Oh yeah, but PTC and KOA was merely Elvis Costello with facial hair. I'm talking about THE BEARD YEARS, for Chrissake.....bambooneedle wrote:[lostdog - The beard years actually started back in the Punch The Clock era, with EC sprucing up for GCW, B&C & Spike.
Costello biographer Graeme Thomson
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/s ... 60,00.html
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello
by Graeme Thomson
Canongate £8.99, pp435
Having released both a rock album and a chamber opera last year, press-shy Elvis Costello remains unpredictable. Born Declan McManus nearly 51 years ago to a Liverpool-Irish musician, Costello diligently played in bands even before sitting his A-levels. He married his first girlfriend, aged 20, because she was pregnant, but soon ditched humdrum family life and his unimpressive early band Flip City to become abrasive firebrand Elvis Costello. In the process he became a huge international success, and notwithstanding sex, drugs and unfortunate racist remarks he has largely remained one ever since, driven by fierce lyrical and musical ambition. However, once Costello hits the big time, Thomson's portrait becomes rather less successful, exhaustingly describing the recording of one album after another and the relentless tours as if Costello existed in a vacuum - his only son, Matthew, is barely mentioned. Irritatingly awash with proof-reading errors, this biography is probably best suited to devoted fans.
Helen Zaltzman
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello
by Graeme Thomson
Canongate £8.99, pp435
Having released both a rock album and a chamber opera last year, press-shy Elvis Costello remains unpredictable. Born Declan McManus nearly 51 years ago to a Liverpool-Irish musician, Costello diligently played in bands even before sitting his A-levels. He married his first girlfriend, aged 20, because she was pregnant, but soon ditched humdrum family life and his unimpressive early band Flip City to become abrasive firebrand Elvis Costello. In the process he became a huge international success, and notwithstanding sex, drugs and unfortunate racist remarks he has largely remained one ever since, driven by fierce lyrical and musical ambition. However, once Costello hits the big time, Thomson's portrait becomes rather less successful, exhaustingly describing the recording of one album after another and the relentless tours as if Costello existed in a vacuum - his only son, Matthew, is barely mentioned. Irritatingly awash with proof-reading errors, this biography is probably best suited to devoted fans.
Helen Zaltzman
-
selfmademug
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/new ... 7384.shtml
“Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello,” by Graeme Thomson: There was a time when Costello was on the verge of becoming one of the biggest rock stars in the world. Then he drunkenly began to shoot his mouth off. Thomson’s biography reads like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” with Costello’s sordid past — including the infamous Ray Charles incident — eventually giving way to an earnest statesman who forged his own creative, underappreciated path.
“Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello,” by Graeme Thomson: There was a time when Costello was on the verge of becoming one of the biggest rock stars in the world. Then he drunkenly began to shoot his mouth off. Thomson’s biography reads like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” with Costello’s sordid past — including the infamous Ray Charles incident — eventually giving way to an earnest statesman who forged his own creative, underappreciated path.
-
Otis Westinghouse
- Posts: 8856
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
- Location: The theatre of dreams
That sentence was probably cobbled together by some crappy sub-editor, who thought it was the best way to save a line or two without even realising, or worse still, giving a toss, that the resulting bastard sentence was totally illogical.selfmademug wrote:Um, are they kidding?press-shy Elvis Costello
...who will, sadly, be more annoyed by said errors than less devoted fans.Irritatingly awash with proof-reading errors, this biography is probably best suited to devoted fans
I hope Canongate read that review and reflect that actually it would have been worth paying me the £200 or so I would have proofread the book for properly for them to avoid seeing that in the Observer, which is the kind of place where a good review might help shift some sales of it.
Press-shy up to a point, I guess. Doesn't give a lot of print interviews, really. Though maybe this is more a description of him in the past.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/art ... le_id=2427
Bookends
Writer: Sally Timms
Paste , Issue 18 (Dec. '05)
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello
by Graeme Thomson [Canongate]
Not the first to attempt an Elvis Costello biography and unlikely to be the last, British music writer Graeme Thomson sticks to a chronological telling of singer/songwriter Elvis Costello’s life and career. Never strictly a punk, but benefiting from the shifting ground rules for rock stardom brought about by punk rock, Costello shot to fame in the late ’70s alongside other misfits like The Stranglers and The Police.
Complicated Shadows follows Costello’s journey from unknown pub-rocker to popstar, his early musical beginnings and his later left-turns into classical composition and jazz, briefly touching on his romantic and family life— with a few druggy, alcoholic tales of “life on the road” thrown in for good measure.
Claiming to have uncovered new details on Costello’s formative years and later recording sessions, Thompson lays out a mass of minor facts and figures in the hope that by pasting all these snippets of information together, the fully formed Elvis will magically appear. Unfortunately, the more-revealing quotes are culled from existing interviews and without the cooperation of Costello or his inner circle.
Costello floats through the book like a ghost in his own house. His prickly, reclusive nature makes it hard to know if there really is anything more behind the curtain than a talented workaholic, but Thomson’s flat, journalistic style and his timeline-styled approach to the musician’s life fail to enliven the story.
Bookends
Writer: Sally Timms
Paste , Issue 18 (Dec. '05)
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello
by Graeme Thomson [Canongate]
Not the first to attempt an Elvis Costello biography and unlikely to be the last, British music writer Graeme Thomson sticks to a chronological telling of singer/songwriter Elvis Costello’s life and career. Never strictly a punk, but benefiting from the shifting ground rules for rock stardom brought about by punk rock, Costello shot to fame in the late ’70s alongside other misfits like The Stranglers and The Police.
Complicated Shadows follows Costello’s journey from unknown pub-rocker to popstar, his early musical beginnings and his later left-turns into classical composition and jazz, briefly touching on his romantic and family life— with a few druggy, alcoholic tales of “life on the road” thrown in for good measure.
Claiming to have uncovered new details on Costello’s formative years and later recording sessions, Thompson lays out a mass of minor facts and figures in the hope that by pasting all these snippets of information together, the fully formed Elvis will magically appear. Unfortunately, the more-revealing quotes are culled from existing interviews and without the cooperation of Costello or his inner circle.
Costello floats through the book like a ghost in his own house. His prickly, reclusive nature makes it hard to know if there really is anything more behind the curtain than a talented workaholic, but Thomson’s flat, journalistic style and his timeline-styled approach to the musician’s life fail to enliven the story.
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/arts ... 0/bopb.xml
Complicated Shadows: the Life and Music of Elvis Costello by Graeme Thomson (Canongate, £8.99)
"I'm not an entertainer. I'm not here to entertain people," rapped out a young Elvis Costello - still Declan MacManus, then - before launching a career that has encompassed balladry and big glasses, collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Burt Bacharach, and even a stint as the new Charles Aznavour on the soundtrack of Notting Hill.
It was not ever thus. Back in the 1970s - the most interesting section of Thomson's thorough if workmanlike survey - MacManus/Costello frothed at the mouth when forced to perform in pancake houses, blazed a trail through the notorious 1977 Live Stiffs tour and earned (nearly) everyone's forgiveness with a stream of albums of hit-and-miss brilliance. The chief pleasure in Complicated Shadows lies largely in remembering those brilliances, and the ragged, strangulated voice that delivered them. "We gotta sound desperate!" he told an early band. He did, and still does. AC
Complicated Shadows: the Life and Music of Elvis Costello by Graeme Thomson (Canongate, £8.99)
"I'm not an entertainer. I'm not here to entertain people," rapped out a young Elvis Costello - still Declan MacManus, then - before launching a career that has encompassed balladry and big glasses, collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Burt Bacharach, and even a stint as the new Charles Aznavour on the soundtrack of Notting Hill.
It was not ever thus. Back in the 1970s - the most interesting section of Thomson's thorough if workmanlike survey - MacManus/Costello frothed at the mouth when forced to perform in pancake houses, blazed a trail through the notorious 1977 Live Stiffs tour and earned (nearly) everyone's forgiveness with a stream of albums of hit-and-miss brilliance. The chief pleasure in Complicated Shadows lies largely in remembering those brilliances, and the ragged, strangulated voice that delivered them. "We gotta sound desperate!" he told an early band. He did, and still does. AC
http://pajamaguy.blogspot.com/2005/12/e ... -king.html
Friday, December 30, 2005
Elvis Is Still King
I just read Graeme Thomson's Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello. Not a bad book, as these things go. Like many such works, where an artist isn't through with his career, the earlier chapters--where his story is most settled--are the best.
I also don't agree with Thomson's taste. He seems to think Elvis's greatest albums are Get Happy!!, Imperial Bedroom and King Of America. To me, his first three--My Aim Is True, This Year's Model and Armed Forces--are still his greatest; if I had to name his top 25 songs (and he's got the depth to make that worhtwhile), about 15 would come from this trio. Meanwhile, "middle" work, like Imperial Bedroom and King Of America may still stand up, but don't seem that much better than other albums of that era, such as Punch The Clock (and intentionally slick album which Costello doesn't have much use for) or Blood & Chocolate. And Thomson thinks less of later stuff, such as Spike (Elvis's best after 1980) and Brutal Youth, than I do.
It can be intriguing, in looking back at a major artist, how not just his work, but our vision of his work, changes through time. Back when he was putting out albums every year, each new song was another exciting provocation--was it a new direction, or a dead end? A few decades (!) down the road, however, it's easier to see how each work fits into an ever-growing portait.
For instance, the first three albums, all released in the late 70s, even though they show change and growth (the second adds his band, the Attractions, and the third is much more heavily produced), now seem the rock--the punk rock--on which he built his early rep, and also against which everything else would be compared. The book demonstrates, though, that he was hardly a punk by nature--he just was in the right place at the right time; he could easily have been a softer, "melodic" songwriter of an earlier era, but punk allowed him to rock up his stuff--a good deal--and concentrate on his "bitter" side. It took him some time to get past the rep, but it's hard to imagine him making the same splash as Declan MacManus.
Then, looking at his next couple albums, the step toward the soulful and stripped down, Get Happy!!, still sounds (to my ears) part of his earlier work, while his next, Trust, is a halting step in new directions which would be more fully explored in the rest of the 80s.
The future of rock and pop seems to be singles, with people dowloading numbers on iPods and MP3s. For that matter, my main way of listening to music since the 80s has been mixed tapes, so some Costello numbers I've heard countless times, others rarely. One good effect such a book can have is to make you pull out old albums (sometimes on vinyl) and give stuff another shot.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
Friday, December 30, 2005
Elvis Is Still King
I just read Graeme Thomson's Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello. Not a bad book, as these things go. Like many such works, where an artist isn't through with his career, the earlier chapters--where his story is most settled--are the best.
I also don't agree with Thomson's taste. He seems to think Elvis's greatest albums are Get Happy!!, Imperial Bedroom and King Of America. To me, his first three--My Aim Is True, This Year's Model and Armed Forces--are still his greatest; if I had to name his top 25 songs (and he's got the depth to make that worhtwhile), about 15 would come from this trio. Meanwhile, "middle" work, like Imperial Bedroom and King Of America may still stand up, but don't seem that much better than other albums of that era, such as Punch The Clock (and intentionally slick album which Costello doesn't have much use for) or Blood & Chocolate. And Thomson thinks less of later stuff, such as Spike (Elvis's best after 1980) and Brutal Youth, than I do.
It can be intriguing, in looking back at a major artist, how not just his work, but our vision of his work, changes through time. Back when he was putting out albums every year, each new song was another exciting provocation--was it a new direction, or a dead end? A few decades (!) down the road, however, it's easier to see how each work fits into an ever-growing portait.
For instance, the first three albums, all released in the late 70s, even though they show change and growth (the second adds his band, the Attractions, and the third is much more heavily produced), now seem the rock--the punk rock--on which he built his early rep, and also against which everything else would be compared. The book demonstrates, though, that he was hardly a punk by nature--he just was in the right place at the right time; he could easily have been a softer, "melodic" songwriter of an earlier era, but punk allowed him to rock up his stuff--a good deal--and concentrate on his "bitter" side. It took him some time to get past the rep, but it's hard to imagine him making the same splash as Declan MacManus.
Then, looking at his next couple albums, the step toward the soulful and stripped down, Get Happy!!, still sounds (to my ears) part of his earlier work, while his next, Trust, is a halting step in new directions which would be more fully explored in the rest of the 80s.
The future of rock and pop seems to be singles, with people dowloading numbers on iPods and MP3s. For that matter, my main way of listening to music since the 80s has been mixed tapes, so some Costello numbers I've heard countless times, others rarely. One good effect such a book can have is to make you pull out old albums (sometimes on vinyl) and give stuff another shot.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
-
Otis Westinghouse
- Posts: 8856
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
- Location: The theatre of dreams
Checked out the paperback the other day, and whilst my amendment regarding the inaccurate put down of NME's Paul Rambali for reviewing Get Happy!! and stating that it was just like a classic Motown LP in terms of leading off with the single, among other things, stating that he seemed 'for some reason' to have confused sides 1 and side 2 (when of course the original LP was entirely ambiguous, the sleeve had it Rambali's way, the label was in line with the future CD), has been taken into account, it has been poorly resolved. It acknowledges the ambiguity now (Thomson obviously didn't have the vinyl in his collection), but huffily maintains that Rambali was proved wrong by the later CD release! How was he wrong if it was deliberately ambiguous? I'm 100% with Rambali in terms of the 60s approach and that the LP works better that way, and would side with the more overt public message of the sleeve over the more obscure issue of the label, regardless of the disambiguating decision that was forced upon the CD. Poor show by Thomson in misamending and by canongate for poor editorial judgement. I'll have to write another letter to Canongate!
Trivia question: was the cassette the same as the vinyl, and how did they fit 20 songs on the back flap, or was the tracklisting only on the inside?
Trivia question: was the cassette the same as the vinyl, and how did they fit 20 songs on the back flap, or was the tracklisting only on the inside?
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
-
bambooneedle
- Posts: 4533
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:02 pm
- Location: a few thousand miles south east of Zanzibar
Wasn't Rambali wrong for assuming he knew which was side 1 if that was deliberately ambiguous? The CD doesn't have a side 1 or 2 (for Thomson to say Rambali was wrong on that count) but it does acknowledge the original ambiguity in contradicting the running order of the LP sleeve, so in a way you could say it proves Rambali wrong.
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index ... s_id=49480
Ron Wynn, rwynn@nashvillecitypaper.com
April 28, 2006
( extract)
Graeme Thomson’s Complicated Shadows — The Life and Music of Elvis Costello (Canongate) serves as the most thorough dissection done on both Costello’s work and his sometimes prickly personality.
Thomson leaps right in at the beginning, covering the ugly controversy that erupted in 1979 over racially charged (some would say overtly racist) comments Costello made about James Brown and Ray Charles. Rather than spend a lot of time in qualitative or explanatory mode, Thomson acknowledges that these remarks were indefensible, but maintains that they aren’t indicative of either Costello’s true feelings or personality.
He also blames Stephen Stills for escalating and provoking the situation and the American media for refusing to cover it in anything other than reactionary mode. Whether you buy that explanation or not, it sets the stage for a freewheeling look at an undeniably skilled, complex and often extremely impulsive figure.
The same flaws that make Costello a personality time bomb also make him a compositional genius, and Thomson lays out in detail the many controversies and debatable moves he’s made throughout his life. It’s also interesting to read the views of those closest to Costello, from his current wife Diana Krall to members of his longtime backing band the Attractions (some of whom aren’t exactly members of the fan club) as well as former wife and comrade Cait O’Riordan, classmates, participants in his earliest bands Flip City and Rusty, and producers who’ve had their own encounters with Costello in the studio, both pro and con.
Complicated Shadows doesn’t so much offer answers as it illuminates situations and events. It’s impossible for any fair-minded person not to acknowledge Costello’s musical and writing qualities, but it is easy on any number of occasions to avidly dislike him. Thomson has compiled the type of volume that’s valuable to both admirers and detractors, and is extensive in its praise, but also accurate and fair in its criticism.
Ron Wynn, rwynn@nashvillecitypaper.com
April 28, 2006
( extract)
Graeme Thomson’s Complicated Shadows — The Life and Music of Elvis Costello (Canongate) serves as the most thorough dissection done on both Costello’s work and his sometimes prickly personality.
Thomson leaps right in at the beginning, covering the ugly controversy that erupted in 1979 over racially charged (some would say overtly racist) comments Costello made about James Brown and Ray Charles. Rather than spend a lot of time in qualitative or explanatory mode, Thomson acknowledges that these remarks were indefensible, but maintains that they aren’t indicative of either Costello’s true feelings or personality.
He also blames Stephen Stills for escalating and provoking the situation and the American media for refusing to cover it in anything other than reactionary mode. Whether you buy that explanation or not, it sets the stage for a freewheeling look at an undeniably skilled, complex and often extremely impulsive figure.
The same flaws that make Costello a personality time bomb also make him a compositional genius, and Thomson lays out in detail the many controversies and debatable moves he’s made throughout his life. It’s also interesting to read the views of those closest to Costello, from his current wife Diana Krall to members of his longtime backing band the Attractions (some of whom aren’t exactly members of the fan club) as well as former wife and comrade Cait O’Riordan, classmates, participants in his earliest bands Flip City and Rusty, and producers who’ve had their own encounters with Costello in the studio, both pro and con.
Complicated Shadows doesn’t so much offer answers as it illuminates situations and events. It’s impossible for any fair-minded person not to acknowledge Costello’s musical and writing qualities, but it is easy on any number of occasions to avidly dislike him. Thomson has compiled the type of volume that’s valuable to both admirers and detractors, and is extensive in its praise, but also accurate and fair in its criticism.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/s ... 49,00.html
Elvis Costello
• Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello, by Graeme Thomson (Canongate Books, $24) Grade: A
This book sat unread for a while because, upon opening it, I found that it kicked off with the tired, sensationalized story of how Costello used a racial slur in a drunken rage in a hotel bar in 1979. Any author revisiting that quarter-century-old incident as a jumping-off point is certain to be bad news.
Fortunately, however, that's the only error in judgment made by Thomson (a British writer for the great magazine Mojo). You can't judge a book by its cover - or apparently, by its intro.
While Costello declined to cooperate with the book, a great number of musicians who worked with him did, giving great insight and detail into the crafting of the songs and albums. Former Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas is a major source in parts of the book, but the author is savvy enough to not let the sacked musician's bitterness tinge the proceedings, sticking instead to information about the music.
Costello's personal life plays a huge role in the book, but not in an exploitive way; his early songs of twisted relationships, betrayal and insecurity gradually gave way to much more wizened, mature pieces of work as life went on for him.
Thomson's research is superb; using the interviews and sources available (including Costello's own brutally honest, voluminous liner notes for the most recent reissues of his catalog and myriad bootlegs), he weaves Costello's personal, professional, musical and business lives together with a clarity that no one has ever approached. MARK BROWN
Elvis Costello
• Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello, by Graeme Thomson (Canongate Books, $24) Grade: A
This book sat unread for a while because, upon opening it, I found that it kicked off with the tired, sensationalized story of how Costello used a racial slur in a drunken rage in a hotel bar in 1979. Any author revisiting that quarter-century-old incident as a jumping-off point is certain to be bad news.
Fortunately, however, that's the only error in judgment made by Thomson (a British writer for the great magazine Mojo). You can't judge a book by its cover - or apparently, by its intro.
While Costello declined to cooperate with the book, a great number of musicians who worked with him did, giving great insight and detail into the crafting of the songs and albums. Former Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas is a major source in parts of the book, but the author is savvy enough to not let the sacked musician's bitterness tinge the proceedings, sticking instead to information about the music.
Costello's personal life plays a huge role in the book, but not in an exploitive way; his early songs of twisted relationships, betrayal and insecurity gradually gave way to much more wizened, mature pieces of work as life went on for him.
Thomson's research is superb; using the interviews and sources available (including Costello's own brutally honest, voluminous liner notes for the most recent reissues of his catalog and myriad bootlegs), he weaves Costello's personal, professional, musical and business lives together with a clarity that no one has ever approached. MARK BROWN
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
U.K.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shot-Man-Reno-H ... 959&sr=1-7
U.S.
http://www.amazon.com/Shot-Man-Reno-His ... 134&sr=8-1
I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease, and General Misadventure, as Related in Popular Song
by Graeme Thomson
Continuum International Publishing Group (Aug 2008)
Ask the gangsta rap devotee. Ask the grizzled blues fanatic and the bearded folk fan. Ask the goth and the indie kid.
Ask and they will all tell you the same thing: death and popular music have forever danced hand-in-hand in funereal waltz time. The pop charts and the majority of radio stations' playlists may conspire to convince anyone listening that the world spins on its axis to the tune of "I love you, you love me" and traditional matters of the heart. The rest of us know that we live in a world where red roses will one day become lilies and that death is the motor that drives the greatest and most exhilarating music of all.
"Death music" is not merely a byword for bookish solemnity, or the glorification of murder, drugs and guns. Over the course of the last hundred years it has also been about teenage girls weeping over their high school boyfriend's fatal car wreck; natural disasters sweeping whole communities away; the ever-evolving threat of disease; changing attitudes to old age; exhortations to suicide; the perfect playlist for a funeral; and the thorny question of what happens after the fat lady ceases to sing. Which means that for every "Black Angel's Death Song" there is a "Candle in the Wind," and for every "Cop Killer" there is "The Living Years." Death, like music, is a unifying force. There is something for every taste and inclination, from murderous vengeance to camp sentimentality and everything in between.
Drawing upon original and unique interviews with artists such as Mick Jagger, Richard Thompson, Ice-T, Will Oldham and Neil Finn among many others, I Shot a Man in Reno explores how popular music deals with death, and how it documents the changing reality of what death means as one grows older. It's as transfixing as a train wreck, and you won't be able to put it down.
As an epilogue, I Shot A Man In Reno presents the reader with the 50 greatest death songs of all time, complete with a brief rationale for each, acting as a primer for the morbidly curious listener.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shot-Man-Reno-H ... 959&sr=1-7
U.S.
http://www.amazon.com/Shot-Man-Reno-His ... 134&sr=8-1
I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease, and General Misadventure, as Related in Popular Song
by Graeme Thomson
Continuum International Publishing Group (Aug 2008)
Ask the gangsta rap devotee. Ask the grizzled blues fanatic and the bearded folk fan. Ask the goth and the indie kid.
Ask and they will all tell you the same thing: death and popular music have forever danced hand-in-hand in funereal waltz time. The pop charts and the majority of radio stations' playlists may conspire to convince anyone listening that the world spins on its axis to the tune of "I love you, you love me" and traditional matters of the heart. The rest of us know that we live in a world where red roses will one day become lilies and that death is the motor that drives the greatest and most exhilarating music of all.
"Death music" is not merely a byword for bookish solemnity, or the glorification of murder, drugs and guns. Over the course of the last hundred years it has also been about teenage girls weeping over their high school boyfriend's fatal car wreck; natural disasters sweeping whole communities away; the ever-evolving threat of disease; changing attitudes to old age; exhortations to suicide; the perfect playlist for a funeral; and the thorny question of what happens after the fat lady ceases to sing. Which means that for every "Black Angel's Death Song" there is a "Candle in the Wind," and for every "Cop Killer" there is "The Living Years." Death, like music, is a unifying force. There is something for every taste and inclination, from murderous vengeance to camp sentimentality and everything in between.
Drawing upon original and unique interviews with artists such as Mick Jagger, Richard Thompson, Ice-T, Will Oldham and Neil Finn among many others, I Shot a Man in Reno explores how popular music deals with death, and how it documents the changing reality of what death means as one grows older. It's as transfixing as a train wreck, and you won't be able to put it down.
As an epilogue, I Shot A Man In Reno presents the reader with the 50 greatest death songs of all time, complete with a brief rationale for each, acting as a primer for the morbidly curious listener.
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
Graeme e-mails -
Hi John,
Hope you're well. As one of the internet's most dedicated travellers, I
thought I'd inform you about the existence of my new blog, which is
based
around the themes of my new book, I Shot a Man in Reno.
It's early days, but feel free to drop in, make a few comments and
suggestions and please - spread the word any which way you choose!
Hope all is well with you and Momofuku is hitting your Elvis spot. It's
working for me.
G
http://ishotamaninrenobook.blogspot.com/
Hi John,
Hope you're well. As one of the internet's most dedicated travellers, I
thought I'd inform you about the existence of my new blog, which is
based
around the themes of my new book, I Shot a Man in Reno.
It's early days, but feel free to drop in, make a few comments and
suggestions and please - spread the word any which way you choose!
Hope all is well with you and Momofuku is hitting your Elvis spot. It's
working for me.
G
http://ishotamaninrenobook.blogspot.com/
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
Thank you John! I'm very anxious to read the book. The blog looks like its off to a very good and thought-provoking start.
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
These are my reactions to a review copy of I Shot A Man In Reno -
'I can now pick out a reference in a song to murder, suicide, cancer and nuclear apocalypse blindfold at twelve paces...for most people this is not a useful skill...for them, death is only a low hum in the background'
After reading this among Graeme Thomson's conclusions to his dissection of 'death' songs you're likely to hear them roaring at you from all quarters. In a thorough examination of the 'popular song' genre it is fascinating to discover how widely the subject of death is covered. Working his way, roughly, through the 20th century , from 1920's New Orleans to Gangsta Rap and all points in between, we are introduced to a web of interwoven artists and songs. Reasonings and objectives are teased out and serve to make you listen to the songs all the more closely.
At times it can be a little demanding , as singer after singer and song after song is referenced. Perseverance is, however, rewarded with cogently expressed insights to all concerned. All the greats are there - Bob Dylan,Nick Drake,Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Neil Young etc. The more obscure are mentioned too , including , new to me, Alasdair Roberts.
It's all delivered with the wit and accessibility that characterised his biographies of Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson. Teenage 'emo' types are chided for their , usually, safe domesticity in the line 'Death by duvet'. Songs about dead rock stars are summarised as being about ' our beloved heroes, united by a fondness for Class A drugs, alcohol abuse and flying in very small planes'. From many interviews - including Mick Jagger, Will Oldham, Nick Cave - he presents some perceptive comments. Explaining why he thinks his fans like his 'murder songs' Richard Thompson says 'They almost like to be unsettled'. Paul McCartney talks('It sounds sounds a bit goody-goody, so I don't normally tell too many people')about how his teenage visits to elderly people contributed to 'Eleanor Rigby'.
This isn't a dispassionate account. Graeme isn't afraid to tackle some sacred cows. Though he writes enthusiastically about Dylan songs, including 'Hattie Carroll', he also comments ' This was back when, lyrically speaking, Dylan owned up to possessing a conscience; he quickly discovered it was a burden and has rarely displayed one since.' Similarly he allows Will Oldham to speak at length about his distaste for the 'beautiful loser' mystique that surrounds Townes Van Zandt. Led Zeppelin are dismissed as 'extended silliness' with an 'over-inflated sense of significance'.
It's all provocative stuff , providing material for many a discussion. It's a resolutely male perspective explained , perhaps, in a comment on a poll of funeral songs. The lack of female songs is , he suggests, because '..it's more tempting to surmise that women would simply rather not contemplate their own demise in such vainglorious terms'. Straight away I can think of one omission (Laura Cantrell's 'Bees') but that's the kind of reaction that this book should inspire.
An excellent read, not just for music fans but anyone interested in contemporary culture.
'I can now pick out a reference in a song to murder, suicide, cancer and nuclear apocalypse blindfold at twelve paces...for most people this is not a useful skill...for them, death is only a low hum in the background'
After reading this among Graeme Thomson's conclusions to his dissection of 'death' songs you're likely to hear them roaring at you from all quarters. In a thorough examination of the 'popular song' genre it is fascinating to discover how widely the subject of death is covered. Working his way, roughly, through the 20th century , from 1920's New Orleans to Gangsta Rap and all points in between, we are introduced to a web of interwoven artists and songs. Reasonings and objectives are teased out and serve to make you listen to the songs all the more closely.
At times it can be a little demanding , as singer after singer and song after song is referenced. Perseverance is, however, rewarded with cogently expressed insights to all concerned. All the greats are there - Bob Dylan,Nick Drake,Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Neil Young etc. The more obscure are mentioned too , including , new to me, Alasdair Roberts.
It's all delivered with the wit and accessibility that characterised his biographies of Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson. Teenage 'emo' types are chided for their , usually, safe domesticity in the line 'Death by duvet'. Songs about dead rock stars are summarised as being about ' our beloved heroes, united by a fondness for Class A drugs, alcohol abuse and flying in very small planes'. From many interviews - including Mick Jagger, Will Oldham, Nick Cave - he presents some perceptive comments. Explaining why he thinks his fans like his 'murder songs' Richard Thompson says 'They almost like to be unsettled'. Paul McCartney talks('It sounds sounds a bit goody-goody, so I don't normally tell too many people')about how his teenage visits to elderly people contributed to 'Eleanor Rigby'.
This isn't a dispassionate account. Graeme isn't afraid to tackle some sacred cows. Though he writes enthusiastically about Dylan songs, including 'Hattie Carroll', he also comments ' This was back when, lyrically speaking, Dylan owned up to possessing a conscience; he quickly discovered it was a burden and has rarely displayed one since.' Similarly he allows Will Oldham to speak at length about his distaste for the 'beautiful loser' mystique that surrounds Townes Van Zandt. Led Zeppelin are dismissed as 'extended silliness' with an 'over-inflated sense of significance'.
It's all provocative stuff , providing material for many a discussion. It's a resolutely male perspective explained , perhaps, in a comment on a poll of funeral songs. The lack of female songs is , he suggests, because '..it's more tempting to surmise that women would simply rather not contemplate their own demise in such vainglorious terms'. Straight away I can think of one omission (Laura Cantrell's 'Bees') but that's the kind of reaction that this book should inspire.
An excellent read, not just for music fans but anyone interested in contemporary culture.
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
Graeme is guest blogging at Powell's Books this week -
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=3715#more-3715
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=3715#more-3715
-
Bad Ambassador
- Posts: 244
- Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 9:39 am
- Location: http://justplayed. wordpress.com/
- Contact:
Re:
Just picked up a cheap copy of the paperback from a remainder shop, hoping to read the afterword and found that bit of paper in the front. The link now doesn't work - anyone have the text that the old link went to?johnfoyle wrote:In gloomy , wet Belfast for the day I see a copy of the paperback of 'Shadows in Waterstones.
I flick through it looking for the update. However there's no sign of it. Then I see a piece of paper insdie the front cover. It notes that Graeme wrote an update but ' unintentionally it was left out of this edition' . It will be in future editions , the note continues , but for now can be seen at this link -
http://www.canongate.net/ComplicatedShadows/Afterword
Otherwise it is a rather cheap version of the U.K. hardback. Photos that were in colour in that edition are reprodeuced in murky black 'n white. A rather gummy , stiff spine make the book difficult to open without splitting the book in pieces.
Oh , well , I still get a thank you in the foreword so it's not all bad !
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
Graeme recently wrote this about the Costello biography -
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=3710#more-3710
(extract)
It's almost exactly four years since I was handed a finished copy of my first book. It happened to be my birthday, which I know, through personal experience, is rarely a good omen. The book looked absolutely wonderful, beautifully bound in hardback with two glossy plate sections. The thrill — and it was a mighty big thrill, let me tell you — lasted around 40 seconds, until, leafing through, I spotted the first typo (one that I had consistently pointed out to my editor and which I'd been promised had been changed. And it had been changed, just not correctly). Immediately, all that elation fizzled into impotent fury. About nine months later, I was sent the paperback copy of the same book, and discovered that the 2,000-word update I had written for the revised edition had been omitted entirely through an act of almost heroic incompetence. Believe me, these are the kinds of things that can spoil forever the anticipation of sending your book out into the world.
So he probably won't mind if I paste those 2,000 words here -
AFTERWORD
The Delivery Man proved a success on a number of levels. Having toured The Imposters into fearsome shape over the two-and-a-half years since the recording of When I Was Cruel, Elvis used the album to mark the coming of age of the group in the studio; they even looked like a band on the inner sleeve artwork. The record itself was full of superb ensemble performances, the sound a thick, warm broth of soul, country and old school R&B inflections. Many of the songs had originally been written as part of the song-cycle Elvis had been developing since 1999, concerning three women - Vivien, Geraldine and Ivy - in a small American town, whose lives are impacted upon by the arrival of Abel, a mysterious delivery man. In interviews, Elvis revealed that Abel was based on the criminal character from his song ‘Hidden Shame’, and was contemplating murder. It was a fleetingly intriguing idea, but there was little of substance to be gleaned from any of this: Elvis
pursued the thin plot parameters with little enthusiasm for coherency (although he promised that the story would develop over his next few records), and ultimately the record succeeded not on the strength of the storytelling, but on the songwriting and performances.
He later claimed the album was recorded in a weekend, which may have been pushing the boundaries of credulity slightly. But only just. The songs had been bedded-in on stage and were certainly laid down quickly, to their benefit. Despite the stab at a concept, The Delivery Man sounded like Elvis’s least mannered record in almost twenty years, as though he had simply scooped up a handful of strong, simple songs and played them through with a band intuitively attuned to his needs.
It was a winning formula, and the result sounded almost entirely free of artifice and forethought. The violent ‘Button My Lip’ was his most wilfully dissonant opener since ‘Uncomplicated’, while both ‘Bedlam’ and ‘Needle Time’ - the latter featuring the almost parodic lyric, ‘I wish that I didn’t hate you/Least not as much as I do’ - were coruscating. The clutch of simple ballads generally delivered. The ominous ‘Country Darkness’ and ‘Heart Shaped Bruise’, with Emmylou Harris adding her trademark keening harmonies to the latter, were genuinely affecting; the title track and rather plodding ‘Nothing Clings Like Ivy’ a little less so. Lucinda Williams’ caterwauling contribution to the rollicking ‘There’s A Story In Your Voice’ divided listeners, but on balance probably did little to add to a great song. Elsewhere, rarely had Elvis’s quest to write a classic soul ballad of the calibre of Dan Penn’s imperious
‘The Dark End Of The Street’ - a song that was cut at the sessions but eventually left off the record - been so transparent. He only just failed this time around, lacking both the lightness of touch and the vocal prowess to pull it off. However, the quavering ‘Either Side Of The Same Town’ came close, helped by an exemplary performance from The Imposters. ‘The Judgement’ was less successful, descending into ~he same overwrought melodrama which marred Solomon Burke’s version. Coming immediately before the short, simple reading of ‘The Scarlet Tide’ which closed the album, it ensured that a record of frequent fireworks ended with something of a damp fizzle. ‘The Scarlet Tide’ was clearly recorded as a quiet protest against the war in Iraq, but its inclusion also begged the question of why Elvis seemed unable to leave alone material written specifically for other artists.
Such relatively minor gripes aside, it was a marvellously rich, fresh record, and the reviews were deservedly glowing. ‘Songs terrific, band sensational, and Costello’s voice late-developing way beyond that pinched whine into an instrument of substance and character,’ said Mojo in a five-star review. ‘There is a lot to like and even love,’ was the Observer verdict. ‘Absent is any straining at theme or grandeur; there is no studio trickery. These are fine songs - some sprung on modish rhythms, others dipped in country or blues - and possessed of tunes with the nuisance power to follow you around the house.’ The US notices were also effusive. ‘Costello’s latest is a smart, hook-laden album that, without a doubt, is the best thing he’s done in ages,’ concluded the Washington Post review. ‘Not coincidentally, it’s also one of the best things you’re likely to hear all year.’ Rolling Stone noted the songs’ ‘depth, their
incisive mapping of the places where love, obsession and anger intersect,’ in the process of awarding the record four stars. There were literally dozens of critiques along similarly gushing lines, including ones from such unlikely sources as Heat and Fox News. The old news, however, was that fistfuls of great reviews wouldn’t prevent the album being a major commercial flop. Elvis’s last contracted record with Universal, under the sub-heading of Lost Highway, The Delivery Man was promoted grudgingly, with the net result that it barely scraped the Top 75 in the UK, and reached No. 40 in the US. There was so little expected from a planned CD single of the bouncy ‘Monkey To Man’ - which only a few years previously might reasonably have been expected to crack the Top 30 in the UK - that it was eventually scrapped prior to release, quickly assuming almost mythic status.
Il Sogno also sold modestly, which was to be expected. Perhaps less predictably, it also fared well with the critics. Elvis’s ballet score was given a fair hearing among both pop and classical reviewers, although in interviews Elvis still seemed to be railing against a - largely imaginary - caucus of critical opinion which apparently sneered at his attempts to rise above his designated pop role to write a classical piece. He compared them hysterically to ‘paedophiles’, oblivious to the fact that most Critics had been paying enough attention to long ago abandon any preconceived notions of what kind of music Elvis Costello should be making; in reality, it was Elvis himself who was proving bunkered, holding onto lazy reference points of an ignorant and intolerant media. Ii Sogno was overwhelmingly judged fairly upon its own merits, and was impressive enough to withstand close critical scrutiny. ‘You’d have to go back to George Gershwin to find a
composer-performer undertaking a project as ambitious as Il Sogno,’ said the Boston Globe’s positive review, and many shared the enthusiasm.
*
There was no tour to support the initial release of The Delivery Man, which probably didn’t aid early sales. Instead, Elvis embarked on stand-alone concerts in Memphis - returning to the Hi-Tone Café for two shows on 17 September - and at the Austin City Limits Festival on 19 and 20 September. The sole European show came at Glasgow Barrowland on 6 October. Emmylou Harris guested in Memphis and Austin, and Elvis threw some lovely surprises into all the sets: ‘No Dancing’, ‘Blame It On Cain’, ‘High Fidelity’, ‘Next Time ‘Round’, Psycho’ and ‘How To Be Dumb’, but - in Glasgow at least - there was a sense of expectations being left slightly unfulfilled. ‘As predictable as it was special,’ reckoned the Herald. ‘This treat was just a bit flat.’ The Scotsman concurred: ‘Indulgences staggered in and came close to derailing the latter stages of the concert.’ The Guardian took a different tack, applauding what it perceived as
Elvis’s re-engagement with contemporary social issues in light of the continuing war in Iraq and the upcoming US presidential elections of early November 2004. ‘A spontaneous moment is the night’s funniest, as he introduces the Darwinesque ‘Monkey To Man’ by suggesting: “We should never... in any country. . . vote for anybody who is a disgrace to the theory of evolution [a reference to US President George W. Bush],” wrote Dave Simpson. ‘A spectacular ‘Shipbuilding’ equally mocks any notion that his political fire has gone Out. With every line sung by the crowd, the song feels like a succession of hammer blows against any case for war.’
Despite being unable to vote in America, Elvis railed vociferously against Bush in the lead up to the elections, appearing at an awareness-raising benefit concert at the Viper Rooms in Los Angeles on 22 October, less than a fortnight before polling day. His voice was rough as he tore through a full set which included such pointed titles as ‘Waiting For The End Of The World’ and ‘Alibi’, while Lucinda Williams joined in - apparently spontaneously - on ‘There’s A Story In Your Voice’.
The tour proper kicked off in Australia, with Elvis and The Imposters headlining the ‘A Day On The Green’ festival in Hunter Valley, New South Wales on 20 November. The concert took place in a vineyard, and what the young Elvis Costello would have made of his older incarnation playing to an audience lounging on picnic blankets and sipping the local Merlot was anyone’s guess. He threw ‘Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down’ into the set in honour of his surroundings, while ‘Sittin’ And Thinkin” also made a rare appearance among the usual festival favourites and The Delivery Man tracks. ‘Bedlam’ was introduced as ‘our upcoming Christmas single’. ‘A truly great performance’, concluded the Australian News. From Hunter Valley, Elvis and the band cut through more festival and theatre dates in Australia before moving on to Japan, where the sets opened up a little: Possession’, ‘Green Shirt’, ‘Just About Glad’, ‘So Like Candy’,
‘All This Useless Beauty’ and a closing ‘I Want You’ found their way into the Tokyo set on 14 December. After winding things up a week before Christmas, Elvis then resumed touring in Europe in January, finally hitting the UK in the second week of February before rolling into the States in March.
As well as the touring schedule, Elvis had other considerations and obligations into 2005. January saw the release on vinyl of the The Clarksdale Sessions, a rough and ready, seven-song mini album culled from Elvis’s single session with the Imposters in Clarksdale, Mississippi the previous April. Featuring alternate versions of the title track from The Delivery Man, as well as ‘Country Darkness’, ‘Needle Time’ and ‘The Scarlet Tide’, the album also included covers of Dave Bartholomew’s ‘The Monkey’ - the original inspiration for ‘Monkey To Man’ - and ‘The Dark End Of The Street’. There was just one new Costello original on show, the stately ‘In Another Room’.
At the other end of the artistic spectrum was The Secret Arias, a chamber opera which Elvis had written especially for the Royal Danish Theatre’s new opera house at Holmen in Copenhagen as part of a series of works commissioned to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, and which explored Andersen’s infatuation with Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind. Also on the agenda was the promised expansion - and, presumably, conclusion - of The Delivery Man narrative, while doubtless there were already half-a-dozen other projects in stages somewhere between a seed in his brain and active pre-planning.
However, as a marker of precisely where Elvis Costello resided in the first decade of the new millennium, the twin release of rock ‘n’ roll and orchestral works was as accurate a barometer as anything ever really could be. As always with Elvis, it was difficult to foresee where he might be a further year along the road, beyond predicting that it would probably be somewhere interesting, a path worth following him down. His sometime collaborator Richard Harvey concedes that Elvis has ‘a quarter eye on posterity’, while other colleagues have muttered about him being afflicted by ‘genius syndrome’, the root symptom of which is an apparent compulsion to be recognised as such by his peers. Certainly, there remains an overwhelming sense that he is an artist whose almost pathological eclecticism and fearsome drive were born of- and thereafter have been partially perpetuated by - a keen awareness of his own legacy, a desire to ensure that his musical
obituary will be as monolithic and far-reaching as humanly possible. That said, one should never underestimate his genuine love of music.
Elvis may have turned fifty back in August 2004, but there appeared to be no blunting of the appetite for musical discovery which has propelled him through a professional career now approaching a tenure of three decades, with almost unfathomable twists and turns. A complex character, as contradictory in his impulses and desires as any true artist worth their salt must be; as driven, controlling, and frequently as coldly calculated as the breadth of his ambition demands, Elvis has pushed himself and those around him harder than most to get to this place; a place where he can follow the never-ceasing music in his head to wherever it leads; a place where the boundaries meet, fuse and eventually evaporate.
‘I have to go with what’s true to me, and I think the smart people appreciate and respect that I’m doing it for sincere reasons and that I’m not being perverse,’ he said in 2003. ‘I really believe that it’s all the result of curiosity and love. There’s a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There’s a time in life for Claude Debussy. There’s a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There’s a time in life for Destiny’s Child. All of these things have their moment.’
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=3710#more-3710
(extract)
It's almost exactly four years since I was handed a finished copy of my first book. It happened to be my birthday, which I know, through personal experience, is rarely a good omen. The book looked absolutely wonderful, beautifully bound in hardback with two glossy plate sections. The thrill — and it was a mighty big thrill, let me tell you — lasted around 40 seconds, until, leafing through, I spotted the first typo (one that I had consistently pointed out to my editor and which I'd been promised had been changed. And it had been changed, just not correctly). Immediately, all that elation fizzled into impotent fury. About nine months later, I was sent the paperback copy of the same book, and discovered that the 2,000-word update I had written for the revised edition had been omitted entirely through an act of almost heroic incompetence. Believe me, these are the kinds of things that can spoil forever the anticipation of sending your book out into the world.
So he probably won't mind if I paste those 2,000 words here -
AFTERWORD
The Delivery Man proved a success on a number of levels. Having toured The Imposters into fearsome shape over the two-and-a-half years since the recording of When I Was Cruel, Elvis used the album to mark the coming of age of the group in the studio; they even looked like a band on the inner sleeve artwork. The record itself was full of superb ensemble performances, the sound a thick, warm broth of soul, country and old school R&B inflections. Many of the songs had originally been written as part of the song-cycle Elvis had been developing since 1999, concerning three women - Vivien, Geraldine and Ivy - in a small American town, whose lives are impacted upon by the arrival of Abel, a mysterious delivery man. In interviews, Elvis revealed that Abel was based on the criminal character from his song ‘Hidden Shame’, and was contemplating murder. It was a fleetingly intriguing idea, but there was little of substance to be gleaned from any of this: Elvis
pursued the thin plot parameters with little enthusiasm for coherency (although he promised that the story would develop over his next few records), and ultimately the record succeeded not on the strength of the storytelling, but on the songwriting and performances.
He later claimed the album was recorded in a weekend, which may have been pushing the boundaries of credulity slightly. But only just. The songs had been bedded-in on stage and were certainly laid down quickly, to their benefit. Despite the stab at a concept, The Delivery Man sounded like Elvis’s least mannered record in almost twenty years, as though he had simply scooped up a handful of strong, simple songs and played them through with a band intuitively attuned to his needs.
It was a winning formula, and the result sounded almost entirely free of artifice and forethought. The violent ‘Button My Lip’ was his most wilfully dissonant opener since ‘Uncomplicated’, while both ‘Bedlam’ and ‘Needle Time’ - the latter featuring the almost parodic lyric, ‘I wish that I didn’t hate you/Least not as much as I do’ - were coruscating. The clutch of simple ballads generally delivered. The ominous ‘Country Darkness’ and ‘Heart Shaped Bruise’, with Emmylou Harris adding her trademark keening harmonies to the latter, were genuinely affecting; the title track and rather plodding ‘Nothing Clings Like Ivy’ a little less so. Lucinda Williams’ caterwauling contribution to the rollicking ‘There’s A Story In Your Voice’ divided listeners, but on balance probably did little to add to a great song. Elsewhere, rarely had Elvis’s quest to write a classic soul ballad of the calibre of Dan Penn’s imperious
‘The Dark End Of The Street’ - a song that was cut at the sessions but eventually left off the record - been so transparent. He only just failed this time around, lacking both the lightness of touch and the vocal prowess to pull it off. However, the quavering ‘Either Side Of The Same Town’ came close, helped by an exemplary performance from The Imposters. ‘The Judgement’ was less successful, descending into ~he same overwrought melodrama which marred Solomon Burke’s version. Coming immediately before the short, simple reading of ‘The Scarlet Tide’ which closed the album, it ensured that a record of frequent fireworks ended with something of a damp fizzle. ‘The Scarlet Tide’ was clearly recorded as a quiet protest against the war in Iraq, but its inclusion also begged the question of why Elvis seemed unable to leave alone material written specifically for other artists.
Such relatively minor gripes aside, it was a marvellously rich, fresh record, and the reviews were deservedly glowing. ‘Songs terrific, band sensational, and Costello’s voice late-developing way beyond that pinched whine into an instrument of substance and character,’ said Mojo in a five-star review. ‘There is a lot to like and even love,’ was the Observer verdict. ‘Absent is any straining at theme or grandeur; there is no studio trickery. These are fine songs - some sprung on modish rhythms, others dipped in country or blues - and possessed of tunes with the nuisance power to follow you around the house.’ The US notices were also effusive. ‘Costello’s latest is a smart, hook-laden album that, without a doubt, is the best thing he’s done in ages,’ concluded the Washington Post review. ‘Not coincidentally, it’s also one of the best things you’re likely to hear all year.’ Rolling Stone noted the songs’ ‘depth, their
incisive mapping of the places where love, obsession and anger intersect,’ in the process of awarding the record four stars. There were literally dozens of critiques along similarly gushing lines, including ones from such unlikely sources as Heat and Fox News. The old news, however, was that fistfuls of great reviews wouldn’t prevent the album being a major commercial flop. Elvis’s last contracted record with Universal, under the sub-heading of Lost Highway, The Delivery Man was promoted grudgingly, with the net result that it barely scraped the Top 75 in the UK, and reached No. 40 in the US. There was so little expected from a planned CD single of the bouncy ‘Monkey To Man’ - which only a few years previously might reasonably have been expected to crack the Top 30 in the UK - that it was eventually scrapped prior to release, quickly assuming almost mythic status.
Il Sogno also sold modestly, which was to be expected. Perhaps less predictably, it also fared well with the critics. Elvis’s ballet score was given a fair hearing among both pop and classical reviewers, although in interviews Elvis still seemed to be railing against a - largely imaginary - caucus of critical opinion which apparently sneered at his attempts to rise above his designated pop role to write a classical piece. He compared them hysterically to ‘paedophiles’, oblivious to the fact that most Critics had been paying enough attention to long ago abandon any preconceived notions of what kind of music Elvis Costello should be making; in reality, it was Elvis himself who was proving bunkered, holding onto lazy reference points of an ignorant and intolerant media. Ii Sogno was overwhelmingly judged fairly upon its own merits, and was impressive enough to withstand close critical scrutiny. ‘You’d have to go back to George Gershwin to find a
composer-performer undertaking a project as ambitious as Il Sogno,’ said the Boston Globe’s positive review, and many shared the enthusiasm.
*
There was no tour to support the initial release of The Delivery Man, which probably didn’t aid early sales. Instead, Elvis embarked on stand-alone concerts in Memphis - returning to the Hi-Tone Café for two shows on 17 September - and at the Austin City Limits Festival on 19 and 20 September. The sole European show came at Glasgow Barrowland on 6 October. Emmylou Harris guested in Memphis and Austin, and Elvis threw some lovely surprises into all the sets: ‘No Dancing’, ‘Blame It On Cain’, ‘High Fidelity’, ‘Next Time ‘Round’, Psycho’ and ‘How To Be Dumb’, but - in Glasgow at least - there was a sense of expectations being left slightly unfulfilled. ‘As predictable as it was special,’ reckoned the Herald. ‘This treat was just a bit flat.’ The Scotsman concurred: ‘Indulgences staggered in and came close to derailing the latter stages of the concert.’ The Guardian took a different tack, applauding what it perceived as
Elvis’s re-engagement with contemporary social issues in light of the continuing war in Iraq and the upcoming US presidential elections of early November 2004. ‘A spontaneous moment is the night’s funniest, as he introduces the Darwinesque ‘Monkey To Man’ by suggesting: “We should never... in any country. . . vote for anybody who is a disgrace to the theory of evolution [a reference to US President George W. Bush],” wrote Dave Simpson. ‘A spectacular ‘Shipbuilding’ equally mocks any notion that his political fire has gone Out. With every line sung by the crowd, the song feels like a succession of hammer blows against any case for war.’
Despite being unable to vote in America, Elvis railed vociferously against Bush in the lead up to the elections, appearing at an awareness-raising benefit concert at the Viper Rooms in Los Angeles on 22 October, less than a fortnight before polling day. His voice was rough as he tore through a full set which included such pointed titles as ‘Waiting For The End Of The World’ and ‘Alibi’, while Lucinda Williams joined in - apparently spontaneously - on ‘There’s A Story In Your Voice’.
The tour proper kicked off in Australia, with Elvis and The Imposters headlining the ‘A Day On The Green’ festival in Hunter Valley, New South Wales on 20 November. The concert took place in a vineyard, and what the young Elvis Costello would have made of his older incarnation playing to an audience lounging on picnic blankets and sipping the local Merlot was anyone’s guess. He threw ‘Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down’ into the set in honour of his surroundings, while ‘Sittin’ And Thinkin” also made a rare appearance among the usual festival favourites and The Delivery Man tracks. ‘Bedlam’ was introduced as ‘our upcoming Christmas single’. ‘A truly great performance’, concluded the Australian News. From Hunter Valley, Elvis and the band cut through more festival and theatre dates in Australia before moving on to Japan, where the sets opened up a little: Possession’, ‘Green Shirt’, ‘Just About Glad’, ‘So Like Candy’,
‘All This Useless Beauty’ and a closing ‘I Want You’ found their way into the Tokyo set on 14 December. After winding things up a week before Christmas, Elvis then resumed touring in Europe in January, finally hitting the UK in the second week of February before rolling into the States in March.
As well as the touring schedule, Elvis had other considerations and obligations into 2005. January saw the release on vinyl of the The Clarksdale Sessions, a rough and ready, seven-song mini album culled from Elvis’s single session with the Imposters in Clarksdale, Mississippi the previous April. Featuring alternate versions of the title track from The Delivery Man, as well as ‘Country Darkness’, ‘Needle Time’ and ‘The Scarlet Tide’, the album also included covers of Dave Bartholomew’s ‘The Monkey’ - the original inspiration for ‘Monkey To Man’ - and ‘The Dark End Of The Street’. There was just one new Costello original on show, the stately ‘In Another Room’.
At the other end of the artistic spectrum was The Secret Arias, a chamber opera which Elvis had written especially for the Royal Danish Theatre’s new opera house at Holmen in Copenhagen as part of a series of works commissioned to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, and which explored Andersen’s infatuation with Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind. Also on the agenda was the promised expansion - and, presumably, conclusion - of The Delivery Man narrative, while doubtless there were already half-a-dozen other projects in stages somewhere between a seed in his brain and active pre-planning.
However, as a marker of precisely where Elvis Costello resided in the first decade of the new millennium, the twin release of rock ‘n’ roll and orchestral works was as accurate a barometer as anything ever really could be. As always with Elvis, it was difficult to foresee where he might be a further year along the road, beyond predicting that it would probably be somewhere interesting, a path worth following him down. His sometime collaborator Richard Harvey concedes that Elvis has ‘a quarter eye on posterity’, while other colleagues have muttered about him being afflicted by ‘genius syndrome’, the root symptom of which is an apparent compulsion to be recognised as such by his peers. Certainly, there remains an overwhelming sense that he is an artist whose almost pathological eclecticism and fearsome drive were born of- and thereafter have been partially perpetuated by - a keen awareness of his own legacy, a desire to ensure that his musical
obituary will be as monolithic and far-reaching as humanly possible. That said, one should never underestimate his genuine love of music.
Elvis may have turned fifty back in August 2004, but there appeared to be no blunting of the appetite for musical discovery which has propelled him through a professional career now approaching a tenure of three decades, with almost unfathomable twists and turns. A complex character, as contradictory in his impulses and desires as any true artist worth their salt must be; as driven, controlling, and frequently as coldly calculated as the breadth of his ambition demands, Elvis has pushed himself and those around him harder than most to get to this place; a place where he can follow the never-ceasing music in his head to wherever it leads; a place where the boundaries meet, fuse and eventually evaporate.
‘I have to go with what’s true to me, and I think the smart people appreciate and respect that I’m doing it for sincere reasons and that I’m not being perverse,’ he said in 2003. ‘I really believe that it’s all the result of curiosity and love. There’s a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There’s a time in life for Claude Debussy. There’s a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There’s a time in life for Destiny’s Child. All of these things have their moment.’
-
Otis Westinghouse
- Posts: 8856
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
- Location: The theatre of dreams
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
Looks like he checked out Gilli's comments on this!johnfoyle wrote:Lucinda Williams’ caterwauling contribution to the rollicking ‘There’s A Story In Your Voice’ divided listeners[/b]
Thanks, John, nice to read this. Did he mail it to you? He could do periodic updates on his blog - it's already quite out of date. It's funny to read a narrative mapping key elements of a narrative that we watched unfold here on this forum. Agree with his assessment of TDM, for the most part. He does write well.
His words are possibly a sad indictment of the corner-cutting that many publishers have been obliged to make by reducing in-house staff and trying to pay the minimum to freelances in a business where margins are typically tight, unless you hit a rare enough jackpot. At the same time, it seems like it was also unacceptably inept of Canongate to omit correction, let alone a 2,000 word afterword.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
No - I scanned it from a print-of I did in '05 from the (now inactive) link provided with the paperback edition.Thanks, John, nice to read this. Did he mail it to you?
http://ishotamaninrenobook.blogspot.com/He could do periodic updates on his blog
Most recent entry -' Thursday, 4 September 2008' - thats seems up-to-date enough for me!
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Otis Westinghouse
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Re: Complicated Shadows - Costello bio
I mean for Comp Shads. Continue adding afterwords every once in while to give us his take on where things are at.
I like the way he uses the full Richard Thompson on the blog. Nice way to extend.
The link the the Large Hearted Boy site is worth checking out (don't know that site, but looks worth checking out), with a nice celebration of Prince's fabulous ballad 'Sometimes It Snows In April' replete with solo acoustic in London anecdote. Wonder if I can find that to download somewhere.
I like the way he uses the full Richard Thompson on the blog. Nice way to extend.
The link the the Large Hearted Boy site is worth checking out (don't know that site, but looks worth checking out), with a nice celebration of Prince's fabulous ballad 'Sometimes It Snows In April' replete with solo acoustic in London anecdote. Wonder if I can find that to download somewhere.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more