London Times, October 15, 1978: Difference between revisions
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Like everything about Stiff Records, the campaign was a tongue-in-cheek parody of the po-faced earnestness with which the music industry usually goes about launching new idols. Riviera put the company on the verge of bankruptcy with an advertising campaign which included a full-sized poster spread across six pages of three separate British music papers (readers wanting the complete Elvis were obliged to buy all three). Elvis himself was arrested for obstruction after setting up his guitar and amplifier outside the Hilton Hotel and giving an impromptu performance for the American executives of Columbia Records gathered for a company convention. | Like everything about Stiff Records, the campaign was a tongue-in-cheek parody of the po-faced earnestness with which the music industry usually goes about launching new idols. Riviera put the company on the verge of bankruptcy with an advertising campaign which included a full-sized poster spread across six pages of three separate British music papers (readers wanting the complete Elvis were obliged to buy all three). Elvis himself was arrested for obstruction after setting up his guitar and amplifier outside the Hilton Hotel and giving an impromptu performance for the American executives of Columbia Records gathered for a company convention. | ||
No longer with Stiff, Costello now nestles in the ample corporate bosom of Warner Brothers Records in Britain and Columbia in America (his Hilton gambit was successful). Ironically, Columbia's English subsidiary was one of the companies who originally turned him down. "When we headlined the Columbia convention in New Orleans the head of English A&R came up to me and said, 'Sorry I couldn't do anything with the tape you sent me, but it's worked out all right, hasn't it ?' I said, 'Yeah — for ''me'''." Costello gives a mirthless chuckle. "I derive an ''enormous'' amount of satisfaction from crossing people like that off the guest list when they come round for favours — all | No longer with Stiff, Costello now nestles in the ample corporate bosom of Warner Brothers Records in Britain and Columbia in America (his Hilton gambit was successful). Ironically, Columbia's English subsidiary was one of the companies who originally turned him down. "When we headlined the Columbia convention in New Orleans the head of English A&R came up to me and said, 'Sorry I couldn't do anything with the tape you sent me, but it's worked out all right, hasn't it?' I said, 'Yeah — for ''me'''." Costello gives a mirthless chuckle. "I derive an ''enormous'' amount of satisfaction from crossing people like that off the guest list when they come round for favours — all the company men who wouldn't give me the time of day when I needed it. I defy anybody to tell me they wouldn't do the same thing in the same situation." | ||
While privately gloating over Costello's potential, Columbia are being careful not to subject him to the sort of hyperbolic promotional overkill which almost destroyed their last discovery, Bruce Springsteen. They have spent $70,000 promoting Costello's This Year's Model — a campaign which includes special promotional records, with the singer's face printed on the plastic, and Elvis Costello dollar bills. Riviera vetoed the idea of giveaway Elvis horn-rims. | While privately gloating over Costello's potential, Columbia are being careful not to subject him to the sort of hyperbolic promotional overkill which almost destroyed their last discovery, Bruce Springsteen. They have spent $70,000 promoting Costello's ''This Year's Model'' — a campaign which includes special promotional records, with the singer's face printed on the plastic, and Elvis Costello dollar bills. Riviera vetoed the idea of giveaway Elvis horn-rims. | ||
His refusal to court the media, his uncompromising stand before audiences and his infrequent public pronouncements ("I'm here to corrupt American youth," he told ''Newsweek'', "but my visa will probably run out before I get to do it") have led the American Press to tag Costello as rock's new "Angry Young Man" | His refusal to court the media, his uncompromising stand before audiences and his infrequent public pronouncements ("I'm here to corrupt American youth," he told ''Newsweek'', "but my visa will probably run out before I get to do it") have led the American Press to tag Costello as rock's new "Angry Young Man." Incidents in which a persistent photographer was physically ejected from his dressing-room and when Costello himself threw an apparent fit on stage, destroying two guitars and an amplifier — an aberration which puzzles even him — have only compounded the image. | ||
Costello prefers to describe himself as an irritant. "I'm contrary and awkward by nature," he says. "I like to disrupt people's preconceptions, to disrupt things generally. Not simply from a destructive point of view, but any other way would be dull, and I'm not interested in dull things. That's the enjoyment that I get out of all this — that it isn't dull, and I intend to keep it as varied and different as possible. It's the only way to survive; otherwise it would be just impossible. It's all too easy to be pigeonholed and written-off; become a captive and a hasbeen. It happens all the time." | Costello prefers to describe himself as an irritant. "I'm contrary and awkward by nature," he says. "I like to disrupt people's preconceptions, to disrupt things generally. Not simply from a destructive point of view, but any other way would be dull, and I'm not interested in dull things. That's the enjoyment that I get out of all this — that it isn't dull, and I intend to keep it as varied and different as possible. It's the only way to survive; otherwise it would be just impossible. It's all too easy to be pigeonholed and written-off; become a captive and a hasbeen. It happens all the time." | ||
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Costello harbours few romantic illusions. His best songs are impressive by virtue of the universality of the feelings expressed — frustration, rejection, and the thirst for revenge, which are not often grist to the songwriter's mill — dealt with in tones veering from barely suppressed rage to ironic humour. In "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" he sings: | Costello harbours few romantic illusions. His best songs are impressive by virtue of the universality of the feelings expressed — frustration, rejection, and the thirst for revenge, which are not often grist to the songwriter's mill — dealt with in tones veering from barely suppressed rage to ironic humour. In "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" he sings: | ||
''{{n}}I said "I'm so happy | ''{{n}}I said "I'm so happy I could die" <br> | ||
''{{n}}She said "Drop dead" and left with another guy | ''{{n}}She said "Drop dead" and left with another guy | ||
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He has no great love for the vicissitudes of touring. "I'd give it all up tomorrow if I felt it had become pointless — like working in a factory, just filling in a quota. I'm not addicted to the applause in the way some people are. The smell of the greasepaint — that's a load of crap as far as I'm concerned. I'm not in ''showbusiness''." He pronounces the word as if it were a disease. "I'm not interested in routines. If you can't keep a fresh view of things you should get out." | He has no great love for the vicissitudes of touring. "I'd give it all up tomorrow if I felt it had become pointless — like working in a factory, just filling in a quota. I'm not addicted to the applause in the way some people are. The smell of the greasepaint — that's a load of crap as far as I'm concerned. I'm not in ''showbusiness''." He pronounces the word as if it were a disease. "I'm not interested in routines. If you can't keep a fresh view of things you should get out." | ||
Costello says he is very careful to keep it all in perspective — the attention and acclaim. He has observed the fate of enough rock performers to know the Faustian bargain fame can so often entail. He has even noticed some of the symptoms in himself: moments of complete megalomania and moments of complete unworthiness of it all; a complete contempt for everything, including himself — "the usual things everybody goes through, only magnified" | Costello says he is very careful to keep it all in perspective — the attention and acclaim. He has observed the fate of enough rock performers to know the Faustian bargain fame can so often entail. He has even noticed some of the symptoms in himself: moments of complete megalomania and moments of complete unworthiness of it all; a complete contempt for everything, including himself — "the usual things everybody goes through, only magnified." | ||
He becomes uncomfortable discussing such things, shuffling in his seat, enhancing that impression of someone who wishes he were somewhere else. When pressed he admits that sometimes he wishes he could wind the clock back two years, to that time before he had even become Elvis Costello. Sometimes, but not often. Is there anything he feels he has lost since then ? "Oh, yeah, ''yeah'', a lot," he says quickly, and then checks himself. "But I'm not going to tell you what." | He becomes uncomfortable discussing such things, shuffling in his seat, enhancing that impression of someone who wishes he were somewhere else. When pressed he admits that sometimes he wishes he could wind the clock back two years, to that time before he had even become Elvis Costello. Sometimes, but not often. Is there anything he feels he has lost since then? "Oh, yeah, ''yeah'', a lot," he says quickly, and then checks himself. "But I'm not going to tell you what." | ||
If Costello has learned anything over the past 18 months it is that, if it is not too late to start having regrets, it is certainly too soon to start making them public. | If Costello has learned anything over the past 18 months it is that, if it is not too late to start having regrets, it is certainly too soon to start making them public. |
Revision as of 01:04, 31 July 2020
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