Well, that was interesting. A friend of mine is getting married on this very day, and like his bride-to-be, he is a massive Elvis Costello fan. They're both into Nick Lowe, as well, and with Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets playing with Elvis Costello this June - a show we are all going to, meaning said friend, his bride-to-be, my wife-and-I, but hopefully also most of my readers - it seemed a natural idea to get them an Elvis Costello-related gift. Easy, right?
...but when someone is a massive fan of a given artist, it makes it both very easy AND very hard to shop for them, because while they will appreciate receiving anything they don't already have by that artist, you may have to work fairly hard to IDENTIFY things they don't have, which can be challenging if you also want to keep the gift a secret, which I did. And even once you identify said items - he doesn't have the DVD of The Juliet Letters, for instance - the problem is, the stuff missing from the collection of a completist is missing either because it is either really hard to find, really expensive, or because (like that dubstep/ electronica EP of Nomeansno remixes, in my case) it just isn't really something they dig, as generally into the artist in question as they may be.
HOWEVER, I reasoned, Elvis Costello LIVES 'round here at least some of the time, out in Nanaimo, we gather, with Diana Krall. I've only had the one sighting of them out-and-about (at the Nick Cave thing in New West a couple of years ago), and I gather Mr. Costello has become a bit more private in recent years, not hearkening to interviews often, but surely he's gone to a few record stores, here and there, and surely in doing so he's signed a few odd items?
In particular, because my friend had quipped about how his bride-to-be could recite all the lyrics to Imperial Bedroom, I figured that that would be the album to get. It has some of my very favourite Elvis Costello songs, too - "Man About Time," "Beyond Belief," "...and in Every Home." It seemed like the right one, though I'd have taken any signed Costello item, if it presented itself.
I began with Rob Frith at Neptoon. If you're shopping for signed ephemera, there is, locally, no better man. Rob likes signed collectibles himself, and his collection was even the subject of a Museum of Vancouver retrospective. But he and his son Ben looked, and nothing turned up.
I called a few other local stores that sometimes get signed things in - not sure who exactly, but most of the usual suspects, none of whom had anything at all (Dale at Noize to Go is a big EC fan, I learned, but the signed stuff he has from the man is part of his own personal collection and not for sale). With a trip to Vancouver Island pending, I had hopes that I'd have more luck, and over there the other week, I called Fascinating Rhythm over in Nanaimo, visited the Full Bug in Duncan, sent a FB message to Supreme Echo and phoned Ditch Records in Victoria - four of the best record stores on the island (I'd also give a nod to Cavity and that place in Fantan Alley but they didn't seem very likely to have EC material). Apparently Mr. Costello HAS been into Fascinating Rhythm, but not for a few years. I was mildly surprised by my lack of success, but... well, some people just don't sign that much stuff.
Back in Vancouver, I visited Dale at Noize to see what he had. He tried to sell me some super-cool looking belly dancing albums, but that was a bit off the mark, as was a signed Charley Pride record (you gotta love the guy for suggesting it). He did have a bunch of Beatles rarities that my friend would appreciate - and had a copy of National Breakout, the one album by The Romantics that I coveted and purchased - but I wasn't going to even TRY to buy my friend Beatles items, since he has even more of that than he has Costello.
I got Hey Clockface for myself at Audiopile, but they didn't have anything signed or especially rare. I peeked into Beat Street on other business, even chatted with Josh Nickel at his punk shop, asking if by any chance he had a line on any EC rarities... no and no. Zulu Records has some REALLY cool Elvis Costello rarities that I probably WOULD have picked a few up, but I was hoping to trade a rarity of my own for a couple of them, and we could not work out a satisfactory deal (note to fans, though - people looking for live, hard-to-find EC material should descend on Zulu forthwith, because there's stuff you will not see very often there, and the prices are quite reasonable. None of it was signed but all of it was obscure enough that there was a good chance my friend did not have it...).
Frustrated and grumbling, I figured, well, I guess I'll just go back to Neptoon. Having contemplated buying non-signed stuff at Zulu, I had lowered the bar: it didn't have to be signed as long as it was rare.
On discovering I was still on my quest, Rob thought a minute. "There's one last place I haven't checked," he said. He zipped into the back while Ben and I chatted about today's cancelled Art Bergmann event and the Vicious Cycles' opening slot for FEAR next week).
Rob took about fifteen minutes, but when he walked up to me - I was over in the punk section, seeing if they had any Screaming Females - he had an album in his hands.
(The signature doesn't show up so well in the photo, but it's in silver pen, just slightly below and to the left of the album's centre).
Rob Frith for the win!
Happy wedding, kids! (I got that signed Nick Lowe pic from Rob, too; he truly is The Man, in this respect: "I'd kiss you," I said to him, "But I don't think you'd dig it.").
1 comment:
Danielle and I thank you.
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