Live At The El Mocambo to be re-released

[sweetest punch]

Pressrelease: http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayRelea ... 594&EDATE=

1978 Recording Live at the El Mocambo Kicks Off The Costello Show Series of Live Albums From Elvis Costello

The first edition in The Costello Show live performance series of complete concerts featuring Elvis Costello finds one of the most eclectic and acclaimed artists at the fiery start of his career. Live At The El Mocambo (Hip-O/UMe), to be released September 29, 2009, marks Volume 1 of his Elvis Costello -The Costello Show series of albums. During the next year or so, The Costello Show series will continue with the album releases of significant classic Costello concerts including a performance at Hollywood High in California and other shows to be announced.

Recorded March 6, 1978, at the sold-out El Mocambo in Toronto, Canada, and broadcast live by CHUM-FM, this Elvis Costello and The Attractions concert was released the same year on about 300-500 pressings of a Canadian promotional album that became highly collectible--and heavily bootlegged. In fact, it may have been the most bootlegged of all Costello albums. The album was officially released in 1993 as a bonus disc in the four-CD box set 2 1/2 Years, and was also made available to those who bought the other three CDs separately.

At the time of the concert, the band was touring North America in support of My Aim Is True, Costello's 1977 debut disc, and just days before the release of This Year's Model, the first album with The Attractions: keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas. The raw, energetic live performance in the midst of the late '70s punk/new wave movement captured a band and an artist at their most impassioned. The concert included My Aim Is True's "Watching The Detectives," "Less Than Zero" (with new lyrics Costello penned for American listeners), "Mystery Dance," "Waiting For The End Of The World," "Welcome To The Working Week" and "Miracle Man," and This Year's Model's anthemic "Pump It Up," "The Beat," "Lip Service," "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" (only on the original U.K. album), "Little Triggers," "Radio Radio" (only on the U.S. edition), "Lipstick Vogue" and "You Belong To Me."

In 2003, Costello was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the following year was ranked by Rolling Stone among its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Live At The El Mocambo flashes back to a performance when Elvis Costello was just beginning.

[johnfoyle]

This account lists 14 tracks , just like all versions , vinyl and Demon/Rykodisc cd (1993), that have appeared.

It looks like , therefore , we will not get these tracks -

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... 1978-03-07

(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
This Year's Girl
No Action
Hand In Hand
Roadette Song
I'm Not Angry


A 'true' original of the vinyl version is for sale at a pretty price -

http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=204602

'Original 1978 Canadian 14-track promotional-only vinyl LP with hand scratched matrices'

£137.50 US$ 226.87, € 158.12



It's hard to tell if this, on ebay, is a 'true' original ; the more readily available bootleg has a machine stamped matrices in the run off groove -

http://cgi.ebay.com/ELVIS-COSTELLO-live ... 286.c0.m14

[And No Coffee Table]

It looks like , therefore , we will not get these tracks -

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... 1978-03-07

(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
This Year's Girl
No Action
Hand In Hand
Roadette Song
I'm Not Angry

That link is for the second El Mocambo show, which may not even have been recorded. This is the one used on the album:

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... 06_Toronto

The songs we don't appear to be getting are the four with Nick Lowe:

15. Nutted By Reality - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
16. I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
17. Shake And Pop - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont
18. Heart Of The City - with Nick Lowe (lead vocal) & Martin Belmont

[johnfoyle]

Correction appreciated!

[Neil.]

This is interesting, though! So there are going to be lots of live concerts released on CD.

And one more request for any solo concerts! Love Elvis with just his voice and an acoustic guitar!

In that case, I want Brutal Youth tour in the Royal Albert Hall, so that I can hear Favourite Hour done on that massive organ, again (no jokes, please).

Nx

[sweetest punch]

Nunki has updated his website ( http://www.inanotherroom.com/costello.html ) of Elvis Costello reissues!!

[Butts]

http://pitchfork.com/news/36296-elvis-c ... onto-show/

[sweetest punch]

Amazon has the albumcover: http://www.amazon.com/Costello-Show-Liv ... 263&sr=1-1

[johnfoyle]

Amazon details the same 14 tracks as 1993 Demon/Rykodisc cd so I guess that's that.

[blureu]

Billboard chimes in with a hint of the next show in the series.

http://www.billboard.com/#/news/elvis-c ... 1437.story

There's just no slowing down Elvis Costello.

After launching his "Spectacle" TV series last December and releasing his latest studio effort, "Secret, Profane & Sugarcane," this past June, the punk icon is set to debut "The Costello Show Series," a selection of rare live recordings from throughout his career. First up is "Live at the El Mocambo," a heavily bootlegged concert from March 6, 1978 in Toronto. The 14 song set is due September 29 on Hip-O/Universal and originally appeared as a part of the "2 1/2 Years" box set issued by Rykodisc in 1993, but has never stood on its own as an official release.

The concert was originally broadcast on CHUM-FM and was pressed in a limited vinyl run as a promotional item. Costello was touring in support of his landmark debut, "My Aim Is True." The show features several early versions of what are now considered Costello classics, including "Pump It Up," "Watching the Detectives," and a fiery version of "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea." "Live at the El Mocambo" captures Costello at a very young age, with a raw sound in both the quality of the recording as well as the material.

While little information is available on how many shows will be included in future releases, the series is set to roll out concerts over the next year, with a performance from June 4, 1978 at Hollywood High slated next.

Costello has been a rather prolific renaissance man over the last twenty years, releasing a number of recordings with a bevy of different collaborators, including Allen Toussaint, Bill Frisell and Burt Bacharach. "Se ret, Profane & Sugarcane" continued his recent forays outside of the "punk" lexicon, pairing him with Americana legends T Bone Burnett, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Douglas and Stuart Duncan. Since June, it has sold 89,000 according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Costello is currently on break from summer touring activities, resuming on October 5 in Singapore before heading to Australia.

Here is the track list for "Live at the El Mocambo":

"Mystery Dance"
"Waiting For The End Of The World"
"Welcome To The Working Week"
"Less Than Zero"
"The Beat"
"Lip Service"
"(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea"
"Little Triggers"
"Radio, Radio"
"Lipstick Vogue"
"Watching The Detectives"
"Miracle Man"
"You Belong To Me"
"Pump It Up"

[VonOfterdingen]

Will they edit out the annoying screaming guy? Is so I better get this

[And No Coffee Table]

This is out now. I've noted some differences between the Ryko CD and the new one on the Elvis Costello Reissues site:

http://www.inanotherroom.com/laem.html

[wardo68]

Thanks as always, ANCT. Glad to see the site's being updated again!

[Dr. Luther]

I would rather have seen them issue the Cleveland show from December '77.
Or maybe even double it up with El Mocambo.

[The Gentleman]

I'm amused by the sticker on the shrink-wrap that boasts that it includes "the only recorded version of "Less Than Zero (Dallas Version)". Although it wasn't labeled as such, the "Dallas Version" was also heard on the last EC concert Universal released, the Warner Theatre show on the second disc of the THIS YEARS MODEL: DELUXE EDITION.

[johnfoyle]

http://spectrumculture.com/2009/10/elvi ... cambo.html

Elvis Costello

Live at the El Mocambo

Rating:(Performance: 5.0/5.0, Reissue: 1.5/5.0)

Label: Hip-O Records/UMe

by Eric Dennis


October 7, 2009

The Elvis Costello reissue machine continues to hum along relentlessly. After the Rykodisc reissues of 1993-1995 did a serviceable job in re-examining Costello's back catalog, these were eventually bested by Rhino's stunning series, which, to use the technical term, kicked major ass. With their classy packaging, carefully considered artwork and humorous, honest and revealing Costello-penned liner notes, this collection of outtakes, live cuts, alternate versions and failed experiments appeared to be the final word on all things Costello. Not so fast. Since then, the artist's work has been repackaged several times over, in products ranging from interesting to entirely pointless. While another release of both My Aim Is True and This Year's Model from Hip-O each included a second disc with a live show - in addition to a plethora of bland outtakes, forgettable demos and other travesties - they at least offered something not previously commercially available. Other efforts, such as a pricey box set of singles and another pressing of the musician's studio albums, have been less forgivable, especially in an era where CD sales continue to plummet and music has been effectively reduced to little more than pieces of digital data.

Hip-O's reissue of Live at the El Mocambo will likely do nothing to change the skeptical minds of fans who have long since dismissed such artifacts as little more than mercenary cash grabs. While the performance is amazing, this release offers nothing new and too often plays like just another thoughtless, recycled rehash from a label short on both new ideas and any real interest in giving fans something of merit. Though Hip-O is quick to point out that the concert was previously only available in limited quantities as a promo album and later as part of the 2 ½ Years box set, this recording is about as difficult to track down as a right-wing health care reform reactionary; the El Mocambo show is perhaps Costello and the Attractions' most bootlegged concert. This latest repackaged dud shows the complete lack of imagination, creativity, and bang-for-your-buck that we've all, unfortunately, come to expect from music labels.

Enough has been written about the El Mocambo performance to render additional commentary redundant; suffice it to say that it's a defining moment in the group's history. At the least, this reissue confirms that the show's reputation as among the foursome's best is well-deserved. The tentativeness that crept into the group in late 1977 shows- check out the Nashville Rooms concert included in the MAIT deluxe edition for a band struggling to mesh- is long gone here, with Costello spitting out various barbed insults, insinuations and put-downs while Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas add musical venom to the mix. It's simply the sound of four guys with a jaw-dropping set of songs and the right chemistry- of a few different kinds, I'd guess.

One of the charms about this tape has always been its roughness. Costello's voice occasionally dominates the mix as the singer practically swallows the microphone in a rush to spit out various accusations and insults, most noticeably on "Mystery Dance," "Welcome to the Working Week" and "Miracle Man," while the Attractions' instruments alternately complement each other and fight for supremacy. The crowd remains wired and idiotically vocal for most of the show, while Costello engages in the requisite but mostly mild audience baiting (though his tone becomes fairly malevolent right before the band deconstructs "Pump It Up" with the help of Martin Belmont). A common shortcoming of any live disc is that it lacks a visual element, but a definite sense of atmosphere is palpable here: the crowd's amped-up disposition lasts for the show's duration (the infamous "yeehaw" concertgoer who yelps throughout and who, perhaps appropriately, makes his presence most known during "Less Than Zero," is still audible). While there is no appreciable difference in sound quality (maybe it's a little louder) on this release versus that of either its 2 ½ Years or bootleg predecessors, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Yet a scintillating performance and decent packaging job (Look, kids! Pictures!) aren't enough to justify the reissue's complete lack of bonus material. There's simply no incentive for fans who already own this record to purchase it again: four songs performed with Belmont and Nick Lowe are excluded, and there are no soundchecks, interviews, or, Christ, songs from the following night's show at the same club to make the package more attractive. With the June 1978 Hollywood High concert - parts of which were already included in Rhino's Armed Forces version - reportedly next up for release, Hip-O needs to move beyond simply repackaging previously released performances and start rewarding Costello's fans for their patience and patronage, many of whom are likely developing nervous tics at that very mention of the word reissue. A wealth of vintage Costello and the Attractions shows circulate on bootleg, and if done right, this ongoing live concert campaign could provide plenty of treats for long-time fans as well as those who only know Costello as the twitchy weirdo from the Austin Powers movie.

And so the latest iteration of Live at the El Mocambo is simply another underwhelming and useless Costello reissue, of which it's hard not to conclude that Hip-O either has no real clue what music fans look for in a reissue or isn't particularly interested in finding out. Whether a listener has heard this show before or not isn't the point: there is a way to accommodate both lifers and newbies and make both feel like a record label isn't roughly shaking their pockets out like a goon squad street tough. While this 1978 performance belongs on any list of essential post-punk live shows, Hip-O's uninspired release is ultimately a failed hatchet job. It's about as attractive as sea amoeba - though it's worth noting that, unlike this release, sea amoeba serves a purpose - and suggests listeners better have low expectations for future entries in "The Costello Show."

[blureu]

well said! sea amoeba!!

[Neil.]

So does anyone have any idea how often these are going to be reissued? I get the impression from previous snippets that it's a year-long project which suggests, possibly, a monthly release schedule! That would be cool, esp for stuff from '79 onward!

[johnfoyle]

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/135 ... l-mocambo/

Stephen M. Deusner

October 13, 2009



Every new Elvis Costello album arrives with a critical assessment of his late-career eclecticism, which covers Tin Pan Alley, Brill Building pop, Southern rock, Nashville Americana, and many other ticks off his bucket list. If you're cynical, you might say he's become the thing he once railed against: an establishment artist coasting on the good will of his back catalog. If you're generous, you might argue-- fairly circuitously-- that he's simply rebelling against yesterday's rebellion. Either way, it's worth remembering that he grew up listening to Sinatra and Ellington and covered "My Funny Valentine" as a B-side back in 1978. Four years after releasing his debut, My Aim Is True, he released an album of country music covers.

Because it came first, that angry-young-man intensity is often taken as his default setting, but perhaps Costello's punk-era sound was just another stopover on his odyssey through 20th century popular music. That breadth of interest and influence is apparent in even his earliest material: in its emphatic melodicism, in its clever arrangements, in his osmotic absorption of contemporary styles, even if they were raw (ska, pub rock) rather than refined (jazz, Bacharach). He may have been young, he may have been righteously pissed, but he sounds worldly on those early albums, and especially on Live at the El Mocambo.

Recorded in Toronto on Costello's 1978 tour for My Aim Is True, the album was originally released as a promotional item, survived the 1980s as a bootleg, and finally got a commercial release as part of the 1993 box set 2½ Years. It's now a standalone reissue as the first installment in his new series of live reissues. This version reinstates much of the stage banter that was cut from the '93 version, including Costello's boast that he and the Attractions have come to reclaim Canada for the Crown. For an artist with so many disparate releases under his belt, Costello doesn't have a whole lot of live albums, which makes El Mocambo particularly revealing, even if it does cover only a limited set of songs.

Costello here is a fierce, funny, and intelligent performer, which is certainly no surprise. Nor is the energy with which he and the band pound out raucous versions of "Welcome to the Working Week" and "Lipstick Vogue". Headlong on the studio albums, these songs are ferocious live, and it helps that they have a rowdy crowd in front of them, who whoop, holler, and call out requests for "Allison" (which he doesn't play). One guy yahoos so much he should get a performance credit. It's an electric atmosphere, and the setting brings out the swaggering pre- and early-rock sounds in these songs, suggesting that, even as a young artist, Costello was already fully engaged with the past. Opener "Mystery Dance" sounds like it was built on the same two-note guitar theme as that other Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock", and, on the intro to "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea", each instrument seems to be playing in a different style: Bruce Thomas' strutting ska bassline throwing punches at Steve Nieve's New Wave-ish keyboard dodging Costello's swooping guitar. It's hard to keep up.

These are tricky, slippery songs. "Waiting for the End of the World" changes shape almost constantly, as Nieve's keyboard trades off leads with Costello then ducks back into the rhythm section. And just when the setlist reaches a fevered peak, they break into "Little Triggers", giving Costello a surprising amount of room to croon and offsetting the reckless rush of "Lip Service" and "Radio, Radio". They obliterate the reggae rhythms of "Watching the Detectives" but play up the noir mood before launching into a start-stop bridge. And after Costello taunts the audience ("He doesn't think I mean it!"), the Attractions and guitarist Martin Belmont hammer away at the central riff of "Pump It Up" violently, growing more frenzied and frantic with each repetition until the whole show falls apart, ending with a full minute of steady clapping and calls for another encore. It's a painful reminder that Costello hasn't left us wanting more in ages.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.pbpulse.com/music/2009/10/13 ... -costello/

Larry Aydlette
October 13, 2009


Before he became a smooth crooner and mentor to newcomers such as Jenny Lewis, Elvis Costello was one snotty punk. Just listen to the fabulous new reissue of Live At The El Mocambo. It’s a low-fi recording of a Toronto club concert from 1978, right at the time My Aim Is True and This Year’s Model marked Costello as the most important act to come out of the New Wave. Elvis and the Attractions take no prisoners as they bash and thrash through one amped-up song after another. Raw power, to quote Iggy and the Stooges. The disc was recorded from a radio broadcast, and became a well-known bootleg after it was passed out as a Canadian promo. It hasn’t been on CD except as part of an ‘90s box set, and this reissue restores all of C’s hepped-up stage patter, as when he screams out “The radio’s no use!” to kick off his masterful version of Radio, Radio. A lot of bands claim to rock: Elvis and the Attractions deliver on hellfire versions of Watching The Detectives, Lipstick Vogue and I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea, among others. As a bonus, you get Costello singing the JFK “Dallas version” of Less Than Zero. Despite its sonic imperfections, which I think is part of its period charm, this is undoubtedly one of Costello’s most underrated albums.

The grade: A

[johnfoyle]

Details on Japanese edition in Dec. -

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=UICY-94361

Live at The El Mocambo [Cardboard Sleeve (mini LP)] [SHM-CD] [Limited Release]
Elvis Costello

Catalog No.: UICY-94361
Label/Distributor: Universal Music

Release Date: 2009/12/9
Price: 2667yen (2800yen Tax incl.)
[US$ 29.02]

[Butts]

Three out of five from David Cavanagh in Uncut.

There are young people today who would find the dangerous Elvis Costello utterly implausible. What, that chummy chat-show host who writes operas in his spare time? Dangerous? But he was. Between 1977 and 1980, Costello would have thought nothing about nailing your head to a coffee table while using sarcasm, dramatic irony and litotes. Boiling with rage behind misted-up specs, he contorted his body into geeky misshapes and spat out violently rhymed vendettas like a murderous Buddy Holly. Everything about him was geared towards putting the boot in.

Perhaps because he ended up traveling so far from it, Costello has a complicated attitude towards his past. His official line is that people should investigate as much music as they dare (jazz, classical, Latin) rather than wallow in nostalgia. All the same, he approves the reissue of the Stiff/ Radar/ Demon catalogue every few years, with ever more desperate reconfigurations of bonus tracks. An announcement of yet another Costello reissue campaign may seem hard to justify as Britain prepares to live on baked beans for the next three years, but the twist is that this particular series, scheduled to run for 12 months, is dedicated exclusively to live recordings.

The first release in the ‘Costello Show’ series is Live At The El Mocambo, a March 1978 concert by Elvis and his then-relatively new Attractions at a club in Toronto. Originally broadcast on a local FM station, and then released as a Canada-only promo LP, the recording was widely bootlegged in the ‘80s before finally being issued as part of a 1993 boxset. In Costello chronology, Live At The El Mocambo falls between LP My Aim Is True (which North Americans had been able to buy since November 1977), and This Year’s Model, which came out in Britain 11 days after this gig. Costello and the Attractions – Steve Nieve (organ), Bruce Thomas (bass) and Pete Thomas (drums) – were supposedly promoting My Aim Is True, but were clearly keen to get audiences acclimatized to This Year’s Model, performing seven songs from it (in a 14-song set), plus “Radio Radio” which would appear on US editions of that album.

Costello, who was 23 at the time, had been hailed by critics across the Atlantic as a passionate, soulful newcomer in the Springsteen and Van Morrison traditions. With hindsight, it wasn’t quite that simple. We only have to hear his spoken introductions, in which his accent veers Jaggerishly from Cockney to Texan via Coronation Street, to appreciate that the young Costello was accelerating in several directions at once, seemingly anxious to find an identity only to demolish it. For the first third of this 51-minute concert, he appears to be waging war on the rave reviews for My Aim…, helping the Attractions (who hadn’t played on it) to attack its reputation for sophisticated songmanship like a sneering garage-band forced to do Top 40 covers. “Mystery Dance”, “Waiting For The End Of The World” and “Welcome To The Working Week” are a decent indication of how The Strangeloves might have sounded with Johnny Ramone on guitar.

When it was a bootleg… El Mocambo was admired for its sound quality. Now it’s official, one must mention some serious drawbacks. The mix is trebly, the audience too loud. Steve Nieve is difficult to hear. This wouldn’t have mattered to Toronto radio listeners in 1978 but it matters now, because the Attractions featured Nieve’s organs as a lead instrument and sound rather lost without him. Much more irritating than that, however, are the constant whoops and yeehaws - often in the middle of songs – from an idiot in the audience who thinks he’s watching a stripper.

Approach this as an imperfect document of Costello’s once-dangerous nights, then. A sweaty photo taken at a time when he could get away with a joke about Canada’s former colony status (“We’ve come to ask for the country back”), and couldn’t have known what slings and arrows, and Bebe Buells and Bonnie Bramletts, lay just around the corner.

[johnfoyle]

This Ron Sexsmith fan coments -

http://www.ronsexsmith.com/forums/thread/7412.aspx

With all this talk of Ron's appearance on the Spectacle TV show last week, some here may be interested in this newly released vintage recording by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. I'll certainly be picking this up - I caught Elvis' show here in Ottawa (for this his very first tour of Canada), just a few days before or after this performance in Toronto - hundreds of us packed into an Allgonquin College auditorium here to see him. Someone had bootlegged tickets and sold them, so the place ended up having about twice as many people in it as it should have - a major fire trap for sure, and very uncomfortable, but it was a great, although typically short concert (maybe 45 minutes total). I remember after the show trying to get to say hello to Steve Nieve (keyboards), as Steve & I had gone to the same school in Catford, London (A-levels), just the year before, but a rather large bouncer would have none of it and tossed me a fair distance into the crowd when I tried to approach the backstage area. Ahh....the good old days of rock n roll! Thankfully, I've never been thrown by a bouncer at one of Ron's shows!

[invisible Pole]

Live At The El Mocambo is #9 on PopMatter's Best Live Albums of 2009 :

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/11 ... ms-of-2009

[dglenn]

Hi All,
I'm the "YEEEEEEEHAW" Guy.
My Avatar is a pic of me from around the time of the El Mo show. I think I was 20 years old. I wasn't then nor am I now a "YAHOO'.
I don't know if anyone submitting comments here would be looking back - I noticed this discussion dates back to 2008(?).

I'm really kind of embarrassed that I'm on and so prominent in this recording. Some seem to like my "YEEEEEEEHAWING" while others are quite annoyed by it. I'm in the annoyed camp. I can't listen to the album without turning a bright red. Why the "YEEEEEEEHAWING"? Well, I was really excited to be there and I hadn't yet developed the ability to whistle loudly. So, "YEEEEEEEHAWING" seemed my only option. Oh, also, I had no idea the show was being recorded.

Feel free to ask me anything you'd like about the show.