Q, March 1989

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications — The Quality Controller Paul Du Noyer Beware lesser mortals - Elvis Costello is back to make a fresh stand against sub-standard songwriting and the banality of daytime radio. His 14th and most adventurous album has taken two and a half years to compile, involves an astonishing cast of extras and is now available for the usual intense scrutiny. "I was going to call it More Important Work." he warns Paul Du Noyer "It's not a long lay-off by most people's standards," says Elvis, referring to the two-and-a-half year interval that separates his previous album, Blood And Chocolate, from the new one, entitled Spike which is about to come out. "Actually it's a fairly conventional lay-off. But I'd done 10 years. My parole came up." Stubbly but fit-looking, lean and somewhat dashing in his black designer overcoat and fancy-clasped tie, the 1989 version of Elvis Costello is striding — at a very brisk clip — across the windy expanse of London's Hyde Park, over the way from the office of his record company. An honest old wooden bench presents itself, and our man suggests (he has a pretty pleasant, quaintly courteous manner about him) that if it's not too cold for me, then perhaps we might sit and do the interview right here? And why not? Costello's return to album-style activity marks a welcome addition to what must count in most people's estimation as one of the most enjoyable catalogues of British music. (Enjoyable but not, according to Elvis, "important": he even toyed with the notion of calling this LP More Important Work, to debunk precisely that idea.) The actual title, Spike, is slightly by way of tribute to Spike Jones, the American singer whose band, The City Slickers, made a series of novelty records in the 1940s that earned him the name The King Of Corn. "On the very last night we were listening to the album, and I noticed there were some comical noises, some deliberately humorous music on the record. And out of the blue I said, This sounds like Spike Jones! So I thought, let's call it Spike, one-word title, people will remember it." Probably the most varied set of songs, in terms of lyrical scope and musical style, that Costello's ever come up with, Spike has him teamed once more with T-Bone Burnett (who produced King Of America) though Burnett's role this time around appears to have been more as mentor and consultant; Costello's chief co-producer was engineer Kevin Killen. The variety in the tracks is reflected in Spike's far-flung selection of recording locations - Dublin, New Orleans, Hollywood and London - and in the enormous, shifting roster of musicians taking part, who include Roger McGuinn, Paul McCartney, Allen Toussaint, Chrissie Hynde, Jim Keltner and many more. Still, two-and-a-half years is two-and-a-half years. So what has he been doing all this time? "It's not like I've been on holiday for two years. I've been doing other things. Gigs have been pretty thin on the ground, but I played at Glastonbury last summer, did the Shetlands Festival. I did a solo tour in America, of colleges, which was a good laugh. And then Cait (O'Riordan, his wife, the former bass player of The Pogues whose second LP, Rum, Sodomy And The Lash he produced in '85) got a part in this film The Courier so we went to live in Dublin for three months while she was doing that. I did the incidental music for the film, and that's where I started to write a lot of the new songs. "We had a couple of rooms in this hotel and I just worked in there, maybe going out to wander round a bit. So out of that came half the songs on this record. Then I planned a tour in the southern states of America, Japan and Australia, with The Confederates, just put together with whoever was available. And we had a good run, but going on the road with people you don't have a continuous relationship which is quite difficult, because by the time you've really got it happening, it's over. "So it was a year of doing things that I enjoyed, that weren't really much to do with promotion. I thought, You don't have to be promoting an album, you can just play for the hell of it. And then I got the enquiry about working with Paul McCartney so I had a few sessions of doing that. I had a writing thing I did with Ruben Blades (New York-based master of modern Latin music), all little things but they all take up time, stopping off here and there. I did a couple of 'mail order' songs as it were, where I got commissions, wrote some lyrics for Aimee Mann of 'Til Tuesday (their second album is due for imminent UK release), wrote a song for Roy Orbison's album. "You get the offers and they're interesting things to do. I don't do anything with tremendous commercial ambition, sometimes it's just a challenge or really fun to do. Also, to be mercenary about it, I was biding my time for my Columbia deal to run out so that I could get a better deal worked out for the world. (Columbia has up until now been his label in the US, but around the world his work has been scatttered between numerous labels. He's had several different deals in the UK alone, though his back catalogue has now reverted to Demon, the company run by his manager Jake Riviera. From this year onwards he's signed worldwide to Warners.) "Then the album itself, of course, took a lot of organisation; it's not exactly a weekend's work either in planning or recording. I spent the earlier part of the year on the phone asking people if they'd be on it, when they could schedule the time. "So I've done a lot of things, but they haven't all been big career moves. But I've never seen it like that. Since I came off the road as a routine thing - album/tour, album/tour - it frees you to do a lot of things which you want to do because they're interesting. And if they don't shoot to the top of the charts that doesn't necessarily mean they're inferior; often the best stuff you do is those little side things. Remainder of interview to come. Q, March 1989 Paul Du Noyer interviews Elvis Costello. Mark Cooper reviews Spike. Q documents EC's previous collaborations. Images Cover. Contents page. SCATHING ELVIS COSTELLO Spike Warner Bros Mark Cooper Elvis Costello's last two albums were released back in 1986. Despite their excellence, the combination of King Of America and Blood & Chocolate suggested that while Elvis still had the songs, he was no longer sure where he stood. While Costello spent the mid-'80s playing with his identity and exploring various musical styles, he was in danger of becoming merely familiar. The tigerish irritant of My Aim Is True was becoming a good old boy, universally admired and yet with his teeth blunted by approval. In the intervening years between Blood & Chocolate and these 16 songs produced by Costello, T-Bone Burnett and engineer Kevin Killen, Elvis has sat in with all manner of artists and signed a major deal with Warners. Perhaps the first achievement of this triumphant return is to teach us how much his corruscating voice has been missed. If Blood & Chocolate was a helter-skelter affair bashed out with Nick Lowe and The Attractions, the new collection has been amassed with a rare attention to detail. Costello has used four studios for this record and the cast of musicians and the tenor of the arrangements vary between London, Hollywood, New Orleans and Dublin. Yet while Costello draws on musicians as varied as Paul McCartney, New Orleans' Dirty Dozen Brass Band and such stalwarts of Irish traditional music as Donal Lunny and Davy Spillane, he has managed to unite his material with the newfound authority and detachment of his singing. Costello's voice is capable of withering sarcasm, intimate confession and a jesting detachment that is as dark and stricken as the satires of pre-war Berlin. If there is a dominant note in this collection, it is Costello's sustained performance as a vaudeville jester whose scathing jibes and political broadsheets are pumped up by the chattering brass chorus of The Dirty Dozen. Yet Costello doesn't stick to vaudeville throughout and while he remains a detached storyteller recounting all manner of sexual and political betrayals, he now sounds too determined and too saddened to flinch in the face of what he's seen. Amidst a wealth of treasures, the Brecht-Weill mockery of "God's Comic" stands out as a piece of Swiftian satire that pictures God in his heaven listening to Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Requiem and wondering if he should have given the earth to the monkeys. Alongside this towering performance emerges the Irish balladry of "Tramp The Dirt Down," Costello's most affecting political piece since "Shipbuilding." Part lament, part invective, this song is a curse that never preaches. Instead of repeating the usual dismayed shake of the head rejection of Thatcherism, Costello plunges in and winds up vowing to trample on her grave. Costello once looked as if he would never find a voice simple enough to wed his complex vision to the directness of delivery of his first records. Here he makes every note count and yet retains a vaudevillian detachment that enables him to confront the world's iniquities while shielding him from none of the pain or the pity. God may be a comic as the song suggests but Costello has all the best lines. ***** COSTELLO COLLABORATIONS Joined labelmates Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric and Nick Lowe on Stiff tour in 1977. Sang with veteran Texan country star George Jones on the Costello composition "Stranger In The House," 1978. Production work with The Specials includes their debut LP in 1979, and The Special AKA's 1984 hit "Free Nelson Mandela." Produced Squeeze's 1981 album East Side Story; in same year the group's Glenn Tilbrook guested on Costello's Trust LP, on "From A Whisper To A Scream," and in 1982 Chris Difford co-wrote "Boy With A Problem" for Imperial Bedroom. Dusty Springfield commissioned Elvis to write material for her White Heat album in 1982. Tony Bennett invited him on to a 1983 TV special, with the Count Basie Orchestra, to sing a duet on "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." Produced some tracks for Scottish group The Bluebells in 1983. In 1983 added vocals to the Madness track "Tomorrow's Just Another Day." With producer Clive Langer wrote "Shipbuilding" for Robert Wyatt in 1983. Green of Scritti Politti guests on Costello's 1984 single "I Wanna Be Loved." Daryl Hall, of Hall & Oates, was guest vocalist on 1984 single "The Only Flame In Town." Acted in Alan Bleasdale's 1984 TV series Scully (he also wrote the theme song "Turning The Town Red"), and in the same writer's film No Surrender, in which he played a failed magician. He's also been in 1984 comedy series The Bullshitters, playing an A&R man. Nick Lowe has produced the majority of Costello's records, including the first LP My Aim Is True. He and Elvis teamed up to make a cover of The Shirelles' hit "Baby It's You," in 1984. Produced The Pogues' second album, Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, 1985. US singer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett has produced two Costello albums, King Of America and Spike; the pair have also recorded together as The Coward Brothers (1985 single: "The People's Limousine"). In 1985 added vocals to "Living A Little, Laughing A Little" on John Hiatt's album Warming Up To The Ice Age. Turns up on Eurythmics' 1985 album Be Yourself Tonight, adding vocals to "Adrian." Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff wrote and performed "Seven Day Weekend" with Costello in 1986. Track appears on compilation Out Of Our Idiot. Co-wrote one song, "Shadow And Jimmy," for last year's Was (Not Was) album What Up Dog? Was one of the guest artists on Roy Orbison's 1988 TV special, and has written material for Orbison's last album. Roger McGuinn, ex of The Byrds, plays Rickenbacker guitar on "...This Town..." (opening track of Spike). Paul McCartney has co-written several songs with Costello recently, two of which are on Spike; remainder are likely to appear on McCartney's next album. Results of his songwriting collaboration with Aimee Mann of 'Til Tuesday can be heard on the band's new album, Everything's Different Now, out this month.

External links

• QTheMusic.com
• Wikipedia: Q magazine
• elviscostello.info
• elviscostello.info