Re: (TV) What are you listening to? + about Elvis Costello...

["Joe Thornton" <joe.thornton@gmx.net>]

An album I paid insufficient attention to before: Captain Beefheart -- 
Bluejeans and Moonbeams. It's very... NICE!

Tom Verlaine also sang about moonbeams. Actually, the imagery in this verse
from "Rotation" is reminiscent of Beefheart, isn't it?

Big bear-trap shadow,
Another new cartoon,
Arrows of moonbeams
Jumpin' round the room.
Moving up, moving up,
Dancing in the wild vibrations

Russ wrote:
> Just saw in concert: Elvis Costello . I don't care what anyone says - the
> guy rocks ! He put on a 3 hour show !

This reminds me of what Tom once said about Elvis C. (copied below). I fancy
that, at that point in time, Tom hadn't heard "Watchin' The Detectives" or
other good stuff. Anyway, while I know people would like to hear Tom in
interviews, you must ask yourself: would you prefer to have Tom shoot his
mouth off like this, or remain silent, reputation intact? :-) Of course, it
was half a lifetime ago... in those splendid days when Television would even
play "The Dream's Dream" live. What?!

--JoeT

++++++++

MELODY MAKER,  April 15, 1978
Tom Verlaine talks to Allan Jones

. . . "I think there's definitely a tendency in the music business not to
see artists or musicians as human beings. This process of, like, elevation
is crazy. I mean, let's see just who's big in the States in the Seventies,
and if they're capable of being, like, leaders.
   "They're mostly, like, people who would have been the creepiest guys in
your school.
   "Like Elton John. Or Elvis Costello, to take a more recent example. These
are the kind of guys who, if they sat next to you at high-school, you
wouldn't talk to because they were creeps.
   "I mean, Costello's a prime example of what's happening in the States
right now. I mean, it's all to do with image. He's, like, a cross between
who? Buddy Holly and Bob Dylan, say. And deejays in America fall for it.
   "His image is like totally unindividual -- Mr Ordinary -- and yet he can
pass it off as being unique. I'm sure he'll get me for saying this." Damn
right, Tom. "But, like, I heard five cuts by Costello and it was enough.
   "I don't know the guy, so I don't know if he's sincere. I don't even know
if he's for real. My tendency is to believe that it's not for real. I can't
believe that it's real, because all the music he's playing isn't real. It's
all copied from here and there. I can't believe in a guy who's coming on and
playing a ripped-off buncha s--- from ten years ago. I just think, 'so
what?'
   "You know, somebody said recently -- it may even have been Dylan -- they
said that rock 'n' roll doesn't exist anymore. I'm beginning to think like
that myself."
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