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The grueling exercise known as the promotional tour has Elvis Costello slightly frayed. Every day is the same: Meet with the press, visit radio stations, talk to retailers.
Dressed in a black leather jacket and glasses that exaggerate his buglike eyes, Costello — the guy who once sang "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused" — sounds as if he's back to being disgusted.
He's complaining about airplanes ("like getting on a bus anymore, which is a scary thought for me"). And interviews such as this one, done over a meal ("They always say 'and then he took a bite of his fish'").
No doubt about it: Declan MacManus a.k.a. Elvis Costello a.k.a. Napoleon Dynamite is campaigning in behalf of Spike his first album of new material in more than two years. He'll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow for a solo concert at the A.J. Palumbo Center at Duquesne University. Nick Lowe will open.
Nobody has to remind him that there was a time when he wouldn't have done promotion such as this. A student of the entire discipline of pop-music presentation, he burst out in 1977 with a look, a sound and an angry-young-man stance so fresh it couldn't be traced to any one place. In the years since, Costello, now 34, has pursued the path of the uncompromising artist, embracing as many forms of music as his muse can muster. He hasn't sold out. But he has been far enough away from the public eye that even a song as explosive as "Veronica", his new single, runs the risk of being overlooked.
To compound the matter, since his hit-making days, there has been a change in the way songs get to the public. The tight clamp of formatted pop and rock radio has become very apparent on the promo trail, and it is another thing that disgusts him.
"It's cowardice. (The radio industry) has got more to lose these days" says Costello, a pop connoisseur whose current favorites include the R.E.M.'s "Green" album and Bon Jovi's single "Bad Medicine".
"Whether it's some group from Wisconsin or something that none of us have heard of yet, or somebody like John Prine who is still writing these great songs and is just consigned to the oldies radio, (programmers) have more to lose by letting these people in because they show up the inadequacies of the format."
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