Q, March 1989: Difference between revisions
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{{:Bibliography index}} | {{:Bibliography index}} | ||
{{:Q magazine index}} | {{:Q magazine index}} | ||
{{: | {{:UK & Ireland magazines index}} | ||
{{Bibliography article header}} | {{Bibliography article header}} | ||
<center><h3> The | <center><h3> The quality controller </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Paul Du Noyer </center> | <center> Paul Du Noyer </center> | ||
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''Beware lesser mortals — Elvis Costello is back to make a fresh stand against sub-standard songwriting and the banality of daytime radio. His 14th and most adventurous album has taken two and a half years to compile, involves an astonishing cast of extras and is now available for the usual intense scrutiny. "I was going to call it ''More Important Work''." he warns Paul Du Noyer | '''Beware lesser mortals — Elvis Costello is back to make a fresh stand against sub-standard songwriting and the banality of daytime radio. His 14th and most adventurous album has taken two and a half years to compile, involves an astonishing cast of extras and is now available for the usual intense scrutiny. "I was going to call it ''More Important Work''." he warns Paul Du Noyer | ||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
"It's not a long lay-off by most people's standards," says Elvis, referring to the two-and-a-half year interval that separates his previous album, '' | "It's not a long lay-off by most people's standards," says Elvis, referring to the two-and-a-half year interval that separates his previous album, ''Blood And Chocolate'', from the new one, entitled ''Spike'' which is about to come out. "Actually it's a fairly conventional lay-off. But I'd done 10 years. My parole came up." | ||
Stubbly but fit-looking, lean and somewhat dashing in his black designer overcoat and fancy-clasped tie, the 1989 version of Elvis Costello is striding — at a very brisk clip — across the windy expanse of London's Hyde Park, over the way from the office of his record company. An honest old wooden bench presents itself, and our man suggests (he has a pretty pleasant, quaintly courteous manner about him) that if it's not too cold for me, then perhaps we might sit and do the interview right here? | Stubbly but fit-looking, lean and somewhat dashing in his black designer overcoat and fancy-clasped tie, the 1989 version of Elvis Costello is striding — at a very brisk clip — across the windy expanse of London's Hyde Park, over the way from the office of his record company. An honest old wooden bench presents itself, and our man suggests (he has a pretty pleasant, quaintly courteous manner about him) that if it's not too cold for me, then perhaps we might sit and do the interview right here? | ||
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Still, two-and-a-half years is two-and-a-half years. So what has he been doing all this time? | Still, two-and-a-half years is two-and-a-half years. So what has he been doing all this time? | ||
"It's not like I've been on holiday for two years. I've been doing other things. Gigs have been pretty thin on the ground, but I played at [[Concert 1987-06-20 Pilton|Glastonbury]] last summer, did the [[Shetland Folk Festival|Shetlands Festival]]. I did a [[:Category:Almost Alone Tour|solo tour]] in America, of colleges, which was a good laugh. And then [[Cait O'Riordan|Cait]] (O'Riordan, his wife, the former bass player of | "It's not like I've been on holiday for two years. I've been doing other things. Gigs have been pretty thin on the ground, but I played at [[Concert 1987-06-20 Pilton|Glastonbury]] last summer, did the [[Shetland Folk Festival|Shetlands Festival]]. I did a [[:Category:Almost Alone Tour|solo tour]] in America, of colleges, which was a good laugh. And then [[Cait O'Riordan|Cait]] (O'Riordan, his wife, the former bass player of The Pogues whose second LP, ''[[The Pogues: Rum, Sodomy & The Lash|Rum, Sodomy And The Lash]]'' he produced in '85) got a part in this film ''[[The Courier: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack|The Courier]]'' so we went to live in Dublin for three months while she was doing that. I did the incidental music for the film, and that's where I started to write a lot of the new songs. | ||
"We had a couple of rooms in this hotel and I just worked in there, maybe going out to wander round a bit. So out of that came half the songs on this record. Then I planned a tour in the [[:Category:South of the Mason Dixon Line Tour|southern states of America]], [[:Category:1987 Japan Tour|Japan]] and [[:Category:1987 Australia Tour|Australia]], with [[The Confederates]], just put together with whoever was available. And we had a good run, but going on the road with people you don't have a continuous relationship which is quite difficult, because by the time you've really got it happening, it's over. | "We had a couple of rooms in this hotel and I just worked in there, maybe going out to wander round a bit. So out of that came half the songs on this record. Then I planned a tour in the [[:Category:South of the Mason Dixon Line Tour|southern states of America]], [[:Category:1987 Japan Tour|Japan]] and [[:Category:1987 Australia Tour|Australia]], with [[The Confederates]], just put together with whoever was available. And we had a good run, but going on the road with people you don't have a continuous relationship which is quite difficult, because by the time you've really got it happening, it's over. | ||
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"So there's not much point us getting together just to do old stuff, and they're not playing as a band on the new record, so for the time being until we get back and do something else together we won't be going out on tour. Pete plays on the record, but with no disrespect to Steve he sees Elvis and the Attractions differently to me. And he didn't see being what he regarded as a sideman on a record as what he wanted to do. I said I wanted to do some cuts with the four of us, and he was the one that really stopped it, because he said he either wanted to play on the whole record or ... so the door's open to him, if we come up with a good idea. | "So there's not much point us getting together just to do old stuff, and they're not playing as a band on the new record, so for the time being until we get back and do something else together we won't be going out on tour. Pete plays on the record, but with no disrespect to Steve he sees Elvis and the Attractions differently to me. And he didn't see being what he regarded as a sideman on a record as what he wanted to do. I said I wanted to do some cuts with the four of us, and he was the one that really stopped it, because he said he either wanted to play on the whole record or ... so the door's open to him, if we come up with a good idea. | ||
"But obviously that was a little disappointing because he does do sessions, he plays with that idiot Jonathan Ross every Friday. I don't see the difference between playing on somebody else's record and playing on mine really. But he has a different view of it, like it's a 'band', like we're | "But obviously that was a little disappointing because he does do sessions, he plays with that idiot Jonathan Ross every Friday. I don't see the difference between playing on somebody else's record and playing on mine really. But he has a different view of it, like it's a 'band', like we're The Rolling Stones or something. I don't see it that way, I think we're individuals. | ||
Therefore we disagree, but I don't think there's any animosity. You'd have to ask them, really; they might fucking hate me!" | Therefore we disagree, but I don't think there's any animosity. You'd have to ask them, really; they might fucking hate me!" | ||
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[[Mark Cooper]] reviews ''[[Spike]]''. | [[Mark Cooper]] reviews ''[[Spike]]''. | ||
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''Q'' | ''Q'' details EC's earlier collaborations. | ||
{{Bibliography images}} | {{Bibliography images}} | ||
[[image:1989-03-00 Q cover.jpg| | [[image:1989-03-00 Q cover.jpg|x230px|border]] | ||
[[image:1989-03-00 Q clipping 01.jpg|x230px|border]] | |||
<br><small>Cover and clipping.</small> | |||
[[image:1989-03-00 Q clipping 01.jpg| | |||
<br><small>Cover | |||
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{{Bibliography box 360}} | {{Bibliography box 360}} | ||
<center><h3> Scathing </h3></center> | <center><h3> Scathing </h3></center> | ||
<center> ''' | <center>''' Costello: the 'tigerish irritant" sharpens his teeth. </center> | ||
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<center> Mark Cooper </center> | <center> Mark Cooper </center> | ||
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'''Elvis Costello ''' / Spike <br> | |||
{{5stars}} | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
Elvis Costello's last two albums were released back in 1986. Despite their excellence, the combination of ''King Of America'' and ''Blood & Chocolate'' suggested that while Elvis still had the songs, he was no longer sure where he stood. While Costello spent the mid-'80s playing with his identity and exploring various musical styles, he was in danger of becoming merely familiar. The tigerish irritant of ''My Aim Is True'' was becoming a good old boy, universally admired and yet with his teeth blunted by approval. | |||
Elvis Costello's last two albums were released back in 1986. Despite their excellence, the combination of '' | |||
In the intervening years between ''Blood & Chocolate'' and these 16 songs produced by Costello, [[T Bone Burnett|T-Bone Burnett]] and engineer [[Kevin Killen]], Elvis has sat in with all manner of artists and signed a major deal with Warners. Perhaps the first achievement of this triumphant return is to teach us how much his corruscating voice has been missed. | In the intervening years between ''Blood & Chocolate'' and these 16 songs produced by Costello, [[T Bone Burnett|T-Bone Burnett]] and engineer [[Kevin Killen]], Elvis has sat in with all manner of artists and signed a major deal with Warners. Perhaps the first achievement of this triumphant return is to teach us how much his corruscating voice has been missed. | ||
If ''Blood & Chocolate'' was a helter-skelter affair bashed out with | If ''Blood & Chocolate'' was a helter-skelter affair bashed out with Nick Lowe and The Attractions, the new collection has been amassed with a rare attention to detail. Costello has used four studios for this record and the cast of musicians and the tenor of the arrangements vary between London, Hollywood, New Orleans and Dublin. Yet while Costello draws on musicians as varied as [[Paul McCartney]], New Orleans' [[The Dirty Dozen Brass Band|Dirty Dozen Brass Band]] and such stalwarts of Irish traditional music as [[Dónal Lunny|Donal Lunny]] and [[Davy Spillane]], he has managed to unite his material with the newfound authority and detachment of his singing. Costello's voice is capable of withering sarcasm, intimate confession and a jesting detachment that is as dark and stricken as the satires of pre-war Berlin. If there is a dominant note in this collection, it is Costello's sustained performance as a vaudeville jester whose scathing jibes and political broadsheets are pumped up by the chattering brass chorus of The Dirty Dozen. | ||
Yet Costello doesn't stick to vaudeville throughout and while he remains a detached storyteller recounting all manner of sexual and political betrayals, he now sounds too determined and too saddened to flinch in the face of what he's seen. Amidst a wealth of treasures, the Brecht-Weill mockery of "[[God's Comic]]" stands out as a piece of Swiftian satire that pictures God in his heaven listening to Andrew Lloyd-Webber's ''Requiem'' and wondering if he should have given the earth to the monkeys. Alongside this towering performance emerges the Irish balladry of "[[Tramp The Dirt Down]]," Costello's most affecting political piece since "[[Shipbuilding]]." Part lament, part invective, this song is a curse that never preaches. Instead of repeating the usual dismayed shake of the head rejection of Thatcherism, Costello plunges in and winds up vowing to trample on her grave. | Yet Costello doesn't stick to vaudeville throughout and while he remains a detached storyteller recounting all manner of sexual and political betrayals, he now sounds too determined and too saddened to flinch in the face of what he's seen. Amidst a wealth of treasures, the Brecht-Weill mockery of "[[God's Comic]]" stands out as a piece of Swiftian satire that pictures God in his heaven listening to Andrew Lloyd-Webber's ''Requiem'' and wondering if he should have given the earth to the monkeys. Alongside this towering performance emerges the Irish balladry of "[[Tramp The Dirt Down]]," Costello's most affecting political piece since "[[Shipbuilding]]." Part lament, part invective, this song is a curse that never preaches. Instead of repeating the usual dismayed shake of the head rejection of Thatcherism, Costello plunges in and winds up vowing to trample on her grave. | ||
Costello once looked as if he would never find a voice simple enough to wed his complex vision to the directness of delivery of his first records. Here he makes every note count and yet retains a vaudevillian detachment that enables him to confront the world's iniquities while shielding him from none of the pain or the pity. God may be a comic as the song suggests but Costello has all the best lines. | Costello once looked as if he would never find a voice simple enough to wed his complex vision to the directness of delivery of his first records. Here he makes every note count and yet retains a vaudevillian detachment that enables him to confront the world's iniquities while shielding him from none of the pain or the pity. God may be a comic as the song suggests but Costello has all the best lines. | ||
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{{Bibliography box 360}} | {{Bibliography box 360}} | ||
<center><h3> Costello | <center><h3> Costello collaborations </h3></center> | ||
<br> | <br> | ||
{{Bibliography text}} | |||
Joined labelmates [[Ian Dury]], [[Wreckless Eric]] and [[Nick Lowe]] on Stiff tour in 1977. | Joined labelmates [[Ian Dury]], [[Wreckless Eric]] and [[Nick Lowe]] on Stiff tour in 1977. | ||
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Results of his songwriting collaboration with [[Aimee Mann]] of [['Til Tuesday]] can be heard on the band's new album, ''[['Til Tuesday: Everything's Different Now|Everything's Different Now]]'', out this month. | Results of his songwriting collaboration with [[Aimee Mann]] of [['Til Tuesday]] can be heard on the band's new album, ''[['Til Tuesday: Everything's Different Now|Everything's Different Now]]'', out this month. | ||
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[[image:1989-03-00 Q photo 03.jpg| | [[image:1989-03-00 Q photo 03.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
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[[image:1989-03-00 Q photo page.jpg| | [[image:1989-03-00 Q photo page.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
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[[image:1989-03-00 Q | <br><small>Contents page.</small> | ||
{{Bibliography notes footer}} | {{Bibliography notes footer}} | ||
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==External links== | ==External links== | ||
*[http:// | *[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(magazine) Wikipedia: Q] | ||
*[ | *[https://twitter.com/qmagazine Twitter: Q Magazine] | ||
*[http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/o-q/q8903a.html elviscostello.info] | *[http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/o-q/q8903a.html elviscostello.info][http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/o-q/q8903r.html {{t}}] | ||
*[http://www.flickr.com/photos/littletriggers/931000203/in/photolist- Flickr:] [[Stephen McCathie]] | |||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Q 1989-03-00}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Q 1989-03-00}} |
Latest revision as of 18:33, 5 May 2021
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