Follow Me Gentlemen, June 1989

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications Follow Me Gentlemen   1989 June Australia publications  Newspapers Adelaide Advertiser The Australian Brisbane Courier-Mail Canberra Times Lismore Northern Star Melbourne Age Melbourne Herald Sun Melbourne Observer Nation Review Newcastle Herald Queensland Times Sydney Daily Mirror Sydney Daily Telegraph Sydney Morning Herald Sydney Sun-Herald Victor Harbor Times West Australian West Australian Sunday Times Magazines ABC Radio 24 Hours Adelaide Review Audio Technology Australian Musician Australian Nat. Univ. Woroni Australian Women's Weekly Black+White BMA Magazine The Bulletin Countdown Crowd DB Magazine Drum Media EON Extra Follow Me Gentlemen Inpress Juice Juke Melbourne Beat Men's Style Australia Mint Magazine The Music On The Street Rage Reverb Magazine RAM Reader's Digest Revolver Rhythms Rip It Up Roadrunner Rolling Stone Semper Street Fever Sydney Star Observer Time Off UNSW Tharunka Who Online publications AU Review Australian Stage Music Feeds Scenestr Tone Deaf — Spiked Lynden Barber Elvis Costello is one of those rare types. A singer songwriter with integrity. Even Lynden Barber is forced to overlook the adenoidal voice and judge the guy a true artist.' The former computer operator peers through his clear-plastic-trademarks, each as wide as VDT screens, and shakes hands. The last time we met, 12 months ago at Sydney’s Sebel Town House, Elvis Costello was dressed in black. The second time around it’s same place, same garb. Even the famed spectacles are as dark as Doc Martens. The black gives him the appearance of an unconventional preacher; he reminds me of my late godfather, a drinking, chain-smoking, Jaguar-driving man of the cloth. He’d probably enjoy the observation. “Oh yes, I was a comical priest,” he sings on “God’s Comic,” one of his most recent songs, “with a joke for the flock and a hand up your fleece … and lipstick and grease-paint down the front of my dirty dog collar.” Costello is in Australia to shoot a video for the song “Veronica,” his first single of 1989, with Evan English, director of the Australian movie Ghosts … Of The Civil Dead and previously responsible, as a member of the Rich Kids, for the promo clip for the singer’s “I Wanna Be Loved”. You heard right the first time. All the way to Australia just for a video, though the way this came about was almost accidental, since he agreed to work with English without realising it would mean a trip Down Under. After more years than you care to think about signed to independent UK labels – Stiff, then his own F-Beat and Imp - the Anglo-Irish songwriter has now signed directly to Warner Bros. of Burbank, California. So why has a corporate giant like Warners signed him? “I’ve no idea, you’ll have to ask them,” he replies, not quite as tetchily as might be imagined. “Why not, I’d say? I think I could have had a hit with any one of my records, I just needed the breaks, and particularly towards the latter years. I don’t think Columbia [who distributed Costello in the States] had much imagination about my records, and I think the last two I gave them were two of the best records I’ve made. “I was quite happy to be independent in England. If they banned air travel tomorrow and I could not leave England I’d go back to being independent, ‘cos it’s obviously much easier to keep everything in-house.” He relaxes into the role of interviewee with a seasoned air – polite, brisk, businesslike, speaking unselfconsciously about the music industry or politics before pulling himself up with a comment like, “There are more interesting things to talk about than my philosophy on the business.” Translation: I have a new album to promote so let’s just play the game. “My publisher rang me this morning and said that an American film company wants to use “Oliver’s Army” in a bio-film of Oliver North,” he volunteers suddenly. “I said “Yes”, not because they’re going to pay me any great amount of money, ‘cos they won’t but because I think it’s hilarious that they would misunderstand the meaning of the song to that degree. I hope the story is like The Battle of the Green Berets, a real gung-ho story …” While he’s talking, the next interviewer is in the corridor outside sweating with nerves. The reaction isn’t uncommon. Costello may not be popular like Sting or Tracy Chapman, but those who count themselves as fans hold him in an almost super-naturally high regard. The art director of this periodical went intense and manic about the eyes at the mention of his name. Or how about Brat Pack-tress Molly Ringwald on Elvis the Second: “My only real hero I haven’t met”. I’ve often felt vaguely troubled by my failure to feel the slightest tremor at the thought of Costello while all around are measuring off the end of the Richter scale. To me, Costello seemed to be regarded with an awe out of all proportion to the consistency of his work. His albums I usually found difficult to listen to all the way through: his pinched, nasal voice, sneeringly effective in short bursts, would eventually become too grating, too mannered, for ready digestion. Too much Costello could provoke not mere luke-warm shrugs, but active dislike. Tied up with this was a distaste for his high standing among the musically unadventurous, those who positively adored his prosaic old pub-rock backing musos such as Steve Nieve and Nick “Basher” Lowe: musical jobsworths, authenticity bores, the “if it wears a cowboy hat, worship it” brigade. Until Blood and Chocolate that is. But more of that later. Remaining text and scanner-error corrections to come... Tags: God's Comic  •  Veronica  •  I Wanna Be Loved  •  Stiff  •  F-Beat  •  Warner Bros.  •  Columbia Records  •  Oliver's Army  •  Sting  •  Steve Nieve  •  Nick Lowe Follow Me Gentlemen, No. 22, June - August 1989 Lynden Barber interviews Elvis Costello. Images Cover. Page scans - thanks to Richard Sheehan Photos credit: Gary Heery