Q, June 1996: Difference between revisions
m (minor misspelling) |
(+UK & Ireland magazines index) |
||
(6 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 2: | Line 2: | ||
{{:Bibliography index}} | {{:Bibliography index}} | ||
{{:Q magazine index}} | {{:Q magazine index}} | ||
{{: | {{:UK & Ireland magazines index}} | ||
{{Bibliography article header}} | {{Bibliography article header}} | ||
<center><h3> Elvis Costello | <center><h3> Elvis Costello questionnaire </h3></center> | ||
---- | ---- | ||
<center> Tom Doyle </center> | <center> Tom Doyle </center> | ||
---- | ---- | ||
We can do this the hard way, or we can do it the easy way. Then again, we can do it the Q way: 25 questions guaranteed to lift the lid, spill the beans and generally blow the whole case wide open. So, let's be having this month's suspect. | '''We can do this the hard way, or we can do it the easy way. Then again, we can do it the ''Q'' way: 25 questions guaranteed to lift the lid, spill the beans and generally blow the whole case wide open. So, let's be having this month's suspect. | ||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
''What was the first gig you went to? | ''What was the first gig you went to? | ||
Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, Johnny Kidd & The Pirates and Cilla Black at the Kingston Granada in 1963. I liked | Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, Johnny Kidd & The Pirates and Cilla Black at the Kingston Granada in 1963. I liked Cilla, she was actually very good. I can remember everyone booing Johnny Kidd & The Pirates because it was a NEMS package and they were kind of old-fashioned. Then Billy J. Kramer walked on, sang "You'll never know how much I really love you..." and all the girls went, Waaaaaah! You never heard another note after that, it was just screaming. | ||
''If you weren't a rock 'n' roll star what would you be? | ''If you weren't a rock 'n' roll star what would you be? | ||
Line 52: | Line 52: | ||
My keys and my money. I always carry a few thousand around in unmarked bills and different currencies. | My keys and my money. I always carry a few thousand around in unmarked bills and different currencies. | ||
''What is the last record you bought? I bought about 80 records when I was in America last week because they have a lot of things that are harder to get over here. I bought a lot of things on impulse — a couple of Mingus records that I didn't have and lots of other stuff I can't remember. | ''What is the last record you bought? | ||
I bought about 80 records when I was in America last week because they have a lot of things that are harder to get over here. I bought a lot of things on impulse — a couple of Mingus records that I didn't have and lots of other stuff I can't remember. | |||
''Do you like reggae? | ''Do you like reggae? | ||
Line 62: | Line 64: | ||
''I don't like hotel rooms if they're too hot and you can't ventilate them, so if it was unbearable, I would complain about that. On tour, you're trying to do your job, and so you expect the service you pay for. I don't like places that pretend that they offer more than they're actually prepared to offer Particularly when they're pompous with it, I hate it when the jacuzzi's too cold... | ''I don't like hotel rooms if they're too hot and you can't ventilate them, so if it was unbearable, I would complain about that. On tour, you're trying to do your job, and so you expect the service you pay for. I don't like places that pretend that they offer more than they're actually prepared to offer Particularly when they're pompous with it, I hate it when the jacuzzi's too cold... | ||
''What's your culinary | ''What's your culinary specialty? | ||
I don't really have one, except that I'm quite good at being able to throw the odds and ends in the cupboard into a pot and turn it into something. It's really great about 75 per cent of the | I don't really have one, except that I'm quite good at being able to throw the odds and ends in the cupboard into a pot and turn it into something. It's really great about 75 per cent of the time — you just want to watch out for the 25 per cent of the time it goes wrong. I'm a bit heavy-handed sometimes with the spice. | ||
''Pick five words to describe yourself. | ''Pick five words to describe yourself. | ||
Line 100: | Line 102: | ||
''What music would you have played at your funeral? | ''What music would you have played at your funeral? | ||
"Everything Happens To Me" followed by "Happy Days Are | "Everything Happens To Me" followed by "Happy Days Are Here Again". | ||
''What turns you on? | ''What turns you on? | ||
Line 106: | Line 108: | ||
A switch on the back of my neck. | A switch on the back of my neck. | ||
''Where are you off to now? I'm going to Wembley to finish a record and then after that, of course, to the moon. | ''Where are you off to now? | ||
I'm going to Wembley to finish a record and then after that, of course, to the moon. | |||
{{cx}} | {{cx}} | ||
Line 125: | Line 129: | ||
{{Bibliography images}} | {{Bibliography images}} | ||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q page 186.jpg| | [[image:1996-06-00 Q page 186.jpg|x260px|border]]{{n}} | ||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q clipping.jpg| | [[image:1996-06-00 Q clipping.jpg|x260px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Page scan and clipping.</small> | <br><small>Page scan and clipping.</small> | ||
Line 136: | Line 140: | ||
<center> John Aizlewood </center> | <center> John Aizlewood </center> | ||
---- | ---- | ||
''After the hits, it's time for Elvis Costello's collection of moments. | '''After the hits, it's time for Elvis Costello's collection of moments.<br> | ||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
Surely, it was "The Other Side Of Summer" that did it. A bright, brassy song, helped along by an extravagant video which seemingly (perhaps with irony, perhaps not) aspired to make Elvis Costello sexy It reached Number 43 in 1991 and since then he's given up on what, from the outside, still seems to be his vocation as a rock star, settling instead for talent-diluting dilettantism (organising silly festivals on the South Bank; a middling collaboration with Bill Frisell; the still-tremendous ''The Juliet Letters''; and ''Kojak Variety'' which would have been a career nadir for Joe Longthorne. let alone one who once covered "Don't Let Me Misunderstood" with such elan). Today, Elvis Costello could co-write a single with Ian Broudie and Noel Gallagher, get Jim Steinman in as producer and hire Enya on backing vocals. It still wouldn't get past 27 on the charts. | Surely, it was "The Other Side Of Summer" that did it. A bright, brassy song, helped along by an extravagant video which seemingly (perhaps with irony, perhaps not) aspired to make Elvis Costello sexy It reached Number 43 in 1991 and since then he's given up on what, from the outside, still seems to be his vocation as a rock star, settling instead for talent-diluting dilettantism (organising silly festivals on the South Bank; a middling collaboration with Bill Frisell; the still-tremendous ''The Juliet Letters''; and ''Kojak Variety'' which would have been a career nadir for Joe Longthorne. let alone one who once covered "Don't Let Me Misunderstood" with such elan). Today, Elvis Costello could co-write a single with Ian Broudie and Noel Gallagher, get Jim Steinman in as producer and hire Enya on backing vocals. It still wouldn't get past 27 on the charts. | ||
Once a new Elvis Costello album was A Big Thing. Today it's just another Elvis Costello album. Perhaps, in the face of increasing apathy, he's given up on proper new albums completely. ''All This Useless Beauty''. newly recorded with an uncredited Attractions (currently Tasmin Archer's backing band, so low have they | Once a new Elvis Costello album was A Big Thing. Today it's just another Elvis Costello album. Perhaps, in the face of increasing apathy, he's given up on proper new albums completely. ''All This Useless Beauty''. newly recorded with an uncredited Attractions (currently Tasmin Archer's backing band, so low have they sunk) comprises three new songs and nine other Costello originals once offered to (and usually — if stupidly — rejected by) other artists. It has all the thematic cohesion of an edition of ''The Girlie Show'' but in spite of everything, it's Costello's most satisfying work since ''King Of America''. | ||
This lack of unity and flow means ''All This Useless Beauty'' is a collection of moments, flung together seemingly ad hoc, but what moments they can sometimes be. There isn't a bad song here: "Why Can't A Man Stand Alone" (not recorded by Sam Moore, the fool) climaxes magnificently in a swathe of backing vocals, with Costello remembering that sneering isn't everything for the first time since "I Want You"; "You Bowed Down" (from Roger McGuinn's splendid comeback and farewell album, ''Back From Rio'') apes The Byrds' high lonesome sound more accurately and with a sharper wit than Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty could manage in a month of Rickenbacker workshops; the brand new "Little Atoms" feels like "Green Shirt"'s baby brother and, for once, Costello doesn't sound defeated as he snarls "There's still some pretty insults left"; and why on earth Johnny Cash never bothered to record the brooding "Complicated Shadows" (''"Take the law into your own hands and you will soon get tired of killing"'') is something only his doctors must know. | This lack of unity and flow means ''All This Useless Beauty'' is a collection of moments, flung together seemingly ad hoc, but what moments they can sometimes be. There isn't a bad song here: "Why Can't A Man Stand Alone" (not recorded by Sam Moore, the fool) climaxes magnificently in a swathe of backing vocals, with Costello remembering that sneering isn't everything for the first time since "I Want You"; "You Bowed Down" (from Roger McGuinn's splendid comeback and farewell album, ''Back From Rio'') apes The Byrds' high lonesome sound more accurately and with a sharper wit than Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty could manage in a month of Rickenbacker workshops; the brand new "Little Atoms" feels like "Green Shirt"'s baby brother and, for once, Costello doesn't sound defeated as he snarls "There's still some pretty insults left"; and why on earth Johnny Cash never bothered to record the brooding "Complicated Shadows" (''"Take the law into your own hands and you will soon get tired of killing"'') is something only his doctors must know. | ||
Ultimately, though, ''All This Useless Beauty'' is the musical equivalent of poor people going to The Algarve for a fortnight: when they get home, there's still a lot of mundane bills outstanding. It's a fine record, dandy even, but ifs a long long time since "Oliver's Army." | Ultimately, though, ''All This Useless Beauty'' is the musical equivalent of poor people going to The Algarve for a fortnight: when they get home, there's still a lot of mundane bills outstanding. It's a fine record, dandy even, but ifs a long long time since "Oliver's Army." | ||
{{4stars}} | |||
{{cx}} | {{cx}} | ||
{{cx}} | {{cx}} | ||
<br><br> | |||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q photo 01 ks.jpg|360px|border]] | |||
<br><small>Photo by [[Ken Sharp]].</small> | |||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q photo 02.jpg|360px|border]] | |||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q photo | <br><small>Photo by .</small> | ||
<br><small>Photo by | |||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q cover.jpg|x120px]] | [[image:1996-06-00 Q cover.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
[[image:1996-06-00 Q contents page.jpg|x120px | [[image:1996-06-00 Q contents page.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Cover and contents page.</small> | |||
<br><small>Cover | |||
{{Bibliography notes footer}} | {{Bibliography notes footer}} |
Latest revision as of 03:11, 29 June 2020
|