Elvis/Clover, San Fran, Nov. 8 '07 - download available

[Dr. Luther]

For a night, we were the luckiest people in the world.

Surreal, wasn't it?
Just incredible.

[Dr. Luther]

OK -- I'm pretty sure that this is real close.

No official video being shot, by the way...
****************************************
(Don't recall the exact order of things.)


Both shows:

MAIT (Played in UK LP order)
Detectives



1st show:
Solo - Acoustic
Cheap Reward
(some tremedous song that I have NO idea what it was. a '75 demo of some variety)
Imagination is a Powerul Deceiver
(another song that I'm not sure of: but contained a large portion of the lyrics from 'Watch Your Step'.)
Blue Minute
Poison Moon

2nd show:
Solo - Acoustic
(No: Imagination, Cheap Reward, Poison Moon)
add:
Wave a White Flag
Jump Up

Love Has No Pride (Costello & DeLone)



With full band -- both shows:

Stranger in the House
Living in Paradise
Radio Sweetheart
I Don't Want to go Home
Mr. Moon (Clover)
Love is Gone (Clover)

PL&U

[sweetest punch]

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/1 ... _true.html

Concert review: With Clover, Elvis Costello’s aim is true
By Shay Quillen

Thirty years after recording the classic “My Aim Is True,â€

[bronxapostle]

i still say ELVIS should bring it all to new york for a night!!!!!!!

[johnfoyle]

Friday, November 9, 2007
my aim is true...

Posted by woolgathering... at 9:37 AM

wow i was a part of the coolest thing last night.

undoubtedly the two main non- family/friend reasons i love sf so so much are the weather and the live music. that it is an epicurean wonderland, populated by truffles and unicorns, is a close third, and that i feel like lots of people here byob to the grocery store* also sincerely pleases me and helps me believe that all is not lost.

but last night i got to see elvis costello perform his debut record, 'my aim is true', in it's entirety [favorite quote of the night: after 'sneaky feelings', elvis quipped that it was "time to flip the record over" before going into 'red shoes']. the performance was held at the great american music hall, a wonderful venue where i've seen maria taylor, midlake, thurston moore, and of montreal. many of you will most likely remember it from the tweedy solo show segment of 'i am trying to break your heart'.

backing him was none other than clover-- the band that played on the original recording-- adding to the significance of the evening. i went with an out of town friend [in town fortuitously and available when the wife bailed on me] and when we got there at 9:15 [doors were at 9:30] there already were two huge lines, broken up by last names a-l and m-z. it was all will call, which i'll always tolerate because i know it's an anti- scalper thing but a pain in the ass nonetheless, but by 9:50 or so we were in the line for the bar and all was well. after a short set that started promptly at 10:00 by two older gentlemen whose names i never caught, the man himself hit the stage.

i have to stop for just one second, and i don't want to turn into a jerry seinfeld/ dennis miller thing here, but why do i always get stuck behind some asshole in a porkpie hat? i get that they are supposed to be timeless and i may even have something similar that i wear from time to time. but, once indoors, formalities require gentlemen to remove them. it's what would've been done in sinatra's day, and isn't that supposed to be the fucking point?

sorry about that. so like i said, elvis & co. hit the stage around 10:40 or so and they did their thing. he [and they] sounded great, and even from behind the walking anachronism in front of me i could tell that he wasn't having to rely too much on the music stand in front of him, something i always kind of wince at [talking to you, lou reed]. he was funny and nostalgic, for obvious reasons, telling priceless stories from before he was elvis costello** about how spoiled and luxuriant he felt staying in a howard johnson's [he called it a 'hojo', which was pretty rad] in mill valley on his first tour, having come from the traveler's hell that is london, england, and of battling rats in the studio where they recorded the very album we were all there to celebrate.

in short, he was affable, gregarious, and he played a great set. he did a few acoustic numbers solo as an encore but nothing i recognized, as he basically said he wasn't doing anything from before 1977.

and the whole thing was a benefit for the richard de lone special housing project, a new non- profit "with the mission of working toward providing a state- of- the- art residential group home setting in marin county, california, capable of serving both children and adults with prader- willi syndrome and utilizing best practice techniques to serve the prader- willi population. by extension, we hope to be able to benefit all people who need to live in special care facilities".

"prader- willi syndrome [pws] is a rare and random complex genetic disorder affecting appetite, growth, metabolism, cognitive function and behavior... our goals are twofold: to raise public awareness... and to raise funds... to give these kids, who have such a tough prospect in life, a chance to enjoy themselves".

so there you go, dear readers. elvis costello did his job last night and i hope i've done mine just now. please go to http://www.pwsusa.org or http://www.rdshp.org to make a donation. have a great weekend.

~lee.

*http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/ ... stic_bags/

**his real name is declan mcmanis. and i knew that off the top of my head. i also know the real names of sting, slash, alice cooper, and elton john. i have no idea why.

[MOJO]

What an incredible show. I doubled up and went to both. I can't believe it. It seems that every time I see Elvis, he just seems to be getting better. I am so happy to live in SF.

Highlights -

Pay it Back

Had someone tell me I smelled nice. Weird. Got into a conversation about Chanel No. 5. I don't even wear perfume.

Hammer of Honky Tonk Gods - Bill Kirchen rocks.

Had some jerk push me out of his "area/space"... after which, he turned his back to the stage to talk to his friends. Chump. Relocated myself two pillars down to take in the music from the balcony. I enjoyed Bill and Austin. Sort of wished they had a full band as they did at HSB.

Miracle Man

Almost knocked over John Goddard... a thin, small guy, really... I was embarrassed. I think I tripped on the rug or something. Genius.

Every song played. What a perfect night of music. E.C. RULES.

[Dr. Luther]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 01&sc=1000

*****************************************


Costello's aim - at 1977 - is still true
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Every so often, once every 10 or 15 years maybe, there's a nightclub show as special as the Elvis Costello performance Thursday at the Great American Music Hall. Maybe not even that often.

Costello has such a history with San Francisco, it's not surprising that he came here to give this one-time-only performance of his entire first album, with most of the same musicians playing the songs in the same order as on the record 30 years ago.

"We're turning the record over," he said when he reached "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," the song that led off side 2 of his 1977 classic, "My Aim Is True."

Costello, whose ambitious artistic agenda in recent years has cut across rock, pop, jazz and classical boundaries, doesn't usually engage in such self-celebration, but he did this for a friend. Austin de Lone is a highly regarded Mill Valley keyboard player whom Costello has known since he first came to the States. De Lone's son, Richard, suffers from Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare, incurable disease that leaves victims perpetually starving. Revenue from the two sold-out shows commenced fundraising for the Richard de Lone Special Housing Project.

Not only did Costello, 53, perform "My Aim Is True" song by song, making a strong case for the album as one of the great premieres in rock history, but he followed the 50-minute performance of the album with another 50 minutes of songs he wrote around the same time, one unknown gem after another. It was a daring, intimate look deep into Costello's songwriting notebooks that will undoubtedly never be repeated.

Backing him onstage were three members of Clover, a long-defunct Marin County rock group that accompanied Costello on the original recording sessions and never played with him again. Guitarist John McFee judiciously decorated the buoyant, chugging sound of the band. The tightly focused songs allowed for only a couple of brief guitar breaks, but McFee, who has played with the Doobie Brothers since 1981, tucked shimmering little accents around the end of verses throughout the show. Keyboardist Sean Hopper, who became a founding member of Huey Lewis and the News after Clover broke up in 1978, joined Clover bassist John Ciambotti, who worked for a time with Lucinda Williams and currently is a chiropractor in Southern California.

Pete Thomas of Costello's longtime band the Attractions replaced Clover drummer Mickey Shine, although Costello acknowledged Shine during the show. Clover's two vocalists were not involved in the "My Aim Is True" sessions, so the reunion also was absent Nashville songwriter Alex Call and Huey Lewis, who called himself Huey Louis when he belonged to Clover.

In between performing the "My Aim Is True" songs, Costello talked about making the album. "It was never conceived as a record," he said. "It was a bunch of demos of songs for (British guitarist) Dave Edmunds to cover."

He remembered spending the night in the crummy London studio where the record was made and being told to sleep with the lights turned on to keep the rats away. He said he woke up sometime in the night with the lights off and "the sound of rustling."

After charging through the "My Aim Is True" tunes, Costello brought out an acoustic guitar and, explaining he decided to do only songs he wrote in 1977, played a half dozen that few in the crowd had ever heard. He admitted to salvaging spare parts from some of these unpublished early efforts, like "Imagination" or "Blue Minute," for later songs. Each of the tunes would have fit comfortably on the album. "I Don't Want to Go Home" had the bluff and bite. "Cheap Reward" snarled properly.

With the band back behind him, McFee on pedal steel, Costello brought out the secret country and western flavor of the sessions. "My manager used to say, 'Journalist coming on the tour bus - hide the George Jones tapes,' " said Costello, who eventually recorded his song "Stranger in My House" with Jones.

Costello even sang a Clover song, "Mr. Moon," from the band's 1971 second album, "Forty-Niner." Costello remembered the store in London where he bought the record.

"The mystique of this area and all the music coming out of it was very great to me," he said. "One of the groups we mythologized most was Clover."

It's a tribute to Costello's restless creativity that in only the past couple of years he has passed through town with four bands. He played Oakland's Paramount Theatre with the Attractions, giving a textbook lesson in rock quartet dynamics. He returned to the Paramount with New Orleans songwriter Allen Toussaint and Toussaint's large band. He did last year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival with a thrown-together ensemble that included dieselbilly guitarist Bill Kirchen and de Lone, who also gave a brief opening duo performance Thursday.

It was a rare and open night - as open as the songbooks on the music stands - another brilliant performance from the redoubtable Mr. Costello.

E-mail Joel Selvin at jselvin@sfchronicle.com.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.rdshp.org/concert.html

Richard de Lone Special Housing Project


Is Elvis Costello a busy man? Very. Between his performances with various symphony orchestras around the world, his solo tour with Bob Dylan, his performances with his own band - Elvis Costello and The Imposters - and with the legendary Allen Toussaint, composing the score for a new dance work by Twyla Tharpe for the Miami City Ballet, and being a loving father to his almost 1 year old twins with Diana Krall, he must barely have time to think. So why is he taking time in the middle of all this to come to San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to perform for free? Because of his old friend and sometime keyboardist, Austin de Lone. Austin, who is a Bay Area resident, is also a busy musician, and father to two beautiful children, Caroline and Richard. Richard is a 9 and 1/2 year old who was born with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder that is the leading genetic cause of morbid obesity. Due to the extreme difficulties that people with Prader-Willi face as they grow older, it is inevitable that Richie will end up in a residential care facility.

Austin and his wife Lesley have vowed to do what they can to make Richard's (and others with PWS) life better. They are starting a non-profit organization, The Richard de Lone Special Housing Project, whose goal is to build a state-of-the-art residential care facility for Prader-Willi children and adults in the greater Bay Area, and to find ways to improve existing facilities.

Richard & EC Austin and Elvis hatched a plan to put on a concert with the musicians who recorded his first album, My Aim Is True, 30 years ago in England. Elvis and the musicians, who were in a Marin county band named Clover, have generously agreed to donate their time to perform the album live, in it's entirety, for the first time ever. All the proceeds will go to the de Lone's non-profit. The concert will be at The Great American Music Hall on Thursday, November 8th. For more information about the concert got to Joel Selvin's San Francisco Chronicle article, Paul Libertore's Marin IJ article, or go to the Great American Music Hall web site. For more information about Prader-Willi Syndrome, go to the national website at pwsausa.org, or the California website at pwcf.org.

[johnfoyle]

Another blog account -

http://generik.blogspot.com/2007/11/miracle-man.html

(extract)

From the hammer-down opening of Welcome To The Working Week through a beautiful Alison, a romping Blame It On Cain, a blistering I'm Not Angry to the encore of Watching The Detectives, Elvis and Clover sounded as if they had been playing together all those 30 years. It was sublime. After he finished Sneaky Feelings, he joked, "And now we flip the record," then began what bass player John Ciambotti had always referred to as "that song that sounds like The Byrds," (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes. Between songs he told many stories about the early days of his career, how he happened to hook up with Clover to record that first album and lots more. He was charming, effusive and loquacious. "The record was only 35 minutes long," he quipped at one point; "that's why I'm talking so much in between songs." Of his life situation in those early days he said that he had been working in the computer department of a lipstick-making factory. "I thought I would combine make-up and rock and roll. It turned out I was a few years too late for that phenomenon." Later he mentioned that not long after the first album's relelase he and the Attractions had been interviewed by "some reporter from Nightline, looking to cover the 'punk scene'(!!)... his name was 'Geraldo' [Rivera], but we called him 'Horrendo'."

[johnfoyle]

Maria posts to listserv-

(extract)

There was a funny moment in the second show's
solo set when Elvis was singing a line about someone being on drugs
(amphetamines, I think) and at that moment an ambulance siren went off
in the distance. It was so fitting and amusing that he lost he focus
altogether and had to restart the song.

[And No Coffee Table]

Maria also posts the stage setlist (from the second show, but she thinks they used it for both shows):

[page 1:]

WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK
MIRACLE MAN
NO DANCING
BLAME IT ON CAIN
ALISON
SNEAKY FEELINGS
RED SHOES
LESS THAN ZERO
MYSTERY DANCE
PAY IT BACK
I'M NOT ANGRY
WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES

SOLO FROM:

CHEAP REWARD
I HEAR A MELODY
BLUE MINUTE
JUMP UP
WAVE A WHITE FLAG
I CAN'T TURN IT OFF

[page 2:]

LIVING IN PARADISE
STRANGER IN THE HOUSE
I DON'T WANT TO GO HOME
RADIO SWEETHEART
MR MOON
LOVE IS GONE
PEACE LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING

Does this mean the "tremendous" '75 demo mentioned by Dr. Luther was "I Hear A Melody" and the one with lyrics from "Watch Your Step" was "I Can't Turn It Off"?

[Dr. Luther]

Does this mean the "tremendous" '75 demo mentioned by Dr. Luther was
I Hear A Melody

No.
I Hear A Melody wasn't played -- either show.

The amphetamine reference earlier was from Jump Up.
He changed the "clicking their heels" part of the song to a couple of lines about amphetamine.
(And screwed up and started the song over...)

[ramalama]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... QT.DTL[url]

Costello's aim - at 1977 - is still true
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic
Saturday, November 10, 2007

Every so often, once every 10 or 15 years maybe, there's a nightclub show as special as the Elvis Costello performance Thursday at the Great American Music Hall. Maybe not even that often.

Costello has such a history with San Francisco, it's not surprising that he came here to give this one-time-only performance of his entire first album, with most of the same musicians playing the songs in the same order as on the record 30 years ago.

"We're turning the record over," he said when he reached "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," the song that led off side 2 of his 1977 classic, "My Aim Is True."

Costello, whose ambitious artistic agenda in recent years has cut across rock, pop, jazz and classical boundaries, doesn't usually engage in such self-celebration, but he did this for a friend. Austin de Lone is a highly regarded Mill Valley keyboard player whom Costello has known since he first came to the States. De Lone's son, Richard, suffers from Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare, incurable disease that leaves victims perpetually starving. Revenue from the two sold-out shows commenced fundraising for the Richard de Lone Special Housing Project.

Not only did Costello, 53, perform "My Aim Is True" song by song, making a strong case for the album as one of the great premieres in rock history, but he followed the 50-minute performance of the album with another 50 minutes of songs he wrote around the same time, one unknown gem after another. It was a daring, intimate look deep into Costello's songwriting notebooks that will undoubtedly never be repeated.

Backing him onstage were three members of Clover, a long-defunct Marin County rock group that accompanied Costello on the original recording sessions and never played with him again. Guitarist John McFee judiciously decorated the buoyant, chugging sound of the band. The tightly focused songs allowed for only a couple of brief guitar breaks, but McFee, who has played with the Doobie Brothers since 1981, tucked shimmering little accents around the end of verses throughout the show. Keyboardist Sean Hopper, who became a founding member of Huey Lewis and the News after Clover broke up in 1978, joined Clover bassist John Ciambotti, who worked for a time with Lucinda Williams and currently is a chiropractor in Southern California.

Pete Thomas of Costello's longtime band the Attractions replaced Clover drummer Mickey Shine, although Costello acknowledged Shine during the show. Clover's two vocalists were not involved in the "My Aim Is True" sessions, so the reunion also was absent Nashville songwriter Alex Call and Huey Lewis, who called himself Huey Louis when he belonged to Clover.

In between performing the "My Aim Is True" songs, Costello talked about making the album. "It was never conceived as a record," he said. "It was a bunch of demos of songs for (British guitarist) Dave Edmunds to cover."

He remembered spending the night in the crummy London studio where the record was made and being told to sleep with the lights turned on to keep the rats away. He said he woke up sometime in the night with the lights off and "the sound of rustling."

After charging through the "My Aim Is True" tunes, Costello brought out an acoustic guitar and, explaining he decided to do only songs he wrote in 1977, played a half dozen that few in the crowd had ever heard. He admitted to salvaging spare parts from some of these unpublished early efforts, like "Imagination" or "Blue Minute," for later songs. Each of the tunes would have fit comfortably on the album. "I Don't Want to Go Home" had the bluff and bite. "Cheap Reward" snarled properly.

With the band back behind him, McFee on pedal steel, Costello brought out the secret country and western flavor of the sessions. "My manager used to say, 'Journalist coming on the tour bus - hide the George Jones tapes,' " said Costello, who eventually recorded his song "Stranger in My House" with Jones.

Costello even sang a Clover song, "Mr. Moon," from the band's 1971 second album, "Forty-Niner." Costello remembered the store in London where he bought the record.

"The mystique of this area and all the music coming out of it was very great to me," he said. "One of the groups we mythologized most was Clover."

It's a tribute to Costello's restless creativity that in only the past couple of years he has passed through town with four bands. He played Oakland's Paramount Theatre with the Attractions, giving a textbook lesson in rock quartet dynamics. He returned to the Paramount with New Orleans songwriter Allen Toussaint and Toussaint's large band. He did last year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival with a thrown-together ensemble that included dieselbilly guitarist Bill Kirchen and de Lone, who also gave a brief opening duo performance Thursday.

It was a rare and open night - as open as the songbooks on the music stands - another brilliant performance from the redoubtable Mr. Costello.[/url]

[sweetest punch]

Some great photos here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... QT9IQT.DTL

[sweetest punch]

Well, he has really lost a lot of weight now!

[Dr. Luther]

I should apologize here, I suppose -- I feel that I was a bit derelict in my duties.
Had I known what was to transpire, I would've taken in a writing pad for notes.

Approaching the shows, I really didn't have any thoughts that they would do anything other than the LP, Stranger in the House, Radio Sweetheart, and maybe 1 novelty inclusion. So I figured that it would be quite easy to keep everything straight in my head.

I was mistaken...

[And No Coffee Table]

There are some new clips on YouTube. But consider yourself warned: They are all incomplete.

"Alison":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWnc84baBo

"Less Than Zero":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xccvrukdnJw

"I'm Not Angry":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOCj655tKg

"Watching the Detectives":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIBoab5xovQ

Elvis talking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47XTUQ9j1bc

[Otis Westinghouse]

Is his accent getting more and more American, or mid-Atlantic at least? Hardly surprising.

[DPAM]

The 2nd show is now being torrented here:

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-deta ... ?id=170060

[And No Coffee Table]

(some tremedous song that I have NO idea what it was. a '75 demo of some variety)

The recording on Dime reveals that this song includes a few lyrics that later appeared in "From A Whisper To A Scream"!

[Dr. Luther]

(some tremedous song that I have NO idea what it was. a '75 demo of some variety)

The recording on Dime reveals that this song includes a few lyrics that later appeared in "From A Whisper To A Scream"!

Yeah -- I now remember that.
(I was quite stunned from the moment that he went into Cheap Reward [early show], so my usual documentation skills went the wayside for the remainder of the evening...)

[johnfoyle]

Listening to the recording (besides wishing I was there!) it's interesting to hear how meticulous it is. They really concentrated on a exact recreation , right down to ( as I speculated last week) Pete's uncharacteristically plain drum playing. Occasionally Elvis seems to start getting fancy with his singing but reins himself in. The jokey references to London locations ( Hounslow etc) with an aside about how he's sure 'we know them well ' is an exercise in distancing himself ; his disregard tells us we really do not need to know them. Having walked some of those streets I have to agree.

Charlie Gillett gets a reference. About four tracks in Elvis takes about signing with Stiff and how they kind of knew his stuff 'cos they had heard Charlie playing his demos on his radio show. Elvis does, however, rather pointedly refer to Charlie as someone who 'liked me back then'.


The show coincided, of course, with the ballyhoo in the U.K. media about Elvis' not liking England anymore' etc. Elvis mentions it , saying his Mother had 'phoned him about the headlines. He then dismisses it by saying that if knew he would have got that reaction he would have made the comments years ago.

Incidentally most of the stories told are , of course, covered in the MAIT sleeve notes. The story about Graham Parker possibly descending through the floors of the Hope and Anchor is elaborated on in No Sleep Till Canvey Island - The Great Pub Rock Revolution by Will Birch

http://www.willbirch.com/

Elvis does look in great shape. That was also apparent in Chicago. Of course since then, it appears , he crossed the Atlantic , recorded in Liverpool ( and , maybe, had a delayed celebration of his Dad's birthday ?) and then returned to San Francisco. He mentions having had a 'great few days ' with Clover so , presumably, he has been on the west coast since early in the week. Such a pace would slim the best of us!

[ramalama]

Funny you should mention about Pete. My vantage point was from the balcony, stage left (floating above the bodies on stage, thus adding to the "surreal experience" referred to by Dr. L.) I could view Pete during each period of Elvis banter. He would pick up a little box and place it to his ear, then start beating out a rhythm on his thighs until it was time to count out the next song. I'd never seen him do that before. Perhaps he needed it to remind him how it sounded on the record.

It makes for an interesting concept: Elvis as his own tribute band.

[verbal gymnastics]

Elvis certainly does look in good shape.

I think, Mr Foyle, that you should have spent your money on going to this show instead of Chicago (if it's any consolation you know I'm jealous!).

So what are the chances of bringing this fantastic show to London and playing them in the city they were recorded?

[sweetest punch]

Maybe there's going to be a recording released:
http://www.rdshp.org:80/index.html

The Richard de Lone Special Housing Project is a newly formed nonprofit agency with the mission of working toward providing a state-of-the-art residential group home setting in Marin County, California, capable of serving both children and adults with Prader-Willi Syndrome and utilizing best practice techniques to serve the Prader-Willi population. By extension, we hope to be able to benefit all people who need to live in special care facilities.

(...)

Due to the kindness and generosity of our good friend, and hero, Elvis Costello, we are able to kick off this effort with a one of a kind concert featuring Elvis and the musicians from the legendary Marin county band, Clover, who recorded his first album, My Aim Is True, 30 years ago in England. They will be performing the album live, in it's entirety, for the first time ever, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Needless to say, we are thrilled to have such a great way of starting our fund raising. We expect this to be an ongoing concern, with at least one such concert, and resultant recording, as an annual event. The first year or two will most likely be focused on research and development, and then we can get down to brass tacks and two-by-fours. In the long run we hope to benefit not only Prader-Willi sufferers, but all kids and adults who need to be placed in homes. For more information about Prader-Willi Syndrome, go to the national website at pwsausa.org, or the California website at pwcf.org.