Live Costello Download
Futurama Sessions - EP Elvis Costello
Release Date:November 30, 2004
The Delivery Man
The Monkey
Needle Time
Monkey to Man
Button my Lip
Only available to U.S. residents.
« October 2004 | Main | December 2004 »
Futurama Sessions - EP Elvis Costello
Release Date:November 30, 2004
The Delivery Man
The Monkey
Needle Time
Monkey to Man
Button my Lip
Only available to U.S. residents.
Elvis continues to get great reviews of his Australian shows.
Hobart , Tasmania , Nov.28
Extract - ROCK 'n roll royalty came to Hobart yesterday, with UK music legend Elvis Costello showing exactly why he has won millions of fans around the world during his 25-year career.
About 1800 people -- from die-hard, long-term fans to those too young to remember Costello's former band The Attractions -- slapped on sunscreen and hats and headed to Moorilla Estate yesterday to hear from Costello and his current band The Imposters.
Ex-Weddings, Parties, Anything frontman Mick Thomas and former Sports singer Stephen Cummings warmed up the crowd with brilliant sets, but it was clearly Costello they had come to see.
Dressed in a regal purple suit jacket and his trademark glasses, Costello bounded on to stage with a quick "how are ya?" to the crowd before launching into Accidents Will Happen and Red Shoes.
By his fourth song, plenty of audience members had left their folding chairs and picnic blankets behind and were dancing wildly in front of the stage.
Sydney , Nov.25
Elvis Costello's first bracket of songs with his Imposters was obviously designed to energise the audience and was almost perfect. Almost.
Dressed in a black suit, red tie and sparkling silver shoes Costello bounded into 'Accidents Will Happen' then powered along through 'Tear Your Own Head Off (Doll Revolution)', 'Waiting Til' The End Of the World' and 'Radio, Radio'. It was an all out assault. But there was one problem - the sound was atrocious.
Trapped in the cavernous space of the grand old Palais Theatre the music echoed: Costello's voice boomed, Pete Thomas's kick drum thumped, Davey Faragher's bass guitar thudded and Steve Nieve's keyboard struggled to be heard over the mix. Instead of getting the notoriously conservative Melbourne audience on its feet the sound puzzled them.
It took nearly an hour for Costello to win the crowd back but that he did with a show that was thirty songs long and, by its close, a virtual tour de force. It also showcased nearly every track from the latest album The Delivery Man - something that I daresay has not been done by such an established artist since Lou Reed refused to play any old songs on his tour about five years ago.
Unlike Reed, however, Costello is happy to add plenty of classics. But while he handles his past with grace he is not someone to be trapped by it. Happy to give us the 'hits' he was also offering his latest songs - and their strength is that many of them stand up shoulder to shoulder with some of his best songs from earlier years.
'We're here to party,' said a bemused Costello after the introductory blast, 'so we'll party up here if we have to'. Someone might have politely told him that we were there to party too but we just couldn't hear properly! At this point all the old chestnuts about sound engineers being deaf could be dragged out but given that Costello brought his own engineer one can only assume that it took a while to adjust the sound to such unfamiliar surroundings.
Only a day or two earlier the band had played in the open at a winery. I know it should be obvious but louder isn't always better. Just two months ago I had seen the band outdoors at the Austin City Limits Festival and even from a hundred metres back the sound was perfect. Surely it should not be that difficult to get it right indoors?
'He still seems so angry,' said my partner after that first bracket. 'He's not, but I am sure he'd be flattered that you thought so,' I replied. The energy Costello brought to the songs was pretty impressive after all these years; he is not one to walk passionlessly through his back catalogue like others of his ilk.
The second bracket then featured three songs from the latest album The Delivery Man and, after 'The Name Of this Thing Is Not Love' and 'Bedlam', the muddy sound suddenly improved for the beautiful ballad 'Country Darkness' as Costello reached for an acoustic guitar. Then came 'Blame It On Cain' where the uptempo riffs were suddenly clear as a bell and the band seemed to gel.
The first surprise of the evening arrived with a version of 'Hidden Shame' which Costello had written for Johnny Cash many years ago and which contained the inspiration for the plot of The Delivery Man. This gentle country romp was a delivered almost tongue-in-cheek but was a nice counterpoint to previous songs. I am not sure how often Costello has performed it but I wouldn't be surprised if he dragged it out especially for the night.
While 'Chelsea (I Don't Want To Go To)' was greeted warmly 'Good Year For The Roses' was not only a delight but also a reminder of how easily Costello has managed to slip across genres during his career. It remains a brilliant song and I still think he gives the definitive version. Just to show he hasn't lost his touch he then added 'Heart Shaped Bruise' from the latest album with Davey 'Lou' Faragher (as he was called) on harmony vocals in place of Emmylou Harris who appeared on the album version.
Then a superb trilogy of 'Every Day I Write The Book', 'I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down' and High Fidelity' - with the band in full flight and Costello in full voice - finally got the crowd to its feet. 'Uncomplicated' from Blood & Chocolate and the surging 'Needle Time' from The Delivery Man closed the show proper in a blast of feedback.
The other surprise for audience members who have not seen Costello for a while was that his encores amounted to almost an additional hour of the show and another dozen songs. It was as if finally having won over the audience over, got them on their feet and dancing, he just didn't want to leave.
While there was a the almost obligatory rendition of 'Allison' (coupled now with 'Suspicious Minds' - from the other Elvis) there was an immediate slab from the new album, including the title song, the ballads 'Nothing Clings Like Ivy and 'There's A Story In Your Voice' and the great, bouncy answer song to New Orleans' legend Dave Barth olomew's 1957 hit 'The Monkey', 'Monkey To Man'.
Then with 'No Action', 'Oliver's Army' and '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Love, Peace and Understanding' ringing in our ears Costello delivered his own version of 'The Monkey' - a song whose message is still as relevant now as when it was originally recorded (and whose opening riff must have inspired T-Rex). For me this was the highlight of the show and, frankly, it made my evening. Then again I am an unabashed Bartholomew fan and was delighted at this recognition. While Costello had recorded a version of the song but not included on the latest album, I never thought I would actually hear him perform it live. I would have paid just to hear that one song!
After an epic version of 'Pump It Up', complete with audience sing along and clapping, Costello felt free enough to close with 'Button My Lip', the opener off The Delivery Man. It was really a compliment to the audience.
After two hours Costello finally left the stage and you would have to think that he would be confident most of the fans would check out his new album, even if commercial radio have ignored it.
It was an enormously generous performance from an artist who never stands still.
The Mercury, Hobart , Tasmania , Australia
Elvis hits a purple patch
By KANE YOUNG
November 29, 2004
ROCK 'n roll royalty came to Hobart yesterday, with UK music legend Elvis Costello showing exactly why he has won millions of fans around the world during his 25-year career.
About 1800 people -- from die-hard, long-term fans to those too young to remember Costello's former band The Attractions -- slapped on sunscreen and hats and headed to Moorilla Estate yesterday to hear from Costello and his current band The Imposters.
Ex-Weddings, Parties, Anything frontman Mick Thomas and former Sports singer Stephen Cummings warmed up the crowd with brilliant sets, but it was clearly Costello they had come to see.
Dressed in a regal purple suit jacket and his trademark glasses, Costello bounded on to stage with a quick "how are ya?" to the crowd before launching into Accidents Will Happen and Red Shoes.
By his fourth song, plenty of audience members had left their folding chairs and picnic blankets behind and were dancing wildly in front of the stage.
The event was the latest in the "A Day On The Green" outdoor concert series, which brought US star Jewel, george and Monique Brumby to Glenorchy in February.
Moorilla chief executive Tim Goddard said yesterday's concert, which he had been eagerly looking forward to for the last nine months, was a huge success.
"We're really excited to have someone the calibre of Elvis Costello here," he said.
Moorilla Estate is in the process of building a permanent stage, so it can host more regular shows from next March.
"It'll give us the infrastructure to give mainland promoters the confidence to bring acts down here regularly," Mr Goddard said.
"There'll be a big show to kick things off but we'll keep that under wraps for the moment."
Pete Murray, The Waifs and You Am I's Tim Rogers will headline the next "A Day On The Green" event, at Tolosa Park on February 13.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABC Radio , Sydney , Australia
Costello Live At The Palais - Elvis Costello & The Imposters
Reviewer: Brian Wise - 25/11/2004
Elvis Costello's first bracket of songs with his Imposters was obviously designed to energise the audience and was almost perfect. Almost.
Dressed in a black suit, red tie and sparkling silver shoes Costello bounded into 'Accidents Will Happen' then powered along through 'Tear Your Own Head Off (Doll Revolution)', 'Waiting Til' The End Of the World' and 'Radio, Radio'. It was an all out assault. But there was one problem - the sound was atrocious.
Trapped in the cavernous space of the grand old Palais Theatre the music echoed: Costello's voice boomed, Pete Thomas's kick drum thumped, Davey Faragher's bass guitar thudded and Steve Nieve's keyboard struggled to be heard over the mix. Instead of getting the notoriously conservative Melbourne audience on its feet the sound puzzled them.
It took nearly an hour for Costello to win the crowd back but that he did with a show that was thirty songs long and, by its close, a virtual tour de force. It also showcased nearly every track from the latest album The Delivery Man - something that I daresay has not been done by such an established artist since Lou Reed refused to play any old songs on his tour about five years ago.
Unlike Reed, however, Costello is happy to add plenty of classics. But while he handles his past with grace he is not someone to be trapped by it. Happy to give us the 'hits' he was also offering his latest songs - and their strength is that many of them stand up shoulder to shoulder with some of his best songs from earlier years.
'We're here to party,' said a bemused Costello after the introductory blast, 'so we'll party up here if we have to'. Someone might have politely told him that we were there to party too but we just couldn't hear properly! At this point all the old chestnuts about sound engineers being deaf could be dragged out but given that Costello brought his own engineer one can only assume that it took a while to adjust the sound to such unfamiliar surroundings.
Only a day or two earlier the band had played in the open at a winery. I know it should be obvious but louder isn't always better. Just two months ago I had seen the band outdoors at the Austin City Limits Festival and even from a hundred metres back the sound was perfect. Surely it should not be that difficult to get it right indoors?
'He still seems so angry,' said my partner after that first bracket. 'He's not, but I am sure he'd be flattered that you thought so,' I replied. The energy Costello brought to the songs was pretty impressive after all these years; he is not one to walk passionlessly through his back catalogue like others of his ilk.
The second bracket then featured three songs from the latest album The Delivery Man and, after 'The Name Of this Thing Is Not Love' and 'Bedlam', the muddy sound suddenly improved for the beautiful ballad 'Country Darkness' as Costello reached for an acoustic guitar. Then came 'Blame It On Cain' where the uptempo riffs were suddenly clear as a bell and the band seemed to gel.
The first surprise of the evening arrived with a version of 'Hidden Shame' which Costello had written for Johnny Cash many years ago and which contained the inspiration for the plot of The Delivery Man. This gentle country romp was a delivered almost tongue-in-cheek but was a nice counterpoint to previous songs. I am not sure how often Costello has performed it but I wouldn't be surprised if he dragged it out especially for the night.
While 'Chelsea (I Don't Want To Go To)' was greeted warmly 'Good Year For The Roses' was not only a delight but also a reminder of how easily Costello has managed to slip across genres during his career. It remains a brilliant song and I still think he gives the definitive version. Just to show he hasn't lost his touch he then added 'Heart Shaped Bruise' from the latest album with Davey 'Lou' Faragher (as he was called) on harmony vocals in place of Emmylou Harris who appeared on the album version.
Then a superb trilogy of 'Every Day I Write The Book', 'I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down' and High Fidelity' - with the band in full flight and Costello in full voice - finally got the crowd to its feet. 'Uncomplicated' from Blood & Chocolate and the surging 'Needle Time' from The Delivery Man closed the show proper in a blast of feedback.
The other surprise for audience members who have not seen Costello for a while was that his encores amounted to almost an additional hour of the show and another dozen songs. It was as if finally having won over the audience over, got them on their feet and dancing, he just didn't want to leave.
While there was a the almost obligatory rendition of 'Allison' (coupled now with 'Suspicious Minds' - from the other Elvis) there was an immediate slab from the new album, including the title song, the ballads 'Nothing Clings Like Ivy and 'There's A Story In Your Voice' and the great, bouncy answer song to New Orleans' legend Dave Barth olomew's 1957 hit 'The Monkey', 'Monkey To Man'.
Then with 'No Action', 'Oliver's Army' and '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Love, Peace and Understanding' ringing in our ears Costello delivered his own version of 'The Monkey' - a song whose message is still as relevant now as when it was originally recorded (and whose opening riff must have inspired T-Rex). For me this was the highlight of the show and, frankly, it made my evening. Then again I am an unabashed Bartholomew fan and was delighted at this recognition. While Costello had recorded a version of the song but not included on the latest album, I never thought I would actually hear him perform it live. I would have paid just to hear that one song!
After an epic version of 'Pump It Up', complete with audience sing along and clapping, Costello felt free enough to close with 'Button My Lip', the opener off The Delivery Man. It was really a compliment to the audience.
After two hours Costello finally left the stage and you would have to think that he would be confident most of the fans would check out his new album, even if commercial radio have ignored it.
It was an enormously generous performance from an artist who never stands still.
ABC Gold & Tweed Coasts Radio , Queensland , Australia got Elvis on the 'phone.
Elvis is of the belief that his success has not been made through his albums, so much as his concerts, he believes that his records are merely ads for his performances and that it is a compliment that people want to listen to the songs he wrote 25 years ago, though he is wary of becoming a hit machine band that only plays their 'best of collection', insisting that you want your shows to have a bit of drama so that the hits mean something.
So what is the secret of Elvis Costello's success? You will just have to listen to the interview to find that one out!
It's a fun listen . The usual stories . One point of discord. Elvis mentions having done a few interviews so far in Australia ; however the one in Limelight magazine was full of invented quotes . The lady interviewer tells of discovering Elvis via a late 1970's Kenny Everett show Tv appearance . Elvis had no memory of it but puts the described intensity of their performance down to vodka. He also talks about the Wendy James album ; his demos for it will be coming out eventually
Elvis gets thoughtful -
You cannot encounter Costello, either through his records or his stage performances or in person, and go away believing this is a man gripped by indecision or indifference. When his first album, My Aim Is True, appeared in 1977, Costello, who had been working as a computer operator with the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics company, emerged as a fully formed artist. His lyrics were clever and direct, his melodies were unadorned and self-assured, his singing was assertive. An only child who had been born to show business parents, he had thought through all the angles, including his estimation of his own talents, well before he arrived in the public consciousness.
But what was, in his younger days, a certain belligerence has taken on a more appealing form. For this interview, Costello arrived kitted up in a natty black suit, tie and shirt. He looks slim, fit and happy. Costello married Canadian singer Diana Krall last year, after meeting her at the Grammy awards in 2002, but right now the pair are on different sides of the planet. Krall was playing in Vienna this week. He still has strong views, and clearly enjoys putting them sharply, but he also seems more accommodating, not just with his inquisitor but with the human race generally.
This tour of Australia is Costello's ninth. Members of his extended family (he was born Declan MacManus) live here and he is familiar enough with Melbourne that whenever he comes here, he has music and book shops in the city that he always visits. He lost his bearings momentarily early this week on a stroll at the eastern end of the CBD. "I thought, 'Where's the Southern Cross?' but it's gone," he says.
Costello's now something of a stateless person. Raised in London and Liverpool, he lived in Dublin during the '90s. Now, he lives in North America. "When people say, 'Where do you live?' I say, 'Well, if I'm ever home, I'd tell you.' We have an apartment in New York and we spend a lot of time in British Columbia, where my wife is from, and that's a beautiful part of the world, as you probably know," he says.
As for pop music and his place in it, Costello is unfussed. He doesn't pay much attention to the charts and the last hit he liked, after happening upon it by chance, was Milkshake by Kelis.
This week's Australian Idol mania had also passed him by. "I always think, 'When are they going to let the alligators loose?' whenever I hear about those programs. It just seems like the Roman games to me . . . It's a continuation of vaudeville. It has all the tragedy of it, all of the cruelty that ever existed in it.
"I interviewed Joni Mitchell recently for Vanity Fair for 6½ hours. If you think I'm irascible about popular music, you want to talk to her. But if you were her, you'd understand that. She says, 'They play me these records and it's the first three chords you learn on the guitar, there's no depth, no metaphor, there's nothing. And that's most songs.' "
Costello understands and appreciates his good fortune in being able to continue to make new music and to be able to attract substantial audiences to his shows that are willing to listen to it. "If you look at my generation, the class of '77, how many of those guys are recording? Me, Sting, Chrissie (Hynde), that's about it. Joe Jackson is still doing some stuff. There's a lot of people from the '80s who are sort of on the nostalgia circuit."
What Costello does when he performs - and this almost certainly explains his unusual artistic and commercial longevity - is make his live shows a continuation of the creative process. Live shows, he says, provide "the opportunity to remake it night to night. And the cumulative story of all of the songs. I mean, what you find is that songs you have written 25 years apart talk to each other on stage in a way that you can never do on record.
"I could never be an actor. I could never say the same lines night after night. I'd want to change it . . . I think I'm tremendously lucky to do the things I do. The idea that I'm doing them to make myself look clever is so silly. For one thing, it's way too much work. People say, 'What's your act?' I don't have an act. This is really what I'm thinking about. I'm not f---ing about."
At last, a glimpse of that old post-punk attitude. It's as close to the nostalgia circuit as Costello will ever get.
The Age
A true aim creating useful beauty
You cannot encounter Elvis Costello, either through his records or his stage performances or in person, and go away believing this is a man gripped by indecision or indifference, writes Shaun Carney.
Here is a story that seems to sum up the creative energy, restless curiosity and single-mindedness of Elvis Costello, the 50-year-old, British-born musician who played the Palais on Tuesday and will perform at a big outdoor show at a Yarra Valley winery tonight. In 1996, Costello had reconciled with his long-time backing band, the Attractions, and released a diverse, elegant album, All This Useless Beauty.
The album, his sixth for the Warner Brothers label, did poorly in the US, selling fewer than 100,000 copies within a year of its release. Costello was anxious. About the same time, he had teamed up to co-write a song, God Give Me Strength, with Burt Bacharach for a film soundtrack. The film wasn't so great but the song, a soaring ballad, was; Costello and Bacharach wanted to keep working together, to write and perform a whole album. But there was a problem. "Burt wanted to make the record but he wouldn't make it for Warner Brothers because he had seen how wasteful they had been with All This Useless Beauty and he couldn't see any point in making it for Warner Brothers," Costello recalled this week.
So I went in and picked a fight with them and walked out of the contract, effectively. Because I was managing myself, I had to do it and we had a fair and frank exchange of views. And they let me go even though I owed them a record because they knew that in that frame of mind there was no prospect that I would make any record that would claw back any money that I owed them."
Costello promptly signed a unique, multi-pronged contract with Polygram (now Universal), which allowed him to record different types of music for the company's specialist labels, variously embracing jazz, classical, country and pop styles. His first release for Polygram was the collaboration with Bacharach, Painted From Memory, which was a critical triumph. Costello had got his way.
You cannot encounter Costello, either through his records or his stage performances or in person, and go away believing this is a man gripped by indecision or indifference. When his first album, My Aim Is True, appeared in 1977, Costello, who had been working as a computer operator with the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics company, emerged as a fully formed artist. His lyrics were clever and direct, his melodies were unadorned and self-assured, his singing was assertive. An only child who had been born to show business parents, he had thought through all the angles, including his estimation of his own talents, well before he arrived in the public consciousness.
But what was, in his younger days, a certain belligerence has taken on a more appealing form. For this interview, Costello arrived kitted up in a natty black suit, tie and shirt. He looks slim, fit and happy. Costello married Canadian singer Diana Krall last year, after meeting her at the Grammy awards in 2002, but right now the pair are on different sides of the planet. Krall was playing in Vienna this week. He still has strong views, and clearly enjoys putting them sharply, but he also seems more accommodating, not just with his inquisitor but with the human race generally.
This tour of Australia is Costello's ninth. Members of his extended family (he was born Declan MacManus) live here and he is familiar enough with Melbourne that whenever he comes here, he has music and book shops in the city that he always visits. He lost his bearings momentarily early this week on a stroll at the eastern end of the CBD. "I thought, 'Where's the Southern Cross?' but it's gone," he says.
Costello's now something of a stateless person. Raised in London and Liverpool, he lived in Dublin during the '90s. Now, he lives in North America. "When people say, 'Where do you live?' I say, 'Well, if I'm ever home, I'd tell you.' We have an apartment in New York and we spend a lot of time in British Columbia, where my wife is from, and that's a beautiful part of the world, as you probably know," he says.
Although steeped in American music forms for a long time, Costello maintained, or at least regularly returned to, certain English cultural, political and emotional concerns in his songs - including sharp criticisms of Margaret Thatcher, John Major and the occupation of Northern Ireland - but his relationship with the country of his birth has undergone some strain lately. "I don't like British culture very much. They are great people and I've got great friends. Some of my best friends are English and I grew up in England, and there's a lot of great music still comes out of England but you know, when you're just visiting, it hasn't sort of moved on any, you know? The cultural scene is a bit crowded and seems a bit wrapped up in itself, it doesn't look outward."
The peculiar nature of the contract with Universal was in evidence a couple of months ago when two new Costello albums were released on the same day: a rock outing, The Delivery Man, recorded with his backing band the Imposters and Il Sogno, a score for an Italian dance company's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, played by the London Symphony Orchestra.
While Costello is proud of The Delivery Man, it's Il Sogno, an alternately melodic and atmospheric work that owes a debt to Debussy and Gershwin, that really gets him excited. And why not? He scored the entire thing straight out of his head, having taught himself musical notation through trial and error in the early '90s. "It came down to my love of Italy. One of my very few ambitions I've had, a concrete ambition - and I've always said that I don't have ambition and it sounds ludicrous but I don't, because ambition is to say, 'By a certain point, I must have achieved this, otherwise I will be thwarted in my ambition' and I don't have that way of thinking; I do things and they lead to something else - was to have some kind of career in Spain and Italy because I like both those countries more than a lot of other European countries. I thought if I could establish some sort of relationship with the audience, I would be happy."
The result is that Costello's face beams out of the racks in the classical sections of music stores, with the storied imprint of Deutsche Grammophon just next to his right temple on the Il Sogno CD cover. "Who can say where it will go?" he mused.
As for pop music and his place in it, Costello is unfussed. He doesn't pay much attention to the charts and the last hit he liked, after happening upon it by chance, was Milkshake by Kelis.
This week's Australian Idol mania had also passed him by. "I always think, 'When are they going to let the alligators loose?' whenever I hear about those programs. It just seems like the Roman games to me . . . It's a continuation of vaudeville. It has all the tragedy of it, all of the cruelty that ever existed in it.
"I interviewed Joni Mitchell recently for Vanity Fair for 6½ hours. If you think I'm irascible about popular music, you want to talk to her. But if you were her, you'd understand that. She says, 'They play me these records and it's the first three chords you learn on the guitar, there's no depth, no metaphor, there's nothing. And that's most songs.' "
Costello understands and appreciates his good fortune in being able to continue to make new music and to be able to attract substantial audiences to his shows that are willing to listen to it. "If you look at my generation, the class of '77, how many of those guys are recording? Me, Sting, Chrissie (Hynde), that's about it. Joe Jackson is still doing some stuff. There's a lot of people from the '80s who are sort of on the nostalgia circuit."
What Costello does when he performs - and this almost certainly explains his unusual artistic and commercial longevity - is make his live shows a continuation of the creative process. Live shows, he says, provide "the opportunity to remake it night to night. And the cumulative story of all of the songs. I mean, what you find is that songs you have written 25 years apart talk to each other on stage in a way that you can never do on record.
"I could never be an actor. I could never say the same lines night after night. I'd want to change it . . . I think I'm tremendously lucky to do the things I do. The idea that I'm doing them to make myself look clever is so silly. For one thing, it's way too much work. People say, 'What's your act?' I don't have an act. This is really what I'm thinking about. I'm not f---ing about."
At last, a glimpse of that old post-punk attitude. It's as close to the nostalgia circuit as Costello will ever get.
Such is married life for Elvis and Diana -
Extract - IT'S impossible to calculate just how many characters and ideas inhabit the Elvis Costello songbook - harder still to imagine how they would unravel and bond together in story form.
That's one of the many creative conundrums the 50-year-old songwriter has confronted this year.
When he's not writing for the opera or the ballet, or recording a rock album, or penning songs with his jazz-singer wife Diana Krall, he finds time to write what he hopes will be his first published book, drawing from the subjects of his many songs.
"I have no interest in formal biography," the singer said in Sydney yesterday, while admitting to enjoying fellow troubadour Bob Dylan's recent memoirs. Of his own book, he said he didn't know how long it would take to write, "because I have lots of other things going on. But it's a good thing to put creative energy or frustrations into".
Costello's multi-faceted output suggests a man driven by work and still ambitious despite his years of success. However, he says: "I've never had any ambition, ever. I think maybe for about 10 minutes in 1978 I thought, 'Yeah, I can have the biggest band in the world' -- those crazy thoughts that bands have. That was more an objective than an ambition, but then I thought 'why?'."
Fans of the veteran songwriter can enjoy an extensive trawling of his back catalogue on this tour. He plays more than 30 songs in a show stretching beyond two hours, and he changes the set list each night.
"Whenever you put out a new album there's always something in your catalogue that has some sort of kinship with it," he said.
His recording and touring leaves little time to spend with Krall, his wife of one year. "She comes to visit me in a beaten-up dance hall in Glasgow and I get to see her at the Albert Hall," is how he describes it. This week she is performing in Vienna as part of her world tour. Perhaps they'd get to share more quality time if they went on the road together. "Neither of us really needs the other's help," Costello said. "But we like to write together. I'd like to do more of that."
Why this Elvis is no impostor
Iain Shedden, Music writer
November 26, 2004
The Australian
IT'S impossible to calculate just how many characters and ideas inhabit the Elvis Costello songbook - harder still to imagine how they would unravel and bond together in story form.
That's one of the many creative conundrums the 50-year-old songwriter has confronted this year.
When he's not writing for the opera or the ballet, or recording a rock album, or penning songs with his jazz-singer wife Diana Krall, he finds time to write what he hopes will be his first published book, drawing from the subjects of his many songs.
"I have no interest in formal biography," the singer said in Sydney yesterday, while admitting to enjoying fellow troubadour Bob Dylan's recent memoirs. Of his own book, he said he didn't know how long it would take to write, "because I have lots of other things going on. But it's a good thing to put creative energy or frustrations into".
Costello, who began his latest Australian tour last weekend, rarely has a shortage of projects to keep him busy. This latest outing with his rock band the Imposters follows the recent release of his album The Delivery Man, which coincided with the CD of his music for the Italian dance company Aterballetto's production of Il Sogno.
The latter is a rare diversion even for Costello. Ballet is an artform he knew little about. "I did it because I enjoyed working with the other artists," he said. Now he's writing songs for the Royal Danish Opera, for a production based on the work of Hans Christian Andersen.
Costello's multi-faceted output suggests a man driven by work and still ambitious despite his years of success. However, he says: "I've never had any ambition, ever. I think maybe for about 10 minutes in 1978 I thought, 'Yeah, I can have the biggest band in the world' -- those crazy thoughts that bands have. That was more an objective than an ambition, but then I thought 'why?'."
Fans of the veteran songwriter can enjoy an extensive trawling of his back catalogue on this tour. He plays more than 30 songs in a show stretching beyond two hours, and he changes the set list each night.
"Whenever you put out a new album there's always something in your catalogue that has some sort of kinship with it," he said.
His recording and touring leaves little time to spend with Krall, his wife of one year. "She comes to visit me in a beaten-up dance hall in Glasgow and I get to see her at the Albert Hall," is how he describes it. This week she is performing in Vienna as part of her world tour. Perhaps they'd get to share more quality time if they went on the road together. "Neither of us really needs the other's help," Costello said. "But we like to write together. I'd like to do more of that."
Elvis Costello and the Imposters are touring until December 5.
Elvis' Australian shows have been getting great reviews.
Extract - What became clear as this show progressed was how adept Costello and the incredibly tight and versatile musicians who accompany him have become at a sort of sleight-of-hand with the playlist. Costello is no '70s revivalist; it's the new material that matters most to him.
Throughout this 130-minute, 30-song set, he played 11 of the 13 tracks from his latest album, the southern-gothic song cycle The Delivery Man, many of which took on more lyrical and musical power in the live setting. But because he also rolled out most of his old hits - Good Year For The Roses, Oliver's Army, (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, Pump It Up and Every Day I Write the Book (reworked into A Hard Day's Night-style, beat group outing) - as well as some surprises from the back catalogue, such as the new wave classic No Action, the show seemed at first blush like an even-handed survey of the voluminous Costello songbook.
Was it the best Costello performance Melbourne has seen? I'd give that honour to his Hamer Hall gigs in 2002. But as a testament to the life-affirming, emotionally challenging effects of four people playing amplified instruments, it was hard to go past.
Extract - As with the finest records, there's an ineffable alchemy at the core of the best shows which comes to define them. You can point to a high standard of playing or songwriting or sound and say that's why it works. And you'd be half-right: the cerebral half.
For example, quite aside from Elvis Costello's songwriting, the band he has now can play pretty damn well by any criteria.
Drummer Pete Thomas and bass player Davey Farragher do everything necessary superbly with not a superfluous, grandstanding note more, while Steve Nieve is an often astonishing whirl of improvised organ runs, electric piano stomps, theremin squalls and delicate spirals.
But what marks them out in concert now, three years into their partnership (when the American Farragher joined the long-established English trio) is feel. Over and around the brain of these songs is the blood, bone and sweat of a group so in tune with the music and each other that matters flow without thinking.
And that's true whether it is rugged as in the thumping simplicity of Uncomplicated and the slashing pinpoints of Needle Time, very danceable as in 13 Steps Lead Down and I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down or more sensitive as in the delicacy of Heart Shaped Bruise (coming out of a lovely Good Year For The Roses and featuring "Daveylou" Farragher standing in for Emmylou Harris on backing vocals) and Nothing Clings Like Ivy.
In the company of a new batch of songs steeped in, but not simply beholden to, the basics of rock'n'roll in post-war rhythm and blues and unfussed country, this approach makes Costello's less refined guitar playing - where angularity, tone and absence where necessary are key - not just appropriate but vital.
It also positively encourages moves such as the rolling thunder of the uninterrupted opening four songs (which climaxed in a throbbing-vein-in-the-temple version of Radio Radio); the perfectly judged Johnny Cash walking rhythm of Hidden Shame (which Costello wrote for Cash) alongside the southern soul touches in Either Side Of The Same Town and Peter Green's Love That Burns; and the pairing of Dave Bartholomew's 1954 New Orleans stomper Monkey with its "answer song", Costello's own Monkey To Man.
To get this energy and thought matched by feel meant that this 30-plus song, 2-hour show, including an hour-long encore which was in effect a more energised second set, never felt anything but pulsating. It was a great rock (and country, and rhythm and blues) band playing great rock (and country, and rhythm and blues) songs. Sounds simple doesn't it? Hardly.
Elvis Costello and the Imposters
Reviewer Shaun Carney
November 26, 2004
The Age
Palais Theatre, November 23
On Tuesday night, Elvis Costello, keyboard player Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas strode purposefully on to the same performing space that had hosted their first Melbourne show back in 1978 and did just what they did all those years ago: they kicked straight into a back-to-back set of high-energy rock songs. Only a few things had changed. There was a little nod to modernity with a taped intro, Dave & Ansel Collins' Double Barrel, heralding the group's arrival, and the band has a different bassist. Instead of the linear, busy playing of Bruce Thomas, there is now the supple, swinging style of Davey Farragher. But otherwise, it was a quintessential Elvis Costello show, even down to the employment of the much-loved Accidents Will Happen, which was a brand-new composition back in 1978, as the opening song.
What became clear as this show progressed was how adept Costello and the incredibly tight and versatile musicians who accompany him have become at a sort of sleight-of-hand with the playlist. Costello is no '70s revivalist; it's the new material that matters most to him.
Throughout this 130-minute, 30-song set, he played 11 of the 13 tracks from his latest album, the southern-gothic song cycle The Delivery Man, many of which took on more lyrical and musical power in the live setting. But because he also rolled out most of his old hits - Good Year For The Roses, Oliver's Army, (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, Pump It Up and Every Day I Write the Book (reworked into A Hard Day's Night-style, beat group outing) - as well as some surprises from the back catalogue, such as the new wave classic No Action, the show seemed at first blush like an even-handed survey of the voluminous Costello songbook.
Was it the best Costello performance Melbourne has seen? I'd give that honour to his Hamer Hall gigs in 2002. But as a testament to the life-affirming, emotionally challenging effects of four people playing amplified instruments, it was hard to go past. One more thing: Melbourne's Stephen Cummings, aided by guitarist Shane O'Mara, played a brilliant support set. Tickets were priced under $100. Who needs the Eagles?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elvis Costello and the Imposters, State Theatre
By Bernard Zuel
Sydney Morning Herald
November 26, 2004
November 24
In a recent interview Elton John conducted with Elvis Costello, the rejuvenated John (whose two-decade slump ended three years ago when he once again tapped into the spirit of his early, best, music) said this: "With certain older records you can't even describe what it is that makes them sound so unique, whether it's the studio or the group of musicians. Those elements just had a way of working in conjunction with one another."
As with the finest records, there's an ineffable alchemy at the core of the best shows which comes to define them. You can point to a high standard of playing or songwriting or sound and say that's why it works. And you'd be half-right: the cerebral half.
For example, quite aside from Elvis Costello's songwriting, the band he has now can play pretty damn well by any criteria.
Drummer Pete Thomas and bass player Davey Farragher do everything necessary superbly with not a superfluous, grandstanding note more, while Steve Nieve is an often astonishing whirl of improvised organ runs, electric piano stomps, theremin squalls and delicate spirals.
But what marks them out in concert now, three years into their partnership (when the American Farragher joined the long-established English trio) is feel. Over and around the brain of these songs is the blood, bone and sweat of a group so in tune with the music and each other that matters flow without thinking.
And that's true whether it is rugged as in the thumping simplicity of Uncomplicated and the slashing pinpoints of Needle Time, very danceable as in 13 Steps Lead Down and I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down or more sensitive as in the delicacy of Heart Shaped Bruise (coming out of a lovely Good Year For The Roses and featuring "Daveylou" Farragher standing in for Emmylou Harris on backing vocals) and Nothing Clings Like Ivy.
In the company of a new batch of songs steeped in, but not simply beholden to, the basics of rock'n'roll in post-war rhythm and blues and unfussed country, this approach makes Costello's less refined guitar playing - where angularity, tone and absence where necessary are key - not just appropriate but vital.
It also positively encourages moves such as the rolling thunder of the uninterrupted opening four songs (which climaxed in a throbbing-vein-in-the-temple version of Radio Radio); the perfectly judged Johnny Cash walking rhythm of Hidden Shame (which Costello wrote for Cash) alongside the southern soul touches in Either Side Of The Same Town and Peter Green's Love That Burns; and the pairing of Dave Bartholomew's 1954 New Orleans stomper Monkey with its "answer song", Costello's own Monkey To Man.
To get this energy and thought matched by feel meant that this 30-plus song, 2-hour show, including an hour-long encore which was in effect a more energised second set, never felt anything but pulsating. It was a great rock (and country, and rhythm and blues) band playing great rock (and country, and rhythm and blues) songs. Sounds simple doesn't it? Hardly.
Elvis Costello and The Imposters
State Theatre,
Sydney,
Australia
25 Nov. '04
1.I hope you're happy now
2.45
3.Next time 'round
4.No dancing
5.Psycho
6.Bedlam
7.Country darkness
8.Blame it on cain
9.Either side of the same town/Dark end of the street
10.Episode of blonde
11.Good year for the roses
12.Heart shaped bruise
13.Tonight the bottle let me down
14.Suit of lights
15. I can't stand up for falling down
16.Honey are you straight or are you blind?
17.Mystery dance
18.Brilliant mistake
19.Delivery man
20.Monkey to man
21.Accidents will happen
22.There's a story in your voice
23.Radio radio
24.Beyond belief
25.What's so funny about (peace love & understanding)?
26.Nothing clings like ivy
27.Complicated shadows
28.Pump it up
29.Button my lip
30.I want you
(Submitted by E*C*RIDER)
Elvis Costello and The Imposters
Sydney State Theatre
Sydney
Australia
November 24th 2004
1.Accidents Will Happen
2.Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution)
3.Waiting For The End Of The World
4.Radio Radio
5.The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love
6.Bedlam
7.Country Darkness
8.Blame It On Cain
9.Either Side Of The Same Town
10. (I don't wanna go to) Chelsea
11.Good Year For The Roses
12.Hidden Shame
13.Heart Shaped Bruise
14.My Baby's Gone
15.Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
16.Every day I Write The Book
17.I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
18.High Fidelity
19.Uncomplicated
20.The Delivery Man
21.The Monkey
22.Monkey To Man
23.Alison/Suspicious Minds
24.Hidden Charms
25.Nothing Clings Like Ivy
26.13 Steps Lead Down
27.Pump It Up
28.Love That Burns
29.There's A Story In Your Voice
30.Oliver's Army
31.(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love & Understanding
32.The Scarlet Tide
33.Needle Time
( Submitted by bambooneedle )
Elvis Costello & The Imposters
Palais Theatre,
Melbourne, Australia
23 November 2004
1.Accidents Will Happen
2.Tear Off Your Own Head (Doll Revolution)
3.Waiting For The End Of The World
4.Radio, Radio
5.The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love
6.Bedlam
7.Country Darkness
8.Blame It On Cain
9.Either Side Of The Same Town
10.Hidden Shame
11.Chelsea (I Don't Want To Go To)
12.Good Year For The Roses
13.Heart Shaped Bruise
14.Everyday I Write The Book
15.I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
16.High Fidelity
17.Uncomplicated
18.Needle Time
Encore
19.Nothing Clings Like Ivy
20.13 Steps Lead Down
21.There's A Story In Your Voice
22.Alison (incl. Suspicious Minds)
23.The Delivery Man
24.Monkey To Man
Encore
25.No Action
26.Oliver's Army
27.(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding
28.The Monkey
29.Pump It Up
30.Button My Lip
(Submitted by ReadyToHearTheWorst)
The Australian reports -
Extract -
IT'S unusual to find Elvis Costello playing in a vineyard: even funnier when titles such as Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down and I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down pepper the set.
Given his savage wit and love of word play, perhaps he chose those titles on purpose. Whatever the motivation, Costello's choice of material from his vast catalogue was as inspired as his performance on this first date of his Australian tour.
Dressed in a dapper suit and red tie, Costello hurried through the set with little banter. Perhaps this was an effort to get through it before the rain returned. Yet the soggy weather didn't dampen enthusiasm in the 4000-strong crowd and the man looked genuinely pleased to be there.
After nearly 30 years, on and off, at Costello's side, drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard player Steve Naive fit Costello's songs like a well-worn glove, yet they still bring a vital spark to the music, as does relative newcomer Davey Faragher on bass.
Costello seems to enjoy this comfort zone, which allows him to batter his guitar or add a subtle finesse at will as the band rocks solidly behind him.
That intensity reached a crescendo during the encore, when the glorious sweep of his greatest pop song, Oliver's Army, was followed by one his best rockers, Pump It Up. The latter came complete with the customary outdoor audience participation moment. So pumped was the atmosphere that even tired, cynical music critics were seen to raise their hands in the air. It was one of those nights.
A fan writes -
Extract - Finally it was time for Elvis Costello and the Imposters. This time there was no walk on theme playing as an introduction, but rather they just ambled on stage, plugged in, and away they went ripping into Accidents Will Happen, Tear Off Your Own Head and Waiting Til The End Of The World.. Unfortunately, I think this may have taken the sound people by surprise (not to mention the crowd) as it seemed to take a while to get a resonable balance in the sound. Maybe everyone’s ears had become attuned to the preceding accoustic acts?
Elvis was resplendent in black suit and red tie, while Steve Nieve was in full mad professor mode: long flapping overcoat, unruley hair and general demeanor at the keyboards (he also gave the theramin a real workout... yay!!).
One thing I liked about this concert was that they were dragging out a few tunes I can’t recall seeing done for a while... and with fairly unusual arrangements. Songs like I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down, Everyday I Write the Book, Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down, and Sittin’ And Thinkin’ just to name a few.
At one point things seemed to be getting a little out of control down at the front of the stage and Elvis was led to make a comment regarding some people thinking it was still 1978, immediately after which he broke into Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down. Generally though, what made this concert such a pleasurable experience was the fact that you had I don’t know how many people (2 or 3 thousand?) all there for a good time, lounging about on the lawns, drinking wine (I certainly enjoyed a nice bottle of the local Shiraz, Cabernet Merlot), and there were The Imposters just ripping through song after song, obviously enjoying themselves as well. It even seemed as if a lot of the song selections were spur of the moment driven by interractions between the band and the audience, and that certainly added to the fun of the evening.
Vintage Costello serves up an evening worth bottling
Iain Shedden , The Australian
22 Nov04
IT'S unusual to find Elvis Costello playing in a vineyard: even funnier when titles such as Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down and I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down pepper the set.
Given his savage wit and love of word play, perhaps he chose those titles on purpose. Whatever the motivation, Costello's choice of material from his vast catalogue was as inspired as his performance on this first date of his Australian tour.
The dark country tinge of his latest album, Delivery Man, was the main influence. Songs from it, such as the bleak, angular Country Darkness and the title song were accompanied by tracks from his 20-year-old salute to Nashville, the album Almost Blue.
Good Year for the Roses and the aforementioned Bottle lament were just two of the highlights of this truly great performance.
That this set with his Imposters was almost entirely different to the one they performed here two years ago came as a sharp reminder of just how many great songs Costello has recorded. Outside the country domain, we got early classics such as Accidents Will Happen, Alison, Radio Radio and Blame It on Cain.
Dressed in a dapper suit and red tie, Costello hurried through the set with little banter. Perhaps this was an effort to get through it before the rain returned. Yet the soggy weather didn't dampen enthusiasm in the 4000-strong crowd and the man looked genuinely pleased to be there.
After nearly 30 years, on and off, at Costello's side, drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard player Steve Naive fit Costello's songs like a well-worn glove, yet they still bring a vital spark to the music, as does relative newcomer Davey Faragher on bass.
Costello seems to enjoy this comfort zone, which allows him to batter his guitar or add a subtle finesse at will as the band rocks solidly behind him.
That intensity reached a crescendo during the encore, when the glorious sweep of his greatest pop song, Oliver's Army, was followed by one his best rockers, Pump It Up. The latter came complete with the customary outdoor audience participation moment. So pumped was the atmosphere that even tired, cynical music critics were seen to raise their hands in the air. It was one of those nights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday was a busy day... and finally had to make the 170km (100 mile?) or so trip to the Bimbadgen Estate to make it in time for the start of the show at 4pm that afternoon (party went until 1pm). The weather was absolutely miserable all of the trip up and rain was inevitable... it was also quite a bit colder than I was expecting at the winery, so I was going to regret my decision to wear just a t-shirt.
There were four support acts in the lead up to the Imposters, each having a 30 minute spot. The first act we caught was Mick Thomas (formerly of a band known as Weddings, Parties and Anything - for anyone who might be interested). He was performing an accoustic set and was abley accompanied by a fiddle player whose name I cannot recall (but she was very good). They put in a very serviceable set which was aided by a few amusing annecdotes to fill the gaps between songs.
Following his performance, the stage announcer came on and informed the crowd that the locals insisted there would be no rain and that this was supported by the radar showing no rain... 5 minutes later down came the rain.
Next up was a rather (I assume) inebriated Stephen Cummings accompanied by his long time guitarist Mark O'Meara, who performed 5 ro 6 of his back catalogue, drawing on his time with his band The Sports and his more recent solo career. Songs like She Set Fire To The House, Who Listens To The Radio, and How Come. Steve's set seemed to last about 20 minutes as opposed to the 30 allocated and was by no means the most coherent I have seen him put in - I certainly hope he makes a bit more of an effort for those going to the State Theatre and other shows.
Next up was Diesel who put in a very impressive upbeat solo performance. This guy is an unbelievably good guitarist and has a superb vocal range (although he does tend to overdo the high notes a little). Diesel was followed by Jo Camilleri (of Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons and The Black Sorrows as well as being writer of the EC recorded song, So Young) who was performing with an upright bass player and an electric guitarist (first electric instrument of the day)... Camilleri himself was playing accoustic guitar and saxophone. He mentioned we was going to perform a song about rain and immediately the rain stopped and did not return for the rest of the night - a nice bit of reverse psycholgy there (if that can be applied to weather conditions). This was a typically superb Jo Camilleri set and I would say that he is possibly one of the most underrated performers on the planet... get his albums!!
Finally it was time for Elvis Costello and the Imposters. This time there was no walk on theme playing as an introduction, but rather they just ambled on stage, plugged in, and away they went ripping into Accidents Will Happen, Tear Off Your Own Head and Waiting Til The End Of The World.. Unfortunately, I think this may have taken the sound people by surprise (not to mention the crowd) as it seemed to take a while to get a resonable balance in the sound. Maybe everyone’s ears had become attuned to the preceding accoustic acts?
Elvis was resplendent in black suit and red tie, while Steve Nieve was in full mad professor mode: long flapping overcoat, unruley hair and general demeanor at the keyboards (he also gave the theramin a real workout... yay!!).
One thing I liked about this concert was that they were dragging out a few tunes I can’t recall seeing done for a while... and with fairly unusual arrangements. Songs like I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down, Everyday I Write the Book, Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down, and Sittin’ And Thinkin’ just to name a few.
At one point things seemed to be getting a little out of control down at the front of the stage and Elvis was led to make a comment regarding some people thinking it was still 1978, immediately after which he broke into Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down. Generally though, what made this concert such a pleasurable experience was the fact that you had I don’t know how many people (2 or 3 thousand?) all there for a good time, lounging about on the lawns, drinking wine (I certainly enjoyed a nice bottle of the local Shiraz, Cabernet Merlot), and there were The Imposters just ripping through song after song, obviously enjoying themselves as well. It even seemed as if a lot of the song selections were spur of the moment driven by interractions between the band and the audience, and that certainly added to the fun of the evening.
I probably had only one real gripe on the day (I even enjoyed the rain) and that was that the souvenir people were selling t-shirts only in sizes s, M, and L... no XL for god’s sake!! Even the man himself would not get into anything less I would think!
Elvis Costello and The Imposters,
Bimbagen Estate Concert,
"A Day on the Green"
Hunter Valley,
New South Wales ,
Australia
Nov. 20 2004
1. Accidents Will Happen
2. Tear Off Your Own Head (Doll Revolution)
3. Waiting Til The End Of The World
4. Radio, Radio
5. Bedlam
6. Country Darkness
7. Blame It On Cain
8. Man Out Of Time
9. Chelsea (I Don't Want To Go To)
10. Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
11. Sittin' And Thinkin'
12. Good Year For The Roses
13. Everyday I Write The Book
14. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
15. Uncomplicated
Encore 1
16. Delivery Man
17. Monkey To Man
18. Alison/Suspicious Minds
Encore2
19.There's A Story In Your Voice
20.Oliver's Army
21.Peace Love and Understanding
22.Needle Time
23.The Monkey
24.Pump It Up
( Submitted by Tim(e))
In the new Rolling Stone -
318
Alison
Elvis Costello
1977
Written by: Costello
Produced by: Nick Lowe
Released: Nov. '77 on Columbia
Charts: Did not chart
Some people think "Alison" is a murder ballad. "It isn't," Costello told ROLLING STONE in 2002. "It's about disappointing somebody. It's a thin line between love and hate, as the Persuaders sang." Contrary to myth, the backup band was not Huey Lewis and the News.
Appears on: My Aim Is True (Rhino)
354
Watching the Detectives
Elvis Costello
1977
Written by: Costello
Produced by: Nick Lowe
Released: Nov. '77 on Columbia
Charts: Did not chart
In the summer of 1977, Costello was still an aspiring songwriter when he took the Clash's debut back to his London flat and "listened to it for thirty-six hours straight," he recalled. "And I wrote 'Watching the Detectives.' " A clever but furious burst of cynicism, the song merges punk aggression with noir menace, as Costello snarls about a lover who'd rather watch TV.
Appears on: My Aim Is True (Rhino)
284
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
Elvis Costello
1979
Written by: Nick Lowe
Produced by: Lowe
Released: Jan. '79 on Columbia
Charts: Non-single
"What's So Funny" was written by Lowe, Costello's pal and producer. The original, by Lowe's country-rock band Brinsley Schwartz, was mellow and cute, but Costello snarls the song intensely enough to make the title question seem brand-new, with thundering drums and droning piano. It's like Abba playing punk rock.
Appears on: Armed Forces (Rhino)
Two of Britain’s greatest ever exponents of the noble art of songcraft, Billy Bragg and Elvis Costello, discuss the ups and
downs of meeting your heroes.
Elvis Costello: You know, I’m sure you get to the point were you’ve met most of the people you’ve ever admired, And I’m very glad to say that most of the people I’ve met that I’ve admired were not a disappointment. A couple of them have been almost frighteningly like I wanted them to he, both good and bad, like Jerry Lee Lewis for example — that was a fairly frightening experience.
Billy Bragg: I bet it was. He must have been really scary.
EC: Yeah, but that’s so much how you want him to be; himself .He’s just like that. He doesn’t really scare me. I’m not intimidated by him, not in awe of him.
BB:Who do you measure yourself against as a songwriter?
EC: I don’t think of myself in competition with anyone.
BB:Are there any songs where someone’s said in two verses what it took you to say in five in your own work?
EC:No, because I always try to write songs in a way that I think is fairly individual to me. I know how the mechanism works which is more than most people. I actually know how to do it. I think that has caused some resentment in the business even among some people that support me because they almost wish I did it, just to prove it, but I can’t be bothered. Life is too short to waste your time doing something like that.
BB:It’s easy to do something in your career that the public just suddenly latch on to, like poor old Jarvis (Cocker) is going to be forever known by the greater public not for songwriting, but for upstaging Michael Jackson.
EC:But I think he’ll enjoy that. I think he’s smart enough. I don’t know him personally but I love that reference to the wood chip in ‘Disco 2000’ because it’s obviously something he’s filed away from personal experience and put into this song that is really universally understandable. I think that’s his main strength.
BB:He was always head and shoulders above the other so-called Britpop writers.
1 Feb 2005- Auditorio de Murcia - Murcia
2 Feb 2005 - Palacio de Congresos - Valencia
( Submitted by notorious)
Elvis and The Imposters
3 Feb 2005
Sala Razzmatazz - Barcelona , Spain
(put 'Costello' into search engine)
( Submitted by notorius)
2004-11-12
LA KCRW, Morning Becomes Eclectic
Elvis Costello with the Imposters
Country Darkness
Love That Burns
Monkey To Man
The Name Of This Thing is Not Love
The Delivery Man
Nothing Clings Like Ivy
Bedlam
The Monkey
Besides performing with the Imposters , in a recent Los Angeles radio interview Elvis gave a long interview. Besides a lot of TDM stories that he has been telling lately he had some new things to tell.
He believes that the days of a stand-alone album release are just about up. In future most recordings will be available via the 'net etc. Record companies'
main role will be similar to that of a film producer ie. merely financing a recording to be licensed to other mediums. Or maybe a download site will be the
primary financer of a recording. Whatever - he would still record , just the way would get it was going to be different.
He then said (38.40) that it was of little concern to him because he is now out of contract. He doesn't mind ; his latest record company (Universal) was once owned by a French sewarage company ( Vivendi). When a recording was a commodity equalled to water that was 'a big mistake'. All the same he thinks that his current label - Lost Highway- are doing a great job , despite the circumstances.
Elvis will play Roma Auditorium on Feb. 6th 2005
(Submitted by John Everingham)
The Sydney Morning Herald reports -
Extract -
Krall is upstairs in their Sydney hotel room. She is his second wife (he had a 17-year relationship with musician/songwriter Caitlin O'Riordan between his two marriages) and the inspiration for North, his album from last year on falling out of and then into love again. Consequently, even though he's never been the type to let anyone see into his life, Costello isn't trying to hide his happiness.
"I think it would be kind of churlish to put on a theatrical face rather than make people uncomfortable by being happy," Costello says. "I can't put on a theatrical face that contradicts my state of mind. I've never done that.
I know what gets under my skin still. I know what inspires, provokes, whatever you want to call it, but you may be in a better position to deal with it if you're at ease with yourself. I don't know, it's a new feeling.
"People are sentimental about the image or the thing I represent, the woman-hating angry dweeb that I seem to be some kind of founding father of, which I've always rejected. It's uncomfortable for them to realise that I'm actually happy and, what's more, can acknowledge my failings in reaching that. I didn't get to it easily; I got to it extremely painfully. It's just a little more truth that some people want to accept."
"The last couple of years have been very productive, but I haven't exactly struggled before that," he says, not needing to mention more than 20 albums or projects since his debut in 1977. "I've always managed to make it work regardless. That's not to say I've been in a state of permanent unhappiness for all the years before, that would be disrespectful to the past. You just reach a certain point where your life changes, and it has changed profoundly for the better in the last two years, and in that time I've somehow managed to realise, brought to realisation a couple of ongoing things."
If nothing else, Costello, born Declan MacManus, the son of a trumpet player and singer, the grandson and father of a musician, too, still looks like a rock musician. Older and heavier, yes, but in his own way still a man for whom a guitar, volume and a rhythm section that makes you dance has not lost its sway.
It's this version of Costello, with the Imposters (two of his old band, the Attractions, and newish bassplayer Davey Farragher), that will this month play a set dominated by the rock end of his catalogue, even if some shows will be in vineyards.
"We're assuming everybody's going to be drunk," smiles Costello, who won't be contributing to the coffers of the vineyards, having given up the drink some years back.
"I played a winery in America and my experience is they were all drunk, not surprisingly. I'm not sure if that means the audience will be more or less sedate. They could be stunned by the heat and alcohol; they could be a bunch of raving lunatics."
They may need to put up the chicken wire. "That's usually the kind of venue we like best," he says with an evil grin. "I'm looking forward to a lot of shagging in the audience myself."
Shagging of the audience or in the audience? "No, only in the audience."
"Lack of confidence has no place on the bandstand. It doesn't mean you don't have nerves or that you're arrogant. Lack of confidence or being tentative is not going to make anything of value."
The Sydney Morning Herald.
Watching the invective
November 13, 2004
He's busier than ever, but the surprise is that Elvis Costello is happy and not trying to hide it, writes Bernard Zuel.
Elvis Costello is in control. Almost reclining in the chair with his legs splayed and one long, shiny black shoe plonked on the table between us, he's showing off incongruous but defiantly bright lime-green socks. The sun coming in the window opposite him bounces off the yellow plastic-look glasses he's sporting, effectively blocking his eyes from scrutiny. I doubt he minds at all.
Combative as ever, his approach to interviews almost always begins with scepticism. At some point he will remind you how some foolish writer somewhere misunderstood his intentions or gratuitously insulted him. More often than not it's a scribe in Britain, where Costello has not lived for nearly two decades and claims not to care about but can't help feeling every slight directed his way.
That "insult" these days almost invariably relates to his musical eclecticism, which has seen him work in rock, country and classical, on a film score, in collaboration with Burt Bacharach, and on an album of ballads inspired as much by 19th-century German song as postwar songcraft. To top it off, there was the simultaneous release this year of two albums, The Delivery Man, ostensibly written for an R&B/country blues-style musical, and Il Sogno, his first full orchestral work.
It's a career tally that can perplex as many as it excites, often leaving critics floundering and angry if they are without appropriate reference points. (After all, how many of us have both Schumann and the Band, Sammy Cahn and Boudleaux Bryant, Charles Mingus and Mary J. Blige in our record collections?) And save for a few spikes of chart hits, it's a career that has settled in the solid but far from staggering sales level.
For all that real and assumed tension, however, Costello is hardly having a bad time. Mid-year, about the time of his 50th birthday, that eclectic back catalogue had an unprecedented three-night airing at New York's Lincoln Centre with a Dutch art orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and his "beat group", the Imposters, providing the backing.
The performance of Il Sogno in New York was the first time Costello had heard his rewritten score played as one piece, an event he now describes as "a pretty magical place". Furthermore, those two albums he released last month have, in the main, received good reviews. And 11 months ago he married (at Elton John's country pad, no less) Canadian pianist and singer Diana Krall, with whom he now lives in New York.
Krall is upstairs in their Sydney hotel room. She is his second wife (he had a 17-year relationship with musician/songwriter Caitlin O'Riordan between his two marriages) and the inspiration for North, his album from last year on falling out of and then into love again. Consequently, even though he's never been the type to let anyone see into his life, Costello isn't trying to hide his happiness.
"I think it would be kind of churlish to put on a theatrical face rather than make people uncomfortable by being happy," Costello says. "I can't put on a theatrical face that contradicts my state of mind. I've never done that.
I know what gets under my skin still. I know what inspires, provokes, whatever you want to call it, but you may be in a better position to deal with it if you're at ease with yourself. I don't know, it's a new feeling.
"People are sentimental about the image or the thing I represent, the woman-hating angry dweeb that I seem to be some kind of founding father of, which I've always rejected. It's uncomfortable for them to realise that I'm actually happy and, what's more, can acknowledge my failings in reaching that. I didn't get to it easily; I got to it extremely painfully. It's just a little more truth that some people want to accept."
And in this tumultuous and exhilarating time Costello has produced three albums of his work and a collaborative effort on Krall's most recent (and best) album, and been commissioned to write an opera for the Copenhagen Opera House.
"The last couple of years have been very productive, but I haven't exactly struggled before that," he says, not needing to mention more than 20 albums or projects since his debut in 1977. "I've always managed to make it work regardless. That's not to say I've been in a state of permanent unhappiness for all the years before, that would be disrespectful to the past. You just reach a certain point where your life changes, and it has changed profoundly for the better in the last two years, and in that time I've somehow managed to realise, brought to realisation a couple of ongoing things."
He has taken off a natty black felt hat so the grey-tinged hair, receding past his high forehead, looks a little mussed. His voice still croaks, the legacy of a week's cold and a long flight. That may explain why, while outside it's 38 or 39 degrees, inside the hotel Costello is in a familiar black leather jacket over a loose shirt.
If nothing else, Costello, born Declan MacManus, the son of a trumpet player and singer, the grandson and father of a musician, too, still looks like a rock musician. Older and heavier, yes, but in his own way still a man for whom a guitar, volume and a rhythm section that makes you dance has not lost its sway.
It's this version of Costello, with the Imposters (two of his old band, the Attractions, and newish bassplayer Davey Farragher), that will this month play a set dominated by the rock end of his catalogue, even if some shows will be in vineyards.
"We're assuming everybody's going to be drunk," smiles Costello, who won't be contributing to the coffers of the vineyards, having given up the drink some years back.
"I played a winery in America and my experience is they were all drunk, not surprisingly. I'm not sure if that means the audience will be more or less sedate. They could be stunned by the heat and alcohol; they could be a bunch of raving lunatics."
They may need to put up the chicken wire. "That's usually the kind of venue we like best," he says with an evil grin. "I'm looking forward to a lot of shagging in the audience myself."
Shagging of the audience or in the audience? "No, only in the audience."
As ever, Costello exudes confidence, and not just in his "power position" seating manner. Not for him any of the insecurities most artists confess to. "I suppose the moment you're having those, I don't know if it's a question of confidence or you're working out where you can enter this world or what in that world of music is valid for you, you don't do that bit in public," he says. "That would be like having a workshop version of your career.
"Lack of confidence has no place on the bandstand. It doesn't mean you don't have nerves or that you're arrogant. Lack of confidence or being tentative is not going to make anything of value."
A U.K. site has this -
THE RIGHT SPECTACLE - VERY BEST OF (DVD)
A unique collection of the visual works of Costello for the first time on DVD, 'The Right Spectacle' features a total of 27 videos that include material rarely seen since the release of the singles they supported. Elvis has also recorded a witty and lively audio commentary full of incredible insights for each of the videos, the DVD also includes close to 70 minutes worth of very rare archive footage culled from an array of TV broadcasters from The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, all presented in a collectable digipack with comprehensive production notes penned by Elvis himself. A very special package and a must for fans!
1 (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
2 Pump It Up
3 Radio Radio
4 (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding
5 Oliver's Army
6 Accidents Will Happen
7 I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
8 High Fidelity
9 Love For Tender
10 Possession
11 New Amsterdam
12 Clubland
13 New Lace Sleeves
14 Good Year For The Roses
15 Sweet Dreams
16 You Little Fool
17 Everyday I Write The Book
18 Let Them All Talk
19 The Only Flame In Town
20 I Wanna Be Loved
21 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
22 Veronica
23 This Town
24 The Other Side Of Summer
25 So Like Candy
26 Sulky Girl
27 13 Steps Lead Down
Special Features
Granada Reports / So It Goes (UK) - Filmed at Erics, broadcast October 1977 - Alison[Excerpt], Lip Service, No Dancing
Revolver (UK) - Early to mid 78 TV studio - This Years Girl, Radio Radio
Countdown (Netherlands) - 30.5.79, live in a club - Olivers Army, Accidents Will Happen, Watching The Detectives, You Belong To Me
Pink Pop (Netherlands) - 4.6.79, live outdoor festival - Lipstick Vogue, Watching The Detectives
Whats In (UK) - 16.3.81, TV Studio - Shot With His Own Gun
The Tube (UK) - 4.11.83, TV studio - Shipbuilding, Everyday I Write The Book, Clowntime is Over, TKO (Boxing Day)
Mandagsboren (Sweden) - 21.11.83, TV studio - Big Sisters Clothes, Peace In Our Time
Release date : Monday 17 January 2005
( Submitted by Nick and Dave and John )
According to the Costello home page the recording of Elvis' October show in Glasgow is being broadcast on Nov 22 on BBC Radio Scotland, after a taped interview on the Vic Galloway show.
Austin City Limits have posted these details of Elvis' appearance on their show on Nov.20 '04 -
From rockin' punk to heartbreaking ballads, Elvis Costello's musical diversity runs parallel with that of Austin City Limits. Showcasing his intelligent lyrics and genre-jumping style, Costello and the Imposters perform songs from their newest release, The Delivery Man, plus a few classics.
Radio Radio
The Delivery Man
The Monkey Speaks His Mind
Monkey to Man
Bedlam
Country Darkness
Button My Lip
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
There's a Story in Your Voice
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?
Pump It Up
Recorded: 09/20/2004
(submitted by John Everingham)
Copenhagen , Denmark
Venue: Vega :
Date 22 Jan. '05
(submitted by John Everingham)
9th February 2005,
Brighton, The Dome
Tickets are on sale from the Box Office on 01273 709709.
They are not yet on the website.
(Submitted by verbal gymnastics)
Two new concerts in Sweden:
19 Jan. '05 Konserthuset, Stockholm
20 Jan.'05 Göteborg, Trädgår'n
( Submitted by John Everingham)
The Herald Sun (Australia) gets some pointed words from Elvis -
Extracts -
Well, Costello is coming to Australia to let his fans know this: he can still rock 'n' roll with the best of them. And, boy, does he like playing the role of doorman.
Doorman, Elvis?
"Yeah, whenever some contemptible idiot journalist goes on about that sell-out crap, I show them the door," he says.
This interview was done over the phone, so the prospect of being shown the door was never a possibility, but havingthe phone slammed down in my ear was always likely.
It didn't happen this time. Costello, known for his scowling contempt for many sections of the musical press, was in an expansive, talkative mood.
"The same people who are asking me these sorts of questions nowadays are the same people who didn't understand what I was doing 25 years ago -- Christ, they don't even understand Burt Bacharach, who is one of the all-time great songwriters.
"The questions these bozos ask are simply designed to provoke and I've always had contempt for them. They never understood what I was talking about and they still don't. They thought I was making grand statements and painted me as a leader of a new-wave generation.
"I was never that. Any artist who thinks that's what their music is for is a fool.
"Because of the work I've done recently, they still base their questions on their views of my earlier music. I'm a musician. I'm a songwriter and I love working with other talented musicians and songwriters."
"I was never the voice of a generation," he says. "Sure, I had things to say, but really what I was about was writing the best music I possibly could. If the fans liked the music, great. Did it have an effect socially? I don't know. But that's not what it was about."
The album Il Sogno was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and released on the same day as The Delivery Man. But hardcore fans wondered: what was their idol thinking?
"When a group of really passionate Italian classical musicians come to you and ask you to write such a piece, it's an incredible compliment," Costello says. "Particularly when you have no track record as a classical composer. It's such a crazy notion; you realise these opportunities don't come along very often."
Not only did Costello face opposition from his regular fans, there was much disquiet among the classical-music set.
"People are very orthodox in their tastes and views and both sides had me pigeon-holed," Costello recalls.
"And I don't like being pigeon-holed. In fact, I loathe it."
Besides, he says, he does not regard Il Sogno as a classical work, and he has a very wry explanation as to why.
"I prefer to describe it as an orchestral work. It's my dance record and I regard it as my contribution to disco," he laughs.
Herald-Sun
Musical chairs
Glenn Mitchell
6 November 2004
Elvis Costello has no qualms about playing classical or rock, telling Glenn Mitchell his fans can either take it or leave it
Whenever some contemptible idiot journalist goes on about that sell-out crap I show them the door
ELVIS Costello is at the pointy end of a very sharp debate about his musical legacy and direction.
That is: has the one-time punk legend sold out, and can he rock 'n' roll the way he used to, given he's been collaborating with such mainstream artists as Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney?
Costello's work in recent years -- primarily ballads and classical music -- has isolated as many of his old fans as it has gained new ones.
Lauded initially for energetic and literate attacks on the ills of Margaret Thatcher's England, Costello has become a peerless master of the popular song. Naturally, every artist has to move with the times, but Costello's collaborations seemed a generation away from the days when he attacked authority like a threshing machine.
When he emerged in the late '70s he almost redefined the punk scene.
Variously described as a seething, bitter, sarcastic, sneering and verbose punk poet, Costello has continued to shock his audiences with his moves into country, soul and, at one stage, French balladeer. For many, the debate whether Elvis Costello is punk or new wave is long over, but his ability to shock remains as electric as ever.
But the question of a sell-out remains high in discussions about him.
"This nonsense about me is just that -- nonsense. In fact it's one of the more ridiculous debates I've ever come across," Costello says.
"I haven't sold out or some such rubbish. I'm a songwriter with a wide sphere of interest. I like classical, I like rock 'n' roll, I like Burt Bacharach. I mean, what's the big deal?"
Then he slips into overdrive.
"I'll tell you what it is. It's the musical media's inability to look past their own navels and outside their own backsides.
"They have all these preconceived notions and ideas and they can't let them go. Simple as that."
Costello is playing twice in Melbourne, his first appearance at the Palais on November 23.
In many areas of the musical press, he is no longer seen as a new-wave icon in the realms of the Sex Pistols' John Lydon or Joe Strummer from the Clash.
So, because he appears to have slipped into the mainstream, opinions about Costello are furiously divided.
SOME regard his work now as the natural progression of one of the most talented songwriters of his generation, spurred on by the inspiration he gets from his wife, Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall.
Others simply pine for the high-octane drive of his earlier work. They miss songs like Watching the Detectives, Pump it Up, (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea and I Can't Stand up For Falling Down.
Well, Costello is coming to Australia to let his fans know this: he can still rock 'n' roll with the best of them. And, boy, does he like playing the role of doorman.
Doorman, Elvis?
"Yeah, whenever some contemptible idiot journalist goes on about that sell-out crap, I show them the door," he says.
This interview was done over the phone, so the prospect of being shown the door was never a possibility, but havingthe phone slammed down in my ear was always likely.
It didn't happen this time. Costello, known for his scowling contempt for many sections of the musical press, was in an expansive, talkative mood.
"The same people who are asking me these sorts of questions nowadays are the same people who didn't understand what I was doing 25 years ago -- Christ, they don't even understand Burt Bacharach, who is one of the all-time great songwriters.
"The questions these bozos ask are simply designed to provoke and I've always had contempt for them. They never understood what I was talking about and they still don't. They thought I was making grand statements and painted me as a leader of a new-wave generation.
"I was never that. Any artist who thinks that's what their music is for is a fool.
"Because of the work I've done recently, they still base their questions on their views of my earlier music. I'm a musician. I'm a songwriter and I love working with other talented musicians and songwriters."
That is where he sees himself now. As for any perceived risk associated with his collaborations and the move into classical music, Costello, 50, believes there are none.
"I'm just putting out records for people to listen to. People overestimate bravery or risk when it comes to music. Bravery is an innocent man facing a firing squad. Any musician who believes otherwise is disappearing up their own backside."
Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Costello was raised in Liverpool and was the son of British bandleader Ross MacManus.
He took his stage name from Elvis Presley and from his great-grandmother, Elizabeth Costello. He began performing professionally in 1969 and was a musician/singer in many bands around London before forming a moderately successful pub-rock band, Flip City, in the mid-'70s.
Working as a full-time computer operator, he landed his first record deal with Stiff Records in 1977 and recorded his first album, My Aim is True, while on vacation. As fans know, the album was a smash hit and landed EC a worldwide distribution deal with Columbia records.
FORMING his back-up group the Attractions for his second album, Costello quickly joined the giants of the new-wave revolution.
His cutting commentary on Thatcherism, his unique style and his downright brilliant songwriting made him, effectively (whether he wanted it or not), the voice of a disaffected generation.
"I was never the voice of a generation," he says. "Sure, I had things to say, but really what I was about was writing the best music I possibly could. If the fans liked the music, great. Did it have an effect socially? I don't know. But that's not what it was about."
Costello still does not shy away from commenting through his songs on what he sees are the social and political ills of today. On his latest album, The Delivery Man, the song Bedlam is a cutting indictment of Western foreign policy.
"The world today has a real air of insanity about it.
"What I try to do is to accumulate these insane images and place it in the context of a song. I mean, it's a rather disastrous situation when, if you are going to right the wrongs of the world, you start picking and choosing where you will and where you won't."
When Costello collaborated with Bacharach, many long-time Costello fans were appalled their musical hero would commit such alleged musical heresy.
And after writing the music for a classical ballet adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummmer Night's Dream, they went into near-cardiac arrest.
The album Il Sogno was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and released on the same day as The Delivery Man. But hardcore fans wondered: what was their idol thinking?
"When a group of really passionate Italian classical musicians come to you and ask you to write such a piece, it's an incredible compliment," Costello says. "Particularly when you have no track record as a classical composer. It's such a crazy notion; you realise these opportunities don't come along very often."
Not only did Costello face opposition from his regular fans, there was much disquiet among the classical-music set.
"People are very orthodox in their tastes and views and both sides had me pigeon-holed," Costello recalls.
"And I don't like being pigeon-holed. In fact, I loathe it."
Besides, he says, he does not regard Il Sogno as a classical work, and he has a very wry explanation as to why.
"I prefer to describe it as an orchestral work. It's my dance record and I regard it as my contribution to disco," he laughs.
The other attraction for him is that Shakespeare's play is a comedy.
"It's very hard to put comedy into songs. With songs, it's like trying tell a joke, and that's very hard.
"But with something like A Midsummer Night's Dream, I could really put some humour into the music, and that is something I have been looking to do for a long time."
AFTER its premiere in Bologna, the ballet was staged throughout Italy, Germany, France and Russia. Costello then recorded it with the London Symphony Orchestra.
As for the reactions of his fans, Costello says they can take it or leave it.
"The reason the albums were released at the same time was to say that I value them equally. The classical fans and the rock fans could then work out for themselves whether they bought either album or neither."
Costello had dabbled in classical music during the early 1990s.
"I always liked classical and I did write quite a bit of stuff but I never really considered it good enough to release," he says.
"So it still puzzles me why these lovely Italians came to me with such a crazy offer. Perhaps they thought they were playing some sort of joke and my initial response was to say no but they were just so passionate about having me I couldn't say no."
Costello's rock album with his band, Elvis Costello and the Imposters, certainly allays fears he has given up on rock 'n' roll. It features driving rock and his trademark ballads, strongly reminiscent of the style of music that won so much acclaim in the late '70s and early '80s.
Costello's personal life, particularly his marriage to Krall (with whom he co-collaborates), has been a major settling influence.
"I have peace in my life," he says. "I'm working from a position of strength but that doesn't make me care less or be in any way self-satisfied.
"It has given me more power to look outside myself rather than contemplate my own misery, and a lot of musicians are still doing that."
The relationship with Krall surprised both of them.
"In terms of what happened between us, we imagined we'd collaborate and we'd been friends and then life takes you over and something crazy happens -- in our case we got married."
Krall had been through a particularly difficult period with the loss of her mother and both felt her music did not reflect the recent experiences of her life.
"I became really a sympathetic lyrical editor at first and then, bam, we got married."
Elvis Costello and the Imposters play at the Palais, Nov 23 and A Day on the Green, Nov 27, Rochford Winery, Yarra Valley. Tickets: www.ticketmaster7.com
The Elvis sightings
E LVIS Costello's breakthrough album was My Aim is True, in 1977. It led to him signing a worldwide distribution deal with Columbia Records.
Armed Forces in 1979 and Taking Liberties in 1980 both reached No.2 on the UK charts. Throughout the '80s his albums continued to reach the UK Top 10, and several made it in the US.
His double CD, The Very Best of Elvis Costello in 1999, was also a hit, rising to No.4.
From My Aim is True and Pump It Up to (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea, Costello has released a stream of singles that have stood the test of time.
Perhaps his signature recording is Watching the Detectives, which propelled him into the pantheon of new-wave greats.
In the 1990s Costello released 13 albums. Three went Top 10, and in 1998 he collaborated with Burt Bacharach on the highly successful Painted from Memory, a collection of love songs.
He also released jazz albums and, in 2003, Costello and the Attractions, his original band, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
This year he released Il Sogno, a classical version of A MidSummer Night's Dream, with the London Symphony Orchestra and, on the same day, a rock album, The Delivery Man.
Elvis tells Stereophile magazine about Il Sogno -
“I had in my head which instruments would achieve the
best colors and effects, and the results surpassed my
imagination,” says Costello. “So I feel very lucky to
have had this opportunity—to sit in that theater and
have that music that you only imagined emerge in the
darkness before the dancers came out. You never have
that perspective on your own material, hearing it
played live by a group of musicians that are beyond
your technical ability to play. It’s a magical
experience that I highly recommend for anyone with the
ambition to do [it]. The greatest fairground ride in
the world.”
Stereophile , Nov. 2004
Unbound Curiosity
by Jim Bessman
FROM NEW WAVE ROCKER TO NEW MADE BALLET
COMPOSER, ELVIS COSTELLO REMAINS THE
DEFINITION OF RESTLESS CREATIVity
When Elvis Costello was inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, he was accompanied by his
bandmates the
Attractions, whose debut in 1978 on Costello’s classic
second album, This Year’s
Model, at the, height of the punk rock/new wave era,
established a ferocious rock
intensity that remains Costello’s trademark.
But even at this early stage of his now renowned
career Costello displayed artistic aspirations that
seemed downright reckless, at least from a pop music
standpoint. For example, owners of the first rush of
import versions of This Year’s Model still prize the
bonus single that came with it and included “Stranger
in the House,” the country gem that Costello
re-recorded the following year with George Jones prior
to the making of his own full-fledged, 1981 Nashville
country album, Almost Blue, which was produced by
Billy Sherrill.
Country music, as Costello fans have long since
learned, was merely his first divergence from rock
constraints, though the 1978 live compilation Live
Stiffs which also starred Nick Lowe and Ian Dury
(members of the Stiff stable), also hinted at
Costello’s creative ambitions and foretold his
sure-handed grasp. On that compilation a cover of “I
Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” demonstrated
Costello’s affinity for the pop of Burt Bacharach and
Hal David, and his mastery of its vocal mechanics.
Twenty years latei he would deftly collaborate with
Burt Bacharach on Painted from Memory, having already
co-written songs with Paul McCartney.
Indeed, by l982’s Imperial Bedroom - his seventh album
in his prodigious first five years as a recording
artist—Costello was being hailed by rock critics as
his generations answer to George Gershwin and the
other great popular songwriters of the first half of
the 20th century. This came three years after he’d
released a sparse version of Rodgers and Hart’s “My
Funny Valentine,” and 22 years before he jovially
performed Cole Porter’s “Let’s Misbehave” in the
Porter biopic De-Lovely. In between he had performed
with Tony Bennett on the pop-jazz giant’s landmark
Unplugged album (1994), and enlisted legendary jazz
trumpeter Chet Baker for his 1983 album Punch the
Clock. He would soon collaborate with contemporary New
York jazz group the Jazz Passengers, and earlier this
year he co-wrote material for jazz vocalist Diana
Krall, who is Costello’s new bride.
Most ambitious, though, are Costello’s efforts in
classical music, which commenced with his 1993
recording and touring affiliation with English chamber
group the Brodsky Quartet, and a lesser-known 2001
collaboration with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.
But these projects now pale next to II Sogno (The
Dream), his first full-length orchestral work, which
was released on the prestigious classical label
Deutsche Grammophon the same day (September21) his
latest rock album, The Delivery Man, was released by
Nashville’s Lost Highway Americana label. Both were
effectively premiered in three extraordinary concerts
in July during the annual Lincoln Center
Festival in New York, Costello’s new home town.
“That was unprecedented, really, having just arrived
in the city and suddenly being given the opportunity
to perform at Lincoln Center —its central performing
place,” reflects Costello, midway between the Lincoln
Center Festival and h