Elvis Costello has Trust issues

Elvis Costello : Strict Time

[Purchase]

"Four Eyes. One Vision," says the full page Billboard Magazine ad for Trust, Elvis Costello's new album released January 23, 1981. 

Costello has called Trust “easily the most drug-influenced record of my career.” As he writes in the liner notes, “It was completed close to a self-induced nervous collapse on a diet of rough ‘scrumpy’ cider, gin and tonic, various powders, only one of which was ‘Andrews’ Liver Salts,’ and in the final hours, Seconal and Johnny Walker Black Label.”

I find Trust to be a difficult album in which to immerse myself. There are some instant classics here, surrounded by much lesser fare than we're used to. Costello is more confident, but that's less interesting to me. And I can do without the vibrato he's so keen on displaying.

Earlier working titles were "Cats and Dogs" and "More Songs About Fucking and Fighting". There are some violent images in the album, as Costello notes in his memoir Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink:

“I collected most of the other images for “Clubland,” “Pretty Words,” and “White Knuckles” during the Get Happy tour of England, where the offer of violence never seemed very far away. 

The “carnival desires” in “Watch Your Step” were just a picturesque way of saying that you might have to choose between chasing the wrong girl and avoiding gangs of lads shouting abuse and spewing into the gutters. 

Kicking in the car chrome 

Drinking down the eau de cologne 

Spitting out the Kodachrome”.

Costello experiments with different styles of music, from country to rockabilly, from soul to tin pan alley.  At the time critics thought the album featuring "Watch Your Step" might have been a misstep,  now it is considered Costello's "White Album", an overlooked masterpiece. 

Recording began in the Fall of 1980 with Nick Lowe returning to the console board. Here, for the first time, the album is filled out with a few throwaways. Songs that seem to go nowhere. "Big Sister's Clothes", "Luxembourg", and "Shot With His Own Gun" do nothing for me. I feel like we've heard "Fish N Chip Paper" before. At the time, I never would have guess Costello's flirtation with country on "Different Finger" would be followed by Almost Blue, an abysmal album of country songs.

Most albums peak right at the top, but Trust saves its best songs for the middle of the album, when "Watch Your Step" is followed by "New Lace Sleeves" and "From A Whisper To a Scream", featuring a guest vocal from Squeeze frontman and songwriter Glenn Tilbrook as well as a guitar part from ex-Rumour guitarist Martin Belmont. In return, Costello agreed to produces Squeeze's next album ,1981's East Side Story. 

Regarding Trust Costello has said “That’s a good record. I think it has one of the greatest Attractions performances, ‘New Lace Sleeves.’” Fans will agree, but if you already have the Girls Girls Girls compilation, you've already got the best songs on the album. 

Trust did surprisingly well in the 1981 album-of-the-year polls; in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll, it finished a close third, right behind the Clash’s Sandinista! and X’s Wild Gift. The album finished #1 on the Trouser Press list #2 on Melody Maker's list and #7 on NME's list.

Clearly 1981 is no 1980.

 

Elvis Costello finds menace in "Clubland"

Elvis Costello : Clubland

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On December 12, 1980 Elvis Costello released the UK #60 single "Clubland", b/w the energetic rocker "Clean Money" and a song written way back in 1976, "Hoover Factory". The single is an examination of the seedy side of night club life. There's menace in the lyrics:  "With a handful of backhanders and a bevy of beauty/ You're going off limits/Going off duty/Going off with booty/They tell tales of fiction found on all the criminal types/Lead to a higher ranking man or a face with thin red stripes."

 Costello writes in his memoir that the sing may have been inspired by The Police, specifically "Message In A Bottle". 

Oddest of all, it now occurs to me the circular arpeggios in "Clubland" may have secretly been a disrespectful gloss of the Police's guitar style, though obviously with a darker lyrical content that their songs always seemed to lack.

This is the first single from Trust, which would be released in January of 1981

 

Elvis Costello Takes More Liberties

Elvis Costello : Crawling to the USA

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In September of 1980, Elvis Costello And the Attractions were the subject of an odds'n'sods compilation released in America. With Taking Liberties, American fans got their hands on 20 B-sides, UK album cuts and outtakes. It also includes three previously unreleased cuts — "Clean Money," an alternative take of "Black And White World" and "Hoover Factory."The UK counterpart is a cassette-only release called 10 Bloody Marys and 10 How's Your Fathers.

Here's an ad for the album plucked from Trouser Press magazine

Among the highlights are "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," from the English version of This Year's Model and Costello's reclaiming of "Girls Talk", best known by the Dave Edmunds cover version on Repeat When Necessary.

The Village Voice's Greil Marcus wrote of Taking Liberties:

Costello's great theme is hardly exhausted, though it may, for the time being, have exhausted him, or closed in on him. I think it remains the key to his career: that will to take revenge on the guilty conscience he has received from the past. The question now is whether Costello can find the music, recreate the craft, to keep the key turning. Yes, he's a star, with a year or so of free ride left in his name, but he's never given the slightest evidence he's interested in stardom for its own sake.

NME's Nick Kent sums it up :

 I'm glad I've got the record end I don't feel shortchanged. I see no reason why you should feel differently.

A happy Peel session from Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello and the Attractions : Beaten to the Punch

[Purchase]

On March 3, 1980 BBC Radio 1 broadcast a peppy Peel Session set performed by the Elvis Costello and The Attractions who had just released Get Happy! They played four songs, "Beaten To The Punch", "Possession", "B Movie" and "High Fidelity", all from the new album.

Of "Possession", Costello would write in the liner notes of Girls Girls Girls :

“Another drunken composition (or is it decomposition). On the run from a cleverly isolated Dutch studio, we sought excitement in a small cafe. Sure enough I started to fall ‘in love’ with the waitress, but was hustled back to work before the trouble began. I began my protestations of desire in the taxi, and although other grim thoughts came to mind, the song was ‘complete’ by the time we reached the studio. Naturally we recorded it right away and in a childishly literal gesture I insisted on playing organ (very badly).”

"B Movie", which was first performed in Minneapolis in 1979, begins with the line "I found America hiding in the corner of my wallet".

Costello borrowed "Some things you never get used to" from a song of the same name for the opening line of "High Fidelity", confessing  in the Girls Girls Girls liner notes 

“Beginning with a line from a Supremes record, this amoral tale might have overdone the self pity had it not been for the comical drunkenness of the singer. Nice dance routine with this one!”  

Elvis Costello unleashes a frantic tribute to American soul with Get Happy!!

Elvis Costello and the Attractions : 5ive Gears in Reverse

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On February 15, 1980 Elvis Costello and the Attractions released Get Happy!!, a 20 track album inspired by 60's soul music that arrived nine months after Costello called Ray Charles a "blind, ignorant nigger" in a hotel bar argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett. Though critics were quick to point out the timing, Costello said in the liner notes of the 2003 version of Get Happy!! the album is no act of contrition:

It might have been tempting to claim that I had some noble motive in basing this record on the music that I had admired and learned from prior to my brush with infamy. But if I was trying to pay respects and make such amends, I doubt if pride would have allowed me to express that thought after I had made my rather contrived explanation ... I simply went back to work and relied on instinct, curiosity, and enduring musical passions.

Among Costello's enduring musical passions is American soul music. Before the band began recording in The Netherlands, he wanted to abandon the "new wave" sound for something else: Again from his liner notes:

I had begun listening again to the R'n'B records, filling in the gaps between the compilations of my teenage years, Atlantic's This Is Soul and Motown Chartbusters Vol. 3, with stacks of Stax singles purchased in Camden Town. The first trips to America had yielded still more riches: whole albums by someone like Garnet Mimms, who had previously only been the name on a single track of a "various artists" collection. Drawing on all of these sources, we set about re-arranging the songs using an R'n'B motor.

Fans can play spot the influences are just let Costello spell them out:

We made a pretty good job of lifting the main figure of Booker T. and the MGs' "Time Is Tight" for "Temptation," while the guitar part of "King Horse" alluded to The Four Tops' "Reach Out (I'll Be There)." Even the lyrics drew on these influences. The opening line of "High Fidelity" quotes a Supremes song, while "Love For Tender" (itself a re-working of the Armed Forces outtake "Clean Money") made use of the same "You Can't Hurry Love" riff that The Jam would take to the top of the UK charts three years later with the vastly superior song, "Town Called Malice."

Only "New Amsterdam" broke away from the formula.

(That) song, about a bewildered new arrival in the New World, proved impossible to improve on the demo rendition captured at Archipelago Studios a ₤15 per hour recording facility in Pimlico, London, and on which I played all the instruments.

I had a bit of a Twitter back and forth with Bebe Buell and came away with the impression that there are a few songs about her affair with Costello. There is certainly a female object of obsession  that keeps popping up in these songs.

From Bebe:

Of course- there are so many rumors out there- including some started by EC himself. I NEVER thought or claimed that any of the songs on This Year's Model or Armed Forces held me as the subject. Anything after that? All bets are off! EC is famous for denying! 

 40 Year Itch: 
Oh! I’m going to listen to Get Happy right now!!! 

BeBe: 
Now you're on the right path!

Tom Carson wrote the review for Rolling Stone :

The tightly worked pop-song structures on Get Happy!! are built around one instrumental flourish after another, with no context to sustain them. Yet the effect isn’t slick. Instead, this method makes the music sound raw, urgent and all the more driven, because there’s nothing underneath it. Costello doesn’t give himself time to linger over any of these numbers: they’re jotted down in haste, each of them no more than just another fix on his obsession. If this one doesn’t capture her, he figures, maybe the next one will. He is, of course, fortunate in having a band that not only can keep up with him but give him a run for his money. The Attractions were one of the best backup groups in the world on This Year’s Model, and since then they’ve gotten better. 

In its year-end list, the NME named Get Happy!! the second best album of 1980, while the album placed seventh on The Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop music critics' poll

The Concerts for Kampuchea

Rockpile ( with Robert Plant) : Little Sister

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For four nights, from December 26-29 of 1979, some of the biggest names in rock and roll performed at the Hammersmith Odeon in London to raise money for the victims of war-torn Cambodia. The shows, billed as the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, featured Queen, The Clash, The Who, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, and the last show by Wings. A double album recorded during those evenings would finally be released in March of 1981. My high school band The Geeks performed our own version of the single from that album, "Little Sister",  with lyrics changed to make fun of teachers.

The first night, on Boxing Day, featured a 28-song set by Queen just as their  UK#2 single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" began dropping out of the Top 30. They were the only band playing that night.

Ian Dury and The Blockheads performed 11 songs on the second night, followed by the British reggae band Matumbi.

Then came The Clash, just weeks after releasing London Calling in the U.K. Seven of the 16 songs they played came from the new album. Here they are playing "Armagideon Time", the B side of their single "London Calling" which had just entered the U.K.  Top 30 at #29.

The Pretenders kicked off night three followed by The Specials and The Who. Their debut album was still a week of two away.

The Who's set featured 25 songs and their new drummer, Kenney Jones. 

Elvis Costello and the Attractions opened up the final night. Rockpile came on next with a short set highlighted by the surprise appearance of Robert Plant. Finally Wings took the stage , playing 20 songs including Beatles numbers "Fool On The Hill" "Yesterday" and "Got To Get You Into My Life". 

It all ended with a four song set by Rockestra, a thirty musician supergroup.

In January of 1980 some American bands, The Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Starship ,  would perform at a benefit concert at Oakland Coliseum for the people of Kampuchea.

Squeezing Out Sparks Tops 1979 Pazz and Jop Poll

Graham Parker: Protection

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Graham Parker and The Rumour win the annual Village Voice Pazz and Jop critics poll. Robert Christgau sums up the results in this way :

Especially if allowances are made for Nashville and Denver and Omaha and New Orleans, it's hard to imagine any other album cracking this year's top five: Armed Forces, by last year's overpowering winner, Elvis Costello; Fear of Music, by Talking Heads, up from fifth in 1978; the confusing American version of The Clash, which in its 1977 English edition showed up on a lot of best-of-the-decade lists; Rust Never Sleeps, generally regarded as Neil Young's best album since Tonight's the Night; and this year's model, Squeezing Out Sparks, by Graham Parker and the Rumour, who placed their first two albums at two and four in the 1976 poll but haven't made much noise among the voters since.

By clicking a link on the albums you can find my own reviews from this year.

The 1979 Pazz +Jop Critics Poll Albums

1. Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks (Arista) 767 (63)
2. Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps (Reprise) 652 (50) 
3. The Clash: The Clash (Epic) 638 (50)
4. Talking Heads : Fear of Music (Sire) 620 (51)

5. Elvis Costello: Armed Forces (Columbia) 619 (55)
6. Van Morrison: Into the Music (Warner Bros.) 474 (41)
7. The B-52s: The B-52s (Warner Bros.) 371 (37) 
8. Tom Petty Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA) 340 (31)
9. Pere Ubu: Dub Housing (Chrysalis) 334 (28)
10. Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca) 330 (30)

11. The Roches: The Roches (Warner Bros.) 292 (30)
12. Dave Edmunds: Repeat When Necessary (Swan Song) 222 (21) 
13. Nick Lowe: Labour of Lust (Columbia) 201 (24)
14. Tom Verlaine: Tom Verlaine (Elektra)
15. Iggy Pop: New Values (Arista) 190 (20)

16. Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island) 185 (20)
17. Blondie: Eat to the Beat (Chrysalis) 184 (20)
18. Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (Epic) 179 (16)
19. Rickie Lee Jones: Rickie Lee Jones (Warner Bros.) 176 (20)
20. Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady (I.R.S.) 172 (18)
21. Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Bros.) 160 (17)

22. Neil Young with Crazy Horse: Live Rust (Reprise) 158 (15)
23. Ry Cooder: Bop 'Til You Drop (Warner Bros.) 155 (18)
24. David Johansen: In Style (Blue Sky) 136 (15)
25. Lene Lovich: Stateless (Stiff/Epic) 125 (13)
26. Linton Kwesi Johnson: Forces of Victory (Mango) 122 (13) 

27. Chic: Risque (Atlantic) 112 (11) 
28. Joe Jackson: Look Sharp! (A+M) 111 (11) 
29. Art Ensemble of Chicago: Nice Guys (ECM)
30. Roxy Music: Manifesto (Atlantic) 107 (11) 
31. David Bowie: Lodger (RCA Victor) 104 (12)
32. The Slits: Cut (Antilles) 99 (10)

33. Philip Glass/Robert Wilson: Einstein on the Beach (Tomato) 98 (9)
34. Bob Marley the Wailers: Survival (Island) 94 (9)
35. The Police: Regatta de Blanc (A+M) 92 (10)
36. The Shoes: Present Tense (Elektra) 90 (12)
37. The Jam: All Mod Cons (Polydor) 89 (9)

38. Bob Dylan: Slow Train Coming (Columbia) 88 (11)
39. Stevie Wonder: Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (Tamla) 88 (9)
40. The Kinks: Low Budget (Arista) 85 (9)

Stop Your Messing Around

The Specials : A Message to You Rudy

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On October 19, 1979 The Specials released their self-titled debut album in the U.K. Hailing from the industrial town of Coventry, the seven piece mixed race ska band, dressed up in tonic suits, button-down shirts, skinny ties, wraparound sunglasses, pork pie hats, and loafers. Keyboardist Jerry Dammers had not only written most of the songs and founded the band. He was also the brains behind the 2 Tone label that released this album and singles like "Gangsters", "The Prince", "On My Radio" and the upcoming "Tears of a Clown"/"Ranking Full Stop" by the Beat.

"I always had ideas of how I wanted it to go and part of the idea was for similar bands not to compete together and to work together," Dammers told BBC 4 in a radio documentary called This Are 2 Tone.

Elvis Costello offered to produce The Specials.

"Jerry Dammers was taking riffs from old Prince Buster records and Rock Steady obscurities and saying a number of things that needed saying right then. Like "You've done too much, much too young." And "It doesn't make it alright," Costello writes in Unfaithful Music + Disappearing Ink. "“My job was to get the band on tape before some more skilled producer got ahold of them and screwed it up completely, by perfecting things that didn’t need perfecting.” 

While punk bands were tossing out anti-Thatcher slogans, The Specials focused on the personal issues they faced every day in Coventry: racism, birth control, domestic violence. That said, half the songs are covers from artists like Dandy Livingstone ( A Message to You Rudy), Toots Hibbert (Monkey Man) and Clement Seymour (You're Wondering Now) 

The debut is one of the most highly rated albums of the year.finishing #10 on NME's list and #1 on the Sounds list. 

From Red Starr writing for Smash Hits gave the album a 9/10:

Sick of overnight ska trendies? Me too. But hang on --this album is actually very good with The Specials showing enough genuine talent to outlast any passing fashion. Good balance of old and new songs, some excellent original touches (especially the very strong lyrics), first rate production by Elvis Costello, fourteen tracks--a very promising debut and highly recommended. 

Vivien Goldman of Melody Maker was disappointed:

"A key word is pace. The Specials—a great band to party to—can't sustain the shock of having the speed of certain numbers halved. When the pace on record doubles—as in 'Too Much Too Young'—The Specials suddenly make sense".

When the album finally came out in America in 1980 Jim Farber of Creem wrote 

The sound on the album, captured by producer Elvis Costello, is wonderfully derivative of Nick Lowe's dial twisting. Musically, the album ranges from straight ska ("A Message To You Rudy") to the kind of nauseous pop XTC and The Pretenders do so well ("Gangsters"). A lot of it is as danceable as a B-52's record and on many levels as funny, with Terry Hall singing as though his tongue is miles thick and his saliva is green and sticky.

This is an album I bought on cassette in 1980 and have always treasured. So much so that I put off writing about it until the night before I posted this. 

Playin' With a Horse

Nick Lowe : Big Kick, Plain Scrap!

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On June 9, 1979 Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds each released a classic power pop album, recorded during the same sessions using their same Rockpile bandmates. 

Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust followed up his eccentric Jesus of Cool with Lowe's only U.S. Top 40 hit, "Cruel To Be Kind".  (We're saving our discussion of the single for later in the year. ) For reasons I'll never understand the album was out of print for twenty years, though Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe featured seven of eleven songs on the American version, including "American Squirm" (recorded with Elvis Costello and the Attractions) and "Big Kick, Plain Scrap".

Finally in 2011 Yep Records brought this classic album back to record store shelves with the help of this little seen promotional video.

Dave Edmunds : Girls Talk

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On the very same day, Edmunds released his best album, Repeat When Necessary. The lead off track, Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk" peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart and #12 in Ireland. 

Edmunds recalls :

 "Elvis came to the studio one day, and he said, 'I've got a song for you.' And he gave me a cassette. Now, it wasn't very good - it was just him on a guitar, and he was rushing through it at a furious pace. At first I couldn't see it. I really liked the complete new arrangement and feel that I put to it. I'm not sure Elvis liked it, mind you. He's quite an intense person and he's quick to point out things that he doesn't like." 

Repeat When Necessary also features "Crawling From the Wreckage", written by Graham Parker and Hank DeVito's "Queen of Hearts", covered by Juice Newton two years later. 

In 1979 the BBC aired a documentary about Rockpile. Have an hour? Watch these good friends at work, having a drink and a smoke. At 42:00 Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy hangs out at a recording session. 

Elvis Stands Accused

Elvis Costello and the Attractions: I Stand Accused

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On March 24, 1979 Elvis Costello opened his Rochester, NY concert with "I Stand Accused". By that time, news of his ugly encounter at a Holiday Inn bar with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett had spread like wildfire. In his book Complicated Shadows : The Life and Music of Elvis Costello author Graeme Thomson gets Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas to admit they started the altercation as the alcohol flowed. 

“Stills said, “If you hate us so much, what are you doing in our country?”,’ recalls Thomas. ‘And Elvis said something like, “We’ve come to take your money and your women.” Then it just got worse. “What about our music?” “You haven’t got any good music.” “What about James Brown?” “James Brown?” Bang! That’s pretty much how that one started. It was just us being obnoxious bastards.’
In this instance, being obnoxious bastards culminated in Elvis describing James Brown as ‘a jive-ass nigger’ and Ray Charles as ‘nothing but a blind, ignorant nigger’.

The timing couldn't have been worse. The new album, Armed Forces, has just hit the Billboard Top 10 in America. On March 30, CBS Records called an emergency press conference to get Costello --now followed around by two armed policemen as bodyguards--to apologize and answer questions about whether he was a racist. Behind the scenes, record execs discussed dropping Costello from the label. They certainly stopped promoting the album. By the end of April, Armed Forces has dropped out of the Top 30 and the new single, "Accidents Will Happen", didn't even break into the Hot 100.

In his book Unfaithful Music + Disappearing Ink Costello writes of the incident:

I’ll have to take the word of witnesses that I really used such despicable racial slurs in the same sentence as the names of two of the greatest musicians who ever lived, but whatever I did, I did it to provoke a bar fight and finally put the lights out.
 It was an absurd overstatement of opposites, a contradiction in terms. 
Just as people say “bad” when they mean “good.” 
Surely this was all understood. Didn’t they know the love I had for James Brown and Ray Charles, whose recording of “The Danger Zone” I preferred to watching men walk on the moon? 
“My love for the world is, like, always.” 
How could you not know that? 
It seems that they did not. It took just five minutes to detach my tongue from my mind and my life from the rail it was on.

It's always interesting to see how people react to sudden fame, especially when they're expected to live up to some nasty misanthropic image. Costello may have deep regrets about the incident, but he also believes it might have saved his life. Like Dylan with his motorcycle accident, Costello would need to take a breather before he started trying to win back his fans.

Don't Start Me Talking

Elvis Costello : Oliver's Army

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On February 4, 1979 Elvis Costello's new single, "Oliver's Army" b/w "My Funny Valentine" entered the U.K. charts at #45. The Armed Forces track remains Costello's highest charting single, peaking for three weeks at UK#2 and selling nearly half a million copies.

The song is so catchy, its piano flourishes inspired by ABBA's "Dancing Queen",  many people haven't bothered to figure out what the lyrics are about. Here, in a song he began writing on a flight back from Belfast, Costello is ranting against English imperialism, citing Oliver Cromwell's brutal occupation of Ireland in the 17th Century and name-dropping other past and potential targets: Hong Kong, Palestine, Johannesburg. The smartest, most acerbic lyrics to ever hit UK Top 10.

Fave Songs of 1978

Bee Gees : Night Fever

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I'm not sure how a music snob can justify naming a Bee Gees smash my favorite song of the year, but "Night Fever" has topped my list. It must be something deeply buried in my cortex because it has nothing to do with the chorus ( "night fever, night fever, we know how to do it") and the wah wah guitar in the bridge. I spent most of 1978 as a long haired, too tall and too skinny 14 year old who rarely attended dances at his boarding school. When my parents played the first side of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and tried to get me to dance, I bolted from the room. But if I closed my eyes on a Saturday night,  I could imagine astonishing my classmates with my Travolta like disco moves. 

Nah, never happen.

The Big Hits

Bee Gees Night Fever
Rolling Stones Miss You
Gerry Rafferty Baker Street
Robert Palmer Every Kinda People
The Babys Isn't It Time

Disco

This was a new discovery: a disco song by art rocker Arthur Russell with guitar lines contributed by David Byrne.

Dinosaur : Kiss Me Again
Chic Le Freak
Heatwave The Groove Line
Cheryl Lynn Got To Be Real
Sylvester You Make Me Feel Mighty Real
The Jacksons Blame It on the Boogie


Power Pop + New Wave

Wings : Backwards Traveller

A 69 second McCartney throw away. But I like this half finished, pure shot of inspiration on the otherwise bland London Town.


Tom Petty + the Heartbreakers Listen to Her Heart
Cheap Trick Surrender
The Motors Airport
Chris Stamey + the dB's (I Thought) You Wanted to Know

Jules and the Polar Bears : You Just Don't Want to Know

The more I hear this one, the more I like it. Jules Shear would eventually make a name for himself on MTV and as a songwriter but this early tune is my favorite of his.


Nick Lowe I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass
NRBQ Green Lights
The Records Starry Eyes
The Cars Just What I Needed

New York City

Television : Days


Gorgeous song I've loved for decades and decades. Gah! I'm getting old.


Talking Heads Take Me To The River
Johnny Thunders (You Can't Put Your Arms Around A ) Memory
Lou Reed Street Hassle
Blondie Hanging on the Telephone
Ramones I Just Want to Have Something to Do
Bruce Springsteen Prove It All Night

UK Critical Faves

Magazine :  Shot By Both Sides

DeVoto had something to prove with his first solo single since leaving the Buzzcocks, taking nothing but his awful haircut and a guitar riff the Buzzcocks would also use in "Lipstick".


The Jam Down in the Tube Station at Midnight
The Clash (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais
Siouxsie + the Banshees Hong Kong Garden
The Buzzcocks Ever Fallen in Love

Elvis Costello :  I Don't Want to go to Chelsea


In which the Attractions show why they may be the best backing band in the world. They deserved songwriting credit for the way they made these songs jump out of the speakers.


Bryan Ferry Sign of the Times
Devo Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy
The Undertones Teenage Kicks
The Saints Know Your Product

Discovered This Year

Be Bop Deluxe : Panic in the World


From the final Be Bop Deluxe album, a catchy should-a-been hit.

Kleenex Ain't You
Radio Birdman Aloha Steve and Danno
The Wipers Better Off Dead
Ultravox Slow Motion

The B-52's : Rock Lobster (DB Records version)

I like this original version better. See! my snobbery is coming back.

Shoes Tomorrow Night (Bomp! Records version)

Embarrassed to Admit

Journey : Lights

I grew up in San Francisco so this is a sentimental favorite.

Suzi Quatro + Chris Norman Stumblin'  In
Billy Joel Rosalinda's Eyes
The Doobie Brothers What a Fool Believes
Todd Rundgren Can We Still Be Friends

And then...

Rolling Stones : Shattered

To be cranked on headphones whilst walking down the avenues of NYC when your life is in tatters.


Kraftwerk The Model
Warren Zevon Lawyers Guns and Money
Bryan Ferry Carrickfergus

BONUS :
A list of the most played 1978 songs on my computer (number of plays)


Bee Gees Night Fever 19

Bryan Ferry Take Me to the River 13
Magazine Shot By Both Sides
Paul McCartney Backwards Traveler

Al Di Meola Mediterranean Sundance 12

Blondie Hanging on the Telephone 11
Ramones I Just Want to Have Something to Do
Talking Heads The Good Thing

 The Saints A Minor Aversion 10

 Blondie Heart of Glass 9
 Bryan Ferry What Goes On
 Bryan Ferry Sign of the Times
 Rolling Stones Miss You
 The Saints This Perfect Day

The Babys Isn't It Time 8
Bryan Ferry Carrickfergus
Devo Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy
Gerry Rafferty Baker Street
Kate Bush Wuthering Heights
The Only Ones Another Girl/Another Planet
Pere Ubu Non Alignment Pact
Shoes Tomorrow Night

Shut The F%&k Up!

Suicide : 23 Minutes Over Brussels

[Purchase]

During the Summer of '78, New York City art rockers Suicide toured Europe and the UK with The Clash, and in some cases, Elvis Costello.  The often confrontational duo, which specialized in Martin Rev's electronic noise and Alan Vega's distorted yelping vocals, expected to be well received but was often met with hostility. Especially at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on June 16.

“The audience just flipped out and started throwing stuff,” Rev tells The Guardian. “I felt something hit me, I looked down and someone had taken off their boot and thrown it. After that, it was like going into the trenches.”

Both the band and the audience engaged in open hostility, all recorded. Eight minutes into the gig Vega is yelling “I hate your fucking guts”. Then someone steals his microphone. The crowd is chanting "Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!" for Elvis Costello who is headlining that particular show.

At the 23 minute mark, Suicide finally abandons the stage to cheers. When an angry Costello doesn't return for a encore, the crowd goes manic. Police storm the club and discharge tear gas.

“Every night was like Brussels, and a lot of them were worse,” Rev remembered.

U.K. Fans of The Clash threw ashtrays, shoes, coins and beer glasses, but the duo stayed on stage, standing up against the hostile crowd.

“Performing can often give you a false sense of power and strength,” Rev says of those days. “Even when you have two or three thousand people wanting to string you up alive, I still felt like I could have taken them all on with one hand.”

She's Like a Narcotic

Elvis Costello : Pump It Up

[Purchase]

“All it took was some gin, some tonic, some blue pills, and a red pen to write “Pump It Up” during my first exposure to idiotic rock and roll decadence.” 
Elvis Costello.

On May 10, 1978 Elvis Costello had two tracks in the U.K. charts. "(I Don't Wanna Go To) Chelsea", at #69, was dropping quickly from its UK#16 peak. But "Pump It Up" was debuting at a respectable #46. With its aggressive riff and incomprehensible lyrics (List'ning to the Muzak, thinking 'bout this 'n' that /She said, "That's that, I don't want to chitter-chat"), "Pump It Up" is an all time fan favorite.

Costello tried to get The Clash's Mick Jones to play on the single, starting a "ridiculous" rumor that he was trying to poach Jones from The Clash. Jones did not wind up playing on "Pump It Up" but did play the part that sounds like sirens on the B side, "Big Tears".

Check out Elvis's floppy legs below:

Two To Tumble

Elvis Costello : The Beat

[Purchase]

On March 17, 1978 Elvis Costello released his second album, This Year's Model. It would be selected as the best album of the year by the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll, topping releases by Nick Lowe, The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and the Clash.

To these ears, This Year's Model is a dramatic departure from the straight ahead pub rock of My Aim Is True. And I'm frankly surprised that Costello doesn't share songwriting credit with the musicians who helped him invent this sound, The Attractions. Listen to Steve Nieve's keyboards  on "The Beat", Bruce Thomas's bass on "Pump It Up" and Pete Thomas's drums on "Lipstick Vogue".  Could Costello have really brought this much life to songs with a guitar and a cassette player?

This is a tight, punchy band who brought road tested into London's Eden Studios where they bashed out the album in eleven days. Costello is snarling. His lyrics are bitter takes on romantic angst. If you had to pick one Elvis Costello album to own, this would be it.

A few other takes.

Robert Christgau :

Anyone who thinks it's uninfluenced ( by punk)  should compare the bite and drive of the backup here to the well-played studio pub-rock of his debut and ask themselves how come he now sounds as angry as he says he feels. I find his snarl more attractively musically and verbally than all his melodic and lyrical tricks, and while I still wish he liked girls more, at least I'm ready to believe he's had some bad luck.

From Rolling Stone:

This Year's Model is the most "punk" of Costello's records -- not in any I-hate-the-cops sense but in his emotionally explosive writing ("No Action," "Lipstick Vogue," "Pump It Up") and the Attractions' vicious gallop (particularly the psycho-circus organ playing of Steve Nieve). Many of the songs rattle with sexual paranoia, but the broadside against vanilla-pop broadcasting, "Radio, Radio" (a U.K. single added to the original U.S. vinyl LP), better reflects the general, righteous indignation of the album: Costello vs. the world. And Costello wins.

From  Paul Stokes's 1001Albums You Must Hear Before You Die:

Uncompromising and vicious, This Year's Model is no meaningless rant. It cuts deeply, and tellingly, straight to the bone. Revenge and guilt might scare off other songwriters, but among the anger and disgust Costello finds his truth.