Posts Tagged ‘Elvis Costello’
Just let me hear some of that Rock And Roll Music…
Metallica + The Smiths = Iron Maiden
Weezer – Air Supply = Grateful Dead
(Europe + Asia) x Foreigner = Outkast
Rage Against the Machine + Florence + The Machine = System of a Down
The Cars + Flo Rida + Boston + Chicago + Kansas = Journey
More Band Math at McSweeney’s.
As we tap our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1977 that then-emerging musician Elvis Costello bit the hand that feeds him. Dangerous Minds reports:
Elvis Costello and The Attractions appeared on Saturday Night Live on December 17, 1977 as a last minute replacement for The Sex Pistols, who had run into problems getting into the USA because of some prior legal hassles in the UK. Costello’s performance on SNL would become the stuff of rock and roll legend.
Costello’s record label, Columbia, wanted him to perform “Less Than Zero”, the first single from his as yet unreleased (in the U.S.) debut album My Aim Is True. Elvis wanted to perform “Radio Radio,” his attack on corporate control of the airwaves – a punk move that would have been in the spirit of The Pistols. Columbia disapproved of the idea and SNL producer Lorne Michaels allegedly told Costello, on orders from his employer NBC, to not perform “Radio Radio.”
Come show time, the band started playing “Less Than Zero” and then abruptly stopped and shifted into “Radio Radio.” At the end of the tune, they defiantly walked off the set.
Michaels was furious. According to first hand accounts, he was flipping Costello the bird through the entire performance. Michaels ended up banning Costello from ever performing again on SNL. The ban lasted 12 years, which in TV years is an eternity. SNL was an essential promotional venue for jacking up a band’s record sales. Costello bit the hand that was supposed to feed him even before he even got a nibble of commercial success. In the long run, it didn’t stop him from becoming one of rock’s enduring forces.
So it went…
In the late 70s, Tony Wilson— who would go on to co-found Factory Records (the seminal independent label that embodied “The Manchester Sound”) and The Hacienda (the warehouse-based club that was the birthplace of the rave)– hosted a tea-time television show called So It Goes.
A weekly arts/culture/music series, the program’s passion was emerging new pop music… which in those days meant Punk and New Wave.
The Way We Were is a Channel 4 (UK) retrospective first broadcast circa 1984.– a compilation of performances by bands performing on So It Goes– many of them making their TV debuts: Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop, The Fall, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Penetration, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Tom Robinson, Magazine, John Cooper Clarke, XTC and Joy Division…
[TotH to Richard Metzger and his essential Dangerous Minds for the lead to TWWW]
As we slam dance down memory lane, we might recall that it was on this date in 1976– as we in the U.S. were beginning our Bi-Centennial Day celebrations– that the Clash gave their first public performance: they opened for the Sex Pistols at The Black Swan in Sheffield, England. As U2 guitarist The Edge later wrote, “This wasn’t just entertainment. It was a life-and-death thing….It was the call to wake up, get wise, get angry, get political and get noisy about it.”
The Clash, 1976 (source)
The Hall of Unsung Singers…
Bill Kirchen is one of those guys… a musician’s musician, talented enough to perform regularly with the likes of Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, and Nick Lowe, at the same time that he’s at low-to-no risk of being accosted by the celebrity-obsessed masses…
With thanks to the terrific folks at TMM and KUT in Austin, a little something for a Saturday morning (do listen far enough in to get to Kirchen’s roster of other folks who “pull over”)…
As we tap our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1966 that the Beatles said “thank you, and goodnight” for the last time– at the end of their last public concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
source: RareBeatles.com
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