
Beyond Belief
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
Pump It Up
( Submitted by John Ottavino)
Costello rocks in fusty venue
The New York Daily News reports -
Extract - But the high-mindedness of his "artist in residence"
stint at UCLA and his collaboration with the Brodsky
Quartet were forgotten when he launched into the
pogo-worthy riff of "I Hope You're Happy Now" and
"Radio Radio." Dedicated boomer fans ready to relive
their halcyon days quickly filled the aisles only to
be summarily ordered back to their seats by
no-nonsense Lincoln Center police.
But all security really needed to do was wait for
Costello to start playing his latest works. Though the
new tunes had grit, they were hardly the soundtrack to
a party.
The neo-Gothic song cycle tells the story of three
women in a small town who pin their hopes on a
delivery man.
Costello's description of one character, Vivian, was
the only sliver of levity. "She's pretty much a liar
and a drunk and a slattern into the bargain," he said.
"But we love her anyway."
Costello wrapped up his 145-minute performance with a
scathing version of the slow blues workout "Love That
Burns," then unleashed his full fury with a
crowd-pleasing combination of "Peace, Love and
Understanding," and "Pump It Up."
Costello rocks in fusty venue
BY ISAAC GUZMAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Someone should just go ahead and give Elvis Costello a
plaque with the words "Renaissance Man" on it.
Maybe then he'd stop feeling the need to be so
relentlessly creative.
Last night, the master songwriter of the New Wave era
turned in his second of three performances at Avery
Fisher Hall.
As part of the Lincoln Center Festival, he and the
Imposters delivered a blistering set that comprised
his best-known hits, a few rarities and a good chunk
of new songs from an upcoming album - due in
September.
Two nights earlier, Costello and the Netherlands
Metropole Orkest performed a set of string-laden Big
Band pop songs.
Tomorrow, the Brooklyn Philharmonic will debut
Costello's first symphonic work, "Il Sogno."
But the high-mindedness of his "artist in residence"
stint at UCLA and his collaboration with the Brodsky
Quartet were forgotten when he launched into the
pogo-worthy riff of "I Hope You're Happy Now" and
"Radio Radio." Dedicated boomer fans ready to relive
their halcyon days quickly filled the aisles only to
be summarily ordered back to their seats by
no-nonsense Lincoln Center police.
But all security really needed to do was wait for
Costello to start playing his latest works. Though the
new tunes had grit, they were hardly the soundtrack to
a party.
The neo-Gothic song cycle tells the story of three
women in a small town who pin their hopes on a
delivery man.
Costello's description of one character, Vivian, was
the only sliver of levity. "She's pretty much a liar
and a drunk and a slattern into the bargain," he said.
"But we love her anyway."
Costello wrapped up his 145-minute performance with a
scathing version of the slow blues workout "Love That
Burns," then unleashed his full fury with a
crowd-pleasing combination of "Peace, Love and
Understanding," and "Pump It Up."
By punctuating two nights of ambitious new projects
with an evening of straightforward rock 'n' roll, he
put his protean talent into perspective and gave
frequently fusty Lincoln Center something to rave
about.
Originally published on July 16, 2004
July 15, 2004
Austin City Limits , Sept. '04
Austin City Limits
Elvis Costello and The Imposters
September 17-19 '04
Austin ,Texas
Ziker Park
' Look for schedule announcements in mid August'
July 14, 2004
News about re-issues
Nunki tells all.
Extracts The ALMOST BLUE bonus disc opens on an odd note with two songs which have Elvis limited to a supporting role: "Stranger in the House" with
George Jones and the previously unheard "We Oughta Be Ashamed" with
Johnny Cash. The latter isn't quite the back-and-forth duet I expected,
as the spotlight is very much on Cash with Elvis joining in on the
chorus and singing just one line on his own. It sounds a bit out of
place on an Elvis Costello album, but it's n enjoyable if unremarkable
performance. As a fan of both Costello and Cash, I'm thrilled to hear
it at last.
The pace picks up with seven songs from the 1979 show at the Palomino
club. For me this is the highlight of the disc. Aside from the familiar
version of "Psycho," there's "Radio Sweetheart" (a rare band
performance, sounding great), "Stranger in the House" (when I first saw
the track listing, I thought it would be awfully repetitive having this
so soon after the George Jones version, but they really don't sound
much alike), "If I Could Put Them All Together (I'd Have You)" (the
weakest song in the set, but still interesting), "Motel Matches" (I
knew from bootlegs that this had significantly different lyrics, but
now I can actually make them out!), "He'll Have To Go" (excellent), and
"Girls Talk" (a unique country arrangement).
The 10 George Jones demos -- seven of them entirely unreleased -- are
simply wonderful. Although they're not overly polished, they sound more
complete than EC's demos ordinarily sound. They capture EC's voice at
an interesting point, immediately after recording THE JULIET LETTERS,
when he seems to have an extra confidence in his voice, and yet he
sings without any apparent effort to show off. In particular he holds
the notes longer than usual, and he does it without his trademark
vibrato. This is presumably meant as an imitation of Jones' style, but
the resemblance is fairly subtle. I doubt anyone would pick up on it
without knowing the back story, because they work as Elvis Costello
songs.
First, a SPOILER WARNING. If you're concerned about reading too much
about the new bonus discs before you hear them, you may not want to
read this message.
I'll try not to gush so much that I create expectations that the bonus
discs can't possibly match. I'm a big fan of this reissue program, and
I think these are extremely worthy entries in the series.
The US release date for all three is August 3. The UK dates are July 26
for ALMOST BLUE and GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD and August 2 for KOJAK VARIETY.
The ALMOST BLUE bonus disc opens on an odd note with two songs which
have Elvis limited to a supporting role: "Stranger in the House" with
George Jones and the previously unheard "We Oughta Be Ashamed" with
Johnny Cash. The latter isn't quite the back-and-forth duet I expected,
as the spotlight is very much on Cash with Elvis joining in on the
chorus and singing just one line on his own. It sounds a bit out of
place on an Elvis Costello album, but it's n enjoyable if unremarkable
performance. As a fan of both Costello and Cash, I'm thrilled to hear
it at last.
The pace picks up with seven songs from the 1979 show at the Palomino
club. For me this is the highlight of the disc. Aside from the familiar
version of "Psycho," there's "Radio Sweetheart" (a rare band
performance, sounding great), "Stranger in the House" (when I first saw
the track listing, I thought it would be awfully repetitive having this
so soon after the George Jones version, but they really don't sound
much alike), "If I Could Put Them All Together (I'd Have You)" (the
weakest song in the set, but still interesting), "Motel Matches" (I
knew from bootlegs that this had significantly different lyrics, but
now I can actually make them out!), "He'll Have To Go" (excellent), and
"Girls Talk" (a unique country arrangement).
Then we get "Too Far Gone" and "He's Got You" from Elvis' "trial
session" in Nashville prior to the start of the ALMOST BLUE sessions.
These are nice although not too different from the versions we've heard
before. If you're wondering, "He's Got You" is not the same version as
on the bootleg NASHVILLE AND MORE, but it's the same basic arrangement.
Next up are the 11 outtakes from the main album sessions. Only three of
these are previously unreleased, and even they have been previously
bootlegged. That said, the upgrade in sound quality is significant (and
Rhino restores the full endings which faded out on the bootleg), and
"I'll Take Care of You" in particular is a welcome addition to the
Costello catalog. There are no real surprises here for hardcore fans,
but it is nevertheless a fine assembly of what was already out there
but spread over various releases. Thankfully, Rhino uses the correct
single versions of "Wondering" and "Cry, Cry, Cry," which have never
been available on CD before.
A live "Brand New Heartache" is the disc's final surprise. It's not
bad, but it's not quite as good as the previously available live tracks
which follow. Rhino has obviously returned to the original tape for the
Aberdeen tracks, because they're slightly more complete than what we've
heard before.
GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD gets off to a slightly weak start with a studio
alternate of "The Only Flame In Town." This is basically a band
arrangement of the ballad version, and it's a little too repetitive to
hold my interest, with an especially repetitive keyboard part which
borders on annoying. I'm curious to find out if other people will like
this any better than I do.
"Young Boy Blues," on the other hand, is a fine studio outtake. This is
inexplicably labeled a "demo," but it is a fully realized band
performance with a great vocal.
After a few previously available tracks (including the CD debut of
"Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)"), we get a set of five studio demos.
All but one are straightforward guitar-and-vocal performances. The
exception is "I Wanna Be Loved," which has sloppy piano accompaniment
instead. Both it and especially "The Great Unknown" nicely present
these GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD tracks in stripped-down form which emphasize
the lyrics. "Turning The Town Red" is wildly different from the
familiar version in terms of both lyrics and melody. (This is also how
the song was played in concert in late 1983.) "Peace In Our Time,"
which had a fairly light production touch on the album, doesn't sound
too different in demo form. The cover of John Hiatt's "She Loves The
Jerk" is pretty good, but I'm still wondering what possessed EC to
record it in the first place.
After "Withered and Died," we get seven demos which EC presumably
recorded at home. These sound similar to the home demos on the PUNCH
THE CLOCK bonus disc, although there are fewer overdubs on the new
ones. Most are just guitar-and-vocal, but "The Comedians" adds a piano
overdub and "Inch By Inch" has multi-tracked vocals. Those two and "Joe
Porterhouse" present the songs without the cluttered production of the
album, and they sound terrific. "The Town Where Time Stood Still" is
nice but not significantly different from the previous versions (which
makes me wonder why he bothered to record it again). The two "new"
songs, "Mystery Voice" and "Blue Murder On Union Avenue" are made up
largely from elements of familiar songs. "Blue Murder On Union Avenue"
is essentially an early version of "Worthless Thing" with a different
chorus and some different lyrics. "Mystery Voice" developed into two
different songs on GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD. I won't reveal which ones.
The previously unreleased live renditions of "What I Like Most About
You Is Your Girlfriend" and "Love Field" toward the end are fine
additions, but mostly they make me wish EC would release a complete
show from the 1984 solo tour.
KOJAK VARIETY is unique among the Rhino bonus discs in that it can
really stand entirely on its own, bearing little more than a thematic
connection to the album it accompanies. Like the original album, it
consists entirely of covers, but only one song comes from the KOJAK
sessions, and only one other is an alternate of a KOJAK track. This may
be the bonus disc which is most appealing to Costello fans who don't
share my fascination with the alternates which tend to dominate the
other bonus discs.
The 10 George Jones demos -- seven of them entirely unreleased -- are
simply wonderful. Although they're not overly polished, they sound more
complete than EC's demos ordinarily sound. They capture EC's voice at
an interesting point, immediately after recording THE JULIET LETTERS,
when he seems to have an extra confidence in his voice, and yet he
sings without any apparent effort to show off. In particular he holds
the notes longer than usual, and he does it without his trademark
vibrato. This is presumably meant as an imitation of Jones' style, but
the resemblance is fairly subtle. I doubt anyone would pick up on it
without knowing the back story, because they work as Elvis Costello
songs.
My favorite is "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," but I
wouldn't be surprised if I had a different favorite tomorrow, because
they all sound good to me. Even the most familiar song, "Pouring Water
on a Drowning Man," differs more from EC's other versions than you'd
probably expect. Several songs feature great multi-tracked harmonies,
which I imagine will delight Connor.
The other half of the disc is devoted to previously available non-LP
covers. I like having these all gathered together, and they're nicely
sequenced, but I'm not going to review them track by track.
Setlist , NY July 13 '04
Elvis Costello , Steve Nieve and The Metropole Orkest
Lincoln Centre , NY , July 13 '04
1) Barcelona (Instrumental)
2) Upon A Veil of Midnight Blue
3) Clubland
4) Someone Took the Words Away
5) Still
6) Punishing Kiss
7) Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
8) Put Away Forbidden Playthings
9) Dust
10) The Flame Burns Blue
11) Hora Decubitus
Intermission
12) Favourite Hour
13) That's How You Got Killed Before
14) When Did I Stop Dreaming
15) Can You Be True?
16) Almost Ideal Eyes
17) Speak Darkly My Angel
18) When Green Eyes Turn Blue
19) Watching the Detectives
20) Episode of Blonde
--
21) Almost Blue
--
22) God Give Me Strength
(Submitted by Hungup Strungup to The Costello Fan Forum) * with corrections
Il Sogno Sampler
A very nice 3 song sampler from Il Sogno was handed out to those who straggled out of Lincoln Center tonight. Most people were probably well out of the building before any started being distributed, but they seemed to have cartons of them so maybe they'll be around Thursday and Saturday.
The CD offers Puck One, Oberon & Titania, and The Wedding. In a sleek black cardboard holder with the Deutsche Grammophone logo on the front and a nice NYTimes quote on the back.
My first impression is VERY good. I'm looking forward for Saturday night.
July 11, 2004
Elvis 'n Steve in Belgium, July 10
2004-07-10: Brugge, Belgium, Cactus Festival
Elvis Costello with Steve Nieve
45
Accidents Will Happen
Rocking Horse Road
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Good Year For The Roses
The Delivery Man
Country Darkness
Veronica
Everyday I Write The Book
Nothing Clings Like Ivy
God's Comic
Shipbuilding
Oliver's Army
The Scarlet Tide
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
Encore 1
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror/You Really Got A Hold On Me
I Want You
Needle Time
Encore 2
Pump It Up
( Submitted by Filip Dejongh )
July 10, 2004
Setlist , July 9 2004
Elvis Costello, Steve Nieve and the Metropole Orchestra
North Sea Jazz Festival , The Hague , Holland.
Instrumental (Barcelona)
Upon A Veil of Midnight blue
Clubland
Someone Took The Words Away
Still (Lee Konitz joins Elvis)
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
Put Away Forbidden Playthings
Dust
My Flame Burns Blue (Blood Count)
Hora Decubitus
Encore: God Give Me Strength
Second set:
Instrumental
Favourite Hour
That's How You Got Killed Before
When Did I Stop Dreaming?
Can You Be True?
Almost Ideal Eyes
Speak Darkly, My Angel
When Green Eyes Turn Blue
Watching The Detectives
Episode of Blonde
Encore: Almost Blue
(Submitted by Joyce Slavik)
Now That Your Picture's In The Paper
The New York Times includes a major EC article in advance of the Lincoln Center shows:
"When I first heard it," said Mr. Thomas, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra recording, "I thought this is a guy who really is in a process of searching out a lot of interesting answers in music. The interesting thing is that he doesn't always use melodies to hold the thing together. Sometimes he just uses a kind of flavor of harmonic language, which is quite elusive and subtle, especially as he evokes the dream world. There's some music that is so wondrously adventurous and non-tonal that you'd never suspect Elvis Costello has written this, because it's so out there."Mr. Costello said: "I'm not concerned with this music's relationship to my own past. Perhaps you can tell it's me, but I hope it doesn't remind you of another year in my life. I have absolutely no nostalgia about my past. I never liked being young, and I feel absolutely at a peak of my life. There are some terrific records that I'm glad I made. But I don't want to stand and fall on a handful of songs because there are still a lot of songs to be sung."
July 9, 2004
De-Lovely Review
Elvis gets a mention and a photo in this CNN movie review.
The Long Arm Of The Law
If you make something that wouldn't otherwise exist, and get money for it from people who are happy to buy it, aren't you an entrepreneur? Not in the UK, you're a criminal.
This guy certainly put out some Elvis bootlegs, which is why I'm posting it here. God knows his 'Wanted Man' label put out tons of excellent Dylan material through the years. The BBC article includes this priceless quote:
"For at least 11 years he used illicit recordings made by sound engineers and concertgoers to create counterfeit CDs."
What makes these CDs 'counterfiet'? Weren't they CDs? (yes) Did they not include the concerts and artists they claimed? (yes) Did they pretend to be from any label or company other than the one that was putting them out? (no) Was this same material sold by the artists or their record labels in any other form? (no) So why in the world does anyone care?
Concerts are public events. People pay to go and listen. There is ZERO evidence that their availability on CD reduces the number of people who attend live events (witness the ticket-sales history of Dylan, Springsteen, Stones, Prince, and many other heavily bootlegged artists). So what's the problem? When Dylan finally put out officially several heavily bootlegged shows, they sold well - so the practice doesn't even limit the future revenue potential of anyone. When told of the initial success of 'The Basement Tapes' when issued by Columbia, Dylan was surprised and famously remarked "I thought everybody already had them" referring to the fact that copies had widely circulated for years.
More recently, Pearl Jam, The Who, Rickie Lee Jones, and others have started issuing their own 'instant bootlegs' and have done well with it. Other artists should either start doing this, or just let the free market take over. This guy deserves all the money he's made, and should be encouraged to grow his business - not to go sit in jail.
Elvis concerts , Australia , Nov. 2004
According to the Elvis Costello Homepage -
2004-11-27: Melbourne, Yarra Vale, Rochford Wines Concert, "A Day on the Green"
2004-11-21: Canberra, Commonwealth Park Concert, Stage 88, "A Day on the Green"
2004-11-20: Hunter Valley, Bimbagen Estate Concert, "A Day on the Green"
July 7, 2004
Rhino Revamps Costello's 'Cruel,' 'Blue,' 'Kojak'
Billboard tells all about the next set of re-issues.
Extract - Bridging the sets is "Goodbye Cruel World," an album of originals that is often reviled among the Costello faithful. Nonetheless, it reached No. 35 on The Billboard 200 and produced a hit single in "The Only Flame in Town," which features Darryl Hall. An alternate version and a live take of the song appear on the bonus disc.
The work of producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley has been blamed by Costello for the album's weaknesses, and the set's best cuts -- "The Comedians," "Inch by Inch," "The Deportees Club" -- have come across better when he's presented them in different live arrangements or when covered by others.
Among the bonus disc cuts are Costello's demos and live recordings of several more album tracks, seemingly seeking to prove that point. And it's probable that Costello's new liner notes -- exhaustive and unique to each title -- will further explain his contentions with the original album and defend his songs.
Other than Nick Lowe's appearance on "Baby It's You," a holdover from the Ryko edition, the only other guest appearance comes from another Langer/Winstanley-produced act: Costello covers Madness' "Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)" with the ska pop group's help.
Rhino Revamps Costello's 'Cruel,' 'Blue,' 'Kojak'
With the next trio of Rhino's Elvis Costello reissues around the corner, details have emerged about the extra content that will bolster 1981's "Almost Blue," 1984's "Goodbye Cruel World" and 1995's "Kojak Variety." Like each in the label's Costello upgrades, the titles boast the remastered original album on one disc and a full second disc of live cuts, B-sides, alternate takes and demo recordings.
Rhino and Costello have approached this reissue program not chronologically, but subjectively. The nature of the plan has allowed a stylistic examination of his oeuvre and his idiosyncratic penchant for exploring various genres. In the new round, due Aug. 3, the earliest and latest albums are linked as covers projects.
"Almost Blue," which peaked at No. 50 on The Billboard 200, is widely regarded as Costello's "country album." Although somewhat maligned at the time of its original release, Costello's treatment of such songs as Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" and the Jerry Chesnut-written/George Jones-popularized "Good Year for the Roses" has proven to be effective and enduring.
The second disc boasts more than 15 tracks not included on Ryko's 1994 version of the album. Among the newly appended cuts is a version of "Stranger in the House" with Jones and "We Oughta Be Ashamed" with Johnny Cash. Also new are live versions of "Girls Talk," "Motel Matches" and one-time B-side "Radio Sweetheart."
"Kojak Variety" -- the only title in this batch not among the albums revamped and reissued by Rykodisc in the early '90s -- was Costello's second album for Warner Bros. Although it was the follow-up to 1994's acclaimed "Brutal Youth," which found Costello reunited with the Attractions, only Attractions drummer Pete Thomas appears on the set. Such noted musicians as multi-instrumentalist Marc Ribot, guitarist James Burton, keyboardist Kevin Killen, bassist Jerry Scheff and drummer Jim Keltner comprise the backing band.
The album found Costello crooning such numbers as Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Strange," Little Richard's "Bama Lama Bama," Bob Dylan's "I Threw It All Away" and the Kinks' "Days." The bonus disc comprises 20 tracks, including a version of the Beatles' "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and an alternate take of the album's Drew Baker/Danny McCormick blues classic "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man."
Collaborations include a take of "That's How You Got Killed Before" with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (a version of which appeared on the latter's 1990 set "The New Orleans Album") and Gershwin's "But Not For Me" with renowned harmonica player Larry Adler.
Bridging the sets is "Goodbye Cruel World," an album of originals that is often reviled among the Costello faithful. Nonetheless, it reached No. 35 on The Billboard 200 and produced a hit single in "The Only Flame in Town," which features Darryl Hall. An alternate version and a live take of the song appear on the bonus disc.
The work of producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley has been blamed by Costello for the album's weaknesses, and the set's best cuts -- "The Comedians," "Inch by Inch," "The Deportees Club" -- have come across better when he's presented them in different live arrangements or when covered by others.
Among the bonus disc cuts are Costello's demos and live recordings of several more album tracks, seemingly seeking to prove that point. And it's probable that Costello's new liner notes -- exhaustive and unique to each title -- will further explain his contentions with the original album and defend his songs.
Other than Nick Lowe's appearance on "Baby It's You," a holdover from the Ryko edition, the only other guest appearance comes from another Langer/Winstanley-produced act: Costello covers Madness' "Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)" with the ska pop group's help.
As previously reported, Costello will simultaneously release two new albums Sept. 21 on two different labels. Lost Highway will issue an as-yet-untitled new rock album with the Imposters, while "Il Sogno," his first full-length orchestral work, will emerge via Deutsche Grammophon.
-- Barry A. Jeckell, N.Y.
July 5, 2004
Elvis concert on Dutch radio, July 9
Elvis' show with the Metropole Orchestra & Steve Nieve will be broadcast on Dutch radio.
July 4, 2004
Lovin' 'n hatin' Elvis in Palm Beach
The Palm Beach Post has yet another list -
50 best rock intros
23. Mystery Dance, Elvis Costello. The other Elvis
doesn't waste time with an intro, just starts spitting
out the lyrics in this tribute to hot-and-cold
passion: "Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill..."
50 worst songs of great rockers.
How To Be Dumb, Elvis Costello: Elvis really hit the
bitter mother lode with this overbearingly scathing
slap at former bass player Bruce Thomas. Elvis goes
straight past clever sniping into a full-blown tirade
("Trapped in the House of the Perpetual Sucker/ where
bitterness always ends so pitifully/ You always had to
dress up your envy in some half-remembered
philosophy"). Open ugliness usually makes the writer
look worse than his target.