Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

Who is responsible for the graphic design on the last couple of EC albums? My god.

The producer for Back from Rio didn't see eye-to-eye with McGuinn and he even tried to bury his 12-string in the mix

This really is like 'Elvis Costello's producer tried to persuade him to make it an instrumental LP', or 'Larry Adler's manager said it mostly sounded fine, but Larry should ditch the harmonica'.

BACK FROM RIO is a terrific LP. 'You Bowed Down' is one of the best things on it, and I think EC sings bvs on it.

I'm not sure I prefer the USELESS BEAUTY version - it has a wonderful epic scale (especially intro and outro), but it actually misses out some of the chords (and adds an odd slow bridge), and changes some of the words as I recall. And I suppose on that song I'd rather hear McGuinn's lead vocal.

Are they as bad as Beautiful South covers?
xp

What made you think of Larry Adler, the pinefox?

Like "Jim" McGuinn, he was closely associated with a particular instrument !!!

McGuinn sounds weedy on the Rio version.

Cool, teh pinefox. I met one of his relatives a few times.

Larry Adler

The name Larry Adler puts me in mind of Simon & Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Phillippic"

I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored...
I been Phil Spectored, resurrected
I've been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered

Lol

pinefox otm, ec kinda fucks up the hook on his version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHlJS9FJxyc

Probably my favorite country cover from Elvis. (A Leon Payne song, Eddie Noack's version is probably the best-known recording.)

The timecode doesn't carry over, but the song's at 29:13

First, this is fun:

https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/elvis-costello-on-the-music-of-his-life/

Second, I find it fascinating that EC had such a fruitful but fleeting career moonlighting as a producer. Squeeze's "East Side Story" (plus "Tempted"), the Pogues' "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash," and the first Specials album (plus, later, "Free Nelson Mandela"). And I just found out he produced the first demo of "Fairytale of New York":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsenFnCMi2o

But he never really produced anything ever again, not past 1985, afaict.

apparently Elektra pushed hard for him to produce Apollo 18 by They Might be Giants but TMBG themselves were such big Costello fans that they refused, not wanting to "waste" his time. I still wonder what that might've sounded like.

From that interview, btw:

PJ Harvey: 4-Track Demos
I remember seeing PJ on The Tonight Show. She stood there with just a guitar and did “Rid of Me.” It was like seeing Howlin’ Wolf on Shindig! So great. And then I got the record (Rid of Me), and it was nowhere near as good, but it didn’t matter. For me, the record sounds like shit. That guy (Steve Albini) doesn’t know anything about production. He might be the second-worst producer of a great record after Jimmy Iovine, who totally fucked up (Bruce Springsteen’s) Darkness on the Edge of Town. It sounds like Bruce is in a fucking shoe box full of tissue paper.

He's right about Darkness, wrong about Albini...but then, he loves Froom, so I guess that's not a surprising take.

(And Albini would no doubt agree that he doesn't know anything about production, since he always points out that he's an engineer, not a producer.)

Hmm, I don't mind Albini, but given part of his deal is capturing what a band sounds like live, yet "Rid of Me" is nowhere near as good as that band was live (imo), does indicate a bad match (even if it was a bad match of her choosing). The rest of the EC quote (which I accidentally excised) sums it up for him thusly:

And that’s why 4-Track Demos is 20 times the version of the songs on the album, in terms of intensity and intent. What matters is her, what PJ is doing. There’s nobody like her.

That is to say, the production, like it or not (and sometimes I don't mind it), is every bit a distraction as Froom filigrees can be, imo.

I love 4-Track Demos, but weirdly never thought of comparing it to Rid Of Me -- they seem like such different records. I always loved the sound of Rid Of Me, and I think (one of) the fundamental difference(s) between Froom and Albini is that Albini's approach exploits the drama. Froom feels like he's forcing the drama...or just trying to force something to happen that can't or won't or shouldn't happen.

The one time I saw PJ Harvey, in the summer of '93, they had supposedly decided to break up earlier in the tour, but needed to finish out the dates. They seemed remote from one another, and while it was a fine enough show, it didn't make me think Rid Of Me was unrepresentative of their sound.

iovine just engineered darkness, right? i mean, he's partly responsible for the sound, but the ultimate credit/blame would have to be with the boss himself (and landau, I suppose).

Yeah, and didn't Iovine kind of give up partway through and Chuck Plotkin had to come in and help? Or am I making that up?

Yep, Iovine was the engineer. In 1977-78, though, it was apparently impossible to find a studio in the US with any kind of resonance. Everything had carpeted walls -- Greil Marcus called it "the muffled flumpf of L.A. studio drummers." Not sure why Landau/Iovine didn't add reverb from whatever outboard gear was around at the time, but Bruce was pretty exacting, if not always clear, about how he wanted things to sound.

Plotkin did some (all?) mixing on Darkness.

i love that dead 70s drum sound

reverb is for cowards

Maybe Elvis Costello and Steve Albini can patch things up over a beer and saying the N-word

ums otm

ultimate credit/blame would have to be with the boss himself

This is pretty much always true, whether the boss is the Boss or Metallica or whomever. "Rid of Me" sounds like it does because that's what PJ wanted, for better or for worse. The sound is definitely part of the album's character, however.

Re: Froom, I think the culprit (if one is even needed) may actually be Tchad Blake, who is (even) more quirky and idiosyncratic than Froom. Blake produced Soul Coughing solo, for example, which leans into that stuff hard. But Froom's production on those first few Ron Sexsmith albums is pretty sympathetic and subdued. Regardless, Froom's stuff, like Albini's (as he will be the first to say), isn't exactly being imposed. Folks go to Froom for Froom, just as others go to Albini, whose metier probably allows for a greater range of productions than Froom's, come to think of it. For point of comparison, I suppose, Low might be the only group that has gone with both approaches. Well, Tchad Blake and Albini, respectively.

reverb helps cowards feel strong and brave

I mean, if you don't think the drums sound good on Rumours (to use the most obvious example) then I just am not sure what is up with your ears

xpost That and double tracking vocals!

Fleetwood Mac drums sound ace. Much better than the marshmallow drums that came a decade later, like the drums on Bryan Adams' "Heaven." Boooooooooooooosh!

Fun fact: Stewart Copeland apparently cranked his drums (especially his snare) so tight that they had to spend a whole bunch of time adding effects to make them sound deeper and more resonant.

Really don’t care for this Elvis en Español edition of This Year’s Model, sorry.

Also was this the recent discussion of drum tech the pfox was referring to or was it more recent?

take it to the 'no action is indefensible' thread

Ha! Believe I already may have mentioned it there. Also, every time I revive that one, somebody invariably says "What's up with the original post?"

James Redd: no, I hadn't seen this thread. Bewildered to see that the EC thread was talking about ... Bruce Springsteen drum sounds?! That's confusing enough on the Boss thread.

I don't know the edition you refer to, James Redd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ZtHceZ8yA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmD6so5aZ-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPxPHFIJFj8

Got excited for a moment when it was announced he'd remade an old album with the delusion it could be Goodbye Cruel World

Ha, that might actually be interesting.

I wish he remade Brutal Youth, or at least remixed it.

The Rhino double-CD of GCW does present a selection of demos and live versions of songs not strangled by the bizarre production

I seem to remember Greil Marcus raving about the prior live shows of the material and then when the album came out asking "Elvis: What Happened?"

The GCW live material when he toured college campuses is fantastic. He should release it as a separate album.

Yeah, I saw him at the HamPal supported by The Pogues. A great gig, and very long.

I didn't think the album was all that bad, no.

I was already getting a litttled tired of him so I was kind of disappointed that the album wasn't as good as foreshadowed but just kind of shrugged my shoulders.

re: GCW, I think I liked "Peace in our Time" and "Love Field."

The best version of "Deportee's Club," though, is Christy Moore's cover from Bespoke Songs....

It's better than Punch the Clock, whose insistent euphoria hurts my skull. Enough with the horns!

Almost anything is better than Punch the Clock.

except GCW, which is slightly worse