#pete thomas

[spilladabalia]

Elvis Costello & The Attractions -- "Neat Neat Neat" Live at Leicester University, October 22, 1977

[mywifeleftme]

356: Elvis Costello & the Attractions // Get Happy!!

Get Happy!! Elvis Costello & the Attractions 1980, F-Beat

Get Happy!! was the first of Costello’s explicit genre exercises—the genius of the new wave does R&B. The emphasis is on his virtuosity as a pop songwriting machine, meaning neither his venom nor his wounded bitterness bite like they had on his three previous masterpieces. His lyrics are a multiply-compacted sediment of entendre, rhyme frequently leading sense, basically the point where power pop and backpacker rap improbably meet. It is, in every respect, the Evil Buddy Holly showing off for twenty songs. It might be the best record any Elvis ever cut.

Like a hummingbird, I need a lot of sugar to stay aloft sometimes, and the opening six songs of Get Happy!! give it to me uncut: “Love for Tender” with its hysterical army of extra Elvises on backing vocals; the sophisticated chirp of “Opportunity” (“The chairman of this boredom is a compliment collector / I'd like to be his funeral director”); breakneck Northern Soul raveup “The Imposter”; strolling sock hop blues "Secondary Modern”; the galloping piano heroism of “King Horse”; and “Possession,” a song that sounds like trying to win your girl back while she’s trying to get across the stage in her robes and tassel to accept her college degree. (I don’t exactly know what I mean about that last one either.) The fourteen tracks that follow hit those heights a little more sporadically, but most are good, some are confounding in an appealing way, and the best of them (“New Amsterdam”; “I Can’t Stand Up…”; “Temptation” etc.) are indispensable gems.

Much of the credit, as always, goes to the Attractions, one of the great rock combos ever assembled. Bruce Thomas is the John Entwistle of new wave, a one-of-one monster whose restless virtuosity frustrated the comparatively technically-limited guitarist who led his band—a virtuosity that nonetheless helped make even the occasional middling tune relentlessly groovy. Pete “No Relation” Thomas was a drummer who could play anything with power and a jazzy grace (check what he does given a little space to work on “Motel Matches”). Meanwhile, Steve Nieve, wielding his array of oddball organ tones, handles the lead melody on nearly every track—it’s the flexibility of his instrument that gives Costello’s lean four-piece its capacity to sound like a giddy R&B dance band, or a spangly, orchestrated chamber pop act, or any other costume Elvis might choose to wear on a given day.

356/365

[nervoussystemmusicreverence]

Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Shipbuilding

Music Video

Artist

Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Composer

Clive Langer

Lyricist

Elvis Costello

Produced

Clive Langer Alan Winstanley

Credit

Elvis Costello – vocals, Epiphone, Gretsch and Fender guitars, Synclavier and Casiotone Steve Nieve – Bösendorfer piano, Emulator, Fairlight CMI, Vox organ, Hammond organ, Synclavier Bruce Thomas – electric Wal bass guitar Pete Thomas – Gretsch drums, Sabian cymbals Chet Baker – trumpet solo

Released

August 5 1983

Streaming

Shipbuilding

Elvis Costello & The Attractions · Song · 1983

[nofatclips]

No Cheap Thrill by Suzanne Vega from the album Nine Objects of Desire - Video directed by David Cameron

[rainingmusic]

Los Lobos - Kiko And The Lavender Moon

[longliverockback]

Elvis Costello & the Attractions All This Useless Beauty 1996 Warner Brothers ——————————————————————— Tracks: 01. The Other End of the Telescope 02. Little Atoms 03. All This Useless Beauty 04. Complicated Shadows 05. Why Can’t a Man Stand Alone? 06. Distorted Angel 07. Shallow Grave 08. Poor Fractured Atlas 09. Starting to Come to Me 10. You Bowed Down 11. It’s Time 12. I Want to Vanish ———————————————————————

Elvis Costello

Steve Nieve

Bruce Thomas

Pete Thomas

* Long Live Rock Archive

[eartrumpet]

Elvis Costello and The Attractions perform the rampantly kinetic The Imposter live in December, 1979, as part of the Kampuchea concerts. Although not introduced by Peter Ustinov (as was Queen), Elvis & Co. rip through this somewhat forgotten gem, which appears on the Nick Lowe-produced Get Happy. The Attractions, such a great ensemble, consist of Pete Thomas (drums), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar) and Steve Nieve (keyboards, ukulele {on certain occasions...}). “Now”, as Lowe inscribes on said album’s back cover, “Get happy”. 

[pelviscostello]