DEWEY'S RECORD PARTY!

[CineMaven]

From the Downunder:

Speaking for us all -- I, ya-I, ya-I, ya-I love Lee Remick
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p9lNUHM_pc[/youtube]

Yup, count me in, ChiO....

[ChiO]

Time to reprise a theme?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_0DzMVf1M[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlywcuw-1TU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlPe9mhZgM8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE9oz49E7K8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpu8RlxI_2w[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zmZdoINi9E[/youtube]

[JackFavell]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyB_IP05jeY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5yn3v3N8A[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGSjDLf8bk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XO7mgCTFAw[/youtube]

[ChiO]

Yea!!!

Love Yo La Tengo's "Tom Courtenay".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mriBc6NjUhg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RItiVmmUVM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5qyNF-MLaQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVrBl368VGY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFwhTx_hVIQ[/youtube]

[Mr. Arkadin]

Coolest version of Theme for an Imaginary Western I've seen. Leslie was one of my biggest influences--and still is!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVG7eQ1TcNo[/youtube]

[ChiO]

Feeling the Noir of Sebadoh.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZb4Uk9jlGA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv1O_xMpzSQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8eqLSf0ipI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ75hRwvpTo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI1VN43lmIU[/youtube]

[ChiO]

Avant-garde rock. Art rock. Glam rock. Punk rock. Lo-fi. He was in
the forefront of each. Lou Reed (nee Louis Allen Firbank).

March 2, 1943 - October 27, 2013

R.I.P.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugY9CwhfzE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkbpmFOuKrc[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpkoctRSHs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsVLIiI8Vfo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uri6LLCZVjg[/youtube]

[JackFavell]

NO...I can't believe it.

[RedRiver]

I didn't know this until this very minute. Sad. I'm not a rocker, and even I like his music. Art is like that. It transcends all boundaries.

[JackFavell]

Last night Andrew and I went to see Elvis Costello.

BEST CONCERT EVER! I had high expectations and they were exceeded in every way. That doesn't ever happen!

When the tech brought out Elvis' guitars, I was wowed immediately because they actually looked used. The tech was extra careful wiring and setting up, which I wondered about. I've seen a lot of concerts, and most often the guitars are polished to a high finish and look fancy and clean (including one unfortunate black lacquered guitar belonging to Emmylou Harris at a previous concert, which caught the lights too well and blinded us all). There was an array of 5 or 6 different instruments, ranging in size and shape, each had so much character. I later found out that the first one brought out and given about five minutes of stage time by itself before the others were brought on had once belonged to Chuck Berry. And OH! did that famous guitar send chills up our spines! Elvis introduced us to his historic baby in the 5th song, playing the slowest and smokiest version of The Only Flame in Town. The sound was deep and rich and mellow and went right through you like a ghost... It was the most thrilling point in the evening. Elvis played it exceptionally, letting that Berry sound resonate in our bones. There wasn't a corner of that theater that Berry's guitar didn't reach right down to through the joists. Beautiful.



Elvis is not the very best guitar player, nor the very best singer, but he is an incredible musician and knows stuff you can only learn from history and from old time musicians. Things you get from loving music and making it your lifetime work. He can make a guitar speak. I don't think he gets that across in recordings, just how fine he can be as a player. He can put enormous, complicated feeling into a song. One thing I love about him is that cracked voice - you think maybe he won't make the note he's reaching for, but you want him to, so the suspense is built up - and then it comes out so beautiful, so strong and rather pure. Very pleasing. There's something incredibly plaintive in that mix of ugliness and beauty.

When I'm thinking back on the songs he chose to play, I realize that there was a melancholy note throughout Of course! And yet, the last thing I felt was melancholy last night. He came on with so much energy, before anyone really expected him to. He played for 2 hours straight, solo, working in many little funny vintage ditties (not on the playlist) and the feeling was one of sly - dare I say it? contentment. He moved from song to song quickly, but took time within the songs themselves. On stage I was surprised at how normal he looked under the traditional Elvis garb. I don't know whether this is something that has come with age, or if his odd, big head/skinny body alien look is exaggerated by TV cameras. I could see him being the type of person who could run by on the street without your noticing. He looked....athletic. Not what I expected. His slender wrists are what I admired most, his strumming is very fluid, and he has large fingers on slim hands, which give him the ability to go easily for those chord changes and reaches, while keeping very loose and hitting the notes precisely.



His music is nuanced, just like his playing...in fact it's all in the nuance with him. His skill in live performing lies in his use of time change, chord or key change, and dynamics within songs. It's what happens between the notes or different passages of a song that makes him so affecting. The slowing up for added meaning takes on epic personal proportions. The stretching of a song from standard pop tune into something with a more complicated chord structure, and then shoved back into the standard time signature or pop format by the end is masterful. He can thrill you through and through with a sustained chord - on Chuck Berry's guitar, THE most beautiful sounding instrument I've heard (it's like the Stradivarius of electric guitars), it can be overwhelming. Just the tipping up of another instrument for vibrato can mean something. He takes his time, letting a word linger in the air or a sound... I found him the most complex, musically satisfying musician I've ever seen as well as the most emotionally satisfying. He is equal parts serious musician and bad vaudeville comic, and it makes for a very elegant, and at the same time, a raucous good time.

Tripwire was a highlight, just a perfect Bill Frisell style rendition of this new song collaboration with The Roots. So Like Candy was a saturated sound pleasure, while the devastating, spare and bloody I Want You was interspersed with guitar fuzzed and noise influenced evil jams - really cool, but it ended with a rather soppy close. That was the only small point in the evening where I was less than impressed...the rest of the audience loved it. I would have preferred a more cutting ending to match that deeply disturbing noise, which was perfect for the song. But it's a small gripe. Starting to Come to Me off of the album All This Useless Beauty was a simple Woody Guthrie style anthem that was as good as anything I've heard from more accomplished folk singers. His version of Walking My Baby Back Home was as happy and foolish as I've ever heard Costello. Accompanied on a tiny guitar, it sounded fresh and vintage at the same time.

Oh, and he played my favorite song, The Other End of the Telescope written with Aimee Mann. Fate? I like to think so, but more likely not.

************************************
Jimmie Standing in the Rain, a song about his grandfather who was an itinerant musician in the 30's
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WydHsPivceY[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEGH2nfC7os[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbKBzjNX1fk[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de-lYs1du0g[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6pkW23vpKM[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62wgmULhoao[/youtube]


And I don't care if he hates I Write the Book, or that it only took him 10 minutes to write it. What the heck does he know? it's a good song.

[ChiO]

Love Elvis Costello! There aren't too many performers that have
a songbook so deep that they can blend their 30-year old tunes with
new works and make it seamless.

The one time we saw him was when he and Burt Bacharach were
touring together -- it was like three concerts in one.

Last night we took a trip in the Way-Back Machine so I could hear the
voice I've coveted since the mid-'60s.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W38SOJXx2ZM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMR6Sfc3Fag[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDcOqanBW4A[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXJB_f132w0[/youtube]

And my favorite:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHlhpOZaDgg[/youtube]

[JackFavell]

Hey, was this the Once Upon a Dream hybrid show I've heard about? Amazing that they got together for this. They were and are a great band, I think maybe they were a better and certainly tighter band than some of their contemporaries who went on to more fame and fortune.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sastKEBZhXY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs6oc7hR6vM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi5GOq817VM[/youtube]

Wow, Elvis AND Burt? You lucky dog! I was surprised at how much Elvis gave during the show... despite his prickly image and a few comments about the more vocal audience members.

[CineMaven]

Last night Andrew and I went to see Elvis Costello.

I read your first line.

...And then I read your very enthusiastic review. Two things came to mind, Jaxxxon. When I read your first line again, it really had the import for me, of Daphne DuMaurier's famous first line: "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Why? Because the rest of your review was such a wonderful vivid read, it totally supports your first line. You really made me see him and hear him and I'm not even really familiar with his music. I know of one song of his, lost in the creases of my memory. It wasn't a rock 'n roll song. It had a bluesy/jazzy/ballad-y sound like something Sinatra or Nat King Cole and old masters of that ilk would sing; it haunts me partly because I can't get a handle on my memory of the song. ( Don't know title nor one lyric. )

The second thought that came to mind is Scheherazade. You weave tales with your review of films and you've done the same with music. You could write music reviews. Your review made me listen to every single one of the YouTube clips you posted for Elvis Costello. I'm glad you enjoyed him and the night out. Thanks for sharing it here.

[JackFavell]

WOW! I can't believe you not only read the whole thing, but you listened to all the videos I posted too - what a chore! I hope they were enjoyable for you. That is high praise indeed!

It's so funny, I wanted to get down my impressions right away, because I was so elated after this concert. I guess it came through. I also wanted to describe the feel of it - WHY it made me feel a certain way, what he did that seemed so unusual to me. After I talked about it with him, my dad said that it was the "expression" that was so highly developed in Costello's performance, and I'd say that is a pretty spot on description.

The definition of EXPRESSION as it relates to music (from Wiki, so take it with a grain of salt):

Musical expression is the art of playing music with communication. The elements of music that comprise expression include dynamic indications, forte or piano, phrasing, differing qualities of timbre and articulation, color, intensity, energy and excitement all at the service of the composer's intention as best perceived by the performer.

A performer aims to elicit responses of sympathetic feeling in the audience, and to excite, calm or otherwise sway the audience's physical and emotional responses. In a great artist, one can feel that it is the soul that is speaking to the audience.

And this is what I was trying to get at, that Costello used all of the above elements to elicit a feeling in the audience. It was magnificent to me, and I wonder if that is something that would come through on a recording of the event. I just don't know.

I didn't mention what an incredible songwriter he is. That is what draws me back and back again to his music. His lyrics are complicated and perverse, but no one captures certain disturbing feelings we have as well. Melodically, he's almost as good. There are few artists out there that can switch up their melodic structures as well as Elvis can, and who can write as many differing tunes as he has. To combine both words and music so well, and not have one or the other drag him down, well that's genius. The best thing about him is he uses irony so well - not just in words but in the music.

Anyway, thanks again for slogging through my Elvis Costello fanpage. I'm terribly flattered that I could get you to listen to him. As for that song stuck in your head, I couldn't tell you what it is, but the way you described it could be a description of many of his songs:

I know of one song of his, lost in the creases of my memory. It wasn't a rock 'n roll song. It had a bluesy/jazzy/ballad-y sound like something Sinatra or Nat King Cole and old masters of that ilk would sing; it haunts me partly because I can't get a handle on my memory of the song. ( Don't know title nor one lyric. )

it's one of the reasons I like him so much. He is able to use classic pop balladeers' styles and timbres without ever seeming like a copycat. He retains his individualism, twisting the style to create a hybrid form of music all his own.

[JackFavell]

Do you want me to try to help you figure out what the song was?