That Bugger Elvis...

[oldhamer]

Hello to you all,

Some of you may have seen me flitting around, and I thought perhaps I ought to introduce myself). I'm 18 (does that make me the baby of the forum.......?) and I'm attempting to study History at Birmingham University.

I've been brainwashed by Elvis, basically. Blue Chair was on the radio when my mum was pregnant. I watched the video "Elvis Costello: The Man" before I went to bed EVERY DAY between the ages of about 1.5 and 4 (drove my grandma nuts), and then went off him for a while. THen about a year ago, stuck on my dad's EC CD's again.

WOW! The lyrics! I appreciated them more when I was 16 going on 17 then when I was 14, and last listened to him. I guess I could understand what he was saying then...

Then the 2 disc reissues were on sale at musiczone for £6.97 (about $5 maybe...?) There were only the early ones (up to B&C) and my dad had most of them. Except Goodbye Cruel World. Which means that the first Elvis CD I bought with my own money was Goodbye Cruel World!

But I liked it! And have since then bought from shops or online all his officially released stuff except Il Sogno. I have very few of his live stuff, but that will come...

My favourite album of his is Get Happy!! It's astonishing. Closely followed by King of America, which means a lot to me. It was the first present my Dad bought my Mum. Other favourites include Spike, Armed Forces, Trust, I could list them all, dammit! Except maybe WIWC and GCW (I'm off it now).

So why is Elvis a bugger? Well, all the money I've spent on him! Not just the hundreds of pounds I've spent on his back catalogue, but the avenues he leads me down. I'm listening to Brinsley Schwarz, who I ordered form amazon cos Graham Thompson said Elvis was a huge fan of theirs. And I love it, so will have to buy more. The swine's even got me into country music! And I'm OBSESSED by him, but what can you do?

Thanks for reading all this,

Cory

[pophead2k]

Cory, we are very, very glad to have you. Many of us have commented before on how great it would be to recapture that initial love of EC and anxiously getting into every track on every album. Welcome aboard, and have fun. There are a great bunch of folks here.

[BlueChair]

Welcome Cory!

[invisible Pole]

Welcome aboard, Cory! Good to have you here!

[verbal gymnastics]

Welcome Cory.

It's great to hear of a young fan speaking so passionately about Elvis. It must be great to have parents who both like Elvis too. And if your mum didn't love your dad at the time, buying her King of America would have sealed it!

I hope you get to see him live soon. I saw him last year at the Birmingham Symphony Hall (and elsewhere). If you think YOU'VE spent money on Elvis over the years...

VG

[spooky girlfriend]

Welcome to another fan of King of America. It is my fave!!!

I know the rest of you knew that. . . . . .just hush.

[Gillibeanz]

Welcome to the board!! I constantly played Elvis records all the way through all 3 of my pregnancies and not one of my offspring is an Elvis fan. Please ask your mum where I went wrong?

[SweetPear]

Hi Cory!
I loved your post. It is really nice to see the enthusiasm and sentimentality (Is that a word??) for Elvis. I used to hold the head phones around my tummy when I was pregnant with my oldest and play MAIT.....esp. Alison, and it's funny, he's 22 and he's always had a little thing for EC.
You think you've spent money on him? The tales I could tell you!

[hollyh]

Great to read all this. Inspired by it, I just sat down yesterday and played every major album in order from My Aim is True through to North (well, it was St. Patrick's Day, but I ran out of time...). So many songs that had faded from my memory now came snaking back out to re-occupy that section of my brain. And the neat thing was, I didn't just remember where I was when I first heard these songs, but I was hearing them fresh again. What an experience!

Even though I knew I had a lot of records to get through, there were a couple of forgotten gems that I had to play over and over -- "Living in Paradise," "Moods for Moderns," "Shabby Doll," "Blue Chair" -- which I hadn't even thought of in quite awhile and had forgotten they were so fabulous. Lost in that vast horde of great EC songs...

I wish I could say I could see the arc of his career unfold throughout the day, but there is no arc to Elvis' career. Okay, maybe a few roller coaster dips -- my disappointment in Spike was merely confirmed by re-listening -- but the sheer quality overall completely astonished me. And not one bit of it sounds dated.

I am awed anew.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Welcome Oldham fan Cory. Sounds like your lot were stuffing Bradford today. I too was an 18 year old first year at Brum, with a sizeable love for Elvis. That was 24 years ago. Had to wait till Dec '83 to see him at the Odeon, and it was a cracker. Made a pilgrimage to the Symphonic Hall to see him with Steve in Nov '04. Your parents are cool people and you have a lot to thank them for. So which hall are you in? I was in the Manor House, which was a frequently weird experience.

[oldhamer]

Hi again. Sorry it's been so long. I've been preoccupied writing a 2500 essayon Froissart in four days.

There's so much to talk about. Well, the first thing is that I'm glad it was King of America that my dad got my Mum, and not Goodbye Cruel World. Then I probably wouldn't be here, and I don't think I'd like that very much.

I've become bigger EC fans than my parents, who first got me into it anyway! The last album they liked unequivically was Spike. Then came MLAR, which they didn't really like, and then the Juliet Letters, which I think sealed the end of the affair. Neither really likes country music. My Dad must've heard MAIT when he was my age. He really likes the younger Elvis. I remember him getting really excited when I said EC was releasing a live album. When he asked, "what era", I replied it was with an Orchestra from recently, and he perked down a tad. I want to get him some early live Elvis, at least as a thank you, but I can't sign in to dimeadozen. If anyone in England would care to copy some early live stuff if I send blank cds and a STE, I'd be grateful, so just PM me. It'd be a nice thankyou for my dad, I think. I'll see my parents again next week cos it's easter hols. I can't wait - i just miss home.

I'm rather happy to see I've inspired some people, almost. It's nice that some of my enthusiasm rubs off. I've not really converted my friends at uni. A couple of flatmates just don't like EC's voice. When we were watching notting hill (don't ask) and "She" came on, one asked "is this Elvis Costello? You can tell from the wierd way he sings". I wanted to strangle him! I'm becoming notorious for managing to get EC into every conversation, which is almost sad, but I can't help it! EC's massively important in my life, which is why there's a picture of him on my wall, along with my mum, dad, brother and george bush playing cricker.

I'm guessing that you dyed in the wool EC fans for 20+ years will have spent more than me on the man. But give me a chance...I'll no doubt break the bank to see him live (for the first time) when he returns to Blighty! And I'm a student, with no/little money blablabla...


Otis, I live in Maple Bank, on the Vale. It was a dump last year, but has been refurbished. It looks like something out of Ikea. I love Bham uni, I'm one of the news editors on "Redbrick", have made loads of friends, and love reading history at uni, something i've always wanted to do. I know people who live at Manor, so I'll no doubt have a tour round one of these days.

And I think I've found I like WIWC too. So I like ALL of his albums. This ain't natural, surely...?

[Otis Westinghouse]

Sounds like you got it bad. Liking all of them is a bit over the top, but there are those among us. I like the idea of his multi-genre dabbling often more than the reality, though I'm looking forward to reappraising TJL soon with the re-release.

Maple Bank is self-catering, right? I used to have a friend there. When I was your age, along with EC, the act I was most obsessed with (and by my avatar, you can see still am) were Joy Division. So the number one significance of The Vale for me was that High Hall was there, where they played their last ever gig, May 2 1980, just two weeks before Ian topped himself. The gig is officially released on Still. I saw Aztec Camera and Mud there! Sounds like you're having a whale of a time. I was a depressive English student who spent ages trying to adjust to Birmingham, having grown up in Jersey. But I enjoyed it well enough in the end. Birmingham as a whole is a lot livelier now. Back then it was pretty dead for England's second biggest city, though it always stuff going on away from the centre. Good to know Redbrick still exists!

[Extreme Honey]

Holla boy.

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

... some early live stuff ... 'd be a nice thankyou for my dad ...

If your Dad has an MP3 player, you could try here

username is elvis password is mfbb

[oldhamer]

Thanks Ready, "Some Like it Hot" is amazing!

Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to burn the mp3s onto a normal CD and run it on a normal CD player?

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

... is it possible to burn the mp3s onto a normal CD and run it on a normal CD player?

Yes.

How you do that depends on the setup/software you have, but the basic process involves converting the MP3 files to WAV (or perhaps AIFF on a MAC), then writing those to an audio CD with your Burning software of choice.

If you have Nero (or Roxio, or Toast) then the whole process can be done pretty much for you (ie Nero can do the file conversion 'on the fly' as it prepares the burn).

Lots of wrinkles along the way, of course. For example, live shows should be burned Disc At Once (DAO), to ensure no 2 second gaps between the tracks.

However, if you do go through the process of turning collections of MP3s into audio CDs, please mark the end product as such - ie it won't sound as good as the original (pre MP3) recording, so it shouldn't be passed off as if it were - we wouldn't want your Dad upsetting EC trading audio-philes, they might send round the Big Boys

[Otis Westinghouse]

I'm 18 (does that make me the baby of the forum.......?)

There was a Russian teen among us called, er, Meg, I think, buut she seems to have disappeared. I think she was 16. There have been a few as young as that. Extreme Honey is something like 19 (but with a ... no, someone else can do that gag). So unless anyone pops up and disputes it, you are the current baby of the board!

[Jackson Monk]

I'm only 13 and a half.

[oldhamer]

thanks for the info about burning mp3s to CDs. Don't worry, my Dad doesn't do trading music over t'internet or stuff like that, so he won't be upsetting the audiophiles!

I love the gig at the Rio de Janiero. I think they're more interesting than the early ones. More material to go at, but all of his gigs are superb! Plus it has an excellent version of "Clown Strike", one of my least favourite songs from Brutal Youth.

It's not just a case of "liking" all his albums. each of them has three or four good songs, that give you reasons to listen to them. Even GCW or WIWC...

[Extreme Honey]

I'm 18 (does that make me the baby of the forum.......?)

There was a Russian teen among us called, er, Meg, I think, buut she seems to have disappeared. I think she was 16. There have been a few as young as that. Extreme Honey is something like 19 (but with a ... no, someone else can do that gag). So unless anyone pops up and disputes it, you are the current baby of the board!

Who said I was 19?

[bambooneedle]

There was a Russian teen among us called, er, Meg, I think, buut she seems to have disappeared.

So has Verena.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Who said I was 19?

Dunno. Aren't you still a teenager?

[Extreme Honey]

Ummm No.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Early 20s?

[verbal gymnastics]

I'm 18 (does that make me the baby of the forum.......?)

There was a Russian teen among us called, er, Meg, I think, buut she seems to have disappeared. I think she was 16. There have been a few as young as that. Extreme Honey is something like 19 (but with a ... no, someone else can do that gag). So unless anyone pops up and disputes it, you are the current baby of the board!

I don't think So Lacklustre's heart as mended yet.

And EH - no one said you were 19, the quote is "...something like 19".