As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Elvis Costello & The Attractions. As much as I love the guy’s music (mostly that done with The Attractions but some other stuff as well), he’s not an artist whose lyrics often mean a lot to me. I usually think they’re cool and find a couple of key couplets to latch onto for meaning, guidance, and inspiration, but he’s not the sort that I’d quote in my high school yearbook, if I could go back in time, as I might any number of lyrics by Paul Weller or Graham Parker, to cite two contemporaries whose music I like a lot but otherwise find not as rich as Costello’s.
One Costello lyric that might be the exception, that might be the one I would have used in my high school yearbook had I been able to make my selection when I was about 30 years old, when I had a better idea of what life was meaning to me, is from Imperial Bedroom‘s “Kid About It”:
So what if this is a man’s world
I want to be a kid again about it
Give me back my sadness
I couldn’t hide it even if I tried girl
I had some rough emotional patches over the weekend – nothing horrible, nothing earth shattering, but the kind of stuff that puts me in touch with the kid in me. I don’t know about you, but as I’ve aged and matured, some feelings that used to be on the surface and readily available with associated artists/albums that spoke to those emotions have become less prevalent over time. As a result, I spin those records less often than I once did, despite still loving the music as much as I ever did. The first two dB’s album mean less to me on a day-to-day basis these days, but this morning, hearing “Ask for Jill” pop up on my iPod, I was able to tap into what the band meant to me every day of my life in my early 20s. I’ve been listening to those first two albums since and enjoying revisiting those vague, hopeful, fragile feelings that the older, wiser, sometimes too-fucking-real me of today doesn’t feel as strongly as he once did.
Do you ever have experiences along these lines with your maturing emotions and aging record collection?
Hey, I finally got to watch the first two episodes of Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…, the new Sundance channel talk show, in which Elvis plays James Lipton to a legendary guest musician. I know some of you have been following this nascent show.
The first episode, with Elton John, was fantastic. The two immediately got down to musician-on-musician rock nerd talk, with Elton talking about being a young rock snob in England who thought it was cooler to buy American releases of records while his American counterparts were seeking the UK releases. There was little to no typical rock mythologizing about drug abuse, sexual escapades, and a career’s worth of landmark hair architecture. This was a music talk show for the few of us who got into this for reasons other than “meeting chicks.” Continue reading »
To this day, although I’ve come a long way in digging reggae music, I prefer hearing The Clash do their version of reggae than almost any real reggae artist. Give me “Police and Thieves” with those crunchy guitars and awkward bass over the Junior Murvin original version any day, even though the original version is pretty great. If you put a gun to my head I may even admit that I prefer the bastardized reggae of The Police and Joe Jackson to most of the real thing. Not cool, but true.
I feel the same way about most Brian Jones-era Stones covers of slightly earlier R&B/early rock songs, like The Stones’ version of “Around and Around” over Chuck Berry’s original or their cover of The Valentinos’ “It’s All Over Now.” Mad props to the source material, but I’ll take the Stones!
Give me Paul Simon and Talking Heads doing whatever they’ve done with South African and South American music over most of what I hear by the people who inspired them. Not cool at all, I know, but I’ve never found King Sunny Ade‘s music, for instance, half as interesting as the best of Simon and Byrne. For starters, it’s nice to know what’s being sung. How do I know King Sunny’s not singing his culture’s equivalent of “Working for the Weekend?” I do, however, prefer the real Brazilian stuff that Byrne’s label has released to Byrne’s solo works in that same vein.
A lot of my favorite “country” songs are Elvis Costello’s pastiches of real country songs, songs like “Motel Matches.” One of the best things about Costello’s “country” originals is that the rhythm section gets to do cool fills. Real country rhythm sections usually sound to me like they’ve got the freedom of a lamb.
I can’t say the same for newer takes on Da Blooz, not even Da Blooz of Jeff Healy and Stevie Ray Vaughn. This is proof that more than Rockism is at play, right?
In their respective solo careers, Stiff Records original Wreckless Eric and singer-songwriter Amy Rigby have mined similar, down-to-earth, ’60s-influenced pop material that’s both open hearted and appropriately self deprecating. A few years ago they met, jammed together, and fell in love. Today they’re married, living in France, on tour together (click here for tour dates), and set for the September 15 release of a joint album, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby.
A few of us had the fortune of meeting Amy in 2002, as she not only contributed an awesome cover of Jane Aire & the Belvederes‘ “Yankee Wheels” to a Stiff Records tribute album we curated (The Stiff Generation), but introduced us to some other contributors and flew to Hoboken, NJ to play a few Stiff-related songs at the record’s release party. She was as cool and approachable as her music, and she had the foresight and good sense to wear a dress that matched the polyester shirt of our bassist, Townsman Chickenfrank. It’s only fitting that we, once more, turn back to Amy for yet another Stiff-related introduction. The following chat with Amy and Eric was conducted separately, with one of them in an isolation booth, wearing huge headphones and seen only on a video monitor. This is the first time their responses will appear in one place. Enjoy!
RTH: This Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby album and tour is some way to celebrate a marriage! You were married earlier this year, right? How long have you been together? Did the two of you actually meet, as I’ve read, during one of Amy’s concerts, as she covered “Whole Wide World”?
ERIC: We met in Hull, in a pub I used to play in when I was an art student back in the early ’70s. It was actually the first place that I ever played “Whole Wide World” in public. Amy sang it and the promoter shoved me on stage to help out. The song went round the world and did the work for me! I don’t think the album is a celebration of our marriage – it’s not Two Virgins or something…
AMY: I’d been playing “Whole Wide World” in my set when I felt I needed a little boost and a promoter in Hull that we’d both worked with had the idea to have Eric DJ for one of my shows. He came in covered in snow with a box of records under his arm and then he got up on stage with me during “Whole Wide World” and said I was playing it in the wrong key.
If you look at the photo collage inside my “anthology,” 18 Again, there’s a picture of it happening.
RTH: Your new album is on a revived Stiff Records! Are any of the founders of the label involved in its revival? Eric, did you have mixed feelings about going back to Stiff? Amy, you were a fan of the label and its artists in its heyday, right? Were you struck by any teenage fangirl feelings at this opportunity, any need to keep your emotions in check? (For instance, I’d have had to keep my self in check to make sure I didn’t agree to sign with Stiff for free.)
ERIC: I had no qualms about going back to Stiff – on the contrary it was my idea. None of the founders or the subsequent employees are involved, which is just as well.
AMY: To be on the same label that gave us “Yankee Wheels”, Lene Lovich, Nick Lowe & Wreckless Eric? It beats being labelmates with Pokemon, which was the big priority album when I was on Koch.
RTH: On the new album, did you collaborate on the writing of the songs, or did you write separately? Were most of the songs written before or after you’d met?
AMY: All of the above.
ERIC: We wrote most of them separately I think. I started “Here Comes My Ship” and Amy finished it off. We wrote “Round” together – I came up with a guitar chord sequence and we got the lyrics together between us, so that was a true co-write. “Trotters” is a group composition that came out of a jam session – we were playing “God Only Knows” and we changed one of the chords. Apart from that I think we wrote separately, Amy upstairs, me downstairs. But we’d definitely met before we started.
RTH: Did you learn anything about each other during the writing process that you may not have learned had you not mixed business with pleasure? Were there ever times when you’d have to stop working on a lyric and ask your partner, “Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling that way?”
You may recall The Great 48’s initial impressions on Elvis Costello and the Imposters’ recently released, fetishist-marketed, vinyl-only (until May 1, 2008), unnecessarily gatefold-sleeve-packaged album Momofuku. The vinyl/gatefold fetishist in me was intrigued. Although it’s very rare that I even get a chill listening to a new release by one of my favorite artists of all time, no matter how many lousy and mediocre albums he’s released since first parting ways with The Attractions, and bassist Bruce Thomas in particular, I’m still willing to listen to most of his new releases. The packaging of this one had me as stoked as I’ve been since the release of anything by Costello since his collaboration with Burt Bacharach, Painted from Memory (which, by the way, includes the last chill-inducing song I’ve heard by EC, “Toledo”). In fact, I was stoked enough to run out and by the record.
Like The Great 48 said, the vinyl is heavy – at least 178 grams – and it being vinyl, a physical medium, can develop character-building pops and scratches soon after it’s been played. You may be able to hear the surface noise on my copy of the album’s kick-off track, “No Hiding Place”. I love it! And the song has a nice drive to it, complete with so many of Elvis’ beloved vocal and melodic mannerisms. My only beef is that the wildcard provided by Bruce Thomas’ bass is not in evidence. Imposter bassist, Davey Faragher, locks into the right launching notes, has the right intentions, but he never really frees his mind or ass and cuts loose. With Steve Nieve tamed down a bit on a song like this, the song could use an unexpected jolt of energy. Costello’s guitar playing is rarely that exciting when heard (his best guitar work is typically those parts you can barely discern on albums like Get Happy!! and Trust). As a result of Faragher’s more conservative approach, drummer extraordinaire Pete Thomas is more prone to stick to basic “engineer’s dream” drum parts, that is, straightforward snare-and-kick patterns without many surprises.
It’s songs like “Pardon Me, Madam, My Name Is Eve” that make me wish I more frequently cared what it was Elvis was singing about. With the exception of the of Imperial Bedroom and half of the songs on Get Happy!! and Trust, it’s rare that I get a lyrical kick out of all but a song or two on most of the man’s albums. Witty, angry couplets that are fun to sing along with? Certainly! But an entire set of lyrics that I would care to read or think about? Rarely. Nevertheless, the stately formalisms of this song are worth spinning, and I highly appreciate not hearing the too-clever pinging snare that would have spoiled this song on one of those Mitchell Froom-related productions. Elvis seems to have finally moved away from his Tom Waits fixation. Thank god! (And that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with Tom Waits; it just didn’t fit Costello.)
Here’s another song that, 10 to 15 years ago, during the What Would Waits Do era, would have surely had its humble charms overtaken by marimbas, junkyard drums, and a proudly credited chamberlain. Instead Costello and the Imposters play “Drum & Bone” like an early run-through demo. The light, Mellow Mafia backing vocals are just right. Wish I was getting something out of the lyrics, though.
You know what’s the only thing that SUCKS about Momofuku (beside the album title)? The record cover! They’ve taken the time and care to release this thing on 180-gram vinyl, yet the gatefold cover is as flimsy as a manilla envelope. Any utilitarian notion of the gatefold is down the tubes, and I doubt this cover will outlast the May 1st date of the digital release of these tracks. I may have to cut up the crappy graphics of this cover and paste the panels to a real gatefold sleeve from the ’70s, one made of 180-gram cardboard. Other than that, I’m satisfied with my purchase of Momofuku.
Circumstances of purchase: Having decided it was too hot to cook dinner, we went out to a dairy bar in Watertown that has the best hamburgers in the greater Boston metro area and some damn fine vanilla soft-serve. Afterwards, we went to the nearby Newbury Comics at Fresh Pond, where I purchased the LP and Charity got the two-disc deluxe edition of Forever Changes. (Suck it, Mod.)
Mood at time of first listen: Still full of excellent burger and soft-serve, and pleased that that screechy Irish girl was finally voted off American Idol. Somewhat tired, but with a fair amount of work to do before I can go to sleep in good conscience.
Place of first listen: In the office, sitting at my desk. Charity’s at her desk behind me, filing an invoice and looking at her nightly blogs.
While taking off the shrinkwrap: Cool, a gatefold. Can’t even remember the last time I saw a gatefold LP cover — even back in the ’80s, they started just shoving both discs in a single sleeve.
On opening the package: Oh, it’s like PiL‘s Metal Box. Two discs, three songs per side. I would have preferred a single disc, but that’s just the purist in me.
Best line in liner notes: “This album has no connection with the restaurants of the same name, but Elvis Costello does recommend their cooking.” There was a profile of the chef who owns Momofuku, David Chang, in the New Yorker a few weeks ago. Honestly, even by chef standards, he came off like a major-league dick. I do hear the restaurants are good, though.
On taking out the first disc: There’s a cardboard stencil. I am so doing this. There’s stenciled graffiti all over my neighborhood, and I suspect this is just going to confuse people.
On placing the disc on the turntable: Good heavy vinyl. 180-gram at least.
