The paper’s reviewer Tom Zito was already marking ‘that special moment when the cult figure reaches the brink of fame’s jettison’, as he watched Elvis perform with ‘unbelievable fury and rage and angst’ in front of 600 screaming kids in Philadelphia on 7 December. The set at the Hot Club was broadly representative of the tour as a whole. The band kicked off with ‘Welcome To The Working Week’. Elvis – for the time being – was seemingly amenable to the idea of plugging ‘the product’ on this side of the Atlantic, and played another fifteen songs: eight from My Aim Is True,29 one cover – Ian Dury’s ‘Roadette Song’ – and seven from the yet-to-be recorded next album.
Although the New York Times remained ambivalent about this thrift-shop rocker and his band, few shared its reservations. The shows at The Bottom Line in New York were sold out, the crowd clamouring for standing room. There was just something about Elvis and The Attractions that clicked. He could really sing, which has always been important in America, his tight, forceful voice crackling and snapping through the music. He could obviously write, too. ‘My Aim Is True got me listening to rock ’n’ roll again,’ says country-rock star Steve Earle, who first heard the record in late 1977. ‘It was just that level of songwriting on a rock record was kind of a revelation until then. He was one of the handful of songwriters who from day one could knock down the facadium and never be a slave to any particular song form.’
And The Attractions were becoming an extraordinary group, locked down tight on a superbly solid but flexible rhythmic base, another major part of the reason America took to them so readily. After the let-down of the Sex Pistols and the thin, sexless, four-square monotony of most of punk, here was a band – and they really were a band, they effortlessly transcended the sum of their parts – who truly packed a punch.
In short, Elvis and The Attractions were made for America: different but not too different; a little punky, but firmly grounded in an accepted historical lineage which incorporated Dylan, The Beatles, Van Morrison and Springsteen. It was the latter’s name which kept springing up most often, not so much in terms of the style of the music, but in the genuine, something-is-happening-here excitement Elvis was generating. It was hard to comprehend. But then so was America. Like most artists visiting the United States for the first time, Elvis found the country an endlessly fascinating source of confusion, inspiration and alienation. He was soaking it all up, filling notebooks that would go on to provide the lyrics for future albums.
Band relations were companionable, but edgy. On the road and away from home, they were thrown into each other’s lives and became something like a gang, albeit one with a recognised leader who would pull rank whenever necessary. One of the early concerns was over billing, with The Attractions often being consigned to anonymous backing band on the publicity for the US dates. There were spirited discussions between the group and Elvis and Jake: ‘Is it Elvis Costello and The Attractions doing these gigs or is it Elvis Costello?’, they asked. ‘Are we going to be clear about how this is going to be billed?’ The situation was soon resolved, but it did little to foster inter-band harmony. Often, Elvis would simply retreat behind his headphones and stare out of the window of the bus, lost in his own thoughts. This was his show after all.
It was a strangely schizophrenic tour. Reactions ranged from ecstatic in the hipper cities like San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia and New York to the surly indifference of New Orleans and Atlanta, where they shared a bill with Talking Heads. At the final show in Asbury on 16 December, Elvis treated the audience to one-off versions of The Everly Brothers’ ‘The Price Of Love’ and Nick Lowe’s ‘Heart Of The City’, before introducing Bruce Thomas as ‘The Real Future of Rock ’n’ Roll’, a pointed reference to that ‘other’ Bruce from those parts. The cocky Englishman’s jibe apparently went down so badly that they had to lock themselves in their dressing room to escape vengeful ‘Boss’ fans after the gig. At least he now knew not to try a similar stunt in Memphis.
The following night they were back in New York. Elvis and The Attractions had been booked to make their US television debut on Saturday Night Live as a replacement for the Sex Pistols, who had pulled out at the last moment, which at least explained Pete Thomas’s ‘Thanks Malc’ T-shirt. Having performed ‘Watching The Detectives’ at the start of the show, they were midway through the original version of ‘Less Than Zero’ when – in some conjoined spirit of perversity and mischievousness – Elvis called an unscheduled halt to the proceedings.
‘Stop! Stop!’ he shouted to the band, cutting the song short by slicing his hand through the air. ‘I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, there’s no reason to do this song here,’ he said, before counting The Attractions into the unreleased ‘Radio, Radio’, with its ‘I wanna bite the hand that feeds me’ refrain. Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels was far from happy, both with the unannounced change of plan – which threw the floor crew into a panic – and also with the song’s sentiments. As the show was live there was little option but to let him finish the song. Elvis had made his point. ‘Evidently it’s not that live,’17 he later sneered, admitting that he was sick of being ‘bullied’ into playing tracks from My Aim Is True. He wouldn’t appear on live US televison again until the ’80s.
* * *
By the time Elvis returned from the States for Christmas, he had signed with Radar Records, a new independent company financed by Warner Brothers. Jake had an amicable and long-standing relationship with Andrew Lauder, previously of United Artists and a man who had dealt with both Jake and Stiff in the past. Lauder had decided to leave United Artists and form Radar Records at around the same time as Jake decided to take Elvis and Nick Lowe away from Stiff.
‘[Radar] was set up without Elvis Costello and without Nick Lowe,’ says Lauder. ‘It was only when I sat down with Jake to say we’re leaving United Artists and starting another record company, that he said “Do you want Elvis and Nick?”.’ At the end of their conversation in a Greek restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush, there was a gentleman’s agreement that Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello would be joining Radar. And being a gentleman of a particular kind, Jake stuck to it.
Elvis’s parting shot for Stiff had at least provided both artist and label with their first hit. ‘Watching The Detectives’ had climbed to No. 15 in the UK charts in November 1977, the only one of Stiff’s first twenty-two singles to reach the Top 40. It was hailed by the NME as ‘one of the most important singles of the ’70s’, and it certainly did much to fulfill the commerical promise of Elvis Costello. Until now, he had been a name to casually drop in hip circles. Now he had a hit record.
The recording of This Year’s Model was squeezed in between the end of the first US tour and the beginning of the next one, booked to begin towards the end of January. There were also three dates at the Nashville Rooms immediately before Christmas. It was a punishing schedule, but Roger Bechirian – who engineered the album sessions at Eden Studios in London – recalls Elvis coming off the tour radiating energy. ‘He was a star almost overnight, and I think he was quite bemused by it all, swept up with the excitement. I have a great laughing image of him being fairly fresh-faced, like a little boy in a sweet shop.’
During the recording, Elvis stayed at Bruce Thomas’s new flat in Shepherd’s Bush much of the time. Mary was by no means oblivious to what he was getting up to on the road, and life at Cypress Avenue was increasingly volatile. Indeed, the couple would soon separate. Nonetheless, Elvis was focused and the album came together easily. The songs had been thoroughly road tested and required little in the way of studio embellishment. The Clash’s Mick Jones sat in on one session, playing guitar on ‘Pump It Up’ and ‘Big Tears’, but even his contributions were deemed surplus to requirements for the final cut.
Nobody was looking for a polished record. The blueprint was mid-’60s Stones – specifically, Aftermath – early Who and The Kinks. An accurate singer in the studio, it was not unusual for Elvis’s live guide vocals to end up on the finished track, and there wa
s very little in the way of additional over-dubbing: the odd keyboard part, the occasional guitar, percussion and some harmony vocals. ‘We literally did the best tracks on the album – ‘Pump It Up’, ‘Chelsea’ – in one afternoon,’ recalls Bruce Thomas. ‘It was like Motown. We’d just go in, play them, and that was it.’
Nick Lowe was again an essential element in the creative process. He enjoyed playing the mad professor, pushing energy levels up to the max to extract the very best performances from the band. Lowe had an impeccable ear for recognising when the band had nailed that special take with all the excitement and energy in it; no matter how much was added, it would still retain that elemental thrill for the listener. He could be persuasive, and usually got his way. As the man who according to Elvis ‘had the task of making a sonic reality out of Nick Lowe’s directions, such as “turn the drums into one big maraca”,’18 Roger Bechirian played the straight-man, often taking charge when things became too technical.
There was a firm distinction drawn between the touring antics and the more restrained behaviour in the studio. It was a sober and industrious working environment. The lights were always full up, they would start at about 10.30 or 11 a.m. and finish around 9 p.m.; all going well, they would be in the pub by 9.30. ‘The whole thing was really good, it was really friendly, very positive,’ says Bechirian. ‘Everyone was really excited because they were the stars of the moment.’
Taking a short break over the New Year, they reconvened in early January to complete the record. Elvis even found the time to put down rough demos of some new songs, including ‘Green Shirt’ and ‘Big Boys’. It took eleven days in all. Still a relative tyro in the recording process, Elvis didn’t tend to be around much during the mix. He might stroll in at some point during the day to hear what had been done and make a few comments, but at this stage he was still happy to defer the bulk of the responsibility to Lowe.
With This Year’s Model completed and scheduled for release in mid-March, Elvis and The Attractions warmed up for the US tour in January with a free concert at London’s Roundhouse, where an ‘aggressive’ Elvis traded insults with members of the front row. They also fulfilled a long-standing commitment to play at a wedding in Davidstow in Cornwall, a thank you for the rehearsal space they had used back in July of the previous year. Then came a true assault on America and then the world, not to mention the collective sensibilties of Elvis and the band.
Chapter Five
1978–79
THE NEXT EIGHTEEN MONTHS WERE MIND-NUMBING. A non-stop, alcohol-and-chemical-fuelled trek around the globe which took a huge toll on Elvis and The Attractions. It was the American tours that really damaged the psyche. In Europe, they were usually away for a little more than a month at a time and much of that was in Britain, where the landscape and customs were familiar. But in America it was very different. The journeys between gigs were gargantuan, the cultural and geographical changes immense, the sense of isolation and loneliness limitless. ‘You’re sitting on a bus, looking out the window at a country you’ve never been to but have only read about, listened to and absorbed through your imagination,’ said Elvis. ‘Suddenly, it’s out there, and it’s somewhat different to what you thought. You get strange people offering you this, that and the other. It all gets mixed up.’1
There was growing professional pressure. By the end of January 1978, My Aim Is True had climbed to No. 32 on the Billboard chart, a hit record in anyone’s book. Elvis was a wanted man, promoting the record through radio interviews rather than the print media, which he already felt was painting him into a one-dimensional corner. He may even have helped them. His newspaper and magazine silence would – with a few very notable exceptions – last until the early ’80s, helping to build a certain mystique, yes, but also an intrinsic mistrust and misunderstanding between artist and media.
But there’s no denying that America was new and largely fun, for the time being at least. The Attractions were like a particularly debauched incarnation of The Monkees, grabbing any opportunity to get up to mischief, getting drunk and following any whim. Pete and Steve roomed under the names of Vince Posh and Norman Wisdom, and legendary drinking would go on between them. At a CBS convention in New Orleans, the first order that went down to room service was eight quart bottles of vodka. On another occasion in Dallas, one member of the touring party had to be ‘sprung’ from jail.
‘He got hold of a load of “leapers” [speed],’ alleges Bruce Thomas. ‘He stole them off some girl and ended up getting arrested. I got the police report: “Mr So-and-so attempted to fondle Miss Simpson’s derrière.” He got put in the detox tent; he had to swallow a load of stuff just as he was getting thrown in the hold, and we had to bribe a judge $20,000 to get him out.’
The shows themselves were a standard sixty-minute mix of My Aim Is True material and This Year’s Model, with the odd cover and B-side thrown in. Elvis was writing all the time: ‘Chemistry Class’ and ‘Moods For Moderns’ were the first to show up, quickly slotted into the set towards the end of the tour following soundcheck renditions.
By the beginning of March, Elvis and The Attractions had become a truly awesome spectacle, both in concert and on record. The NME caught up with Elvis’s final show of the North American tour at El Mocambo club in Toronto on 7 March, and witnessed scenes of utter rapture. One besotted female fan mopped Elvis’s brow as he sweated out his demons on stage. The audience punched their fists and sang along to almost every word. Charles Shaar Murray watched this ‘exportable proto-superstar’ and reported the madness with an exhilaration which still leaps off the page today. ‘Something’s happening. I don’t care what else goes down this year: Elvis Costello and The Attractions are the band to watch. Everybody else is so far behind that they’d have to double their speed just to choke on his dust.’
In Britain, ‘(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea’ b/w ‘You Belong To Me’ was released to huge acclaim, the first, swaggering taster for This Year’s Model. ‘The single’s so good, the very act of releasing it amounts to bragging on a colossal scale,’ said the NME. ‘Chelsea’ quickly hit the Top 20. The following week, on 17 March, This Year’s Model was released, the first 50,000 copies coming with a free single of ‘Stranger In The House’ and The Damned’s ‘Neat Neat Neat,’ a little 45 rpm slice of country and punk bookending the classic, updated beat-pop of the album.
It is always tempting to view landmark records through the benevolent lens of nostalgia, but This Year’s Model effortlessly stands up to scrutiny today. The tunes are tight and instantly memorable (although the appeal of ‘The Beat’ has always proved elusive), probably because Elvis was confident enough in his writing and his band to let his influences not so much peek through as strip off and run around naked. ‘You Belong To Me’ sparked off the riff from The Rolling Stones’ ‘The Last Time,’ ‘Pump It Up’ took Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and bludgeoned it to death, while the bridge to ‘This Year’s Girl’ was a shameless steal from The Beatles’ ‘You Won’t See Me’. No matter. Nick Lowe’s production had given the songs a thick, powerful fuse on which to burn, and while Steve Nieve’s organ danced and jabbed around the songs like a boxer, the rhythmic invention reached an exhilarating crescendo on the breathless bass and drum sword-fight at the centre of ‘Lipstick Vogue’. Elvis sang it all with 100 times the depth and range that he had shown on My Aim Is True.
The album title was knowing and the cover image, once again, iconic: Elvis hunched behind a camera and tripod, expressionless, both observed and observing. The reviews were superlative, and rightly so. The NME and Melody Maker brought out their Elvis big hitters – Nick Kent and Allan Jones respectively – to try to articulate the sheer breadth of the achievement. Kent claimed that ‘there’s simply no one within spitting distance of him,’ calling the record ‘too dazzling, too powerful, to be ignored’. Jones covered the same waterfront again. This Year’s Model, he claimed, ‘promotes its author to the foremost ranks of contemporary rock writers. Clear out of sight
of most of his rivals and comparisons (so long, Bruce, baby).’
Few critics in Britain dwelled too long on the lyrics, but as time went on This Year’s Model would be a record that regularly attracted accusations of misogyny. In the US, Jon Pareles’s review in Crawdaddy judged the record ‘so wrong-headed, so full of hatred, so convinced of its moral superiority’ in regards to its view of women. It is true that Elvis almost always assumed the moral high ground in these songs: ‘I am right and you are wrong, therefore my response – no matter what it is – is justified,’ an attitude which was beginning to spill out from the grooves of his records and into his personal life.
But cries of blanket misogyny were oversimplistic. An easy confusion can be made between misogyny and somebody who has an extremely vehement position on the battle of the sexes in terms of specific relationships. Being hostile or angry or vengeful towards one woman in a song is not the same as being contemptuous towards all women. It was also a misreading based on mistaking the attitude of the performances on the record for the true sentiment of the words as written rather than sung, as well as a general reaction to the way Elvis looked and presented himself to the public: the bitter geek, the guy who never got the girl. ‘If you’re a laddish sort of singer, you can get away with all sorts of stuff and people think you’re great,’ he later said. ‘The Stones wrote ‘Stupid Girl’ and they’re heroes. I wrote ‘This Year’s Girl’, saying that fashion is a trap, a much more compassionate song, and everyone said I was a misogynist.’2
Rolling Stone made the record its lead review, and the considered praise of the magnificent music came with a more astute ear for the lyrical nuances. ‘For all his surface cockiness,’ recognised reviewer Kit Rachlis, ‘Costello is a man who’s trembling underneath.’ From the opening ‘No Action’, taking in the masochistic rough and tumble of ‘The Beat’, ‘Living In Paradise’, ‘Lipstick Vogue’ and ‘Little Triggers’, the album is littered with Elvis’s ‘trembling’.
Complicated Shadows Page 12