Jade's Music Blog

"Whenever people are asked to name the best ever artists from Liverpool, nobody ever says Elvis Costello.

OK. He wasn’t born in Liverpool (Neither was Julian Cope or Pete De Freitas) but he spent many of his formative years here, going to Saint Francis Xavier's College Liverpool and later working in the Midland Bank in Bootle as his accent and devotion to Liverpool FC will attest. Once you’ve accept him as a local, you could justifiably call him the best and most prolific of our artists after the Fab Four.

Whilst playing the pubs and clubs of Liverpool and London in the mid Seventies, he sent a demo to the fledgling Stiff Records, the label that wrote the blueprint for Independent labels, fusing punk attitude and pop sensibilities launching the successful careers of Madness, The Pogues, The Damned, Kirsty McColl and of course Elvis.

His classic debut album My Aim is True was recorded virtually live in six four-hour sessions using the pre-fame Huey Lewis’ backing band Clover who happened to be in the UK at the time and we’re skint and therefore affordable.

The song Watching The Detectives, wasn’t included on the original vinyl debut album. It was recorded after the main sessions with the rhythm section of Graham Parker & the Rumour who were helping Elvis to audition his own band members. One successful applicant was keyboard player Steve Nïeve who added the organ and piano parts a few weeks later.

The first thing that strikes you when the drums and bass crash in is the fact that the instruments are virtually at the point of distortion. Producer Nick Lowe in his tiny mixing booth on his 8 track desk had set the microphone levels to ‘hot’ as Elvis put it. It produced an original mix of dub reggae feel behind Costello’s spikey guitar chops and image-evoking lyrics. It became an unlikely hit reaching No.16 in 1977.

It has brilliant lines like “They beat him up until the teardrops start, but he can’t be wounded cause he’s got no heart” and “It only took my little fingers to blow you away”, but it’s the overall atmosphere of it that makes it great. You can actually put any corny old black and white film on the T.V. with the sound down, play this over it and it suddenly seems brilliant.

So there you go, a left-field classic with not a mop-top or reference to psychedelia or skiffle in sight. See Liverpool does do punk rock attitude."

Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies play The Caledonia, Catherine St, Liverpool on Wed. 4th June. For more information see www.myspace.com/petebenthamandthedinnerladies.