Elvis Costello: National Ransom

Elvis Costello
National Ransom
Rating: 3.8/5.0
Label: Hear Music


What is there to say about Elvis Costello that hasn't already been said? For over 30 years, critical wits have described him in various too-clever ways; he's been the Angry Young Man, Buddy Holly on Acid and the Bearded Bard, laughable depictions that may have made for good press but still say very little about the musician or his music. His discography has likewise made a mockery of such depictions; while Costello's earliest albums tentatively placed him as a post-punker whose folk tendencies were obscured by his aggressive vocal delivery and the Attractions' manic pace, his last several albums, particularly The Delivery Man and Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, have incorporated elements of jazz, country and Americana.

So it's a guess as to what side of Costello will dominate each new album; during the lead-up to listening to National Ransom, one of Spectrum Culture's writers jokingly asked if I thought it would be Rocker Costello or Wimpy-Crooner Costello. It's actually a bit of both, though the rocking isn't as hard as it could be and the crooning isn't all that wussy. Recorded quickly and including songs that have been part of Costello's recent live shows, Ransom was produced by frequent cohort and former Coward Brother T-Bone Burnett. Featuring contributions from backing bands the Imposters and the Sugarcanes, Marc Ribot, Buddy Miller, Leon Russell, Vince Gill and formerly estranged bassist Bruce Thomas (wait, never mind), the album might be Costello's most musically varied, as it genre-jumps like an ADD-addled kid.

It's a scattershot approach that mostly works well. The self-titled album opener and "Five Small Words" are classic Costello rock songs, though the equally up-tempo "The Spell That You Cast" sounds to me like a bad Brutal Youth outtake; as fun as the song is, it tends to feel every bit as slight as something like "Playboy to a Man" or "Luxembourg." There are hints of jazz in "Jimmie Standing in the Rain," a song that contains some of the album's best lines ("forgotten man/ Indifferent nation") and, with its references to "slow coaches rolling o'er the moor" and a cowboy singer "mild and bitter from tuberculosis," is presumably about Jimmie Rodgers. Steel guitar features prominently on "I Lost You," "That's Not the Part of Him You're Leaving" and "Dr. Watson, I Presume," a trio of solid songs that owe a debt to Americana/country every bit as much as Almost Blue did before them. Costello was always a folk singer of sorts at heart - a fact obscured by his pissed-off persona, surly disposition and infamous fixation with exacting revenge through his lyrics - so it's fitting that unadorned and simply-arranged songs like "All These Strangers" and "Bullets for the New-Born King" offer National Ransom's most enduring moments. An acoustic assassin's lament that consists of only Costello and acoustic guitar, "Bullets" interweaves history and geography and contains some of the album's most evocative imagery and will likely age better than some of the album's genre-specific tracks.

Like most Costello albums, the writing is exceptional, with characters like a stage-door Josephine, charlatans and princes, privateers and brigands, a double-agent girl and disgraced priest heading for some unnamed border flittering in and out of these songs. Costello's occasional bouts of verbosity sometimes rear their wordy heads, and shades of North unfortunately creep in on "You Hung the Moon," a song about a dead soldier that's ultimately wrecked by Costello's exaggeratedly theatrical vocals and strings that are laid on pretty thick, but these spots are rare. If National Ransom was a debut album from an indie band with a bizarre name we'd all say it lacks focus and lives too much in the past. But with Costello such absence of uniformity somehow works, and his latest album again confirms that he's simply an expert musician who damn well knows what he's doing, witty critical characterizations be damned.

Book Review: I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard, by Tom Reynolds

Your Thanksgiving was a disaster. Your wife warned you that her third cousin’s extended family “might” be coming to your home for Turkey Day dinner, but you never expected this to happen. Their trailer currently resides in your front yard, your house is being treated like a Red Roof Inn, mashed potatoes are somehow smeared on the walls, and the cousin’s teenage son is suggestively eying your dog with something that approximates lust.

You’re angry, frustrated, and a little depressed; to make things even worse, when you turn on the radio you are subjected to “Seasons in the Sun” and “I Will Always Love You.” According to Tom Reynolds, you’ve just heard 2 of the 52 most depressing songs ever written.

Reynolds’ hilarious I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard is the perfect way to kill whatever holiday cheer or faith in humanity’s collective taste in music you might still have left. Cynical, snarky, and sarcastic, Reynolds’ irreverent take on these songs and why they’re so depressing is the funniest critique of songs since Greil Marcus’ Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads (wait… he was being serious in that book)?

With chapter names like “I’m Trying to Be Profound and Touching, But Really Suck at It” and “If I Sing About Drugs, People Will Take Me Seriously,” Reynolds’ book cannot be accused of subtlety. Yet Reynolds’ writing style and approach rarely becomes grating or repetitive. Although he never says it directly, Reynolds’ humor takes as its starting point the fact that these songs are so depressing, first and foremost, because they’re so god-awful.

From there, Reynolds’ witty jabs take care of the rest, and no clichéd rock image is safe from Reynolds’ biting humor. Absurd lyrics are exposed (on Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen”: “I don’t know of a single seventeen-year-old girl who would tell off the homecoming queen by saying she has debentures of quality; she’d call her a stuck-up bitch and key her Honda”); musical genres are mocked (on Evanescence’s “My Immortal”: “a song that does for piano ballads what the Hindenburg did for zeppelin travel”); and the flaws of supposed untouchable songs get a swift finger to the eye (on Springsteen’s “The River”: “I’d rather drag my scalp over a cheese grater than listen to it again”).

I can only make a few complaints about this book. Although Reynolds’ song choices are hard to argue against – “Macarthur Park,” “Mandy,” and “Let Her Cry” are indeed both depressing and depressingly bad – it’s a bit presumptuous for the author to call these the most depressing songs ever. No such list is complete without at least one, two, or five choice cuts from Lou Reed’s Berlin, which in my opinion still remains the single most dreary, bleak, and utterly humorless album ever recorded (think I’ll go listen to it now). I’m sure other music sickos out there can find many other songs worthy of consideration in such a list.

The other complaints I have are minor. Sometimes Reynolds comes across as just another VH1 or E! talking head, and can be too witty for his own good. I’m not sure I’d want to sit next to him on the subway. In addition, some of his jokes are very stale and should be relegated to the dustbin of humor at this point (another joke about how Robert Smith from the Cure looks like Edward Scissorhands? A critique of how MTV used to play music videos? Really? Still?).Those shortcomings aside, I Hate Myself and Want to Die is damn funny. Fans of comedy books, cynicism, and good and/or lousy music will find something to like in it. And with enough songs about misery, woe, death, drugs, and suicide, and why they are so appallingly depressing, it’s the perfect holiday gift. Tis the season, after all.

Movie Review: P2

Sometimes theatrical trailers, word of mouth, and positive critical reviews cannot do a movie justice. Sometimes a movie is so powerful, inspiring, hilarious, or suspenseful that it must be seen in order to understand what all the rage is about. Such moments are what make the movie-going experience so memorable.

P2 is not such a movie. With a complete lack of humor or suspense, a laughably over-the-top villain, and a predictable ending, P2 is the worst pseudo-horror movie I’ve seen since the abysmal remake When a Stranger Calls. At least that movie featured one of the coolest movie names ever: Mandrakis. I lived off answering my phone by saying “Mandrakis residence” for weeks.

P2 stars Rachel Nichols as Angela, a hard-working gal who suffers work-related indignities in one of the upper floors of a typical New York skyscraper. On Christmas Eve, while her coworkers are wearing reindeer antlers and getting their drink on in the true holiday spirit, she’s stuck in her spacious office trying to resolve an obnoxious customer’s complaint. In between sputtering out Business Bullshit Bingo clichés and fending off unwanted drunken sexual advances from a male coworker, she’s desperately trying to make it to her parents’ home for a little Yuletide frivolity.

You see, Angela’s a good girl with good intentions, but gosh darn it, she’s always missing family commitments because of her demanding job. She’s also nice to her personal assistant, has no social life or boyfriend, and wears her hair in a tight bun, so we’re supposed to like her.

Things go from bad to worse for her when she finally leaves work and heads to (sinister music, please) parking garage level P2, where her car is parked. She turns the ignition, and in a revolutionary twist never before seen in the horror movie genre, her high-priced Germany luxury car won’t start. Eventually she wanders into to the security office, where she encounters Tom (played by Wes Bentley), the garage’s security attendant. He’s socially awkward, clearly sexually frustrated, wears a dweeby uniform, has a vicious pet dog named Rocky, and sports an outdated haircut, so clearly he’s up to no good. Of course, Angela misses all these clues.

After Tom unsuccessfully attempts to “help” Angela start her car (I am not speaking metaphorically here), she dejectedly calls a cab and waits in the office lobby for the cab to arrive. In another revolutionary twist never before seen in the horror movie genre, she finds that she cannot exit the building because the doors are locked. Despite her protestations, the poor cabbie drives off, and Angela finds herself again trapped in the parking garage on Christmas Eve.

From here, the garage’s lights go off and she’s quickly snatched by Tom, who takes her back to his office, complete with Rubik’s cube, tiny microwave, and Elvis Presley figurine (never a good sign in a movie), and chains her to a chair. When she finally wakes up (Tom drugged her, you see), Angela’s scantily clad in a slip and at the mercy of the security officer, who offers her food, wine, and a whole lot of awkward, thinly-veiled threatening questions. For his trouble, Tom gets a fork jammed in his back courtesy of the feisty Angela when she tries to escape. Ah yes, the seeds of true love always begin with a fork to the back.

Too many stereotypical horror movie staples to regurgitate here then ensue. Tom brutally murders the man who drunkenly accosted Angela in the elevator, in a scene with enough unnecessary gore to rival the Saw franchise. With a truly laughable catchphrase – “Thanks for ruining Christmas” – which Tom says to his various victims, Tom apparently has every psychosis in the book, and makes the villains from Dean Koontz’s absurd novels seem believable.

For added measure, Tom has random outbursts in which he screams violently and irrationally, with dialogue that sounds like a college freshman’s attempt at existentialist writing. And in one truly horrifying scene, Tom performs a karaoke version of Elvis Presley singing “Blue Sunday.” I am not making this up.

Eventually Angela escapes from the evil Tom’s nefarious clutches, pulls herself together, and manages to handcuff Tom to a crashed rental car (synopsis: game of chicken, Angela displays Girl Power, Tom the Super Villain gets cold feet and swerves, cars flip, Tom hobbles out of his car, Angela jams a shank into Tom’s eye). She’s about to walk out of the garage when Tom, because he’s such a bad guy, calls her a name that rhymes with “bunt.” And as the saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman called a name that rhymes with ‘bunt’.” Angela torches the car that Tom is cuffed to, and by extension, Tom. Massive explosion, Angela gimps outside into the snow of New York, cop cars and ambulances come speeding in her direction, end scene.

With needless gore, a truly absurd villain whose parents must have done a number on him, a complete lack of humor, and a paint-by-numbers plot, P2 will quickly be relegated to the dustbin of lousy, forgettable horror movies. Look for it on the USA channel in a few years.

But remember, if you find yourself lost in a parking garage late at night, be afraid. However, if you find yourself lost in a parking garage late at night and being pursued by folks with video cameras on Christmas Eve, be very, very afraid. It’s a sequel.

Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan - October 22, 2007, St. Louis, MO

As demonstrated by Elvis Costello at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis on Monday night, follow these simple steps to upstage the headlining musical legend:


Enunciate into the microphone in a language that approximates English. Bonus points if your voice can be heard and your words can be easily understood both when singing near the microphone and when singing unamplified for dramatic effect.
Deliver the songs with passion and energy; squeeze an ungodly amount of music and noise out of only a variety of sound-distorted guitars.
Mix in a few excellent new songs to compliment the older material.
Acknowledge at least once that you are aware of the city, state, planet, or epoch you are currently performing in. This can be something as simple as a “how are ya?” to a story about advice your father gave you.

All kidding aside, it is the equivalent of a musical sin to criticize Bob Dylan nowadays; the man’s a musical genius whose concert tours (1966 Europe, 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder, and too many others to count) and recorded output (Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, and, uh, Shot Of Love) speak for themselves and crush most other artists’ masterpieces like a grape. His last three studio albums are outstanding. He’s been on a critical and creative high for the last ten years. Long after all these peon hack bloggers like myself have sprung off this mortal coil, people will still be listening to, writing about, and over-analyzing Dylan’s lyrics and life.

Some of my favorite concert memories are of Dylan shows. In 1999 my then-girlfriend (and now-wife, also along for the bumpy ride for this latest Dylan show) and I saw Dylan with Paul Simon at Riverport Amphitheatre; their spooky duet of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is something I’ll never forget, pending senility. In 2004, my brother and I spent three nights waiting outside in the cold March rain for early admission to see Dylan at the Pageant, and the highlights from those shows are too many to name (I’ll take “Senor” and “Man In The Long Black Coat” as my favorites).

But none of this changes the fact that Costello stole the show on Monday night. In an intense, far-too-short solo performance that saw Costello switch guitars nearly every song and pound and hack away at the instrument with fury, the singer covered the usual live standards like “Radio Sweetheart,” “Veronica,” and “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love, and Understanding,” none of which sounded stale or color-by-numbers. A reworked “Alison” brought out the sinister, stalker undertones of the song, and “Bedlam” was given a savage treatment that surpassed the version from The Delivery Man.

New songs “Sulfur To Sugar Cane” and “Down Among The Wine And Spirits” were solid as well, and have a definite topical bent to them (maybe the next Costello album will be titled Another Side of Elvis Costello). Costello concluded with “The Scarlet Tide,” Costello’s and T-Bone Burnette’s song from the Civil War epic Cold Mountain. Updated with two lines that reference the current mess in Iraq, the ballad hushed the audience (except for one jackass in the balcony section who shouted uncontrollably for about a minute about chicken feathers or something). Costello ended the song unamplified, his voice easily heard throughout the theatre. The effect was chilling.

If the night ended there, I would have gone home happy. As the house lights went up and the crew began re-assembling the stage for Dylan and his band, the usual pre-Dylan performance things began to happen: Dylanphiles materialized from thin air, sporting their recently-purchased $40 t-shirts. Bootlegs were traded in the bathroom. The horde began to move toward the front of the stage, despite the entire show being reserved seating. I’ve come to accept the fact that for many of Dylan’s more “dedicated” fans, assigned seat numbering is a mere suggestion. When the music starts, you can expect the reserved area to quickly be swallowed up; getting someone’s dancing ass thrust into your face is practically a rite of passage for Dylan concerts.

When Dylan and his band opened with “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat,” the rapturous applause was deafening and expected; Dylan’s fans are by and large an energetic, boisterous, and perhaps loyal-to-a-fault bunch. Awkward pelvic thrusts and shoulder gyrations could be seen throughout the theatre, many of the dances resembling a two-hour long epileptic fit.

But something else was immediately apparent: both the sound mix and Dylan’s singing were far below par (and yes, I’m aware that Dylan has never had a “traditional beautiful voice”). The mix was essentially a giant a wall of sound; it was far closer to sounding like My Bloody Valentine than Bob Dylan. When Dylan’s voice could be heard over the murk, the words were largely unintelligible; even a few die-hard lifers seated near me readily admitted that they couldn’t make out the words. Dylan’s voice itself was not in good shape either, alternating between a wheeze and a timid bark.

Blame the lousy mix if you want; perhaps Dylan was trying to sing above the sludge, but it’s undeniable that he was inaudible for most of the performance. When the words could be distinguished, his odd cadence of “three words/pause/three words/pause/repeat” didn’t always work. For every song where this vocal styling succeeded (“It Ain’t Me, Babe” was a high point), another song would suffer from the phrasing. “Visions Of Johanna” and “Summer Days” were victims of this approach, as both songs plodded under the odd phrasing, limping toward the finish line.

I don’t think Dylan mailed the performance in, even if he rarely faced the audience and only briefly acknowledged the audience’s presence. By now, those familiar with Dylan’s live show accept the fact that Dylan will follow his muse live, and the concertgoer can form an opinion from that. The musician should be credited for trying to find new ways to present his material, some of which debuted during the Bronze Age. The obvious risk is that sometimes this succeeds beautifully, and other times it fails miserably. Unfortunately, Dylan’s performance in St. Louis fell into this latter category.

Music Review: Nick Drake's Family Tree, Should I Be Listening To This?

Nick Drake’s posthumous recorded output now surpasses the number of albums he released while on this mortal coil. If the well has not been wrung dry, it’s at least close to being empty of everything except backwash; if any posthumous Drake album is released in the next few years, it most likely will be a duets album with Tupac Shakur.

Family Tree is the latest posthumous Drake release (as of this writing). The album consists primarily of lo-fi (though listenable) recordings from Drake’s parent’s home at Far Leys and recordings made by Drake while studying in France. A duet with Drake’s sister Gabrielle and two songs written and performed by his mother (it’s a family tree, get it?) round out the album. Although most of the songs have long been available on bootleg, this marks the first official release of this material.

It is doubtful that casual Nick Drake fans (if such a thing actually exists) will give this album repeated plays. Many of the tracks are short and unfinished, and the sound is far from perfect. This is, bottom line, an archival piece geared toward hardcore Drake fans. The irony of course is that most such fans have probably heard this material before.

However, this release does have some strengths; for example, it shows Drake at a very early stage in his musical development, before Five Leaves Left had not yet even been recorded. Although early versions of “Way To Blue” and “Day Is Done” from that album are not particularly enlightening, it is nice to hear these early versions, even if they are little more than rough sketches. Another strength of the album is that it reveals Drake’s musical influences at the time, ranging from a bunch of old dead dudes most people probably haven’t heard of (Jackson C. Frank, Blind Boy Fuller, and Robin Frederick), to a living dude who some people have heard of (Bert Jansch), to a living dude everyone has heard of (Bob Dylan). The foundation of the Nick Drake sound (gentle guitar, soft voice, natch) can be heard on this release.

The version of folk standard and Joan Baez-abused “All My Trials” is the most striking performance included. Usually sung as an optimistic ode to liberation, Drake’s performance is quiet, reserved, and defeated. Coupled with Drake’s well documented mental issues and early death, the lyrics “all my trials Lord/will soon be over” take on a far more sinister meaning.

Nevertheless, there is something inherently “dirty” about listening to this release. The listener cannot help but feel a certain amount of guilt in hearing something that was clearly never meant to be heard by anyone outside Drake’s family circle (it’s also possible these recordings had an intended audience of only Drake). Of course, the musician’s tragic death at age 26 adds to this feeling. It’s extremely difficult to approach these songs from outside the context of the musician’s death. At times listening to this album feels like covertly reading a teenage girl’s diary (or blog or e-diary, or whatever kids do nowadays), staring at a woman’s cleavage from across the room, or slowly driving past a car crash.

The commercial release of this album sometimes also smacks of crass opportunism, at a time when Drake’s actual albums are in danger of being buried under an avalanche of mediocre posthumous releases. Drake’s sister Gabrielle even acknowledges as much in the liner notes, written as a letter to her brother: “But now, I am endorsing the publication of an album that I am not at all sure you would have sanctioned.” Like reading the previously released journals of Kurt Cobain, the listener cannot help but sometimes feel like an unwanted intruder when listening to this album. The broader question, which can either be a good one for debate or pure philosophical BS, is whether the general public has a “right” to hear such music. On the one hand, the Nick Drake estate has made the material available for purchase; any blame for whether this album “should” be released could fall squarely of the feet of the Nick Drake estate. On the other hand, many listeners will finish this album and probably feel a little guilty at having listened to it.

Hardcore Drake fans or those lovelorn, melancholy types who still haunt coffeehouses, mumble under their strumming guitars, and stare at their shoes will likely not be disappointed by this release. Those unfamiliar with Nick Drake should still start with Pink Moon and work their way backwards to Bryter Layter and Five Leaves Left. Regardless of how many posthumous Nick Drake releases hit the market, those three albums will remain Drake’s lasting legacy.