Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

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?)

, Kojak Variety?! You brave!

That's got his "Brilliant Disguise" on it, right?

Not on the original release. I think it's on a KV bonus disc from the Ryko reissues?

Think it was an It's Time b-side and ended up on disc 2 of the Kojak Variety reissue with other mid-90s covers like Step Inside Love

Got to mention here how incredible his version of Sleeper's 'What Do I Do Now' is
https://youtu.be/VuJJBJHDUcY

Also, the Lush version of All This Useless Beauty, disarming listen at first but it's now my preferred version
https://youtu.be/Hsh61d6qBzE

I love it when Elvis Costello covers a song on-stage, even without the Attractions or the Imposters. The solo concerts from 1984 are among my favorite concert bootlegs, and at shows I've been to the covers are usually a highlight (including one on Bob Dylan's birthday where he did an acoustic rendition of "License to Kill" - I hate that song and he made me love it).

But for some reason, 90% of his covers done in the studio and released on record underwhelm me. For example, it turns out he did "License to Kill" on an Amnesty International collection of Dylan covers, which came out some time after that show I mentioned. I checked it out and it wasn't good - more or less another solo rendition but with some added studio trickery, it wasn't nearly as good as the one he did on-stage (which I was able to see again on YouTube).

I bring this up becauseThe Kojak Variety was a massive disappointment. If someone told me in 1990 that EC just recorded a double album of covers, I would've been intrigued, but it does nothing for me. And yet when he put out the Costello & Nieve set around 1996, the handful of covers there were extraordinary.

(some editing needed there - I forgot to delete "and it wasn't good")

I should go back and play those Lush & Sleeper crossovers. It was a bold positive attempt by EC, in 1996, to get some traffic and publicity going with those other artists. I recall that Lush and Sleeper both recorded his songs that went on his EPs, and he covered Sleeper, but presumably he didn't cover Lush.

I have been listening to loads of EC recently: a happy journey of rediscovery.

NATIONAL RANSOM is strong, though I'm not surprised no-one remembers it.

Hearing that Sleeper cover is reminding me what a good lyric (as well as tune, arrangement etc) it was in the first place.

Louise Wener isn't taken very seriously nowadays but she really hit a nail or two on the head that time.

For me it's over after King of America/Blood and Chocolate.

Since you mention the covers though I had a few great boots of that tour. He did like five nights in LA, New York, Chicago with luminaries like Tom Waits and John Doe MC'ing the Spinning Songbook. A different show each night and with other guests. He'd join the guests solo for a few songs in the middle and they'd do three songs: one of each of theirs and then a cover. It was pretty great. Like with the Bangles they did "If She Knew What She Wants," "Next Time Round" and the Beatles' "Yes it Is." I still have this somewhere...

Believe there are some videos of EC & The Bangles.

Nice!

i woke up and one of us was crying

I bought SPIKE recently and I'm encountering it again.

'Tramp the Dirt Down' confirms something I always felt: the music's the best thing about it. The Irish folk setting is delicate and poignant, and does add something to the song. But the lyric is not very well focused. It's not that I blame EC for his hatred of MT, just that such a long lyric is so oddly, uncharacteristically hamfisted and off target.

'Veronica' btw holds up very well.

I like TTDD's melodic reference to "Isn't She Lovely".

I haven't listened to "Spike" in years, but spent many hours with it when it came out; funnily enough the song I remember best, if that's a test of anything, is"God's Comic". I don't think I'd ever have thought of it as y favourite but it's thoroughly lodged in my head.

Tim, I don't think I had ever thought of that melodic reference.

I, also, listened to it a lot at the time. But from listening again, I can say that 'God's Comic' doesn't entertain me much at this point.

It's a good touch that he lists MacManus, McGuinn and McCartney as playing on '...This Town...', which is probably my favourite song on the LP.

I have still never heard 'Coal Train Robberies' (CD only) and I look forward to reaching it on this old, yet still intact, CD version.

Coal Train Robberies is great. That was a bonus cut?

Yes it's not on the original vinyl copy.

These were days when CD or even cassette often had 1-2 more tracks than a standard vinyl LP. The Cure's DISINTEGRATION for instance adds 'Homesick' (which is marvellous) and 'Last Dance' (also good) on CD / MC.

I can't remember if I got the Spike cassette or CD when it was released. Maybe both? Definitely not the vinyl,

'Miss Macbeth', which I believe might be the earliest song on the record - doesn't seem to hold up as a very good idea.

'Let Him Dangle' I thought would be a bore - in fact it's not so much, it's a bit swinging (a musical pun?). Still, making track 2 on your LP a minor-key polemic about capital punishment is an odd way to attempt a commercial comeback.

'Satellite', tucked at #2 on side 2, is probably one of the outstanding songs.

And it's followed by 'Pads, Paws & Claws' and 'Baby Plays Around', so that's a strong sequence.

Love Pads, Paws.

I never liked Spike until I got Rhino's 2001 reissue with the bonus disc full of studio demos. 11 of those demos cover songs that were ultimately included on the album, and taken together with "God's Comic" (which already had minimal adornment and fits easily next to the demos) it felt like an album to me. I love it now and still listen to those 12 tracks as if they were the LP that was really released.

FWIW, I never hated the actual Spike, but I never took to its production. I'm not sure what how to describe it - overproduced doesn't really nail it - but it always sounded like a deranged Disney album to me if that makes any sense to anyone else.

*not sure how to describe my reaction to it