Word: costelloe
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...GARISH, cosmic nightclub, the figures on the floor drug-addled, lobotomized, throwing each other over, punching each other up, selling each other out. Elvis Costello has played a lot of clubs these last few years; after an angry, violent American tour, morsels of America sizzled in his brainpan, and in Get Happy!! Elvis thrust his middle finger up her dumb whore B-Movie hole, the music as hyper-energized, as fractious and scrappy as the country itself. It was a smashing, reverberating disc that some of us thought would go through the roof critically and commercially. Alas. audiences and rock...
REMEMBER Francis the Talking Mule Joins the Army? Remember Abbott and Costello in Buck Privates? Or that lamebrained Martin and Lewis movie with the unforgettable musical number--"The navy gets the gravy/But the army gets the beans/Beans, beans, beans..."? These films, and a hundred like them, showed us that being trained to kill people in a brutally authoritarian institution could be fun, in fact, downright hilarious. Just when it seemed that Vietnam had bombed the service comedy into oblivion, Hollywood has chosen not only to revive the genre but to add an insipidly trendy twist by making the first supposedly...
...still conditioned to the late Sixties style of breaking new bands," charges Greg Shaw; "their whole approach to underground music is completely out-dated." Shaw's independent Bomp label and distributorship was formed in 1969. "The most effective marketing strategy today is to go through import channels. Elvis Costello, to name but one, was broken in this country through imports...
...political awareness less violent than Bob Marley's recent activist songs; and it feels more polished, more heavily produced than traditional Rasta music. A guitar, a bongo, and smooth, taffy-flavored voices don't appear to be enough anymore. One introduction sounds remarkably similar to several measures on Elvis Costello's recent album. And a tuxedoed concert performer carries himself like Barry Manilow onstage. These isolated moments don't detract, however, from the music's mirthful, sensuous beauty...
...under its influence irresistibly hilarious. It seems likely that great comedians could do great dope routines--Charlie Chaplin Visits Jamaica--but it is not fantastically funny simply to light up a joint. If you have always enjoyed American screen humorists, however, go see this; it rivals anything Abbott and Costello ever...