Mojo, December 1993

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 — 2½ Years Andy Kershaw Stimulation was in short supply in late-'70s Rochdale. There were no music clubs. Gigs took place when a local progressive band booked itself into Whitworth Civic Hall. 'Going out' was something more confident lads did with disco-dancing trainee typists. To look cool, trainee bohemians needed only to linger at the bus-stop with a Rory Gallagher album tucked inside their great-coats. For a shy youth with no money or transport, few friends, a heavy Dylan and Loudon Wainwright habit and a bewilderment with most punk arrivistes, you might say I had it rough when I was a lad. There was the Peel programme and ... er ... that was it. We'd stay up all night, ferchrissakes, if they were showing a Spyro Gyra concert on Rock Goes To College. Ten miles down the road, though it might have been a thousand, punk was shaking the cellars of Manchester. And here it was, like a hand-grenade coming through the screen, on the regional *IV show; Granada Reports. Embodied in this bug-eyed little bloke in the baggy black suit ripping through "Lip Service" in a Manchester nightclub was something that sailed above the heads of the spit-and-cider brigade. There were depths to this geek not apparent in, say, The Adverts. He had all the attitude, and the tunes besides. Elvis Costello was clever, cool, wordy and, from that moment on mine. My dad lowered his newspaper and locked his headmaster's frown on the TV set: "He looks like he goes to a special school," was Kershaw Snr's memorable judgement. Elvis had visited Rochdale one year earlier as part of the first Stiff tour, though, typically, I managed to miss it. The publicity machine at the Champness Hall, better geared to pulling them in for lunchtime cello recitals, somehow failed to speak to Rochdale's Costello and Wreckless Eric market. Consequently the most inspired package tour of the age played to a thin audience of disorientated old ladies sucking Mint Imperials. A year later, and I was a fresher making undignified and unsuccessful attempts to shag the girl in the flat next to mine at Leeds University. She had a copy of This Year's Model, I had learned to play my first tune on the guitar so that I was able to bore the arse off her in the hallway with an acoustic reading of "You Belong To Me," whilst she, no doubt, dreamed of rugby players. I'm ashamed to admit, though I've been wracking the memory since the second paragraph, that I can't recall where I first saw the great man live. There were so many electrifying Elvis & The Attractions shows to be seen once the government had, recklessly, put public money into my pocket. With my university chum, Dave Woodhead (these days freelance trumpeter to Billy Bragg and others), I must have seen every Costello concert in the North. For five years, Elvis had to face us both, mouthing the words from the front row like a couple of theatre prompters. Our unfamiliarity with newer material could really bugger him up. Woodhead actually subscribed to a Dutch-based newsletter, disturbing in its obsessiveness, called something like Costello Watch. Together, we amassed and circulated an archive of bootlegs that could have caused the BPI a seizure. I even appear in a supporting role on one of them. At one of the `Spin The Wheel' shows at London's Royalty Theatre in November 1986, Elvis relishing a short-lived role as Mr Showbiz, picked members of the audience to dance in a cage at the side of the stage and invited requests from the assembled. "You Win Again, Elvis!", I bellowed from the back. Instantly, he slipped into the Hank Williams lament. "And don't think Andy," he said at the end having recognised my voice from just four words, "that just by shouting that out you're going to get away with not coming up here." Remainder of article to come. Mojo, No. 2, December 1993 Andy Kershaw profiles Elvis Costello. Images Cover. Page scans. Illustration by Paul Hamlyn.

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