New Musical Express, April 21, 1984

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from that White Dwarf Star period when he began to feel the sin of actually being a success, hyperventilating, dilating, fulminating… I could do without "Crawling To America," "Radio, Radio," and a couple other Stiff-stuffing, past-the-post pub-rock-by-rotation numbers. Numbers? How many dashes in that last sentence?) Let's get happy instead. Count your luck stars! For instance? Tryst my word. For this afternoon's best of The 10 + 10 Best Seconds of Elvis Costello. (or 10 + 10 = Dostoevsky + Da Da Doo Ron). All the best for me is slow; "Watching The Detectives" (it stays still); a breath-taken (slow, slow, slow) "Clowntime Is Over," "Dr Luther's Assistant" (an acid drop); a "My Funny Valentine" (how many do you know? I can count them on the fingers of one name); a pre-Almost Blue courtly & Western "Stranger In The House"; and the best, of this best of arrested EC, "Hoover Factory" ("It's not a matter of life and death — what is?"). Far and away, in no way or other is 10 And 10 a The Second Best Of Elvis Costello. Because it is so obviously ragged, unlike any attempt at a Best Of It would be, the aim is not for a purified His Story, a homogenized Costello store. 10 And 10 cannot sound like something put together by a rock critical type Elvis Costello archivist — it sounds more like a lost and found, slightly dazed, slightly hurried, slightly hurt, fan-made cassette. And that can only be a multiverse better than something like a The Craft Of Elvis Costello... You know the way Crits tend to say, of an LP or collection, that this one is the one we've been waiting for, what they've been aiming for all along, this is a coming of age, they've finally arrived, etc, ad nauseam. Such logic behind a collected pieces of Costello would be quite unsuitably tasteful, whereas his "career" has been marvellously out of control (even when masquerading as an exercise in media-control). One says yes to 10 And 10, then; bloody-minded momentoes rather than bloody fair-minded maturity. Bloody value. So we can sew an Elvis Costello times three: he goes from Spy to Socialite to Socialist. See? Slipping into the stream of alliteration that often follows a repeated rehearsing of the Rostello resonant rehandling of the everyday pun. As he loses the shackles of a certain off-colour pills and potions sourness and becomes simply happily musical, you can tell, as songs are thrown off like single solitary sentences — he releases himself from a simulation of the nightmare "Elvis Costello" became buried in the media. (From taking powders to talking liberties.) The less infatuated with the evils of Media and Modern he lets himself be, the more tender the tunes — random associations that belong to an idea of an Age or lineage of Song which is very pre-video; the EC voice is neither triumphal arch nor dead slur, but (sometimes thinly) only what it can be. When the bitter tears have disappeared — the script hack allowed to direct, the backroom boy as highway man, the enthusiast let loose — then he lavishes love on even throwaway remarks. In some of the "smaller" moments resuscitated by 10 And 10 we can appreciate more coherently (less clogged by some of the recent somewhat Epic variants on the Costello cartography) that love lavished on, and the respect afforded, language. Plain and simple. Plain and simple? Get lost!! Tags: Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers  •  Crawling To The USA  •  Radio, Radio  •  Watching The Detectives  •  Clowntime Is Over  •  Dr. Luther's Assistant  •  My Funny Valentine  •  Almost Blue  •  Stranger In The House  •  Hoover Factory  •  Scully  •  Peace In Our Time  •  Alan Bleasdale  •  Channel 4  •  The Imposter  •  Pills And Soap  •  Withered And Died  •  Clive Langer  •  Alan Winstanley  •  The Attractions  •  1984 UK Tour  •  Nick Lowe  •  Nick Lowe & His Cowboy Outfit  •  F-Beat Photo by Peter Anderson. << >> New Musical Express, April 21, 1984 Ian Penman reviews Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers. NME reports on ECs role on Scully, and the upcoming single "Peace In Our Time." Images Clippings. Scully wag! NME Elvis Costello is acting in a new Channel 4 drama series called Scully, about the ambitions of a 16-year-old youth to achieve soccer stardom with Liverpool FC. It also gives football star Kenny Dalglish his acting debut, with several other members of the team putting in cameo appearances. The series, in which Costello is the youth's uncle, was written by Alan Bleasdale — and it's being hailed as Channel 4's answer to his classic Boys From The Blackstuff... Although this unexpected emergence as an actor may cause some to feel that an imposter has assumed his name, it really is Costello. On the other hand, he reverts to his disguise as The Imposter — which provided him with a Top Ten hit last year with "Pills And Soap" — for his latest single "Peace In Our Time"/ "Withered And Died." It was produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, and it's released this week on the Imposter label (through RCA). Costello is nearing the end of his solo jaunt around the States, and will be teaming up with The Attractions for their tour of the Far East. It's been announced that they'll be playing British dates in the autumn. Wearing his producer's hat, Costello was also part responsible for the new Nick Lowe single "Half A Boy And Half A Man" / "Awesome" (released 27 April) and album Nick Lowe And His Cowboy Outfit (21 May). This is Lowe's first material under his new recording deal with RCA (distributors of F-Beat). Cover and page scans.

External links

• NME.com
• Wikipedia: NME
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