No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Elvis Costello - Secondary Modern

Episode Date: May 20, 2018

We take a look back at one particular incident in 1979 involving the Stephen Stills Band, too much to drink, and Elvis Costello's racist remarks toward black American musicians just as his career was starting to take off in the U.S. Costello bounces back by releasing "Get Happy!!" in 1980, a collection of soul-pop gems that demonstrated a clear respect and admiration for the music of black America. To tie it back to last week's review of Spoon's "Girls Can Tell", we listen to "Secondary Modern" and explore the influence Costello had on Britt Daniels vocal stylings. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/ep-12-spoon-girls-can-tell#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Particularly when we first came here and we might have just landed from Mars or something the way that people looked at us. So we were genuinely trying to put it over forcefully and the complacency that was in music at that time, Which is not to say that it's got any better, it's not getting any better at all. But it, you know, it was just the way we felt at that time. And as we've gone on about, what was it, it seems like years.

I just want to present a wider picture now. So inevitably you get some people going, so you sold out and you've gone mellow. God knows. And I don't think that at all, I just trying to present a more complete picture, complete picture because you have 20 years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one. Yeah, so I just want to present a more complete picture of a person. And this is our sidetrack episode for the week. You're listening to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records.

Did you just sneeze, Travis? Yes. Was that a sneeze? Yes, it was. Man, you just fucked me up, bro. That's all right. My name's Quentin. Got my brother Travis with me.

Last week, we covered Spoon's third studio album, Girls Can Tell, which came out in 2001. And this week, we thought we'd dive into some Elvis Costello, which apparently one of Costello's albums was a major influence on Britt Daniel. during the songwriting and recording process of Girls Can Tell. So, Travis, I don't know about you, but I never really got into Elvis Costello, did you? Yeah, I mean, I've listened to some of his stuff off of his first album.

This year's model came out in 78. That's his second album, Brebara. Get your Costello facts straight. Not according to Spotify, my source of truth. No, his first album came out in 1977. it's called My Aim is True. Okay. Well, one thing that I remember, that I always remember about him,

was that he was banned from playing on Saturday Night Live. Do you know this story? So I just briefly kind of dove into some interviews with him just a couple hours ago for this sidetrack episode. They had mentioned the SNL incident, but they didn't go any farther than it being an incident. So obviously it was something that everyone knew about at the time, but I don't know what happened. It's a badass moment, dude.

So basically they're on SNL. It's 1977. So I guess it's before they released this year's model. And they were instructed by Columbia Records to play their new single Less Than Zero. And this was his American debut, like as far as like live TV performance, this was their American debut. And he starts playing that song for about 10. in seconds and then like castello just kind of stops in the middle of it and turns around and like yells to his backing band the attractions and then they start playing radio radio which is a protest

song against sanitized media that they hadn't even released yet yeah yeah exactly dude dude that's awesome yeah so um and that that song was on uh this year's model so they hadn't even released that song yet so basically they were like you know we're going to play whatever song we want you know Yeah. And then, and then like the, that's pretty sweet. The, um, their performance got like, got, can't, they went to commercial. Wow. But, and then they were, I think they were a band for like, I don't know, a decade or something.

Maybe, maybe longer than that, but they, I mean, they've, they've since played SNL after that. But I mean, that, that's a badass moment, dude. Yeah. Yeah. And radio radio is a killer song, too, dude. It's awesome. They were way ahead of their time, which will, which will, which will. discuss. So you keep saying they.

Yeah. And so Elvis Costello kind of put together his like a personal backing band that he kind of pulled people together specifically for this band. And they go by the attractions. And they, yeah, they are an English backing band for Elvis Costello. Yeah. And I think I think that. that you mentioned that you thought was his first album, this year's model, was the first time that they popped up on a record for Elvis Costella. And the album that we're covering today is called Get Happy, and they are the backing band for that album. The reason that we're going to dive into this record is, if you remember on our episode

from last week, when we covered Spoons, Girls Can Tell. Brad Daniel had a major influence from Elvis Costello, particularly this album. But the reason why, I mean, is partly because of his girlfriend at the time, right? Yeah, yeah, his girlfriend at the time, her name is Eleanor Friedberger. Bert Daniels' girlfriend in 98. They were living in Chicago together at the time. and he remembers listening to Elvis Costello's Get Happy on cassette tape back then, and it had a major influence on his decision to use the vibraphone and the melaton.

Ingirls can tell. And we mentioned the kinks as well as being a major influence for him at the time. Also, here's something I didn't know about Mr. Kostela. And I guess it's a good thing that I didn't know about. it because this is something that that he worried was going to basically just follow him in his career for the rest of his days um he had a let's just say racial kerfluffle is that a word uh sure why not kerfluffler kerfluffle we should look that up i'm going to look it up dude that is a peanut butter fluffed up marshmallow what you're actually right

right, dude. Hang on. Kerfuffle. A disturbance or hubbub. There you go. That's perfect, man. He had a racial curfluffle during a 1970.

Did you say Rachel? Racial. Racial. Okay. I thought you meant like, racial kerfluffle. Because I know he was on Friends that one episode.

I thought he meant like he had a Rachel. Oh, yeah, you're right. Like a Rachel curfluffle or something. No, no. No. a racial kerfuffle during his 1979 tour in the U.S.

So I don't want to get way way into it but apparently he was touring with Steven Stills and Stephen Stills band as in Crosby Stills and Nash Steven Stills. Oh it's a throwback

we're throwing it back to episode one of seven six or seven yeah and so apparently Costello was getting a little drunk with one of the members of Stephen Stills band after their show in Ohio

Columbus and man there's a lot to the story dude I don't know what to leave out and what to tell you you know okay well

I guess I guess Elvis and so this guy's name is Bonnie Bramlett. He was one of the members of the Stephen Stills band. They just weren't meshing well together. Let's just put it that way. And they were drunk. And Costello suddenly just out of nowhere just denounces Ray Charles and other American black music of the time. He denounces Ray Charles as a blind, ignorant inward.

I won't say it. He said pretty much the same about James Brown. I said Brown. Well, did he have any, did he have any basis for the ignorant part of the statement? No. Listen, he, so he attacks the stupidity of American black music in particular. And American music in general. So, let's keep in mind here.

Costello is not from America. He's, he's from Europe. Yeah, but I mean, if he's, I mean, he's talking about like blues music. I mean, yeah, I guess so, dude. Ray Charles and who? So, and James Brown. Oh. Just American, popular American music in general.

Listen, here's what it comes. Here's what it boils down to, man. Okay. So I'm pulling this from an interview that he did. with Rolling Stone magazine back in 1982. So a few years after this Get Happy record was released. So again, this incident happened in 1979. Here's how he, so he basically, so another thing with Costello,

he is not one for the spotlight. He, him and his band went out of their way to avoid interviews and pretty much they avoided the media as much as they could. Not exactly sure why, but that's just what they did. And he, so he sat down with this interview for Rolling Stone, and, you know, the interviewer kind of presses him on about this whole incident. And he says, here's what it was about. I said the most outrageous thing that I could possibly say to them, that I knew in my drunken

logic would anger them more than anything else. So who knows, dude? Basically, he said something really stupid, and he admits to it being really, really stupid. And from that point on, you know, the incident quickly made the papers, and then there was something about it in People magazine, and then the whole thing resulted in a New York press conference,

Castello's first real face-to-face encounter with journalists since 1977, basically since he hit the scene. Since the SNL thing, probably. Yeah, right. That's probably what it's talking about. So apparently he tries to explain himself during this encounter with the journalists. And according to both Costello and those who questioned him, he failed miserably during this encounter where he tried to explain himself. So basically he was too drunk in a bar, said some really dumb things that he immediately regrets. And that's something that haunted his career for quite a few years after that.

The reason I bring all this up is so here's the thing about this record that we're covering today. Again, it's called get happy. And this is a record that, according to a lot of people, was the first of Castello's experiments with genres beyond those with which is ordinarily associated with Costello and his band. So it marks a distinct change in mood from the angry, frustrated tone of his first three hours. to a more upbeat, happy manner. That's one thing I didn't know about Costello. I didn't know that he was ever known for his angry, frustrated tone. Did you?

No, I mean, that's definitely not where you associate with him. That just shows how little we know about Elvis Costello, dude, because apparently his first three albums are quite angry in tone. I didn't know that. I guess, maybe more so about the years. You know, he starts out as a punk, a punk. rock outfit you know what I mean

like he starts his punk so I mean that's no surprise right but yeah he's so he's super diverse

you know and like really I think they were really ahead of their time him yeah and his group you know

as far as the sound that they had back then especially if you listen to pump it up or radio radio on this year's model like that's shit

like you could put that out to day and it would be a hit yeah yeah so think about it um this album get happy comes out this is their his next release after this this uh racial curve level and um one thing that castella says in this interview um so so get happy is our version of a motown album is what he says and he's he He is saying, quote, I had the feeling people were reading my mind. But what could I do? Hold up a sign that read, I really like black people.

Huh. Okay, hold on. I was about to ask you, did that come out? This album came out after the incident? Yes. Okay. The incident happens in 1979 during his tour of the U.S. This album Get Happy comes out in 1980.

So the next year. And let's pull it all back to Spoon. I find it interesting that Britt Daniel gets influence from this album in particular from Elvis Costello. This album being Costello's first, quote unquote, happy record, and the resulting Spoon album, Girls Can Tello, is their first quote unquote mellow record, you know. Okay. I see how you did that.

Yeah, you like that? So, I mean, I can see his frustration. Yeah, he fucked up royally. And apparently he had, he was kind of well known for his temperament and his anger. These are all things I didn't know about him about Costello. No, I think I've heard that he's got a quick temper. I mean, I've heard that. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, you know, this incident happens in Columbus, Ohio. And then his next record is called Get Happy and it's super upbeat. And it's, you know, it's basically a love record. It's, it's, you know, pretty much all the songs are about young love and all that fun stuff. so let's play a track from this album and we were texting back and forth earlier today we were both listening to this album

I guess at the same time across the coast and we both landed on on one song in particular you can really hear the influence that he had on British Daniel. Yeah, I mean, he must have been he must have been a fan of Costello

well before he was introduced to this album because I feel like his voice he borrows a lot from Costello with the way he phrases things and like the way he his, the style of his voice you know, his vocal harmonies and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. You know, just to kind of like

the just the subtle like you know, tweak on his vocals and stuff that he does throughout a verse or something. Yeah, Costello was oftentimes compared to Bob Dylan in his super clever lyrics. Another thing I didn't know about Costello. Basically, this is just making me want to dive into some of his records, dude. I mean, he's got a huge catalog, dude. Yeah, no. start with this year's model dude that's got some great stuff on it yeah for sure so uh the

so the track that we're going to play for y'all i'm just going to play the whole song it's less than two minutes long um again this is on his uh album get happy which came out in 1980 um this song is called secondary modern probably my favorite one on the record dude i listened to it all the way through before we started this recording there's something about this one yeah i really like it a lot

all right so here is secondary modern this must be the place second place in the human race down this is the hand of a chance that I took secondary mind won't be a broad

Little pop song. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, as far as the vocal stylings, like it's more along the line of like when Britt Daniel does, especially on girls can tell, like the more, his kind of somber, more slow singing, like quiet or singing voice, you know what I mean? Like it sounds like, it sounds a lot like Chicago at night, the way he sings on that song. In fact, we should play a clip from that. Okay. Yeah, dude, let's just close out with girls with Chicago at night.

I was going to do another song from Get Happy, but let's just close out with Chicago at night. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I mean, it's not that the songs necessarily sound the same. So just want to put that out there. But his voice sounds very similar to Elvis Costello's in that song. That song in particular. If you listen to the rest of Get Happy, I mean, of course, he's a lot more.

Yeah, he's all over the place. Yeah. But that, but that, I think, he really is all over the place. Yeah. Right. His vocal approach, really, I guess. Yeah. And, you know, listening to secondary modern, it's, it's the same thing that I enjoy when listening to Britt Daniel.

You know, he uses his voice. to kind of set the mood, you know? Like in this, in that Costello song, he's, I mean, he's just, you know, he's singing, but it's, he's not really belting out of tune, you know, he's just kind of, you know, being really chill, chill about it. I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, it's just, he's, he's, just almost not whispering but you know it's just very subtle it's it's definitely a more like a low profile

tune you know what i mean but yeah i just think it's it's funny that i mean it just goes to show how much influence this album really did have on on brett daniel um you know because it with interviews uh around the time of girls can tell brit general says yeah you know i was listening to a lot of Motown records and you know I realized that there's this style of music that I hadn't tapped into yet that I love listening to you know and then this is Elvis Costello's first quote unquote motown record you know according to critics so you know it's obviously Costello had a huge influence probably more so than the Kings at the time even though bradniel's ber Daniel was saying that he was listening to a ton of kings.

Well, the thing is like, I mean, you know, he also, I mean, Jim, Jimino had mentioned that he was listening to Marvin Gay, too, you know? So he was just, you know, I feel like he was going through like an exploration, like, you know what I mean? Like he was going through a, you know, as we've said over and over again, like he was dumped.

They were dumped from Elektra Records. And, you know, that was kind of there in like a funk, you know what I mean? So he was probably on like a quest, you know what I mean? Like a musical quest. he's like, all right. Exploration phase, you know. Regardless of the circumstances that led to us getting dropped from Electra,

let's try something different. Yeah, I mean, and that's, I think, I'm guessing that getting dumped by the record label, like, allowed him to kind of explore a little bit and may be responsible for, like, spoon becoming spoon, you know what I mean? Because, like, think about it, dude, if you're on a major record label and you have a successful record on that label, you're probably not going to change anything, you know what I mean? Yeah, you're right.

You might not change your sound at all, you know? So, I mean, like, you know, I would think that getting dumped may have had a positive effect on the band as a whole, you know? So, let's just say it, dude. We have Ron Lafitte's to think for Spoon. Yeah, I think that's probably accurate. We do. That's probably accurate, man.

And that's the last, you know what? That's the last time we're going to mention Ron Lafitte's name on this. Yeah, I know, right. Let's just say it now. Like I said, I think we've talked about him ad nauseum. Yeah, yeah. And if you don't know who Ron Lafitte is, jump back a few episodes and listen to our,

our episode on Spoon's album, a series of sneaks. We talk about him quite a bit in that episode. And you know what, dude? I think that's going to do it for us today. I think we've done this episode justice. Yeah, I think so. Awesome. And hey, you know what?

Maybe we'll do a full-length episode on Elvis Costello one day. I think he definitely is worth further exploration. We're going to run out of things to talk about pretty soon here. We've got lots of stuff to cover, dude. Yeah. And speaking of things we're going to cover, I'm really excited about our next full-length episode. It's going to be on Interpol's album from who knows when it came out,

Turn on the Bright Lights. 2002, man, we sure are diving into the early odds, my friend. This is when we were getting into music, dude. Yeah, that's the thing. And that's fine. Who cares, right? So we're going to do Interpol's turn on the bright lights. And then after our side track.

so and then our side track after that one just gonna come out and then we're gonna do another spoon episode on Kill the Moonlight and I don't know if we've got if we were this far out as far as on our schedule but we need to do something something old school

dude after Killed the Moonline Yeah I agree I agree with that we'll figure it out all right all right so that's going to do it for us this week thank you as always for tuning in

be sure to hop on to our website no filler podcast.com there you can read our show notes for each episode you can stream our episodes directly from SoundCloud there also please subscribe to us on iTunes and pretty much anywhere that you can listen to podcasts we should be there

and also why don't you give us us a little rating. Maybe give us a comment or two. Even if you hate us, let us know about it. We want to hear from you. All right, so let's play this episode out with Spoons Chicago at Night, which came out on their album, Girls Can Tell. That's going to do it for us today. My name is Quentin. My name is Travis. We're going to talk to you next time. Cover on.