Whatever happened to El Vez

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 4:17 pm

He was great before he sold out to pop and gained all that weight. I heard a rumor that he's living somewhere in Nova Scotia with his half-sister, working as a fisherman and doing the occassional bit part for old buddies Cronenberg and Mike Figgis.

What have you heard?

noiseradio · Post by **noiseradio** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 5:43 pm

I heard he has a new album coming out that's as good as El Vez II.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 6:38 pm

Every time I speak to El Vez on the phone, I tape the calls and rerun them backwards. The words "Turn me on, Dick Cheney" can be heard clearly in the background.

Of course, the only possible conclusion is that I'm talking to Faux Vez, the real Vez having perished in a bizarre rollerblading incident.

ice nine · Post by **ice nine** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:04 pm

I heard he was doing gay porn.

noiseradio · Post by **noiseradio** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:17 pm

That's not news.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:53 pm

noiseradio wrote:I heard he has a new album coming out that's as good as El Vez II.

That's a bold, bold statement. EV II nearly caused me to drive my car into a ditch the first time I heard it and I wish to goodness that he hadn't had that falling out with Steve Winwood because their duet on "The Sweet Science of Rugby" is one of the high points of late 80's Americana.

Post by **spooky girlfriend** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:59 pm

I heard he hangs around Birmingham, Alabama waiting on other board members to take him out to dinner.

migdd · Post by **migdd** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:59 pm

I always liked his early, funnier, angrier albums anyway so who cares.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:12 pm

migdd wrote:I always liked his early, funnier, angrier albums anyway so who cares.

See, I think you're missing out on some great stuff when you shorthand his career like some kind of folk rock Woody Allen. Talkin' Village Idiot Blues may well be one of the best debut albums of all time but when you compare even the best songs off that album, "That Wasn't Nearly As Painless As I Was Led To Believe It Would Be" and "My Baby's A Nuclear Souffle" to anything off his late-life masterpiece, The Lives, Loves & Alimony Checks of Paul Bettergart, it reduces his "earlier, funnier, angrier" material to cinders. Absolute cinders.

noiseradio · Post by **noiseradio** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:13 am

I liked his early stuff. "Borderline." When he got off on that "Papa Don't Preach" phase, I tuned out.

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:04 am

What I hate about El Vez is his unpredictability. I mean, I accepted the heavy metal album „The Beast” featuring ex-Megadeth Dave Mustaine on harmony vocals and I even enjoyed the bluegrass effort „The Green Bushes of Texas”. I also thought last year’s „Singing With The Dead” was a groundbreaking release (containing duets with Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG and Ol’ Dirty Bastard).
But when I read the latest press release saying that El Vez is recording an album with Warsaw Village Band, tentatively titled „I Ate Dinner But I Didn’t Pay Bill” I said, „Enough’s enough”.
For God’s sake, El Vez, stop it !!

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:03 am

Who?

Oh yeh, the El Vez on this Board or this one?

http://www.elvez.net/

The one on this Board was last seen over there. Not there. THERE!

whar · Post by **whar** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:08 am

I hate when you guys try to riff together.

migdd · Post by **migdd** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:45 am

Whar wrote:

I hate when you guys try to riff together.

Actually, I Hate It When You Guys Try To Riff Together was the title of EV's 1992 "lost" album of cover songs. Reportedly, El Vez had gathered a group of legendary sessions players together to record a couple dozen of his favorite ragtime tunes. The musicians and song titles remain a mystery but supposedly, a bootleg copy was sold on eBay about a year ago for a whopping $1,152.00!!! Anybody have any more info on this lost gem?

Post by **BlueChair** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:57 am

Supposedly Jim Keltner got so drunk at that session that he put on a dress and demanded the group cut "Private Dancer"

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:53 pm

I liked El Vez better when he was still with the E Street Band.

I also liked him better when he was "El Vez Airplane".

noiseradio · Post by **noiseradio** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:33 pm

One of my favorite all time El Vez songs has got to be the one that goes "Whar, what is it good for? (Absolutely nothin'!)"

Classic.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:28 pm

You know an El Vez album that I really like? Poverty Row. It just got reissued (albeit kind of a barebones reissue....guess Rhino has bigger fish to fry) and while it might not be as consistently great as EV II, the concept of a song cycle about Republic Pictures (for those who aren't rabid film geeks; RP was one of the cutrate studios known as "poverty row" where they cranked out serials and where guys like John Barrymore wound up after their careers hit the skids) is absolutely irresistible. I think my favorite off that one is "Dana Wynter," a moebius strip of a lyric that starts off with a menage a trois involving Wynter, Kevin McCarthy and Sam Peckinpah that just gets weirder and more nonsensical by the verse, as well as "3 Godfathers" which should be studied by every would-be dustbowl poet for its startling imagery and how it really makes you feel as if you are on some late 19th century prairie.

Post by **spooky girlfriend** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:33 pm

I think he has some reissues coming out soon with expanded liner notes and never before heard songs. I'm saving up for those.

migdd · Post by **migdd** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:06 pm

El Vez wrote:

You know an El Vez album that I really like? Poverty Row.

Isn't "Au Pair for George Zucco" on that one?

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:10 pm

As is "Edward Ulmer's Eyebrow"

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:11 pm

Re Miggd -

It is although I prefer the live version off McCartney Ate All My Fucking Carrots: Live At Arlen's Grocery just for the two minute harmonica solo after the second verse.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:15 pm

bobster wrote:As is "Edward Ulmer's Eyebrow"

There's actually a pretty cool bootleg of Vez doing a show in Truth or Consequences, NM where he's clearly cruisin' low under the rockies and he rewrites the song as "The Eyes of Kenneth Mars."

migdd · Post by **migdd** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:16 pm

Ah, yes. . .those were the days!

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:18 pm

Damn I love this place. Where else would I learn about such important musical gems? A nearly unbelievable and unending supply of obscure joys...