London Guardian, September 20, 2013: Difference between revisions
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"That's awesome!" Questlove says. | "That's awesome!" Questlove says. | ||
Raised a generation apart on different sides of the Atlantic, both parties adopted similar tactics in their formative years, too. Costello secured his first US record deal after he was arrested busking outside a CBS Records convention in London in 1977, an episode once identified as one of the 15 boldest publicity stunts in music history, while the Roots – as Questlove also elucidates in his recently published memoir Mo' Meta Blues – really found themselves musically through months spent playing live on the streets of Philadelphia. | Raised a generation apart on different sides of the Atlantic, both parties adopted similar tactics in their formative years, too. Costello secured his first US record deal after he was arrested busking outside a [[Concert 1977-07-26 CBS|CBS Records convention]] in London in 1977, an episode once identified as one of the 15 boldest publicity stunts in music history, while the Roots – as Questlove also elucidates in his recently published memoir Mo' Meta Blues – really found themselves musically through months spent playing live on the streets of Philadelphia. | ||
"We did that all through the summer of 1992," he says. "There was no precedent for what we were. There wasn't a live hip-hop band in Philly or on the eastern seaboard. That element opened up the minds of people who would normally say no to traditional hip-hop acts. It was a good thing and a bad thing. People would be like: 'I don't like rap music too much, but I like you guys, because you're real musicians.' There'd be a few times in the very beginning when our agent had to sell us like: 'They're a jazzy, kind of poetry, funky band who … [quickly sotto voce] do a little hip-hop.' | "We did that all through the summer of 1992," he says. "There was no precedent for what we were. There wasn't a live hip-hop band in Philly or on the eastern seaboard. That element opened up the minds of people who would normally say no to traditional hip-hop acts. It was a good thing and a bad thing. People would be like: 'I don't like rap music too much, but I like you guys, because you're real musicians.' There'd be a few times in the very beginning when our agent had to sell us like: 'They're a jazzy, kind of poetry, funky band who … [quickly sotto voce] do a little hip-hop.' | ||
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Costello guffaws: "Glad to hear it!" | Costello guffaws: "Glad to hear it!" | ||
Fighting shy of compromise, both Costello and the Roots have effected the transition from unlikely outsiders to fully fledged members of the musical establishment, even though both parties have endured career vicissitudes. One case in point: the Roots are finally signed to Def Jam now, that most iconic hip-hop label, but Costello beat them to the punch, releasing ''When I Was Cruel'', his 19th album, through that same imprint in the aftermath of a messy industry shakeup in 2002. (Costello: "So that explains everything!"; ''Wise Up Ghost'' arrives through a one-off deal with Blue Note, in whose mildly dilapidated offices in midtown this interview takes place.) This decade, however, Costello has performed "[[Penny Lane]]" in front of Paul McCartney and Barack Obama at the White House, while on ''Fallon'', the Roots have played with the president. | Fighting shy of compromise, both Costello and the Roots have effected the transition from unlikely outsiders to fully fledged members of the musical establishment, even though both parties have endured career vicissitudes. One case in point: the Roots are finally signed to Def Jam now, that most iconic hip-hop label, but Costello beat them to the punch, releasing ''[[When I Was Cruel]]'', his 19th album, through that same imprint in the aftermath of a messy industry shakeup in 2002. (Costello: "So that explains everything!"; ''Wise Up Ghost'' arrives through a one-off deal with Blue Note, in whose mildly dilapidated offices in midtown this interview takes place.) This decade, however, Costello has performed "[[Penny Lane]]" in front of [[Paul McCartney]] and Barack Obama at the [[Concert 2010-06-02 Washington|White House]], while on ''Fallon'', the Roots have played with the president. | ||
In the week that we meet, Syria is dominating the news and, given the Roots's socially conscious track record on albums such as Game Theory, I ask Questlove for his view on whether Obama is twisting in the wind in the face of the crisis. In response he's equivocal: "What's the question? What do I feel about war? There's two ways to look at it …" Which lets Costello leap back into the conversation to support him, articulating the complications of the situation so deftly that suddenly he's on to the topic of Joe Kennedy's support of appeasement in the 30s and Churchill's ambiguous status as a hero. "It goes on … it's hard to be exactly right." | In the week that we meet, Syria is dominating the news and, given the Roots's socially conscious track record on albums such as ''Game Theory'', I ask Questlove for his view on whether Obama is twisting in the wind in the face of the crisis. In response he's equivocal: "What's the question? What do I feel about war? There's two ways to look at it …" Which lets Costello leap back into the conversation to support him, articulating the complications of the situation so deftly that suddenly he's on to the topic of Joe Kennedy's support of appeasement in the 30s and Churchill's ambiguous status as a hero. "It goes on … it's hard to be exactly right." | ||
The themes explored on ''Wise Up Ghost'' are urgent and political, and not simply in the best tradition of Costello classics such as "Pills and Soap" and "Shipbuilding": rather, throughout the album, the singer reappropriates lines from his earlier songs, recontextualising them with new lyrics as well as new music, which tends towards a dreamlike, unsettling quality. It's a process that is itself indebted to the sampling culture of hip-hop, even though Costello is adamant this is not his hip-hop album. | The themes explored on ''Wise Up Ghost'' are urgent and political, and not simply in the best tradition of Costello classics such as "[[Pills And Soap|Pills and Soap]]" and "[[Shipbuilding]]": rather, throughout the album, the singer reappropriates lines from his earlier songs, recontextualising them with new lyrics as well as new music, which tends towards a dreamlike, unsettling quality. It's a process that is itself indebted to the sampling culture of hip-hop, even though Costello is adamant this is not his hip-hop album. | ||
Questlove hails Costello's intensity and the speed with which he worked on the project. "A lot of people I know suffer from writer's block. This year's gone by, [[D'Angelo]] will have taken 14 years to follow the Voodoo album" – a classic, which Questlove helped produce – "and every day it's like: 'Do the lyrics yet?' 'Nah man, they ain't come to me yet.' 'What?! It's been 14 years!'" | Questlove hails Costello's intensity and the speed with which he worked on the project. "A lot of people I know suffer from writer's block. This year's gone by, [[D'Angelo]] will have taken 14 years to follow the Voodoo album" – a classic, which Questlove helped produce – "and every day it's like: 'Do the lyrics yet?' 'Nah man, they ain't come to me yet.' 'What?! It's been 14 years!'" |
Revision as of 18:16, 30 September 2013
Wise Up Ghost is out now. Blue Note records paid for Caspar Llewellyn Smith's trip to New York. ![]()
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