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"I'm not angry. I'm not angry, anymore."
Elvis Costello spat out those lyrics 35 years ago on his debut album, My Aim Is True. Marketed as an angry young man he seemed to typify the brash British punk and new wave invasion of the late 1970s. He boldly adopted the name Elvis the very year The King died, adding to it the family name Costello (He was born Declan Patrick MacManus in 1954), and a persona was born.
He wasted little time sparking controversy and making the image real. He was arrested in London trying to convince CBS Records to release his music in the United States. There were some embarrassing drunken episodes on tour.
And in his first US television performance on Saturday Night Live in 1977, he infamously stopped his band The Attractions a few bars into "Less Than Zero," the single his record company wanted him to play, saying "I'm sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here." He then launched into "Radio, Radio," a song critical of the music industry that he had promised not to play. The stunt got him banned from SNL until 1989.
Not many people seeing that performance would have thought that this last minute replacement for the Sex Pistols would go on to have a stellar career that would see him collaborate with the likes of Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, and countless other notables.
It turned out, though, that beneath the snarl and the Buddy Holly glasses was a prolific song writer with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and a gift for sometimes brilliant wordplay. He also may have mellowed a bit with time.
A Chico audience will get the chance to judge that for itself on Sept. 25 when Chico Performances and co-sponsors KCHO/KFPR Northstate Pubic Radio bring Costello to Laxson Auditorium on the campus of Chico State University.
This solo show is part of a string of seven dates he's playing in smaller California towns leading up to his performance at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park the first weekend of October.
Costello and his current band The Imposters (drummer Pete Thomas and Keyboardist Steve Nieve — both from The Attractions — and Davey Faragher on bass) have recently been touring to support their latest release, "The Return of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook," a live album that featured audience members on stage determining which songs would be played by spinning a huge 14-foot, game show-style wheel with more than 40 songs spanning his long and varied career that has seen forays into country, jazz and classical music.
It's also a career that increasingly has included acting. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has been in a number of movies and television shows from as early as 1979's "Americathon," usually playing himself. Most recently he performed in HBO's post-Katrina New Orleans drama Treme in 2010. Costello turned up on Sesame Street last year to help Elmo and the Cookie Monster sing "A Monster Went And Ate My Red Two," a play on his song "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes."
In the process, no doubt, he thrilled his then five year-old twin boys born to award-winning Canadian Jazz pianist Diana Krall.
A few years ago he tried his hand hosting the talk show Spectacle: Elvis Costello with... produced for British and Canadian television that was picked up by the Sundance Channel in the United States. The series featured Costello interviewing and performing with the likes of Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, The Police and more.
A full career, wedded bliss, fatherhood and happiness seem very distant from the angry young man. But both are products of their age.
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