I bought Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True" when I was fifteen, living in Richmond, Virginia, when I was going to an alternative high school where musicians like Aimee Mann, Ira Marlowe, Jimi Gore, and a bunch of other musicians, hatched plans to take over the music business. I never missed buying every album Costello put out since.
By the time I saw Elvis for the first time in Blacksburg in February of '81 on the "English Mugs Tour," with Squeeze performing opening duties, he was already onto his fifth album ("Trust") and I sensed that he would be around for a very long time. My love of Costello's music and my faith in his musical ambitions and depth of creativity has met with fierce resistance and insults from certain music teachers that I've studied with over the years, but watching the progress of his terrific music and interview show on the Sundance Channel "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…" puts his many gifts out there for all to see. From punk rock icon to modern-day Duke Ellington, Elvis Costello is a 21st century maestro on a tear. Every episode of his show is an inestimable lesson in music. I really do feel vindicated.
