Time Out, November 9, 1994: Difference between revisions
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'Time Out want to do a concept interview,' Elvis Costello tells a friendly guy at the cavernous [[Hammersmith Palais]] sometime during our motorised trek across London. We're celebrating the prodigal's return to his birthplace for a series of Friday night gigs at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, the release of an EP entitled 'Londons Brilliant Parade' and the euphoria surrounding his last album, '[[Brutal Youth]]', described by the NME as 'the most singularly "Elvis Costello" record Elvis Costello's ever made'. | 'Time Out want to do a concept interview,' Elvis Costello tells a friendly guy at the cavernous [[Hammersmith Palais]] sometime during our motorised trek across London. We're celebrating the prodigal's return to his birthplace for a series of Friday night gigs at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, the release of an EP entitled 'Londons Brilliant Parade' and the euphoria surrounding his last album, '[[Brutal Youth]]', described by the NME as 'the most singularly "Elvis Costello" record Elvis Costello's ever made'. | ||
While that remark may sound every bit as paradoxical as one of EC's best lyrics, it was a mighty compliment for a mighty collection of songs which took him hack to the arms of the Attractions, the mean trio with whom he performed on the classic albums from 1978's '[[This Year's Model]]', to their last collaboration '[[Blood And Chocolate]]' in 1986. On 'Brutal Youth', bass-playing duties are shared between Attraction [[Bruce Thomas]] and [[Nick Lowe]], the vinyl-dripping all-talent who produced the songs Costello is still best known for: '[[Watching The Detectives]]', '[[Oliver's Army]]'. '[[Alison]]', '[[Accidents Will Happen]]' and '[[(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea]]'. (Actually, one of the places mentioned in the title song, '[[London's Brilliant Parade]]', is Fulham Broadway, tube-stop for Stamford Bridge, home of the bubbling boys in blue. When I suggest a photo outside the main gates he splutters with amused rage, every bit the diehard Liverpool fan. Yes folks, he still don't wanna go to Chelsea...) | While that remark may sound every bit as paradoxical as one of EC's best lyrics, it was a mighty compliment for a mighty collection of songs which took him hack to the arms of the Attractions, the mean trio with whom he performed on the classic albums from 1978's '[[This Year's Model]]', to their last collaboration '[[Blood & Chocolate|Blood And Chocolate]]' in 1986. On 'Brutal Youth', bass-playing duties are shared between Attraction [[Bruce Thomas]] and [[Nick Lowe]], the vinyl-dripping all-talent who produced the songs Costello is still best known for: '[[Watching The Detectives]]', '[[Oliver's Army]]'. '[[Alison]]', '[[Accidents Will Happen]]' and '[[(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea]]'. (Actually, one of the places mentioned in the title song, '[[London's Brilliant Parade]]', is Fulham Broadway, tube-stop for Stamford Bridge, home of the bubbling boys in blue. When I suggest a photo outside the main gates he splutters with amused rage, every bit the diehard Liverpool fan. Yes folks, he still don't wanna go to Chelsea...) | ||
Lowe has, inevitably, been unavailable for the London dates and the subsequent national tour, but the Attractions, focused by [[Steve Nieve]]'s swirling, spooky, dirty organ and piano hooks, Thomas's full-frontal bass and the surgical-boot insistency of [[Pete Thomas]] on drums, promise some great fat-sounding evenings. 'I hope people let their hair down and leap around like they did in the old days.' | Lowe has, inevitably, been unavailable for the London dates and the subsequent national tour, but the Attractions, focused by [[Steve Nieve]]'s swirling, spooky, dirty organ and piano hooks, Thomas's full-frontal bass and the surgical-boot insistency of [[Pete Thomas]] on drums, promise some great fat-sounding evenings. 'I hope people let their hair down and leap around like they did in the old days.' | ||
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Over 18 albums in 17 years, Elvis Costello has never stopped very long to survey the scene, which is why his relationship with the music media is never far from prickly. As likely to collaborate on an Alan Bleasdale or Roddy Doyle TV drama series, produce a Celtic folk band or whistle Monteverdi as to bash out the frenetic mocker '[[Pump It Up]]', Elvis is a mellower, more solid but still recognisable update of his old snarling self. Though he came in on the back—end of punk rock, this once self-styled cartoon nerd was never into safety-pins, tartan-kilts, razor-blades or volleys of spit. 'Punk was never about music, it was about street-theatre and attitude,' he says. What Costello and his boys did was reinstate the three minute pop song as the standard of excellence, bringing back simplicity, danceability and structural clarity to the music while simultaneously writing lyrics of enormous wit, intelligence and even pathos. | Over 18 albums in 17 years, Elvis Costello has never stopped very long to survey the scene, which is why his relationship with the music media is never far from prickly. As likely to collaborate on an Alan Bleasdale or Roddy Doyle TV drama series, produce a Celtic folk band or whistle Monteverdi as to bash out the frenetic mocker '[[Pump It Up]]', Elvis is a mellower, more solid but still recognisable update of his old snarling self. Though he came in on the back—end of punk rock, this once self-styled cartoon nerd was never into safety-pins, tartan-kilts, razor-blades or volleys of spit. 'Punk was never about music, it was about street-theatre and attitude,' he says. What Costello and his boys did was reinstate the three minute pop song as the standard of excellence, bringing back simplicity, danceability and structural clarity to the music while simultaneously writing lyrics of enormous wit, intelligence and even pathos. | ||
Costello's writing runs from the startling — 'She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake' (the shortest film-pitch in history?) - to the open-endedly ambiguous. Rock music is too pacey to carry too many levels of ambiguity, but Costello is still Britain's best when it comes to constructing lyrics. '[[Oliver's Army]]', which he wrote in Belfast, is named for the man who founded the first 'genuinely national armed forces', the hated Oliver Cromwell, who reminds him of his Hammersmith convent-school youth. 'He was a devil incarnate to the Christian brothers. We used to sing very Catholic pieces, they'd be frowned on today as not being in the spirit of church unity, things like "Oh Glorious Spirit of St Patrick's" and "Faith of Our Fathers", lots of take on the history of England from the old-religion martyr's perspective. And we'd sing the Latin mass without knowing what it meant but loving every line.' | |||
Costello writes music about music in the same way that Quentin Tarantino makes films about film, but as yet Tarantino has no body of work which includes the equivalent of an underrated collaboration with The [[Brodsky Quartet]], or a song like '[[Shipbuilding]]' (included on the new EP) with its soaring trumpet voluntary from [[Chet Baker]], or the penultimate song on '[[Brutal Youth]]', '[[All The Rage]]', which is as fine a song as he's ever written, starting off like some mid-tempo Tamla Motown ditty, rising to a recriminatory Lennon-style vocal climax. 'Though I'll never be/Unhappy like you want me to be/Still, it's all the rage'. He's not quite all the rage again, but he's definitely back with a vengeance. | Costello writes music about music in the same way that Quentin Tarantino makes films about film, but as yet Tarantino has no body of work which includes the equivalent of an underrated collaboration with The [[Brodsky Quartet]], or a song like '[[Shipbuilding]]' (included on the new EP) with its soaring trumpet voluntary from [[Chet Baker]], or the penultimate song on '[[Brutal Youth]]', '[[All The Rage]]', which is as fine a song as he's ever written, starting off like some mid-tempo Tamla Motown ditty, rising to a recriminatory Lennon-style vocal climax. 'Though I'll never be/Unhappy like you want me to be/Still, it's all the rage'. He's not quite all the rage again, but he's definitely back with a vengeance. | ||
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He remembers the quietness of the street in contrast to the 'hostile boom of contemporary London', the horses and carts that delivered coal and milk, the delivery vans from Harrods that brought 'loaves of bread to these little old ladies holed up in second-floor bedsits'; the mix of neighbours who were even then a contrary and cosmopolitan hunch. The ground floor flat now looks '8Os-prosperous with blinds and a fresh lick of paint, though at present nobody's home. This is the setting for the sleeve photography on 'Brutal Youth', the infant Elvis pictured in cowboy outfit aiming truly at the camera, with a black infant chum who eventually moved back to Trinidad, and on the balustrade with sister Cath. | He remembers the quietness of the street in contrast to the 'hostile boom of contemporary London', the horses and carts that delivered coal and milk, the delivery vans from Harrods that brought 'loaves of bread to these little old ladies holed up in second-floor bedsits'; the mix of neighbours who were even then a contrary and cosmopolitan hunch. The ground floor flat now looks '8Os-prosperous with blinds and a fresh lick of paint, though at present nobody's home. This is the setting for the sleeve photography on 'Brutal Youth', the infant Elvis pictured in cowboy outfit aiming truly at the camera, with a black infant chum who eventually moved back to Trinidad, and on the balustrade with sister Cath. | ||
He remembers the live-in Welsh landlady, being conscious of his grandfather dying of cancer back in Liverpool, the frequent visits north by his parents, the frightening sound | He remembers the live-in Welsh landlady, being conscious of his grandfather dying of cancer back in Liverpool, the frequent visits north by his parents, the frightening sound of the chugging steam engines from the adjoining Olympia branch-line. Later on, during our journey north he mentions his search to find the orphanage in Southall where his grandfather was sent 'without any good reason at all' after the First World War, uprooting him from his native Birkenhead and making him 'ready for life' as a wartime army bandsman at the Kneller Hall military academy in Twickenham. There was also a flight of steps leading three floors up to the roof, interesting given Costello's morbid fear of heights and vertigo, reflected in some of the titles from the last album, '[[13 Steps Lead Down| Thirteen Steps Lead Down]]', '[[You Tripped At Every Step]]'and a line about Hungerford Bridge, of which more later. | ||
The most intriguing aspect of the flying visit is a blue plaque directly opposite his own former address but high up on the brick work commemorating the fact that Edward Elgar lived there briefly in the l890s, and doubly coincidental given that EC is currently reading a book about the composer, 'starting at the end where all the interesting stuff is, but isn't it incredible? Still, he was nearly a century old when he died, if they put up a plaque for every address he lived in, every road must have one!' | The most intriguing aspect of the flying visit is a blue plaque directly opposite his own former address but high up on the brick work commemorating the fact that Edward Elgar lived there briefly in the l890s, and doubly coincidental given that EC is currently reading a book about the composer, 'starting at the end where all the interesting stuff is, but isn't it incredible? Still, he was nearly a century old when he died, if they put up a plaque for every address he lived in, every road must have one!' | ||
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'I can see how it sparked his imagination,' says Elvis, recalling how as a small boy he accompanied his dad on Saturday afternoons 'where the professional dancers practised because sometimes there'd only be five couples on the floor and this massive band all dolled up in dress-tails and bow-ties. There'd be a couple of token wallflowers in the corner, the odd pervert, foxtrots, quicksteps and that horrible old toilet and mothballs smell that Gordon Burn captured in "Alma Cogan". Dad would turn up but dancers don't like to practise to singers because it interferes with their beat, too much rubato. | 'I can see how it sparked his imagination,' says Elvis, recalling how as a small boy he accompanied his dad on Saturday afternoons 'where the professional dancers practised because sometimes there'd only be five couples on the floor and this massive band all dolled up in dress-tails and bow-ties. There'd be a couple of token wallflowers in the corner, the odd pervert, foxtrots, quicksteps and that horrible old toilet and mothballs smell that Gordon Burn captured in "Alma Cogan". Dad would turn up but dancers don't like to practise to singers because it interferes with their beat, too much rubato. | ||
For me, the big events were not to do with dad, because, well, that was his job, but sometimes I would catch a glimpse of the pop bands arriving in some beat-up van looking shagged out and very young. I remember the Hollies coming in from Huddersfield and thinking they were gods, and the bands always looked so young, barely out of their teens, rather like they do now which I think is great because in the '70's the big rock stars were all people who'd grown hair or beards or had breakdowns or gone to America and made pots. I prefer rock to be about youth. It doesn't do so much for me because I was there in 1972, I don't need Bobbie Gillespie and Primal Scream — but if I was 14 and I thought Jagger was like Bing Crosby, then I'm sure I'd love it. My music has always been influenced by everything, layers upon layers. "This Year's Model" was about Dylan and the Beatles, but there's also been swing, Stax, Coltrane, Count Basie, Cole Porter, Curtis Mayfield, [[Johnny Cash]], the early Stones album "Aftermath", even [[Iggy Pop]]. There's not much difference between "homage" and plain old "nicking", only whether it sounds good or not.' | For me, the big events were not to do with dad, because, well, that was his job, but sometimes I would catch a glimpse of the pop bands arriving in some beat-up van looking shagged out and very young. I remember [[the Hollies]] coming in from Huddersfield and thinking they were gods, and the bands always looked so young, barely out of their teens, rather like they do now which I think is great because in the '70's the big rock stars were all people who'd grown hair or beards or had breakdowns or gone to America and made pots. I prefer rock to be about youth. It doesn't do so much for me because I was there in 1972, I don't need Bobbie Gillespie and Primal Scream — but if I was 14 and I thought Jagger was like [[Bing Crosby]], then I'm sure I'd love it. My music has always been influenced by everything, layers upon layers. "This Year's Model" was about [[Bob Dylan|Dylan]] and [[the Beatles]], but there's also been swing, Stax, Coltrane, [[Count Basie]], [[Cole Porter]], [[Curtis Mayfield]], [[Johnny Cash]], the early [[The Rolling Stones|Stones]] album "Aftermath", even [[Iggy Pop]]. There's not much difference between "homage" and plain old "nicking", only whether it sounds good or not.' | ||
In the car he's nervously looking through the music for the Glenn Miller song 'At Last' which he is due to sing with his 65-year-old dad at a special Barbican gig the following Sunday. 'I remember how great the musicians were in Joe Loss's band, how clever the arrangements were, so simple, with just the right amount of notes. I got lots of flak for the later albums. "[[Mighty Like A Rose]]" and "[[Spike]]" especially the critics said they were too elaborate, too musically contrived, yet when we did our early stuff virtually the same people said it was too unfinished, too much like a demo tape. As if you don't know what you're doing. | In the car he's nervously looking through the music for the Glenn Miller song '[[At Last]]' which he is due to sing with his 65-year-old dad at a special Barbican [[Concert 1994-10-30 London|gig]] the following Sunday. 'I remember how great the musicians were in Joe Loss's band, how clever the arrangements were, so simple, with just the right amount of notes. I got lots of flak for the later albums. "[[Mighty Like A Rose]]" and "[[Spike]]" especially the critics said they were too elaborate, too musically contrived, yet when we did our early stuff virtually the same people said it was too unfinished, too much like a demo tape. As if you don't know what you're doing. | ||
'That's what I hate about London, the cynicism, the capacity for cruelty, the fact that there are too many magazines telling people what to think, so that when something different comes along they don't know how to listen and they just dump on it. When we toured with "[[The Juliet Letters]]" it was amazing how people accepted it as what it was, an interesting musical experiment which I'm proud of but which is only that, it's no big fucking deal. I'm not trying to change the world, I'm just working, so it doesn't get to me because I'm on a different planet from all that stuff.' He pauses. 'Don't like the look of these lyrics, though, you just pick any line and spot the next cliché.' | 'That's what I hate about London, the cynicism, the capacity for cruelty, the fact that there are too many magazines telling people what to think, so that when something different comes along they don't know how to listen and they just dump on it. When we toured with "[[The Juliet Letters]]" it was amazing how people accepted it as what it was, an interesting musical experiment which I'm proud of but which is only that, it's no big fucking deal. I'm not trying to change the world, I'm just working, so it doesn't get to me because I'm on a different planet from all that stuff.' He pauses. 'Don't like the look of these lyrics, though, you just pick any line and spot the next cliché.' |
Revision as of 05:35, 1 February 2013
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