Creem, February 1978: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> Welcome to the working of Elvis Costello's mind </h3></center> | <center><h3> Welcome to the working of Elvis Costello's mind </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Nick Kent </center> | <center> Nick Kent </center> | ||
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'''Revenge! Guilt! Frustration! (A tense saga) | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
''(As Elvis Costello is set to tour the States, as Elvis Costello has a brilliant debut album out on CBS Records, My Aim Is True, and as we're tired of your whining that there's nuthin' new and good, we would like to introduce you to Elvis via this English article. We don't have to introduce you to writer Nick Kent, who has often graced these pages. Elvis signed to Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson's Stiff Records in August 1976. Recently the partnership between Robinson and Riviera was dissolved, and Riviera departed the record company with Elvis and a few other Stiff acts. At presstime Elvis still had no U.K. record company, but thanks to his American deal with CBS, YOU can have Elvis. OK? — Ed.) | <span style="font-size:92%">''(As Elvis Costello is set to tour the States, as Elvis Costello has a brilliant debut album out on CBS Records, My Aim Is True, and as we're tired of your whining that there's nuthin' new and good, we would like to introduce you to Elvis via this English article. We don't have to introduce you to writer Nick Kent, who has often graced these pages. Elvis signed to Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson's Stiff Records in August 1976. Recently the partnership between Robinson and Riviera was dissolved, and Riviera departed the record company with Elvis and a few other Stiff acts. At presstime Elvis still had no U.K. record company, but thanks to his American deal with CBS, YOU can have Elvis. OK? — Ed.)</span> | ||
El's already had his share of controversy, y'know. Yessir, even the National Front have apparently been trying to dog his tracks ever since the release of the first-ever Costello vinyl artifact "Less Than Zero" (a Stiff 45) which bears a heavy anti-N.F. bias the song itself being a tacitly fanciful depiction of the landed gentry's lave black sheep boy of the Isherwood era, Oswald Mosley. | El's already had his share of controversy, y'know. Yessir, even the National Front have apparently been trying to dog his tracks ever since the release of the first-ever Costello vinyl artifact "Less Than Zero" (a Stiff 45) which bears a heavy anti-N.F. bias the song itself being a tacitly fanciful depiction of the landed gentry's lave black sheep boy of the Isherwood era, Oswald Mosley. | ||
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Results thus far have been pretty uneventful, however, what with the press boys generally getting scatter-gunned by Elvis' tight-lipped "Fuck-you" fiestiness. | Results thus far have been pretty uneventful, however, what with the press boys generally getting scatter-gunned by Elvis' tight-lipped "Fuck-you" fiestiness. | ||
My single encounter with Costello was revelatory basically because we both ended up drunk and talked for some four hours. Still he refused to discuss his past musical endeavors in any detail and it was only afterwards, by chance, that I learnt about his former identity as one D.P. Costello, lead singer of a bluegrass group called | My single encounter with Costello was revelatory basically because we both ended up drunk and talked for some four hours. Still he refused to discuss his past musical endeavors in any detail and it was only afterwards, by chance, that I learnt about his former identity as one D.P. Costello, lead singer of a bluegrass group called Flip City whose collective high-point was the totally unexciting fact of them having a residency as house support-band at the Marquee maybe two years back. | ||
" 'Course nobody wanted to know back ''then''. And" — Costello turns quite venomous at this point — "neither were ''you!'' I remember the time you came down to the Marquee when we were supporting Dr. Feelgood and you spent all your time in the dressing-room talking to Wilko Johnson. You didn't even bother to check us out. Oh no! And I really resented you for that, y'know. For a time, anyway. You were almost down there on my list." | " 'Course nobody wanted to know back ''then''. And" — Costello turns quite venomous at this point — "neither were ''you!'' I remember the time you came down to the Marquee when we were supporting Dr. Feelgood and you spent all your time in the dressing-room talking to Wilko Johnson. You didn't even bother to check us out. Oh no! And I really resented you for that, y'know. For a time, anyway. You were almost down there on my list." | ||
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{{tags}}[[My Aim Is True]] {{-}} [[Nick Lowe]] {{-}} [[Stiff Records]] {{-}} [[Alison]] {{-}} [[(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes]] {{-}} [[I'm Not Angry]] {{-}} [[Miracle Man]] {{-}} [[Mystery Dance]] {{-}} [[Blame It On Cain]] {{-}} [[Welcome To The Working Week]] {{-}} [[Waiting For The End Of The World]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[Less Than Zero]] {{-}} [[Sneaky Feelings]] {{-}} [[No Dancing]] {{-}} [[The Rumour]] {{-}} [[Graham Parker]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[Columbia Records]] | |||
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'''Reprint courtesy New Musical Express. | |||
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[[image:1978-02-00 Creem page 24.jpg| | [[image:1978-02-00 Creem page 24.jpg|x253px|border]]{{n}} | ||
<br><small>Page | [[image:1978-02-00 Creem page 59.jpg|x253px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Page scans.</small> | |||
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This bandit summer, this snatcher of heroes, loved ones and possibilities, will be remembered also for leaving behind intoxicating rock 'n' roll, with this album near the top of the pile. Since August, competing for attention as a Stiff import with posthumous programming of Costello's namesake's output, ''My Aim Is True'' has been an antidote to the power failure all around us. In his preoccupation with frustration and mental revenge, his cynicism stemming from a realization that life's guarantees are worthless, and his imperturbably buoyancy in the face of it all, Elvis Costello is a contender. It doesn't even hurt that he styles himself a '50s schlemiel; his voice is captivatingly abrasive, his songs are, without exception, expertly crafted miniatures: there are 13 here (Columbia added his new U.K. single), and not one your stylus begs to skip, not one that doesn't reveal something special about Costello's sensibility or talent. Every song has ideas to burn and a memorable chorus. The title (from the hauntingly tough-tender "Alison") speaks chapters: his aim—his purpose and prowess—is true. | |||
This bandit summer, this snatcher of heroes, loved ones and possibilities, will be remembered also for leaving behind intoxicating rock | |||
Yes, you can call it "new wave": a tactical combination of the anarchic and the absorption of "classical" influences. ''My Aim Is True'' is so dramatic an entrance, such a total picture of its maker's worldview and personal use of rock grammar, that it's like ''Breathless''. A B-movie with a difference. Even Costello's moral stance fits. He's a sensitive punkabilly, continually getting dumped on by girls. In his (our) world, the men are romantics, looking for touchstone love; the women more practical and self-preserving. Belmondo and Seberg. ''"We could sit like lovers staring in each other's eyes / But the magic of the moment might become too much for you,"'' he sings. On "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" a strange Faustian bargain doesn't prevent a girl from telling him to drop dead as she leaves with someone else; on "I'm Not Angry," another tale of rejection, the key word is ''"anymore"'': one suspects that anger stopped only when turned into art. Girls are hard to please, he discovers on "Miracle Man"; they make comparisons, and fools of men who leave their wounds open. Costello is so tormented by this treatment that he makes the inability to do the "Mystery Dance" seem a sexual dysfunction. | Yes, you can call it "new wave": a tactical combination of the anarchic and the absorption of "classical" influences. ''My Aim Is True'' is so dramatic an entrance, such a total picture of its maker's worldview and personal use of rock grammar, that it's like ''Breathless''. A B-movie with a difference. Even Costello's moral stance fits. He's a sensitive punkabilly, continually getting dumped on by girls. In his (our) world, the men are romantics, looking for touchstone love; the women more practical and self-preserving. Belmondo and Seberg. ''"We could sit like lovers staring in each other's eyes / But the magic of the moment might become too much for you,"'' he sings. On "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" a strange Faustian bargain doesn't prevent a girl from telling him to drop dead as she leaves with someone else; on "I'm Not Angry," another tale of rejection, the key word is ''"anymore"'': one suspects that anger stopped only when turned into art. Girls are hard to please, he discovers on "Miracle Man"; they make comparisons, and fools of men who leave their wounds open. Costello is so tormented by this treatment that he makes the inability to do the "Mystery Dance" seem a sexual dysfunction. | ||
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<small>Cover.</small><br> | |||
[[image:1978-02-00 Creem cover.jpg|x120px|border]] | [[image:1978-02-00 Creem cover.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
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Latest revision as of 04:44, 5 March 2021
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