Elvis Costello Fan Forum

....EC's life is not really all that interesting, as a narrative. (Lucky for him.) Basically, it goes like this: "Extremely talented scion of a musical family is determined to have a career is music... and does!" This is epic, you could readily fill in for John Crace's fantastic "dig...

Just to be clear, I don't mind the 'anecdotal' approach at all. It's basically EC telling a bunch of stories, in the somewhat random way that you'd get from an elegant and expansive raconteur over a pint - which is why so many commentaries on the book draw precisely that analogy. What I was objecti...

Erey, in terms of 'layers of meaning' in EC's memoirs: I have no trouble at all with 'layers,' but almost none of EC's readers have discerned any strong structure to that book. It is self-indulgent of an author to expect his readers to read his 600-page tome three times before the putative structur...

I must demur also at the idea put forth frequently -- including by no less august a personage than John Foyle -- that the book is like listening to EC tells stories in a pub. Not worthy! Point accepted. I really must try & make time to post a more considered comment on the book. I'm , however, ...

With the sudden loss of the great PRINCE, I'm well pleased with this decision, even if it was on American soil and ME holding a couple of tickets. Curiosity, has there ever been an instance where this many shows were scraped due to illness before or for any other reason at all? Wishing Elvis all th...

I think the memoir is very, very good, but I agree that it might well have been one for the ages -- and I don't mean in the shallow wading pool of "rock memoirs" -- with the firmer hand of simpatico editor. As it is, it seems like two or three books, all completing for your attention. I co...

"I never had big ambitions for my career – things just sort of happened. I started out playing in pubs and clubs. Next thing you know, it was the Hammersmith Palais, where I’d watched my dad play as a little boy. Then I find myself at the Royal Albert Hall. I never imagined any of it." Co...

Elvis has been , over the years , telling variations of this story - ' He had written Accidents and had fallen in love with "quite an attractive taxi driver" in Tucson, Arizona and had asked her to take him to Mexico before deciding about 10 minutes later to turn back ' (from Verbals acco...

Maybe EC does these spendy gigs in July because he likes to go all out on birthday presents for his mother.

Displacing the poor for crap "lux" apts... Where will the poor and needy live? There goes the neighborhood.. once the millennials take over with their heads in a device oblivious to what's happening around them. We have that kind of thing going on here, too. What's up with the cushion on ...

verbal gymnastics wrote:He has some "interesting" political likes...

Perhaps one reason he rubbed the boss the wrong way.

verbal gymnastics wrote: I have to admit though, as I'm only going to 2 English shows out of the 5 announced, I am one of those diminishing attendees . All I can say in my defence is that it's Mrs VGs fault.

Aren't we all trying to diminish a bit at this time of year?

I have to agree with Mr. Balcony. Getting worked up over a near-gibberish machine translation is pretty silly. Also, let's not forget that EC had already recorded a hit album -- still his overall biggest seller today -- before the Attractions were formed.

Holy Sh?!t. I'd rather watch paint dry on a wall. Sorry... My first negative post in 2016. Happy New Year. My goal is to spend less time looking at f$&@cking screens. Peace to everyone on the list. Dude, it's an audio podcast; you don't have to look at it. OTOH, based on the preview, I rate thi...

I'd be interested in seeing an index, so I'll offer to help type. Also, how about captions for some of the photos? There's a shot in the book (not in front of me at the moment) of EC onstage next to a keyboard player who's definitely not Steve, Larry, Benmont, or anyone else I recognize. It's Bob A...

Has he said as much re the index? Yeah, at the Liverpool Q+A he said, unprompted I think, that he hadn't written a referrence book and hence saw no need for an index. The lack of index definitely reflects EC's desire and intent, as Top Balcony says. Various other things EC has said indicate this wa...

Consider yourself sympathized re the audio book. I play them on Android and Windows devices with no problem. I should have mentioned earlier that EC's book lacks an index not because the publisher was too cheap to provide one, but because EC specifically asked that there not be one. You can see that...

Not sure how a reference can be clear but not explicit? "The bass player" rather than "Bruce Thomas". That's a really obvious one, but there are loads of instances like that, not all of them snarky. Given the intentionally fragmented way EC tells some important stories in the bo...

It's written in American eg humor, behavior but there are the odd grammatical errors as well. Am I the only person that's not bothered about the lack of an index? I'm certainly not bothered by the lack of index, VG, since the digital text is fully searchable. Indices are tricky business, anyway, an...

I hope for the paperback edition they fork out enough to correct the annoyingly frequent typos in the book. It's a bugbear of mine as someone who's worked in publishing for 27 years, but why a publisher of the status of Penguin Viking can't send a book of this stature out 'clean' is beyond me. They...

Great clip. Observations: 3. Hopefully that's as close as "Mr." Saville got to that week's contestant. Yeesh. I cringed when Saville was straightening the boy's jacket. You know it's bad when you're rooting for the kid to be spirited off to the "safe haven" of the EC+As/Squeeze ...

The man who was banned from Saturday Night Live in 1977, after on air and without warning dumping the approved song and instead bursting into a seditious rendition of Radio Radio, is now clutched firmly to the bosom of the music and broadcasting establishments and not about to break ranks. This rev...

bronxapostle wrote:was it mentioned with Marian that awesome day up at Tanglewood?

No, it was from the 2003 show when she interviewed him in her studio. He mentions it on track 5 of the CD.

That sounds familiar SP. so then the one he jokingly sang a quick bit from is NOT the one Charlie mentions by Lindisfarne??? THANK YOU both. I didn't catch what he sang during the Roseanne Cash/BAM appearance (give me the approximate time and I'll take another look), but "Winter Song" by ...

One can only hope it was not his and his wife's complete investment portfolio. Yes! that feeds personal fuel into the vitriolic harangue against greed of "National Ransom". However one has to think he shares some culpability-like others burned by Madoff, etc, probably looking for returns ...