Elvis/El Mocambo - original/bootleg comparison

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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Elvis/El Mocambo - original/bootleg comparison

Post by johnfoyle »

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This epic, much bootlegged show ( before it's official release in 1993 in Rykodisc's 2½ Years box set) is now 30 years old.

I've posted some reviews from the time on it's wiki page , along with scans , posted by John Harrison, from the vinyl edition .

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... 06_Toronto

The most detailed review is by Jay Scott , subsequently better known as a film reviewer. Highlights are

He pushes through the crowd to the stage. He’s wearing a sloppy grey jacket, sloppy tie. His hair has been clipped close to the scalp by a pair of dull manicure scissors. He’s wearing glasses: black horn rims. Buddy Holly? Closer too a dyspeptic Woody Allen — Buddy Holly had a softness about him physically that made you think puberty never quite took; Elvis has a sharpness about him that makes you think he emerged from the womb with a shaving kit and a tube of Clearasil — he’s always been an adolescent. A nasty one. A smart one.

Elvis Costello, like his name-sake, takes the rage of being young and turns it into rock (in Costello’s case, into pub rock via R & B); his lyrics call reality to task for failing to come up with the promised goods, while the music (hard, and fast, and too complex to be punk; too classic to be new wave) celebrates his own nihilistic tendencies . It’s good, the man implies, to be young and to refuse to believe any crap; it hurts, but pain is more honest than phony pleasure: “I don’t want to be your lover,” Costello sings, and the 'o' in the word ‘lover’ is elongated into a verbal sneer that lets you know he wouldn’t he able to substitute the word “husband” if he wanted to; marriage is beneath contempt. “I just want to he your victim.” If Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were alive today, and writing songs, and if they turned their obsession from politics to personality. they might sound like Elvis Costello — there is the same screw-it-all attitude hiding a belief, expressed often in the music but more rarely in the words, that if you don’t say it out loud things might turn out all right.

Someone in the audience, holding a beer in salute , screams “Elvis” and the new Elvis acknowledges the kind of adoration the old one used to receive by slowly running his tongue across his bottom lip in a movement that is, at once, invitingly erotic and repellently hostile. That is what rock and roll once was; it looks like the what was might be the what is again.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Scott

http://www.nudeasthenews.com/reviews/191

MARK T.R. DONOHUE writes

(extract)

Mocambo presents The Attractions -- who, as it should be taught to everyone at the first-grade level, comprised bassist Bruce Thomas, keyboardist Steve Nieve, and drummer Pete Thomas -- at an intensity level never really captured in the studio. Just check out the Mocambo version of "Welcome To The Working Week," which was recorded with session musicians on Costello's debut My Aim Is True. The Attractions. The Thomases kick the song up to a one minute, nineteen-second blur. Costello strains to cram all of his literary lyrics in there, and the band doesn't let up for a second.

Mocambo is the best live document of Elvis back when he really was an angry young man, and as raring to piss off as many people as possible as Johnny Rotten at his nastiest. The difference is Costello picks his fights intelligently, and disarms his audience with fantastic songs. The legendary "Dallas Version" of "Less Than Zero" is included here, where Costello revises the song's lyrics to viciously skewer an American holy cow. OK, it's the Kennedy assassination, which maybe isn't the most tasteful choice (note how EC brilliantly converts the original's "home movies" line to refer to the Zapruder tape), but it sure shows balls, doesn't it?

From "Radio, Radio" to the slinky Attractions arrangement of "Watching The Detectives," which personifies the menace the studio original only suggested, Live At El Mocambo is a document of a band at the height of their powers. There's something a little unsettling about an audience cheering ecstatically along as Costello spits out "Sometimes I feel / just like a human being," but isn't that the point?


Hear it here -

http://capableofmore.blogspot.com/2007/ ... -1978.html

or

http://mp3fiesta.com/live_at_the_el_mocambo_album88129/
bobfrombob
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by bobfrombob »

That makes me feel old (I was there that night). 30 years?
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by johnfoyle »

That makes me feel old (I was there that night). 30 years?
Give us a flavour of it. Just type out a paragraph or two of instinctive memories. Forget about syntax and whether you think we might have heard it before. Stuff like were the seats fixed or fold up . Or whether patrons were allowed bring their drinks with them as they sat down.
charliestumpy
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by charliestumpy »

I love my official El Mocambo CD and the CDR I have in the case with Elvis doing next 4 tracks with Nick Lowe (from the latter's super 1978 vinyl LP 'Jesus Of Cool').
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by johnfoyle »

Chalkie Davies permits me to share these , newly published on his Facebook page -

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"She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake"

SNAP GOES THE CAMERA

EC performs Watching the Detectives at the El Mocambo March 1978

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Elvis Costello closes his eyes to savour Mighty Martin Belmont's immaculate Guitar playing and harmonies, at the El Mocambo, Toronto, March 1978
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krm
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by krm »

great photos from a great show! YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWW!!!!!
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watercamp
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by watercamp »

One from the early and one from the late show?
EC is wearing different clothes.
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by johnfoyle »

One from the early and one from the late show?
EC is wearing different clothes.
Sort of - Martin joined for a extended encore


01. Mystery Dance
02. Waiting For The End Of The World
03. Welcome To The Working Week
04. Less Than Zero (Dallas Version)
05. The Beat
06. Lip Service
07. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
08. Little Triggers
09. Radio, Radio
10. Lipstick Vogue
11. Watching The Detectives
12. Miracle Man
13. You Belong To Me
14. Pump It Up - with Martin Belmont
15. Nutted By Reality - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
16. I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
17. Shake And Pop - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
18. Heart Of The City - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
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watercamp
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by watercamp »

OK checked the album and there was only 1 EC set, the pictures on the back taken from newspaper clippings show him in the dark suit, like the first picture above.

He's clearly wearing a different outfit in the second picture, did he change before the Nick Lowe set or is the second pic from somewhere else?.
FAVEHOUR
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by FAVEHOUR »

well the caption just says "March" so maybe the other shot is from the 7th?
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by johnfoyle »

This Chalkie Davies photo - new to me - has appeared on Pete Thomas' Facebook page -

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'Pete Thomas proudly wears his Manny's Schlepper Shirt at the El Mocambo, March 1978'
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - 30 years ago , March 6 '78

Post by johnfoyle »

El Mocambo - original/bootleg comparisons.

A collector , who prefers to remain anonymous , has sent these photos.

Relevant notes are with the photos . This was also noted -

I found it too hard to get a good photo of the record matrixs. Suffice to say they are both handwritten and hard to tell apart on the real and fake copies.
But the real copy has a colon : at the end of the matrix on both sides. Its light and hard to see. The fake one does not have this detail.
That covers it so to speak. I did not take photos of the full covers next to each other because they really can't be told apart at a distance.


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Real copy is on the left/on top The boot from around 1980 on the right/ underneath.

The easiest way to tell a real one from a fake one is to look inside the sleeve. The real ones are a brownish grey inside. Every bootleg I've seen is white inside.

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This logo is at the center bottom of the back cover. The copy on top is real the one on the bottom fake.

Again real one has fine lines while the fake one is a blob.

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Here's a close up of side 2 of a real copy record label. You can see the detail and fine lines in the Columbia logo . This logo is between 3 and 4 o'clock on the label NOT the big one on top.


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Fake label and the aforementioned logo is a blob.


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Here's 2 photos of The spines.

Real one on left is squared off .the fake one on right is pinched.
bronxapostle
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Re: Elvis/El Mocambo - original/bootleg comparison

Post by bronxapostle »

8) thanks John for confirming what I have always expected. Mine is real. But, I thought so all these years as I am a life long NY'ER who very often bought promo records. One of the perks of living in NYC and going to loads of record stores in the good old days. :lol:
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