Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Pretty self-explanatory
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wardo68
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

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Miclewis
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Miclewis »

I got the No Flag/I Wish It Would Rain single delivered today. I wish it had a printed sleeve. But I had forgotten that it was colored vinyl, which was a nice surprise. I wish Elvis had released I Wish It Would Rain as a single in the midst of the lockdown this Spring. His Facebook post, with this wonderful cover, is a very strong memory for me during that bad time.
sweetest punch
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

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Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
taramasalata
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by taramasalata »

sweetest punch wrote:https://www.zeit.de/2020/49/elvis-coste ... .google.be

Anyone with a subscription?
you can test the digital version for free... for 4 weeks... should be enough time to read it... and improving your German :wink: :D
sweetest punch
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sweetest punch »

Elvis announced today in Steve Nieve’s Immobile Tour that there will be a big surprise on December 3: one of the songs from Hey Clockface will re-emerge transformed that day.
Could this be the remix of Hetty O’Hara Confidential that Elvis announced here: http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... y#p7746795 ?
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
bronxapostle
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

hey, will it feature the dramatic reading by AJUQ?? surely, good clean fun whatever we get. and i imagine upon vinyl too so we could plunk down another $15 or more. :lol: :lol: :lol: i'm ready....LOVE BUYING MORE!!!
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supplydavid
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by supplydavid »

Are others still waiting for items from the Elvis Hey Clockface web site.

The no flag splatter vinyl. , tri color vinyl and other items?
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Shellacandvinyl
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Shellacandvinyl »

supplydavid wrote:Are others still waiting for items from the Elvis Hey Clockface web site.

The no flag splatter vinyl. , tri color vinyl and other items?
Same. I can't believe it's been so long and with very minimal communication from Concord/Second City prints. I sent them an email asking about my orders yesterday. Will report back.

Really enjoying the album and I keep going back to it. It just a shame that it's only on streaming but I'll wait.
And you try so hard
To be like the big boys, oh
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FAVEHOUR
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by FAVEHOUR »

supplydavid wrote:Are others still waiting for items from the Elvis Hey Clockface web site.

The no flag splatter vinyl. , tri color vinyl and other items?

Yep. Just wanted the single, still waiting.

Had the same problem with the Look Now box of singles last time.
IbMePdErRoIoAmL
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by IbMePdErRoIoAmL »

supplydavid wrote:Are others still waiting for items from the Elvis Hey Clockface web site.

The no flag splatter vinyl. , tri color vinyl and other items?
I, too, am waiting. I've sent multiple emails & received no response. This whole situation, while admittedly unimportant, is absurd. Between this & the Look Now 7" fiasco, I will not be making any more purchases through the Costello website.
Ridiculous.
bronxapostle
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

FAVEHOUR wrote:
supplydavid wrote:Are others still waiting for items from the Elvis Hey Clockface web site.

The no flag splatter vinyl. , tri color vinyl and other items?

Yep. Just wanted the single, still waiting.

Had the same problem with the Look Now box of singles last time.
hi Dave!

just chiming in for sake of full disclosure...i did get the SECOND press of the NO FLAG 7" about 2 weeks back; tri-color vinyl as shown here:


https://youtu.be/093Uq243WY4

were you maybe waiting for the SPLATTER version instead or this one FAVEDAVE??? this is all i had ordered from them.

i will notate here too that i bought 2 of these and would gladly swap out one for one: tri-color for a splatter copy!

thanks, benny
Arnie
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Arnie »

I will gladly purchase anyone's extra 7" copy of No Flag with Wish it Would Rain on the B-side. For a reasonable price of course.
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roomenoughfortwo
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by roomenoughfortwo »

I've emailed Second City Prints twice in the last 3 weeks asking when my signed CD + "No Flag" 7" bundle will ship and have received no response. I've also called them several times in the last few days and they apparently aren't keen on answering phones either (or responding to the voicemail I left). Absolute torture, I can't believe the complete lack of service. I'm new to the forum/fan scene—did the folks who ordered "Look Now" singles through them eventually get them? Wondering if I should maintain any optimism about this situation.
bronxapostle
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

roomenoughfortwo wrote:I've emailed Second City Prints twice in the last 3 weeks asking when my signed CD + "No Flag" 7" bundle will ship and have received no response. I've also called them several times in the last few days and they apparently aren't keen on answering phones either (or responding to the voicemail I left). Absolute torture, I can't believe the complete lack of service. I'm new to the forum/fan scene—did the folks who ordered "Look Now" singles through them eventually get them? Wondering if I should maintain any optimism about this situation.
With all that lack of response from them....start calling your credit card issuer about them beginning to get your monies returned!! Horrible service merits this.
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roomenoughfortwo
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by roomenoughfortwo »

bronxapostle wrote:With all that lack of response from them....start calling your credit card issuer about them beginning to get your monies returned!! Horrible service merits this.
Thinking that's going to be my next step. Can't take much more of this! :shock:
bronxapostle
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

roomenoughfortwo wrote:
bronxapostle wrote:With all that lack of response from them....start calling your credit card issuer about them beginning to get your monies returned!! Horrible service merits this.
Thinking that's going to be my next step. Can't take much more of this! :shock:
of course...it's one thing if they reply: "Excuse the delay, arriving soon we hope."
NO RESPONSE is just plain rude. surely someone sees/hears you and others communique regarding their items.
And i especially recall their immediate taking of the funds. as opposed to those outlets that await shipment before grabbing it.
JONPD
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by JONPD »

roomenoughfortwo wrote:I've emailed Second City Prints twice in the last 3 weeks asking when my signed CD + "No Flag" 7" bundle will ship and have received no response. I've also called them several times in the last few days and they apparently aren't keen on answering phones either (or responding to the voicemail I left). Absolute torture, I can't believe the complete lack of service. I'm new to the forum/fan scene—did the folks who ordered "Look Now" singles through them eventually get them? Wondering if I should maintain any optimism about this situation.
I ordered the Look Now singles box which arrived damaged. Customer services was quick to respond and sent a second complete set and did not just replace the damaged box. I do seem to recall others commenting on poor service from Second City so was pleased my problem was quickly resolved.

I also received the No Flag single over a week ago. And that was to the UK.
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supplydavid
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by supplydavid »

I have some of the items from second city but as many have noted seem to have stopped responding to emails, i guess we wait and see.

it is crazy i got my colored vinyl from Barnes and Noble before anything from the official site.
sweetest punch
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sweetest punch »

Interview on Radio France Inter: https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/po ... mKQTd2n0vA
(It’s a difficult listening: the french translation is read while Elvis talks.)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sweetest punch »

When I play Hey Clockface on Apple Music in shuffle mode, the algorithm almost always puts a lot of the “Paris songs” in a row. Hearing these delicate songs uninterrupted by more rhythmic tracks, makes for another (better?) listening experience. It makes the good “Paris songs” better and the great ones greater.

So I decided to make my own playlist with the songs ordered by recording place. I came up with this list:

Side A:
No Flag
Hetty O’Hara Confidential
We’re All Cowards Now
Newspaper Pane
Radio Is Everything

Side B:
Revolution #49
Hey Clockface
The Whirlwind
They’re Not Laughing At Me Now
The Last Confession Of Vivian Whip
I Do (Zula’s Song)
What Is It That I Need...
I Can’t Say her Name
Byline

I’m not saying this is a better running order than the one from the album, but it’s certainly worth checking out.

And after that I put some of the singles and B-sides also in this playlist.
So side A becomes:
No Flag
Hetty O’Hara Confidential
We’re All Cowards Now
Shut Him Down
Newspaper Pane
Radio Is Everything
Phonographic Memory
No Flag (en français)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
fred darden
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by fred darden »

Just got an email stating new release for multi colored vinyl is now January 15th. Patience young paduwan, it will make it sound that much richer to your ears.
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supplydavid
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by supplydavid »

I had reply today from second city

Hello and thank you for your incredible patience with this vinyl delay.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer only has one machine that presses the tri-color vinyl and they’re still behind schedule due to a major COVID related back up and continued restrictions forcing them to operate with a skeleton crew.

At this point the estimated ship date for orders containing the tri-color vinyl is now Jan. 15. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your support of Elvis Costello during these challenging times.

While we understand that it’s no substitution for listening to Hey Clockface on vinyl, we hope you’ve been enjoying the digital download of the album that was included with your purchase.
Please refer to the bottom of your order confirmation email to find the download link if you haven’t yet.

Thank you again for your support and patience.
bronxapostle
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

well, no one can stay angry with that sincerity in these troublesome times. here's to one more month wait...enjoy when it lands all.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Ymaginatif »

bronxapostle wrote:well, no one can stay angry with that sincerity in these troublesome times
I can :lol:

(but don't worry, I won't bore you with my frustration :wink: )
sweetest punch
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sweetest punch »

https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/mu ... d-15775547

One on one with Elvis Costello as he looks ahead to next year’s model

With an album of new material, an expanded edition of his acclaimed 1979 recording "Armed Forces" and a musical debuting next year, the singer-songwriter remains as busy and inspired as ever.

About halfway through his new album, Elvis Costello looks to the wall and addresses the clock.

“Hey Clockface,” he sings, “Why is it when we’re apart you always take it so slow? And when she’s here, you always say, ‘It’s almost time to go.’”

Just three minutes long, the song is a structural marvel. Costello the lyricist wields masterful efficiency conveying something nearly impossible to describe: the wibbly-wobbly ways we feel the passage of time. Costello the musician also plays tricks befitting a Time Lord. For this new song released in 2020, he employs a loose, brassy arrangement that plays a borrowed bit of melody from an old Fats Waller tune recorded around 85 years ago.

“Hey Clockface/How Can You Face Me?” provides an intriguing key guide to Costello’s career with its knowing nod to Waller, whose career in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s spoke to the creative breadth of American vaudeville for its engaging sounds, witty words and entertaining presentation. Like others of his era, Waller’s work endures, even if his name has faded. “Ain’t Misbehavin’” — to cite just one song — has been well codified in culture long after it was written.

Costello is, in a way, the great vaudevillian of the rock ’n’ roll era. His songs, some decades old, continue to recirculate. His album titles get borrowed for books and movies. But unlike those who nestle in nostalgia, by the time listeners catch up to one thing, Costello has moved onto the next, a one-man variety show informed by more than a century of entertainment history, family history and a fervent desire to say something new, musically, that might shake loose from its era.

At 66, Costello is — to quote a song about a different Elvis — seemingly everywhere, the result of a vitality for his chosen art form in which he serves as both master and student, who continues absorbing sounds from the past as he considers his music in the future.

“Hey Clockface,” the album, contains 14 new compositions that join a songbook that easily exceeds 500 tunes. Also this fall, he released of a deluxe vinyl version of his 1979 masterpiece “Armed Forces” that is loaded with old, unearthed recordings, lovingly considered packaging and commentary. On Dec. 11, he does a livestreamed song-swap with Klein native Lyle Lovett. And his musical, “A Face in the Crowd,” would have debuted this year but for the pandemic. Instead, it’s likely to open late next year. And there’s more to come.

Talking about all the work, Costello doesn’t exude much sentimentality. Rather, he comes across as an explorer always seeking the next journey.

“No record is going to make me a lot of money at this stage,” he says. “But it’s about a sign of life and a connection to an audience. What I’ve had to come to terms with is the audience response to things I’ve done over a 40-odd-year period. It’s completely appropriate for them to be nostalgic about that music, but it’s completely destructive for me to be nostalgic about it. If I regard it nostalgically, it won’t be any good. I have to try to find something that’s still to be discovered in it, something I can recognize in a song if I sing it again — or else I better write the next song. That’s my job.

“It’s a working life that I’m doing.”

River of song

Four years ago, Costello played a memorable show at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, a mix of old, very old and new songs. The set list was meticulously constructed with proper charting hits like “Allison” and “Veronica,” and some favorites from the ’80s like “Everyday I Write the Book,” “New Lace Sleeves” and “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror.”

The set also included five songs from “A Face in the Crowd,” a guest appearance from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and a fascinating take on an old standard. Playing piano, Costello slid into “Side by Side” — an ageless tune written by Tin Pan Alley scribe Harry Woods nearly a century ago. It was popularized by the tragic vaudeville legend Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards. In Costello’s hands, the song retained the ageless melody that made the song a standard of jazz, pop and animated TV, but it also rode along a familiar piano vamp Costello lifted from Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man.”

Like Dylan, Costello has long treated popular song as school, realizing that any piece of sung music that sticks around for a century clearly possesses some old magic.

“It is, really, a river of sorts,” he says, referring to his approach to a long flowing history of music. “I have difficulty when people want to put things in boxes. I understand it’s a matter of convenience for identifying music for the listener. But when people say, ‘This is rock, and this is jazz,’ it’s all music to me and it always has been.

“When you actually talk to musicians, unless they’re terrible snobs — and I’ve only encountered a few — they’re just trying to work out how it begins and where it goes and where it ends. … There’s soulful music in every hamlet and every land.”

Family tradition

Costello’s path can come across as almost inevitable. He’s a third-generation performer, following his father, Ross McManus, and his grandfather, Pat McManus. Born Declan McManus, he sidestepped a generational name. But the family makes for a fascinating tangle of influence between nature and nurture.

Costello says Pat McManus was orphaned after both parents died. “By sheer chance, he was placed in an orphanage where some aptitude for music was recognized in him,” he says. “That accidentally started this chain of events that led to my grandfather picking up the trumpet. Then my father followed him, and I followed my father.”

He rattles off the names of long-gone venues his grandfather played during a golden era for music halls in the U.K. that paralleled the vaudeville scene in the States.

The music industry Costello stepped into was much changed from the one worked by his father and grandfather. But he never presented himself as an artist who thought popular music began with rock ’n’ roll or the blues. Those performers from previous generations didn’t see much benefit from recorded music. Theirs was a trade that could look extravagant on stage. But the reality, he says, was “closer to working people and not the glamorous world of showbiz.”

Costello sees in the family history a connection to such old Depression-era songs as “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” But, he says, “I can’t assume that voice of Everyman the way Yip Harburg could.”

But he could recall back in the ’70s leaving a club in northern England at 2 a.m. looking for “a plate of beans and a cup of tea” and, with odds he describes as a million to one, finding his father at the same service station after his own gig, seeking the same simple meal.

Costello could also imagine the struggles his grandfather endured on the music-hall circuit, and from that he’d invent a singing cowboy from ages ago, a guy whose timing was rotten as the singing cowboy trend began to fade. From that idea he found “Jimmie Standing in the Rain,” his own song about a man out of time. In this case, it’s the story of a vaudeville performer who missed his window, but the theme extends beyond the song’s setting.

Harburg could pass along his songs to a performer like Bing Crosby. As a singer-songwriter, Costello plays both author and entertainer.

“So it’s useful for me to adopt a series of guises in the way an actor would,” he says.

The idea of an earnest scribe singing from his heart doesn’t work for Costello any more than it does for Dylan or Randy Newman. Rather than stitch a heart to their sleeves, they instead play a theatrical sleight of hand. Theirs is a craft more befitting a medicine show than a coffee shop.

Old made new

Conversation steers Costello toward Richard Hearne, better known as Mr. Pastry, a gifted and beloved British comedian whose physical comedy found its start in the music-hall culture in the 1930s.

“He was one of the great slapstick comedians, though I hesitate to call it slapstick because it was very, very intricate,” he says. “He would wind himself inside a chair almost like a contortionist, though he was quite a big man. People then did things that were very innocent, and those were the things that fascinated me.

“The modern equivalent now, I suppose, is singing one song for which you’re known,” he continues. “Stick with that, it’s your signature song and it’s all you’re ever known for. That to me isn’t a life. That’s not what I do. It’s fine for some people, and I’m not judging them. It’s wonderful for them. But for me, there’s another world.”

Costello in 2021 plans to present at least two new projects. Both speak to his creative restlessness. Both connect the past to the present, and both suggest that his work will be discovered time and again in the future.

Two years ago, Costello revisited “This Year’s Girl,” a song from his 1978 album “This Year’s Model” for the TV show “The Deuce,” re-recording it with a second singer, Natalie Bergman. Doing so pried loose another idea.

“I thought, ‘Why don’t we just take my voice off every song on this record and replace it with somebody singing in Spanish?’,” he says. “I know it sounds mad when you say it.”

Mad as it sounds, the project will be out next year: the original “This Years Model” with the original instrumentation featuring newly recorded vocals by artists from a dozen Spanish-speaking countries.

“It’s interesting when you took my voice out, it wasn’t rock ’n’ roll, it was pop music,” he says. “We were supposed to be on the radio alongside Blondie and ABBA and Gloria Gaynor and the Bee Gees. We weren’t trying to be the MC5. When you listen to the music, they’re very committed performances, but not that raging. It’s actually very musical. It could’ve sounded like a crazy stunt, but my breath was taken away with how heartfelt the contributions were. Taking these songs I wrote when I was 23 about how we look at each other, assumptions we make because of the way someone looks. Give those songs to a young woman to sing, and it immediately changes the story.

“It was very good fun, and that’s the thing you forget when you make records over time,” he adds. “Remembering to (just) play. It’s so easy to forget. To play because you love it.”

Side by side

Earlier this year, David A. Graham, a writer for The Atlantic, who last month wrote a piece on Costello’s “Armed Forces,” the 1979 album recently re-released as a lavish vinyl set.

“Around the globe, people are watching as authoritarians consolidate their power and fascist movements gain followers,” Graham wrote. “More than four decades after its release, ‘Armed Forces’ feels more frighteningly vital and relevant than ever.”

Costello warms talking about the design of the set, but he’s disinclined to talk too much about the songs. He’s done his part. They now belong to the world, where they can be revisited and reassessed.

Much of his attention this year has been consumed by “A Face in the Crowd.” Having worked in all manner of musical modes over the years, Costello hadn’t ever thrown himself into anything with as many moving parts as a stage musical. But the story fits into his body of work like a rabbit in a top hat.

For those unfamiliar, the film “A Face in the Crowd” marked the debut of Andy Griffith, playing Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, a drifter and an opportunist whose dumb luck turns him into a radio superstar. A beloved plainspoken public persona masks a darker, manipulative character who detests the masses who adore him.

“I’m not just an entertainer,” Griffith’s Rhodes bellows in one scene. “I’m an influence, a wielder of opinion, a force! A force!”

Costello wants to be clear that his musical — based on Budd Schulberg’s short story that was turned into Elia Kazan’s 1957 film — wasn’t undertaken as a commentary on any contemporary political trends or figures.

“We worked a long time at this story, but to my mind, it was never about a parallel to current circumstances,” Costello says. “It’s a coincidence that it touches on this same story about the crowd that makes the monster that they desire.”

Costello found something in Schulberg’s story that connected with him the way his songs have resonated with listeners over the years — some mode of expression that escapes of time and place. For Costello, the idea is roughly the same each time out: to write about some truth with some thematic opacity and a little showman’s razzle-dazzle so that one day, years from now, some performer may take something he wrote and apply it to a new time and a new place and have it provoke, comfort or entertain.

The old and the new, traveling along, singing a song, side by side.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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