Word: costelloe
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...haircut is straight out of the '50s; the rumpled suit looks like a reject from a thrift-store bin. With huge hornrimmed glasses covering half his face, Elvis Costello, 23, looks vaguely familiar as he swaggers awkwardly up to a microphone. Ah, but of course. He is that same little guy who couldn't buy himself a date back in high school...
...British-born Costello may look a bit like Woody Allen with a guitar, but there is nothing timid about his music. With a three-piece band behind him, he blasts out a stream of riffs that recalls the piston rhythms of Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Little Richard and the early Beatles. The songs are angrier than the soft rock that spun out of Southern California onto the record charts this year, and Costello sings them with a prophet's urgency. In the light of his sizzling reception on a just completed U.S. tour, the message seems clear: rock...
Much of the grit has come from punk and New Wave bands whose songs favor sledgehammer subtlety and three-chord accompaniment. Costello, however, dismisses American punks as "rich hippies whining about the Viet Nam War" and resists any invitation to describe himself. "The minute you become self-conscious about what you're doing, or start analyzing it, it's all over," he snaps. "I choose not to explain...
Like his countryman Graham Parker, Costello combines the punch of early rock forms with very contemporary lyrics. In Radio, Radio he jabs at Top 40 conservatism that he feels has helped throttle pop creativity for a decade...
...Costello's underdog sympathies come easily. Born Declan Patrick McManus, he was the only child of a marriage that ended when his father, a jazz trumpeter and cabaret singer, hit the road for good. Costello grew up in a blue-collar section of London. At 18 he became a computer man in a nearby suburb. His first songs were composed to the whir of machines and the rumble of trains, and on weekends he scratched for pickup jobs as a guitarist...