Viva Las Vegas!

Tom & Tanya get hitched 

My friend and colleague Tom and the lovely Tanya have been immensely generous to my project by deciding to get hitched, in Las Vegas, by Elvis himself.

When I saw them on Monday night, Tanya was still unsure as to whether it would be young Elvis or Vegas Elvis who would do the deed. Tune in, tomorrow night at 9pm BST, to find out.....

http://www.702wedding.com/ 

Thanks: Tom & Tanya

Sing-a-long Viva to celebrate!  

Post-script:

You missed it? Nevermind! Watch it again here. Over and over again.


It was young Elvis in his gold jacket. Tom makes small talk with the preacher-man and then in comes the lovely bride accompanied up the aisle by the King himself. Elvis plays Love Me Tender, Tom joins in. The minister does his thing, Tanya's emotional - cryin' in the chapel - but Tommo has his blue silk hankerchief (another colleague enviously commented 'I forgot the hanky at my wedding'). Elvis sings Can't Help Falling in Love. Tanya's smiling.

They exchange rings. The kiss is one that Elvis would be proud of. They all sing Viva! Then Elvis gets the lovely couple to give his bespoke Elvisy vows:


I promise
To love you tender baby
I will never leave you with suspicious minds
I will never leave you at Heartbreak Hotel
Or any hotel.
I will never step on your Blue Suede Shoes
I will never let you have Blue Suede Shoes
For I will always be
Your hunk o' hunk o'
Burning love
Baby.


Elvis plays them out to Blue Suede Shoes. 


Ah, sweet sweet love. The lovely American trilogy are played out by Elvis to Blue Suede Shoes. Now, where can I find a pair of Blue Suede Booties? 

Follow that dream: Elvis invades the blogosphere's combined subconscious

Me and Sleep Talkin' Man face the facts....

This week, I woke up and mumbled that I'd dreamt that Elvis was dead. Then I fell asleep again. I don't remember the dream and my mumbling apparently wasn't very explanatory. I wouldn't have thought about it again had it not been for Sleep Talkin' Man. Yes, it seems that for Sleep Talkin' Man and I, the Sandman has been sprinkling a little bit of Dead Elvis into our dreams. Fortunately for Sleep Talkin' Man (an English man in the US) his wife, the wonderful Karen, records what he says during his sleep, and shares it with the rest of the world. STM (or Adam to his wife) seems to be taken over in sleep by either a foul-mouthed sociopathic narcissist, or his exaggerated anxieties. Makes great office reading if your colleagues don't mind hysteria. On July 7th, Adam mumbled,

"Elvis is dead. He is dead, I tell you! Buried and oh just a little bit smelly. Bad burger muncher."

Click here to hear.

And click here to Follow that Dream....

Thanks: Alice G

If I Can Dream (part II): El Tel off key but not as off key as England

It's the Sun what won it
Is no doubt what we would have been hearing had England been a bit more glorious in the last couple of weeks. That esteemed organ is behind the rather marvelous idea of putting the England football team's (semi-finals of Euro '96) most enigmatic, most wheeler-dealer manager, Terry Venables, in front of an orchaestra to 'croon' Big E's middle-aged-man-and-football song (see earlier post).

In the video (a one minute ad for the Sun) Big El Tel walks out of the shadows swankily clad in an Englandy grey suit. Deep in his heart, there's a trembling question.... Terry is positively beatific, because out there in the dark - he thrusts a 'go on my son' arm forward into the dark and lo! - is the Royal Philharmonic Orchaestra backing him up. And it's not just them, while he can think, while he can talk, while he can (very Dagenham) stand, while he can walk, camera pans across the choir of young female lovelies and middle-aged round-toned male lovelies, and oh, isn't that Ian Wright winking, and isn't that 'Arry Redknap chirping away? And aren't they in Wembley Stadium?

Although the Guardian website uses Tel's efforts to suggest that all singing-for-England should be put to bed, you have to hand it to Terry, he's got a lovely gravel-road voice, and who better to create positive waves with which to inspire Three Lion-ness into the likes of Rooney and Lamps? It might have been kinder to give him an easier key to belt out his final dream but we all have to suspend a bit of disbelief and have a little dream for the sake of England vs Slovenia tonight. See Terry rather charmingly learning to sing here.

Pics: The Sun
Thanks: Emma

Doncha Think It's Time?

35 hour Elvis isn't enough for Guinness   
A world record attempt at non-stop Elvis failed last Friday as the Big E in question was advised to stop singing for the good of his health. Simon Goldsmith was attempting the world record for uninterrupted Elvis songs at the White Lion pub in Ufford, Suffolk.

Simon, who sings under the name Harry Isaac Presley and describes himself as a "low-budget Elvis tribute act", planned to sing for over 43 hours, 11 minutes and 11 seconds. He stopped after 35 hours due to concerns about his wellbeing.

He was raising money for a local hospice, in memory of his father. The world record still stands, held by Thomas Gothje of Germany.

Still, a pretty good effort from a fine and funny dude, and if you'd like to sponsor him go to www.justgiving.com/elvisworldrecord.

Photos: BBC; http://www.harryisaacpresley.co.uk/

Brown Eyed Handsome Man

Elvis knows which side his bread is buttered on
So, our brief sojourn in an anarchic world where there is no settlement on who's in charge is nearly over. Yesterday, Gordon Brown announced his forthcoming resignation and it looks like the shiny faced blue one discussed in earlier posts is going to be the big man. Well, the Conservatives might have had some dodgy haggered geezer formerly of the Rolling Stones, and 'the fat one from Take That' but Gordon had Elvis.

Elvis, aka Mark Wright of Corby, Northamptonshire,  was the surprise guest at a gathering that Gordon attended to support local candidate Phil Hope, and to make a few points about the NHS. After Gordon had left the building, Elvis flew in with 'A Little Less Conversation'. As he moved on to 'The Wonder Of You', the Prime Minister came back into the hall. Sarah Brown sang along, and Gordon shook Elvis's hand.

Thanks: Emma Dwyer
Photos: Peter Macdiarmid

How Great Thou Art: The rise of the Christian Elvis

Apologies for radio silence. I am pleased to announce that Everyday Elvis has indeed been undergoing Elvisness, but without reporting. So to get back on the gravel road, I am delighted to introduce a guest post, by Elvisiate Clare, who accompanied me to see Elvis in Concert, at Wembley Arena, 27th February, 2010. 

I never thought I would be going to an Elvis concert so to go to a second one was inconceivable this time last year.

Here is my previous experience of Elvis:

1/ At around nine years-old I developed a habit of listening to my dad’s Elvis album and walking around the living room imagining I was Elvis’s girlfriend, miming the words back at him and twisting my ponytail around my fingers to titillate him.

2/ At around 14 years-old I had a party. It was very very good. My sisters bought me Hooch to escape the embarrassment of my mum’s very devious plan of saying she would supply the alcohol for the party - information I coolly passed on to the rest of the prospective guests – only to pull out of the bag 1% beer with only an hour to go before anyone arrived.

Anyway that has nothing to do with Elvis but everything to do with the difference between sisterly and motherly love.

I was not all that generous with the Hooch and Bacardi Breezers and got very drunk. I remember vaguely my sister dancing to dad’s same Elvis album with the boy I fancied. At such a young age it is hard to understand your emotions and I wasn’t sure why that made me like him more. Now I know it was because he liked Elvis and not because he fancied my sister.

3/ A few months ago Pen77 wanted to go to the Ace Café to celebrate Elvis’ birthday. I didn’t really want to go but everyone at work said I should. I’m glad I did. The fans were glamorous and the band was amazing, unbelievable. I thought I was in a film. I wanted to go home, put on some red lipstick, a fifties pony tail and mime Elvis songs to Michael the Lift. He wanted to go to sleep. He won.

That night there was a raffle to see Elvis with his original band at Wembley. I made Pen77 check her ticket. She won and she only knew because of me. I felt proud. But then I felt a sense of horror. She would invite me. I would have to go to another Elvis night and not one with young sexy people but one with old fat people.

I had underestimated how many old, fat people you could put in one place, but Wembley is a pretty large venue.

Apparently these were the more typical fans witnessed by Pen77 at conventions. Imagine a woman in her forties, the kind who thinks it is OK to wear pink furry headbands. Maybe I’m just being cruel. I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I am.

I wondered if there was something about Elvis that made women connect with him. These people were too young to have liked Elvis at the time he was famous. So did they, like me, like Elvis because their dad did? Although it was never a bonding point between me and my dad I know the feeling of clinging on to any common ground – for a period of around two years we had many many conversations about the film Donnie Brasco. I even bought the French dubbed version to impress him. He doesn’t speak French.

The concert was pretty much like any concert I’ve been to in a big venue – Elvis was on the big screen and the band played along. As I am short I normally don’t have the luxury of seeing the performer on stage so it was a relief to know I wasn’t missing out on the “experience” or “atmosphere” as the big screen was were it was at.

The band were truly talented - Elvis's Vegas and touring backing band and singers, The Sweet Inspirations, The Imperials and the TCB Band. The highlights of the night for me were when they got to do their solos. However, I was not among friends with this view. The fans weren’t interested. They just wanted more Elvis on the big screen. They couldn’t get enough of Elvis. As soon as it was the band’s turn to shine, they got up to go to the loo.

Little did I know that the shock of the night was still to come.

The song that brought the house down. The one that got their arms in the air, their banners waving. The one that got them on their feet, embracing each other in celebration of greatness. It wasn’t Hound Dog, it wasn’t Suspicious Minds. It wasn’t even I Can’t Help Falling in Love. It was How Great Thou Art.

Thanks: None of this would have been possible without Michael the Lift or Pen77

Pictures: Pen77

Suspicious Minds: David vs. David

Battle of the Elvisy poster-boys

Election time is approaching and airbrushed true blue Dave Cameron is starting to adorn billboards across the nation. You can tell he’s bad news from the fact that, given some sideburns and a quiff, he’s a bit more Gary Glitter than Elvis. The so nicely augmented billboard in question is in Hereford.  

And is it just me or is David Beckham just a little Elvisy in his Sport Relief beneficence? Let him adorn your chest by ordering here: http://shop.sportrelief.com/, or visit your local Sainsbury's or TK Maxx.

Made me wonder if Becks has consciously been Elvisy. I couldn’t find any evidence, but some folk out west have photoshopped him up nice and rock-n-rolly. No Gary Glitter there. Big Dave C's team could learn something.

Thanks: Gavin Moss

Pictures: Hereford Times, Sport Relief, http://www.freakingnews.com/David-Beckham-Elvis-Impersonator-Pictures-32143.asp

 

Elvis's 75th at the Jailhouse, Ace Café

The Ace Café was born and not made. In 1938, this archetypical motor café was built on the North Circular at the Stonebridge Park gyratory – where the North Circular meets the Harrow Road and the LMS railway. A pitstop for the new arterial road network that was transforming Britain. It was rebuilt in 1949 after the original building was bomb-damaged. Look at it, it’s a beautiful: utilitarian brick, 20^th-century transport trim, ocean-liner decorative, P&O smooth. It’s still full of hope for the future.  Its popularity as a 24-hour stop for bikers gained it a certain reputation for leather and 100mph. During the 1950s, it became a hit with leather-clad rockers showing off their wheels. It put on the rising stars of the time, of rock‘n’roll and racing. It closed in 1969, the North Circular was rerouted and the Ace became a tyre fitting shop, before Mark Wilsmore, a former frequenter of the old Ace, put into action a grand plan to restore it to its former glory. The plan worked and in the early 21^st century, the café was rebuilt from the inside out, retaining its 1949 shell, and restoring its interior – long since partitioned, concreted, and generally un-aced. The new design even featured ‘the jailhouse’, a space for live bands and their dancing fans.

The Ace Café had been a place where the cult of the teenager had flourished; where hip young things dressed like Marlon Brando (a hero of Elvis’) and listened to the new sounds that were so shocking their parents. It’s since kept that rockin’ alive. Where else should Elvis celebrate his 75^th? It was a freezing night, the snow had turned to ice and I gave up the notion of driving. Creeping round from Stonebridge Park station from the North Circular onto the old North Circular meant avoiding black ice. I met Elvisiate Clare, already propping up the long service counter where the black and white checkered staff were jumpin’ like catfish in a bowl. The clientele were fabulous: the same leather-clad rockers who had lived their teenage years belting up and down while the coin dropped in the jukebox, but mixed up with immaculately turned-out, ridiculously cool, tremendously good-looking hepcats, sportin’ fine 50s gear. DJ Bill Guntrip played Elvis’s early records and already the dancefloor was rocking.

At 10.30, a raffle took place. Clare suggested I might want to look at my ticket – something I wasn’t doing given that I didn’t know where I’d put it, and the last time I won anything was circa 1982 when I won a chicken for my dad. Eventually I found it and bizarrely, ticket number 121 (me and Elvis, we’re like that) was indeed the winner. Clare screamed and Jailhouse me went up to the Jailhouse to claim my prize. I rather incredibly have two tickets to see Elvis in Concert in February. I’m taking Clare of course.

The band, The Memphis Flashers, featuring Darrel Higham on guitar, were brilliant. Elvis, without the impersonator. Higham doesn’t try to be Elvis but he has a great voice, great energy, and is an excellent front man. Instead of getting into Elvis via a series of karaoke kindergartens, he looks and sounds like he’s made of rock’n’roll. He was occasionally joined by the very lovely leopard-printed, psychobilly quiffed, rock’n’roll voiced, Imelda May, and once or twice by members of the congregation such as one of the aforementioned (Johnny Cashesque) hepcats who grizzled out a corking Folsom Prison Blues while his companions jived away. Darrel and the Flashers were entirely about rock’n’roll and rockabilly, with proper early Elvis down to a T and the odd interloper – Johnny Burnette’s Train Kept A’ Rollin’ (a personal favourite) and Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire (least said, soonest mended) – thrown in to delight (or confuse). When the crowd called for Jailhouse Rock, Darrel sighed, Are you trying to kill me?, but got on with the job and pulled it off rather well. Jailhouse Rock is hard to pull off you know. It’s why so many ETAs stick to the late Elvis – after his voice was ruined.

Well. What a night. What a place. Super fun, super friendly. I shall definitely be returning when I’m hipper and hepper and altogether more of a cat. I advise you to do the same, especially if you have a classic sporty motor and are sporting a fine quiff (like I was).  17^th April for the Eddie Cochran tribute anyone?

Thanks: Elvisiate Clare (huge thanks), Mark Wilsmore & the Ace Cafe, Michael The Lift, James The Hair

Pictures: Pen77, http://www.ace-cafe-london.com/History.aspx, Clare

Happy Birthday to You: the King at 75

At around 4.30am on January 8^th 1935 Gladys Presley gave birth to Elvis Aron Presley, around a half hour after his stillborn brother, Jesse Garon, in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi. Elvis is 75 today, Friday 8^th January 2010. At Graceland, Priscilla and Lisa Marie will be making the annual birthday declaration and cutting his birthday cake on the lawn. It's Elvis Presley Day in Memphis, and the Estate is hosting a four-day bash there which you can follow online.

Across Britain Elvis fans will be making their own celebrations: from Middlesbrough's own Niall Southall, to a bring your own party in Glamorgan with Kurt Tallon, to Blackpool's major Elvis contest. In London, the Charlotte Street Blues Bar has hired Ian Coulson as ETA for the weekend, while one of the burgeoning underground supperclubs is hosting an Elvis’s Birthday Special with a menu derived from Elvis's Southern favourites cooked by his Graceland cook. The supperclub cook quotes David Adler, author of The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley: "Coincidentally, Elvis's favorite word of endorsement was 'burnt'. 'That's burnt, man' he would say, which could indicate either a good steak or a good performance". I’ve already got started on Elvis's birthday with a similar but less advanced personal tribute with friends Cat and Chris. An apocryphal story has Elvis living off fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches for seven days so I assembled the ingredients – sliced white bread, smooth peanut butter, ripe bananas – and the delicacy was washed down with El’s favourite drink – Pepsi Cola. Although Elvis didn’t drink much, we added a tot of Jack Daniels for the toast. At least it's from Tennessee. All I can say is those seven days must have been desperate times for Elvis. Banana vom, as my friends have christened elements of this sandwich, is not nice. The bite-sized chunks make it more palatable. I'll be continuing celebrations at the Ace Cafe on the North Circular.

If you're in the US, those nice Elvis fans at the Independent (who did a magazine special last Saturday on people making a living from Elvis - hopefully to be revisited anon) have collected a few little Elvis activities for you to do this weekend, including what promises to be an awesome spectacle in Las Vegas, Cirque du Soleil's compilation of Elvis toons and aerial daring Viva ELVIS which opens this weekend.

Happy Birthday Elvis, I love you, says Suzi Quatro at the end of her Radio 2 broadcast, part of the BBC's Elvis (radio and TV) Season. In Suzi Quatro's Elvis, Suzi visits Tupelo and audibly moved by Elvis’s humble beginnings, explores his Southern life, its sites, its people and Elvis's rise to fame, at the same time acknowledging her own debt to the King and putting right her 35-year-old regret at not accepting an invitation from Elvis himself (she didn't feel worthy). She ends with her new tribute single to the King, Singing With Angels.

Finally, Elvis as a living mega-star: Elvis Fantasay is one techno-geek's collection of Elvis assemblages that conjure a live Elvis into a 21^st-century mega-stadium. The marvelous birthday greeting from the crowd is seriously special. Imagine this at Anfield: http://www.youtube.com/user/elvisfantasay2010. Watch that space for a forthcoming interview with the King - his first in over 32 years.

Finally, finally, hear it here from the King himself. 

Thanks: ChrisCat (for the birthday party), Stan, and Dan.

Pictures:  Graceland lawn webcam

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-4732-Celebrity-Travel-Examiner~y2009m8d14-Elvis-Presleys-birthplace-in-Tupelo-Mississippi-now-a-hot-tourist-attraction
Pen77

From a Jack to a King: Jailhouse Elvis heard in Jaxx Caff

6th January: Perhaps in honour of Elvis' 75th birthday on Friday, Kenton and Cathy chat over the background music in Jaxx Caff. Jailhouse Rock in Borchester!

The Archers is Britain's longest running soap. Daily on BBC Radio 4, farming folk converge and bore the pants off half the population while the others can't turn them off.

Merry Christmas Baby: Jailhouse Elvis found in crib

Wise men say....
Archaeologist Paul Graves-Brown, editor of the wonderful Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture, has kindly drawn my attention to his 'traditional' Elvis, posted outside the stable bare in the Graves-Brown Nativity scene. Jailhouse Elvis as Wise Man? (Incidentally, Paul adds, he would have made Elvis out of Fimo but he ran out).

Thanks & picture: Paul Graves-Brown
Merry Christmas Baby, I wish I knew the words: http://tinyurl.com/ComebackCrimboElvis

If I Get Home(ware) On Christmas Day

Vegetable Elvis: last-minute Christmas gifts for the discerning Elvis fan


Emma was looking for a last minute Christmas present for her brother and came across this fruity piece of Elvisiana. Those fancy folk at Joseph Joseph have Warholed a vegetable King for the cookin' and choppin' Elvis fan. Gettin' back to roots.

And for the lonely Elvis fan whose feet get cold in their draughty attic room (yes, that's me), what could be more warming this Christmas than a Love Me Tender hot-water bottle?

Thanks: Emma
Pictures: amazon.co.uk - click on links

If I Can Dream: Elvis as Everyman

6th December: John Bishop in Elvis Has Left the Building
Oxford North Wall

When Elvis Presley died in 1977, there were an estimated 37 Elvis impersonators in the world. By 1993, there were 48,000 Elvis impersonators, an exponential increase. Extrapolating from this, by 2010 there will be 2.5 billion Elvis impersonators. The population of the world will be 7.5 billion by 2010. Every 3rd person will be an Elvis impersonator by 2010. – Source: Caen, H., San Francisco Chronicle; October 27, 1993

Walking home on Hallowe'en night I saw an advert for John Bishop's touring stand-up show Elvis Has Left the Building. So on Sunday night, I was at the North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford for John 'Bish' Bishop. Bish is a Scouse comedian formerly Someone in Pharmeceuticals. He's been plying his new trade at Edinburgh for some time and this was his Edinburgh show. He's a chatty man and does a lot of audience interaction. A few too many jokes about porn for my liking. Unreconstructed is back I gather.

The show brings together a couple of strands - the idea of clinging to your dream and being middle-aged, through the McGuffin of Elvis at 42. Bish was presenting awards at an industry 'do' (Best Kitchen Utensils 2008 or some such) at the Dorchester Hotel in London. When his work was done he went to watch TV and drink nicked booze in his hotel room. A documentary about Elvis came on apparently citing the above statistic. One in three, says Bish, one in three, we're all Elvis.

But what hit him more was the fact that Elvis died at 42. Suddenly Bish understood why Elvis was fat. Because he was middle-aged and you get fat. And why Elvis wore jumpsuits. Because you're too old to wear fashionable gear and too young to dress like your dad. But why Elvis was still able to record with soul. When Bish shows his tour poster to his eleven-year-old son, son says 'Who's Elvis?' They don't have icons anymore, says Bish.

At the end of the show, Bish cuts footage of Elvis singing If I Can Dream, with the fulfillment of his own dream - playing centre-mid for Liverpool in a charity Reds all-stars match against a celebrity all-stars team. He gets to play in a team with Steve MacManaman, Jamie Redknapp and Peter Beardsley, take his dream shot against the goal at the Kop end, come off for Kenny Dalglish, and maybe, just maybe, impress his kids.

Reading the liner notes for From Elvis In Memphis, Elvis' 1969 home-coming come-back album ('Elvis gets soul'), I was amazed to read how the studio owner and house band, on learning that they would be recording with Elvis were underwhelmed to be working with a has-been, after all they'd just recorded Sweet Caroline with Neil Diamond. They proceeded to produce the album that contains Suspicious Minds, Rubberneckin', Long Black Limousine, In The Ghetto (if you like that kind of thing), and my own personal favourite Loved On Look. Elvis, returned to record in Memphis for the first time since the 50s.
 
Elvis as middle-aged hero - come-back kid - denigrated dad - poor second to Neil Diamond but still able to produce Suspicious Minds - Elvis as Everyman for those still dreaming.

 Picture: http://www.johnbishoponline.com/page/tour2009/

Walk A Mile In My Shoes

A Day In Hand reveal "The Tao of Elvis" and issue the Elvis Challenge (28th November)

Elvis as gay superhero. A Day In Hand is an organisation that encourages gay people (and straight sympathisers) to walk hand in hand with pride. Since homophobic attacks have seen a 14% increase in Britain since April and ‘gay’ has become a ubiquitous and seemingly acceptable term of abuse, A Day In Hand isn’t really the preaching-to-the-converted mission you might think.

This Saturday, 28th November, we are urged to listen to Elvis’s version of Joe South’s Walk A Mile In My Shoes and walk a mile hand in hand with someone of the same sex, bearing in mind the lyrics:

"Walk a mile in my shoes

Just walk a mile in my shoes

Before you abuse, criticize and accuse

Then walk a mile in my shoes"

A Day In Hand’s Tami Twarog describes her Elvis revelation:
When I drove across country to move to California I visited Graceland. Many of Elvis's favorite expressions were posted around the museum. One was “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.”

The expression stuck. I thought it is the perfect universal action towards peace. The first critical step in understanding another human being was to put yourself in their place. I bought an Elvis CD at Graceland and the song "Walk a Mile in my Shoes" escorted me for the rest of my drive across the USA.

Regarding A Day in Hand, I thought "What is the real goal?" Stop homophobia. Create understanding. We don't have to convert the LGBT community, or their friends. It's the stubborn bigots who need to come around. How do we do that? Pride parades? Maybe. That's good for us ... for visibility in the community. But will it make those who are homophobic come around? Probably not.

I once again thought of that Elvis quote. Maybe if they were to walk a mile in another man's (girl’s or trans’) shoes they would understand the plight and stigma that still permeates society today. Understand that for our gay brothers & sisters the simple act of holding hands can be a traumatic and even dangerous experience. Even to those who support the gay community, you can't really understand what it's like to live as a gay person until you walk a mile in there shoes. And so the Day in Hand Elvis challenge was born. Plus, says Tami, I love fat Elvis.

Gay Elvis is a multifaceted version. Not just sequins and tight trousers, no, but also embodying some kind of butch machismo (for some) while being the sympathetic comfort figure for others. Camp Elvis, butch Elvis, gay Elvis, lesbian Elvis. Here Elvis is a bridge to understanding, a dispenser of wisdom. More of this later.

For now, come Saturday, Walk A Mile In My Shoes!

Thanks: David Watkins and Tami Twarog of A Day In Hand, http://www.adayinhand.com/; and thanks Stan

Pictures: http://www.adayinhand.com/

Who Are You? (Who Am I?)

We are all Elvis now: 8th November

“Was Elvis Irish?” asked Mary Ellen Sweeney in web magazine BellaOnline (the Voice of Women), “With his blue-black hair and bedroom eyes, he could have passed for ‘Black Irish’ any day of the week” she continues. Sweeney cites the migration of Irish men and the difficulties of Ireland’s 20^th-century past as the reason that Elvis had such an impact on ‘yearning’ Irish hearts. I don’t think it’s just Ireland – I think that yearning is an important part of his continued success. Elvis seems to fill a hole. Elvis is comfort.

Orla meets me off the bus from Bundoran in Galway. We stop for a Guinness but I’m too hungover and have tea instead. The shop across from the pub is called Wooden Heart. It sells wooden toys. I’m starting to see Elvis everywhere. Walking down the street I see a poster for a chubby Vegas Elvis coming to Galway in late November. In the bar where we eat, Love Me Tender is playing.

In episode 4 of the first series of Father Ted, ‘The Competition’, Fathers Dougal, Ted and Jack win the annual priests’ lookalike contest as ‘the Three Ages of Elvis’ (against Father Dick Byrne’s hilariously disturbing ‘Diana Ross and two of the Supremes’). Ted says, “We are all Elvis now, that’s the problem.” Sweeney may have been writing rhetorically but Elvis genealogists answered her anyway. The Presleys seem to trace their ancestry back to Paisley in Scotland, coming to America in 1745, but then there’s some Irish, more Scots, Norman French, high-class English, Jewish and lest we forget, Cherokee. We are all Elvis now.

Thanks: Orla

Picture: homepage.eircom.net/~cubs/tedpic.htm

Donegality (part 2): Hard Knocks

13.35. Café Ceylon, Main Street, Bundoran. Elvis is eating a cheeseburger. Kraig Parker is sitting back in a western-style jacket – rodeo Elvis from Tickle Me – and aviator sunglasses. He’s given up on the mountain of chips. A man I take to be his Colonel Parker is praising Red Alert, the backing band. Kraig is reputed to earn up to $3 million a year as one of the world’s top ETAs. He started in 1995 after busting out some Elvis at an office party, then came 3^rd in a local competition and got himself an agent. He’s a graphic designer by trade but now travels the world as an Elvis headliner. He’s a little shorter and a little meatier than Elvis but last night when he played a little set between the Brit Elvises, it was clear that he’s in another class. There’s Elvis charisma, the moves are perfect and an Elvisian introspection – something about it not being him that’s funny, but us. He has a touch of the cool remove, unfathomable Elvis that is there in the performances and interviews. He’s a bit of a talismanic figure for the British and Irish Elvis conventions. I look at the Irish Sun newspaper to stop myself staring at him. Jedward have survived on the X-factor, Elvis quiffs and all. 

Other than Kraig smoking his cigar as he strolls down the main drag, there’s not much Elvisness in Bundoran today. Kraig Parker seems to be the only Elvis braving the changeable weather. The landord of Teac Sean Rua says that they usually have traditional music but they’d booked a local Elvis for the festival. He’ll be on again tonight – it seems to go down well. I drink a Jameson's then a Guinness to make the hotel drinks more palatable. Up at the Great Northern, the warm up is well underway for the All Ireland Final. Last year’s winner, Ciaran ‘Eireann Elvis’ Houlihan, is delivering a barnstorming set including an American Trilogy duet with a young guy with Downs Syndrome (the Downs Syndrome Society is the chosen beneficiary of this and the Porthcawl festival). Then the judges – a judgemental looking lot that I must investigate further – take their seats front right of the stage and the show begins.

First up is Patrick Byrne who does a good, humourful Elvis. He’s tall and has presence in That’s The Way It Is gear. It’s a good start. The next two aren’t so good: Martin McCluskey doesn’t entirely cut it as GI Elvis and I chat with some home-town friends of Glasgow’s Johnny Lee Memphis (more later). Then Daniel Kirwin. He’s in a wheelchair and stays on the dancefloor, in front of the stage. Now, Elvis was never in a wheelchair so far as I know, but as soon as Kirwin opens his mouth, the dancefloor fills. He has a terrific rich Elvisy voice and he’s got good tunes. The crowd love him. He distributes a few yellow lei to the girls and leaves a happy crowd to thumping applause. The next two are also fairly forgettable (could be they’re too Vegasy for me to remember them) and I say to Glasgow Bernie that it’s got to be Kirwin but his money’s on Byrne. But there’s one more to go, and a lithe, slim Elvis in gold lame jacket and black trousers, with an acoustic guitar bounds onto the stage. He goes straight into the classic rock ‘n’ roll hits and embodies young movies Elvis on rhythm guitar. The dancers are back and it’s clear who the winner is. This is Tom Gilson, a 39-year old bookbinder who, according to the Irish Times, sings Love Me Tender to his wife at night. There are a few in the audience who wouldn’t mind that and he’s signing autographs as soon as he comes off. The judges results are in, victory indeed for Tom (Paddy Power had him a 6/1 contender). Byrne (11/10) is second. All six do a photo call and then Tom is on for a victory set. He goes forward to represent Ireland in the Elvis Tribute Artiste World Cup, in Cardiff on July 4^th.

I chat to a few folk. All but one say that they’re here for their partner. She/he loves Elvis so they came with. One woman who’s come from Porthcawl with her mother (because her own daughter, who usually does the accompanying can’t make it) says that mother thinks the Irish crowd are a bit raucous. Porthcawl is much more serious she says. I say that my perception is the Porthcawl crowd are the rowdiest. Away from home syndrome we agree. But Pat from Letterkenny has an Elvis tattoo. He’s happy to admit how much he loves the King. He looks close to tears when he talks about how Elvis is so strong in his household. He gives me a couple of DVDs I haven’t seen. We agree we’ll meet again at the World Cup in Cardiff.

There’s great craic tonight – much more lively than last night and much more of a home crowd. People have travelled to be here and it makes for a great event. Peter Phillips – the entrepreneur behind both this and Porthcawl, and also Tedfest, the annual Father Ted convention held on the Aran Islands – is greeted as a friend and is clearly a bit overwhelmed by his creation. But it’s interesting – he’s not representative of the crowd. He’s a historian and a writer and seems very English of a certain class. He stands out against a fairly earthy and homogenous crowd. I would say that difference stands out here generally, but difference of a certain kind – this is a kind crowd with a deep humanity judging by the importance of charity to the proceedings. But there’s also connoisseurship. People who love Elvis know the wheat from the chaff. Donegality is a word coined by CS Lewis ("to Donegal for its Donegality"), reclaimed by author Michael Ward to "denote the spiritual essence or quiddity [...] of a story [...] its peculiar atmosphere or quality; its pervasive and purposed integral tone or flavour; its tacit spirit" (from the A-Team Blog). There is a warm quality to the Donegality of Elvis tonight. 

Thanks: Orla 

Pictures: Kraig Parker, Bundoran; Tom Gilson; Pat's tat. All: Pen77

Hail Mary, full of Graceland

Donegality (part 1): Miracle of the Rosary

Knock, West of Ireland International Airport, the week after an apparition of the Virgin Mary had been forecast in Knock Village. ‘A Boyle woman said she saw the sun change colour’ said the barman in the airport bar, ‘as long as they don’t bring the circus here.’ I sipped my coffee, waited for my Elvisiate host for the weekend, Orla, and felt like I’d come home. 

In 2002 the Irish paper, Sunday People, wrote of Bundoran (Bun Dobhráin) that it was like ‘the back streets of Las Vegas only with cheaper hookers’. It has an element of surfer cool these days but off-season seaside is off-season seaside with quiet streets, raincoats, sad arcades flashing for attention, bookies and pubs doing the best business, while the recession means the town-limits extend for miles with empty and half-built holiday home housing estates. Where else would you hold the Irish Elvis festival?

Rocking up in Donegal’s Vegas on a dark, rainy November night, Elvisness didn’t look too abundant – cold, wet, no sign of the King – but a pub, Teac Sean Rua, had a little sign outside saying ‘Elvis here tonite’, and Orla stopped looking at me as if I’d invented it. We warmed up in a restaurant where the proprietor told us how big the festival had been last year – it’s first – with Elvises playing each other in a full-costume football match under sunny skies, the streets awash with a parade of Elvii instead of rain. He said if his daughter managed to get him a costume he’d wear it tomorrow.

The Great Northern Hotel, host of Las Bundoran, is a former railway, now golf-hotel that overlooks the Atlantic. Friday night was international masters night with Juan ‘He may be Elvis, but he still wants his mam to make his costumes (South Wales Echo)’ Lozano, Dean ‘The Official Best Welsh Elvis 2009’ Mack, Steve ‘The Rockin' Reverend’ Caprice, Mike ‘Thatcham man gets Elvis accolade (Newbury Today)’ Nova, Ben ‘Best Gold Lamé Jacket 2007’ Portsmouth and Marc ‘Forty-year-old gas meter reader (Glamorgan Gazette)’ George, all backed by Britain’s top Elvis tribute band Red Alert and Porthcawl’s splendid backing duo Mills & Boon. I’ll come back to them individually at a later date – suffice to say they are some of Britain’s top ETAs, having between them won the Porthcawl prize several times, and scored well in international events. Personally, I go for Mike Nova, but maybe because he got the young Elvis slot – the movie music and some earlier rock ‘n’ roll. The audience  comprised (foretold by the Porthcawl bus parked outside) a strong Welsh contingent - familiar with Elvis convention etiquette. This was my first time at such an event so wasn’t sure how to play it. We sat at tables around a dancefloor at the head of which the Elvises performed on a low stage. Popular songs got dancers onto the floor; people filmed and photographed. A little ritual of winning a scarf from Elvis was in play: a woman approaches the stage, Elvis beckons her foreword, puts a scarf around her neck and kisses her and when one brave woman went, more would follow, so Elvis wears a number of scarves around his neck. The woman opposite us was from Dublin, she comes for her daughter she says, her daughter loves Elvis. They go to the hotel on the Red Cow Roundabout (a notorious accident hot-spot) to see all the Elvises that come, organised by the Irish fanclub. Her daughter returned from the Elvis tat stalls in the foyer with a tie printed with Elvis images. Ben Portsmouth’s own Colonel Parker came around, distributing Ben’s ‘Taking Care of Elvis’ stickers and little Elvis pendants. ‘Ben’s got some good scarves’, he said, 'You've got to be quick to get them.' Ritual. How anthropological. I thought I’d better initiate myself if this is part of living Elvisly. I was elbowed out of the way by some more demanding Welsh ladies, but got my scarf eventually. It came with a kiss from Ben Portsmouth. The noise, the competition, the demand, Ben’s costume (he was Comeback Special acoustic), the women, the manliness of sweat and leather, lends it flustering excitement. It could almost be the real thing. Almost. 

We’d had enough of Vegas Elvis (except for Mike Nova and Ben Portsmouth all of them were That’s The Way It Is gaudy in jumpsuits) by the time Marc George came on all blue and spangly. I knew American Trilogy was coming and I’ll put my cards on the table – I hate it. On the way back we stopped into Teac Sean Rua where a red jumpsuited young guy was singing karaoke Proud Mary to a rollin’ rollin’ home crowd.

Thanks: Elvisiate Orla

Picture: www.lasbundoran.com/elvis_irish_festival.php?Action=Home &amp

Mike Nova by Pen77

Long Black Limousine (part 1): Dia de los Muertos

November 1st Todos Los Santos/All Saints Day

At the British Museum in London. Latin madness including mariachi musicians, Mexican food, papier mâché altar offerings, dancing skeletons, crystal skulls...

In the shop, little retablo boxes were doing a roaring trade. Tiny boxes of clay, wood and papier mâché with little models inside them - domestic scenes, religious scenes, historical scenes. Retablo boxes arrived in South America from Spain as small portable wooden religious altars used to instruct. They took on a new form: florally decorated boxes with animated figures inside that incorporated indigenous beliefs but also reflected local, everyday life, and a more diverse view of death. In amongst the little collection in the Museum shop, the King. Elvis as the incomprehensible, veneratable dead. Elvis católico. Snake-hipped Elvis in the skeleton dance.

Elvis' death and the material and beliefs that have become attached to it is going to be a recurrent theme I think.    Thanks: Freeo.  
Picture: http://tinyurl.com/Elvis-Retablo

Everyday Elvis

Falling asleep last night I heard on the radio that Elvis had slipped to 4^th on the Forbes ‘dead rich’ list – behind Yves Saint-Laurent at number 1, and new entry Michael Jackson at 3. Elvis is everyday – falling into your consciousness while you fall asleep, slipping into your unconsciousness when you walk down the street. Elvis is everything to everybody, manufactured and malleable – an enthusiasm or a passion, or just passing. Real and imagined. I am Elvis. You are Elvis. We are all Elvis now. This blog is an exploration of Elvis in the everyday – encounters with him, whoever he is, wherever they happen: with impersonators, Elvis Tribute Artists (ETAs), Elvis music in public places, Elvis conversations in private places, Elvis in the news, Elvis on the walls.... Sometimes I’ll look for them, but mostly I’ll let them happen. I’m situated and I’m skint so it won’t be universal – it’s Elvis in my everyday. But feel free to contribute – let me know where you see him, where I can see him. Come with me.