Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

His vocal on Watch Your Step is one of his best.

possibly nieve's most measured and beautiful piano/organ

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jul/06/elvis-costello-cancer-diagnosis-cancels-tour-dates :(

my 50yo Fall-mad housemate played me his 'my aim is true' LP the other night. it took a few goes round, but its such a fun album!

New album with the Imposters coming. I like the two songs he shared this week.

Under Lime being the better of the two.

yeah Under Lime is a great song; haven't liked his stuff for quite some time. However, the album cover is in the running for the worst cover of all fucking time.

Scroll past the bellend 2001 posts

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/ode-to-elvis-costellos-stellar-backing-bands-the-attractions-the-imposters-invisible-hits/

Thanks for this tylerw. Great to see Nieve and the Thomases get their due. That Rockpalast show is incredible.

the rockpalast show has probably the definitive version of "the beat"

Well it turns out that “Under Lime” might be the only song on the new album that I like.

sounded good, the album, but the tempos are too slow and the trademark ec melodies a little too fussy.

need to give the new one a little more time, but i like that it doesn't sound like EC is coasting — some interesting moves/arrangements.

Could be the best album since All This Useless Beauty. But then again When I Was Cruel with 20 minutes shaved off it would be really something

What would your 40 min ‘When I Was Cruel’ look like? Have to agree it drags on a bit.

Got ‘Look Now’, it’s good. No idea how it holds up to his recent material as the only other EC record I’ve bought since ‘When I Was Cruel’ was ‘Wise Up Ghost’, which I remember liking but haven’t gone back to much.

I think this is his best album in a while, but I don't love it.

Current tour setlists look awesome, I wished I caught him here last week.

"All this Useless Beauty" (listening this morning) is such a nice collection of songs, I wish less of it was so mannered. I remember the tour behind it (the last as the Attractions). It came to Chicago the same night as the big Sex Pistols reunion, but I was all, fuck that, I want to see the Attractions again. But even the show was kind of mannered, so I guess EC was just in a mannered mode.

A mannered out of time.

(Open gole, soz)

It came to Chicago the same night as the big Sex Pistols reunion

Weird, I don't remember those being on the same night. I'd seen Elvis with Steve Nieve a few months prior, which was pretty wonderful.

The Pistols played a fine show, but the Aragon was crazy oversold. They shoehorned what felt like an additional 500-1000 people in there, and it was really uncomfortable and annoying.

Yeah, EC played at the Rosemont Theatre. Maybe it was the night the Pistols came back? The second reunion show? I think I saw that EC& Nieve show, too, either at the Park West or the I think the Cadillac Palace Theatre (both of which were EC&Nieve nights).

has he ever played "Opportunity" live? did he not play a lot of Get Happy when it came out?

I think I saw that EC& Nieve show, too, either at the Park West or the I think the Cadillac Palace Theatre (both of which were EC&Nieve nights).

I saw the one at Park West, and it was a perfectly intimate atmosphere for that show.

I...don't know what the Cadillac Palace Theatre is...(looks it up)...oh shit! That was the Bismarck! I saw Frankie Goes To Hollywood there in '84.

XP

There is a live version from 1979 prior to the recording of Get Happy. The 1980 tour could be a weird one, lots of cover versions jostling with old favourites as well as songs from GH and AF.

He opened with Opportunity when I first saw him in 1996.

is that 1979 live version on youtube?

would love to see that, opportunity is my favorite get happy track

XP - Not quite what you're looking for but kinda interesting, a rough and ready version from '79, it's well known that EC had grown wary of stylistically repeating himself with the new songs he'd been writing and rolling out on the AF tour, so this version is before they changed the arrangements which made them more beholden to older soul music.

https://youtu.be/wuTcUvsdWiQ?t=24m28s

Oh and check out the version of High Fidelity too, it is kinda insane.

holy shit this heavy version of Opportunity is incredible, thank you!!!

So I just now see that Steve Nieve had been doing online Facebook shows at home with his son and wife. Today, they have Elvis Costello on zoom or something, and they just collaborated on "45" and on "13 Steps." Nieve is gonna take a break after today, and then resume it in 3 days or so.

Costello is proposing they do a longer set together next Saturday May 9 and include songs he hasn't sung before.

Now Steve Nieve is doing a Johnny Cash song "25 Minutes to go" by himself on piano. His son (?) sometimes joins on drums. Son also sang Green Day "21" with Steve N on piano, after Steve N did a music hall /broadway type take on Alice Cooper "18."

I've watched that before, after having been led there by EC's recommendation. I thought his French wife was playing the drums, at least when I was tuned in.

She was just working the camera today and emceeing. Or did Costello say Sunday for next week? Not sure . I guess details will be out by the end of the week on one of their Facebook pages.

googling tells me her name is Muriel Teodori, and her son does music under the name A.J.U Q. He was also sharing this on his Instagram live

I wish it was just Costello (singing from Vancouver) and Naive (in France?) on these Facebook lives from Naive's page . Son's voice is too bombastic, and Teoderi is just kinda annoying. Costello singing Roy Acuff, Psychedelic Furs, and Pogues "A Pair of Brown Eyes" was nice, as long as the son and Mom weren't involved

Costello doing “It’s All over now Baby blue” with just his acoustic guitar also was nice .

Nieve is proper spelling , oops

I once had a copy of one of Nieve's (very out of print) solo albums that had iirc a jazzy piano take on "Ghost Town." You can hear it and a lot of other stuff here:

https://soundcloud.com/steve-nieve-official/sets/keyboard-jungle-and-a

That was yesterday? The Color Tour or something, which they were going to try last weekend but had technical difficulties because of a storm or something?

I had heard a rumor over the summer they were coming back to NYC but then it didn't happen they stayed in Vancouver, yeah.

Yeah, I found one of his solely albums last year.

Oh, and he has spelled it "Naive" and "Nieve" over the years. Neither are his real surname..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7aQtVfB-88

I've been listening to IMPERIAL BEDROOM for a week and become temporarily obsessed with 'You Little Fool'.

Then I discovered that it had a proper early 1980s POP VIDEO.

https://youtu.be/RYmVfF3WX_Q

i've spent time obsessed with every song on the album, even 'boy with a problem'

That's good to hear !

Love that album to bits. But I stopped paying attention to EC a long time ago and don't have any interest in anymore. Is there a thread where we talk about albums in our personal pantheon by artists that we no longer care for?

With regard to this particular artist, you're in luck:

Elvis Costello: The Exact Moment When This Balding Fat Fucker Jumped The Shark

Oh crap, there's another one, and it looks like I created it. Sheesh.

Should I decide that I just can't keep up with Mr MacManus?

lol this is the point in the thread where I once again lament that there are only maybe 20 Elvis Costello albums (including three great b-sides and rarities collections) I would immediately put on with no reservations, plus a couple of live albums and other comps (like Girls, Girls Girls, which is its own thing), but maybe 6 or so albums that are only OK or a little boring. What a hack, right?

Everything you say is true, JiC, but I just want to put it out there that North is actually colossally boring.

(For me it may be more like 10 albums My Aim Is True, Punch the Clock, All This Useless Beauty, Almost Blue, King of America, Kojak Variety, Spike, Brutal Youth, When I Was Cruel, maybe?)