From: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org (avalon-digest) To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: avalon-digest V11 #234 Reply-To: avalon@smoe.org Sender: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk avalon-digest Friday, October 13 2006 Volume 11 : Number 234 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: [AVALON] Blank Frank and Dead Finks Dont Talk [Stephen Thrower ] [AVALON] Roxy Remixes ["KB Porter" ] RE: [AVALON] Dead Finks Don't Talk ["KB Porter" ] RE: [AVALON] New Material [] RE: [AVALON] Roxy Remixes [] Re: [AVALON] New Material [KWil632057@aol.com] Fwd: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes [Mark ] Re: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes ["michiel" ] To leave the list, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon-digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 12:16:06 +0100 From: Stephen Thrower Subject: RE: [AVALON] Blank Frank and Dead Finks Dont Talk Apologies if this has all bene chewed over before........ 'Dead Finks' has several lines attacking Ferry. "Oh you headless chicken, can those poor teeth take so much kicking, You're always so charming, as you peck your way up there." The implied violence in the line about teeth (I always see Ferry here, teeth bared in that strange half-snarl he used in his early performances) no doubt stems from Eno's habit of writing what he thinks is nonsense but which inevitably contains unconscious feelings - in this case hostility. Imagery of teeth, of smashing or breaking them, is traditionally associated in Freudian analysis with attacks on father figures or by extension authority figures - perhaps Eno here reveals his unconscious Oedipal position with regard to Ferry, the authority figure of the band? The line about pecking is less veiled, more directly an attack on what Eno perceives as Ferry's social climbing, seen negatively as a chicken's ascent up the pecking order. The word 'fink' has interesting associations that not only suggest an attack on Ferry (in a general sense a fink is an "obnoxious or loathsome person") but also on Manzanera and Mackay ("and so they stumble round in threes") for going along with Eno's ousting from the band (a 'fink' can also be "someone who continues to work when fellow workers are on strike"). (We can assume therefore that Eno exonerates Paul Thompson - after all, he's 'only the drummer'...) Other lines are a bit opaque. I've often wondered if "I've been ever so sad for a very long time" was a gin-sozzled late-night 'between you and me' confession of Ferry's mean-spiritedly taken out of context and hoisted up the flagpole for scornful purposes... The lines "And these finks don't dress too well/No discrimination/To be a zombie all the time/ Requires such dedication" flail rather broad swipes at an important part of Ferry's strategy with Roxy, dress sense. Perhaps (and this is only a guess) Eno wrote these lines when he was aware of Ferry's decision to adopt the nostalgic lounge lizard tuxedo'ed look as a permanent step away from glam, and saw it as a bad move ('to be a zombie all the time')? The events of 1973 were incredibly compressed in time - two albums, one with and one without Eno - so perhaps Ferry was already laying down the law regarding the shift from glam to thirties chic before Eno left? The last verse is especially interesting, and I've always suspected that it gets to the heart of a major philosophical disagreement between Eno and Ferry, one which I've never seen addressed by either of them in interviews. After a spiteful attack on Ferry's vocals ("But these finks don't talk too well//they've got a shaky sense of diction") which may also be an attack on Ferry's (self-confessed) lack of facility with words in interviews, we get this key line, which Eno delivers with added emphasis at the close of the song: "It's not so much a living hell/It's just a dying fiction". A dying fiction? Could Eno be referring to Christianity? It has always struck me as very significant that Ferry's dalliance with Christianity began immediately after Eno's departure, first with 'Psalm' (on Stranded), and then 'Triptych' (on Country Life). The first of these can, at a stretch, be seen as an ironic play with musical and lyrical form, in this case Gospel. 'Triptych', however, sweeps aside such caveats by displaying a straight-faced piety, and indulgence in the mysticism of the Cross. Compare the 'Dead Finks' phrase "dying fiction" with this quote from Eno: "I'm an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call the last illusion. The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what's going on but that the planets know what's going on. Astrology is part of the last illusion. The obsession with health is part of the last illusion, the idea that there's that if only we could spend time on it and sit down and stop being unreasonable with each other we'd all find that there was a structure and a solution underlying plan to it all, for most people the short answer to that is god." Last illusions or dying fictions, it sounds like Ferry was deviating from the path of existentialism and Eno was outraged by what he saw as Ferry's dalliance with an outmoded, intellectually stunted fairy-tale. Musically, there are several echoes of Roxy, from the delicate slightly tea-room tinkle of the piano figure, to the bombastic basso profondo vocals that underscore the lines "Oh perfect masters, thery thrive on disasters" - voices that bring to mind 'The Pride and the Pain' with its male chorus of mock-operatic splendour. And finally, there's the single funniest dig on the record: Eno squawks the words "Oh no! Oh-no oh-no oh-no!" in what can only have been intended as a piss-take of Ferry's nakedly squawking delivery of the lines "Shake your hair girl with your ponytail" and "Throw your precious gifts into the air", on 'If There Is Something'. Ferry's vocal delivery on those lines is extreme and bizarre, and Eno seems to have seized upon Ferry's self-confessed embarrassment at singing the song live, using it to take the piss out of the lounge-lizard's most 'uncool' moment on record! Steve Thrower ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 10:46:15 +0100 From: "Martin Stockman" Subject: RE: [AVALON] Dead Finks Don't Talk Fabulous post Stephen, thanks. Kind Regards Martin Stockman - -----Original Message----- From: owner-avalon@smoe.org [mailto:owner-avalon@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Thrower Sent: 11 October 2006 11:44 To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: [AVALON] Dead Finks Don't Talk Apologies if this has all bene chewed over before........ 'Dead Finks' has several lines attacking Ferry. "Oh you headless chicken, can those poor teeth take so much kicking, You're always so charming, as you peck your way up there." The implied violence in the line about teeth (I always see Ferry here, teeth bared in that strange half-snarl he used in his early performances) no doubt stems from Eno's habit of writing what he thinks is nonsense but which inevitably contains unconscious feelings - in this case hostility. Imagery of teeth, of smashing or breaking them, is traditionally associated in Freudian analysis with attacks on father figures or by extension authority figures - perhaps Eno here reveals his unconscious Oedipal position with regard to Ferry, the authority figure of the band? The line about pecking is less veiled, more directly an attack on what Eno perceives as Ferry's social climbing, seen negatively as a chicken's ascent up the pecking order. The word 'fink' has interesting associations that not only suggest an attack on Ferry (in a general sense a fink is an "obnoxious or loathsome person") but also on Manzanera and Mackay ("and so they stumble round in threes") for going along with Eno's ousting from the band (a 'fink' can also be "someone who continues to work when fellow workers are on strike"). (We can assume therefore that Eno exonerates Paul Thompson - after all, he's 'only the drummer'...) Other lines are a bit opaque. I've often wondered if "I've been ever so sad for a very long time" was a gin-sozzled late-night 'between you and me' confession of Ferry's mean-spiritedly taken out of context and hoisted up the flagpole for scornful purposes... The lines "And these finks don't dress too well/No discrimination/To be a zombie all the time/ Requires such dedication" flail rather broad swipes at an important part of Ferry's strategy with Roxy, dress sense. Perhaps (and this is only a guess) Eno wrote these lines when he was aware of Ferry's decision to adopt the nostalgic lounge lizard tuxedo'ed look as a permanent step away from glam, and saw it as a bad move ('to be a zombie all the time')? The events of 1973 were incredibly compressed in time - two albums, one with and one without Eno - so perhaps Ferry was already laying down the law regarding the shift from glam to thirties chic before Eno left? The last verse is especially interesting, and I've always suspected that it gets to the heart of a major philosophical disagreement between Eno and Ferry, one which I've never seen addressed by either of them in interviews. After a spiteful attack on Ferry's vocals ("But these finks don't talk too well//they've got a shaky sense of diction") which may also be an attack on Ferry's (self-confessed) lack of facility with words in interviews, we get this key line, which Eno delivers with added emphasis at the close of the song: "It's not so much a living hell/It's just a dying fiction". A dying fiction? Could Eno be referring to Christianity? It has always struck me as very significant that Ferry's dalliance with Christianity began immediately after Eno's departure, first with 'Psalm' (on Stranded), and then 'Triptych' (on Country Life). The first of these can, at a stretch, be seen as an ironic play with musical and lyrical form, in this case Gospel. 'Triptych', however, sweeps aside such caveats by displaying a straight-faced piety, and indulgence in the mysticism of the Cross. Compare the 'Dead Finks' phrase "dying fiction" with this quote from Eno: "I'm an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call the last illusion. The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what's going on but that the planets know what's going on. Astrology is part of the last illusion. The obsession with health is part of the last illusion, the idea that there's that if only we could spend time on it and sit down and stop being unreasonable with each other we'd all find that there was a structure and a solution underlying plan to it all, for most people the short answer to that is god." Last illusions or dying fictions, it sounds like Ferry was deviating from the path of existentialism and Eno was outraged by what he saw as Ferry's dalliance with an outmoded, intellectually stunted fairy-tale. Musically, there are several echoes of Roxy, from the delicate slightly tea-room tinkle of the piano figure, to the bombastic basso profondo vocals that underscore the lines "Oh perfect masters, thery thrive on disasters" - voices that bring to mind 'The Pride and the Pain' with its male chorus of mock-operatic splendour. And finally, there's the single funniest dig on the record: Eno squawks the words "Oh no! Oh-no oh-no oh-no!" in what can only have been intended as a piss-take of Ferry's nakedly squawking delivery of the lines "Shake your hair girl with your ponytail" and "Throw your precious gifts into the air", on 'If There Is Something'. Ferry's vocal delivery on those lines is extreme and bizarre, and Eno seems to have seized upon Ferry's self-confessed embarrassment at singing the song live, using it to take the piss out of the lounge-lizard's most 'uncool' moment on record! Steve Thrower ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon - -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.2/472 - Release Date: 10/11/2006 - -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.2/472 - Release Date: 10/11/2006 ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 05:53:06 EDT From: KWil632057@aol.com Subject: Re: [AVALON] Blank Frank and Dead Finks Dont Talk What a fantastic email Simon! I still stand by the idea that Eno wasn't all that disappointed to be leaving the band but this is fascinating reading. J In a message dated 12/10/2006 10:49:50 GMT Standard Time, stevesimon@blueyonder.co.uk writes: Apologies if this has all bene chewed over before........ 'Dead Finks' has several lines attacking Ferry. "Oh you headless chicken, can those poor teeth take so much kicking, You're always so charming, as you peck your way up there." The implied violence in the line about teeth (I always see Ferry here, teeth bared in that strange half-snarl he used in his early performances) no doubt stems from Eno's habit of writing what he thinks is nonsense but which inevitably contains unconscious feelings - in this case hostility. Imagery of teeth, of smashing or breaking them, is traditionally associated in Freudian analysis with attacks on father figures or by extension authority figures - perhaps Eno here reveals his unconscious Oedipal position with regard to Ferry, the authority figure of the band? The line about pecking is less veiled, more directly an attack on what Eno perceives as Ferry's social climbing, seen negatively as a chicken's ascent up the pecking order. The word 'fink' has interesting associations that not only suggest an attack on Ferry (in a general sense a fink is an "obnoxious or loathsome person") but also on Manzanera and Mackay ("and so they stumble round in threes") for going along with Eno's ousting from the band (a 'fink' can also be "someone who continues to work when fellow workers are on strike"). (We can assume therefore that Eno exonerates Paul Thompson - after all, he's 'only the drummer'...) Other lines are a bit opaque. I've often wondered if "I've been ever so sad for a very long time" was a gin-sozzled late-night 'between you and me' confession of Ferry's mean-spiritedly taken out of context and hoisted up the flagpole for scornful purposes... The lines "And these finks don't dress too well/No discrimination/To be a zombie all the time/ Requires such dedication" flail rather broad swipes at an important part of Ferry's strategy with Roxy, dress sense. Perhaps (and this is only a guess) Eno wrote these lines when he was aware of Ferry's decision to adopt the nostalgic lounge lizard tuxedo'ed look as a permanent step away from glam, and saw it as a bad move ('to be a zombie all the time')? The events of 1973 were incredibly compressed in time - two albums, one with and one without Eno - so perhaps Ferry was already laying down the law regarding the shift from glam to thirties chic before Eno left? The last verse is especially interesting, and I've always suspected that it gets to the heart of a major philosophical disagreement between Eno and Ferry, one which I've never seen addressed by either of them in interviews. After a spiteful attack on Ferry's vocals ("But these finks don't talk too well//they've got a shaky sense of diction") which may also be an attack on Ferry's (self-confessed) lack of facility with words in interviews, we get this key line, which Eno delivers with added emphasis at the close of the song: "It's not so much a living hell/It's just a dying fiction". A dying fiction? Could Eno be referring to Christianity? It has always struck me as very significant that Ferry's dalliance with Christianity began immediately after Eno's departure, first with 'Psalm' (on Stranded), and then 'Triptych' (on Country Life). The first of these can, at a stretch, be seen as an ironic play with musical and lyrical form, in this case Gospel. 'Triptych', however, sweeps aside such caveats by displaying a straight-faced piety, and indulgence in the mysticism of the Cross. Compare the 'Dead Finks' phrase "dying fiction" with this quote from Eno: "I'm an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call the last illusion. The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what's going on but that the planets know what's going on. Astrology is part of the last illusion. The obsession with health is part of the last illusion, the idea that there's that if only we could spend time on it and sit down and stop being unreasonable with each other we'd all find that there was a structure and a solution underlying plan to it all, for most people the short answer to that is god." Last illusions or dying fictions, it sounds like Ferry was deviating from the path of existentialism and Eno was outraged by what he saw as Ferry's dalliance with an outmoded, intellectually stunted fairy-tale. Musically, there are several echoes of Roxy, from the delicate slightly tea-room tinkle of the piano figure, to the bombastic basso profondo vocals that underscore the lines "Oh perfect masters, thery thrive on disasters" - voices that bring to mind 'The Pride and the Pain' with its male chorus of mock-operatic splendour. And finally, there's the single funniest dig on the record: Eno squawks the words "Oh no! Oh-no oh-no oh-no!" in what can only have been intended as a piss-take of Ferry's nakedly squawking delivery of the lines "Shake your hair girl with your ponytail" and "Throw your precious gifts into the air", on 'If There Is Something'. Ferry's vocal delivery on those lines is extreme and bizarre, and Eno seems to have seized upon Ferry's self-confessed embarrassment at singing the song live, using it to take the piss out of the lounge-lizard's most 'uncool' moment on record! Steve Thrower ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:00:52 EDT From: KWil632057@aol.com Subject: Re: [AVALON] Roxy Remixes As Roxy have been name checked often enough by some pretty major bands and artists, it'd be nice to think that the kids/clubbers/raveheads will get into them. It's interesting that the mixes are so dancey and so very uncommercial - unlike, say, cultural pygmy Leo Sayer's blink and you'll miss it return to the charts a few months back. I certainly can't see the Rain, Rain, Rain redux topping the charts and am very pleased about it. This should not be about a quick chart topping fix but a slow release - a reminder/introduction for the uninitiated. J In a message dated 12/10/2006 13:31:19 GMT Standard Time, kbporter@verizon.net writes: 'Tim Westwood' wrote: "The truth of the matter is that they aren't awful but don't match the originals. The point is, that they aren't meant to and they aren't really meant to be listened to as songs as such. Far better to hear them as they are meant to be heard, as snippets mixed with other tracks." I agree, Jonathan. Does anyone else think this is an attempt to lure new/younger customers into the Roxy/Ferry Fold? The tweens, gen-xs, or whatever-the-hell-people are called who are younger than 40 some years of age and those old enough to tote credit cards etc., are a rich and diverse market worthy of wooing, and boy, do they have different tastes, desires, and means of approach than do we aging (and dying) baby boomers. What may seem like schlock to us may be sweet music to the unconverted. Once lured by these weird mixes one would hope the youngsters might venture into the back catalog and become confirmed Roxy/Ferry addicts. At least, that is the spin I'd like to believe. I dream of the new legions of plugged into i-tunes blasting their hearing to oblivion with the twisted and contorted frequencies being unleashed by the masters of remakes and remodels. Enjoying the country life at its best. KBP ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:02:10 -0400 From: "KB Porter" Subject: [AVALON] Roxy remixes "There are no plans for a commercial release of these mixes at this stage. Any copies floating around are promos. J.O'B." Opps. Please disregard my previous email on this subject. Thank you. KBP still dreaming. ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 08:59:25 -0400 From: "KB Porter" Subject: [AVALON] Roxy Remixes 'Tim Westwood' wrote: "The truth of the matter is that they aren't awful but don't match the originals. The point is, that they aren't meant to and they aren't really meant to be listened to as songs as such. Far better to hear them as they are meant to be heard, as snippets mixed with other tracks." I agree, Jonathan. Does anyone else think this is an attempt to lure new/younger customers into the Roxy/Ferry Fold? The tweens, gen-xs, or whatever-the-hell-people are called who are younger than 40 some years of age and those old enough to tote credit cards etc., are a rich and diverse market worthy of wooing, and boy, do they have different tastes, desires, and means of approach than do we aging (and dying) baby boomers. What may seem like schlock to us may be sweet music to the unconverted. Once lured by these weird mixes one would hope the youngsters might venture into the back catalog and become confirmed Roxy/Ferry addicts. At least, that is the spin I'd like to believe. I dream of the new legions of plugged into i-tunes blasting their hearing to oblivion with the twisted and contorted frequencies being unleashed by the masters of remakes and remodels. Enjoying the country life at its best. KBP ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:14:37 -0400 From: "KB Porter" Subject: RE: [AVALON] Dead Finks Don't Talk Absolutely one of the finest posts to Avalon in years. Thank you, Steve! ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:07:19 +0100 From: Subject: RE: [AVALON] New Material Does anyone know the latest position with regard to new Ferry and Roxy Albums? Seems to have gone quiet except for Leo Abrahams insights. Cheers Rob ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:09:05 +0100 From: Subject: RE: [AVALON] Roxy Remixes It'll have to be a slow release if its going to introduce anyone waiting for new material :) - -----Original Message----- From: owner-avalon@smoe.org [mailto:owner-avalon@smoe.org] On Behalf Of KWil632057@aol.com Sent: 12 October 2006 14:01 To: avalon@smoe.org Subject: Re: [AVALON] Roxy Remixes This should not be about a quick chart topping fix but a slow release - a reminder/introduction for the uninitiated. J ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:09:31 EDT From: KWil632057@aol.com Subject: Re: [AVALON] New Material In a message dated 12/10/2006 16:23:14 GMT Standard Time, rob.whiteford@larcltd.co.uk writes: Does anyone know the latest position with regard to new Ferry and Roxy Albums? Yes. J ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 08:24:00 +0100 From: Mark Subject: Fwd: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes I just noticed some for sale on ebay if anyone's interested. They are giving a release date of 23rd October. Mactheaxe - ----- Original Message ----- From: JohnOBrien001@aol.com To: avalon@smoe.org Sent: Wed Oct 11 17:15 Subject: Fwd: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes There are no plans for a commercial release of these mixes at this stage. Any copies floating around are promos. J.O'B. In a message dated 11/10/2006 16:21:44 GMT Standard Time, mark@ olivetreepl.plus.com writes: Did someone say they had got a promo of this the other day? I'm having trouble finding out when the official release date is: it looks like the 4 track single- 'Remix #01' (which is the promo I believe) is out on 16th. Goodness only knows when the album is due out- Virgin websites as usual are useless and offer no clue. One would usually assume that an album would be fairly hot on the heels of a promo , but we are talking Virgin and Roxy Music here........ Mactheaxe ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@sm oe.org with: unsubscribe avalon - -- This email has been verified as Virus free Virus Protection and more available at http://www.plus.net ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 09:47:00 +0200 From: "michiel" Subject: Re: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes These are obviously illegal, with the ugly artwork and grammatical errors. Either that or Ferry's management has completely given up. Michiel - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark" To: Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 9:24 AM Subject: Fwd: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes > I just noticed some for sale on ebay if anyone's interested. They are > giving a release date of 23rd October. > > Mactheaxe > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: JohnOBrien001@aol.com > To: avalon@smoe.org > Sent: Wed Oct 11 17:15 > Subject: Fwd: Re: [AVALON] Roxy remixes > > There are no plans for a commercial release of these mixes at this stage. > Any copies floating around are promos. > > J.O'B. > > In a message dated 11/10/2006 16:21:44 GMT Standard Time, > mark@ olivetreepl.plus.com writes: > > Did someone say they had got a promo of this the other day? > > I'm having trouble finding out when the official release date is: it > looks like the 4 track single- 'Remix #01' (which is the promo I believe) > is out on 16th. Goodness only knows when the album is due out- Virgin > websites as usual are useless and offer no clue. > > One would usually assume that an album would be fairly hot on the heels > of a promo , but we are talking Virgin and Roxy Music here........ > > Mactheaxe > > ___________________________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@sm oe.org with: unsubscribe avalon > > -- > This email has been verified as Virus free > Virus Protection and more available at http://www.plus.net > > > ___________________________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ End of avalon-digest V11 #234 ***************************** ======================================================================== For further info, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info avalon-digest