Singersongwriterobit: Jesse Winchester

Jesse Winchester, Memphis born singer-songwriter, has died.

Winchester crossed the border to dodge the draft, and lived 35 years in Canada. Not going to Vietnam was a doubly-wise idea, because not only did he keep out of the war, but it also led to him making friends with Robbie Robertson. Robertson would go on to produce Winchester's debut album.

On the other hand, being a draft dodger did mean that Winchester was unable to play gigs in America, which probably explains why his name recognition is higher with aficionados than the general public. Added to the awkward border problem, Winchester put raising a family ahead of building an audience, and so only released material spasmodically during the 1980s and 90s.

A career renaissance happened during the latter part of the last decade, including this moment on Elvis Costello's Spectacle series, with Sheryl Crow and Neko Case looking on:

Winchester had been hit with cancer in 2011; a storied tribute album in his honour and a fevered period of songwriting during treatment followed.

Although given the all clear in 2012, the cancer returned and it was this that would eventually take his life. (Not before Twitter had prematurely killed him off a week or so early.)

Jesse Winchester was 69; he died at home on April 11th.

Rolling Stone pretends to misunderstand that not all doctors are medical

When Rolling Stone put an alleged terrorist on its front cover to illustrate a perfectly reasonable current affairs story, there was an outrage-bundle so huge you could see it from eight miles away.

However, when Rolling Stone does this...:

As if he hadn't already proved it countless times with his surgically precise songwriting and the healing power of his gift for melody, Elvis Costello can now call himself a doctor of music.

... nobody seems bothered.

Despite the fact that Rolling Stone knows full well that while doctorates and medicine can overlap, they're not exclusive.

And despite the more pressing fact that "his surgically precise songwriting and the healing power of his gift for melody" is perhaps the worst sentence anyone has ever written about music, ever, in the history of ink and noise.

It is such an awful sentence that local police went round to check on the writer, James Sullivan, assuming that the words had been arranged as some sort of desperate cry for help. "It appeared at first" explained Sheriff Madeupski, "that Mr Sullivan was being held against his will and being forced to write about Mr Costello's honorary degree from a Boston school, and tried to signal this through his opening words. Upon investigation, though, it was discovered that he was merely being menaced by a tight deadline and a news story that had no real interest beyond a few alumni of the New England Conservatory."

The Face's Best Recordings 1983

The Face. It was soooo stylish, wasn't it? It was like, made entirely from style held together by cool. It was so ahead of the curve, it would appear through your letterbox before the paper lad had opened your front gate.

Or was it?

In a totally non-scientific survey, we're going to go back thirty years in time. Come with us to 1983, a time when the bands who appear on NME's cover today would only have been 20 to 25 years into their careers. What did The Face consider to be the very best music created in that year? Rocklistmusic.co.uk has got the list in full. We're going to dip into it...

I've been struggling a bit with the entry "Pacman by The Pacman", as it's a bugger to track this down. Is it something to do with Richard James' 1982 Pacman theme cover versions? (Presumably not, as that was under the name Power-Pill?

While that one's up for pondering, here's Christian Bale advertising a Pac-Man themed breakfast cereal:

I wonder how much he swore at the crew on that one?

Here's the list in full:

Billie Jean – Michael jackson
Blue Monday – New Order
Pills And Soap – Elvis Costello
Juicy Fruit – Mtume
1999 (LP) – Prince
Autodrive – Herbie Hancock
Duck Rock (LP) – Malcolm McLaren
Native Boy – Animal Nightlife
Kiss FM Mastermixes Vol. II (LP) – Various
Let’s Stay Together – Tina Turner
You Brought The Sunshine – Clark Sisters
Every Soul – Ruby Turner Band
Don’t Mess With Bill – Ruth Pointer
Lert’s Dance – David Bowie
The Leader (LP) – Fonzi Thornton
I Just Gotta Have You – Kashif
Out Come The Freaks (II) – Was Not Was
Ain’t Nobody – Rufus
Get Loose – Evelyn King
Portrait (LP) – Gwen Guthrie
Soweto/Zulu’s On A Time Bomb – Malcolm McLaren
Long Hot Summer – Style Council
Look At Granny Run (reissue) – Howard Tate
Little Red Corvette – Prince
Let The Music Play – Shannon
Swordfishtrombone (LP) – Tom Waits
The Land Of The Good Groove (LP) – Nile Rodgers
Jam On Revenge – Newcleus
Hip Hop Don’t Stop – Mann Parrish
Coup – 23 Skidoo
Get Wet – C Bank
Rockin Radio – Tom Browne
The Roxy – Phase Two
Power, Corruption And Lies (LP) – New Order
Soul Mining (LP) – Matt Johnson
Love Town – Booker Newbury III
Labour Of Love (LP) – UB40
Just Fascination – Cabaret Voltaire
Daddy Rollin’ Stone (reissue) – Derek Martin
Last Night A DJ Saved My life – Indeep
Une Sale Histoire – Fab Five Freddy
A Fool In Love (reissue) – Ike & Tina Turner
Thriller (LP) – Micahel Jackson
Pacman – The Pacman
Candy Girl – New Edition
Just Be Good To Me – SOS Band
Go Deh Yaka – Monyaka
I (LP) – Steve Arrington
Outstanding – The Gap Band
White Lines (Don’t Do It) – Grand Master & Melle Mel

Some of these I think we can take as so familiar as to not be worth spending time on, so let's start with Costello, shall we?



Except wasn't this released under the name The Imposter? Did The Face struggle with names?

Elvis's 1983 election-campaign counterpoint. (And, incidentally, one of the two thousand songs which might have been a better use of download-effort during the week of the Thatcher entombening.) Yeah, you can have that one, The Face.

Embed and breakfast man: St Vincent

Back in 1977, Saturday Night Live had a contest to allow a viewer to become a host for the night. It was won by Miskel Spillman, an 80 year-old, who found herself hosting the Christmas show for that season. Her record as the oldest person to present the collection of overlong sketches and overused characters would stand until the beatification of Betty White; her record as the only non-showbiz presenter stands.

Her programme also holds a footnote in musical history.

Originally, the musical guests were supposed to be the Sex Pistols. Their criminal records made getting them to the studios something of a challenge, and instead Elvis Costello was parachuted into the show. He was under orders to play Less Than Zero - already well-known in America - but a short way in, Costello stopped the song and with the words "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here", the band launched into Radio Radio.

I know, you're yelling "I know all this - what has this to do with now?" at your internet-connected device. But the backstory makes St Vincent's appearance on Conan last night all the more enjoyable:

Elvis Costello gives away his guitar

It's believed he has a spare, though.

Elvis Costello has donated his guitar to the Picket, which is going to use it to support youth music projects. By raffling it off.

Which is nice: everyone gets a chance to own it, rather than the highest bidder. They should have done that with that Manet painting.

Elvis Costello: I don't want to go Tel Aviv

Elvis Costello has decided that he won't play his Israel gigs after all:

It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.

One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.

Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security.

I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.

Some will regard all of this an unknowable without personal experience but if these subjects are actually too grave and complex to be addressed in a concert, then it is also quite impossible to simply look the other way.

I offer my sincere apologies for any disappointment to the advance ticket holders as well as to the organizers.

My thanks also go to the members of the Israeli media with whom I had most rewarding and illuminating conversations. They may regard these exchanges as a waste of their time but they were of great value and help to me in gaining an appreciation of the cultural scene.

I hope it is possible to understand that I am not taking this decision lightly or so I may stand beneath any banner, nor is it one in which I imagine myself to possess any unique or eternal truth.

It is a matter of instinct and conscience.

It has been necessary to dial out the falsehoods of propaganda, the double game and hysterical language of politics, the vanity and self-righteousness of public communiqués from cranks in order to eventually sift through my own conflicted thoughts.

I have come to the following conclusions.

One must at least consider any rational argument that comes before the appeal of more desperate means.

Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it.

I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this.

With the hope for peace and understanding.

James M raises two cheers:

Having committed some crass errors in recent years (appearing in a car ad on US TV, signing up to an exclusive deal with a credit card firm for his US gigs --if you didn't have that card, you couldn't buy a ticket, etc.), it's time to commend Costello for his decision. However, some may ask what took him so long to reach his decision when Israeli policies & actions in the Palestinian Territories have long been reported, even in the US media.

Agreed. It's curious why he needed "contemplation" to come to this decision and couldn't have come to it before booking the gig and selling the tickets.

A generous view might be that Costello thought that simply avoiding playing Israel would gather no press, while booking the events and cancelling them would offer a platform for him to offer a view on the Middle East.

A cynic might just think he hoped he could get away with it, and only weaseled out when he found out it wouldn't fly.

Given that the first time I ever heard the word Palestine was in a Costello song, it seems unlikely that he simply hadn't realised there was a problem in advance.

... or the Beloved Entertainer

Jim M emails with the observation that Elvis Costello's move into TV presenting isn't entirely comfortable:

the phrase "vanity project" springs to mind. Some of us remember when Costello confined his TV appearances to those occasions when he he actually had something to say, or perform. He's now turned into the sort of media darling he would once have scorned in his lyrics.

How showbiz is the project? The New York Times explains:

Cue Elton John. Mr. John and David Furnish, his partner, are friends of Mr. Costello’s through his wife, the jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall. (The two were married at Mr. John and Mr. Furnish’s English castle in 2003.) So last year, when Mr. Furnish was approached by a Canadian production company about creating a music-oriented program, one frontman came to mind.

It's not just a vanity project, it's a bloody vanity unit.

The Costello Stream

Tempted by Elvis Costello's new album Momofuku but not sure if you'd really like it? And, for some reason, feel queasy about downloading a trial edition from peer-to-peer networks to sample before buying?

No worries: Lost Highway Records are streaming the whole thing.

Costello dumps CDs

Elvis Costello won't be bothering with CDs any more, he's decided: new album Momofuku is getting released on digital (in digital) and on vinyl only. The vinyl version will come with a code to allow a free digital download; we suspect if you buy it online you won't get sent a small black disc and a scratching device.

Costello feels he gets no respect

In a thinly-veiled suggestion that he doesn't feel he's treated well enough in the UK, Elvis Costello has said he wouldn't be bothered if he never played Britain again:

"I don't care if I ever play in England again. That [Glastonbury 2005] gig made up my mind that I wouldn't come back. I don't get along with it. We lost touch. It's 25 years since I lived there. I don't dig it, they don't dig me."

But not playing a country because you stank up the festival is a little short-sighted, isn't it? After all, the audience at an expensive festival is hardly going to be your core audience, is it; to go into a big grump and wipe an entire nation - especially one which has been enthusiastically supportive of you for so long - is a little bit crabby.

Costello then suggests that the real reason is the young folk don't treat him like a god:

"British music fans don't have the same attitude to age as they do in America, where young people come to check out, say, Willie Nelson. They feel some connection with him and find a role for that music in their lives."

Really? I somehow doubt there's very much crossover between Hannah Montana's audience and Willie Nelson's; and it's somewhat flip and dismissive to suggest that Britain's young people have a gerontophobic attitude to anyone older than them - Oasis still pull a crowd; the Sex Pistols have sold out as much to misguided young persons as to old punks; Prince and Macca generate excitement whenever they take to a stage.

Maybe Costello's really annoyed that he never got the call for Grumpy Old Men.

Elvis Cost Hello

Elvis Costello has always nurtured his reputation as valuing his work, if not above rubies, then at least above jingles for cornflakes. Sure, his pappy might have taken the R White lemonade shilling, but that wasn't a route Costello would go down.

Jim McCabe has just pointed out to us that now, though, Costello is doing adverts. And for Lexus, the carbon-emitter of choice for Alan Partridge.

Even more seedily, he's doing gigs for which you can only pay using a specific brand of credit card. Now, we can understand smaller, less rich acts reluctantly signing up to do gigs where fans get excluded if they happen to be on the wrong, or no, mobile network. But when you're rich as Costello, doing gigs that exist solely to try and shore up one credit card over another? It's one thing to sell out, but to sell out with a "We accept Visa" notice hanging around your soul is quite another.

We (or, rather, NTK.net) name the spam bands

What saddens us is not so much that truly heroic acts like Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Elvis Costello feel the need to sign up with a corporation like digital outlook, a group that organises mass-spam-a-thons to plug products, but that they choose a company whose quality of work so obviously says "advertising message disguised - badly - as genuine recommendation" like this.

Real people don't say things like "I'll definitely be buying the album on the 15th" - jesus, people in proper commercials stopped saying stuff like that in about 1985.

The trouble is this whole area stinks - of course, it's not illegal, but its like having your mother vote for you in Porn Stunt Double Cock of the Year.

When Digital Outlook simper Positive reviews generated on almost all leading game sites/shops, do they realise they're more or less blowing the game? They admit they used guerrilla marketing (including reviews) as part of the campaign. This may be legal, but it strikes us as fraudulent, or at best just dishonest. Shabby shame on any artist using such methods.