Elvis in Uncut and Mojo - February 2022

[sweetest punch]

https://www.uncut.co.uk/publications/ma ... 22-135748/

Paul Weller, Eagles, Elvis Costello, Big Thief, Margo Cilker, William Bell, Cluster, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Robert Fripp, and Lenny Kaye all feature in the new Uncut, dated February 2022 and in UK shops from December 9 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD, comprising 15 tracks of the month’s best new music.

ELVIS COSTELLO: Elvis Costello has a brilliant new album to talk about, but as Michael Bonner soon discovers, his candour covers all bases. To be discussed: climate crisis, genre exercises, distorted truths, imaginary friends and the joys of beating up Sting. Every night. Oh, and the human race? “Everybody’s guilty!”

[sweetest punch]

In the interview Elvis announces a newly recorded EP, problably from the Memphis Magnetic Recording Session ( http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... &p=7750653 )

[sweetest punch]

Elvis in Mojo Febrary 2022: https://www.mojo4music.com/magazine/lat ... eil-young/

MOJO 339 – February 2022: Neil Young
Latest MOJO magazine features exclusive Neil Young interview, plus Neil Young nuggets CD, curated by Neil Young. Plus, Pistols, Purps, Cat Power, 2022 Preview.

AN EXCLUSIVE NEIL YOUNG INTERVIEW stars in this month’s jam-packed MOJO magazine. On the table: his brilliant new album, his epic Archives trawl, full moon fever, and late-life transformations. Also: Crazy Horse speak! Dive in, too, for MOJO’s preview of the great music coming in 2022; Deep Purple rock back the years; Paul Cook on life in the shadow of the Sex Pistols. Plus: Cat Power; The Who; The Gun Club; Yard Act; Curtis Harding; Elvis Costello; Arthur Russell; Mick Rock; and the great lost albums of 1971!

THIS MONTH’S COVERMOUNT CD is that greatest of things: 10 incredible Neil Young songs curated by Neil Young himself! Nuggets and classics jostle for space! Unmissable!

MOJO 339 CONTENTS
COVER STORY: NEIL YOUNG MOJO bags an exclusive audience with a ‘Canerican’ legend, toting his best album in a decade. Plus: Crazy Horse kick over the traces; Young’s Archive releases rounded up; and Linda Ronstadt on Neil’s rich Harvest, 50 years on.
2022 PREVIEW Looking forward to The Who, Bowie, Pavement, Talk Talk, Foo Fighters, The Stranglers, Jack White, Bowie ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, Vashti Bunyan, a new My Bloody Valentine album (really!) and much, much more.
PAUL COOK The Sex Pistols’ percussive prime mover on life in the shadow of the world’s most notorious band: “We just wanted to make music and people wanted to kill us!”
DEEP PURPLE Gillan, Paice and Glover regroup for one more blag, 50 years since Machine Head. But what are their current feelings about Ritchie Blackmore? “He’s a quirky guy...”
CAT POWER Chan Marshall’s struggles are hardly all in the past – 2021 saw her down to her last 38 dollars – but a new album finds her in her happy place: under the covers.
1971 NUGGETS While the ilk of Blue, Led Zep IV and What’s Going On headlined an unbelievable year, droves of killer discs flew under the radar. MOJO’s writers pick 50.
CURTIS HARDING Child of Mennonites turned worldly soul star, late-blooming success suits Harding. “I had to create,” he tells David Fricke, “or I was going to go crazy.”

[And No Coffee Table]

In the interview Elvis announces a newly recorded EP, problably from the Memphis Magnetic Recording Session ( http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... &p=7750653 )

Another bit of news is that he recorded "And Your Bird Can Sing/Birds Will Be Singing" for a benefit record at the same time as "Phonographic Memory," "Maud Gone Wrong," and the not-yet-released "Long Distance Love."

(I assume that should say "The Birds Will Still Be Singing.")

[Hawksmoor]

In the interview Elvis announces a newly recorded EP, problably from the Memphis Magnetic Recording Session ( http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... &p=7750653 )

Another bit of news is that he recorded "And Your Bird Can Sing/Birds Will Be Singing" for a benefit record at the same time as "Phonographic Memory," "Maud Gone Wrong," and the not-yet-released "Long Distance Love."

(I assume that should say "The Birds Will Still Be Singing.")

I think your assumption is correct, but I'm very intrigued to hear a mash-up of those two! I'd assume either AYBCS is slowed down to ballad-speed, or TBWSBS is taken at a much faster tempo. if they are both taken at their original tempo, that's going to be a very interesting segue! Looking forward to that already.

[thepopeofpop]

The new Mojo has a review of "The Boy Named If". Four stars (out of a possible five). They compare it favourably to "Brutal Youth".

[bronxapostle]

Is it my imagination or doesn't MOJO owe ELVIS a cover story right about now? Who remembers the last time he featured? Better still a 2 or 3 part tribute over the course of special edition issues exclusively about EC like Weller received a year or so back!!

[Hawksmoor]

The new Mojo has a review of "The Boy Named If". Four stars (out of a possible five). They compare it favourably to "Brutal Youth".

And ends with ''Powerful, provocative and utter proof that Costello's creative fire is still raging, against all reasonable odds'.

Think I'm looking forward to this one now .

[verbal gymnastics]

I hope it doesn’t say his aim is still true

[bronxapostle]

I hope it doesn’t say his aim is still true

the inventive tagline!!!

[Hawksmoor]

I hope it doesn’t say his aim is still true

It doesn't! It's Tom Doyle, a (very) longstanding Mojo staff writer and a known fan of Elvis. He compares it to TYM and Brutal Youth, but in a knowledgeable way, not a lazy comparison way. And he talks about several tracks (particularly the lyrics) in a depth that implies he has listened to it quite a lot. He even refers to Elvis' comments about what the 'IF' means in 'The Boy Named IF' (which he can only have got if he reads Elvis' website) and then links that back to 'My Science Fiction Twin'.

I know we've all seen the 'His Aim Is Still True' reviews over the years, and we've all seen the reviews where it's blindingly obvious the reviewer hasn't even heard the LP, and we've all seen the reviews which are a summary of Elvis' career and then a sentence at the end that says 'this one's OK'. But this Mojo one is well worth a read - a good reviewer, who clearly knows Elvis' back catalogue inside out, and who thinks TBNI is a bloody brilliant LP. So it's all good news .

[sweetest punch]

https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/interv ... ng-136156/

Elvis Costello: “My conscience is clear!”
Elvis Costello has a brilliant new album to talk about, but as Michael Bonner soon discovers, his candour covers all bases. To be discussed: climate crisis, genre exercises, distorted truths, imaginary friends and the joys of beating up Sting. Every night. Oh, and the human race? “Everybody’s guilty!”

It is mid-afternoon and Elvis Costello is in full cry. A fast talker – and a fast thinker – he is currently winding up a typically digressive anecdote about his performance, the previous night, at the Royal Variety Show. “You know I was born in the same fucking hospital as the Royal Family?” He says. “Yeah, St Mary’s. But I was baptised in Birkenhead and our family’s from Liverpool, so I belong to both places. I don’t really belong to London. I left a long time ago. I never felt at home here. I lived out in the suburbs. I relate to Hounslow and Richmond and Twickenham and Liverpool and Birkenhead. You find places that you fall in love with when you travel. Nowadays, we all travel virtually. But I’ve been travelling for 40 years, making friends and having adventures.”

We’re in Costello’s hotel room in West London. Today he is dressed in a dark suit and tie which, combined with his glasses and greying beard, gives him a distinguished if slightly bohemian appearance – more affable Humanities professor than rock’n’roll veteran. His voice still carries a soft, Liverpool brogue, with a slight mid-Atlantic lilt occasionally making its presence felt. Costello’s latest adventure is The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories) – a characteristically diverse album anchored by the kind of pell-mell rock’n’roll songs Costello has long specialised in. Made in cahoots with trusted lieutenants Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve and producer Sebastian Krys, its release marks an intriguing congruence in Costello’s career.

During the pandemic he oversaw four releases: a new studio album, Hey Clockface, an EP of French adaptations and remixes from Hey Clockface called La Face De Pendule A Coucou and two archive projects – a deluxe boxset of 1979’s Armed Forces and Spanish Model, a reimagining of This Year’s Model, using the Attractions’ original 1978 backing tracks with current Latin American and Spanish artists adapting the lyrics into Spanish. Conspicuously, Armed Forces and Spanish Model brought into focus Thomas and Nieve’s ongoing roles in animating Costello’s expansive songbook, as either Attractions or Imposters, along with bassist Davey Farragher. Costello speaks highly of the three musicians, particularly how they rose to the challenges presented by the last few years. “I’m proud of the way we went about doing this record,” he confirms. “You have a choice between hunkering down and doing mopey, whey-faced ballads about isolation or you can kick a hole in the box you’re in.”

Restless, passionate, involved – these appear to be Costello’s preferred working methods. You can hear the excitement in his voice as he talks about the band’s most recent American tour, during October and November, accompanied by Dylan’s long-serving guitarist Charlie Sexton. But these recent positive experiences have come with their share of upheavals. Costello lost his mother in January – “the last time I saw her was on FaceTime, 90 minutes before she passed; when it came it came quickly, and for that I’m grateful” – while over the summer Costello, his wife Diana Krall and their twin boys relocated from Vancouver Island to New York. “We moved from Vancouver the week that the wind direction changed,” he says. “The interior of Vancouver was on fire for like, four weeks, right? It was 47 centigrade in Kamloops. That’s how hot is in the Mojave fucking desert. I was in New York four days, then there was a hurricane. Two weeks later, there was another one. Three days after that, as COP26 write some mealy-mouthed words about coal emissions, the whole of British Columbia nearly gets washed away. Don’t fucking come round here telling me your problems. We better get it together otherwise we’re all gonna fucking die.”