The month in 1977 when everything changed for Elvis Costello
In July 1977, Declan MacManus completed his metamorphosis from unassuming-looking computer programmer for a cosmetics company to edgy and acerbic new wave performer Elvis Costello.
On July 9 of that year, MacManus, seven weeks from his 23rd birthday, quit his job at the Elizabeth Arden factory in West London. Referring to what MacManus did there as “programming” is a stretch. “I’d just put tapes on the machines and feed cards in, line up printing machines – all the manual work the computer itself doesn’t have arms to do,” Costello told Rolling Stone in 1982.
Not exactly writing C++ code for neural network development implementations! Nonetheless, his job at the “vanity factory” provided a steady paycheck to this young husband and new father, along with some assumed intellectual status. “I wore a white coat and everyone thought I was a rocket scientist because I was the only one who knew how to work the machine,” Elvis recalled. “Everyone thought I was a genius.”
But having set his sights on a career in music at age 14, when he began learning to play guitar and write songs, Costello was ready to abandon the safety net of a straight job because everything was beginning to come together for him by the summer of ‘77. After kicking around the London and Liverpool music scenes in the early and mid ‘70s, most recently as lead singer of the going-nowhere pub rock band Flip City, Costello was on the verge of a potential breakthrough.
Over the course of several weeks from late 1976 to early 1977, Costello had recorded his first album, My Aim Is True, backed by a country-rock band from California named Clover. Comprised of long-haired Mill Valley hippies, Clover couldn’t have been more out of step with the nascent punk music and fashion scenes when the band relocated to London in the latter half of 1976. Still, outside of punk circles, Clover was well-regarded. And they were versatile musicians.
Though two singles from the album (Less Than Zero and Alison) failed to chart when released in the spring, Costello had the backing of a new and innovative record label, Stiff Records, which would release My Aim Is True in the U.K. on July 22, less than two weeks after Declan MacManus collected and stacked his last printouts from the giant IBM mainframe that kept him company while he wrote songs that would appear on Elvis Costello’s first two albums.
Hear Elvis Costello's first recorded vocals (on his father's British TV ad for lemonade!)
While Clover was great in the studio, Costello would need a live band that better suited his new image as a twitchy, edgy, slightly dangerous and most definitely not a hippie singer-songwriter. Following a brief round of auditions, Elvis settled on what the world soon would know as The Attractions — Royal College of Music student and keyboard player Steve Nieve (Nason), bass player Bruce Thomas (formerly of the Sutherland Brothers and Quiver), and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation to Bruce), formerly of short-lived pub rock unit Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers. (A truly awful band name!)
After a few rehearsals, the new band did a handful of “off-Broadway” shows prior to making their London debut later in the month. The first show by Elvis Costello and the Attractions was on Thursday, July 14, 1977. Elvis recalls:
Our live debut was second on the bill to Wayne County and the Electric Chairs in Penzance. This was about as far from "where it's at" as you could get. Any sense of the punk or "new wave" excitement that was filling weekly music papers was pretty hard to detect in the West Country. The next evening in Plymouth we saw a few girls sporting scary eye makeup, but everyone else looked like they might have been waiting for The Sweet to take the stage. On Saturday night we returned to Davidstowe to play a dance in the village hall in payment for our week of rehearsal room hire. Now we were ready for the big city.
The big city debut was set for July 26 at Dingwalls, just four days following the scheduled release of My Aim Is True. However, the show was put in jeopardy that very afternoon when a street publicity stunt gone awry ended with Costello under arrest and in police custody.
And that smart young man with the glasses and white coat had such a bright future!
The first two albums were my favorites!
Signed Gold Boy