Latest news with #ElvisCostello
New York Post
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Elvis Costello may be done with new music: 'Let somebody else make records'
It's been some 50 years since Elvis Costello first made the trip across the pond from London to New York. And the bespectacled singer-songwriter behind such classics as 'Alison,' 'Pump It Up,' and 'Veronica' returned to his early days playing smaller rooms in the city at the Soho Sessions loft space on Tuesday night. After performing in the intimate setting at the private event before a star-studded crowd — including Whoopi Goldberg, Tracy Morgan, Susan Sarandon, Liev Schreiber, tennis great John McEnroe and supermodel Paulina Porizkova — Costello reflected on his first New York show. Advertisement 10 Elvis Costello made a surprise appearance at the Soho Sessions showcase on Tuesday night. Dave Doobinin 10 Elvis Costello played one of his first New York shows at the Palladium in 1978. Redferns 'I don't think the place I played first was very much bigger than this, if it was bigger,' Costello, 70, exclusively told The Post. 'The Bottom Line would have been the first time. And then we moved on up to the Palladium on 14th Street, when 14th Street was pretty interesting. Advertisement 'You have to play everywhere in the end,' he added. 'You find the places that you feel good in, you know? And I've had venues that I like here. But it was nice to be in this one.' While he may still enjoy playing cool new venues such as the Soho Sessions hot spot, Costello has no plans to make any new music — 48 years after releasing his debut album, 1977's 'My Aim Is True.' 'Right now, I've made so many records, might be time to let somebody else make records for a while,' he said. 10 Elvis Costello and his wife of 22 years, jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall, are living in Manhattan with their twin sons. Getty Images for RS Advertisement Five decades later, Costello is also a certified New Yorker himself, living in Manhattan with his wife of 22 years, jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall, and their 18-year-old twin sons Dexter and Frank. 'I like being here,' he said. Costello also has a special connection to New Orleans, which was on display at the Soho Sessions, where he was the surprise guest during Grammy-winning NOLA musician Trombone Shorty's set that also featured Big Easy legend Ivan Neville on keyboards. 10 Elvis Costello performed numbers such as his classic 'Pump It Up' at Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. @kimmancusophotography Advertisement 10 Elvis Costello joined Trombone Shorty during his set at Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. Dave Doobinin 'I worked down in New Orleans with Allen Toussaint,' Costello said of the late musician with whom he collaborated on 2006's 'The River in Reverse.' 'That's why we did that first song ['On Your Way Down']. 'We made a record together right after [Hurricane] Katrina,' he continued. 'It was only three months after, and the city was still under curfew … He lost his home and his studio, so he had to rebuild a different life. And that was very inspiring.' Costello has also collaborated with Paul McCartney, with the two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers co-writing 15 songs together. In fact, they partnered to pen Costello's biggest US hit, 1989's 'Veronica.' Although the song is upbeat, there's a heartbreaking personal story behind it. 10 Whoopi Goldberg met up with actress Gina Gershon at Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. Dave Doobinin 10 Liev Schreiber and wife Taylor Neisen attended Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. Dave Doobinin 'The song is about Alzheimer's. You know, it's about the onset of dementia my grandmother was going through,' who titled the song after his grandmother's Catholic confirmation name. 'And I wanted to write a joyful song about the little last glimmers of light. So I feel quite proud of the fact that we took a serious subject like that, and it wasn't a melancholy-sounding record.' Advertisement As with every Soho Sessions event, this one had a charitable component, benefiting the Trombone Shorty Foundation that supports the next generation of musicians. Costello has long been lending his talents for good causes, going all the way back to Live Aid in 1985. 10 Elvis Costello played to an intimate, star-studded crowd at Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. @kimmancusophotography 10 Trombone Shorty (left) jammed with his fellow New Orleans music Ivan Neville at Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. Dave Doobinin 'They need to have the people that raise awareness,' said Costello. Advertisement But he's not looking for a pat on the back. 'You don't want to really feel good about yourself for doing something you should be doing, just helping other people.' Having turned 70 last August, Costello hasn't been phased by that big birthday. 'I don't think it matters so much,' he said, adding that he feels 'fortunate' as a new septuagenarian. 'You know, my parents are no longer with us, which is something you have to face,' he said. 'But my wife and I have two boys who are just about to graduate from high school. And I have an older son [Matthew, 50, with first wife Mary Burgoyne] in England.' 10 Supermodel Paulina Porizkova was among the star-studded crowd at Soho Sessions on Tuesday night. Dave Doobinin Advertisement Costello, who released a super deluxe edition of his 1986 album 'King of America' last August, will be hitting the road with his band The Imposters on June 12. 'We're actually gonna concentrate just on the songs from the first couple years,' he said. 'It gets quite difficult to put the whole story, 50 years of music, into one evening.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
From Dave Matthews to Post Malone, 25 great concerts hitting Missouri this summer
It is early May, and you can already feel the sizzle from the coming summer concert season. Columbia will have its own share of hot shows — and soon, we'll take a closer look and listen — but music lovers also enjoy criss-crossing the state in search of major tours, outdoor revelries and intimate opportunities. Here are just 25 of the many, many great concerts hitting our state between June and August. June 11: Billy Strings at T-Mobile Center: The Michigan guitar-slinger has become one of live music's top draws. $59-$75. June 18: The Head and The Heart at Uptown Theater: One of the anthemic folk revival's most enduring acts arrives with stellar support from Futurebirds and Anna Graves. $59-$207. July 1: Elvis Costello and the Imposters at Uptown Theater: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame raconteur can draw from his many eras with ease. Charlie Sexton shares an impressive bill. $69-$275. July 8: Incubus at Starlight Theater: The genre-flexible rockers will perform their 2001 record "Morning View" in full during a hit-studded set. Manchester Orchestra and Paris Jackson share a packed bill. $75-$153. July 19: Father John Misty at Uptown Theater: One of the great 21st-century rock bards builds and breaks down myths within his catalog. Walkmen frontman and solo artist extraordinaire Hamilton Leithauser shares the bill. $45-$135. Aug. 23: Teddy Swims at Starlight Theater: The "Lose Control" hitmaker is everywhere right now, including Kansas City with his I've Tried Everything But Therapy tour to Kansas City alongside Freak Freely and Cian Ducrot. Aug. 24: Alabama Shakes at Starlight Theater: Vocal powerhouse Brittany Howard leads the reformed Southern rockers who know how mine depths of soul. Y La Bamba shares the bill. $54.75-$154.75. Aug. 31: Linkin Park at T-Mobile Center: Mike Shinoda, new vocalist Emily Armstrong and Co. lead Linkin Park toward the end of summer. Jean Dawson shares the bill. $54-$347. June 3: Caamp and Blind Pilot at Stifel Theatre: Ohio's Caamp leads a night of thoughtful, soulful folk rock. $46-$100. June 5: I'm With Her at The Pageant: Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek), Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan form a musically dexterous super-string band. Mason Via shares the bill. $36-$56. June 12: Avril Lavigne at Hollywood Casino Amphitheater: The Canadian pop-punk icon brings her Greatest Hits tour to a St. Louis summer. Simple Plan and We The Kings share the bill. $38-$264. June 14: Dave Matthews Band at Hollywood Casino Amphitheater: Any set can happen when the perpetual kings of the summer stage stretch out within their vast catalog. $71-$475. June 14: Punch Brothers at The Pageant: Chris Thile and his supremely talented mates make bluegrass for both the head and the heart. $55-$75. June 15: MJ Lenderman at The Factory in Chesterfield: The new crown prince of indie rock holds court. Colin Miller shares the bill. $39-$50. June 19: Saba at Delmar Hall: Alongside No ID, this Chicago rapper released one of the great hip-hop records of the year with "From the Private Collection Of ..." $25-$32. June 20: Old 97s at Old Rock House: Led by the somehow rough-hewn and sweetly-melodic songwriting of Rhett Miller, these Texas stalwarts rock the Open Highway Festival. $35-$60. July 9: Social Distortion at The Pageant: The Orange County punks are nearly 50 years into a wonderfully unsettling career. Plague Vendor shares the bill. $49.50-$65. July 11: Chris Stapleton at Hollywood Casino Amphitheater: Stapleton brings his All-American Road Show tour to town with the wonderful Brittney Spencer. Starts at $177. July 12: Built to Spill and Yo La Tengo at The Pageant: Two of indie-rock's great veteran acts team for what's bound to be a satisfying double bill. $40-$55. Aug. 16: Maren Morris at The Pageant: The country queen brings her Dreamsicle tour to the St. Louis venue. Miya Folick shares the bill. $49.50-$69.50. Aug. 19: LCD Soundsystem at The Factory: James Murphy and all his friends are coming to Chesterfield? Believe it. Starts at $99. June 12: Hozier at Thunder Ridge in Ridgedale: The charismatic Irish artist will take southwest Missouri to church — and beyond. $65-$174. June 13: Post Malone at Thunder Ridge: The versatile rapper, singer and songwriter brings his Big Ass Stadium Tour to the area. Starts at $246. Aug. 2: Creed at Thunder Ridge: Celebrate the Summer of '99 with the reformed arena rockers behind "Higher" and other massive, hooky hits. $59-$317. Aug. 13: Wilco at Gillioz Theatre: One of America's truly great bands forever finds the intersection between Midwest country and artful rock. $60-$100. Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@ He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen. This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: 25 summer concerts worth driving across Missouri
Irish Examiner
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Kneecap's political rebellion runs into the limits of global tolerance
During a week of Kneecap living dangerously, it was another artist with Irish connections who came to mind. Back in 1989, Elvis Costello released his album Spike, including a song that was a powerful attack on Margaret Thatcher. Costello snarled out the six minute Tramp The Dirt Down, which included the lines: 'When England was the whore of the world, Margaret was her madam. And the future looked as bright and as clear as the black tarmacadam.' This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
Chicago Tribune
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Elvis Costello brings an early St. Patrick's Day, and a lot else unexpected, to the Park West
Being an Elvis Costello fan has been like being a Bob Dylan fan, or a Neil Young fan. There is too much to keep up with. Too many alternate takes. Too many collaborations. Too many lyrics. Too many recordings to keep track of, new and old. Worse, a lot of this abundance is compelling, rarely easy to ignore. Even at 70, that famously wiry frame much fuller now, the man seems incapable of phoning in it. At Park West on Tuesday night, for the first of four largely sold-out, partly striped-down shows concluding a three-year-long, occasional tour with his longtime pianist Steve Nieve, if you watched closely, you could see a Costello still capable of surprising himself, whistling through the end of songs, stomping a foot, extending tunes past a natural end. Not even Elvis Costello, it seems, knows everything about Elvis Costello. This show, he explained, was a conscious attempt to tear back the 'artifice' from the material, discover stark new reinterpretations, find strange tricks in old dogs, whittle out unexpected arrangements or just recognize the sadder song he didn't realize he wrote the first time. It was often lovely and wildly ambitious stuff, by turns soulful then menacing, rollicking then bittersweet, though if you came expecting something more traditional and danceable, I regret to inform you: This, too, was not business as usual. A couple stood up about midway through the show and hovered in back a moment, looking unsure if they wanted to stay or not. They sighed so loudly I could hear it over the music. 'Let's go,' the guy said, and the woman nodded. I leaned over and asked why they were leaving: The woman rolled her eyes and laughed bitterly. Because if they knew 'it was going to be like this,' she said, they wouldn't have come in the first place. To be fair to them, most Elvis Costello concerts do have the rough outline of other Elvis Costello concerts: You get what you come for. He still spits lyrics like it's 1978. Unlike Dylan, his voice still sounds familiar — like an old barfly somehow going through puberty. And yet, like Dylan and Young, Costello has outpaced a chunk of his old audience. His shows with Nieve have been typically two-man affairs, Costello on guitar, Nieve on piano. The Park West concerts, however, are special: About midway through the two-and-a-half hour performance, Costello introduces a small assemblage of musicians, carrying nontraditional instruments: A fiddle, double bass, cornet and uilleann pipes — the latter a reedy-looking cousin of the bagpipes. Nieve bounces from a Steinway to a melodica to an accordion; Costello goes from guitar to the banjo to a drum machine. It's all less challenging, and much warmer, than that sounds. It's Costello playing an American music savant and historian, drawing on torch ballad traditions one song, Fats Waller the next, then slashing rock, then industrial, then folk, blues … you'll likely need a verse or two to recognize a song you've heard a million times before. 'Clubland' now has a flamenco shuffle, before veering into 'Ghost Town' by the Specials. '(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea' becomes a jangling, off-kilter, almost Mardi Gras-style rave-up. On Tuesday, he paid homage to Chicago electric blues with Jimmy Reed's 'Take Out Some Insurance.' He complimented that with Dylan's 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed.' Which morphed into a slow rockabilly of Costello's chestnut 'Mystery Dance.' Needless to say, the casual Costello fan need not apply this time. But fans of reinvention, and of mining possibilities from vast catalogs, will be fascinated. He opened with a pointed triptych pulled from the headlines, all deep cuts, starting with the little-known 'Deportee' (an early version of 'The Deportees Club' on his 1984 album 'Goodbye Cruel World'), then into 'When I Was Cruel No. 2' and 'American Gangster Time' — later adding 'America Without Tears.' The closest he came to outward politics was asking the audience to picture the protagonist of 'Deportee' as anyone looking for a new life, 'maybe washing dishes at the Green Mill right now.' He let the diversity of American music he played say everything, throwing in a moody unreleased song named 'John Went Walking' that tiptoed between beat poetry and hip hop, and ending with an early St. Patrick's Day waltz around a tune written with The Chieftains, performed like a lush Irish wall of sound: Look out below where you tread / For the colors bled as they overflowed / Red, white and blue / Green, white and gold. And still, some shout out a favorite song, a pebble in a vast ocean of choices. He did not dismiss them. Tomorrow night, he promised, will have new songs. And presumably, the night after that will be different, too. Not that you'll hear your favorite, he mumbled. Which may be the most Elvis Costello thing that Elvis Costello said all night.
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘My job was making hits': Clive Langer on taking Bowie, Dexys and Madness to No 1 – and why he turned Madonna down
Given that he is the producer behind some of the most cherished and idiosyncratic British pop of the 1980s, from Elvis Costello to Dexys Midnight Runners and the Teardrop Explodes, Clive Langer sounds surprisingly bad at predicting what will do well. 'I was invited to possibly work with Madonna, around the time of Holiday,' he remembers. 'I went to see her at the Music Machine and I just didn't get it. I still don't get it.' So he turned her down. And when Dexys laid down Come on Eileen with Langer behind the mixing desk, he didn't think it would be a hit. 'I was completely wrong. I never had the faith.' It duly reached No 1 and became the biggest-selling single of 1982, just one of the many triumphs Langer had with production partner Alan Winstanley. Together they shaped a generation of British pop with David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Lloyd Cole, plus eight full albums with Madness across five decades. He also dabbled with his own bands, and is now a frontman at the age of 70 in the Clang Group, whose second album of sharp guitar pop, New Clang, is out next month. It reflects a 'compulsion to write songs, express myself and turn it up a bit louder,' Langer says over a cup of tea at his home in Hackney, London. He knows he's lucky to have done any of it. His Polish father, who was Jewish, fled the Nazis – 'They told him, 'Go right …' He took a left and never saw his parents or his brother again,' – later making it to the UK and joining the RAF, where he met Langer's mother. Langer's childhood in London put him at the centre of 'an incredible time for music. I dropped acid aged 13 and saw Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin in a pub called Klooks Kleek. We didn't have tickets to Janis Joplin at the Albert Hall, but we figured that if six of us tried to run in, four of us would make it – and we did.' Langer left for art school in Canterbury, where Ian Dury was a teacher. He formed his first band, Deaf School, at Liverpool School of Art in 1974, inspired by Dury's pre-Blockheads band Kilburn and the High Roads. 'We were very theatrical characters. A bit Sparks, a bit Roxy.' After punk arrived, 'we lost all momentum', but they had amassed a range of famous admirers: the likes of Julian Cope, Suggs, Pete Burns and Steve Strange. 'Kevin Rowland came into our dressing room in Birmingham before starting Dexys Midnight Runners. Then Big In Japan started from our road crew and included Bill Drummond who formed the KLF, Holly Johnson who started Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Ian Broudie who became Lightning Seeds. I joined [as guitarist] and some of the others went on to be in the Teardrop Explodes or Siouxsie and the Banshees.' In Deaf School, Langer had paid close attention to the band's producers, and remembered their techniques when teenage Deaf School fans North London Invaders asked him to record them just as they changed their name to Madness. 'I was very nervous when I went in to their rehearsal room clutching a four-pack of beer,' he admits, 'but as soon as I heard My Girl I knew this was very special. From then on every record was a hit. They were ambitious and sort of naughty. The studio petty cash might suddenly disappear and if there was any booze about it would soon be gone.' For the nutty boys' 1979 debut album, One Step Beyond, Langer teamed up with more experienced engineer Winstanley, soon establishing a way of working where Winstanley handled the technical side while Langer would 'rehearse with the bands, sort out the songwriting and arrangements and have an overview. You know, 'Do we need a trumpet?'' The wonderfully berserk trumpet solo on the Teardrop Explodes' 1981 smash Reward was recorded when 'there was a lot of acid in the band. So once it kicked in Julian [Cope] spent four hours disagreeing about a guitar chord.' The recording of Dexys' second album Too-Rye-Ay was just as colourful, with the band 'wearing all the clothes and doing the moves like it was a gig. I felt as if I was being pinned to the wall of the rehearsal room. It was that powerful.' Langer wrote the music himself for another classic, Shipbuilding, a Falklands-era hit for Robert Wyatt later recorded by Elvis Costello, who wrote the lyrics. 'I'd tried to write something beautiful for Robert, but myself and various friends all tried to come up with lyrics for it and they were rubbish,' he says. 'I bumped into Elvis at a party and a few days later he had the words.' Langer and Winstanley worked quickly. 'Once, we were in the same studio as Trevor Horn and we'd done Elvis's whole Goodbye Cruel World album in the three weeks Trevor spent on the snare sound for [Frankie Goes To Hollywood's] Two Tribes.' Simplicity aside, he doesn't feel they had any particular Midas touch. 'Our job was to give record companies hit records and we were just rolling with it. Sometimes you'd be a bit pissed and get talked into it.' Morrissey was another client, and 'working with him was brilliant, because he didn't write his own music, so I could either co-write the songs [including November Spawned a Monster] or shape them. But he would invite guests to the studio then disappear to his room. I'd have to look after them, thinking, 'Who are these people?'' Langer's career zenith was producing Bowie and Jagger's No 1 single Dancing in the Street and the former's No 2 classic Absolute Beginners on the same day in 1985. 'They were good friends, but Bowie ran the show and was always looking after Mick. 'Everything all right, Mick?' For Absolute Beginners, Bowie did the vocal in one take. He said, 'There's one line I can do better.' We re-did that and the record was finished. He sounded utterly majestic. We hung out. Skiing. New Year's Eve. With other people, he was always performing, but sometimes I'd get him for an hour or so and we'd just drink and talk. He was so intelligent, funny, knew what he was doing. After that I thought, 'Where do I go next?'' In the 90s, Langer and Winstanley mortgaged themselves to the skies turning Hook End Manor, purchased from David Gilmour, into the best equipped studio in Europe. Then, Bush's 1994 album Sixteen Stone shipped 6m copies in the US. 'It was Nirvana lite, but 14-year-old girls absolutely loved them. It paid off all my mortgages.' After later working with Blur, Catatonia and a-ha, and 'spending more time together than with our families', the duo's last full album production together was Madness's 2009 The Liberty of Norton Folgate. Langer also joined a reformed Deaf School but drifted further into alcohol, which he candidly confronts in songs on New Clang. 'I'd always liked a drink at 6pm to listen and reappraise everything with alcohol in me,' he says. 'Bottle of wine by the mixing desk – not too close in case you knock it over and fuck everything up. The problem is it's progressive, then it kills you. After I stopped working I got myself into a right pickle needing a vodka in my coffee at 11am just to feel normal. So I went to see someone for help.' Now three years sober, Langer is throwing his new energy into the Clang Group. 'I don't sit around thinking about what ifs but there's a tiny regret that I didn't do Foo Fighters' second album,' he admits. 'I was flown to the Capitol building in Los Angeles to meet Dave Grohl, but then I suggested that he should play drums on the record instead of the drummer they had then,' he reveals. 'I walked out knowing that I'd blown it, but I don't regret what I said.' This time, however, his instincts were correct: when The Colour and the Shape went double platinum he noticed that the drummer on all but two tracks was Grohl. New Clang is released on 21 February. The Clang Group play West Hampstead Arts Club on 21 February and Kazimier Stockroom, Liverpool, on 26 February
