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 | ||
Costello says that much of his inspiration is drawn from the atmosphere of mediocrity which he believes permeates English life — what he calls "the schoolteacher mentality" of the country. "In America things are either dazzling or totally mundane: that middle ground which exists in England is so much more interesting — that seething sort of atmosphere in which nothing ever gets out of control; nobody ever raises their voices above a certain pitch, and if they do they're looked down upon for it; that underachieving the whole society is based on. You mustn't be too clever. At school you're not encouraged to think for yourself, to be too smart. 'Who do you think you are?' — that's a favourite phrase. Passions are suppressed; any extremes or freakishness are just soaked up. It's a country totally based on mediocrity." | Costello says that much of his inspiration is drawn from the atmosphere of mediocrity which he believes permeates English life — what he calls "the schoolteacher mentality" of the country. "In America things are either dazzling or totally mundane: that middle ground which exists in England is so much more interesting — that seething sort of atmosphere in which nothing ever gets out of control; nobody ever raises their voices above a certain pitch, and if they do they're looked down upon for it; that underachieving the whole society is based on. You mustn't be too clever. At school you're not encouraged to think for yourself, to be too smart. 'Who do you think you are?' — that's a favourite phrase. Passions are suppressed; any extremes or freakishness are just soaked up. It's a country totally based on mediocrity." | ||
He is a prolific writer, borrowing his ideas from snatches of overheard conversation, television and | He is a prolific writer, borrowing his ideas from snatches of overheard conversation, television and advertising billboards, and he writes very fast. His first recorded song, "Less Than Zero," was written from a strong sense of repugnance after he had watched Oswald Mosley being interviewed on television. "It appalled me," he says. "That complacency — that attitude of 'it can't happen here' — can be quite scary when you suddenly look round and realise that maybe it ''could''." | ||
His appearance at the recent Rock Against Racism carnival was not, he insists, a political action. "To some people being associated with Rock Against Racism or the Anti-Nazi League automatically means you're associated with the Socialist Workers' Party. But I couldn't give a damn about the SWP. To say you're anti-Nazi is a political statement; to say you're anti-racist is a humanitarian statement. Obviously, I am anti-racist. But the festival was a good thing for us to do ''musically''. | |||
"I have no sense of mission whatsoever. There's a James Thurber cartoon in which two people are watching a woman picking flowers in the garden and they're saying: 'She has the real Emily Dickinson spirit, only sometimes she gets fed up.' That's how I feel about politics." | |||
When Costello first performed "Less Than Zero" in America, audiences thought he was singing about Lee Harvey Oswald. When told, Costello promptly wrote a new set of lyrics, so that song was in fact about him. Now that audiences have started shouting for the song, he has dropped it from his performance altogether. It is precisely this sort of quirkish unpredictability which has so endeared him to Americans. | |||
For his concert at Hollywood High School students have decorated the auditorium with blow-up portraits of the early rabble-rousers of rock — Presley, Eddie Cochran et al. — a clear indication of the tradition in which they see Costello working. But when he takes to the stage he confounds their expectations by starting with an impassioned ballad — a new song called "Accidents Will Happen" — sung against a simple grand-piano backing, only later turning to more powerful and direct rock. | |||
Backstage, girls who have somehow insinuated themselves past the security guards stand in a patient line outside the dressing-room door, as if queuing for a bus. To sit down with the group and pick at the chocolate cake and salad laid out for refreshment is the highest of privileges, for which some are prepared to suffer any amount of personal humiliation. The previous night a girl, dressed in a white nurse's uniform and a lapel badge announcing her as "Dr DNA-Clone," was attacked by one of the Attractions with a handful of cold cuts after she had despatched the last of a bottle of vodka. Banished now from the inner sanctum, she hovers uncertainly outside the door, inspiring equal measures of contempt and awe from the group. Costello regards the scene with ill-concealed disgust. "I do feel like Jesus in the temple sometimes," he sighs. "I start getting in that mood. All this can make you very puritanical." | |||
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." | |||
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. | |||
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{{tags}}[[:image:1978 This Year's Model billboard.jpg|Sunset Strip billboard]] {{-}} [[Concert 1978-06-04 Los Angeles|Los Angeles]] {{-}} [[The Attractions]] {{-}} [[Jake Riviera]] {{-}} [[Whisky a Go Go]] {{-}} [[Sam Cooke]] {{-}} [[1st US Tour]] {{-}} [[2nd US Tour]] {{-}} [[3rd US Tour]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[Elton John]] {{-}} [[My Aim Is True]] {{-}} [[Rolling Stone, December 29, 1977|Rolling Stone]] {{-}} [[This Year's Model]] {{-}} [[Declan MacManus]] {{-}} [[Ross MacManus]] {{-}} [[Matt MacManus]] {{-}} [[Stiff Records]] {{-}} [[Joe Loss Orchestra]] {{-}} [[Twickenham]] {{-}} [[Liverpool]] {{-}} [[Sammy Cahn]] {{-}} [[Frank Sinatra]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[New Musical Express, July 23, 1977|My Aim Is True ad campaign]] {{-}} [[Concert 1977-07-26 CBS|Hilton Hotel]] {{-}} [[Columbia|Columbia Records]] {{-}} [[Warner Bros.]] {{-}} [[Concert 1978-01-26 New Orleans|New Orleans]] {{-}} [[Bruce Springsteen]] {{-}} [[This Year's Model]] {{-}} [[Newsweek, May 8, 1978|Newsweek]] {{-}} [[This Year's Girl]] {{-}} [[(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes]] {{-}} [[Less Than Zero]] {{-}} [[Oswald Mosley]] {{-}} [[Rock Against Racism]] {{-}} [[Hollywood High School]] {{-}} [[Accidents Will Happen]] {{-}} [[Undertakers To The Industry]] | |||
{{cx}} | {{cx}} | ||
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<small>Page scan.</small><br> | <small>Page scan.</small><br> | ||
[[image:1978-10-15 London Times page 56.jpg|380px]] | [[image:1978-10-15 London Times page 56.jpg|380px]] | ||
<small>Photo by [[Chalkie Davies]].</small><br> | |||
[[image:1978-10-15 London Times photo 01 cd.jpg|380px]] | |||
<small>Photo by [[Paul Canty]].</small><br> | |||
[[image:1978-10-15 London Times photo 02 pc.jpg|380px]] | |||
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==External links== | ==External links== | ||
*[http://www. | *[http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ TheSundayTimes.co.uk] | ||
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ | *[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_Times Wikipedia: The Sunday Times] | ||
{{DEFAULTSORT:London Times 1978-10-15}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:London Times 1978-10-15}} |
Latest revision as of 13:45, 10 April 2023
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