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A TRUE SPECTACLE
by Daren Foster

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DAREN FOSTER PODCAST - Chatting about talk shows and how Elvis Costello's could be the best on TV now!

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A TRUE SPECTACLE
by Daren Foster

Elvis Costello makes a spectacle of himself.

He’s not angry. He’s not angry anymore. In fact, he’s now an affable talk show host.

In 1977, no musician was less likely a candidate to be sitting down in his middle age having a meandering, chummy chat about pop music history with Sir Elton John than Elvis Costello. (Just as unlikely, 30+ years ago to have imagined Elton John as Sir Elton John.) While Johnny Rotten garnered headlines with his manufactured faux anger, Costello seemed to possess the real deal. Joe Strummer and Paul Weller raged about class conflict but Costello just seemed pissed off at anything and everything. He was once punched by a back-up R&B singer, Bonne Bramlett, for nasty drunken remarks he’d made about James Brown and Ray Charles. His tunes were as snarky as they were catchy. His album titles had a certain aggressiveness about them. Punch the Clock. Armed Forces. Spike. Blood and Chocolate. Brutal Youth. Get Happy!!.. admittedly not so aggressive on the surface but aggressively facetious and sarcastic.

Age and marriages and children have apparently mellowed the man. Anger has not festered into vinegary bitterness. Costello is now something of a pop music elder statesman, well versed in the history of the art form dating back to the early blues and vaudevillian music halls. He recorded an album with a hipster classical foursome, the Brodsky Quartet. Once married to the bassist of the edgy Irish-punk band The Pogues, Elvis went solidly main stream with his second nuptials to silky smooth jazz chanteuse, Diana Krall at Elton John’s London estate. He never burned out nor did he fade away and this Elvis most definitely did not die on the toilet like his namesake. At least, not yet.

Now he hosts a talk show, Spectacle, sitting on a stool centre stage, gabbing, strumming and dueting with rock (more or less) royalty. Having watched just the first three episodes thus far, I have to say Costello’s not yet Carson smooth but neither is he painfully awkward like the early.. well almost the early everyone who attempts to be a talk show host. That’s no backhanded compliment or damning with faint praise. Sit down and start flipping through the channels. It seems anyone or everyone who is or was a somebody has a talk show these days.

Morning talk shows. Afternoon talk shows. Suppertime talk shows. Late night talk shows. Late, late night talks shows. Later late, late night talk shows. Overnight talk shows. There’s so little space left for any more talk shows that now they’re leeching into primetime. Jay Leno will take over the weeknight 10-11pm slot at NBC come the fall. And hell Leno, that grating welcome mat to the stars who hasn’t been funny since.. well, I don’t think the man’s ever been funny and he’s been at it for 17 years with his gig as host of the Tonight Show epitomizes everything that’s wrong with the format. In these celebrity saturated times, Leno and the rest of the live action Troy McClures come across as little more than corporate shills or product placement emcees.

It helps that, so far, Costello hasn’t had to sit and talk with anyone who’s directly pimping product. There’s been no ‘Out in Stores on Tuesday’ intro with any of the guests. The reformed Police were finishing off their reunion tour when Costello interviewed them but they certainly didn’t need any help to fill arenas. All the guests from Elton to Kris Kristofferson and Roseanne Cash seemed to be there because they want to be and enjoy talking about and performing music.

That’s not to say there aren’t some wrinkles Spectacle needs to iron out. I could do without the slight hackle-raising log-rolling that happens occasionally between Elvis and some of his guests. (You’re great. No, you’re great. That time I saw you play at CBGBs in ’77, you were the real deal, man.) And at times, Costello feels a little intrusive into the guest’s space. He is an intense performer and can sometimes overwhelm.

Then I think, dude, it’s Elvis Costello. He’s earned every right to intrude. It’s not like he’s some hack, trying to rub shoulders with his superiors. (I have in mind Joey Bishop hanging around with the rest of the Rat Pack.) While not a household name like most of his guests, Costello is arguably one of the finest song writing craftsmen around. He may not pack in stadium sized crowds to the same degree as The Police or Elton John but no one who is aware of pop music can possibly ignore Costello’s talent and contribution to it. Without coming across as a condescending know-it-all, Costello displays an absolute wealth of knowledge about popular music.

Which is what makes his show so compelling. He is a host who actually knows and works in the field he’s talking about. Most other talk shows are hosted by comedians. They may be on top of their game when interviewing other comedians and maybe even other entertainment industry players but when they’re talking to athletes, politicians and academics? They’re probably a pre-interview ahead of their audiences on the subject. So it’s all forced and painfully rehearsed.

Costello is a musician and songwriter sitting down and shooting the breeze with other musicians and songwriters. They understand each other and talk a similar language. Watching Spectacle, it feels less like we’re being sold something and more like we’ve been invited to sit and listen to people who do what they do really well talk about how they do what they do very well. Spectacle is a conversation not a scripted sales pitch.

So far the highlights have included The Police episode with the tension that still apparently exists between Sting and Stewart Copeland. (It’s my band. No, it’s my band.) These are clearly 3 whip smart cats with some serious musical pedigree who just don’t seem all that compatible offstage. I wish more of the show had been spent with all three of them together rather than individually because that’s when the energy really crackled. Their Watching the Detectives/Walking on the Moon number with Costello was terrific and so much more pleasurable than watching Sting play the lute.

In another episode, watching Kris Kristofferson strum and sing/talk his way through Sunday Morning Coming Down was also a gem. Without much chitchat, he and Roseanne Cash showed how a whole lot of hard living and pain and suffering can be transcended, resulting in beautiful heartfelt music. It was unfortunate that Costello decided to include John Mellencamp and Norah Jones into the mix. Not that I have anything against either of them, it simply felt like overkill. They only really served to take time away from the real draws of the show and were subsequently robbed of the opportunity to share their music more fully.

To date my favourite episode of Spectacle was the first. It’s hard to remember Elton John as the vital musical force he once was but it came flowing back as he sat chewing the fat with Costello. Rather than the preening, vacuous, publicity hound celebrity space he’s occupied for the last, oh I don’t know, 20 years or so, Elton seemed at ease, talking openly, humbly and honestly about his music. Aside from a brief moment where he bemoaned the lack of quality new music today like an old crank (rocks being tossed in glass houses by a guy who hasn’t put out an interesting album since 1983’s Too Low For Zero), Elton came across as a starry-eyed fan who just happens to be really good at a job he clearly loves. When he sat down at the piano to show just how much he was influenced early in his career by the now obscure singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, I just shook my head and wondered why he doesn’t show this side of himself more often.

Maybe it’s because there’re not many opportunities like Spectacle out there for him to do so. Leading one to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, if television insists on filling the airwaves with talk shows, they should use the likes of grizzled veteran Elvis Costello to host rather than the latest comedy fluffer who tends to bring out the worst instead of the interesting in our celebrities.