Indoor fireworks

Boxing Day

Ever the musical chameleon this was Elvis Costello just past the "angry young man" phase, and moving toward the expansive musician. I remember seeing this lineup at the Jai Lai fronton in Milford.

Where are the strong? Who are the trusted?

I was dancing to Nick Lowe's classic "What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?" last night, and I realized how much an arrow to the heart a simple rock and roll song can be.

With the Ponzi scheme scandal of major investor Bernard Madoff uncovered this week, along with the laughable graft of an Illinois governor, and the failure of lame duck Republican Senators refusing to bail out a blue collar enterprise after saving thousands of bankers and brokers, in what can only be called class warfare, Lowe's line, which I use as the title to this post, is suddenly right on target.

Lowe wrote the song years before it ever became a "hit" for Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Lowe was in a pub rock band called Brinsley Schwarz, and already had a penchant for writing love songs with his tongue planted firmly in cheek. By the time Costello and Lowe recorded the single for Stiff records, punk musicians in England had firmly rejected all that had become a flaccid vestige of hippie philosophy homogenized into mush by California record companies, and Lowe and Costello's version of the song could have been labeled "ironic." In fact, Costello, Lowe and Stiff conspired to confuse the public by releasing the Costello version as the flip side to Lowe's single, "American Squirm." The confusion worked as Costello is often credited with writing the song, and it has become the anthem with which Costello frequently ends his live shows.

Lowe has always contended that his lyric was written with sincerity, and in the ensuing years, it seems that the song holds a lot more truth than any of our leaders has to offer.

What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,
Theres one thing I wanna know:
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding? ohhhh
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin away, just makes me wanna cry.
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding? ohhhh
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding?

So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin away, just makes me wanna cry.
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding?
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding?
Whats so funny bout peace love & understanding?

Roseanne Cash on the creative process

While I haven't loved every blog by every songwriter in the New York Times effort to give us a glimpse into the songwriting process, I think Roseanne Cash's entries are always honest, revealing and a pleasure to read.

This morning's is as well, with another bonus - a clip from a new songs she's written with Elvis Costello and Kris Kristofferson.

Shane does lord of the fishes pose; Cait paddles on denial; Elvis channels Mike Douglas

I'm not really sure where all this started (a common plea of a websurfer lost in a thread), but somehow I went from paparazzi photos of Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, to a blogpost by McGowan's longtime "companion" Victoria Clarke, who claims that she and Shane practice yoga. Shane? Yoga! In another article, I learned that Shane and Victoria are engaged, though already the betrothal has hit a few rocks.

To an interview with Cait O'Riordan, original Pogues bassist, and former fifteen year companion of Elvis Costello. In the interview which is astonishing in its revelation of O'Riordan's struggle with alcohol and depression, but is more astonishing in her unwillingness to blame her troubles on anyone but herself. O'Riordan is currently recording in a band, appropriately enough called Prenup, with two former members of Hothouse Flowers.

To an article about a new TV show hosted by Elvis Costello called Spectacle, on the Sundance Channel. Costello has just released Momofuku, a milestone new album which demonstrates that his strength is a bit of rock and roll with the Imposters. Costello has proved to everyone that he can stretch, that he's not a one-trick pony, and that he was not simply a new wave flash in the pan. Momofuku rambles from the gorgeous word-crammed rockers that we've heard on the last few albums with the Imposters, pausing for the occasional early-morning sleepy lounge samba of Harry Worth, the unapologetic sentimentality of My Three Sons (a song I can relate to completely), and the angry-with-my-adopted-country bile of American Gangster Time.

Where are the strong? Who are the trusted?

I've listened to Elvis Costello's version of Nick Lowe's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?" hundreds of times, but never with tears in my eyes. That changed Saturday when Lucy and I went to see Morgan Spurlock's new film "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?"

I have mixed feelings about the documentary as a whole. I've never been a huge fan of the filmmaker as intrusive on-camera narrator, and the hip graphics and video-game title segment, and the wise-guy humor, though all of it does bring a sense of humanity to the topic.

The parts of the film which work best are when Spurlock travels to the dangerous nations of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan and meets with the people who live there. These human interactions say more about the condition of the world than any report by any pundit, more than any speech by any politician, more than any governmental public relations report.

The film ends with a series of portraits of these people as Elvis Costello sings. And it made me cry listening to those words and seeing those faces. I guess it says something about me and my state of mind, but it's a musical question for the ages.

BTW, Nick Lowe is playing a solo show in Northampton on Thursday May 1 at the Calvin Theater.

Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is a song Elvis Costello wrote for famed English performer and songwriter Robert Wyatt to record. He made a single of it that rose to #35 on the British charts before Costello recorded his own version for the song for his album Punch the Clock.

The song is about the prosperity that sweeps over a dormant port town in Britain during the Falklands invasion of 1982. The key line in the song, of course: "Is it worth it?"

Shipbuilding
Elvis Costello

Is it worth it?
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boy's birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding.......
Well I ask you
The boy said "Dad they're going to take me to task, but I'll be back by Christmas"
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
It's all we're skilled in
We will be shipbuilding........
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls.

The same question entered my mind today while reading the compelling story, The Helicopter War, by Eric Gershon in today's Hartford Courant. While the war in Iraq has deepened our indebtedness to China in an alarming way, and has, by many accounts, been the suction which is draining the life from our economy, in Stratford and Bridgeport and Plainville, the war means bombfall profits.

Pogues payback

Many of you know this story. On last year's US tour, the Pogues cancelled one show, at the last minute, due to an injury to lead singer Shane MacGowan. I didn't find out until I had traveled all the way to NYC, and was standing in front of Roseland, where notices of the cancellation was posted. I cursed all the way back to Grand Central, and vowed never to buy tickets to a Pogues show again.









Then they went on sale this year.

I bought a pair of tickets to the Roseland show on the day before St. Patty's (I'm too old, cynical and delicate to brave the streets and the club on that holiday). Yesterday, I found out that Billy Bragg will be a special guest on the one and only night for which I purchased tickets. I feel as if a little bit of the luck of the Irish has been spread before me. But I won't count my chickens until the night of the show.

BTW, Bragg's new album will be out just before his US appearance.


The ultimate coincidence is that I was introduced to both of these artists in a trip to Britain in 1984 where I saw the Pogues open for Elvis Costello at the Hammersmith Odeon, and I heard Billy Bragg for the first time when John Peel played a new cut over the radio as I was heading to Bacup for the wedding of a friend.

Oh, Elvis, now I don't want to go to Chelsea

This is the biggest musical disappointment since I heard that Lyle Lovett played one of George Bush's inaugural balls.

For god's sake, Hillary voted for the Iraq war, and showed support for it for a long time, and she recently voted with Creepy Joe Lieberman on the Iran guard resolution. We don't need another family dynasty in the White House.

So, I have to wonder, is it a payday, or a sign of support. Elvis lives in New York, but I don't think either he or his wife Diana Krall are voting U.S. citizens, but from the man who sang, "I want to bite the hand that feeds me," this is disappointing indeed.

Concerts of the Week

Tao Rodriguez-Seeger
Global Woody
Friday September 28, 8:00 pm
Green Streets Art Center, Middletown

Not only will Mammals member, and Seeger family scion Tao Rodriguez-Seeger perform, but Wesleyan Ph.d musicology candidate, and Guthrie Archive director Jorge Arévalo Mateus, will speak, show rare Woody Guthrie film footage, and play recently-discovered Guthrie recordings. An interesting and important night of music about America's most significant troubadour.


Richard Shindell
Music for A Change
Saturday, September 29, 7:30 pm
Wilde Auditorium, University of Hartford

Imagine Michael Stipe singing story songs which you could actually understand, and you'd have some idea of what Richard Shindell sounds like. He's an acclaimed songwriter, and while he's an incredible lyricist and melody maker, his most recent album is composed of cover songs, including a strident-free version of Springsteen's Born In the USA.

Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello
Sunday, September 30
Harbor Yard, Bridgeport CT

I'm still wondering why I don't have tickets to this myself. Initially, I thought it was a little more musician self-indulgence than I could stand in an evening. But both are musical heroes, and seeing them in the same venue, on the same evening would be somewhat of a revelation. And lately, I've become re-obsessed with Costello's Motown/Stax influenced Get Happy (from whence comes one of my Costello favorites King Horse).
Harbor Yard, Bridgeport CT

Radio, radio

Radio and music are heavy on my mind this week, as an earlier post indicates, and somehow I tripped upon this on a site called Rock Town Hall.

I'm totally familiar with the first instance of Radio, Radio being played as contraband on Saturday Night Live. Costello and the band had been booked in December 1977 as a last minute replacement for the Sex Pistols. I saw it live on TV, and it made me a fan of Elvis Costello forever. History reveals that the moment was not as spontaneous as it seemed, but plotted by Costello and band ahead of time. It did piss off Lorne Michaels, who vowed never to have Costello back. It's the kind of performance that can make or break a career. Costello's talent insisted that it be a monumental push forward and not a stumbling block. He was invited back to play in 1989 and 1991, likely after Michaels decided the memorable moment was one of the reasons early Saturday Night Live was great.



Today, I saw for the first time, this reprise on a 1999 anniversary special of the show which featured the Beastie Boys.



BTW, Elvis Costello opens solo/acoustic for Dylan when he plays the the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport on Sept. 30.