Track Listing: 1. Clean Money 2. Girls Talk 3. Talking in the Dark 4. Radio Sweetheart 5. Black and White World (Demo version) 6. Big Tears 7. Just a Memory 8. Night Rally 9. Stranger in the House 10. Clowntime Is Over (Version 2) 11. Getting Mighty Crowded 12. Hoover Factory 13. Tiny Steps 14. (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea 15. Dr Luther's Assistant 16. Sunday's Best 17. Crawling to the U.S.A. 18. Wednesday Week 19. My Funny Valentine 20. Ghost Train
Any Elvis Costello fan will you tell you that he was on such a roll from 1977-1980 that even his B-sides and outtakes are essential...And damn, did he do a lot of them...Consider this output...In three years, he released 4 classic albums and an hour-long album with 20 freakin' outtakes on it! And they're all good...As good as any of the stuff from the albums,even...And this isn't even all of them...I can name many other outtakes from this era that aren't represented here!
If you bought all the EC reissues, then you have all these, but I still strongly recommend listening to them in this format....Free of rougher demos and mostly free of repetitive alternate takes (although a couple of alternate takes do pop up and are easily the worst things here. The "Version 2" of "Clowntime is Over" is agonizingly slow if you're familiar with the original). This is like a greatest hits album of those bonus discs...This is where you can just pick up a single record and hear "Girls Talk" and "Crawling to the USA." There are a couple overly-familiar tracks like "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," "Night Rally" and "Sunday's Best" which are here because they were left off the US versions of their respective albums.
Highlights are too numerous to mention. "Hoover Factory" with its bizarre arrangement that somehow works perfectly, that amazing opening guitar figure and organ that kick off "Big Tears," every single second of "Tiny Steps." "Stranger in the House" is also interesting since it has Elvis going full-on country years before "Almost Blue" or "King of America." I find "Getting Mighty Crowded" intriguing since it seems too legitimately soul for even "Get Happy!" I've also always been a big fan of the lovely, straight pop of "Dr Luther's Assistant."
I can only imagine what a treasure trove this must have seemed like back when it was released. Elvis and the Attractions were just an unstoppable new wave juggernaut at this point. The best songwriter of the late 70's-early 80's? Hell yes. And here's further proof...And the best part is you can always find this album cheap as balls in any respectable record store.
Here's "Tiny Steps" by Elvis Costello and those rascally Attractions...Enjoy...
Track Listing: 1. Seven Day Weekend 2. Turning the Town Red 3. Heathen Town 4. The People's Limousine 5. So Young 6. American Without Tears No. 2 7. Get Yourself Another Fool 8. Walking on Thin Ice 9. Blue Chair 10. Baby It's You 11. From Head to Toe 12. Shoes Without Heels 13. Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo 14. The Flirting Kind 15. Black Sails in the Sunset 16. Imperial Bedroom 17. The Stamping Ground
Don't let the "Various Artists" emblazoned on the spine fool ya.... This is a collections of Elvis Costello's outtakes, B-Sides, collaborations, etc...Although this particular album is out of print, all this material ended up as bonus tracks on Elvis' CD reissues, but this is a case of where the presentation makes all the difference...Sure, I heard all these tracks on the CD reissues but many of them seemed to go in one ear and out the other, buried under endless demos and draggy alternate takes...But when all the excess is pruned away and only the finest flowers presented, this is as listenable as any other prime EC disc...Which shouldn't surprise die-hard Costello fans, after all he pulled off a similar win with 1980's "Taking Liberties"...
Damn, just about everything on this is good...Even the freakin' Yoko Ono cover (" Walking on Thin Ice") rules...Sure, there's a lesser track here and there...For example, I find the soul ballad "Get Yourself Another Fool" a taaad on the dull side, "The Flirting Kind" is a little fruity for my tastes, and I would point out "Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo" as a prime example of Elvis on upbeat autopilot, but that's seriously what? Three songs? Out of 17? That's means there's about 14 flat-out great tracks on here...I'll single out a few so this post is more than two paragraphs long:
Keeping with my month-long Jimmy Cliff theme, the album kicks off with an Elvis/Jimmy collaboration "Seven Day Weekend" from the "Club Paradise" soundtrack...
(Now, I know for a fact I've seen Club Paradise but I'll be damned if I can remember a single damn detail about it...I remember "Apeman" by the Kinks being in the film...I remember seeing Robin Williams mugging for an hour and a half, but the rest is a blur...)
You'd assume that a duet with Jimmy Cliff would be reggae/island-themed type of thing, but you'd be wrong...It's uptempo "Get Happy!" new-wave soul...See, I first heard this song on the bonus disc of "Blood & Chocolate" which is arguably Elvis' bitterest, dourest, most divorce-y album,...As a result, hearing Elvis and Jimmy enthusiastically counting down the days of their vacation in the most slap-happy manner possible sounded ridiculously out of place in that context...But boy, as a rousing album opener it's a whole 'nother story...It psyches you up for the whole shebang...
"Heathen Town" is a song I would place in the pantheon of great Elvis tracks...It's the type of thing he does best: Wry, weary, wired, with an easy-flowing melody that you can't believe someone hasn't written before...Although to be perfectly honest, I kinda prefer the acoustic take that appeared on the bonus disc for "Punch the Clock" (so there's one score for the bonus discs I guess) but either way it's a can't-miss for fans...
The M.I.A title track for "Imperial Bedroom" is here too...I still maintain he should have replaced one of that album's more paint-drying moments with this track..A modest, acidic waltz that would have given that album a bit more of an edge...The "Imperial Bedroom" album starts out sharp but softens out as it stretches on...I think placing this near the end could have snapped it back into shape when it most needed it...Oh well, program your own track listing, I guess...
I also love the duet with T-Bone Burnett on "The People's Limousine" (credited to "The Coward Brothers")...A down-home roots rocker that brings back pleasant memories of my much-beloved "King of America"...Holy shit, it just struck me that T-Bone is biting Dylan so hard here...If I didn't see his name on the credits I might have thought it was him...No wait, those harmonies on the chorus are too nice for Dylan...Never mind...Oh, and if you're a big "King of America" fan, there's also a cool alternate take of "American Without Tears" that's a bit closer to Elvis' usual new wave style...I never realized what a close relative this song is to "New Amsterdam" before I had heard this version...
Even if you have most (hell, even all) of these songs scattered amongst 10 or so bonus discs, I'd still recommend picking this up if you run across it cheap...Or better yet, burn yourself a custom copy from those bonus discs using your computer's disc drive (maybe toss "Shatterproof" on there too, while yer at it...)...It gives you a better overview of Elvis' 80's output than any greatest hits album on the market despite not having a single hit on it...
Here's "The People's Limousine" by Elvis Costello...Errr...The Coward Brothers...Whatever...Enjoy...
Track Listing: 1. 45 2. Spooky Girlfriend 3. Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution) 4. When I Was Cruel No. 2 5. Soul for Hire 6. 15 Petals 7. Tart 8. Dust 2.. 9. Dissolve 10. Alibi 11. ...Dust 12. Daddy Can I Turn This? 13. My Little Blue Window 14. Episode of Blonde 15. Radio Silence
And just as quickly as Elvis had recaptured me with "Brutal Youth," he immediately lost me again with an endless array of albums that I just couldn't bring myself to purchase...Collaborations with all sort of folks I don't listen to, cover albums, a cover album of songs he wrote for other people, classical works...To this day I still don't know how to navigate that period of his discography...Is any of it any good? What post-"Brutal Youth" pre-"When I Was Cruel" albums are worthwhile? I have no idea?
I tell ya, those marketing guys are good...I saw one "ELVIS IS BACK!" ad and I was down at the record store...One spin of the album convinced me that the hype might have been earned this time around...
Although the production and sound were different, this sounded exactly like the Elvis Costello I wanted...Loud guitars (louder than ever actually...This is overall much more distorted than any tone he utilized on the "classic" Attractions albums), trebly synthesizers, and a snarling, yet smirking delivery...It's not too hard to imagine "45" or "My Little Blue Window" appearing on one of his first two albums...On the other hand, the bulk of the album doesn't resemble the old stuff at all...There's probably some obvious reference point, but I can't think of it right now...Maybe a cross between Angelo Badalamenti and 90's trip hop, maybe? A very close relative of previous murky, atmospheric tracks like "So Like Candy" and "Sulky Girl"...Except much drier and clankier than before...
Alright, here are my favey-waveys; first off the opener "45" is incredible...Elvis sounds a lot mellower than he did in his heyday, but there's no mistaking the tense, wired, energy...This is a clear attempt at Attractions style new wave...Oh yea, I should probably mention that his band, the Imposters, are just the Attractions without bassist Bruce Thomas, whom Elvis had been feuding with for a loooong time at this point, apparently leading to his firing after Bruce wrote a book in 1990 called "The Big Wheel" that rubbed Elvis the wrong way...
I don't really know what's in the book...I haven't read it...Anyway, I like the muted, chuggy quality of "45" and it's great to hear Steve Nieve's signature Farfisa tone at the end...
"When I Was Cruel No. 2" is an unlikely favorite of mine..It's slow, overlong (over 7 minutes!!!) but it could take up the entire album and I'd be okay with it...I find the constant "Un" sample mesmerizing for some reason...Apparently, it's from the song "Un Bacio รจ Troppo Poco" by Mina...
Oh yea...That was a pretty good listen..."When I Was Cruel No. 2" sounds just like this except louder, more rumbling and with Elvis singing about how things were a lot easier when he was cruel...I don't know, he still sounds pretty cruel to me...
We get an ABBA reference too!
My other jam is "My Little Blue Window," which is good, loud acoustic-based pop...It kind of reminds me of the type of thing you might have found on side two of "Blood & Chocolate," although he sounds more contented than he did on that particular album...It somehow made me nostalgic the first time I heard it, which was a good sign I think...
I like this album a lot, and re-listening to it has been a great big joy (that part where "Tart" suddenly GETS ALL LOUD ruled my world today)...This may not be the best place to enter the Elvis Costello discography, since he's pretty set in his idiosyncrasies at this point, but it's also not a bad place to start...And to old, rock-lovin' Elvis fans like myself, this thing was manna from heaven (or foodcake from hell, depending on your religious affiliation)...There might be a song or two that I usually skip ("15 Petals," "...Dust") but the number of hits here is staggering... There's no way around it...This is easily the best Elvis Costello record since "Blood & Chocolate" (Unless one of those albums I skipped from 1994 to 2002 beats it...I dunno...Maybe "Kojak Variety" is the greatest album I've never heard...Hard to say...).
Oh yea, I saw Elvis on this tour...I really wanted to go but the tickets were too expensive for me...I just won't pay $50.00 to see a show...I'll go $35.00 tops..But my wife was kind enough to buy the tickets for me as a birthday present...Thanks to the internet, I can even look up the exact details of the show...
For example it was on October 2, 2002, at the Dodge Theater and this was the setlist:
Setlist
01. I Hope You're Happy Now
02. Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution)
03. Clubland
04. Shabby Doll
05. Party Girl
06. Spooky Girlfriend
07. Honey, Are You Straight Or Are You Blind?
08. 45
09. Alibi
10. The Judgement
11. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
12. High Fidelity
13. Uncomplicated
14. Beyond Belief
15. Watching The Detectives
16. Radio, Radio
17. Pump It Up Encore 1
18. Indoor Fireworks
19. Tart
20. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror / You've Really Got A Hold On Me
21. Shipbuilding Encore 2
22. My Mood Swings
23. When I Was Cruel No. 2
24. Alison - including Suspicious Minds Encore 3
25. No Action
26. I Want You
27. Almost Blue
Here's my memory of the show...ahem...First off the Dodge Theater is the lamest place on Planet Earth to host a rock n' roll show...It's the type of place that usually hosts concerts by Il Divo or maybe if they're felling edgy they might do a Gaither Gospel Hour or something...They literally put bouncers in folding chairs at either end of each row, so you can't leave the row to run up to the front of the stage or anything...You have to say, "Pardon me, may I please leave this aisle so I may visit the men's room, Good sir?" and then they might let you out...Lame...
I had also wondered who exactly listened to Elvis Costello...In all my years of fandom I had never met a single other Elvis Costello fan...
Well, I found them all...They were all snooty middle aged yuppies...There were a handful of kids and the odd punk rocker snarling at the tasteful chandeliers here and there, but for the most part it was the Cabernet Sauvignon crowd...I remember making the mistake of standing up for a split second to applaud and a bunch of khaki-wearing stuffed-shirts got their man-panties in a bunch and yelled, "Down in front!"
I sat back down and whispered to Amy, "Maaaaan, this place sucks..." Then he started playing, "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" and we both agreed there was no way we were sitting down, we were going to make a break for it, jump over the guards in the folding chairs and run to the front of the stage and actually rock out...And as soon as we jumped up and started running, Elvis yells into the microphone, "Everybody get up and come on down here!" And suddenly everybody with a pulse got up and started running! There was no way the Security Guards could stop us all, besides, Elvis told us to do it, and his name was written in the big lights after all...
Amy and I got right to the front of the stage and suddenly the whole concert was a zillion times better! The only exception being this incredibly obnoxious guy who kept incessantly bellerin' "WAATCHING THE DETECTIIIIIIVES!!!" in the loudest, most booming voice I've ever heard...Cut right through the music every time...The next day on the Elvis Costello website, this guy was what everybody was talking about...The nadir being when the place went quiet as Elvis sat down at a grand piano and played the hushed, delicate opening lines to "Shipbuilding" and the guy went, "OH, PFFFFFFFFFTTTT!!!" Oh yea, I also remember the band playing "I Want You" during one of the encores and some girl was loudly orgasming next to us the entire song...These are the reasons I won't pay more than $35.00 for a show...
But I was thrilled we went, Amy and I had a lovely night out, and I guess if any show is worth $50.00 it's Elvis on the "When I Was Cruel" tour...
Here's "My Little Blue Window" by Elvis Costello...Enjoy...
Elvis Costello & the Imposters: The Delivery Mana
2004
Lost Highway Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Button My Lip 2. Country Darkness 3. There's A Story in Your Voice 4. Either Side of the Same Town 5. Bedlam 6. The Delivery Man 7. Monkey to Man 8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy 9. The Name of This Thing Is Not Love 10. Heart Shaped Bruise 11. She's Pulling Out the Pin 12. Needle Time 13. The Judgement 14. The Scarlet Tide
...and as soon as Elvis had me again, he almost lost me with 2003's "North."
I bought the album, listened to it many, many times and it was nice and pleasant and all, but I just can't get into Diana Krall/Starbucks music...They don't make coffee strong enough to keep me awake for the duration of the average jazz-pop album...Again, I'll admit I'm the uncouth heathen...It wasn't horribly done or anything...The fact that I even made it to a second (let alone a 50th) listen is a minor miracle, since I usually hate the genre...So whatever, "North" eventually ended up at the used record store...Not too long afterwards "Delivery Man" came out and I decided to give Elvis another shot anyway, since my burning love for "When I Was Cruel" still raged...
And I'm glad I did...I don't think it's a knock-out classic or anything but it's a very pleasurable listen...I saw the "Lost Highway" label and the back cover showing Elvis hanging out with his pick-up truck and acoustic guitar and figured this might be Elvis giving the alt-country thing a shot, but when I put it on and heard the scruffy rhumba "Button My Lip" I didn't know what to think, really..It kind of reminded me of something off "Trust"...A backwoods "Strict Time" maybe...But on the second track ("Country Darkness") the true nature of the album becomes clear... It's Elvis revisiting the Americana/roots genre that he nailed on "King of America," only this time imbuing it with a rougher feel...It doesn't feel as exquisitely crafted, which is a plus sometimes and a minus at others...When he really commits to cutting loose, he sounds unbeatable...Most notably on "There's a Story in Your Voice," a rowdy duet with Lucinda Williams...
I'd never heard Lucinda Williams before, and honestly haven't listened to her since...I really don't know what to think of her...She sounds like a female version of 70's Keith Richards...Where the words she's singing don't always appear to be the complete words, if that makes sense...Various consonants and sometimes whole syllables go missing....It's a pretty out of control performance and some days I listen to it and I say, "Fuck yea!" and then other days it get on my nerves in about .5 seconds...I just did a shot of Jim Beam, so it sounds pretty good to me right now...
Oh yea, there's also a handful of duets with Emmylou Harris...I'm not real familiar with country music, so I don't really know who she is, outside of the fact that she sang on some of the Neil Young albums I love...Most notably "Star of Bethlehem," which is my song...I never fail to get on my good foot for that one...
The best of the Emmylou Harris duets has gotta be "The Scarlet Tide"...I didn't know he wrote this for Alison Krauss, who recorded it for the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack, but that's not real surprising, since I have no idea who Alison Krauss is or what Cold Mountain is...
Oh yea, there's no way I'm watching this.. I can tell just by looking at the cover that there's no robots or laser guns in it...Anyway, I was in the mood to hear "The Scarlet Tide" but was too lazy to go fetch my copy so I youtubed it and ran across the Alison Krauss version...
I listened to it, but it wasn't my thing...A little too light for my tastes, but the Elvis/Emmylou version is the best! It's not as moist as the Krauss version...Elvis and Emmylou sound really strong and stoic, like they're ready to face down anything...It's definitely worth a listen...
So get ready to bust out your air-accordion and rock out to "The Scarlet Tide"...
To be honest, this album kind of went in one ear and out the other when I got it...Elvis' fussy, polished lyrics and delivery seemed to clash with the loose, country setting (although, I have to say, the Imposters really take to this style, like it was second nature...You really do forget you're listening to the what is essentially the Attractions...They're that accurate ). It languished on my shelf for years, only getting pulled for a quick listen to the single, "From Monkey to Man" (which is sounding more and more like the weak spot as time goes on), but nowadays I can't get enough...I consider it the third stop on the "Almost Blue"/"King of America" route...Which is a lovely route indeed...Lots of pedal steels, country tempos and swampy atmosphere...If you find it cheap, I say go for it...
BTW, this album marks the most recent Elvis Costello album I own...He kind of lost me again with the next album, the live orchestral jazzer "My Flame Burns Blue," and I've just never gone back...I was gonna check out the Roots collaboration, but I haven't found a copy for a reasonable price yet (for some reason all the stores around here want to sell it for $17.99), again, I don't really know how to navigate this part of his discography...If anyone knows which post-"Delivery Man" albums are worthwhile, let me know!
Here's "Country Darkness" by Elvis Costello...Enjoy...
Track Listing: 1. The Other Side of Summer 2. Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over) 3. How to Be Dumb 4. All Grown Up 5. Invasion Hit Parade 6. Harpies Bizarre 7. After the Fall 8. Georgie and Her Rival 9. So Like Candy 10. Interlude: Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 2 11. Playboy to A Man 12. Sweet Pear 13. Broken 14. Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4
Bonus Disc: 1. Just Another Mystery 2. Sweet Pear 3. Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4 4. Mischievous Ghost 5. St. Stephen's Day Murders 6. The Other Side of Summer(MTV Unplugged) 7. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror (MTV Unplugged) 8. Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over) (MTV Unplugged) 9. All Grown Up 10. Georgie and Her Rival 11. Forgive Her Anything 12. It Started to Come to Me 13. I Still Miss Someone/The Last Town I Painted 14. Put Your Big Toe in the Milk of Human Kindness 15. Invasion Hit Parade 16. Just Another Mystery 17. Broken
Elvis Costello's beard album...
Bristling with a beardy, byzantine weirdness...Lots of mature, mannered pop with bitter-ass lyrics...This is often dismissed as being one of Elvis' worst albums (I don't know if I've ever read a good review of it...), being overly complicated and dense, but I actually consider it my favorite Elvis Costello album of the post-"Spike" era...Sure, there's definitely a few skippers, but shave a little of this long beard and there's some respectable undergrowth beneath...
"The Other Side of Summer," for instance is a modern (keep in mind, I still live in the 90's...) update of Brian Wilson's finest, bearded work...A big, lush wall of sound where even the bells and whistles are double (possibly triple) tracked...It's a lot of fun to hear Elvis playing the dark cloud over the state of California...Sun, fun, girls & surf? Bah!
"The dancing was desperate, the music was worse,
They bury your dreams and dig up the worthless,
Goodnight, God bless and kiss "goodbye" to the earth..."
Again, with lyrics like those, it wasn't a big surprise this was such a big hit for me when I was about 14 or 15 year's old...
"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)" seems to be a song that divides people, but I'm all for it...It's the kind of clanky, apocalyptic junkyard music that I usually equate with "Bone Machine"- era Tom Waits...Weird as hell, but I like weird shit sometimes...But I can see how some middle-aged guy (loosening his tie after a long day of work) might be annoyed after turning on the hi-fi to hear some relaxing Perry Como, but is instead greeted by the song's dissonant insect-locust-rock...
"WHICH ONE OF THE DAMN KIDS LEFT THAT ELVIS COSTELLO CD IN THE BOSE AGAIN?!?!"
"CLICK CLACK!!!"
"THEY KNOW I DON'T ALLOW THAT RAP SHIT IN MY HOUSE!!!"
Then "How to Be Dumb" comes on and it's perfect anger-pop! I love this song! What a great, catchy chorus...It's weird because I don't think I've ever heard a good word about it, but to me, it's one of his best...I feel the same about "Georgie and Her Rival," which seems to be a close relative of "Veronica"... Oh yea, speaking of "Veronica," there's a couple of McCartney co-writes on this album too! The strongest being "So Like Candy"...I can't help but think if "A Hard Day's Night" was recorded in Twin Peaks, Washington it might sound something like "So Like Candy"...
When the tense atmosphere finally breaks it's pretty stunning...The other McCartney joint "Playboy to a Man," is notable for the silly, nasally vocals that kind of remind of Cameo or something...
It's not the greatest song on Planet Earth or anything, but it helps inject some much-needed uptempo fun into an album that sometimes gets bogged down in soggy balladry at times ("Sweet Pear" being the breaking point for me)...I should mention that album-closer "Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4" is probably the most underrated song in Elvis' discography...It's a little weird at first and it took me about 10 years to fully fall in love with it, but goddamn...I get it now...Basically, Elvis finds himself losing faith in religion and his resulting mood falls somewhere between heart-break and triumph...A few of his best lines appear here:
"Please don't let me fear anything I cannot explain,
I can't believe, I'll never believe in anything again..."
Really, I could just reprint the entire set of lyrics here...They're all that perfect...
Again, cut a few songs off this it and it has the potential to be one of my all-time favorite Elvis Costello albums...Here's what my re-programmed version would look like...
1. The Other Side of Summer
2. Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are
Taking Over)
3. How to Be Dumb
4. So Like Candy
5. After the Fall
6. Georgie and Her Rival
7.
Playboy to A Man
8. Invasion Hit
Parade
9. Broken
10. Couldn't Call It
Unexpected No. 4
Even cut down to ten tracks this would still run about 43 minutes or so...Which is a much more manageable running time...Try it in this configuration and you'll find it's not too difficult an album at all..Just challenging enough to keep things interesting and it'd blow away the condensed "Spike"...
Here's "The Other Side of Summer" by Abbot Costello...Enjoi-oi-oi...
Elvis Costello: Brutal Youth
1994
Warner Bros Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Pony St 2. Kinder Murder 3. 13 Steps Lead Down 4. This Is Hell 5. Clown Strike 6. You Tripped at Every Step 7. Still Too Soon to Know 8. 20% Amnesia 9. Sulky Girl 10. London's Brilliant Parade 11. My Science Fiction Twin 12. Rocking Horse Road 13. Just About Glad 14. All the Rage 15. Favourite Hour
Disc 2 (2002 Rhino Records Reissue): 1. Life Shrinks 2. Favourite Hour (Church Studios Version) 3. This Is Hell (Church Studios Version) 4. Idiophone 5. Abandon Words 6. Poisoned Letter 7. A drunken man's praise of sobriety 8. Pony St. (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 9. Just About Glad (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 10. Clown Strike (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 11. Clown Strike (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 12. 13 Steps Lead Down (Demo) 13. All the Rage (Demo) 14. Sulky Girl (Demo) 15. You Tripped at Every Step (Church Studios Version)
I can remember what a relief this album was at the time...Like I said
before, I came into Elvis through "Spike" and "Mighty Like a Rose," so I
was alright with difficult albums, but he kind of lost me for the first time with 1993's "The Juliet Letters"...
I know "The Juliet Letters" definitely has its followers, and I don't think it's a bad album by any means, it's just that it's not for me...I kind of felt like an uncultured barbarian listening to it...the delicate, brittle teacup handle breaking in-between my clumsy fingers, revealing me for the fraud I am...The viking in a fine, tailored suit...I can't help it...String quartets don't do a thing for me...I just can't blast the Brodsky Quartet on a Friday Night and pound a few beers...I need loud, crashing drums and distorted guitars before something will register in my brain...
At the time I hadn't quite got a grip on Elvis' new mode of operation...I didn't realize that every album released after "Mighty Like a Rose" would sound absolutely nothing like the album preceding it...It had seriously crossed my mind that the Brodsky quartet were the new Attractions and the next 10 albums would be nothing but cellos and violins and violas and violaronies...So when I started reading the advance press stating that he was reuniting with Nick Lowe and the Attractions and making a "return to form" album, I was ecstatic...
I think ultimately the press oversold it..."...and the Attractions" isn't written anywhere on the cover...Nick Lowe functions as a bass player, rather than producer, and this is undeniably the Elvis of 1994...It doesn't even seem to have crossed his mind to recapture the past glories of "This Year's Model," which probably would have been an impossible task anyhow...In the end, I think this was the right move...It's a clearer, uncluttered version of the past few albums...Replacing the bells and whistles for guitar, drums and piano, but keeping the sophisticated songwriting style he had acquired...
Sure, it's suffers from a bloated running time (this was the 90's) and there's maybe a song or two that I don't much care for (the showtune-ish "This is Hell" being the biggest offender, nearly killing the momentum of the album with its early placement..."Still Too Soon to Know" isn't too exciting either...) and "Favourite Hour" would have made a bigger impact if it wasn't butted against the draggy (but enjoyable) "All the Rage." But there's no denying this was his most breezy and enjoyable album in quite some time...
I can still recall the smile that was glued to my face when I popped in the cassette and heard "Pony St." for the first time..."The tinkling piano could lead anywhere," I thought to myself nervously as the album started, but then the lively lead vocal and crashing guitars and cymbals come in and I'm sure I pumped my fist in the air...Oh, and the bass guitar! It's actually moving this time around...Throwing off rapid-succession triplets and slippery fills... It's Rock....I like Rock!
"Kinder Murder," "13 Steps Lead Down," and "Just About Glad" are just the kind of boppy, bitter, guitar-pop that Elvis built his name on! And as an added bonus we also get those hazy, atmospheric, but ultimately cathartic ballads that he started acing during the "Spike" and "Mighty Like a Rose" period ("Sulky Girl" being an especially welcome entry into the canon, although the sparse demo version on the bonus disc does make me consider the virtues of a more stripped-down arrangement)...
Oddly enough, my favorite track falls into neither category..."Clown Strike" is sort of jazzy R&B, but he doesn't use jazz to bore us for a change...This comes off like a mature version of the "Get Happy!!" style to me and I love it...He should do some more of these...
"We demand bigger cars and longer seltzer breaks! Ha-honk!!"
So I'd say get this if you're into "Spike" or "Mighty Like a Rose," but don't skip those ones thinking that "Brutal Youth" is going to be a return to the Attractions-era recordings...He's pretty far removed from all that at this point, but it's a hell of a good album once your expectations are on straight...Still, you can't shake the feeling that if they'd pulled Nick Lowe from the bass guitar and threw him in the producer's chair instead, that this could have been a home-run...
Oh yea, if you have the Rhino reissue with the bonus disc, make sure you don't overlook "Poisoned Letter" and "A drunken man's praise of sobriety" (his callabo with Canadian tween sensation William Butler Yeats)...Those two tracks smoke a lot of the material that appeared on the final album...
Here's "Just About Glad" by Elvis Costello...Enjoy...
Track Listing: 1. ...This Town... 2. Let Him Dangle 3. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror 4. Veronica 5. God's Comic 6. Chewing Gum 7. Tramp the Dirt Down 8. Stalin Malone 9. Satellite 10. Pads, Paws and Claws 11. Baby Plays Around 12. Miss Macbeth 13. Any King's Shilling 14. Coal-Train Robberies 15. Last Boat Leaving
This album (along with "Mighty Like a Rose") is the reason I got into Elvis Costello back in Junior High School...I remembering rescuing the cassette from a K-Mart cut-out bin...Cut-out bins used to be pretty fuckin' cool, by the way...That's where you'd find all the fringe major-label artists who made records that not surprisingly, didn't sell a gazillion copies as expected...Full of Robyn Hitchcock, Lou Reed, Dead Milkmen and Elvis Costello albums, and as a kid looking for "out-there" music, but not having much money, I always made a bee-line straight to the cut-outs...
At the time I had some vague notion of who Elvis Costello was..I'd caught a TV appearance or two, saw the "Veronica" video...Anyway, I brought the tape home and loved it, which is pretty weird in retrospect..."Spike" is a pretty grown-up album for a metal/punk kid to latch onto, and I honestly can't think of many worse entry points into his catalog than this...I think what probably resonated with me was his snide, bitter lyrical attitude..I had no problem wrapping my mind around such sentiments as, "You're nobody till everybody in this town thinks you're poison..." I do recall being bored out of my mind during "God's Comic" though...
Right around 2001 or so, I found a vinyl copy at PDQ Records in Tucson and decided to get reacquainted with my ol' pal "Spike," only to find we had both changed a lot over the years...God, I now realize this album is a damn mess...I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anybody, but despite our differences, I still like ol' "Spike"...Sure he tries too hard, he's all over the place and he certainly doesn't know when to quit, but those aren't deal-breakers to me (by the way, I'm gonna stop talking about this record as if it were a real person now, since I'm even starting to creep myself out)...
Take album-opener "...This Town..." which I loved growing up...I used to rewind it and listen to it over and over, but now I hear a pretty significant flaw...Mainly those fake drums. I think there's a time and place for everything, even fake drums...But this song would be a drop-dead classic if it wasn't for that slight lapse in taste, but sometimes it's hard to tell when you're using the latest cutting-edge technology...
The album plays like a portable eclectic record collection...It veers between disparate genres with no warning...You go from soul ("Deep Dark Truthful Mirror") to Stay Cats rockabilly ("Pads, Paws & Claws") to big band instrumentals ("Stalin Malone"), so it seems like it should be a little more exciting than it actually is...Unfortunately, torch songs, New Orleans jazz and melancholy showtunes aren't among my favorite genres...Still, there's some good tunes here...
Take "Veronica" for instance! I love this song! Everybody does! I remember it being a pretty sizable hit, thanks to a memorable video and a ridiculously catchy melody co-written with bleedin' pip-pop chappie Paul McCartney...You'd think that a dramatist like Elvis would make a song about a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's disease a morose affair, but it's so happy and poppy sounding...Making the bitter pill of the lyrics much easier too swallow...See? It's one of those yummy pills!
Like a prescription bottle full of Good & Plenty's!
I've also always had a soft spot for "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror." It's got a very adult, late night soul feel...Compare this to his earlier blue-eyed soul attempts on "Punch the Clock" and "Goodbye Cruel World" and you can really appreciate how far he came along in this style...Yea, I can see myself hangin' out at 3 am, scotch and cigars in hand nodding my head to this....
Yea, see what I mean? Adult stuff...You've got to be comfortable and secure in your life to put on a song like "Any King's Shilling" and say,"Y'know what? I don't care who knows that I like to listen to medieval lute music with mandolins and shit...It feels good on my bald spot! Y'hear me world?!?!?!I LIKE ALBUMS PRODUCED BY T-BONE BURNETT!!"
Y'know, I'm starting to think I was too harsh in my criticism of "...This Town...". It really is a good song, and certainly one of the highlights here...I just wouldn't listen to it right after "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" or anything, or your head might explode...And I think that sums up my feelings about this album, in general...I wouldn't jump into this one right away...I have a feeling if I were somehow able to push my nostalgia aside, this would probably be my, like, 16th favorite Elvis Costello album...Tracks like "God's Comic," "Chewing Gum" and "Stalin Malone" are incredibly tough for me to sit through...Shave about 20 minutes off this and it'd be a pretty solid listen, I suspect...
But let's not dwell on the negatives...It's Friday, isn't it? Here's "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"...You might want to save this one until about 3 am, though...Enjoy....
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Blood & Chocolate
1986
Columbia Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Uncomplicated 2. I Hope You're Happy Now 3.Tokyo Storm Warning 4. Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head 5. I Want You 6. Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind? 7. Blue Chair 8. Battered Old Bird 9. Crimes of Paris 10. Poor Napoleon 11. Next Time Round
Disc 2 (2002 Rhino CD reissue ): 1. Leave My Kitten Alone 2. New Rhythm Method 3. Forgive Her Anything 4. Crimes of Paris 5. Uncomplicated 6. Battered Old Bird 7. Seven Day Weekend (with Jimmy Cliff) 8. Blue Chair (Single Version) 9. Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo 10. American Without Tears No. 2 11. All These Things 12. Pouring Water on a Drowning Man 13. Running Out of Fools 14. Tell Me Right Now 15. Lonely Blue Boy
I don't know if you can tell just by reading this, but I've been sick as hell all week...I kind of just want to lie in bed and moan all day, so forgive me if the posts this week have been more incoherent than usual (which I'm sure is highly unlikely...I tend to run a pretty incoherent ship here...) Alright, here we go...Let's take a look at this here "Blood & Chocolate" Record...
Oh yea, have you guys ever seen the limited cassette tape version of this? So freakin' ballin'...Check this out...
It looks like a candy bar! I want to eat it so bad right about now! See, I went to the doctor's office last weekend (totally unrelated to my current cold/flu) and the doctor took one look at my blood pressure and seriously told me, "You could die any second! Go to the emergency room immediately!" One would think the doctor would be able to help me out with such a thing, but I'm no doctor, so...Anyway, I'd been through this before...I had gone to the emergency room before and when they took one look at my stats and said, "Go to a regular doctors office!" Then I went to the regular doctor and they kind of just shrugged...Long story short, I have to stop doing everything in life I enjoy...So I haven't had beer, meat, cheese, pop, or fun all week...
It actually wasn't as hard as I thought, so far...I'm one of those odd people who just naturally enjoys bean sprouts and tofu...So theoretically, I shouldn't be in such bad shape, but I've picked up some nasty habits in my life...Here's what my diet looked like last week (when I was much happier)...
Wake up! Drink a 40 oz of Pepsi and eat a bag of salty-ass peanuts for breakfast...
Hear that whistle? It's time for lunch...Let's snap into a Sasquatch-sized Slim Jim and 5 cups of coffee!
Alright...It's time to go home and make myself dinner...Let's do a couple cans of Coke, a frozen pizza and 6-8 beers!
Apparently, doing this everyday for 30-odd years is fatal. Who knew?
The hardest thing now is not being full after I eat dinner...It's like, alright, I'll eat an orange for dinner, but goddamn, I eat it and my stomach growls so I'm like, "Ah, what the hell...Let's do another orange..." and so on...It's very possible I might end up gaining 100 pounds from eating oranges alone...But how can you not be hungry after you eat it? It's an orange...
Maybe if you peeled it and there was a nice, juicy meatball underneath, but no! There's nothing but fruit underneath that peel! Again, I have nothing against oranges...I happen to love them, but not for lunch...I like them between bags of Doritos...But I'm trying not to die, so I do it...And what happens? I get sick as a dog! Sicker than a dog actually...Most dogs I know seem to be pretty healthy.! Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yea, I want to eat that Elvis Costello cassette...But I don't have that cassette...I have a regular looking vinyl and CD version, but my version's pretty cool cos it says "Napoleon Dynamite" on it!
Napoleon Dynamite was another one of Elvis Costello's aliases that he used during this time period, along with his real name Declan MacManus (who gets most of the song-writing credits) ...I don't see the Little Hands of Concrete listed this time around, though..
This is my jam. Elvis Costello has a huge discography, but this one has always risen to the top for me...Second only to "Armed Forces" and tied with "This Year's Model." Why does this appeal to me so much? I don't know. On the surface it doesn't sound like a good time: Long, noisy, wordy tracks featuring the bitter recriminations of a recently divorced man just seething with anger and occasionally breaking for forced, joyless fun...But despite all this I always have such fun listening to "Blood & Chocolate"...And I don't think it's good fun either...It's the kind of fun you have where you look back year's later and say, "Man, that was fucked up..."
The album reunites Elvis with the Attractions, after doing "King of America," without them, although they too would be going through their own divorce soon enough (and not return until 1994's "Brutal Truth"). Oh, and Nick Lowe is back on production duties, but this doesn't sound like it did before...It's louder, booming, nastier and Elvis' vocals sound so close that you can practically feel his hot breath coming out of your speakers during the more intense moments...And things get intense immediately with the opening tack "Uncomplicated" which sets the scene with a pounding racket and Elvis shouting his fool head off about a "horse that knows arithmetic and a dog that tells your fortune..." or some such thing...I think we might have caught him on a bad day!
Then "I Hope You're Happy Now" comes on and it sounds like things are lightening up a touch...It's sort of a noisier version of nice Merseybeat pop, but then you start noticing that Elvis sounds like he's having a little too much fun and suddenly the lyrics register:
"I knew then what I know now.
I never loved you anyhow,
and I hope you're happy now.."
Then we're on to the album's first masterpiece..."Tokyo Storm Warning" is a six and a half minute travelogue that takes us to some pretty unsavory places...A hotel bar hosting a KKK convention, Japanese palaces gilded with the gold teeth of pensioners, the main streets of Italy where the streets are littered with dead tourists...Every verse is a packed with vivid gallows-humor imagery...I've been listening to this album for over a decade now and I'm still picking up on new meanings in the lyrics...
Like the day I found out the "God-Jesus" robots were a real thing!
The second masterpiece closes out side one...They've got to make "I Want You" the divorcee's official anthem...I'm serious! When you go to Divorce Court, they should make you stand and put your right hand over your heart while this pipes out of the PA speakers and the honorable Lynn Toler pounds out the beat on her gavel...
Just a big, tense ball of jealousy, ache and resentment...Undeniably based on "I Want You (She's So Heavy) by the Beatles (so I guess Elvis can't get too upset about the whole Napoleon Dynamite movie stealing his name), this thing is just a triumph of production and arrangement...Most notably the part at the end when they shut off all the mic's except the vocal mic...Is there a window open? Cos I got the chills (rim-shot...Audience groans and suddenly turns on me...A villager lights up a torch...Another holds aloft a pitchfork and burns down the decrepit windmill where I live...)
Oh yea, then there's the third masterpiece..."Battered Old Bird." If I had to pick a single favorite Elvis Costello song, this one is it...It's almost startling when you listen to the alternate take on the bonus disc and hear that it was originally a fun-lovin' uptempo rock song, because the final version couldn't be more unrelated...Somehow the group arrives at a beautifully detailed, slow-moving portrait of the tenants of a building young Elvis inhabited as a child...I'm fascinated by how the hushed accompaniment gets more tense and uncomfortable until it finally explodes into a hair-raising scream for the final chorus...Man, I wish I had neighbors this interesting...
I had some neighbors who tried to sell me AK-47's while outlining how they could easily break into my apartment and kill me and steal my stuff...I guess that guy was cool...Then he tried to steal a pair of slippers cos he said he needed them for the strip club...
Oh yea, I had this other really drunken neighbor that forced his way into the house, picked up my guitar and tried to write a song with the AK-47 guy...The drunk guy was plucking the strings tenderly and the AK-47 dude started rapping, "Yo! She's lookin' like she want to suck a dick!" Then the drunk guy stopped playing and looked at the other neighbor and said, "No, no, no...This is a beautiful song...It's about this guy who wants this girl but it's like she's always a million miles away..."
The AK-47 guy looked up wistfully, like he understood deeply, and cooed, "Yeeeaaaa....Like she's a million miles away..."
Then drunk guy starts playing again and AK-47 man starts rapping, "Yo! She's lookin' like she want to suck my dick..."
Then AK-47 man tried walking down the stairs, Four Loko in hand, then fell flat on his back and tumbled down an entire flight of concrete stairs, the back of his head bouncing off of every step...
"Oh goody, maybe he's dead, " I thought to myself..
No such luck...He gets up like nothing happened and goes in his apartment, and is then promptly arrested and sent to prison a month later for possession of AK-47's..."Why do you let these people into your home?" I ask myself...
Hmmm...Maybe I should write a song about my neighbors...Maybe a rap song called, "Slippers in the Strip Club..." Wait! I just remembered something else about those neighbors! He was always standing outside free-styling raps...Here are a couple of the choice line I overheard:
"Yo! We be gettin' bigger than J-Lo's butt!"
"Eagle-eyed like a hawk! The Incredible Hulk!"
Boy have I gotten off-topic today...Did I even talk about "Blood & Chocolate"? It's hard to remember...If not, it's a good record...My favorite, actually...All the songs are good...Here's "I Want You (She's So Heavy) by Elvis Costello...
