Elvis Costello & The Attractions “High Fidelity” (Live)

So this week PCR turned into High Fidelity (just in time for the Broadway musical!). I don’t know why, but you got a Spoon break-up song in between little remembrances of (the end of) summer love, an unrequited crush and recovery from the dissolution of my first really significant relationship.

Really, I’m gonna try to knock that shit off.

Anyway, I hope you’ll pardon yr cruise director, Capt. Obvious here, for posting today… well, you see it above. Elvis C. is a god of sorts to most of us music nerds and all of us geek rockers.

If you go back to the book that spawned the movie that spawned the musical that spawned a chorus of groans… It was, appropriately enough, basically a novelization of the Costello catalog, drawing out especially his “love is war” theme. (How did Pat Benatar get to sing the definitive song on the topic anyway?) And High Fidelity the book, for its flaws, nailed all the little details of music nerd life and worked its way into a sort of modern canon, as well as many of our hearts.

Which all, actually, is off-topic from what I wanted to discuss about this stripped-down live version of “High Fidelity,” taken from the 2003 reissue of 1980 E.C. masterwork Get Happy!! OK, I still like the studio version better. The concert take lacks the headlong drive and Motownisms of the fixed document–key charms of most of the tunes on that record–but vastly expands its moodiness.

So why post? What I’m finding fascinating about this take on the song is the interplay between Elvis’ vocal performance and Bruce Thomas’ bass playing. Maybe as a sometimes bassist m’self I tend to listen for this stuff, but really the bass fiddle is right there in yr face. This has been mixed like an early Attractions record so, in terms of prominence in the mix, it goes vocals, bass, drums, organ, guitar.

(A little funny that Elvis and Bruce T. have built up a lasting animosity, given the great musical service the bassman’s provided over the decades–but then again maybe not, since the Attractions started out as strangers, hired hands.)

Anyhow, before I ramble myself way way way past yr attention span, I want to point up the varied, almost improvised feel of Thomas’ playing on this song. I hear uptight funk, nods to classic pop bounce, dub cutouts, swooping, dramatic figures that suggest something epic and, starting around 2:12, call-and-response between Elvis’ chant and Thomas’ pluckings.

The drums set up a frame, the vocals communicate a text, the keys seep mood and peal out flourishes, the guitar growls a white noise wash… but here the bass is the meat and muscle tying it all together.

Get Happy!! at Newbury Comics.