Elvis Costello

[redheart]

I saw him at the Bridgewater Hall last year. Just him on his own for hours. True bliss for me. Mrs Redheart did not like it all.

 

And to clarify he is not a great singer but he is a great vocalist. By this I mean he is not a great technical singer (tone, note, rhythm etc). He is a great vocalist by this he conveys meaning etc in his voice.

 

He can take a simple idea of a ballad and break your heart

 

https://youtu.be/C9GlC9GyF4Y

[redheart]

https://youtu.be/_r9u5ihTQsI

 

https://youtu.be/-NUOlQiy4K4

 

https://youtu.be/J7dzTCvLfN0

[Teflon Don]

Here's an extract from his autoboigraphy Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink, which has been published this week:
 

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/12/elvis-costello-and-the-curse-of-top-of-the-pops

 

Elvis Costello and the curse of Top of the Pops

 

‘Every time we played TOTP, we went down the charts’ … in this exclusive extract from his memoir, Elvis Costello relives the shiny suits, the flying harness – and the video that caught the unravelling of his marriage

 

For about the first seven years of my professional career, the BBC refused to trust the Attractions or any other groups to play their instruments on most of their pop shows, citing “technical problems” to excuse their incompetence. Due to Musicians’ Union rules protecting session players who had performed on hits, we were all supposed to re-record our singles during a three-hour studio session and then mime to that recording.

 

In reality, the charade worked like this: we’d arrive, set up, and the engineer would busy himself with bogus preparations. At this point, a promoter would suggest taking the union rep to the pub. By the time they returned, suitably refreshed, the rep would be presented with a new version of the song, which was of course simply the original dubbed on to a spool of tape.

 

It was an incredible waste of time and resources. Very occasionally, a teetotaller would be sent to oversee the session; or, simply out of perversity, we’d record a new version – speeding up the tempo or changing the arrangement, adding an unexpected drum break just for mischief, none of which endeared us to the director, who would have lined up his shots according to the original record.

 

The whole process of appearing on Top of the Pops had more than an element of school antics about it, as pop musicians were barely tolerated in Television Centre. The main excitement was the chance of encountering the Legs & Co dancers in the hallway. They were long-suffering and more than able to swat away the attentions of various spotty herberts. Then there was the sport of taking the piss out of rival groups by standing behind the cameramen and trying to put them off their cues. We’d watch Generation X and, when we sensed Billy Idol was about to leap up and strike a rocker pose, we’d all jump in the air half a beat ahead.

 

Following rehearsals, there would be the sport of trying to get into the BBC club and get drunk enough to enjoy ourselves on stage later that evening. At the door, there was a uniformed commissioner who sported an impressive handlebar moustache and a chest full of medals and ribbons. He guarded the entrance as if his life and the empire depended on it. By the time I’d enjoyed a fistful of subsidised gin and tonics, my ability to mime our record became questionable. For the first few appearances, I tried memorising the order of red lights that indicated the active camera, staring down the lens, looking suitably intense or manic, until someone pointed out that I looked bloody stupid.

 

Not perhaps as “bloody stupid” as I looked when I traded in my £7 suit for a succession of terrible pop star threads. During my “Pop Star Period: 1978-79” I was a fashion disaster of checkerboard eyestrain. I wore powder-blue and pink suits, turquoise lamé jackets and pointy red leather Chelsea boots, but I usually appeared pretty glassy-eyed and shiny under the hot studio lights. No wonder the girls all swooned.

 

If we couldn’t make it on to a TV pop show, they might show one of our cheaply produced video clips instead. These were usually filmed with a fish-eye lens, giving me a more bug-eyed appearance. My head seemed triangular and my feet appeared tiny, while the director would have quickly discovered that I could walk on the sides of my ankles.

 

That was a trick I’d learned at the hands of a vaguely sadistic doctor. When it was determined that I had flat feet as a child, I was first told I would never make it in the army. Then I was taught to pick up a ball of socks with my feet like a monkey and walk on my ankles to strengthen my arches. I even had my feet placed in bowls of water, through which the doctor ran a mild electric current. It was the kind of treatment that would now have you arrested for child cruelty. Soon it became my calling card, like a comedian’s catchphrase. A hotel clerk in Stoke once challenged me to prove my identity. “If you’re him,” she said, “do the funny legs.”

 

Things reached new heights of absurdity when I arrived to perform I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down and was met by what looked like a circus strongman holding a length of stout rope. Our promo man, Spanner, gently persuaded me to don a pantomime harness so I could be hoisted up on a wire and down again, right on cue with the title line from the chorus. This was the kind of entertainment licence-payers were demanding from the corporation back then.

 

Two things stood in the way. One was the holes the hooks of the harness would have to punch in my favorite thrift-store trousers, and the other was my fear of heights. A trip to the BBC club took care of the latter: by the time I returned to perform, I wouldn’t have cared if I’d been asked to wear harem pants or Bermuda shorts. I was a rubber man, so when the harness returned me to earth, my legs buckled under me. I suspect that the cameraman was already doubled up with laughter, as he completely bungled the shot.

 

It can’t have been entirely accidental that almost every appearance on Top of the Pops caused our record to go down the charts. Once the audience got sight of us, they liked us a lot less. During one performance, the director ordered the cameraman to frame Pete Thomas in a tight close-up, as we had done in the run-through, only this time our tipsy drummer pulled a goofy face into the lens and played the final drum part on his head.

 

When taping ended, a stern voice came crackling over the public address system. “A representative of the Elvis Costello group” was summoned to the foot of the iron stairs leading to the production gallery. Being the only vaguely responsible person on hand, I presented myself at the headmaster’s office. The producer emerged, apoplectic with rage, and attempted to give me a dressing-down for Pete having ruined the illusion of a live performance. I shut him down immediately.

 

The drummer from Tight Fit had got up during the middle of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, walked forward and bent over – so his bandmate could beat out a marimba solo on a keyboard printed on the arse of his loincloth, while his drums magically continued to play. The shattering of illusions was the least of their problems.

 

The BBC preferred us to go through the motions in studio rather than screening Evan English’s unusual video for I Wanna Be Loved. It’s one of few such short films that I really like. Evan placed me in what appeared to be a photobooth in Flinders Street station in Melbourne. The record was played, but my voice was also heard singing along with it softly, as various people entered the frame from each side to kiss my cheek or whisper in my ear, beginning with a small child and continuing with a cowboy, an elderly couple, and various actors, models and freaks.

 

The effect was both unsettlingly comic and rather upsetting. Not knowing what was coming next and being so far from home during the final unravelling of my first marriage, I found that the experience of shooting repeated takes was my undoing. My tears were not glycerin. The I Wanna Be Loved clip was one of the few occasions in which the surrealism of miming conveyed any real emotion.

[Mook]

He's on the cover of this month's MOJO magazine.

[King Emlyn]

I love Elvis Costello

[dickie mint]

Our kid went to see on Monday he done an open interview and done a few acoustic numbers on Monday at the Royal Court he said he was sound then again he's been a fan since 77 and seen about 20 times,saw him twice he is class fav album is Trust.

[Teflon Don]

I've just noticed that Elvis reading extracts from Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink is this week's Book Of The Week on Radio 4 - all five 15-minute episodes are already available on iPlayer [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qsmdz/episodes/guide].

[Mook]

6 July 2018
mirror.co.uk

Elvis Costello has cancelled his tour as he reveals he is battling cancer.

He has scrapped the remaining six dates of the European tour on doctor's orders, explaining he is battling a 'very aggressive' form of the disease.

Elvis, 63, apologised to his fans and said he initially thought his treatment would be completed in time.

“Six weeks ago my specialist called me and said, 'You should start playing the Lotto,'" he said in a statement, explaining surgeons, "had rarely, if ever, seen such a small but very aggressive cancerous malignancy that could be defeated by a single surgery."

"I was elated and relieved that our European summer tour could go ahead," he continued. "Post-surgical guidelines for such surgery, recommend three weeks to four weeks recovery depending on whether you are returning to a desk job or an occupation that involves physical work or travel."

However, after hitting the road he soon realised his health needed to be his absolute focus.

"It was impossible to judge how this advisory would line up with the demands on a traveling musician, playing 90-minute to 2-hour plus performances on a nightly basis but by the time we reached the Edinburgh Playhouse, I was almost fooled into thinking that normal service had been resumed.," he said.

"I have to thank our friends attending last night's show in Amsterdam and those in Antwerp, Glynde and at Newcastle City Hall for bearing me up.

"The spirit has been more than willing but I have to now accept that it is going to take longer than I would have wished for me to recover my full strength. Therefore, I must reluctantly cancel all the remaining engagements of this tour.

"My apologies go to our ticket holders in Manchester, Pula, Graz, Vienna, Tysnes and Rattvik but I would rather disappoint our friends there by not appearing than in pressing on with a show that is compromised and eventually puts my health at risk.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

Fucking legend is young Declan, didn’t know he was illl, saw him live a few years back. Excellent back catalogue.

I grew up late 70’s early 80’s, the pop music was standard shite, but looking back what elvis, teardrop, joy division, bunnymen et al were producing stands the test of time.

I doubt there is a range of human emotions you couldn’t fit an elvis Costello track in to.

[magicrat]

I like Elvis Costello. Hope he's ok

[easytoslip]

Fucking legend is young Declan, didn’t know he was illl, saw him live a few years back. Excellent back catalogue.

I grew up late 70’s early 80’s, the pop music was standard shite, but looking back what elvis, teardrop, joy division, bunnymen et al were producing stands the test of time.

I doubt there is a range of human emotions you couldn’t fit an elvis Costello track in to.

Did myself though not really never into Punk or anything, liked the Stranglers and Patti Smith but I was looking at local concerts on some site a while back and saw that he was on the Southport Floral Hall in 1979 ?can't see how I missed that as I was quite often hanging around there, Dixieland etc.

[stringvest]

Costello was the best songwriter in the world from 77 to 82. And the Attractions were without doubt the best band in the world from 77 to 84. All of them genius musicians.

 

Get well soon you curmudgeonly cunt. And make up with Bruce before it’s too late.

[dickie mint]

Sad to hear great live saw him on many occasions great all rounder,was just listening to Trust the other day top album,get well soon.

[s(k)aturation]

Went to see this genius on the Philharmonic last Monday, I've not listened to anything else since. He's every bit as good as any songwriter you could care to mention, the quality of his work is ridiculous, one of England's true greats. I know Stringvest is a worshipper, any others?

 

Me.

 

Hope this brilliant man gets well soon.

[cloggypop]

He's actually had the surgery and recovered already. He's cancelled the tour because he underestimated how knackering it would be after his illness.

[lifetime fan]

Wasn’t ‘my’ music but it’s what I grew up listening to.

 

Horrible news.

[cloggypop]

He's recovering you hysterical fannies

 

https://www.elviscostello.com/#!/news/297540

[stringvest]

I’m glad to hear he’s not a man out of time.

 

What a fucking song that is

[Mook]

Wasn’t ‘my’ music but it’s what I grew up listening to.

 

Horrible news.

I can't believe he's wiv da angles now.

 

RIP Elvis, you'll alwayz b my teddy bare.

[dickie mint]

I’m glad to hear he’s not a man out of time.

What a fucking song that is

 

Superb.

[cloggypop]

I find it hard to pick a favourite album never mind a favourite song

[TheHowieLama]

[Anny Road]

Never got him. Bit like Bowie. Don’t see it.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Here's a live TV performance of 'London's Brilliant Parade' from Brutal Youth:

 

And London's Brilliant

 

If I remember rightly from an interview with Wendy James I once heard, she was at a low ebb in the early 90s.  She'd been hurtled up and then crashed back down, chewed up and spat out by the music industry and didn't know what to do.  A friend suggested she write to Elvis Costello (as someone who'd been around and seen a few things) for a bit of advice and stuff.  She said that once she started writing the letter, everything she had bottled up just came pouring out.  Just writing the letter was therapeutic.

 

She sent it off, hoping that he might write back with a few kind words.

 

Instead, he wrote back with a whole album full of songs, every word of which captured the truth of her life as she had lived it.

 

A nice guy and a genius.

 

 

[Josef Svejk]

Great songwriter. Who became a little dull over the years.

 

I tend to blame his wife, who's a true genius in the art of dull...