Guitar World, June 2002: Difference between revisions
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<center> <h3> Cruel | <center> <h3> Cruel inventions </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Christopher Scapelliti </center> | <center> Christopher Scapelliti </center> | ||
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'''After a six-year absence from rock and roll, Elvis Costello grabs his guitar and delivers his brand of brutal truth on ''When I was Cruel''. | |||
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On Friday, February 1, 2002, storms hammered Dublin. The Royal Canal overflowed, and flash floods turned cobblestone streets into spindly rivers of briny muck. It was the most rain to dump on Ireland's capital since 1923, the year the Irish Republican Army was slaughtered as it tried once and for all to throw the British off the island. | On Friday, February 1, 2002, storms hammered Dublin. The Royal Canal overflowed, and flash floods turned cobblestone streets into spindly rivers of briny muck. It was the most rain to dump on Ireland's capital since 1923, the year the Irish Republican Army was slaughtered as it tried once and for all to throw the British off the island. | ||
The morning after the February deluge, another Irish rebel sat in a Dublin recording studio counting up losses of his own: Elvis Costello was working on remixes for his new album, '' | The morning after the February deluge, another Irish rebel sat in a Dublin recording studio counting up losses of his own: Elvis Costello was working on remixes for his new album, ''When I Was Cruel'' (Island), when the grim news came. | ||
"My production manager went down to the basement to get a guitar and found that our equipment was under seven feet of water," Costello recalls, six days after the discovery. "All of my amplifiers and about 15 or 20 guitars were completely destroyed." Many of the acoustic guitars Costello values most were safe at home or in the studio. "But all of the main guitars that I use both in the studio and onstage were submerged for a period. So only time will tell whether they can be salvaged." | "My production manager went down to the basement to get a guitar and found that our equipment was under seven feet of water," Costello recalls, six days after the discovery. "All of my amplifiers and about 15 or 20 guitars were completely destroyed." Many of the acoustic guitars Costello values most were safe at home or in the studio. "But all of the main guitars that I use both in the studio and onstage were submerged for a period. So only time will tell whether they can be salvaged." | ||
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"I took them off in one swipe," he says. "I'm a fairly violent person, if it comes out. And I'm also very clumsy. I'm likely to just break the damn guitar, let alone play it. It's a combination of clumsiness and kind of, like — I don't know — no hand-eye coordination. Not ideal!" he says, laughing. "Not gonna lead you to be a virtuoso instrumentalist." | "I took them off in one swipe," he says. "I'm a fairly violent person, if it comes out. And I'm also very clumsy. I'm likely to just break the damn guitar, let alone play it. It's a combination of clumsiness and kind of, like — I don't know — no hand-eye coordination. Not ideal!" he says, laughing. "Not gonna lead you to be a virtuoso instrumentalist." | ||
On the rare occasion that Costello has taken solos on record, they've been, almost without exception, prepared in advance. "I think it was four or five albums before I took a proper solo, and they were always orchestrated." But there was a moment of inspired playing during the making of When I Was Cruel. It occurred, curiously enough, on "Dust," the very song on which he filleted his strings at the Crossroads taping. | On the rare occasion that Costello has taken solos on record, they've been, almost without exception, prepared in advance. "I think it was four or five albums before I took a proper solo, and they were always orchestrated." But there was a moment of inspired playing during the making of ''When I Was Cruel''. It occurred, curiously enough, on "Dust," the very song on which he filleted his strings at the Crossroads taping. | ||
"You know, a lot of playing the guitar in a wild fashion has to do with a lack of fear. If you're incredibly dexterous, which I am not, obviously you have the facility to do that. But when we were recording 'Dust,' I was sitting in the control room with my Silvertone guitar running out into a little Sears Roebuck 15-watt amp, with some kind of distortion device between them — and somewhere in the middle of it, I just went mad. And the guys came in and said, 'Wow, that was quite good!' " He laughs. "It was like they were kind of surprised, you know! And when we listened back, it had sort of the right kind of fire — it wasn't, like, elegant or anything. | "You know, a lot of playing the guitar in a wild fashion has to do with a lack of fear. If you're incredibly dexterous, which I am not, obviously you have the facility to do that. But when we were recording 'Dust,' I was sitting in the control room with my Silvertone guitar running out into a little Sears Roebuck 15-watt amp, with some kind of distortion device between them — and somewhere in the middle of it, I just went mad. And the guys came in and said, 'Wow, that was quite good!' " He laughs. "It was like they were kind of surprised, you know! And when we listened back, it had sort of the right kind of fire — it wasn't, like, elegant or anything. | ||
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Most guitarists, recognizing their limited facility with the instrument, might have left all matters six-string to a more capable player. But when Costello set about forming a permanent backup band after ''My Aim Is True'', it never crossed his mind to hire a lead guitarist. "I really didn't want one. In fact, I was determined we wouldn't have a lead guitar player. For one thing, we had a really amazing keyboard player." Steve Nieve was not only younger than his three bandmates; he was also classically trained. "He didn't know anything about rock and roll, really," says Costello. "And the other three of us more or less shared pretty much the same knowledge, if not the same taste." Dubbed the Attractions, Costello's band was formidably tight and proficient, capable of executing nearly any musical style that captured its leader's fancy. Over the locked-in rhythms of bassist [[Bruce Thomas]] and drummer [[Pete Thomas]] (no relation), Nieve strangled the keys of his Vox Continental, providing an at-times dementedly harmonic counterpoint to Costello's melodies and enigmatic wordplay. "Steve just was the wild thing that came into that," says Costello. "He could play all these things. And I occasionally made noises." | Most guitarists, recognizing their limited facility with the instrument, might have left all matters six-string to a more capable player. But when Costello set about forming a permanent backup band after ''My Aim Is True'', it never crossed his mind to hire a lead guitarist. "I really didn't want one. In fact, I was determined we wouldn't have a lead guitar player. For one thing, we had a really amazing keyboard player." Steve Nieve was not only younger than his three bandmates; he was also classically trained. "He didn't know anything about rock and roll, really," says Costello. "And the other three of us more or less shared pretty much the same knowledge, if not the same taste." Dubbed the Attractions, Costello's band was formidably tight and proficient, capable of executing nearly any musical style that captured its leader's fancy. Over the locked-in rhythms of bassist [[Bruce Thomas]] and drummer [[Pete Thomas]] (no relation), Nieve strangled the keys of his Vox Continental, providing an at-times dementedly harmonic counterpoint to Costello's melodies and enigmatic wordplay. "Steve just was the wild thing that came into that," says Costello. "He could play all these things. And I occasionally made noises." | ||
More often, though, he sang, and it was his voice — a thorny and throaty instrument that veers from a croon to a sneer — as much as his lyrics that brought Costello recognition. From his debut to his 1991 release, Mighty Like a Rose, Costello vented in song with a rage as virulent as it was consistent, attacking fascism, cruel lovers and stupid people in general. Early on, he was singled out by feminists who saw misogyny where he intended to inflict only a jilted man's verbal retribution. His frequent demonstrations of vulnerability were less acknowledged, even when expressed in a nakedly confessional apologia like "Accidents Will Happen," from 1979's brilliant ''Armed Forces'', his best-selling album in America. | More often, though, he sang, and it was his voice — a thorny and throaty instrument that veers from a croon to a sneer — as much as his lyrics that brought Costello recognition. From his debut to his 1991 release, ''Mighty Like a Rose'', Costello vented in song with a rage as virulent as it was consistent, attacking fascism, cruel lovers and stupid people in general. Early on, he was singled out by feminists who saw misogyny where he intended to inflict only a jilted man's verbal retribution. His frequent demonstrations of vulnerability were less acknowledged, even when expressed in a nakedly confessional apologia like "Accidents Will Happen," from 1979's brilliant ''Armed Forces'', his best-selling album in America. | ||
"Obviously there have been times when that's been the perception of what I do, that it's all about violence or anger or hatred," says Costello. "And I think that wasn't really the case all the time. They're all emotional responses to events, or a progress through social life." | "Obviously there have been times when that's been the perception of what I do, that it's all about violence or anger or hatred," says Costello. "And I think that wasn't really the case all the time. They're all emotional responses to events, or a progress through social life." | ||
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Copyright 2002, Harris Publications | |||
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[[image:2002-06-00 Guitar World | [[image:2002-06-00 Guitar World photo 02.jpg|380px|border]] | ||
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<br><small>Photos.</small> | <br><small>Photos.</small> | ||
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<br><small>Cover and contents page.</small> | |||
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*[http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/d-g/guitar_world.020601a.html elviscostello.info] | *[http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/d-g/guitar_world.020601a.html elviscostello.info] | ||
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[[Category:Bibliography 2002 | [[Category:Bibliography]] | ||
[[Category:Bibliography 2002]] | |||
[[Category:Guitar World| Guitar World 2002-06-00]] | [[Category:Guitar World| Guitar World 2002-06-00]] | ||
[[Category:Magazine articles | [[Category:Magazine articles]] | ||
[[Category:Interviews | [[Category:Interviews]] | ||
[[Category:2002 interviews]] |
Latest revision as of 03:02, 27 September 2019
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