This will be big news to any fans of new wave music from the late 1970s. According to AOL Spinner, Elvis Costello is going to release the recording of his 1978 gig at Toronto's the El Mocambo Club.

The sold-out concert was performed with Costello's then-new band, the Attractions, and was heavily bootlegged after it was broadcast on the Canadian radio station CHUM-FM. Costello was touring in support of his This Year's Model album, a first-rate disc that helped define him as one of rock's premiere Angry Young Men. The album will include such early Costello gems as "Pump it Up" and "Watching the Detectives" (see below for full track listing).

A recording of the concert was included in Costello's 2 1/2 Years box set in 1993, but this marks the first time it's being released on its own. Also, Spinner points out the club was also the place where the Rolling Stones played the gigs that became their Love You Live album.

There may be one problem, though: in its time, the Live at the El Mocambo set (as it was known) is recording wasn't generally considered very good -- kind of like the aforementioned Stones album. The leading new wave magazine at the time, Trouser Press, noted in a 1983 "special report" on bootleg records that the recording was "a bad performance with muddy sound." Maybe history will vindicate Costello? When the set gets released, Sept. 29, listeners can be the judge.

Live at the El Mocambo tracks:

"Mystery Dance"

1. "Waiting for the End of the World"
2. "Welcome to the Working Week"
3. "Less Than Zero"
4. "The Beat"
5. "Lip Service"
6. "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea"
7. "Little Triggers"
8. "Radio Radio"
9. "Lipstick Vogue"
10. "Watching the Detectives"
11. "Miracle Man"
12. "You Belong to Me"
13. "Pump It Up"