UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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sweetest punch
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.popmatters.com/review/unfait ... -costello/

The Creator and Creation in Elvis Costello's 'Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink'

In 2001, Rhino Records began reissuing Elvis Costello’s back catalog, packaging each album with an additional disc of live material, demos, and outtakes. In some instances the number of tracks on the bonus discs eclipsed the original albums, and the effect was like looking into an alternate world where things felt both familiar and yet vastly different.

To add another layer of context to the music, Costello wrote extensive liner notes for these reissues. Read in order they form a 60,000 word examination of the man’s career as a performer and, if only peripherally, the person buried behind the pop. Writing in Slate in 2012, John Lingan called these assembled liner notes one of the best rockstar memoirs ever, and he’s not far off the mark.

Costello’s new book, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, is a sequel of sorts to those liner notes, and it occasionally even reaches the same heights as its predecessor. It’s nearly 700 pages of Costello on Costello, a joy for those already in the cult and another arrow in the quiver for those who think he should just shut up already. Of course he’s been saying a lot over the last four decades: he’s released 30 albums, a handful of live recordings, and several compilations in that time, including a two-disc companion to this book.

Costello is both a crafty lyricist and talk show raconteur, and those talents translate well to page. Of course the requisite biographical data is here: he was born in London, lived in Liverpool, his father was a singer in a radio orchestra, his mother worked in a record shop. He did data entry at an Elizabeth Arden factory before filtering an infinite variety of influences through the lens of British pub rock and punk rock with the help of Nick Lowe on My Aim Is True. There are also stories of being teased on tour by the Clash and writing songs with Paul McCartney, as well as allusions to the self-destructive and emotionally devastating effects of the rock ‘n’ roll life.

While Costello is the primary star of his liner notes, here he often shares the spotlight with his father, Ross MacManus. Costello is at his most unguarded when talking about his father, a man who looms large over both his life and career. The stories of Costello watching his father from the balcony of the Hammersmith Palais, or watching him on TV on the same show as the Beatles, are vivid and compelling. The contrast of Costello’s career with his father’s shows the work of a musician as both an indulgence in the creative impulse as well as simply a job, a view not often shared in your average rock ‘n’ roll memoir.

Costello talks about his own work with both clarity and deception, detailing song origins, inspirations, and meanings without fully revealing the man behind the curtain. In what’s perhaps the book’s most telling line, he writes of his early experiences as an interview subject, ““I was inclined to be talkative, yet confidential.” The book’s length is a testament to the former.

Those confidential instincts lead to a number of passages about “holding another man’s daughter” in his arms, or sly digs at former Attraction Bruce Thomas, but Costello is anything but reserved when covering the most infamous incident of his career. The details are well known: in March, 1979, Costello and his band were in Columbus, Ohio, where they butted heads with another group of touring musicians, including Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett. After tensions between the groups reached a fever pitch, Costello used racial epithets to denigrate two giants of American music: James Brown and Ray Charles.

There’ve been plenty of excuses and reasons given for this behavior over the years, both from Costello and even Ray Charles, who chalked it up to “drunken talk”. Here, nearly 37 years later, Costello wonders if every person he meets knows about the incident, that if years of apology and explanation can ever erase the stain. His performance at a Rock Against Racism concert the previous year and a peek inside his record collection offer only a superficial glimpse of what’s in the man’s heart, so in an attempt to atone he puts those feelings on the page.

Early in the book Costello recalls going to see the Band play and hopes they’ll play his favorite song, “The Unfaithful Servant”, but doubting they will. He writes that it’s the fan’s right to hope a band will play a favorite song, but the performer’s prerogative to play whatever they please. That’s another way of saying the work speaks for itself, and that creator and creation don’t always share the same point of view.

In any memoir there’s deception and sleight of hand. For Costello, there’s the frequent insistence that the “I” in a song is not necessarily a “me”. As a result, the picture of the man isn’t always as clear as the picture of the artist. It’s not as if those are two completely separate beings, but for a public person, even a celebrity with sub-Kardashian tabloid wattage like Costello, it’s an important distinction.

Rating: 7 stars (out of 10)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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http://www.fnp.de/nachrichten/kultur/Ex ... 79,1767363

Translation: https://translate.google.com/translate? ... t=&act=url

Ex-Punk im Weißen Haus

Der Rockstar hat es zum allseits geachteten Pop-Universalgelehrten gebracht. „Unfaithful Music – Mein Leben“ heißt seine Autobiografie.

„Erinnerungsschwarte“ nennt Elvis Costello selbstironisch und entspannt sein Mammutwerk über das eigene Leben als Punk-, Rock-, Pop-, Jazz- und in -zig anderen Sparten rastlos aktiver Musiker. Stolze 780 Seiten geht es durch die 61 Jahre eines bewegten Lebens.

Von der Geburt als Sohn eines Tanzorchestersängers über den Aufstieg zum Rockstar bis zum jetzigen Status als eine Art „Elder Statesman“ der Populärmusik: Costello spielt als umfassend gebildeter Musikvermittler im Weißen Haus vor Präsident Obama zu Ehren des geadelten Kollegen Sir Paul McCartney auf. Er hat in Stockholm Schwedens König Carl Gustaf bei einer Preisverleihung in wohlgesetzten Worten erklärt, warum Burt Bacharachs Hits wie „Do You Know The Way To San José“ musikalisch fast dieselbe Klasse halten wie eine Fuge von Bach.

Mit Bacharach hat Costello selbst hochgelobte Musik fabriziert, mit Ex-„Beatle“ McCartney Popsongs komponiert, einen Zyklus für das klassische Brodsky-Quartett geschrieben und mit dem Jazz-Trompeter Chet Baker gesungen. Er hat Lieder für die Mezzo-Sopranistin Sofie von Otter verfasst, mit seinen Bands „The Attractions“ und den „Imposters“ Hitparaden gestürmt und vor zwölf Jahren die berühmte Jazz-Pianistin und -Sängerin Diana Krall zusätzlich auch noch geheiratet.

Klar, dass es da viel zu erzählen gibt. Dieser Meister des musikalischen Eklektizismus kann sich als Schreiber genauso intelligent, ideenreich und wortgewandt äußern wie musikalisch. Wenn er doch nur etwas mehr Übersicht für den Leser geschaffen und den Drang zum Erzählen ein bisschen gezähmt hätte! Es geht hier ohne chronologische oder innere Logik kreuz und quer durch Costellos Werdegang. Gerade hat man den Aufstieg der „Attractions“ zum Punk- und New-Wave-Erfolg Mitte der 70er Jahre nachvollzogen, da geht es plötzlich unvermittelt zurück zu längst verblichenen Vorfahren, bis zum Urgroßvater des 1954 in London als Declan Patrick MacManus geborenen Musikers. Um dann auf einmal wieder ein neues, gewagtes musikalisches Projekt mit weltberühmten Partnern bestaunen zu dürfen.

Schade auch, dass Costello offenbar Vollständigkeit bei der Aufzählung seiner Aktivitäten, vor allem denen mit namhaften Mitstreitern, wichtig gewesen zu sein scheint. Das ermüdet. Wo doch dieser Mann mit seinen literarischen Fähigkeiten locker mit Bob Dylans „Chronicles“, Patti Smith’ Erinnerungen „Just Kids“ und erst recht mit denen von Keith Richards in seinem viel gelobten „Life“ mithalten kann.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by sweetest punch »

Account from interviewer who interviewed Elvis in Hamburg: http://muzyka.onet.pl/rock/elvis-costel ... yki/n1rvdm

Translation: https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by sweetest punch »

Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
taramasalata
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by taramasalata »

sweetest punch wrote:Account from interviewer who interviewed Elvis in Hamburg: http://muzyka.onet.pl/rock/elvis-costel ... yki/n1rvdm

Translation: https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=
This is exactly the same article, now translated in Polish, that first got published in the notorious but kind of legendary German news magazine DER SPIEGEL in early november 2015:

http://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/ ... /139787769

It is actually written surprisingly well, managing to condense the master's not all too "linear" musical and personal biography in an entertaining way.
johnfoyle
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/boo ... lunuo.html



Elvis Costello looks back

January 1, 2016

Michael Dwyer

"The trouble with finishing any autobiographical tome like this," Elvis Costello writes somewhere around the too-long part, "is that for every mildly diverting tale or precious memory you eventually arrive at this thought: 'I don't much care for the subject'."

Whether he's speaking for himself or his reader, it's the kind of truth only an unflinching student of human nature would think aloud. From withering new wave sneerer to overreaching musical polymath, this one has emerged with a reflection perhaps best described as glass-half-full of itself.


The word "unfaithful" is key to a self-loathing aspect of his character that propels the fiery first half of his career. Where most old rock dogs' memoirs fail to disguise a smirk, Costello's tales of hard drinking and routine cheating on his first wife, Mary, ache with only Catholic guilt.

His affair with serial rock consort Bebe Buell is dismissed with cruel haste. Eighteen years with one-time Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan​ comprise a self-flagellating term in purgatory under a storm cloud of alcohol. "It took me 10 years to finish writing about the misery I provoked," he reflects from the far end of the mess.

The parallel with his deeply loved but similarly philandering father, big-band singer Ross MacManus, shadows the length of the book's nearly 700 pages. All ears and short pants, young Declan (Elvis) avidly follows his enigmatic old man's small victories through grand theatres and stacks of record publishers' acetates as fashion morphs from Glenn Miller to the Beatles.

Ross looms large at the end too, his harrowing decline into dementia leavened with his son's virtually encyclopaedic and always joyous memories of music, music and more music.

Indeed, the story jump cuts in leaps that might seem tenuous to any but the most obsessive record collector. Chains of names, tunes, venues and studios spanning the century can grow dense, and the songwriter's penchant for what he recognises as "speaking in code" can render his prose almost as cryptic.

Then again, that discipline also ensures a lyrical turn of phrase and self-deprecating wit. His first band, Flip City, was "a steady pattern of inertia laced with a few moments of faint hope". Of his infamous racial slur in a drunken brawl with Stephen Stills' band, Costello writes, "it took just five minutes to detach my tongue from my mind and my life from the rail it was on".

There's a filmic quality, too, in his way of framing one good story within another. One chapter starts at the White House with Paul McCartney and Barack Obama, then uses the song that he sang for them, Penny Lane, as a portal into his grandfather's hard road from Liverpool to the Kaiser's prisons of World War I.

These deep forays into the past can be harder going, of course, than his hell-for-leather on-the-road tales with the Attractions‚ which their self-sabotaging ringleader paints in funny and vicious detail. With a flair for continuity that trumps chronology, Costello manages to compress backstage encounters with Dylan, Bowie and Springsteen into virtually adjacent pages while painting portraits that are both unfailingly respectful and unusually revealing.

As his musical vocabulary expands to collaborations with George Jones, the Brodsky Quartet, Chet Baker, Allen Toussaint​; and invitations to countless all-star tribute projects to various legends pile up over the past 25 years, so the rabbit-holes of music history and craft begin to boggle the mortal mind.

Among the most instructive revelations in that area is that neither McCartney nor Burt Bacharach​ will tolerate even a one-syllable disruption in a lyric once a melody has been set. While Costello will defer to such unassailable wisdom in collaboration, he admits he'll think nothing of adding half a bar to accommodate a clever rhyme when he's calling the shots.

Half a lifetime since his last hit, in the thick of a mostly impenetrable and frankly unloveable run of albums, some might say that that compulsion to prioritise wordplay over toe-tapping has been his undoing. In the later chapters here, the fact that he increasingly lapses into tangential passages of lyrics to drive a point home suggests that he's simply grown bored or dissatisfied with the kind of storytelling simple folk favour.
Still, as he signs off from a far, far happier place than his life as a pop idol ever afforded, the depth of his passion for music is no more deniable than the heights of his intellect. Besides, as he only half-jokingly disclaims, "If you intend to have a long career in show business, it is necessary to drive people away from time to time so they can remember why they miss you."
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/re ... 82d73947da


Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink: Elvis Costello writes the book

THE AUSTRALIAN

JANUARY 2, 2016

Iain Shedden


It comes as no surprise that one of the finest lyricists in British pop history can muster 673 pages of well-appointed words for his autobiography. Just as Elvis Costello’s songs are riddled with adventurous wordplay, puns and complex metaphors, so too his writing on all things Costello is consistently sharp and engaging, not to mention revealing.

“I am here to tell you that, among his many talents, David Bowie is very good at party games.” So opens Chapter 19, in which Costello unveils the Thin White Duke’s expertise in ­matters of 1980s pop trivia, while also relating how the two men first encountered each other as the only patrons in a New York Indian ­restaurant in 1978.

Bowie is a recurring presence in this mammoth tome, not least as the soundtrack, through his Berlin albums Low and Heroes to Costello’s early tours of Europe and the US, where the singer rode shotgun in the bus or station wagon with his bag of cassettes at the ready.

Much of the first half of Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is dedicated to this voyage of discovery. Declan Patrick McManus, a London lad of Liverpool Irish lineage, is one of the few English artists who were able to ride the tidal wave of punk rock in the late 1970s and turn it into a 40-year-career.

With his first band, the Attractions, Costello adorned the charts regularly and was adored by critics, a distinctive singer and songwriter who could craft exquisite singles such as Alison, Watching the Detectives, Pump it Up and (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea, but was clearly a songwriter’s songwriter for whom the album was an equally fulfilling realisation of his art.

Here is a fascinating glimpse behind some of those great songs and into the multifaceted ­career that unfolded afterwards, one in which a who’s who of superstars, from Johnny Cash to Burt Bacharach, Bowie to Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn to Joni Mitchell, saunter into Costello’s orbit. Other than actual working collaborations, there are many chance meetings with famous folk that the singer documents with humility and no little wit.

“I was summoned to the balcony after a show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, and was introduced to an unassuming man in a bandanna who looked as if he might have ­arrived directly from fixing a ­motorcycle. He laughed like steam escaping from a radiator.” Nice to meet you, Mr Springsteen.

Costello is the son of singer and musician Ross McManus, who spent many years as a member of the Joe Loss Orchestra, one of the most successful British dance bands of the post-World War II era. The younger McManus’s earliest taste of life as a muso was in such dance halls, hanging around in dressing rooms or in the stalls while his father played a matinee show. From the many passages about his ­father’s work and about other musicians he has encountered, it’s clear Costello has a passion for music, for its history and its many forms, from jazz to country to rock ’n’ roll. This willingness to learn and to absorb has informed his own music, but it also colours and adds sparkle to his writing in this book. He traces elegantly and powerfully his family history, growing up in London and Liverpool, working in a bank as his fledgling career gets under way, and digs deep into his Irish roots through the stories of his ­ancestors, including his grandfather, who also found some success as a musician, mainly working on cruise ships.

As one would expect of a 40-year life on the road, there are war stories aplenty, although Costello is coy about his on-the-road dalliances and quieter still about his first two marriages, to Mary Burgoyne when he was 20, and to Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan. He’s more forthcoming and romantic about meeting his current wife, singer Diana Krall, and writes in some detail about their tentative courtship.

He addresses also two of the more sensational events of his life and career: the first his on/off relationship, partly during his first marriage, with American singer and fashion model Bebe Buell, who later claimed to have inspired many of Costello’s songs, something he has repeatedly dismissed. Mention of her is brief. “I should have known right then and there she meant to do me harm,” he notes, retelling her arrival on his doorstep with a full complement of luggage. He writes also of the death threats and career derailing in the US following his use of the N-word to describe James Brown and Ray Charles during a drunken brawl with members of American singer Stephen Stills’s band in Columbus, Ohio in 1979. “It took just five minutes to detach my tongue from my mind and my life from the rail it was on,” he writes.

Elsewhere Unfaithful Music is awash with great musical moments as Costello trailblazes through the US, Europe and Australia with the Attractions, on his own, with a variety of collaborators and later with his most recent outfit, the Imposters. He touches also on his flirtation with television journalism on his show Spectacle in the noughties, where he interviewed Lou Reed and Bono, among others. Throughout, Costello revels in the retelling of his life, as well he might. His is one of the most prolific and intelligent songwriters of his generation. His wisdom, wit and passion for his calling leap from almost every page here. “No animals or musicians were harmed during the writing of this book,” he writes in the acknowledgments.

Certainly, Unfaithful Music will do no harm to his reputation as an entertainer.
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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Markus Tedeskino photos from last October - taken in Hamburg for Der Spiegel , via facebook

Image


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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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(extract)

Memoirs from musicians Patti Smith, Elvis Costello and Grace Jones have been longlisted for the second Penderyn Music Book Prize, while biographies of John Peel, Sandy Denny and Tubby Hayes have also made the list.

The judging panel is made up of DJ and critic, Stuart Maconie; broadcaster, Annie Nightingale; journalist, Mark Ellen; musicians Green Gartside and Eliza Carthy; actor and writer, Robin Ince and music critic, Jude Rogers.

The shortlist will be revealed in March. The winner will be announced at the Laugharne Weekend Festival on 3rd April 2016 and will receive £1000 and a bottle of Penderyn Single Cask single malt.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/grace ... ize-319484
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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johnfoyle wrote:(extract) The winner will be announced at the Laugharne Weekend Festival on 3rd April 2016 and will receive £1000 and a bottle of Penderyn Single Cask single malt.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/grace ... ize-319484
Yummy:

https://www.penderynstore.com/Products/ ... tions.aspx

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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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johnfoyle wrote:(extract)

''''''''The judging panel is made up of DJ and critic, Stuart Maconie......
not sure of the others, but Mr Mac is a self-confessed EC fan so fingers crossed.

Colin Top Balcony
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by sulky lad »

Elvis has appeared on Annie's shows sand didn't Mark Ellen co present OGWT in 1986 when they blew away everyone with. 2 tracks from B &C and Leave My Kitten Alone ? All looks promising !!
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

And of course the wonderful Green guested on I Wanna Be Loved. There was a rumour for years on one of the Costello sites that the two were planning some sort of collaboration, but clearly nothing happened. I note that they did share a bill in 2010:

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... -09_London
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

Elvis & Green had a chat in the LA Times back 2006 -

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... r_28,_2006
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

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http://www.letraslibres.com/revista/let ... -esta-vivo


Elvis (Costello) está vivo
Por Rodrigo Fresán
Diciembre 2015


En un principio, en principio, jamás se pensaba que los rockers tenían que escribir un libro. Ya escribían canciones, ¿no? Y –si sentían ganas de algo más– ahí estaba el recurso del álbum conceptual que tantas vergüenzas ajenas y alguna alegría dieron a sus seguidores. De acuerdo: de tanto en tanto salía a la superficie el capricho más o menos pertinente (volúmenes delgados con tendencias al juego palabrero y alucinatorio como Por su propio cuento/Un españolito en obras de John Lennon o Tarántula de Bob Dylan); pero jamás de los jamases se pensaba que se tenía que contar la propia vida, porque para eso estaban los hagiógrafos a sueldo o las aves de rapiña no autorizadas. A veces alguien como Paul McCartney se sentaba a conversar con Miles. O Ray Davies se arriesgaba a una más que admirable rareza como x-Ray. Eran fenómenos esporádicos.

Pero los jóvenes envejecen y tienen más tiempo libre. Y, de un tiempo a esta parte, pareciera que no puedes considerarte una verdadera estrella si no has puesto por escrito cómo fue que te encendiste e iluminaste. Así, en los últimos años, hay tres bestsellers/cumbres muy altas del formato a las que aspirar: la dicción cuasi noir con memoria selectiva de las magníficas Crónicas. Volumen i de Bob Dylan, las órbitas centrífugas de la adoradora a adorar Patti Smith en Éramos niños (y su reciente secuela m Train) y el recuento picaresco de crápula encantador en el Vida de Keith Richards. Bajo esta santísisma trinidad, un montón de intentos fallidos previsibles (las páginas frígidas de Sting o Eric Clapton), alguna inexplicable decepción (el Who I Am. Memorias de Pete Townshend), el fárrago petulante con destellos gloriosos de Morrissey (Autobiography), y las involuntariamente desopilantes reminiscencias de Neil Young (El sueño de un hippie y Special Deluxe. Mi vida al volante), obsesionadas con trenes eléctricos y automóviles varios.

Ahora, se suman a la fiesta las casi setecientas páginas de Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink de Elvis Costello en tándem con el inevitablemente parcial pero imprescindible y muy personal doble cd antológico Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album). Todo hacía pensar que el de Costello iba a ser uno de los buenos. Costello (nacido Declan Patrick MacManus en Londres en 1954, en activo desde 1970) siempre fue un tipo de amplio vocabulario (ahí están las letras de sus canciones y aquí ese momento impagable en el que Dylan suelta una carcajada cuando le oye decir la palabra “amanuense”), un más que sensible e implacable conocedor de su oficio (comprobarlo visionando las dos temporadas de Spectacle, su talkshow de tv), y un sarcástico con los demás y cruel consigo mismo testigo de lo que lo rodea o lo que lleva dentro (estudiar sus exhaustivas liner notes para la reedición a principios de este milenio en el sello Rhino de todo lo suyo entre 1977-1996).

Lo que no podíamos suponer es que Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink fuese a ser tan excelente ubicándose junto a lo de Dylan & Smith & Richards y acaso superándolos. Costello hace comulgar aquí la retromirada dylanesca a la hora de explorar el pasado, la confesión del hecho imperdonable con una sonrisa torcida de Richards y el encandilamiento y amor por sus camaradas à la Patti, añadiendo un formidable talento para la frase ingeniosa, el giro inesperado, la definición perfecta.

Elvis Costello es –antes que nada– un escritor, y no es casual que Bret Easton Ellis y Nick Hornby le hayan robado títulos para sus primeras novelas. Ha leído todo y oído todo (es un auténtico enciclopedista y falsificante maníaco referencial que suele superar al original) y ahí va y aquí viene con sus aires de sexy nerd. Es célebre y graciosa la afirmación de David Lee Roth de Van Halen en cuanto a que “a los periodistas de rock les encanta Elvis Costello porque luce igual que un periodista de rock”. Pero, además, Costello es un artista total, un músico sin fronteras, un polimorfo perverso (ningún estilo le es ajeno, sus canciones se amoldan sin resistencia a cualquier garganta y ha sabido colaborar con firmas tan diversas como las de Johnny Cash, Anne Sofie von Otter, Allen Toussaint, Wendy James, Paul McCartney, Aimee Mann, Burt Bacharach, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, The Brodsky Quartet, The Roots, George Jones, Chet Baker y hasta William Shakespeare en Il Sogno), una voz privilegiada y vintage. Y lo más parecido a un Dylan-Beatle-Reed-Kink que jamás ha dado la New Wave. Es un titán de los sesenta que llegó un poco tarde pero llegó para quedarse. Digámoslo así: de haber justicia en este mundo, Elvis Costello –y no Jeff Lynne– habría sido un Traveling Wilbury. Aunque, tal vez, el resto de esa superbanda no hubiese demorado en echarlo por hablar demasiado, por hablar hasta por los codos acodado en el estudio de regrabación, por no hacer otra cosa que lo que ya advirtió en su “Oliver’s Army”: “No hagas que empiece a hablar / Podría hablar toda la noche / Mi mente es sonámbula.”

Y exactamente así “suena” su autobiografía insomne: como partes sueltas y modelo para armar de alguien sabio y sabedor de que tiene mucho y muy interesante para frasear. Y de que no vamos a poder dejar de escucharlo y leerlo porque nadie (aunque la bio Complicated Shadows de Graeme Thomson, en 2004, tenía lo suyo) puede contarlo como él. Con firme memoria privilegiada y saltarina libre asociación de ideas, Costello va para atrás y para adelante y para atrás de nuevo. Evocando a su padre crooner de big band Ross McManus como figura formativa, aprendiendo a armonizar con las voces de Lennon & McCartney frente al tocadiscos de su pubertad y cantando “All You Need Is Love” en Live Aid, recorriendo la Nueva Orleans devastada por el Katrina o perdiéndose en la Casa Blanca renovada por Obama, naciendo “en el mismo hospital en el que Alexander Fleming descubrió la penicilina. Me disculpo por no haber sido una recompensa similar para la humanidad”, como un Tristram Shandy, a la altura de la página 81. Y, entre uno y otros, Costello explicando al detalle cómo se le ocurrió ese estribillo o cómo alguien le comentó que “hubieses tenido muchos más hits si le hubieses quitado la mitad de las notas a tus canciones”.

Y, claro, hay noches duras o días oscuros y horas bajas y furia de altura como de la que brotan obras maestras de la ira juvenil como This Year’s Model o del despecho amoroso como Blood & Chocolate o de la melancolía con luz al final del túnel como North, aunque en un tramo reconozca “cambiar en mis canciones el yo por un él o el yo por un nosotros. Porque no hay que confundir la música pop con una confesión”. Pero lo que se impone por encima de toda máscara transparente y gana la partida es la felicidad de haber hecho la suya y de haberse salido con la suya. Escribe: “El problema con poner fin a una autobiografía como esta es que, por cada anécdota más o menos divertida o recuerdo precioso, uno tarde o temprano arriba a este pensamiento: el sujeto no importa mucho.”

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink –fiel e imborrable e imposible de olvidar y ya deseando su continuación de aquí a unos años– cuesta veinticinco libras y vale la pena y la alegría de todas y cada una de ellas.

“La vida real se convierte en un rumor”, cantó y sigue cantando Elvis Costello en su tumultuosa “Man Out of Time”. Aquí y ahora, él convierte su vida en true story.

O tal vez no del todo, porque recordar es reescribir.

Una cosa sí es segura: aquí el sujeto importa.

Mucho. ~



Elvis (Costello) is alive
By Rodrigo Fresán
December 2015


At first, in the beginning, I never thought that the rockers had to write a book. And they wrote songs, right? And if want to feel there was something else the use of conceptual album that shames and many others gave some joy to his followers. Agree: now and then rose to the surface more or less relevant whim (thin volumes and trends babbler hallucinatory game as its own story / A Spaniard in the Works of John Lennon or Bob Dylan Tarantula); but I never, ever thought you had to have your own life, because that hagiographers were hired birds of prey or unauthorized. Sometimes someone like Paul McCartney sat down to talk with Miles. Or Ray Davies risked a more than admirable rarity as x-ray. Were sporadic phenomena.

But young age and have more free time. And a while now, it seems that you can not consider yourself a real star if you have not put in writing how it was kindled and iluminaste you. Thus, in recent years, three bestsellers / very high peaks of the format to which to aspire: diction quasi-noir with selective memory of Chronicles magnificent. Volume I of Bob Dylan, centrifugal orbits of worshipful worshiping Patti Smith were kids (and its recent sequel m Train) and the picaresque account of charming scoundrel in the Life of Keith Richards. Under this santísisma Trinity, a lot of failed attempts predictable (the frigid pages Sting and Eric Clapton), some inexplicable disappointment (the Who I Am. Memories of Pete Townshend), the petulant farrago with glorious glimpses of Morrissey (Autobiography), and the unintentionally hilarious reminiscent of Neil Young (The dream of a hippie and Special Deluxe. My life at the wheel), obsessed with electric trains and several cars.

Now, they add to the party almost seven hundred pages of Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink Elvis Costello in tandem with the inevitably partial but essential and very personal double CD anthology Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album). Everything suggested that Costello would be a good one. Costello (born Declan Patrick MacManus in London in 1954, active since 1970) was always a kind of large vocabulary (there are the lyrics of their songs here that priceless moment when Dylan laughs when he hears the word " amanuensis "), a more sensitive and aware of his implacable office (check by viewing the two seasons of Spectacle, his talkshow tv), and a sarcastic and cruel to others himself witnessed around him or what is inside (study its extensive liner notes for the reissue earlier this millennium on the Rhino label all his belongings between 1977-1996).

What we could not presume that Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink was to be so excellent ranking with what Dylan & Smith & Richards and perhaps surpassing them. Costello makes dylanesca communion here when retromirada explore the past, the confession of unforgivable made with a crooked smile and glare Richards and love for their comrades Patti, adding a formidable talent for witty phrase, twist The perfect definition.

Elvis Costello is a writer -before than nothing, and it is no coincidence that Bret Easton Ellis and Nick Hornby have stolen titles for their first novels. He read everything and heard everything (it's a real encyclopedic reference and falsifying maniac who usually exceed the original) here and there goes and comes with its air of sexy nerd. It's famous and funny affirmation of David Lee Roth of Van Halen in that "rock journalists love Elvis Costello because it looks like a rock journalist." But in addition, Costello is a total artist, a musician without borders, a perverse polymorph (any style is alien, his songs are molded without resistance to any throat and has been known to collaborate with companies as diverse as Johnny Cash, Anne Sofie von Otter, Allen Toussaint, Wendy James, Paul McCartney, Aimee Mann, Burt Bacharach, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, The Brodsky Quartet, The Roots, George Jones, Chet Baker and even William Shakespeare in Il Sogno), a beautiful voice and vintage . And the closest thing to a Dylan-Beatle-Reed-Kink that ever since the New Wave. It is a titan of the sixty who arrived a little late but here to stay. Put it this way: to have justice in this world, Elvis Costello, and not Jeff Lynne would have been a Traveling Wilburys. Although perhaps the rest of the supergroup would not have delayed him out for talking too much, for speaking up to the elbows leaning on the study of rewriting, not to do anything other than what already warned in his "Oliver's Army", " Do not start talking / I could talk all night / My mind is sleepwalking. "

And exactly like "sounds" his sleepless autobiography as loose parts and assembly model of wise and knowing someone who has much and very interesting phrasing. And that we will not be able to stop listening and reading for anyone (even the bio Complicated Shadows of Graeme Thomson, in 2004, had his own) as he can tell. With firm and bouncy privileged free association memory, Costello going back and back and forth again. Evoking his big band crooner father Ross McManus as a formative figure, learning to harmonize with the voices of Lennon & McCartney against the turntable puberty and singing "All You Need Is Love" at Live Aid, visiting New Orleans devastated by the Katrina or lost in the White House renewed by Obama, born "in the same hospital where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. I apologize for not being a similar reward for humanity ", as Tristram Shandy, up to page 81. And, between one and other, Costello explaining in detail how he came up with the chorus or how someone said "you would have had many more hits if you had removed half the notes to your songs."

And of course, there are low hard nights and dark days and hours and fury of height and from which flow masterpieces of youth anger as This Year's Model or Amorous Quarrel as Blood & Chocolate or the melancholy light at end of tunnel and North, although in a stretch recognize "the change in my songs I for it or I for us. One must not confuse the pop music with a confession. " But what is needed above all transparent mask and wins the game is the happiness of yours have done and have gotten away with it. He writes: "The problem with putting an end to an autobiography as this is that for every more or less amusing anecdote or precious memory, one eventually up to this thought. The subject does not matter much"

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink-faithful and indelible and impossible to forget and already looking forward to its continuation in a few years costs twenty-five pounds and worth and joy of each and every one of them.

"Real life becomes a rumor," he sang and still sings Elvis Costello in his tumultuous "Man Out of Time". Here and now, it turns your life true story.

Or maybe not quite, because remembering is rewritten.

One thing is certain: here the subject matter.

A lot. ~
johnfoyle
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

Image

Scott Sherratt, left, and Elvis Costello
Courtesy of Scott Sherratt


http://www.examiner.com/article/award-w ... audiobooks


Award-winning producer Scott Sherratt brings musical touch to audiobooks

January 14, 2016

If it's Grammy season, it's a given that Scott Sherratt has a vested interest.

High on the list of “first call” producers/directors of audio and video specializing in the publishing industry, Sherratt has helmed seven Grammy-nominated titles, including this year's Best Spoken Word nominee Yes Please by Amy Poehler. His productions have won over 20 Audio Publishers Association Audie Awards and more than 60 Audiofile Magazine Earphones Awards for Excellence.

Since commencing his audiobook production career, Sherratt has worked on over 600 titles, written and/or recited by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Billy Crystal, Rachel Maddow, Elizabeth Warren, Kim Kardashian, Gene Simmons, Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, Colin Powell, Mitt Romney, Ted Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Michael Chabon, Harper Lee, John Waters, Robert Ludlum, Poehler and most recently, Carly Simon, Chrissie Hynde and Elvis Costello.

“I work with people for days and it's a very personal experience for them,” says Sherratt of his award-winning methods. “I take their trust and confidence very seriously: It’s all about showing a side of them that’s best in telling their story.”

He distinguishes between the “producer” and “director” credit as applied to his niche in the recording industry.

“As they relate to standard music recording terminology they are essentially the same,” says Sherratt. “There is a lot of overlap and blurred lines between these job descriptions—meaning that the director is the person in the recording sessions guiding the performance just as a producer does in music sessions. I am most often producer and director--booking studios, contracting talent, directing sessions, and supervising edit, mix, mastering and delivery.”

Each project is unique and presents it’s own challenges and opportunities, he notes.

“It often comes down to communication. I am very comfortable speaking with performers, actors, narrators, and authors and helping to develop a vibrant, energetic, comfortable, and collaborative environment in which to create something amazing. I absolutely love working with creative people--brilliant actors, personalities, and fabulous writers. It is really thrilling and I find the whole process to be tremendously rewarding.”

Sherratt says he always looks to bring added value to his productions, “so each audiobook I produce can stand on it’s own as it’s own creative work rather than simply being a companion to or alternative way of consuming the printed version of a book.”

The audiobook, actually, “often kicks the crap out of the print version,” he adds.

Making it all work is a post-production team made up of editors and other crafts people around the country.

“We live in an exciting time where transferring large files is easy and fast, allowing me to hire the absolute best people in the business regardless of where they live,” Sherratt explains. “I am a bit of an audio nerd, and it is truly important to me that everything sounds great. The mastering legend Bob Ludwig recently complimented some of my productions, and that in itself makes all the extra effort feel worthwhile.”

Being an “audio nerd” comes natural to Sherratt, who brings his extensive background as a musician to his audiobook projects. A guitarist, bassist, vocalist and composer—as well as studio engineer and producer—Sherratt has also acted on stage, film and TV; he has managed stages and tours, and produced live shows in addition to albums and audio books. And he's toured and recorded with various rock bands for years before settling into his current vocation: He toured with and produced three albums of music for experimental theater playwright/director Richard Maxwell, and produced The Lonesome High album with Willem DaFoe.

Sherratt has since composed and performed music on many of his audiobook productions.

“It’s the most fun when I can call upon some of my favorite musician friends to help out with music for a particular project,” he says. “Last year Rodney Crowell—for whom I produced the audiobook for [his 2011 memoir] Chinaberry Sidewalks--gathered some musicians together in Nashville and wrote and performed some terrific music for Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, which I produced in L.A. with narrator Reese Witherspoon. Rodney also wrote and performed a perfect guitar piece for Sissy Spacek's memoir [My Extraordinary Ordinary Life] that I produced a few years ago.”

Music artists frequently provide or perform exclusive material for their audiobook projects with Sherratt.

“[Sonic Youth’s] Kim Gordon gave me a track I loved for her book Girl in a Band and I was thrilled to record Elvis Costello playing guitar for [his new memoir] Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink. It is, of course, perfect, and we also recorded some pieces for a track we included on the companion soundtrack album released by Universal Records.”

Observing that it’s a “golden age for audiobooks” in that “more audio is being produced than ever before,” Sherratt has a hard time naming favoites.

“I’ve had so many wonderful opportunities and recorded many amazing people in their homes, most notably Oprah,” he says. “She drove us around her unbelievable California estate in a golf cart and had her private chef prepare delicious meals. I even got her to sing on the recording—and yes, she can really sing! I also recorded Jennifer Lopez at her house last year—also fun.”

Poehler's Yes Please was “a true production standout” in that Sherratt not only recorded Poehler in Los Angeles along with Michael Schur, but Carol Burnett in Santa Barbara, Patrick Stewart in New York, Poehler's parents in Boston, and Poehler with Seth Meyers and Kathleen Turner at Saturday Night Live.

“I also produced and recorded a live show with Amy at The Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater in Hollywood, which we included on the audiobook. Add to that terrific music by Freddie Khaw, and a track from Steve Albini, and it’s a one-of-a-kind, fabulous item.”

But working with Costello “really was a dream come true,” says Sherratt. “I have been a fan for so many years, and it was such a treat to go to Canada and lock myself in the studio with Elvis for a week. He is every bit as brilliant as I knew him to be.”

Besides working with all the major publishers and numerous independents, Sherratt is additional dialogue replacement (ADR) and casting director for the U.S. version of the animated U.K. TV series Chuggington, and produces and directs other TV and video projects.

Sherratt will stay in Los Angeles after the Grammy Awards to produce a project with X’s John Doe and music publisher/former A & R rep Tom DeSavia. “They’ve written a fabulous personal history of the L.A. punk scene called Under the Big Black Sun—named after an early hit by X.”

But he now laments the one that got away.

“My ‘Great White Whale,’ the long-rumored autobiography by David Bowie!” says Sherratt. “But even if it happened now it wouldn’t be the same: Every author should narrate their own memoirs while they can, because every autobiography that is not read by the subject is less than it might have been.”
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by mood swung »

soooooo, what did y'all think?

everybody wants an index. american spellings! (and worse yet, hints of american usage???!!)

Color me out of the loop. I did not even realize this was IN PRINT until I was Christmas shopping. So, I bought myself a present.

And while I was waiting for it to be delivered, I requested the audio book from my local library. And just when the holiday hubbub was over and I was ready to settle down for a long winter's nap with Elvis, I got the notice that the audio book was available to check out.

I have spent several hours on the treadmill with Elvis. One of us isn't losing any weight. I won't name names. But it's been a real treat and a real trip to hear him read it. Got some daddy issues. Has some obsessive tendencies and a crazy memory and/or an incredible Collection of Mementos. For someone who sings professionally, he turns away from the mic or goes quiet all too often. Sneaky (guilty?) feelings? It's way too intense sometimes, in its examinations. But very cool the way he connects his dots.

I liked Mr. Foyle's comment that it was like listening to him tell tales in the pub. I'm not sure I want to read it now. :D
Like me, the "g" is silent.
johnfoyle
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.wienerzeitung.at/themen_chan ... ichte.html

17.01.2016

Bücher aktuell

Music
Anekdotische Lebensbeichte

Von Bruno Jaschke

"Unfaithfull Music", die umfangreiche Autobiografie des großen Singer/Songwriters Elvis Costello.



"Ich kam in derselben Klinik zur Welt, in der Alexander Fleming das Penicillin entdeckt hat. Ich entschuldige mich im Voraus dafür, dass ich mich nicht als ein ähnlicher Segen für die Menschheit erwiesen habe."

Die Klinik ist das St. Mary’s Hospital im Londoner Stadtteil Paddington, und der Mensch, der sich höflich für seine Defizite an gemeinnütziger historischer Bedeutung entschuldigt, heißt Declan Patrick MacManus, besser bekannt als Elvis Costello. "Der Mann, der auf unerträgliche Weise alles richtig macht", wie ihn Deutschlands führender Pop-Theoretiker Diedrich Diederichsen 1986 in der Zeitschrift "Spex" charakterisiert hat: "Diese Qualität, dieser einfach nicht eintretende Verfall, dieses Beharren (. . .)!"


Der heute 61-jährige Elvis Costello, Sohn eines etwas flatterhaften Berufsmusikanten, ist der vermutlich konsensfähigste britische Singer-Songwriter der letzten 40 Jahre. Ein integrativer Künstler, der als einer der frühen Protagonisten der New Wave Trendsetter-Meriten ebenso verzeichnet wie er mit seinen hingebungsvollen Interpretationen amerikanischer Country-, Soul- und Rhythm & Blues-Standards Traditionalisten anspricht. Der sowohl meisterhaft den klassischen, an den Beatles geschulten Pop repräsentiert wie er auch mit mehreren Projekten (u.a. mit dem Brodsky Quartett) weit über dessen Grenzen hinausgegangen ist. Der als versierter Texter reichlich Zuspruch bei der sogenannten Intelligenzia findet. Und der zuguterletzt durch seine Ehe mit der attraktiven Jazz-Sängerin und -Pianistin Diana Krall in geschmackvollen Grenzen sogar die Glamour- und Society-Presse bedient.

Und anders als bei vielen Konsens-Acts, die ihre divergierenden Fan-Fraktionen so ansprechen (müssen), dass die einen tunlichst nichts von den anderen merken, generiert bei Costello gerade das Wissen um seine Universalität Anziehung und Flair.

Beste Voraussetzungen also für eine große Autobiografie. Leider beschränkt sich die Gewichtigkeit des 0,9 Kilo schweren und fast 800 Seiten dicken Buchs zu einem nicht unerheblichen Teil auf den physikalischen Aspekt. Abgesehen von typischen Biografie-Krankheiten wie einer episch ausgebreiteten Ahnenchronik sind manche Passagen erstaunlich trivial, andere semantisch schlichtweg unergründlich. Etwa hier: "Inzwischen zeigten die unzähligen, aus den USA importierten Polizeiserien hochtoupierte Haare und Brusthaartoupets, und das galt nur für die Frauen." Oder: "Er sah außergewöhnlich wie er selbst aus."

Einiges an solchen sprachlichen Unebenheiten mag der Übersetzung anzulasten sein, die schon dort, wo sie sich zu erkennen gibt - bei Songtexten und den Titeln der Kapitel - Stilsicherheit vermissen lässt. Dass aber viel Erzähltes vage bleibt und ein War-das-alles?-Gefühl hinterlässt, geht fraglos auf das Konto des Autors. Und dass die insgesamt 36 Kapitel nicht einer ordinären chronologischen Ordnung folgen, mag für Meister Costello wohl Ehrensache sein, verleiht aber auch der Bio in ihrem wilden zeitlichen Durcheinander trotz oder gerade wegen ihres Umfangs Stückwerk-Charakter.

Solchermaßen mutet "Unfaithful Music" an wie eine Aneinanderreihung von Anekdoten, die immerhin viel Menschliches und allzu Menschliches offenbaren. Reuevoll bekennt der Künstler, der früher reichlich dem Alkohol und Aufputschmitteln zuzusprechen pflegte, dass er wie sein Vater den Verlockungen des Star-Ruhms nicht immer zu widerstehen vermochte.

Liebesver(w)irrungen

Eine früh geschlossene Ehe mit einer Schulfreundin, der ein Sohn entsprang, zerbrach daran. Über sein ebenfalls gescheitertes Bündnis mit der Pogues-Bassistin Cait O’Riordon gibt sich Costello indes reichlich zugeknöpft. 2003 führte er, auf Elton Johns Anwesen in Sussex und mit Paul McCartney als einem der Hochzeitsgäste, Diana Krall vor den Traualtar, 2006 wurde er Vater von Zwillingen. Damit ist das Thema Liebesver(w)irrungen, so suggeriert die Autobiografie apodiktisch, vom Tisch.

Wie es zu einem Künstler, der nicht zuletzt für den bissigen Humor seiner Texte geschätzt wird, passt, sind einige Episoden recht lustig. So schildert Costello, dessen Karriere in der Ära des britischen Punk zündete, was einem bei einer Tour mit The Damned so alles passieren konnte, wenn man im gemeinsamen Mietbus seinen Rausch ausschlief: "Ich wachte auf und sah, dass meine Schnürsenkel brannten und mein schlummernder offener Mund voller Asche war, was ich den bescheuerten Bandmitgliedern von The Damned zu verdanken hatte."

Im wahrsten Wortsinn umwerfend gestaltet sich die Suche nach einem Keyboarder für Costellos langjährige Begleitband The Attractions. Der 19-jährige Steve Nason (später: Nieve), der letztlich das Rennen machen sollte, stellt sich bei Costello so ein: "Ich war wahrscheinlich gerade alt genug, um zu erkennen, dass die Flasche mit süßem Sherry, die er umklammert hielt, mit Angeberei und Nervosität zu tun hatte. Steve spielte vor und fragte uns dann, ob er bleiben könne, um die restlichen Kandidaten zu hören. Eine kurze, trostlose Zeit später, nachdem wir alle seine wenig verheißungsvollen Rivalen angehört und entlassen hatten, fanden wir den jungen Steve im Tiefschlaf, zusammengerollt im Deckel des Transportkoffers. Die Sherryflasche war fast leer."

Google translation -

Books currently
Music
Anecdotal confession
By Bruno Jaschke

"Unfaithful Music", the extensive biography of the great auto singer / songwriter Elvis Costello.

"I came to the same clinic for the world, discovered in the Alexander Fleming penicillin. I apologize in advance that I have not proved myself as a similar blessing for mankind."

The clinic is the St. Mary's Hospital in London's Paddington, and the man who politely apologized for his shortcomings in community historical importance, is Declan Patrick MacManus, better known as Elvis Costello. "The man who unbearably does everything right", as Germany's leading pop theorist Diedrich has Diederichsen 1986 characterizes in the magazine "Spex": "This quality, this just is not entering decay, this insistence (...)! "
The now 61-year-old Elvis Costello, the son of a somewhat flighty professional musicians, is probably konsensfähigste British singer-songwriter of the last 40 years. An integrative artist who also listed as one of the early protagonists of the New Wave Trendsetter merits as he responds with his devotional interpretations American Country-, soul and rhythm and blues standards traditionalists. The both masterfully the classic, trained to the Beatles Pop represented as well with several projects (among others with the Brodsky Quartet) has gone far beyond its borders. The place as an accomplished lyricist plenty of encouragement at the so-called intelligentsia. And Last but by his marriage to the attractive jazz singer Diana Krall -Pianistin in tasteful limits even the glamor and society-operated press.

And unlike many consensus acts that appeal to their diverging fan-fractions so (must) that the notice as far as possible a nothing from the other, generated at Costello just the knowledge of its universality attraction and flair.

Perfect conditions for a great autobiography. Unfortunately, the weightiness of 0.9 kilos and nearly 800 pages thick book limited to a considerable extent on the physical aspect. Apart from typical biography diseases such an epic outstretched Ancestry chronicle some passages are remarkably trivial, other semantically simply unfathomable. Around here: "In the meantime, showed the countless, imported from the US police series teased hair and chest hair toupees, and that was only true for the women." Or: "He looked extraordinary as he made himself."
Some of such linguistic unevenness like the translation to be imputable to that already where it reveals his identity - lacks style security - with lyrics and the titles of the chapters. That, however, much remains vague and narrated a War-the-everything? Feeling leaves, goes unquestionably to the account of the author. And that the total of 36 chapters do not follow an ordinary chronological order, like for Master Costello well be a matter of honor, but also gives the organic in their wild temporal confusion despite or perhaps because of its scale piecemeal character.
In such a manner expected of "Unfaithful Music" like a series of anecdotes that reveal a great deal after all human and all too human. Ruefully confesses the artist who used formerly abundant award the alcohol and stimulants that he his father was unable as ever to resist the lure of celebrity fame.
Liebesver (f) trials

An early marriage to a school friend, who sprang a son, broke it. About also be a failed alliance with the Pogues bassist Cait-O'Riordon located Costello are however buttoned plentiful. In 2003, he led at Elton John's estate in Sussex and with Paul McCartney as one of the wedding guests, Diana Krall to the altar, 2006, he became the father of twins. Thus the theme Liebesver (w) is aberrations, the autobiography suggests apodictically, off the table.

As an artist who is not the least appreciated for the biting humor of his lyrics, fits, some episodes are quite funny. So portrays Costello, whose career lit in the era of the British punk thing that could happen to you on a tour with The Damned doing when you sleeping off his intoxication in common rented bus: "I woke up and saw that my shoelaces were burning and my slumbering open mouth full of ashes was what I owed the stupid band members of The Damned. "

In the truest sense of the word stunning the search designed for a keyboard player for Costello's longtime backing band The Attractions. The (later: Nieve) 19-year-old Steve Nason, who ultimately should make the race, arises with Costello as a: "I was probably just old enough to realize that the bottle of sweet sherry, which he clutched, had to do with showing off and nervousness. Steve played before and then asked us if he could stay to hear the rest of the candidates. A brief, bleak time later, after we listened to all his unpromising rival and had dismissed, we found the young Steve in deep sleep, curled up in the lid of the carrying case. The sherry bottle was almost empty. "
MOJO
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by MOJO »

Oh my...

"chest hair toupees, and that was only true for the women."

chest hair toupees... has potential as a band name.
johnfoyle
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

'As I finished it tonight I felt bereft. Every day for a few weeks I have lived with Elvis Costello. I will miss the book; the personal, the art, the fandom.'

http://stocki.typepad.com/soulsurmise/2 ... g-ink.html
johnfoyle
Posts: 14852
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

Looking for something else I stumbled on a post to the wiki site from last April. It's a NME feature from October 1977 - it's funny to see how much of the MacManus family history that seemed new in Elvis's book was 'out there' all along .

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... r_29,_1977
johnfoyle
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Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

Tweeted earlier today in Paris -

https://twitter.com/Shakespeare_Co/stat ... 3987251200

Shakespeare&Company @Shakespeare_Co

Thanks to @PenguinUKBooks we're giving away a SIGNED copy of @ElvisCostello's UNFAITHFUL MUSIC. There's a catch: The book goes to the first person to visit our shop & sing a WHOLE CHORUS from @ElvisCostello's Oliver's Army to our booksellers. Go!


Image
johnfoyle
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

http://nodepression.com/article/worth-r ... tello-more



HENRY CARRIGAN ,

No Depression

19 Feb. 2016

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, by Elvis Costello

Costello's unconventional memoir opens with a sentence so exceptional and odd that it arouses your curiosity and demands you keep reading: "I think it was my love of wrestling that first took me to the dance hall."

Unlike most traditional memoirs, Costello's eschews any narrative structure, moving freely and lithely, beginning in his childhood in Liverpool and London – where he accompanied his father, a vocalist in a dance band, to the dance halls, soaking up the chords and vibes of the band. In school, he managed to talk a couple of his new friends out an "unhealthy fascination with the music of Emerson, Lake & Palmer," and turned them onto the acoustic music then flowing out of Laurel Canyon.

Costello describes his admiration for the blues guitar of Peter Green and his attempts to learn guitar by playing Green's songs: "I pressed my feeble fingers to the fretboard and some semblance of music came out."

He lightly ranges over his associations over the years with numerous musicians from Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash to Nick Lowe and Kris Kristofferson, discussing the influence each has had on him. A prolific songwriter, Costello also shares insights into the composition of his lyrics; for "Allison," which is based on the imagined life of a grocery checkout cashier. He writes:

I have no explanation for why I was able to stand outside reality and imagine such a scene as described in the song and to look so far into the future, or what in the world would make me want this terrible prediction to come true or become untrue.

Costello's aim is true in his peripatetic musings about his life and music.
johnfoyle
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Re: UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.columbiatribune.com/arts_lif ... 2c0b4.html

Indelible ‘Ink’

By AARIK DANIELSEN


Sunday, February 21, 2016



I have great respect for artists who can execute their vision across multiple mediums or disciplines. I can barely do one thing — string sentences together in modest, inoffensive patterns.

Among my most exciting gifts this Christmas was a copy of Elvis Costello’s autobiography, “Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink,” which hit bookstores in October.

First a New Wave agitator, eventually a statesman of song, the man born Declan MacManus has, for me, existed in the category of long-admired but little-studied artists.

So, to have Costello’s life in my hands, complete with a beckoning, black-and-white cover photo of the wily artist in weary repose, brought serious joy.

Almost two months with Costello’s book has only compounded that joy. “Unfaithful Music” proves that the man is a born writer, with or without guitar in hand. Costello’s abilities as a storyteller and shaper of sentences makes me wish he had written earlier and more often.

The only memoir that compares, formally and tonally, is Bob Dylan’s 2004 effort “Chronicles, Volume One.”

Both books avoid what is, by now, a rote structure, taking the reader on a chronological journey from humble child to reluctant hero to out-of-control star to wise elder.

All these aspects belong in Costello’s story but, like Dylan, he takes a nonlinear, zig then zag, approach that grounds readers in more impressionistic details and asks them to learn their own lessons.

Unlike Dylan, you actually believe everything Costello says. While both artists leave a bit of mythology intact, Costello also deconstructs that mythology at will.

He soulfully examines a conflicted, yet ultimately close, relationship with his father. The elder MacManus was a charming big-band singer whose history with women presaged Costello’s own romantic excursions before he settled down with third wife and jazz luminary Diana Krall more than 12 years ago.

Costello unpacks his emotional baggage often and documents living out of a suitcase in dizzying detail. He is frank about his faults; about the moments in which he pushed back against lovers and labels out of youthful ignorance, youthful arrogance or a bit of both.

The man who wrote “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror” for the 1989 album “Spike” seems unafraid to look into his, and the reader is better for Costello’s decision not to fluff up his legend too much.

Students of Costello’s songs — or of popular music in the past 40 years — will appreciate the volume of material about music-making. I was at times tempted to write Costello’s words off as name-dropping, as many chapters open with or focus on his many collaborations.

But it would be impossible for Costello to tell his story without telling the stories of how he came to work with and befriend Dylan, Burt Bacharach, Paul McCartney, Allen Toussaint and The Roots, to name a few. He clearly relished these opportunities, writing as if he simply were a music lover pinching himself at his own dumb luck.

“I know I never expected to meet half the people who I’ve encountered down these years and across these pages,” he wrote. “I thought they were just names on record jackets, reputations spelled out in the lightbulbs of a marquee, or consoling voices in the dark, but that’s not that way it has turned out.”

Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay Costello is that in almost 700 pages, he never lost me once. I felt a twinge of sadness as he had the last word, wishing to know more about a life often well-lived, occasionally squandered. In that sense, I suppose rock stars do put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.

“Unfaithful Music” is as much about manhood, growing into your own skin and sense of self, as it is about writing enduring songs. One of the most moving passages comes late in the book as Costello details his father’s final chapter. He relates how a break from recording, ostensibly to focus on performing, was really a recognition of what little time his father had left.

“The real reason was that I needed time to imagine how I could bear to write songs and not be able to play them for my father,” he wrote. “Watching him listen to music was irreplaceable to me. There are some things that music just can’t fix.”

A number of multitalented artists make their presence felt in Columbia. Off the top of my head, I can name musician-photographers Joel Anderson and Dave Dearnley, musician-poet Anand Prahlad, artist and author Gladys Swan, filmmaker and writer Robert Greene and my former colleague and dear friend Amy Wilder, who can write, paint, draw and conceive all manner of art installation.

These artists are not more valuable or special than those who do one thing well. But, there is something about encountering a person who can express him or herself in multiple ways. We see and know more of that person as we are allowed access to their various sides.

Elvis Costello does that for those who will read “Unfaithful Music,” proving it isn’t every day a rock ’n’ roll singer writes a book like that.
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