Bulldog

As promised a few hours ago...


And here we have my collection of various worthwhile rarities from Elvis Costello's back-catalogue. Although a lot of enthusiastic digging through the vaults for the double-disc Rhino reissues of most of his albums has unearthed a lot of great and rare material, there are still many, many rare recordings which remain officially unreleased. Many more than the above in fact. These are a few of the ones I've managed to find for myself over the years.

Some of these sound like nothing you'd expect Costello to record, and as such are among my favourites of his. For starters, both versions of a Town Called Big Nothing (the Really Big Nothing version of which was officially released on the now out of print Rykodisc reissue of Blood and Chocolate) are nice, playful numbers that sound like something off of some spaghetti western soundtrack. Long Journey Home, featuring Paddy Maloney of the Chieftans, is a pretty spectacular, Celtic-afflicted song, initially used on the soundtrack of a documentary about Irish-American history (I forget the exact title of it). Two more of Costello's best songs, My Mood Swings (one the Big Lebowski fans among us may recognise) and Real Emotional Girl, are given orchestral revamps by his one-time writing partners the Brodsky Quartet. Weird Nightmare, taken from a Charles Mingus tribute album, sounds a few million miles away from My Aim Is True as well.

Besides the live tracks which make up tracks 15-18 (yes, that is a Jimmy Cliff song you see among them), the rest of the above is made from various outtakes, such as a pretty neat Dirty Rotten Shame from Secret, Profane and Sugarcane. The North outtakes, including the elusive title track, the jazzy Too Blue and Impatience, are basically better than 90% of the album they were left off and well worth hearing too. Do You Know What I'm Saying came from the Brutal Youth sessions, and it's an alright song I guess. Nothing spectacular though. There's the jovial, brassy Party Party from just before the Punch the Clock sessions (and easily the best drinking song Costello would ever write), and the passable Don't Throw Your Love Away (the origin of which I can't remember). Egypt is a neat, though again unspectacular cover of a Nick Lowe song, while a Penny For Your Thoughts is a home demo from 2007, and may well have been considered for inclusion of Momofuku at some point.

So, as you may have noticed by now, it's a hotch-potch of rarities, and probably a good idea to download it if you've got a bunch of his albums already, and not so much if you're a beginner when it comes to Elvis Costello. A few of these are, I think, some of his best songs as well, so well worth having in that case.

Gavin B.

Hollywood High was released by Rhino Records in January 2010 as a full length 20 song download. AMG gave it a rave review:

I think it's the best live recording I've ever heard of the Attractions and the last 7 songs of the set hit you like a sledgehammer.

Bulldog

Yeah, it sounds pretty interesting. I'll keep an eye peeled for it and maybe get a quick review up here once I've got it.

In the mean time, here's a video of Elvis Costello guest-hosting Late Night With David Letterman - enjoy!

Gavin B.

Costello is quite the rancontuer especially when it comes to the topic of music. I don't know if you get Spectacle, his music/talk show in the UK. We get in America on the Sundance cable channel. His musical knowledge is encyclopedic and he did the best interview with Smokey Robinson I've ever seen. I was stunned that he knew so much about R&B and Motown music history. I've also seen him exhibit a similar scholarly knowledge of jazz, delta blues, Appalachian music and opera.

Bulldog

Unfortunately we don't get Spectacle over here, which is a shame as, judging by his performance as host on the above Late Night Show, he's quite a level-headed interviewer. As you say, he's talked to a variety of pretty interesting people as well. Unfortunately all I've ever seen of the show are little snippets online.

You're right about his musical mind as well, and I know from what I've read that he was a huge fan of jazz, Motown and delta blues in particular when he was growing up - certainly much more so than you'd assume listening to his earliest records anyway. Classical music's something he started to get into later, and his orchestral composition album Il Sogno's definitely worth hearing at least. Might review it at some point.

And talking of potential reviews, I've now got hold of the Hollywood High album, as well as having dug out my copy of My Flame Turns Blue, so watch this space if you're interested eh.

Bulldog

Long time no bump. Not sure if I've actually posted it in ths thread, but Mr Costello's new album's due this coming October 25th and, as you can no doubt see, the cover art's been unleashed on the unsuspecting public;


^ With a cover like that, how can it not be immense Certainly sounds like it'll be too, judging from what I've heard about both the Sugarcanes (the backing band for Secret Profane and Sugarcane) and the Imposters (aka the drummer and keyboardist of the Attractions) being on it, what the album sounds like etc. In a sentence, this'll either be an unfocused mess or one of the albums of the year. Needless to say, I can hardly wait to find out.

The tracklisting's been announced too, and here's a decent clip of one of the songs on it;


So, that's only 64 more days for me to wait then

Gavin B.

Good to see you up & about, Bulldog. Nice teaser for the new EC album. There's a whole slew of anticipated fall releases. Blonde Redhead has an October release and I'm purchased tickets to see them here in St. Louis in November. They've never done much touring in the states so I'm looking forward to that one.

Jedey

Here in the US we have to wait until November 2.

The guest list is stellar Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Marc Ribot, Buddy Miller and Leon Russell

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Bulldog

I needed the break.

As you say, hopefully this'll be just one more of a load of great albums that have come out this year so far, nevermind ones that are still in the pipeline. From what I've heard, 2010's been a great year for new music, and with National Ransom, Grinderman 2 and the new Swans album yet to come, hopefully it's only gonna get better. Really looking forward to that Blonde Redhead album myself too, and the new Ryan Bingham one should be pretty interesting when it's out.

I'm into the work of Jerry Douglas, Leon Russell and especially Marc Ribot (one of my favourite ever guitarists). The rest I haven't heard of, but I gather their absolute legends in their musical circles.

As for the new songs apparently most, if not all of them have been unveiled on tour already. In fact, of the 15 tracks I've already heard 4 or 5 of them on bootlegs, seen live clips of them on youtube or whatever. There are a lot more newer songs I've come across that aren't on that tracklisting as well, nevermind the last two albums - the man's been insanely prolific this last 2 or 3 years, which is just fine by me really.

Jedey

Vince Gill is a Country artist, great singer and guitar player and Buddy Miller is a folky who is also involved with upcoming Robert Plant album which I am also looking forward to.

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