Relatively Insignificant EC Stuff. . .

[Yanyna]

GQ Magazine Online - The Most Stylish Musicians of All Time - No.37 - Elvis Costello http://www.gq.com/style/profiles/201111 ... s#slide=14 GQ published it on twitter with this tweet: "For all you hipsters out there currently rocking geek chic, pay due homage to Elvis Costello."

[And No Coffee Table]

The official site links to a article by Al Kooper with some songs he recommends, including:

10. "When Green Eyes Turn Blue" — Elvis Costello (4:03)

Who knew when I was enjoying “Tiny Steps,” “Alison,” and “So Like Candy” that THAT guy could sing like THIS? I guess that amazing Bacharach album was a real tipoff, but there’s no Burt to count on here. Elvis wrote the song, the arrangements and co-produced this inclusion from the 2003 North album. Kevin Killen was his producing partner and engineered and mixed this brilliantly. Someday, I wanna hear him duet with Tony Bennett on this song. Meanwhile I’m content hearing him Krall-ing around on this version.

[johnfoyle]

http://metrotimes.com/music/year-of-the ... bled=false

Year of the Lords

The Flutter & Wow bust out with an EP and some American traditionalism

[Jack of All Parades]

Continued synchronicity- on this day, EC fave, Gram Parsons, would have turned 65, a day he shares with the latest 'new' Parsons, Ryan Adams. Have "Grievous Angel" on the turntable to celebrate that concurrence.

[paysfortheprivilege]

Given his proclivities perhaps confluence is more apt

[fred darden]

??? thanx plato

[paysfortheprivilege]

pretentious moi? surely not...

[Azmuda]

EC on a skateboard:

• http://skateandannoy.com/features/ebay/2010/ebay092/
  
  

[blureu]

http://drinkify.org/elvis%20costello

“THE ELVIS COSTELLO”

8 oz. Water
8 oz. Fassionola
10 oz. Half and half
Combine in highball glass and serve.

[Man out of Time]

A different sort of ECCON took place last year in Basingstoke:

IT LOOKED more like an Elvis Costello convention than football fans testing the latest accessory in television technology.

But last Saturday, dozens of people in a Basingstoke pub donned a pair of black-rimmed glasses to watch arguably the biggest game of the Premier League season – in 3D.

I'll spare you the rest, but if you insist the full article and photograph is here:

http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/new ... 3D_footie/

MOOT

PS And yes, the game they were all watching did involve Chelsea...

[And No Coffee Table]

Elvis was featured on Sunday's episode of The Simpsons:
http://twitpic.com/7e0ntu

[Yanyna]

A few weeks ago, I was at the Prague National Theater to see five choreographies by Petr Zuska. The fourth of them contains song “Expert Rites” from TJL. It was pretty strange to hear this song from the tape in National Theater with ballet, but it worked somehow . Not bad I must say. Here is extract related to the piece with EC song:

[johnfoyle]

The fourth of them contains song “Expert Rites” from TJL.

See also -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2opftpov0

[johnfoyle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ5MZO49bX8

The Henry Girls: Watching the Detectives

WTF?!?! Missing out, somewhat, on the more sinister aspects of the song. A studio version is on their new album , December Moon.


http://www.thehenrygirls.com/wordpress/?page_id=173

[the_platypus]

Elvis gets a mention on the latest edition of Jay Mohr's comedy podcast Mohr stories. He compares him favorably to Trent Reznor, saying that Reznor's cover of U2's "Zoo Station" was bordering on self-parody, while EC breathed a whole new fire into "Mysterious Ways" when he played it on Spectacle. He also said U2 looked foolish next to him, and that EC is in his list of top 5 most underrated musicians of all time.

A good listen.

[sheeptotheslaughter]

Chef Simon Rimmer from TV's something for the weekend twitted he was on the the train to liverpool yetserday afternoon and Elvis Costello was on in.
Maybe going football or home to see the family

[blureu]

Paul Heaton- 5 albums that changed my life

http://louderthanwar.com/blogs/paul-hea ... ed-my-life

King of America – Elvis Costello
It could have been Get Happy because I was influenced greatly by his early lyrical style but this one, although it’s later, around 1986, represents a huge step up for his writing. It really inspired me to raise my game because he’d really pushed on. Costello could deliver a single line and sum up exactly what you were feeling. Also his politics were a lot more subtle here. We hammered ours home on the first Housemartins album but this record, with its mixture of love and politics, really helped the Beautiful South strike the right balance when we got going a few years later.

[And No Coffee Table]

"Hoover Factory" is #24 on Time Out's list of The 100 Best London Songs.

http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/1 ... -full-list
http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/1 ... er-factory

Costello dances about architecture

Wallace, Gilbert and Partners’ Art Deco triumph, built in 1932 on the edge of the A40, is the crowning glory of Perivale and its splendour (‘Must have been a wonder when it was brand new’) is justly celebrated in this song, which mentions its ‘scrolls and inscriptions, like those of the Egyptian age.’ It’s surely the only song about a vacuum cleaner factory ever written? And who would have figured the bile-filled Costello as a fan of one of history’s most decorative architectural phases?

[And No Coffee Table]

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/AWAR ... ruary.html

This February, PEN New England will present the first annual award for "Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence."

Bill Flanagan, novelist and music critic, chairs the Award Committee. Members of the jury include Bono, Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello, Paul Muldoon, Smokey Robinson, Salman Rushdie, and Paul Simon.

PEN New England chairman Richard Hoffman first announced the establishment of the award at last year's "Lyrics & Literature" program, held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, featuring Flanagan, Muldoon, and Simon.

[Jack of All Parades]

I assume that precludes those four from winning the award then.

[johnfoyle]

sounds of the brilliantly bitter and twisted Elvis Costello


http://vienna.patch.com/articles/green- ... -sammy-run

December 4, 2011

(extract)

Sammy Hakim is full of contradictions.

One minute she seems very young, the next like a wise old soul. She loves new, mainstream acts like Adele and Lady Gaga, but says her songwriting was influenced by the New Wave sounds of the brilliantly bitter and twisted Elvis Costello. She can talk about school talent shows one minute and "learning the business side of music" the next.

Hakim, who lives in Vienna (and has been on the Jammin Java stage before, "with a bunch of other acts"), has an impressive six song E.P. currently in release. It's got the provocative title, "Locked You Out." She writes smart, biting lyrics and decorates them with the fashionable but classic materials of folk, rock and pop. You can thank Costello for inspiring such eclecticism.

"My mom turned me onto Elvis," said Hakim, sounding like the normal teenager she is. "I love the fact that, over the years, he has adapted constantly to different styles. Classical, then rock. He's never been pigeonholed musically. Maybe that's why he's still around. He's a great role model."

One can't help but wonder which Costello tune is the favorite for this precocious teen?

"Alison, definitely," she said without hesitation.

[johnfoyle]

Missed this .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/oc ... -interview

One to watch: Jamie N Commons

Jamie N Commons's dad took him to see the Allman Brothers when he was a boy, and now the 22-year-old blues singer counts Elvis Costello among his fans


Morwenna Ferrier
The Observer, Sunday 2 October 2011


In the backroom of a spruce but empty pub, the sort that increasingly defines London's King's Cross, Jamie N Commons is telling the story of an evangelical preacher from Alabama who strangled his wife, chopped her up and popped her body in a freezer. Thankfully, there's context: this is the story of "The Preacher", the first (and arguably best) song on Commons's debut blues EP, The Baron. Still, dark stuff.

Commons smiles: "A lot of my songs touch on religion," he explains. "I find it interesting. But the songs I write tend to be more…" Hellfire and fury? "Exactly. There are many sides to religion and that is one of them." Suffice to say, "The Preacher" is a rumbling, spit-furious punch of a song, all crucixes and wayward flocks. Very Grinderman. In fact, the entire EP is heavy on Nick Cave-esque themes: executions ("The Preacher"), heartbreak ("Lola"), and suicide ("Hold On"), to name a few. Unlike Cave, though, 22-year-old Commons has a lax view of religion. While his father, a printer, isn't religious, Commons happily attended church as a child with his mother, the secretary of their local church in Gloucester. Any probing for religious discord in the family proves unproductive: "Religion wasn't a raging issue at home," he says. "I'm open to it."

Born in Bristol, Commons moved to Chicago with his family at the age of six after his father's job transferred there. Home to Muddy Waters et al, the Windy City was pivotal in his discovery of the blues. The first gig his father took him to was the Allman Brothers: "I have strong memories of strange-smelling smoke and the guy next to us howling like a wolf."

Returning to the West Country at 16 with a skewed accent, he taught himself the brass tacks of the guitar and, aged 18, moved to London to study music at Goldsmiths in New Cross, a requisite for any modern musician: recent alumni include singer Katy B and electro-composer, and classmate, James Blake, "Although I didn't really know what he [James] did. It wasn't until the third year that suddenly he was off to meet Universal and it was like, oh." A graduate in the guise of Struwwelpeter, Commons certainly dresses New Cross: plaid shirt, tight-ish black jeans and felt Preacher's hat bought (alarmingly) from TK Maxx: "Not cool, nope, but I lost my other hat."

Singing the blues at 22 is a tough call. It's not just the baggage and breadth of the subject matter: you also need the right pipes and without them you risk parody. Fortunately Commons has them. After spending years trying and failing to imitate Gregg Allman, he found a substitute and the resulting sound is both rasping and lovely but inevitably studied, something he defends: "If I didn't think it was genuine I wouldn't sing in that way."

With the aid of his highly proficient five-piece band, it all comes together. The EP is a sombre, five-track traipse through some deep south backwater, and that he once sent them mixtapes of the Band and JJ Cale to emulate is unsurprising. But it's also a sound at odds with the man in person. Commons is actually terribly polite, self-effacing, nervous even. After all, this is his first interview and "no, blues singers don't get media training". We leave the pub in favour of a windy terrace where, two Guinnesses and two cigarettes down, he is finally relaxed enough to blow his own trumpet. Apparently Elvis Costello is a fan (he loved Commons's cover of "15 Petals"), as is swamp-rock legend CC Adcock – an artist featured heavily throughout HBO vampire drama True Blood – who has invited Commons to New Orleans. "So yes, maybe I'll get a new hat there. Not a preacher's though," he says. "I'm on the search for a wide-rim Stetson."

The Baron EP will be released by Luv Luv Luv records on 17 October

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005 ... 496&sr=8-1


http://www.jamiencommons.com/


http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/soundof/2012 ... /#p00m9nsc

[johnfoyle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0e3SWEe ... ture=share

'The music video for "A Pair of Brown Eyes" was directed in 1985 by Alex Cox and was set in a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque Britain with Margaret Thatcher in the place of Big Brother as a supreme, god-like authoritarian figure. The video featured roles played by band members as well as a cameo by Elvis Costello.'

'Look for a man on a sofa with a chest-expander '(c.2.39) says Phil Chevron.

[mood swung]

that might not even qualify as relatively insignificant EC stuff, but *I* thought it was funny.

[Jack of All Parades]

I like how they have kept the glasses in proportion to the head just as in the original photo-exquisite!