1955 – Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony is born in Chicago.
Michael Anthony Sobolewski (born June 20, 1954) is an American musician. He is best known as the former bassist and a founding member of the hard rock band Van Halen. Anthony joined the band in 1974 and was their official recording and performing bassist for most of their career until he was replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen, son of fellow founding member Eddie Van Halen, after the band’s 2004 tour.
Anthony is known for his stage antics, his effects-laden live solos, and his number of custom-made bass guitars including a Jack Daniel’s model shaped like a whiskey bottle. He also has a signature Yamaha bass guitar series. In total, Anthony is known to have in excess of 150 bass guitars. In addition to his musical career with Van Halen and other acts, Anthony markets a line of hot sauces and related products named Mad Anthony.
Anthony has been married to his wife Sue since 1981 and they have two daughters: Taylor (born 1991) and Elisha (born 1985). Anthony now lives in Glendora, California and can be frequently seen driving his prized hot rods.
Biography
Early life (1954–1966)
Anthony was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA to Polish immigrant parents, and was one of five siblings (Nancy, Michael, Steve, Robert and Dennis). He later moved to California where he attended Arcadia High School, graduating in 1972. He developed his interest in music in childhood, playing the trumpet. He became interested in playing mainly rock, blues, and jazz, taking after his father Walter.
Musical career begins (1967–1974)
While Anthony was a promising catcher in baseball, he also competed on the Dana Junior High School track team (long jump) and played in the marching band there from 1967–1969. He took an interest in guitar as a teenager, but picked up the bass instead since most of his other friends already played guitar or drums. Anthony’s friend Mike Hershey gave him a Fender Mustang electric guitar that Anthony converted by removing its top two strings and playing it as a bass guitar. Eventually, his father bought him a Victoria copy of a Fender Precision Bass and a Gibson amplifier. Anthony modeled his bass playing after Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones mostly, but also admired Jack Bruce of Cream, and Harvey Brooks of Electric Flag. His main interest in life was music once he left high school. His first band was called Poverty’s Children. Other bands he played in included Black Opal, Balls and Snake. Although Anthony is naturally left-handed, he plays right-handed.
Snake, a three-piece group featuring Anthony on lead vocals and bass guitar, was the last band Mike played in before joining Van Halen. Snake played covers of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Foghat, along with some original songs. They played a lot of the same types of gigs as did the Van Halen brothers’ band Mammoth. Snake even opened for Mammoth at a show at Pasadena High School one night. Mammoth’s PA failed that night, so Anthony lent them Snake’s PA.
While attending Pasadena City College, Mike pursued a degree in music. Alex Van Halen took classes there too and they would often see each other on campus. During this time, Mark Stone was kicked out of Mammoth and the Van Halens decided to audition Anthony to be their new bassist. Anthony was impressed by their skill during subsequent jam sessions even though he had seen the brothers play before. After the session, the Van Halen brothers asked Anthony to join the their band. He said he had to think about it and consulted Snake guitarist Tony Codgen who advised Anthony to go ahead with joining Van Halen. However, according to Michael Anthony’s web site, when asked if he wanted to join Van Halen, Anthony immediately said yes, that there was no consulting with anyone.
Van Halen (1974–1996)
Main article: Van Halen
In 1974, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen along with David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony became known as Van Halen, dropping the name Mammoth because they discovered that another local band was using that moniker. They were signed to Warner Brothers in 1977 and released their self titled debut album on February 8, 1978. Anthony’s bass lines and high vocal harmonies became a distinctive part of the Van Halen sound. The band released a total of ten studio albums from 1978–1995, along with a live album and a compilation CD in 1996 that featured two previously unreleased songs. Despite the Van Halen brothers falling out with both their vocalists frequently (David Lee Roth in 1985, 1996, 2000 and 2001 and Sammy Hagar in both 1996 and 2004), Anthony maintained positive relationships with all of the musicians.
Diminishing role with Van Halen and side projects (1996–2003)
As early as 1996, rumors periodically surfaced that Anthony had been fired from Van Halen. Despite claims to the contrary and his continued work with the band, these persisted until his final departure.
Anthony’s involvement in the 1998 album Van Halen III was less than for previous albums. Anthony performed on only three songs; Eddie Van Halen recorded the others. Anthony is credited as a songwriter for the album along with the rest of the band as is always the case for Van Halen albums. Anthony performed with the band for the 1998 tour, and was credited for messages from the band thereafter. He participated in the band’s three reunion attempts with David Lee Roth from 2000 through 2001. Anthony’s name was also credited in a few band newsletters during this time, and he appeared in band interviews. Sometime after this, however, Anthony disappeared from public view until the 2004 reunion.
In interviews, Eddie and Alex Van Halen suggested they were jamming and writing/recording new material during this time period but appeared to be working without Anthony.
Anthony began periodic appearances with Sammy Hagar during his solo tours. He usually played as part of The Waboritas, Hagar’s band. During 2002′s David Lee Roth/Sammy Hagar tour, both Michael Anthony and ex-Van Halen vocalist Gary Cherone make guest appearances at concerts, sometimes together. Anthony never performed during Roth’s segment however.
In 2002, Anthony, Hagar, Neal Schon, Deen Castronovo, and Joe Satriani formed the “supergroup” Planet Us and Anthony began making more frequent performances at Sammy Hagar concerts. Planet US recorded two songs, one of which was intended for the Spider-Man soundtrack but ultimately did not make the album. The band did perform the unreleased song Vertigo on the Internet radio show RockLine.
Van Halen reunion (2003–2005)
Initially when Eddie and Alex asked Hagar to rejoin at the end of 2003 for a 2004 tour, the plan was not to invite Anthony back. Hagar, however, refused to perform if Anthony did not rejoin, and Anthony agreed to play but on a reduced royalties contract. The contract drawn up was for the duration of the tour only, with his role within the band resting in the hands of the Van Halen brothers thereafter. Throughout this time, and during the Van Halen III period, the public was unaware of Anthony’s tenuous status within the band and was led to believe that he was still a full-time member.
In 2004, Van Halen released the compilation album The Best of Both Worlds which included three new songs. Anthony did not participate in the writing and recording of the new songs and was not credited on the album for the new material.[1]
Anthony now states in media interviews that he has not spoken to the Van Halen brothers since the 2004 tour. He has also speculated that since the brothers were not pleased with Hagar’s commercial ventures such as the Cabo Wabo product line, their similar displeasure with Anthony’s hot sauce brand may have caused the rift that ultimately separated Hagar and Anthony from the band.[2]
Departure from Van Halen and recent projects (2006–present)
Anthony spent the Summer of 2006 touring as a member of The Other Half during a segment of the Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas tour. The Other Half featured Anthony and Hagar performing classic Van Halen songs from both the Roth and Hagar periods.
On September 8, 2006, Eddie Van Halen announced that his son, Wolfgang, was replacing Michael Anthony as Van Halen’s bass player. On February 2, 2007, it was announced that Van Halen was reuniting for a tour with original vocalist David Lee Roth. The tour began on September 27, 2007. Anthony commented that he heard about his replacement “on the Internet” and stated, “I’m a little miffed that they’re calling it a Van Halen reunion. If I was dead and they needed someone to play, that’s one thing, but to me this is not a reunion.”[3]
Anthony surprised his former bandmate and good friend Sammy Hagar on live national TV on February 25, 2007. During a pre-race performance for the California race on FOX television, the bassist jumped onstage and joined Sammy Hagar during a performance of “I Can’t Drive 55″. Hagar could only respond “Michael Anthony’s in the house.”
Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar were the only members, former or current, to appear at Van Halen’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007. Eddie Van Halen was in rehab at the time, and Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth declined to appear.[4]
Anthony is currently developing a side project called “Chickenfoot” with Sammy Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Joe Satriani, which will include a yet unnamed studio album release. He has also recently established a band named the Mad Anthony Xpress that will tour with Hagar in 2007 and 2008.
1960 – Steve Vai: Widdlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddly-SCREECH! Yes, it’s happy birthday to Steve Vai, born today in Long Island, N.Y. this day in rock Guitar God History!
Steven “Steve” Siro Vai (born June 6, 1960 in Carle Place, New York) is an American instrumental rock guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and producer.
After starting his professional career as a music transcriptionist for Frank Zappa, Vai would also record and tour in Zappa’s backing band starting in 1980. The guitarist began a solo career starting in 1984 and has released 13 solo albums as of 2008. Apart from his work with Frank Zappa, Vai has also recorded and toured with numerous musical artists including Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake. Vai has been a regular touring member of the G3 Concert Tour which began in 1996. In 1999 Vai started his own record label Favored Nations with the intent to showcase, as Vai describes: “…artists that have attained the highest performance level on their chosen instruments.”.
Career
1970s and 1980s
In 1974, Vai took guitar lessons from guitarist Joe Satriani, and played in numerous local bands. He has acknowledged the influence of many guitarists including Jeff Beck and fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Vai then attended the Berklee College of Music.
Vai mailed Frank Zappa a transcription of Zappa’s “The Black Page”, an instrumental song written for drums, along with a tape with some of Vai’s guitar playing. Zappa was so impressed with the abilities of the young musician that he hired him in 1979 to do work transcribing several of his guitar solos, including many of those appearing on the Joe’s Garage album and the Shut Up ‘n’ Play Yer Guitar series. These transcriptions were published in 1982 in The Frank Zappa Guitar Book.
Subsequent to being hired as a transcriber, Vai did overdubs on many of the guitar parts for Zappa’s album You Are What You Is. Thereafter he became a full-fledged band member, going on his first tour with Zappa in the Autumn of 1980. One of those early shows with Vai on guitar, recorded in Buffalo was released in 2007. While touring with Zappa’s band, Vai would sometimes ask audience members to bring musical scores and see if he could sight-read them on the spot. Zappa referred to Vai as his “little Italian virtuoso” and was listed in liner notes as “stunt guitar” or “impossible guitar parts”. He would later be a featured artist on the 1993 recording, Zappa’s Universe. In 2006 he returned to playing Zappa music as a special guest on Dweezil Zappa’s ‘Zappa Plays Zappa’ tour.
After leaving Zappa in 1982 he moved to California where he recorded his first album Flex-Able and performed in a couple of bands. In 1985 he replaced Yngwie Malmsteen as lead guitarist in Graham Bonnet’s Alcatrazz with whom he recorded the album Disturbing the Peace. Later in 1985 he joined former Van Halen front man David Lee Roth’s group to record the albums Eat ‘Em and Smile and Skyscraper. This significantly increased Vai’s visibility to general rock audiences, since Roth was in a highly public battle with the Van Halen members and Vai was favorably compared by many commentators to Eddie Van Halen.
In 1986 Vai also surprised everyone by playing with ex-Sex Pistols John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd on their album Album (also known as Compact Disc or Cassette). Then in 1989 Vai stepped into guitarist Adrian Vandenberg’s shoes to record with British rock-group Whitesnake after Vandenberg injured his wrist shortly before recording was due to begin for the album Slip of the Tongue. Vai also played on the Alice Cooper album Hey Stoopid along with Joe Satriani on the song Feed my Frankenstein.
1990s and 2000s
Vai continues to tour regularly, both with his own group and with his one-time teacher and fellow guitar instrumentalist friend Joe Satriani on the G3 series of tours. Former David Lee Roth and Mr. Big bassist Billy Sheehan also joined him for a world tour. In 1990 Vai released his critically acclaimed solo album Passion and Warfare. The song For the Love of God was voted #29 in a readers’ poll of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time for the magazine Guitar World.
In 1994 Vai began writing and recording with Ozzy Osbourne. Only one track from these sessions—”My Little Man”—was released on the Ozzmosis album. Despite Vai penning the track he does not appear on the album. His guitar parts were replaced by Zakk Wylde. Vai’s band members throughout the 1990s included drummer Mike Mangini, guitarist Mike Keneally and bassist Philip Bynoe. In 1994 Vai received a Grammy Award for his performance on the Frank Zappa song Sofa from the album Zappa’s Universe.
Vai playing a twin-necked IbanezIn July 2002, Steve Vai performed with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan, in the world premiere of composer Ichiro Nodaira’s Fire Strings, a concerto for electric guitar and 100-piece orchestra. In 2004, a number of his compositions for orchestra, as well as orchestra arrangements of previously recorded pieces, were performed in The Netherlands by the Metropole Orchestra in a concert series entitled The Aching Hunger. In 2003, drummer Jeremy Colson joined Vai’s group replacing previous drummer Virgil Donati. Vai’s latest album, Sound Theories, was released in 2007.
Steve Vai released a DVD of his performance at The Astoria in London in December 2001, featuring the lineup of bassist Billy Sheehan, guitarist/pianist Tony MacAlpine, guitarist Dave Weiner and drummer Virgil Donati.
In 2004, Steve Vai was featured on Xbox’s Halo 2 Volume 1 soundtrack, performing a heavy rock-guitar rendition of the Halo theme, known as Halo Theme (Mjolnir Mix). He also performed on the track Never Surrender. He later featured in the second volume of the soundtrack, where he performed on the track Reclaimer.
In February 2005, Vai premiered a dual-guitar (electric and classical) piece that he wrote called The Blossom Suite with classical guitarist Sharon Isbin at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris. In 2006, Vai played as a “special guest” guitarist alongside additional guest Zappa band members, drummer Terry Bozzio and saxophonist-singer Napoleon Murphy Brock in the Zappa Plays Zappa tour led by Frank’s son Dweezil Zappa in Europe and the U.S. in the Spring as well as a short U.S. tour in October.
On September 21 2006, Vai made a special appearance at the Video Games Live concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California. He played two songs with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. One song being the Halo Theme, the second was for the world premier trailer for Halo 3.
Steve Vai made an appearance at the London Guitar Show 2007 on the 28th April 2007 at the ExCeL Center by doing a masterclass. In late April 2007, Vai confirmed the release of his next record, called Sound Theories, on June 26. The release will be a 2-CD set consisting mostly of previously released material that Vai rearranged and played in front of a full orchestra. Vai says that the project was a great joy because he considers himself to be a composer more than a guitarist, and he is happy to see music he has composed played by an orchestra that can play it well. A DVD will eventually accompany the record but will be released in August. He makes a guest appearance on the most recent Dream Theater album, Systematic Chaos, on the song “Repentance”. However, this appearance is vocal rather than instrumental, as Vai is one of many musical guests recorded apologizing to important people in their lives for wrongdoings committed in their pasts.
Vai is set to release a DVD of his show dated 19 September 2007 at the Minneapolis State Theater from his 2007 Tour.
Movies
Steve Vai’s music has been featured in a number of feature films, including Dudes and Ghosts of Mars. He appeared onscreen in the 1986 Ralph Macchio movie Crossroads, playing the demonically-inspired Jack Butler. At the film’s climax, Vai engages in a guitar duel with Macchio, whose guitar parts were dubbed by Vai and also Ry Cooder, who played the initial slide work in the duel and Macchio’s earlier performances in the film. The fast-paced neo-classical track entitled Eugene’s Trick Bag with which Macchio wins the competition was also composed by Vai. The body of the piece was heavily based on Paganini’s Caprice #5. He later borrowed the opening riff from the track Head Cuttin’ Duel for a song called Bad Horsie from his 1995 EP Alien Love Secrets. Later the Crossroads duel reappeared on the 2002 album The Elusive Light and Sound, volume 1.
In 1991′s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey the introductory riff to KISS’ God Gave Rock ‘N Roll To You II, as performed by the Wyld Stallyns in the Battle of the Bands was performed by Vai. He also composed and performed the soundtrack to PCU (1994), and made contributions in 2001 to the score for John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars, performing on the tracks Ghosts of Mars and Ghost Poppin. His track Drive the Hell Out Of Here can be heard during 1992′s Encino Man in the scene where Brendan Fraser is taking a driving lesson.
Musical style
This section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2008)
Vai performing in 2001Vai is widely recognized as a technically highly advanced rock guitarist and has been described as a virtuoso in the world of guitar music . He has mastered many performance techniques on the instrument including legato, pinch harmonics and volume swells, and is noted for his whammy bar effects and sporadic outbursts on the instrument often contrasting sweep-picking or finger tapping with slower sections to his compositions. His 1990 album Passion and Warfare and the ballad For the Love of God in particular received a significant amount of press and are often cited by critics and fans alike as amongst his best work to date .
Vai’s playing style has been characterized as quirky and angular, owing to his technical facility with the instrument and deep knowledge of music theory. Vai was the first to use the 7-string guitar in a rock context – having designed the 7-string electric guitar, and has used double and triple neck guitars on many occasions.
Equipment
Vai is an accomplished studio producer (he owns two: “The Mothership” and “The Harmony Hut” ) and his own recordings combine his signature guitar prowess with novel compositions and considerable use of studio and recording effects, such as the Eventide H3000 ultra harmonizer and Digidesign’s Pro Tools HD recording system and plug-in effects architecture.
Vai also helped design his signature Ibanez JEM series of guitars. They feature a hand grip (fondly referred to as a “monkey grip”) cut into the top of the body of the guitar, a humbucker-single coil-humbucker DiMarzio pickup configuration with several different types of pickup including Evolution, Breed and EVO 2. He also uses Floyd Rose locking tremolo system, as well as an elaborate and extensive “Vine of Life” inlay down the neck. Vai also equips many of his guitars with an Ibanez Backstop, a tremolo stabilizer that has been discontinued. Vai also has a 7-string model designed by him named Ibanez Universe. The Universe later influenced the 7-string guitars used by Korn and other bands to create nu metal sounds in the late 1990s. He also has a signature Ibanez acoustic, the Euphoria. Before he used Ibanez, he briefly endorsed Jackson guitars, but this relationship would only last for two years.
Steve Vai has also worked with Carvin Guitars and Pro Audio to develop the Carvin Legacy line of guitar amplifiers. Vai wanted to create an amp that was unique and equal in sound, versatility, and affordability to any guitar amp he had previously used. Over his long musical career, Steve Vai has used and designed an array of guitars. He even had his DNA put into the swirl paint job on one of his signature JEM guitars, the JEM2KDNA, in the form of his blood. Only 300 of these were ever made. Nowadays he mainly uses his white “Evo”, a JEM7V, and his “Flo”, which is a customized Floral Jem 777FP painted white. They are both inscribed with their names in two places, mainly in order to allow him to distinguish between the guitars he uses onstage. “Flo” is equipped with a Fernandes sustainer system.
He also has a guitar named “Mojo” in which the dot inlays are blue LED lights. Additionally, he has a custom-made triple-neck guitar that has the same basic features as his JEM7V guitars. The top neck is a 12-string guitar, the middle is a 6-string, and the bottom is a 6-string fretless guitar with a Fernandes Sustainer pickup. This guitar was featured on the G3 2003 tour on the piece I Know You’re Here. Vai’s effects pedals include a modified Boss DS-1, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Morley Bad Horsie, TC Electronics G-System, Morley Little Alligator Volume pedal, Digitech Whammy, and an MXR Phase 90. His flight cases are labeled “Mr. Vai”, or latterly, “Dr. Vai”. He used a number of rack effects units controlled via MIDI, but used a floor-based TC electronics G system instead for the Zappa Plays Zappa tour. Vai also has a signature pedal in the works with Ibanez called the “Jemini” pedal (see external links for a picture). This pedal is expected to be released at Winter NAMM 2008.
Philanthropy
In 2005, Vai signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S.A. He sits on its board of directors as an honorary member.
Favored Nations
Vai owns Favored Nations, a recording and publishing company that specializes in internationally procuring and maintaining recording artists. Favored Nations is separated into three sections, ‘Favored Nations’, ‘Favored Nations Acoustic’ and ‘Favored Nations Cool (Jazz style)’
Artists who the Favored Nations label works or has worked with include Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather, Neal Schon, Yngwie Malmsteen, Mattias IA Eklundh, Tommy Emmanuel, Vernon Reid, The Yardbirds, Larry Coryell, Mimi Fox, Eric Sardinas, Dweezil Zappa, Dave Weiner and Johnny A.
Personal life
Vai is married to Pia Maiocco, former bass player of Vixen, who can be seen in Hardbodies. Vai and Maiocco have two children, Julian Angel and Fire. In his spare time Vai enjoys keeping bees, which regularly produce a crop of honey that Vai sells for his Make a Noise Foundation.
Band History – not including guest appearances
Frank Zappa (1980-1982)
Steve Vai (1982-1984)
Alcatrazz (1985)
David Lee Roth (1985-1986)
Public Image Ltd. (1985-1986)
Frank Zappa (1986)
David Lee Roth (1987-1988)
Whitesnake (1988-1990)
Solo (1989-present)
Ozzy Osbourne (1995)
Current band members
Steve Vai – vocals, lead guitar
Dave Weiner – rhythm guitar
Ann Marie Calhoun – Fiddle, keyboard
Brian Beller – bass guitar
Jeremy Colson – drums, percussion
Alex Depue- Violin
Discography
Solo albums
Flex-Able (1984)
Flex-Able Leftovers (1984)
Passion and Warfare (1990)
Sex & Religion (1993)
Alien Love Secrets (1995)
Fire Garden (1996)
The Ultra Zone (1999)
The 7th Song (2000)
Alive in an Ultra World (2001)
The Elusive Light and Sound, volume 1 (2002)
The Infinite Steve Vai: An Anthology (2003)
Real Illusions: Reflections (2005)
Sound Theories (2007)
Appearances on Zappa albums
Year Album Credit
1981 Tinseltown Rebellion Rhythm guitar, vocals
1981 Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar Rhythm guitar
1981 You Are What You Is Strat abuse
1982 Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch Guitar parts
1983 The Man from Utopia Guitar parts
1984 Them or Us Guitar
1984 Thing-Fish Guitar, vocals
1985 Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention Guitar
1987 Jazz from Hell Guitar
1988 Guitar Stunt guitar
1988 You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore Sampler Stunt guitar
1988 You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1 Stunt guitar
1989 You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3 Stunt guitar
1991 You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4 Stunt guitar, vocals
1991 Beat the Boots I: As An Am Stunt guitar
1992 You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 Stunt guitar
1992 You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6 Stunt guitar
1995 Strictly Commercial Guitar
1997 Have I Offended Someone? Guitar
1998 Cheap Thrills Guitar
1999 Son of Cheep Thrills Guitar, vocals
With other artists
Year Artist Album
1983 Lisa Popeil Lisa Popeil
1985 Heresy At The Door
1985 Alcatrazz Disturbing the Peace
1985 Public Image Ltd. Album
1986 Bob Harris The Great Nostalgia
1986 Shankar & Caroline The Epidemics
1986 David Lee Roth Eat ‘Em and Smile / Sonrisa Salvaje
1986 Randy Coven Funk Me Tender
1986 Western Vacation Western Vacation
1988 David Lee Roth Skyscraper
1989 Whitesnake Slip of the Tongue
1990 Rebecca The Best of Dreams
1991 Alice Cooper Hey Stoopid
1994 Whitesnake Whitesnake’s Greatest Hits
1995 Ozzy Osbourne Ozzmosis (cowriter on one song)
1996 Wild Style Cryin’
1997 Munetaka Higuchi with Dream Castle Free World
1997 Joe Satriani / Eric Johnson / Steve Vai G3: Live in Concert
1997 David Lee Roth The Best
1998 Gregg Bissonette Gregg Bissonette
1998 Al Di Meola The Infinite Desire
1999 Joe Jackson Symphony No. 1
2000 Whitesnake The Back to Black Collection
2000 Gregg Bissonette Submarine
2000 Thana Harris Thanatopsis
2000 Andrew Dice Clay Face Down, Ass Up
2001 Robin DiMaggio Blue Planet
2001 Billy Sheehan Compression
2002 Tak Matsumoto Hana
2003 Surinder Sandhu Saurang Orchestra
2002 Girls Together Outrageously (G.T.O) Solo in their cover version of “I’ll Be Around”
2003 Eric Sardinas Black Pearls
2003 Steve Lukather & Friends SantaMental
2003 Hughes Turner Project HTP 2
2003 Shankar & Gingger One in a Million
2003 Yardbirds Birdland
2004 Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen G3: Live – Rockin’ In The Free World
2004 Motörhead Inferno
2004 Bob Carpenter The Sun, The Moon, The Stars
2004 Mike Keneally Vai: Piano Reductions, Vol. 1
2005 John 5 Songs for Sanity
2005 Dave Weiner Live at Astoria DVD
2005 Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Petrucci G3: Live in Tokyo
2006 The Devin Townsend Band Synchestra
2006 Marty Friedman Loudspeaker
2006 Meat Loaf Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose
2007 Aki Rahimovski U vremenu izgubljenih
2007 Dream Theater (spoken voice only) Systematic Chaos
2007 Eros Ramazzotti e²
Soundtracks
Year Soundtrack Type
1986 Crossroads Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
1987 Dudes Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
1991 Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
1992 Encino Man Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
1994 PCU Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
1997 Formula 1 Original Video Game Soundtrack
2001 Ghosts of Mars Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
2004 Halo 2 Soundtrack Volume 1 Original Video Game Soundtrack
2006 Halo 2 Soundtrack Volume 2 Original Video Game Soundtrack
Compilations
Year Artists Compilation
1989 Various Guitar’s Practicing Musicians
1993 Various Zappa’s Universe
1995 Various In From The Storm
1996 Various Songs of West Side Story
1997 Various A Guitar Christmas
1997 Various Angelica
1999 Various Radio Disney Kid Jams
2001 Various Roland Guitar Masters
2002 Various Guitars For Freedom
2002 Various Warmth In The Wilderness Vol. II – A Tribute to Jason Becker
2004 Various Halo 2 Original Soundtrack
2006 Various Monsters of Rock
Awards and Nominations
Grammy Winner
1994 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “Sofa” from Zappa’s Universe
2001 Best Pop Instrumental No Substitutions [Steve Vai Producer/Engineer]
Grammy Nomination
1990 Best Rock Instrumental Album Passion & Warfare
1995 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “Tender Surrender” – from Alien Love Secrets
1997 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “For the Love of God” – from G3 Live in Concert
1999 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “Windows to the Soul” – from The Ultra Zone
2001 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “Whispering a Prayer” – from Alive in an Ultra World
2006 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “Lotus Feet” — lost to Les Paul & Friends’s “69 Freedom Special”
2008 Best Rock Instrumental Performance “The Attitude Song” — lost to Bruce Springsteen’s “Once Upon a Time in the West”
Guitar Player Magazine
1995 Gallery of Greats
1995 Best Rock Guitarist (Tie with Jimmy Page)
1995 Best Overall Guitarist 3rd Place
1995 Best Experimental Guitarist (Tie with Buckethead)
1995 Best Metal Recording 3rd Place
1995 Best Overall Guitar Recording 2nd Place
1995 Best Metal Guitarist 3rd Place
1990 Best Rock Guitarist
1990 Best Overall Guitarist
1990 Best Guitar Album
1990 Best Metal Guitarist
1989 Best Rock Guitarist
1988 Best Rock Guitarist
1987 Best Rock Guitarist
1987 Best Overall Guitarist
1986 Best Rock Guitarist
Guitar World
1990 Most Valued Player (tie with Stevie Ray Vaughan)
1990 Best Album
1990 Best Rock Guitarist
1990 Best Guitar Solo (For the Love of God)
1989 Best Rock Guitarist
International Music Awared Nomination
1990 Best Guitarist
Select Magazine (UK)
1990 Best Album (Passion and Warfare)
1990 Best Musician
1990 Sexiest Male
Guitar for the Practicing Musician
1993 Editor’s Choice Award
1990 Reader’s Choice – Guitar Album of the Year
1990 Best Instrumental Guitarist of the Year
1988 Rock Guitarist of the Year
1987 Hall of Fame
1986 Guitar in the 90’s Award
Kerrang (UK)
1993 Best Hard Rock Performance
1990 Guitarist of the Year
1989 Best Rock Guitarist
Young Guitar (Japan)
1997 Best Rock Guitarist
1991 Best Rock Guitarist
Rock Brigade
1996 Best Guitarist
1997 Best Guitarist
RAW
990 Best Selling Album (No. 10)
1990 Best Selling LP Sleeve (No. 1)
1990 Best Selling Promo Video (No. 5, I Would Love To)
1990 Best Selling Promo Video (No. 7, The Audience is Listening)
1990 Best Sex Object (No. 6)
1990 Best RAW Cover (No. 3)
Player
1995 Best Hard Rock Guitarist – 2nd Place
Making Music
1990 Best Album
1990 Best Guitarist
1990 Best Musician
Metal Hammer
1990 Best Guitarist (Reader’s Poll)
California Music Awards
2001 Outstanding Guitarist (nominee)
1999 – Van Halen Box: 1986-1993 is released this day in rock.
Release date: 1999-03-16
Track List:
* 1. Good Enough
* 2. Why Can’t This Be Love?…
* 3. Get Up
* 4. Dreams
* 5. Summer Nights
* 6. Best of Both Worlds
* 7. Love Walks In
* 8. 5150
* 9. Inside
1998 – David Bowie kicks off a contest on his Web site Bowienet.com, asking users to help him finish writing the lyrics for the song “What’s Really Happening.” All references to laughing gnomes are immediately discarded, and the eventual winner is 20-year-old Alex Grant.
Sammy Hagar with Van HalenSammy Hagar with Van Halen
1995 -Van Halen, scored their first US No.1 album with ‘Balance.’
Balance is the tenth studio album by the American hard rock band Van Halen. It was released in 1995 and, to date, is the final Van Halen album featuring lead singer Sammy Hagar. It is the fourth full length studio album with Sammy Hagar. Considering it came at time when classic hard rock was not in the limelight it sold very well.
“Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)” was originally, “What Love Can Do”. The song was written about the power of universal love. Somewhere along the way, the band decided they didn’t want to hear about the healing power of love, and the song took on a new direction including an indirect reference to the death of Kurt Cobain.
The song “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” pays homage to Ray Charles, who had his own hit song entitled “I Can’t Stop Loving You”. The Van Halen song references this with the lyric: “Hey, Ray, what you said is true, I can’t stop lovin’ you”.
The Japanese Import also includes the bonus track “Crossing Over”, which was the B-side to “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You”.
During the Balance tour show in Pensacola, Florida 1995, Sammy Hagar stated that “Take Me Back (Deja Vu)” was “a true story”. The song itself features a then almost 20 year old riff Eddie had previously used on a song entitled “No More Waiting” which the band played on occasion in the pre-Van Halen I era.
The instrumental “Strung Out” was actually recorded in 1983, prior to the recording of 1984. The actual recording is Eddie “playing” the strings of a Grand Piano with various objects including ping pong balls, D-cell batteries, knives and forks.
It was this 1983 session that Eddie had rented a house that belonged to Marvin Hamlish. There was a piano in the house that Eddie destroyed while recording himself using the aforementioned objects on the piano’s strings. The piece actually comes from 6 hours of recorded noise. Eddie was forced to pay around $15,000 for the damage and Balance producer, Bruce Fairbairn said that a recording that expensive shouldn’t go to waste.
The third instrumental, “Baluchitherium”, was named after a large extinct land mammal by Eddie’s then-wife, Valerie Bertinelli. The song originally had lyrics; the vocal melody which Sammy Hagar later developed for guitar.
The album’s cover art was provided by Glen Wexler, which was based on a concept that Alex Van Halen described to him.
Contents
* 1 Track listing
* 2 Personnel
o 2.1 Band
o 2.2 Additional personnel
o 2.3 Production
* 3 Charts
o 3.1 Album
o 3.2 Singles
* 4 Notes
Track listing
All songs by Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Alex Van Halen and Edward Van Halen.
* Sammy Hagar – lead vocals, background vocals, rhythm guitar
* Eddie Van Halen – lead guitar, keyboards, background vocals
* Michael Anthony – bass, background vocals
* Alex Van Halen – drums, percussion
Additional personnel
* The Monks of Gyuro Tantric University – chants on “The Seventh Seal”
Production
* Bruce Fairbairn – production
* Erwin Musper, Mike Plotnikoff – engineering
* Mike Fraser – mixing
* George Marino – mastering
* Jeri Heiden – art direction
* Randee Saint Nicholas, Glen Wexler (front cover) – photography
Charts
Album
Year Chart Position
1995 The Billboard 200 1
Singles
Year Single Chart Position
1995 “Amsterdam” Mainstream Rock Tracks 9
1995 “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” Mainstream Rock Tracks 2
1995 “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” The Billboard Hot 100 30
1995 “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” Top 40 Mainstream 11
1995 “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)” Mainstream Rock Tracks 1
1995 “Not Enough” Mainstream Rock Tracks 27
1995 “Not Enough” The Billboard Hot 100 97
1995 “Not Enough” Top 40 Mainstream 39
1995 “The Seventh Seal” Mainstream Rock Tracks 36
1991 – Van Halen’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’‘ debuts at No. 1 on Chart Toppers’s pop album chart.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (also known as F.U.C.K.) is the ninth album by the American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1991. The album’s title came from lead singer Sammy Hagar, who wanted to push the issue of censorship with naming Van Halen’s album with a vulgarity, stating, “That’s when censorship was a big issue. I wanted to name the album just Fuck.” Hagar eventually backed away from the outright vulgarity after he was (mis)informed by his friend, former world lightweight boxing champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, that the word “fuck” was an acronym for the phrase “for unlawful carnal knowledge.”. Their tour promoting the album was named F.U.C.K. ‘n’ Live.
The album itself was marketed as the “return” to Van Halen’s rock roots, with most songs being guitar driven, and the synth sounds being replaced by pianos, as the synth sound had become very dated by the time of the album’s release. This can be prominently heard on “Right Now,” the most popular song from the album. The band also reconciled with producer Ted Templeman who produced earlier Van Halen albums to return to work on the album. This was the first album that Eddie Van Halen recorded without his trademark overdriven Marshall heads. It was said in interviews with Ted Templeman that Eddie’s Marshalls kept breaking down due to their age and the fact that Eddie overdrove the power amp stage to achieve his tone, so Ted helped Eddie settle on using a Soldano SLO-100 to record the album. Shortly after the recording of the album, Eddie started his long-time use of the 5150 series of custom amplifiers, manufactured by American instrument company Peavey.
“Poundcake” featured the sound of a battery operated power drill, which Eddie held to the pickups of his guitar and revved, creating the intro. The song “Top of the World” features a riff that was first heard during the outro of the 1984-era hit “Jump.” For this reason, “Top of the World” is frequently played directly after “Jump” and appears immediately after it on the “Best of Both Worlds” compilation. The instrumental “316″ is named for the March 16 birthday of Eddie’s son Wolfgang, who is currently Van Halen’s bass player, although the song predates his birth (as it can be heard on “Live Without A Net”.
Contents
* 1 Track listing
* 2 Personnel
o 2.1 Band
o 2.2 Guest musicians
* 3 Production
* 4 Miscellaneous
* 5 Charts
o 5.1 Album
o 5.2 Singles
* 6 Awards
* 7 References
Track listing
All songs by Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen.
1. “Poundcake” – 5:22
2. “Judgement Day” – 4:41
3. “Spanked” – 4:53
4. “Runaround” – 4:21
5. “Pleasure Dome” – 6:57
6. “In ‘n’ Out” – 6:05
7. “Man on a Mission” – 5:04
8. “The Dream Is Over” – 4:00
9. “Right Now” – 5:21
10. “316″ – 1:29
11. “Top of the World” – 3:55
Personnel
Band
* Sammy Hagar – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
* Eddie Van Halen – lead guitar, keyboards, electric drill (used on “Poundcake”), background vocals
* Michael Anthony – bass, background vocals
* Alex Van Halen – percussion, drums
Guest musicians
* Steve Lukather – background vocals on “Top of the World”
Production
* Producers: Andy Johns, Ted Templeman, Van Halen
* Engineers: Lee Herschberg, Andy Johns, Michael Scott, Mike Scott
* Mixing: Andy Johns, Michael Scott, Ted Templeman
* Art direction: Jeri Heiden
* Photography: David Seltzer, Glen Wexler
Miscellaneous
* The opening riff of “Pleasure Dome” is highly similar, and most likely an homage, to a prominent guitar line in the Rush song “Xanadu,” which is about the fabled “pleasure dome” of Mongol/Chinese emperor Kublai Khan. Coincidentally, Rush had just recently signed to Atlantic Records, a sister label to Van Halen’s then-label Warner Bros. Records.
* “Right Now” was used by Pepsi in their TV ads to introduce Crystal Pepsi. Adidas also used it in some ads for overseas markets.
* When playing the song “Poundcake” in concert, Eddie Van Halen often slides the rotating drill up and down the fret board.
* At the beginning of “Poundcake” you can hear band members talking before the song begins.
Charts
Album
Billboard (North America)
Year Chart Position
1991 The Billboard 200 1
Singles
Billboard (North America)
Year Single Chart Position
1991 “Poundcake” Mainstream Rock Tracks 1
1991 “Right Now” Mainstream Rock Tracks 2
1991 “Runaround” Mainstream Rock Tracks 1
1991 “Top of the World” Mainstream Rock Tracks 1
1991 “Top of the World” The Billboard Hot 100 27
1992 “Man on a Mission” Mainstream Rock Tracks 21
1992 “Right Now” The Billboard Hot 100 55
1992 “The Dream Is Over” Mainstream Rock Tracks 7
Awards
Grammy Awards
Year Winner Category
1991 For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Best Hard Rock Performance
1984 – No. 1 Chart Toppers Pop Hit: “Jump,” Van Halen. The song is the first top 10 single for the group, which has already placed 11 songs on the Hot 100.
Van Halen is an American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California in 1972. They enjoyed success from the release of their self titled debut album in 1978 until the late 1990s when various troubles overcame the band. As of 2007 Van Halen has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide and have had the most number one hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Van Halen is the 19th best selling band/artist of all time with sales of over 56 million albums in the USA and is one of five rock bands that have had two albums sell more than 10 million copies in the USA.
In addition to being recognized for quality and success, the band is known for the drama surrounding the exits of former members. The (multiple) exits of singers Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth were surrounded in controversy and mass press coverage with various contrasting press statements between them and the band. More recently, founding bassist Michael Anthony was kicked out of the band for controversial reasons. Following their 2004 concert tour the band was on a hiatus from the public until September 2006, new bassist Wolfgang Van Halen’s place was confirmed and Roth-reunion rumours began to re-surface coinciding with the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on March 12, 2007. After years of speculation, Van Halen began a tour with Roth in late 2007 across North America, which has been extended into early 2008. An album is proposed to follow
Members (2006–present)
David Lee Roth – lead vocals, acoustic guitar (1974–1985, 1996, 2006-Present)
Eddie Van Halen – guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (1972–present)
Wolfgang Van Halen – bass guitar, backing vocals (2006–present)
Alex Van Halen – drums, percussion, additional studio backing vocals (1972–present)
Former members
Mark Stone – bass guitar (1972–1974)
Michael Anthony – bass guitar, backing vocals, additional live keyboards (1974–2002, 2003-2005)
Sammy Hagar – lead vocals, guitar, live acoustic guitars (1985–1996, 2003–2005)
Mitch Malloy – lead vocals (1996)
Gary Cherone – lead vocals (1996–1999)
Influence on culture, music, and business
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The Van Halen album introduced the guitar world to the band’s signature “Brown sound,” a nickname given to the result of Eddie’s guitar/amp combination and technique. With Templeman’s production, this tone was carefully defined.
The song “Everybody Wants Some!!” appears in the movie Better Off Dead. While Lane Meyer (John Cusack) works in a burger restaurant wishing he were elsewhere, he imagines the food singing and dancing to the popular track via claymation. In the 1985 movie Back to the Future Marty McFly uses a portable cassette player to torture his father by playing Van Halen at excessive volume. The music was taken from Eddie’s demo tapes.
Van Halen pioneered the modern rock music tour with their use of the concert technical contract rider. Van Halen’s use of contract riders to specify their “wish list” was new, and established practices now used throughout the music industry. As one of the first major bands with a travelling stage show, Van Halen had extensive requirements including power availability and stage construction details. Many venues were not equipped to handle the requirements, resulting in damage to band equipment, once nearly killing a roadie. The band’s demands were not limited to technical issues: their now-infamous rider specified that a bowl of M&M candies, with all of the brown M&Ms removed, was to be placed in their dressing room. According to David Lee Roth, this was listed in the technical portion of the contract to check if venue staff were correctly honouring the contract as specified. If there was no bowl of M&Ms, or if there were brown M&M’s left in the bowl, then the band knew the contract was not being fulfilled entirely correctly and had to check every detail.
On Cartoon Network in the late 1990′s there was a series called The Justice Friends, a group of superheroes who exist in the universe of Dexter’s Laboratory. One of the main characters, Valhallen (a contraction for Valhalla and Van Halen), an axe-wielding Viking God of rock with Southern Californian mannerisms, is a melding of Norse God Thor and Eddie Van Halen. His axe is shaped like a guitar to re-enforce this.
Influential American punk trio The Minutemen recorded a 40-second version of “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” for their landmark double album Double Nickels on the Dime, though the arrangement was changed significantly to fit the time. Rapper Tone Loc used uncredited samples from “Jamie’s Cryin’” on his hit “Wild Thing,” but when asked about it later Alex Van Halen said “It was 1987, who knew?”. In 1989, 2 Live Crew sampled the riff of “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” for thir single “The Fuck Shop”. Dance music act Apollo 440 sampled the guitar intro from “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” for their 1997 single “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub”. Van Halen’s arrangement of the song “You Really Got Me” (performed by other artists) was featured in the video game Guitar Hero II.
Side projects and collaborations
Members of Van Halen have collaborated with ex-members numerous times, or even in each other’s side projects.
1967–1972: Eddie and Alex Van Halen begin learning instruments together, performing in various small venues. They then joined various “Top 40″ cover bands.
1972–1973: Mammoth, the band which would become Van Halen rented a PA system from David Lee Roth.
In 1983 Eddie played guitar on Brian May’s Star Fleet Project album which also featured Alan Gratzer, Phil Chen and Fred Mandel.
1987: Eddie played bass on I Never Said Goodbye, Sammy Hagar’s 1987 solo album and was one of the album’s backing vocalists and producers. Eddie also contributed a small guitar part, though it was uncredited.
1987: Eddie played bass and Hagar sang/played guitar on the song ‘Winner Takes All’ for the Over the Top movie soundtrack
1991: David Lee Roth had Extreme (featuring future-Van Halen frontman Gary Cherone) as a support act on tour
1995: On the front cover of the band’s Balance album, future member Wolfgang Van Halen is pictured
1996: The instrumental track ‘Respect the Wind’, for the Twister movie was by Eddie and Alex Van Halen. This is Alex Van Halen’s only work outside of Van Halen, largely because he insists on only performing with his brother. Alex also played keyboards, usually Eddie’s role. Often considered a Van Halen song – it was not released with any contributions from Michael Anthony, or Sammy Hagar (whose exit from the band had yet to be announced)
2001: Anthony joined Hagar for a few of his concerts
2002: Hagar and Roth combined for the Song For Song, the Heavyweight Champs of Rock and Roll Tour, also known as the Sans Halen tour
2002: On the first and second of June, Anthony came onstage for several songs during Hagar’s set in the Hagar/Roth tour. He continued to appear periodically. Gary Cherone came on stage for a Boston date on August 28 during Sammy Hagar’s set, as did Anthony
2002 – 2003: Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony were part of the Planet Us supergroup before leaving (and dissolving the band with them) for the 2004 Van Halen reunion tour
2003: Some of the recordings from Hagar and Anthony’s performances together in 2001 and 2002 were included on a new Sammy Hagar live album, Live: Hallelujah.
2004: Wolfgang joined his father on guitar in the 2004 reunion tour for some dates, before officially joining the band
2005–2006: Michael Anthony joined Sammy Hagar’s solo band at numerous live dates to jam with them during their set.
2006–2007: Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony formed the Chickenfoot project with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith though no music was released.
2006-present: Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony’s ‘The Other Half’ tours. Gary Cherone appeared on occasion during the 2006 tour to perform too.
2007: Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony performed ‘Why Can’t This Be Love?’ at Van Halen’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame induction, and spoke in several interviews together
2007–present: Vic Johnson, guitarist from Sammy Hagar’s solo band is in Michael Anthony’s new band – Mad Anthony Xpress. They are joining Sammy Hagar’s latest tour for dates when Anthony is taking part in The Other Half performances.
1963 – Yngwie Malmsteen is born in Stockholm Sweden this day in rock history!
Yngwie Johann Malmsteen (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck on June 30, 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish guitarist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader. Malmsteen became notable in the mid-1980s for his technical fluency and neo-classical metal compositions. Four of his albums, from 1984 to 1988, Rising Force, Marching Out, Trilogy, and Odyssey, ranked in the top 100 for sales
Biography
Early life
Malmsteen was born on June 30, 1963, as the first child of a musically talented family in Stockholm, Sweden. At age seven, he saw a television news report on the death of Jimi Hendrix. To quote his official website, “The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Malmsteen was born”. At the age of 10 he took his mother’s maiden name Malmsten as his surname, slightly changed it to Malmsteen, and Anglicised his given name Yngve to “Yngwie”. Malmsteen was a teenager when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical music influence.
Through his emulation of Paganini concerto pieces on guitar, Malmsteen developed a prodigious technical fluency. Malmsteen’s guitar style include a wide, violin-like vibrato inspired by classical violinists, and use of such minor scales as the Harmonic minor, and minor modes such as Phrygian, and Aeolian. Malmsteen also cites Brian May of Queen, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Uli Jon Roth, Alex Lifeson of Rush, and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as influences.
1980s
In late 1982 Malmsteen was brought to the U.S. by Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records, who had heard a demo tape of Malmsteen’s playing. He had brief engagements with Steeler, for their self-titled album of 1983, then Alcatrazz, for their 1983 debut No Parole From Rock N’ Roll, and the 1984 live album Live Sentence. Malmsteen released his first solo album Rising Force in 1984, which featured Barrie Barlow of Jethro Tull on drums. His album was really meant to be an instrumental side-project of Alcatrazz, but it contained vocals, and Malmsteen left Alcatrazz soon after the release of Rising Force.
Rising Force won the Guitar Player Magazine’s award for Best Rock Album and was also nominated for a Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental’, achieving #60 on the Billboard album chart. Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force (as his band was thereafter known) next released Marching Out (1985). Jeff Scott Soto filled vocal duties on these initial albums. His third album, Trilogy, featuring the vocals of Mark Boals, was released in 1986. In 1987, another singer, former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner joined his band. That year, Malmsteen was in a serious car accident, smashing his Jaguar XKE into a tree and putting him in a coma for a week. Nerve damage to his right hand was reported. During his time in the hospital, Malmsteen’s mother died from cancer. In the summer of 1988 he released his fourth album, Odyssey. Odyssey would be his biggest hit album, mainly because of its first single “Heaven Tonight”. Shows in Russia during the Odyssey tour were recorded, and released in 1989 as his fifth album Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad. The concert in Leningrad was the largest ever by a western artist in the Soviet Union.
Malmsteen’s “Neo-classical” style of metal became moderately popular during the mid 1980s, with contemporaries such as Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Tony MacAlpine and Vinnie Moore becoming prominent. MacAlpine came to the neoclassical/shred field by applying his classical piano training to his guitar playing and Moore arrived at a similar style because he shared Malmsteen’s major influences. In late 1988, Malmsteen’s signature Fender Stratocaster guitar was released, making him and Eric Clapton the first artists to be honored by Fender.
1990s
In the early 1990s Malmsteen released the albums Eclipse (1990), The Yngwie Malmsteen Collection (1991), Fire and Ice (1992) and The Seventh Sign (1994). Despite his early success, and continuous success in Europe and Asia, by the early 1990s 1980s heavy metal styles such as neoclassical metal and lengthy, virtuoso shred guitar solos had become unfashionable in the US.
In the 1990s, Malmsteen continued to record and release albums under the Japanese record label Pony Canyon, and maintained a devoted following from some fans in Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the USA. In 2000, he once again acquired a contract with a US record label, Spitfire, and released his 1990s catalog into the US market for the first time, including what he regards as his masterpiece, Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague. In 1993, Malmsteen’s mother-in-law, who was opposed to his engagement with her daughter, had him arrested for threatening her with a shotgun and holding her daughter against her will . The charges against Malmsteen were dropped when he denied the incident.
2000s
After the release of War to End All Wars in 2000, singer Mark Boals left the band. Malmsteen went on tour with former Ark vocalist Jorn Lande. Due to various tensions on tour, Jorn left before the recording of Malmsteen’s next album, Attack!!. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Doogie White. White’s vocals were well received by fans. In 2003, Malmsteen joined Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of the G3 supergroup. Malmsteen made two guest appearances on keyboardist Derek Sherinian’s albums Black Utopia (2003), and Blood of the Snake (2006) where Malmsteen is heard on the same tracks as Al Di Meola and Zakk Wylde. In 2004, Malmsteen made two cameo appearances on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law- possibly alluded to his status as a guitarist.
Malmsteen released Unleash the Fury in 2005. He is married to April and has a son named Antonio after Antonio Vivaldi, and they live in Miami, Florida. A noted Ferrari enthusiast, he owned a black 1985 308 GTS February 2008 saw the replacement of singer Doogie White with former Iced Earth and Judas Priest and current Beyond Fear singer Tim Owens, with whom Malmsteen had once recorded a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mr. Crowley”, for the 2000 Osbourne tribute album Bat Head Soup: A Tribute to Ozzy. The first Malmsteen album to feature Owens is entitled Perpetual Flame and will be released October 14.
Equipment
Guitars
Malmsteen uses Fender Stratocasters, especially vintage instruments from 1968 through 1972. His Strats tend to feature scalloped fingerboards and DiMarzio HS-3 pickups, and (more recently) the staggered-polepiece HS-3 released as the Dimarzio YJM. He routinely disconnects the middle pickup and tone controls on his guitars. Malmsteen briefly used Schecter Guitars in the 1980s, who built him Stratocaster-style guitars similar to his Fenders. While in Alcatrazz, he also used Aria Pro II.
Live equipment
Malmsteen uses vintage 1972 Marshall amplifiers for his live performances, sometimes performing with a “wall” of up to 27 vintage Marshall 4×12 Cabinets with Celestion G12T-75 (75 watt) speakers. All of the 24 heads on the cabinets are Vintage 1972 Mark II Marshall 50 Watt heads. Floor effect pedals consist of a BOSS CS-3 Compression Sustainer, Roland DC-10 analog echo pedal, vintage Dunlop Cry-Baby Wah Pedal, Moog Taurus Bass Pedals, BOSS OC-2 Octave, DOD 250 Overdrive Pre-Amp pedal, BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor and a Custom Audio Electronics switching system for his effects rack.
Malmsteen’s guitars onstage are 1968-1972 Fender Stratocasters. For his acoustic sets, Malmsteen uses a nylon strung electro-acoustic black or white Ovation Viper. Prior to the Ovations, Malmsteen used Aria, Alvarez & Gibson classical acoustics on stage. Malmsteen regularly performs onstage with a custom light top, heavy bottom string gauge ranging from 0.08 through 0.48 gauge, which are considered by most guitarists to be very thin, especially with the downtuning used. Malmsteen’s picks are Jim Dunlop 1.5 white.
YJM308 Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive
Malmsteen had used the Gray DOD250 overdrive pedal exclusively throughout most of his career because of its warm, smooth and almost violin-like tonal characteristics, plus its dramatic yet clean signal boosting ability.
In order to protect his favorite but now Vintage Gray 250 pedals from the abuse of regular gigging and also to modernize his sound further for the new millennium, he assisted DOD in creating a somewhat treblier, less bass intensive version of their popular 90′s reissue yellow DOD250 pedal, which then became his signature model YJM308 overdrive.
Yngwie’s signature pedal was a big success first time around but got discontinued. It was later re-released due to public demand but has now been discontinued yet again. He now often uses the re-creation, named YJM308 after Malmsteen’s initials and the name of his favorite car, the Ferrari 308.
Band members
Previous members
* Jeff Scott Soto – lead vocals (1984-1985)
* Mark Boals – lead vocals (1986-1996-1999-2001)
* Joe Lynn Turner – lead vocals (1988-1989)
* Goran Edman – lead vocals (1990-1992)
* Mike Vescera – lead vocals (1994-1995)
* Mats Leven – lead vocals (1997-1998)
* Doogie White – lead vocals (2001-2008)
* Anders Johansson – drums (1985-1989)
* Mike Terrana – drums (1994)
* Jens Johansson – keyboards (1984-1989)
* Mats Olausson – keyboards (1990-2001)
* Derek Sherinian – keyboards (2001-2003-2004; 2007-2008)
* Svante Henrysson – bass (1990-1992)
* Barry Sparks – bass (1994-1995)
Current members
* Tim “Ripper” Owens – lead vocals (2008-present)
* Yngwie Malmsteen – guitars (1978-present)
* Michael Troy – keyboards (2007-present)
* Bjorn Englen – bass (2008-present)
* Patrick Johansson – drums, percussion (2001-present)
Discography
Steeler
Date of Release Title Label Chart positions US sales
1983 Steeler Shrapnel
Alcatrazz
Date of Release Title Label Chart positions US sales
1984 No Parole from Rock N’ Roll Polydor
1984 Live Sentence Polydor
Solo
Year Album Publisher Chart positions US sales
1984 Rising Force Polydor 60
October 1985 Marching Out Polydor 54
1986 Trilogy Polydor 44
March, 1988 Odyssey Polydor 40
October, 1989 Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad Polydor 128
1990 Eclipse Polydor 112
November, 1991 The Yngwie Malmsteen Collection Polydor
1992 Fire and Ice Elektra 121
February 18, 1994 The Seventh Sign Pony Canyon
September 21, 1994 Power And Glory Pony Canyon
October 21, 1994 I Cant Wait Pony Canyon
June 06, 1995 Magnum Opus Pony Canyon
November 05, 1996 Inspiration Pony Canyon
September 03, 1997 Facing the Animal Pony Canyon
February 04, 1998 Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in Em, Opus 1 Pony Canyon
September 18, 1998 Double LIVE! Pony Canyon
September 17, 1999 Alchemy Pony Canyon
March 15, 2000 Anthology 1994-1999 Pony Canyon
May 09, 2000 The Best Of: 1990-1999 Dream Catcher
November 22, 2000 War to End All Wars Pony Canyon
January 09, 2002 Concerto Suite LIVE With the New Japan Philharmonic Pony Canyon
September 04, 2002 Attack!! Pony Canyon
December 30, 2002 The Genesis Pony Canyon
January 01, 2004 Oujya Ressou – Instrumental Best Album Pony Canyon
March 10, 2004 G3: Rockin’ in the Free World Epic
February 23, 2005 Unleash the Fury Universal Music
October 14, 2008 Perpetual Flame Rising Force Records
1956 – Joseph “Satch” Satriani (born July 15, 1956 in Westbury, New York, U.S.) is an American guitarist and former guitar instructor. He is heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. He also has a signature series amplifier, the Peavey JSX.
In 1988, Satriani was recruited by the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for Jagger’s first solo tour.
Biography and playing history
Satriani during a recent concert at the Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12. 2008)
Satriani during a recent concert at the Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12. 2008)
Satriani was inspired to play guitar at age 14 after learning of the death of Jimi Hendrix. He reportedly heard the news during an American football training session, where he immediately confronted his coach and announced that he was quitting to become a guitarist.
In 1974, Satriani studied music with jazz guitarist Billy Bauer and with reclusive jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. The technically demanding Tristano greatly influenced Satriani’s playing. Satriani also began teaching guitar, with his most notable student at the time being fellow Long Island native Steve Vai. while he was Vai’s teacher, he was attending Five Towns College for studying in music.
In 1978 Satriani moved to Berkeley, California to pursue a music career. Not long after his arrival he resumed teaching. His students included Kirk Hammett (Metallica), David Bryson (Counting Crows), Kevin Cadogan (Third Eye Blind), Larry LaLonde (Primus, Possessed), Alex Skolnick (Testament), Rick Hunolt (Exodus), Phil Kettner (Lääz Rockit), Geoff Tyson, and Charlie Hunter.
When his friend and former student Steve Vai gained fame playing with David Lee Roth in 1986, Vai raved about Satriani in several interviews with guitar magazines. In 1987, Satriani’s second album Surfing with the Alien produced popular radio hits and was the first all-instrumental release to chart so highly in many years. In 1988 Satriani helped produce the EP The Eyes of Horror for the death metal band Possessed.
In 1989, Satriani released the album Flying in a Blue Dream. The album sold well, particularly in Texas. “One Big Rush” was featured on the soundtrack to the Cameron Crowe movie Say Anything. “The Forgotten Part II” was featured on a Labatt Blue commercial in Canada in 1993. “Big Bad Moon”, one of Satriani’s few songs to feature his vocals, was a minor hit in late 1989.
In 1992, Satriani released The Extremist, his most critically acclaimed and commercially successful album to date. Radio stations across the country were quick to pick up on “Summer Song”, while “Cryin’”, “Friends” and the title track were regional hits.
In late 1993, Satriani joined Deep Purple as a short-term replacement for departed guitarist Ritchie Blackmore during the band’s Japanese tour. The concerts were such a success that Satriani was asked to join the band permanently, but he declined, having just signed a multi-album solo deal with Sony, so Steve Morse took the guitarist slot in Deep Purple.
Satriani live with G3 in Milan in 2004
Satriani live with G3 in Milan in 2004
In 1996, he formed G3, a concert tour featuring three instrumental rock guitarists – originally Satriani, Vai, and Eric Johnson. The G3 tour has continued periodically since its inaugural version, where Satriani is the only permanent member, featured with a floating second and third member, including among others Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Andy Timmons, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg and Paul Gilbert.
In 1998 Satriani recorded and released Crystal Planet, which went back to a sound more reminiscent of his late ’80s work. Planet was followed up with Engines of Creation, one of his more experimental works featuring the ‘Electronica’ genre of music. During the subsequent tour, a pair of shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco were recorded in December 2000 and released as Live in San Francisco, a two-disc live album and DVD.
Over the next several years, Satriani regularly recorded and released new music, including Strange Beautiful Music in 2002 and Is There Love in Space? in 2004.
In 2006 Satriani recorded and released Super Colossal and Satriani Live!, another two-disc live album and DVD recorded May 3, 2006 at the Grove in Anaheim, CA.
On August 7, 2007 Epic/Legacy Recordings re-released Surfing with the Alien to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release. This was a two-disc set that includes a remastered album and a DVD of a previously never-before-seen live show filmed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1988.
Satriani’s newest album, titled Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock, was released on April 1, 2008.
It was revealed on May 29, 2008 that Satriani is involved in a new hard rock project with former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. The band, which will feature Hagar on vocals, Satriani on guitar, Anthony on bass and Smith on drums, is tentatively called “Chickenfoot”
On July 24, 2008 Satriani’s song ‘Surfing With the Alien’ was made available for download on Activision’s Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock over XBox Live or the Playstation Network, along with former student Steve Vai’s ‘For the Love of God’ and Buckethead’s ‘Soothsayer’.
Other work
Joe Satriani with Stu Hamm in concert, Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12., 2008)
Joe Satriani with Stu Hamm in concert, Rijnhal, Arnhem (June 12., 2008)
Satriani is also credited on many other albums, including guitar duties on Alice Cooper’s 1991 album Hey Stoopid, Spinal Tap’s 1992 album Break Like the Wind, Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 album Imaginos, band members Stu Hamm and Gregg Bissonette’s solo albums. Interestingly, he was credited with singing background vocals on the 1986 debut album by Crowded House. In 2003, he played lead guitar on The Yardbirds’s CD release Birdland. In 2006 he made appearances on several tracks for Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan’s solo CD/DVD dual disc Gillan’s Inn. On Dream Theater’s 2007 album, Systematic Chaos, Satriani contributed spoken lyrics to the song “Repentance”.
He is also featured in the Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration, as the guitarist in the band that played for the late-night show.
Technique and influence
Satriani is widely recognized as a technically highly advanced rock guitarist, and has been described as a virtuoso During fast passages, Joe favors a technique known as legato (achieved primarily through hammer-ons and pull-offs) which yields smooth and flowing runs. He is also adept at other speed-related techniques such as speed picking (a rapid form of alternate picking) and sweep picking, but uses them relatively rarely.
His success is notable in a genre typically unfriendly to instrumental musicians. Satriani has received 14 Grammy nominations
An influential guitarist himself.
Gear
Satriani has endorsed Ibanez’s JS Series guitars, and Peavey’s JSX amplifier. Both lines were designed specifically as signature products for Satriani. However, Satriani uses a variety of gear. Many of his guitars are made by Ibanez, including the JS1000, and JS1200. These guitars typically feature the DiMarzio PAF Pro (which he used up until 1993 in both the neck and bridge positions), the DiMarzio Fred (which he used in the bridge position from 1993 to present day), and the Mo’ Joe and the Paf Joe (which he uses in the bridge and neck positions, respectively, from 2005 to present day). The JS line of guitars is his signature line, and they feature the Edge Pro, which is Ibanez’s exclusive vibrato system, although he’s always used the Original Edge unit on his guitars. The mirrored ‘chrome’ guitar he is primarily associated with and used on the Live in San Francisco DVD is called Chrome Boy. Satriani also uses a number of other JS models such as the JS double neck model, JS700 (primary axe on the self-titled CD and seen on the 1995 tour “Joe Satriani”, which features a fixed bridge, P-90 pickups, and a matching mahogany body and neck), JS600 (natural body) , JS1 (the original JS model), JS2000 (fixed bridge model), a variety of JS100s, JS1000s and JS1200s with custom paint work, and a large amount of prototype JSs. All double locking bridges have been the original Edge tremolo, not the newer models, which point to a more custom guitar than the “off the shelf” models. Joe has also played a red 7-string JS model, as seen in the “G3 Live in Tokyo” DVD from 2005.
Satriani and the band
Satriani and the band
Satriani has used a wide variety of guitar amps over the years, using Marshall Amplification for his main amplifier (notably the limited edition blue coloured 6100 LM model) up until 2001, and his Peavey signature series amps, the Peavey JSX, thereafter. The JSX began life as a prototype Peavey XXX and developed into the Joe Satriani signature Peavey model, now available for purchase in retail stores. Joe Satriani has used other amplifiers over the years in the studio, however. Those include the Peavey 5150 (used to record the song ‘Crystal Planet’), Cornford, and the Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ (used to record the song ‘Flying in a Blue Dream’), amongst others.
His effects pedals include the Vox wah, Dunlop Cry Baby wah, RMC Wizard Wah, Digitech Whammy, BOSS DS-1, BOSS CH-1, BOSS CE-2, BOSS DD-2 and a standard BOSS DD-3 (used together to emulate reverb effects), BOSS BF-3, BOSS OC-2, Barber Burn Drive Unit, Fulltone Deja Vibe, Fulltone Ultimate Octave, and Electro-Harmonix POG (Polyphonic Octave Generator), the latter being featured prominently on the title cut to his 2006 Super Colossal.
Satriani has also partnered recently with Planet Waves to create a signature line of guitar picks and guitar straps featuring his sketch art.
Although Satriani endorses the JSX, he has also used many different amps in the studio when recording, including the Peavey Classic. He is also known to have used Marshall heads and cabinets, including live, prior to his Peavey endorsement. Most recently Satriani used the JSX head through a Palmer Speaker Simulator. Joe Satriani has also released a Class-A 5-watt tube amp called the “Mini Colossal”.
He is currently working with Vox on his own line of signature effects pedals designed to deliver Satriani’s trademark tone plus a wide range of new sounds for guitarists of all playing styles and ability levels. The first being a signature distortion pedal titled the “Satchurator”, with more to follow in 2008.
Recurring themes
Satriani’s work frequently makes references to various science fiction stories and/or ideas. “Surfing with the Alien”, “Back to Shalla-Bal” and “The Power Cosmic 2000″ refer to the comic book character Silver Surfer, while “Ice 9″ refers to the secret government ice weapon in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. “Borg Sex” is a reference to Star Trek, which features a homogeneous cybernetic race known as the Borg. Additionally, his albums and songs often have other-worldly titles, such as Not of this Earth, Crystal Planet, Is There Love in Space?, and Engines of Creation.
On the album Super Colossal the song titled “Crowd Chant” was originally called “Party on the Enterprise”. “Party on the Enterprise” featured sampled sounds from the Starship Enterprise from the Star Trek TV show. But as Satriani explained in a podcast, legal issues regarding the samples could not be resolved and he was unable to get permission to use them. Satriani then removed the sounds from the song and called it “Crowd Chant.” This song is also used as the Minnesota Wild’s goal horn.
“Redshift Riders”, another song on the Super Colossal album, is “…based on the idea that in the future, when people can travel throughout space, they will theoretically take advantage of the cosmological redshift effect so they can be swung around large planetary objects and get across
On the album Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock the song “I Just Wanna Rock”, is about a giant robot on the run who happens upon a rock concert.
Discography
Solo albums
* 1986 – Not of This Earth
* 1987 – Surfing with the Alien
* 1989 – Flying in a Blue Dream
* 1992 – The Extremist
* 1993 – Time Machine
* 1995 – Joe Satriani
* 1998 – Crystal Planet
* 2000 – Engines of Creation
* 2002 – Strange Beautiful Music
* 2004 – Is There Love in Space?
* 2006 – Super Colossal
* 2008 – Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock
EPs
* Dreaming #11
* The Satch Ep
* Additional Creations
Compilations
* The Beautiful Guitar
* The Electric Joe Satriani: An Anthology
* Joe Satriani Original Album Classics
* One Big Rush
Live albums
* 1993 – Time Machine
* 2001 – Live in San Francisco
* 2006 – Satriani Live!
With other artists
Year Artist Album
1986 Greg Kihn Love And Rock And Roll
1987 Danny Gottleib Aquamarine
1988 Stuart Hamm Radio Free Albemuth
1991 Alice Cooper Hey Stoopid
1992 Spinal Tap Break Like the Wind
1997 Steve Vai / Eric Johnson G3: Live in Concert
1997 Steve Vai / Alex Lifeson / Joe Perry Merry Axemas Volume 1
2003 Steve Vai / Yngwie Malmsteen G3: Rockin’ in the Free World
2003 The Yardbirds Birdland
2005 Steve Vai / John Petrucci G3: Live in Tokyo
2006 Ian Gillan Gillan’s Inn
2007 John 5 The Devil Knows My Name
2007 Dream Theater (spoken voice only) Systematic Chaos
2009 Sammy Hagar, Chad Smith, Michael Anthony Tentatively titled “ChickenFoot” Untitled
Satriani has also composed many songs that are featured in the series of NASCAR based video games including NASCAR 06: Total Team Control.
Satriani’s “Summer Song” is included in the soundtrack for the video game Gran Turismo 4. “Summer Song” is also included on the Formula 1 game for the Sony PlayStation, along with “Back to Shalla-Bal.” “Summer Song” had also been briefly used during a 30 second advertising spots for both Pepsi, and the Sony Walkman.
Philanthropy
In 2006, Satriani signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a non-profit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S.A. Satriani has personally delivered instruments to children in the program through a charity raffle for the organization and, in common with Steve Vai, sits on its board of directors as an honorary member.
Awards and nominations
Nominations
Satriani now has the most Grammy Award nominations of anyone (14) without winning .
Nominations Year Album Category
1989 Surfing with the Alien Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1990 The Crush of Love Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1991 Flying in a Blue Dream Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1993 The Extremist Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1994 Speed of Light Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1995 All Alone Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1997 (You’re) My World Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1998 Summer Song (Live) Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1999 A Train of Angels Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2001 Until We Say Goodbye Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2002 Always With Me, Always With You Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2003 Starry Night Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2006 Super Colossal Best Rock Instrumental Performance
2008 Always with Me, Always with You (Live) Best Rock Instrumental Performance
1955 – Elvis Costello (Declan McManus) is born in London. His biggest hit is the top 20 song “Veronica” in 1989, which he writes with Paul McCartney.
Elvis Costello (born Declan Patrick MacManus 25 August 1954) is an English musician and singer-songwriter, with Irish ancestry. Costello came to prominence as an early participant in London’s pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and New Wave musical genres, before establishing his own unique voice in the 1980s. Steeped in wordplay, the vocabulary of Costello’s lyrics is broader than that of most popular songs, and his music has drawn on dozens of genres. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, “Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image”.
Costello and Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall were married on December 6, 2003 at Elton John’s estate outside London. Their first children together, twin sons Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James, were born December 6, 2006 in New York City.
Biography
Early life
Costello was born Declan Patrick MacManus[3] in St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington in London, the son of Mary (née Costello) and Ross MacManus, a musician and bandleader.[4] Costello lived in Twickenham, attending what is now St Mark’s Catholic Secondary School in neighbouring Hounslow.[5] With a musically inclined father (his father sang with The Joe Loss Orchestra), Costello’s first broadcast recording was alongside his dad in a television commercial for R. White’s Lemonade (“I’m a Secret Lemonade Drinker”). His father wrote and sang the song; Costello provided backing vocals. The ad won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival.
Costello moved with his Liverpool-born mother to Birkenhead in 1971. It was there that he formed his first band, a folk duo called Rusty. After completing secondary school at St. Francis Xavier’s College Liverpool, he moved back to London where he next formed a band called Flip City,[6] which had a style very much in the pub rock vein. They were active from 1974 through early 1976. Around this time, Costello adopted the stage name D.P. Costello.
To support himself, he worked a number of office jobs, most famously at the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics firm — immortalised in the lyrics of “I’m Not Angry” as the “vanity factory” — where he worked as a data entry clerk. He worked for a short period as a computer operator at the Midland Bank computer centre in Bootle, Liverpool. He continued to write songs, and began actively looking for a solo recording contract. On the basis of a demo tape, he was signed to noted independent label Stiff Records. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera, suggested a name change, using Elvis Presley’s first name despite Costello having a small antipathy towards Presley, and Costello comes from his great grandmother’s name[7] to form Elvis Costello.
1970s
The first Costello single for Stiff was “Less Than Zero” b/w “Radio Sweetheart (single mix),” released on March 25, 1977. Two months later, Costello’s first album, My Aim Is True (1977), was a moderate commercial success (No. 14 in the UK and Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in his trademark oversize glasses, bearing a striking resemblance to a menacing Buddy Holly. A highlight of the album was the country-influenced ballad “Alison” with a typically biting Costello lyric. Costello’s backing on this first album was provided by American West Coast band Clover, a roots/country outfit living in England (contrary to rumor, Clover did not exactly become Huey Lewis and the News – Huey Lewis did play with Clover shortly before the recording of My Aim Is True, but he and Sean Hopper, who appears on Costello’s record, struck out on their own later). Costello was originally marketed as a punk artist. Later on, as the term New Wave was applied to the first post-punk bands, Costello was classified as new wave for a time.
The same year, Costello recruited via auditions his own permanent band, The Attractions, consisting of Steve Nieve (born Steve Nason; piano), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar), and Pete Thomas (drums; unrelated to Bruce Thomas). He released his first major hit single, “Watching the Detectives,” which was recorded with Nieve and the pair of Steve Goulding (drums) and Andrew Bodnar (bass), both members of Graham Parker & The Rumour (whom he had used to audition for The Attractions).
Stiff’s records were initially distributed only in the UK, which meant that Costello’s first album and singles were initially available in the US as imports only. In an attempt to change this, Costello was arrested for busking outside of a London convention of CBS (Columbia Records) executives, “protesting” that no US record company had yet seen fit to release Elvis Costello records in the United States. Costello signed to CBS in the US a few months later.
Elvis Costello, Cardiff, 1979
Elvis Costello, Cardiff, 1979
In December 1977, Costello and The Attractions appeared on Saturday Night Live as a last minute fill-in for the Sex Pistols, but Costello ended up causing some controversy himself, and was banned from the program for over a decade. Following a whirlwind tour with other Stiff artists (captured on the Live Stiffs album, notable for Costello’s recording of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself”) the band recorded the frenetic, raucous This Year’s Model (1978). Some of the more popular tracks include the British hit “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea” and the subversively anthemic “Pump It Up”. His U.S. record company saw Costello as such a priority that his last name replaced the word “Columbia” on the label of the disc’s original pressing. A tour of the US and Canada also saw the release of the much bootlegged promo-only “Live at the El Mocambo,” which finally saw an official release as part of the “2½ Years” box set in 1993. It was during the ensuing United States tour that Elvis met and developed a relationship with former Playboy model, Bebe Buell (mother of Liv Tyler). Their on-again-off-again courtship would last until 1984 and would allegedly become a deep well of inspiration for some of Costello’s most lovelorn songs. 1979 would arguably see the peak of Costello’s commercial success with the release of Armed Forces (originally to have been titled Emotional Fascism, a phrase that appeared on the LP’s inner sleeve). Both the album and the single Oliver’s Army went to #2 in the UK. Costello also found time in 1979 to produce the debut album for 2 Tone ska revival band, The Specials.
1980s
Live at Metropol-Theatre, Berlin, May 1980
The soul-infused Get Happy!! would be the first, and—along with King of America—possibly most successful, of Costello’s many experiments with genres beyond those he is normally associated with. The single, “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” was an old Sam and Dave song (though Costello increased the tempo considerably). The brevity of the songs (20 tracks in under 50 minutes) suited the band’s new style (the Thomas’ typically melodic rhythm section and Nieve’s reasonable impersonation of Booker T. Jones) as well as the frantic and stressful conditions under which it was written and recorded, live at a rock concert and fuelled by excessive drinking. Lyrically, the songs are full of Costello’s signature wordplay, to the point that he later felt he’d become something of a self-parody and toned it down on later releases. He has mockingly described himself in interviews as “rock and roll’s Scrabble champion.” The only 1980 appearance in North America was at the Heatwave festival in August near Toronto.
1981′s Trust, despite its eclecticism (“Different Finger” had a distinct country feel) had a more pop sound than Get Happy!! Still, overall the album was clearly affected by the growing tensions within the band, particularly between Bruce and Pete Thomas. In the US, the single “Watch Your Step” was released and played live on Tom Snyder’s “Tomorrow” show, and received airplay on FM rock radio. In the UK, the single “Clubland” scraped the lower reaches of the charts; follow-up single “From A Whisper To A Scream” (a duet with Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze) became the first Costello single in over 4 years to completely miss the charts.
Following Trust, Costello released Almost Blue, an album of country music cover songs written by the likes of Hank Williams (“Why Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used To Do?)”), Merle Haggard (“Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down”) and Gram Parsons (“How Much I Lied”). The album was a tribute to the country music he had grown up listening to, especially, George Jones. Some avid fans dismissed the album because it was inconsistent with earlier recordings. It was not a country-rock album (a la The Byrds or Eagles), which might have been more palatable to his established audience and to reviewers, but rather an undiluted country album. It received mixed reviews, some of which accused Costello of growing soft. Perhaps in anticipation of the inevitable accusations of apostasy, the first pressings of the record in the UK bore a sticker with the message: “WARNING: This album contains country & western music and may cause offence to narrow minded listeners”. Almost Blue did spawn a surprise UK hit single in a version of George Jones’s “Good Year For The Roses” (written by Jerry Chesnut), which reached #6.
Imperial Bedroom (1982) marked a much darker, almost baroque sound for Costello, due in part to the production of Geoff Emerick, famed for engineering several Beatles records. Imperial Bedroom remains one of his most critically acclaimed records, but again failed to produce any hit singles. Costello has said he disliked the marketing pitch for the album, weak ads consisting only of the phrase “Masterpiece?”. Imperial Bedroom also featured Costello’s song “Almost Blue”; jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker would later perform and record a version of this song.
1983 saw another sidetrack with the pop-soul of Punch the Clock, featuring female backing vocals (Afrodiziak) and a four piece horn section (The TKO Horns), alongside The Attractions. Clive Langer (who co-produced with Alan Winstanley), provided Costello with a melody which eventually became “Shipbuilding”, an oblique look at the political contradictions of the Falklands War: the controversial military build-up provided jobs for Britain’s struggling shipyards. The song featured a trumpet solo by Chet Baker. Prior to the release of Costello’s own version, a version of the song was a minor UK hit for former Soft Machine drummer and political activist Robert Wyatt.
Equally political was “Pills And Soap”—a UK hit for Costello himself under the pseudonym of “The Imposter”—an attack on the changes in British society brought on by Thatcherism, released to coincide with the run-up to the 1983 UK general election. (The electorate was seemingly unswayed.) Punch the Clock also generated an international hit in the single “Everyday I Write the Book”, aided by a prophetic music video featuring lookalikes of the Prince and Princess of Wales undergoing domestic strife in a suburban home. The song became Costello’s first top forty hit single in the US. Also in the same year, Elvis provided vocals on a version of the Madness song “Tomorrow’s Just Another Day” released as a B-side on the single of the same name. Tensions within the band were beginning to tell, and Costello announced his retirement and the disbandment of the group shortly before they were to record Goodbye Cruel World (1984). Costello would later say of this record that they had “got it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution”. The record was poorly received upon its initial release, and even many ardent Costello fans see Goodbye as his weakest album (the liner notes to the 1995 Rykodisc re-release, penned by Costello, begin with the words “Congratulations!, you’ve just purchased our worst album”). Costello’s retirement, although short-lived, was accompanied by two compilations, Elvis Costello: The Man in the UK, Europe and Australia, and The Very Best of Elvis Costello & the Attractions in the U.S.
In 1985, he appeared in the “Live Aid” benefit concert in England, singing The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” as a solo artist. (The event was overrunning and Costello was asked to “ditch the band”). Costello introduced the song as an old northern folk song, and the audience was invited to sing the chorus, which they did.
In the same year Costello teamed up with good friend T-Bone Burnett for a single called “The People’s Limousine” under the moniker of The Coward Brothers. That year, Costello also produced Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash for the punk/folk band The Pogues. It was then that he met his second wife, Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan.
By 1986, Costello was preparing to make a comeback. Working in the US with Burnett, a band containing a number of Elvis Presley’s sidemen (including James Burton and Jerry Scheff), and minor input from the Attractions, he produced King of America an acoustic-guitar-driven album with a country sound. Around this time he legally changed his name back to Declan MacManus, adding Aloysius as an extra middle name. The Attractions felt understandably insecure about the ease with which they could be dropped considering their boss had cut a new album largely without them, and was planning to undertake a major tour showcasing the King of America material with his new musical partners. To allay their fears, Costello retooled his upcoming tour to allow for multiple nights in each city; playing one night with The Confederates (James Burton et al.), one night with The Attractions, and one night solo acoustic.
In May 1986, Costello performed at Self Aid, a benefit concert held in Dublin that focused on the problem of chronic unemployment which was widespread in Ireland at that time. Later that year, he returned to the studio with the Attractions and recorded Blood and Chocolate, which was lauded for a post-punk fervour not heard since 1978′s This Year’s Model. It also marked the return of producer Nick Lowe, who had produced Costello’s first five albums. While Blood and Chocolate failed to chart a hit single of any significance, it did produce what has since become one of Costello’s signature concert songs — “I Want You”. It is on this album that Costello adopted the alias “Napoleon Dynamite”, the name he later attributed to the character of the obnoxious emcee that he played during the vaudeville-style tour to support Blood and Chocolate. (The pseudonym had previously been used in 1982, when the B-side single “Imperial Bedroom” was credited to Napoleon Dynamite & The Royal Guard, and was later appropriated by the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite, which does not have anything to do with Costello.) In 1989, Costello, with a new contract with Warner Bros., released Spike, which spawned his biggest single in America, the Top Twenty hit “Veronica”, one of several songs Costello co-wrote with Paul McCartney in that timeframe (see “Collaborations” section below).
1990s
In 1991, infamously having grown a long beard, Costello released Mighty Like a Rose, which featured the single “The Other Side of Summer”. He also found time to co-compose and co-produce, with Richard Harvey, the title and incidental music for the acclaimed mini-series G.B.H. by Alan Bleasdale. This entirely instrumental, and largely orchestral soundtrack garnered a BAFTA, for “Best Music for a TV Series” for the pair.
In 1993, Costello tested the classical music waters with a critically acclaimed collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters. Costello returned to rock and roll the following year with a project that reunited him with The Attractions, Brutal Youth. In 1995, Costello released Kojak Variety, an album of cover songs recorded 5 years earlier, and followed in 1996 with an album of songs originally written for other artists, All This Useless Beauty. This was the final album of original material that he issued under his Warner Bros. contract. In the spring of 1996, Costello played a series of intimate club dates, backed only by Nieve on the piano, in support of All This Useless Beauty. An ensuing summer and fall tour with the Attractions proved to be the death knell for the band. With relations between Elvis and bassist Bruce Thomas at a breaking point, Costello announced that the current tour would be the Attractions’ last. The quartet performed their final U.S. show in Seattle, Washington on September 1, 1996, before wrapping up their tour in Japan. To fulfill his contractual obligations to Warner Bros., Costello released a greatest hits album titled Extreme Honey (1997). It contained an original track titled “The Bridge I Burned”, featuring Elvis’ son, Matt, on bass. In the intervening period, Costello also served as artistic chair for the 1995 Meltdown Festival, which gave him the opportunity to leverage his increasingly eclectic musical interests. His involvement in the festival yielded a one-off live EP with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, which featured both cover material and a few of his own songs. In 1998, Costello signed a unique multi-label contract with Polygram Records, sold by its parent company the same year to become part of the Universal Music Group. Costello released his new work on what he deemed the suitable imprimatur within the family of labels. His first new release as part of this contract involved a collaboration with famed sixties pop songwriter Burt Bacharach. Their work had commenced earlier, in 1996, on a song called “God Give Me Strength” for the movie Grace of My Heart. This led the pair to write and record Painted From Memory, released under his new contract in 1998, on the Mercury Records label. They also recorded an updated version of Bacharach’s song “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” for the soundtrack to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, with both appearing in the film to perform the song. He also wrote “I Throw My Toys Around” for The Rugrats Movie and performed it with No Doubt.
In 1999, Costello contributed a version of the classic “She”, most famously released in 1974 by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer, for the soundtrack of the film Notting Hill, with Trevor Jones producing. For the 25th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Costello was invited to the program, where he re-enacted his abrupt song-switch: This time, however, he interrupted the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”, and they acted as his backing group for “Radio Radio.”
2000 to present
Costello performing with The Imposters in 2005.
Costello performing with The Imposters in 2005.
In 2000 Costello appeared at the Town Hall Theatre NYC, in Steve Nieve’s opera Welcome to the Voice, alongside Ron Sexsmith and John Flansburgh of “They Might Be Giants”.
In 2001, Costello was announced as the featured “artist in residence” at UCLA (although he ended up making fewer appearances than expected) and wrote the music for a new ballet. He produced and appeared on an album of pop songs for opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter.
In 2002 he released a new album, When I Was Cruel, this time on Island Records, and toured with a new band, the Imposters (essentially the Attractions but with a different bass player, Davey Faragher, formerly of Cracker). On February 23rd, 2003, Costello, along with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, and Dave Grohl performed a version of The Clash’s “London Calling” at the 45th Grammy Awards ceremony, in honor of legendary Clash frontman Joe Strummer, who had died in December of the previous year. In March 2003, Elvis Costello & The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In May, his engagement to Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall was announced. September saw the release of North, an album of piano-based ballads concerning the breakdown of his former marriage, and his falling in love with singer Diana Krall.
In 2004, the song “Scarlet Tide” (co-written by Costello and T-Bone Burnett and used in the film Cold Mountain) was nominated for an Academy Award; he performed it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who also sang the song on the official soundtrack. Costello co-wrote many songs on wife Diana Krall’s 2004 CD, The Girl in the Other Room, the first of hers to feature several original compositions. In July 2004 Costello’s first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno, was performed in New York. The work, a ballet after Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was commissioned by Italian dance troupe Aterballeto, and received critical acclaim from the classical music critics, while being scorned by the popular music press.
Costello’s hand prints on the European Walk of Fame, Rotterdam
Costello’s hand prints on the European Walk of Fame, Rotterdam
While composing it, Costello deliberately avoided listening to the previous interpretations by Mendelssohn and Britten in order to ensure his own originality. A range of musical moods and styles are used to represent the different elements of the cast—satirical pomp for the courtiers, jazz for the faeries, and for Bottom a deliberately intrusive “brass band” motif. Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the recording was released on CD in September by Deutsche Grammophon. Costello released another album that same month: The Delivery Man, recorded in Oxford, Mississippi, and released on Lost Highway Records. Mainly blues, country, and folk, The Delivery Man received early acclaim as one of Costello’s best albums, and continues Costello’s personal quest to release an album on each of Universal’s record labels.
In July 2005, a CD recording of a collaboration with Marian McPartland on her show Piano Jazz was released. It featured Costello singing six jazz standards and two of his own songs, accompanied by Marian McPartland on piano. In November 2005 Costello started recording a new album with Allen Toussaint and producer Joe Henry. The River in Reverse was released in the UK on the Verve label on 29 May 2006.
In 2006 the studio recording of Nieve’s opera “Welcome to the Voice”, for Deutsche Grammophon, Costello interpreted the character of Chief of Police, with Barbara Bonney, Robert Wyatt, Sting and Amanda Roocroft.
Also released in 2006 was a live recording of a concert with the Metropole Orkest at the North Sea Jazz Festival, entitled My Flame Burns Blue.
In 2007 Nieve’s opera “Welcome to the Voice was released on CD by Deutsche Grammophon, reaching #2 in the Billboard classical charts.
Costello has been commissioned to write a chamber opera by the Danish Royal Opera, Copenhagen, on the subject of Hans Christian Andersen’s infatuation with Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, called The Secret Songs. Some of the songs were previewed on the Opera’s main stage in October 2005. However, since Costello has repeatedly missed deadlines, plans have been changed: extracts from the projected opera will be interspersed with songs from The Juliet Letters for performance in the Opera’s studio theatre (Takelloftet) in March 2007. It will be directed by Kasper Bech Holten and will feature Danish soprano Sine Bundgaard as Lind.
On May 6th, 2008, Fender Musical Instruments releases the Elvis Costello Jazzmaster, an exact representation of his late-1960′s heavily modified Fender Jazzmaster guitar he had used to record his first 1977 album, “My Aim Is True”, honoring one of the most recognized Jazzmaster players in music history. Uniquely Costello-inspired features include a post-’68 neck design, a walnut stain finish and a tremolo with easier and greater travel, essential for that “Watching the Detectives” tone, or what Costello calls that “spy movie” sound. This signature release comes during the 50th anniversary of Fender’s introduction of the Jazzmaster guitar, which first appeared in 1958.
On April 22nd, a new Elvis Costello and the Imposters album, “Momofuku”, will be released on Lost Highway Records, the same imprint that released his last major studio album, “The Delivery Man”. The new album will, at least initially, be released exclusively on vinyl (with a code to download a digital copy of the album). This summer, in support of the album, Costello will tour with The Police on the final leg of their 2007/2008 Reunion Tour.
On 5th February 2008 it was announced Elvis would play a homecoming gig at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on June 25th.[8]
On 28th June 2008, Costello gave his first performance in Poland, appearing with the Imposters for the closing gig of the Malta theatre festival in Poznań.
In July 2008, Costello (as Declan McManus) was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Liverpool.
In November 2008, Costello will interpret the role of Chief of Police in “Welcome to the Voice” on the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with Sting, Joe Sumner of Fiction Plane, and Sylvia Schwartz.
Controversies
Costello’s success in the U.S. was bruised for a time in the late 1970s when, during a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett in a Columbus, Ohio, Holiday Inn hotel bar, Costello allegedly referred to James Brown as a “jive-ass nigger,” then upped the ante by pronouncing Ray Charles a “blind, ignorant nigger.”[9]
A contrite Costello apologised at a New York City press conference a few days later, claiming that he had been drunk and had been attempting to be obnoxious in order to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion, not anticipating that Bramlett would bring his comments to the press. According to Costello, “it became necessary for me to outrage these people with about the most obnoxious and offensive remarks that I could muster.” In his liner notes for the expanded version of Get Happy!!, Costello writes that some time after the incident he had declined an offer to meet Charles out of guilt and embarrassment, though Charles himself had forgiven Costello (“Drunken talk isn’t meant to be printed in the paper”). In a Rolling Stone interview with Greil Marcus, he recounts an incident when Bruce Thomas was introduced to Michael Jackson as Costello’s bass player and Jackson said, “I don’t dig that guy…”.[9]
Costello worked extensively in Britain’s Rock Against Racism campaign both before and after this and also produced the debut album of the Specials whose multi-racial line-up was a very public statement about integration. This incident inspired his Get Happy!! song “Riot Act”.[10]
Personal life
Costello has been married three times. In 1974, MacManus married Mary Burgoyne. The couple had a son, Matthew, and divorced in 1984. In 1986, Costello married Cait O’Riordan, then bassist for the band The Pogues. The couple split at the end of 2002. Costello became engaged to singer Diana Krall in May 2003. In December, Costello and Krall married at the London estate of Sir Elton John. Their twin sons Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James were born December 6, 2006 in New York City.
Wikinews has related news:
Canadian jazz star Diana Krall gives birth to twin boys
Collaborations
In addition to his major recorded collaborations with Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, and von Otter, Costello has frequently been involved in other collaborations.
In 1987, Costello began a long-running songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney. They wrote a number of songs together, including:
* “Back On My Feet”, the B-side of McCartney’s 1987 single “Once Upon A Long Ago”, later added as a bonus track on the 1993 re-issue of McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt
* Costello’s “Veronica” and “Pads, Paws and Claws” from Spike (1989)
* “So Like Candy” and “Playboy to a Man” from Mighty Like a Rose (1991)
* McCartney’s “My Brave Face”, “Don’t Be Careless Love”, “That Day Is Done” and “You Want Her Too” from Flowers in the Dirt (1989)
* “The Lovers That Never Were” and “Mistress and Maid” from Off the Ground (1993).
* “Shallow grave” from “All This Useless Beauty” (1996).
* “I don’t want to confess”, “Tommy’s coming home”, “Twenty-five fingers” and “Indigo moon” (Officially unreleased).
Costello talked about their collaboration:
When we sat down together he wouldn’t have any sloppy bits in there (meaning the songs). That was interesting. The ironic part is, if it sounds like he wrote it, I probably did and vice versa. He wanted to do all the ones with lots of words and all on one note, and I’m the one trying to work in the “Please Please Me” harmony all over the place.[citation needed]
* In 1987, he appeared on the HBO special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night, which featured his long-time idol Roy Orbison, and was invited back to Saturday Night Live for the first time since 1977.
Artistic significance
Costello has worked with Tony Bennett, Lucinda Williams, Lee Konitz, Brian Eno, and Rubén Blades, just a few of the artists not mentioned above. Costello has inadvertently made himself capable of challenging Kevin Bacon’s role in a musical version of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, as his associations span the gamut in the music industry.
Costello is also a big music fan, and often champions the works of others in print. He has written several pieces for the magazine Vanity Fair, including the summary of what a perfect weekend of music would be. His collaboration with Bacharach honoured Bacharach’s place in pop music history. Costello also appeared in documentaries about singers Dusty Springfield and Wanda Jackson. He has also interviewed one of his own influences, Joni Mitchell.
In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #80 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[11]
Discography
Main article: Elvis Costello discography
Rykodisc/Demon reissues
From 1993 to 1995, Rykodisc Records (U.S.) and Demon Records (UK) reissued Costello’s pre-Warner Bros. catalogue with bonus tracks for each album as well as a greatest hits compilation and the live album Live at the El Mocambo. In addition, Rykodisc were the U.S. distributor for The Juliet Letters. This licensing deal ended in 2000.
Rhino reissues
Starting in 2001, Rhino Records began an eighteen double-disc reissue program for Costello’s back catalogue prior to his Polygram/Universal contract. Except for the compilation, each of the reissues presented the remastered original album on one disc, and a separate bonus disc of B-sides, outtakes, live tracks, alternate versions and/or demos of songs.
The project featured the direct participation and guidance of Elvis Costello himself, who wrote new liner notes for each album consisting of his thoughts on the music as well as anecdotes and reminiscences from the time. They were released in batches of three, with the exception of King of America, The Juliet Letters, and The Very Best of Elvis Costello, the last being an unaltered re-release of the Polygram compilation of 1999, which arrived in the stores singularly. The reissue dates are as follows:
1. April 17, 2001: The Very Best of Elvis Costello
2. August 11, 2001: My Aim Is True, Spike, All This Useless Beauty
3. February 19, 2002: This Year’s Model, Blood and Chocolate, Brutal Youth
4. November 19, 2002: Armed Forces, Imperial Bedroom, Mighty Like a Rose
5. September 9, 2003: Get Happy!!, Trust, Punch the Clock
6. August 3, 2004: Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World, Kojak Variety
7. April 26, 2005: King of America
8. March 21, 2006: The Juliet Letters
The Almost Blue and Kojak Variety bonus discs were particularly notable as each contained, essentially, an entire new album’s worth of material also performed but either not issued, or released as B-sides on singles originally. The Kojak bonus disc also included ten songs of the ‘George Jones’ tape, cover songs Costello intended to induce the famed country singer to perform on a subsequent album. The Get Happy bonus disc was also of note, with 30 additional tracks, bringing the total for the two disc set to 50 songs.
Costello’s early single on Stiff can be found on the Ultimate Stiff Records Discography site: http://www.buythehour.se/stiff/
Universal reissues
In August 2006, three months after the conclusion of Rhino’s reissue series (My Aim Is True through The Juliet Letters), Universal Music Enterprises announced their purchase of the early Elvis Costello catalogue. This licensing acquisition covers from My Aim Is True through King of America, excluding the Warner Bros. albums (Spike through All This Useless Beauty). These albums had all been re-released on Rhino, a Warner Music Group subsidiary. The press release says, “[l]eading the industry in online marketing with a dedicated department that manages its digital and mobile business, UMe also expects to mine Costello’s catalog for ringtones, digital box sets, and more.”[12] UMe announced that they would be reissuing the albums on their Hip-O Select label. Costello is quoted in the press release as saying, “[I]t’s great to be able to do this through a company that has not only enjoyed major success with reissues but has done them with a genuine emphasis on quality.”[13] This reissue series will mark the fourth release of his Stiff/Radar/Demon catalogue (released by Columbia Records in the US) on compact disc.
Tribute albums
1. 1998: Bespoke Songs, Lost Dogs, Detours & Rendezvous – (various artists)
2. 2002: Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello – (various artists)
3. 2003: The Elvis Costello Songbook – Bonnie Brett
4. 2004: A Tribute to Elvis Costello – Patrik Tanner
5. 2004: Davis Does Elvis – Stuart Davis
Filmography
* 1979 film debut as “Earl Manchester” in Americathon
* 1984 as “Henry Scully” in UK TV series Scully
* 1984 as “Stone Deaf A&R Man” in UK TV series “The Comic Strip Presents”, episode “The Bullshitters” (directed by Stephen Frears)
* 1985 as inept magician “Rosco de Ville” in the Alan Bleasdale film No Surrender
* 1987 as “Hives the Butler” in the Alex Cox film Straight to Hell, starring Joe Strummer and Courtney Love
* 1994, 1996 as himself in The Larry Sanders Show
* 1997 as himself in Spiceworld
* 1999 as himself in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, performing the song “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” with Burt Bacharach
* 1999 as himself in 200 Cigarettes
* 2000 as himself in Sans plomb
* 2001 as a public defender and a teacher in Prison Song,
* 2001 as himself in the final episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun,
* 2002 as himself (voice) in “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation”, an episode of The Simpsons
* 2003 Academy Award nomination for best original song “The Scarlet Tide” in Cold Mountain.
* 2003 as “Ben” in the Frasier episode “Farewell, Nervosa”
* 2003 as guest host on Late Show with David Letterman
* 2003 as himself in I Love Your Work
* 2004 performing the Cole Porter song “Let’s Misbehave” in De-Lovely
* 2004 as himself on Two and a Half Men
* 2005 as himself in the American situation comedy Two and a Half Men
* 2006 as himself in Putting the River in Reverse
* 2006 as himself in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
* 2006 as himself in Delirious
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