Costello video collection on DVD ?

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:34 am

http://www.zetaminor.com/whatsnew.htm

And finally, for Incoming we’re also had word that VCI are preparing a new collection of Elvis Costello promo videos, which will include twenty-two tracks from Costello's Demon Records-era material. The track listing is Only Flame in Town, I Wanna Be Loved, New Lace Sleeves, Misunderstood, Only Flame in Town – 2, Everyday I Write The Book, Let Them All Talk, Peace Love and Understanding, Oliver’s Army, Radio Radio, Pump It Up, (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea, Sweet Dreams, Accidents Will Happen, Love For Tender, High Fidelity, I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down), Possession, Clubland, New Amsterdam, You Little Fool, and Good Year For The Roses.

There was a previous compilation released by Palace, entitled Elvis Costello – The Man, which also featured 22 tracks. Missing from the new version are Green Shirt and Watching the Detectives, with the two new tracks being Misunderstood and Only Flame in Town – 2 (perhaps an alternate version?) Watching the Detectives was released by Stiff Records, so might be owned by someone else, which may explain its omission. It’s possible that the track listing will change. We’ll let you know!

pubrock · Post by **pubrock** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 6:58 am

Green Shirt was simply a compilation of clips from other promos. Watching The Detectives was a compilation of clips from a silent movie. "Young Sherlocks" from 1922 perhaps?

Shatteredmannequin · Post by **Shatteredmannequin** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:34 pm

I had a copy of a VHS tape years ago that had all or most of the clips listed. It will be good to get those on DVD.
Most of the clips are not what you'd call great filmmaking. Old- looking 16mm stuff mostly.
Elvis mentions the video for "I Wanna Be Loved" in the new GCW liner notes. It is a very good video. He's in a photo booth staring blankly, occasionally singing, as a stream of strangers enters, and one at a time kiss him on the cheek. I always thought it would be a perfect video for "Jack of All Parades"

And No Coffee Table · Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:32 pm

I've always wondered if "I Wanna Be Loved" inspired the video for U2's "Numb."

sabreman · Post by **sabreman** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:51 pm

The AF and Get Happy!! clips are great. Love for Tender is one of the best promos ever made IMHO and it probably cost < $1,000.00. LOL!

Tim(e) · Post by **Tim(e)** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:57 pm

And No Coffee Table wrote:I've always wondered if "I Wanna Be Loved" inspired the video for U2's "Numb."

Or for that matter, Godley and Creme's "Cry".

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 3:27 am

sabreman wrote:The AF and Get Happy!! clips are great. Love for Tender is one of the best promos ever made IMHO and it probably cost < $1,000.00. LOL!

My fave is the I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down video purely for Pete and Steve's dancing. Not too dissimilar to my own!

And I bet that one cost even less than $1,000!

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 10:50 am

That site now says this...

More tracks have apparently been added to the Elvis Costello video compilation Ceri mentioned last week. They are from Costello's Warner Brothers period: 13 Steps Lead Down and Sulky Girl (from Brutal Youth), Veronica (from Spike) and So Like Candy (from Mighty Like A Rose).

There's been no official announcement yet, but it's likely that VCI might be trying to get the disc out to coincide with the release of Costello's new album, The Delivery Man, due on September 21st.

They might as well go all the way and give us "...This Town..." & "....Summer".

DrJ

Sour Milk Cow · Post by **Sour Milk Cow** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 10:58 am

This sucks! If they are going to put out all the Costello videos, they should put out ALL the Costello videos!! It will drive me nuts if they leave off a handful, especially if it includes ...This Town... which I have never even seen. I would venture that most fans haven't seen that one, and it would be one of the incentives for buying these things.

The only people who will buy a Costello DVD are diehard Costello fans. They should cater to the fans and make it a good package, not a rush job to coincide with the Delivery Man. (Like many fans, Sept. 21st will be a day that I am already buying two new CDs-- I don't expect to have a lot of spare cash to also buy a rush job DVD!)

Please, please, please, DVD makers: be patient and do the job right!!! EC fans want the complete video collection, not the 90 percent video collection. And preferably with a new EC interview, or audio commentary by EC himself. More people will buy it if you do it right.

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 11:56 am

The 1985 VHS collection I have was released to go along with the 1985 best of collection (translated: the Columbia years in the US). It would be great if clips from the Warner years in the US could be included as well; perhaps if Rhino got their mitts on it they could work out the legalistics.

Either way, I'm hoping the second Only Flame In Town clip mentioned is the one where Pete plays the drum fill on his head.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:52 pm

By definition DVD is a vesatile medium. Look at DVD collections from Bowie (exhaustive), Stone Roses (tv appearances), Suede (In vision commentaries) Weezer (rarities, commentaries, making of each album, alternate takes) and Tenacious D (Loads of stuff)

Ideally there should be an EC package of ALL the vids, with commentary and a second disc of tv appearances through the ages, obvously not all of them but First totp (red shoes, I think) the I can't stand up TOTP on a wire, Tiswas, the Tube, The Session, SNL 78/89/91, The Tonight Show, some Lettermans, Some Later stuff, old tv ads (eg the Get HAppy!! one) and so on...

The business trade off will be what is the profitable option? Securing tv rights is probably not of interest to anyone, so Letterman appearances, TOTP, Later, Conan, SNL all out. EC probably doesn't see the appeal in a commentary, even though he'll write a 5,000 word sleevenote which takes a lot longer. So we'll probably end up with just the videos, the Warners stuff if lucky, and the sound all arse.

On my 1985 video, the sound drops out completely for "Let Them All Talk", although as a besotted teen EC fan I am now glad I stayed up all night for about two weeks to tape an infrequent airing of "...This Town.." off MTV. If I had the means, I'd post it on line for yaz. I also stuck Summer and the black and white and colour versions of Sulky Girl onto the end of the same tape. God bless the Chart Show...

DrJ

And No Coffee Table · Post by **And No Coffee Table** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:36 pm

wardo68 wrote:Either way, I'm hoping the second Only Flame In Town clip mentioned is the one where Pete plays the drum fill on his head.

That was "I Wanna Be Loved."

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:40 pm

And No Coffee Table wrote:
wardo68 wrote:Either way, I'm hoping the second Only Flame In Town clip mentioned is the one where Pete plays the drum fill on his head.
That was "I Wanna Be Loved."

Oh well. I'd like to see it anyway.

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 4:33 pm

I fully agree with Sour Milk Cow. I have the old VHS collection of videos, but have never seen "So Like Candy" and "This Town..." because for reasons known only to them MTV played the videos once a month at
4 a.m.

I don't even expect any 'bonus' material like interviews or commentary, though that would be excellent, but releasing DVD collection without ALL Warner-era videos (+ a handful of tv appearances

) would be really frustrating.

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 5:03 pm

It's a shame you've never seen This Town. It's one of his best videos.

http://www.rollingstone.com has it, and a lot others.

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 5:39 pm

Thanks for the info, whar.

Sour Milk Cow · Post by **Sour Milk Cow** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 6:33 pm

I think Elvis WOULD be interested in recording an audio commentary. He's a talker, and had plenty to say when he used to show up on shows like MTV's 120 Minutes in the early 90s.

I think doing a commentary would be an easy job for him, much easier than the work it takes to write liner notes. Just sit himself in front of a mike and a monitor, and hit record. And boom: the fans are interested. Because it's not a given that people, even longtime fans who might have once bought these things on VHS, will be compelled to shell out their money for a straight DVD transfer. People want bells and whistles on their DVDs, and this one is a no-brainer.

I don't expect TV appearances, because the rights issues I agree are too much of a hassle. But he should do a commentary! It is an essential feature!

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 8:05 pm

I didn't see it over at the rollingstone.com site, but VH1.com had it, and I have to say it's one of the more disturbing four minutes of EC mugging I've ever seen. I can understand why MTV didn't have it in any kind of rotation here in the US; did it get any play in the UK or anywhere else?

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 3:47 am

Did he make any videos to support ATUB or PFM? I've also seen the one for 13 Steps Lead Down, once, and it was nothing special. I'd only be interested in a DVD of them if he'd cared about having quality videos all along. He'd need a different concept - something like "The Many Sides Of Elvis Costello" (live performances with various line-ups, periods, styles, settings, collaborations, unplugged, touring w/Steve, w/ & w/o beard, maybe performing some unreleased material, with a bit of commentary, interviews... a biographical showpiece come to think of it).

Don't really get what the problem is with different people having rights to different footage... can't they just be paid a royalty or something (?) So what if it's not profitable, he should pay for it if he wants a somewhat accurate picture of his career... it's worth it in the long run.

And No Coffee Table · Wed Aug 18, 2004 11:09 am

bambooneedle wrote:Did he make any videos to support ATUB or PFM?

There's a video for "God Give Me Strength" which appears as a bonus on the "Grace of My Heart" VHS (but not the DVD or laserdisc!).

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 11:29 am

All I've seen in that sense is the Sessions On West 54th video.

Elvis should just do everything.

Sour Milk Cow · Post by **Sour Milk Cow** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 4:24 pm

bambooneedle wrote:Did he make any videos to support ATUB or PFM? I've also seen the one for 13 Steps Lead Down, once, and it was nothing special. I'd only be interested in a DVD of them if he'd cared about having quality videos all along.

No ATUB videos, which is a shame. (None for KV either.) The God Give Me Strength video was not for the release of PFM but for the movie Grace Of My Heart. It is pretty lame, just some B&W video footage of EC & Burt in the studio mixed in with clips from the movie. I wouldn't even care if they left it off the DVD collection. He did two videos for "45" on WIWC-- a pretty lame one where he walks through a town with some clocks in a shopping cart, and a much better video set in a diner that was shot during the down time while they were making the "real" video. It is far, far superior to the one they put all the effort into.

There's no real excuse for the lameness of Costello's videos since MLAR. He just doesn't seem to care about doing anything creative or clever with videos anymore.

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 5:27 pm

Sour Milk Cow wrote:
bambooneedle wrote:There's no real excuse for the lameness of Costello's videos since MLAR. He just doesn't seem to care about doing anything creative or clever with videos anymore.

I think that since corporate radio has virtually ignored him (at least in the US) since Veronica, he probably figures that by not making videos he's cutting his losses. As a marketing tool, his earliest clips were to be used in place of a live appearance, and I think he'd rather perform live.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:45 am

I think that they should be aiming to do something as good as the Led Zeppelin DVD set that came out, which they managed to produce brilliantly, even though there is severely limited footage.

Ideally...some interviews from the time of each record; all the videos; some live performances; a commentary....maybe that VH1 documentary thrown in.

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:10 pm

laughingcrow wrote:I think that they should be aiming to do something as good as the Led Zeppelin DVD set that came out, which they managed to produce brilliantly, even though there is severely limited footage.

The Led Zeppelin DVD is truly a labor of love. Here's a band that shunned cameras, letting the music speak for itself -- which was a lot easier in the early 70s.

I'll be very curious if the LZ and EC fanatics can be counted on more than one hand, and I'm the finger of your choice.

Elvis Costello Fan Forum

Costello video collection on DVD ?

Costello video collection on DVD ?

"...This Town..." video