Errors-To: owner-ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Reply-To: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Sender: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu From: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu To: ecto-request@ns1.rutgers.edu Bcc: ecto-digest-outbound@ns1.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto #285 ecto, Number 285 Tuesday, 7 July 1992 Today's Topics: *-----------------* song title? To be E.Mortal Albany photos Ectophile World Distribution. Tori nominated for 4 MTV awards Absolutely.. Stuff(tm) ======================================================================== Date: 07 Jul 92 13:57:57 EDT From: Subject: song title? I have temporarily gone insane and forgotten which song this is: ...... psychiatrist .... ... don't want to hear it anymore .... send me mail at mjm.zylab.mhs.compuserve.com Echoes transcription IN PROGRESS!! Thanks. -mjm ======================================================================== From: Martin Dougiamas Subject: To be E.Mortal Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 2:45:52 WST Ack! I *love* 'To be E.Mortal'!! I've mentioned before in Ecto about the "religious experience" I had one warm, quiet afternoon earlier this year (during our summer) while lying outside my bedroom window (on the roof) and listening to Ecto which was turned up quite loud on the stereo within. Actually, I was still coming down from the previous night's festivities, and feeling comfortable, content and lazy. As the sun shone warmly, and the album reached 'To be E.Mortal', I felt totally carried away by that gentle wave of sound. I was so absorbed in following the patterns of the lyrics that the song was over in almost no time. Six mins or whatever it is seemed far too short. I rewound the song and listened to it several more times... To this day, whenever I hear that song I feel a little of how I felt that afternoon. Anyway, I heartily recommend it. :) It's summer up there, now, so find a roof, you doubting thomases (thomaii?) and get to it. :) I still haven't really got the hang of Box H.A.P., though. Is there anyone there who DOES like it? A new thread... what are people's favourite *sequence* of songs, as they appear on the albums? That is, what sequence would you surreptitiously queue up on the stereo for a casual guest dropping in for half an hour or so? :) Mine would have to be the second half of Ecto. Second possibility would be from Rainkeeper->In Hiding. :) Guest: Well, I really must be going. I only meant to stay 10 minutes. Me: But wait! You haven't heard the last three albums yet! Martin -- ,---------------------------------------------------------------. _ . | So we chase the explosions Martin Dougiamas. | _r| Ll\ | From horizon to horizon, martin@cs.curtin.edu.au | | | \ | Wrap ourselves around the distance Curtin University | \ |_ / | For as long as we can hold. Perth, Western Australia -+-> x~ `-' `= Slow Pulse Boy - And Also The Trees =========================' V ======================================================================== From: Martin Dougiamas Subject: Albany photos Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 3:05:51 WST I should let you know that Kiri was lovely enough to send me some photos from the Albany concert. Now I know what some of you look like. So watch out! If I bump into any of you, there'll be no hiding! I liked the Ectomobile... no wonder Happy thought you were all nuts! A few people who stood out: Happy : looks rather beautiful indeed. I like the evil sideways look in one photo. Jessica's new photo must be something indeed. I love her hair... can someone try and get a lock from her for me next time they see her? :) Jessica: looks gorgeous (as expected) Vickie : very distinguished looking, Vickie! Doug : friendly looking guy, a female friend of mine says "very cute" :) Angelos: You look even more Greek than I imagined. :) Greg : Strangely enough, almost exactly as I imagined! Kelly Bird : Nothing like the name implies. :) Jeff Burka: long black hair! (Only photo is from the back. :) Later! Martin -- ,-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | They call me the breeze, I keep blowin and a'blowin. Martin Dougiamas| | I ain't got me nobody, I ain't carryin' no load. martin@cs.curtin.edu.au| | Ain't no changin' the weather, ain't no changin' me. Curtin University| | I ain't hidin' from nobody, ain't nobody hidin' from me. Perth, Australia| `== Call me the Breeze - J.J. Cale ===========================================' ======================================================================== From: Martin Dougiamas Subject: Ectophile World Distribution. Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 3:12:49 WST Once again, I return. I've finally got around to plotting our world distribution on a map. Unfortunately, the maps I have available to me are not all that clear... does anyone have, or know where I can ftp, good GIFs or similar single-images of the world? The prime requirement is clarity. When I've finished it, I'll put it in the Ecto archives... I think it'd make a cool desktop picture. :) BTW, if anyone hasn't mailed me with their address, phone, and interests for the contact database, feel free to do so at any time. Martin -- ,-------------------------+-------------------------------. _ . | "First things first. | Martin Dougiamas. | ~ _/| Ll\ ~ | but not necessarily | martin@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au | | |_|__\ ~ | in that order." | Curtin University | ~ \ |_|_ / ~ | | Perth, Western Australia ---+---> x~ `-' ~ `===== Doctor Who ========+===============================' V ======================================================================== Date: 07 Jul 92 15:40:40 EDT From: Subject: All right, fellow ectogenarians, here's the full segment from the public radio show entitled _ECHOES_, including all mentions of Happy Rhodes that I could detect. Transcribed with everyone's permission except the people who broadcast it, created it, produced it and appear in it. Hope I don't get deported. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- My comments are in []. ##### indicates break in talking with music in foreground. ========== X ========== indicates musical selection of/by X begins playing. Happy Rhodes' comments are all indented. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 91.5 FM WBEZ Chicago 5 AM CDT ========== Phobos, HTR ========== ##### I'm John D. Liberto [?] and you're hearing Echoes. Happy Rhodes has been compared to Kate Bush, and her music has that magical resonance that permeates Bush's best work. Despite her name, though, her early music depicted an unhappy life, populated by tormenters, aliens and hidden traumas. With her first CD, Warpaint, however, Happy Rhodes switches gears with a richly textured, outward looking music of affirmation. ##### Later on, we'll be talking to Happy Rhodes who's just released four CDs-worth of her earlier music. ========== Kitaro ========== ##### You're listening to Echoes, and I'm JDL. Later on, we'll be talking with techno-singer/songwriter Happy Rhodes. ========== Light String: Evolution ========== ##### ========== Liz Story: Toy Soldiers ========== ##### ========== Tony Vacca, Tim Moran: Far From Home ========== ##### Happy Rhodes has a voice that can reach angelic heights and worldly lows and her music mixes technology with science fiction imagery. She got the name Happy from her brother who couldn't pronounce Kimberly when she was a baby. But Happy doesn't describe the life or the early music of this artist. Her newest album is Warpaint, but she's just released four CDs worth of earlier material: Rhodes I, Rhodes II, Rearmament, and Ecto. Kimberly Haas travels down Happy Rhodes. ========== Mystery Song, HTR ========== ##### [KH] Happy Rhodes began writing songs when she was 14 years old in upstate New York. That was 12 years ago and although she put her music out on cassettes few people ever heard it. And that really wasn't the point, because Happy Rhodes was driven. [HR] Did five songs per night, including vocals and mixing 'em and just whip 'em off in that manner and I'd make a lot of mistakes and I wouldn't care because getting it down on tape was the most important thing. At the time that I was recording most of that material, I had no idea that it was going to be released -- that people were going to be hearing it. But I knew it was important to get it down on tape because I was writing it so quickly. Y'know I was very prolific. ##### If Happy Rhodes' artistic life were divided into periods, this would be called her black era. Listening to these four early CDs you hear a woman seeking catharsis and escape. And the signposts of a broken home are obvious. Broken is putting it lightly. Broken, strange --- well yeah, my mother 'n' father divorced -- that was like not a big deal. A lot of kids can handle that. After that my father remarried to a woman who turned out to be my nemesis and I did not have a good childhood because of it. And then my father became an alcoholic and a lot of different things happened. ========== Asylum Master, HTR ========== I moved away from them at a certain time to go live with my mother who was up in the Albany area and certain people that she was remarried to I had a hard time with. It was an extremely troubled and unsafe, chaotic childhood. ##### Happy Rhodes' youth is spilled out across these four CDs. Even the covers reveal her disaffection. She's painted alien vampires and malevolent wrathes that wouldn't be out of place on a heavy metal album. I painted a lot and that's the kind of stuff I painted and still do occasionally and I don't see that as dark either and a lot of people are afraid to look at pictures like that and I think it's creative I love to --- well I'm also a sci-fi freak, so I guess... The imagery is dark, but... ========== Wuthering Heights, KT ========== ...listeners can find solace in her music. Rhodes found comfort in the music of Kate Bush, the British singer with whom she's often compared. ##### Happy Rhodes readily admits the influence. There's a certain feminine piercing angelic quality that I like. Granted in the last four albums, the earlier four albums, I sounded very much like Kate Bush... ========== Would That I Could, HTR ========== ...because when i was in my very formative songwriting years from 15 to 17 years old I was listening to Kate Bush and singing along with her records. That's how I learned to sing basically. Before that it was Queen. And you know they all have those really high, high ranges. That'll do it. ##### Rhodes also shares Bush's love of synthesizers. Although she's often mentioned along with singer/songwriters like Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega, and the Indigo Girls, the music on her latest album, Warpaint, is almost totally electronic. It's a contrast to her earlier music on which you can picture the young Rhodes alone in her room, her long, perfectly straight brown hair covering her face as she hunches over an acoustic guitar. That image may be accurate, but in her mind she was hunched over a bank of synthesizers. When I was composing everything on acoustic guitar it was because that's what I had to use... it wasn't by choice necessarily. And it wasn't a lot of strumming there weren't a lot of folk chords, it was all millions of minor keys you know what I mean it was just very dark and it didn't come out sounding folk even though it was mainly on acoustic guitar. And that's because in my head I was hearing that sound, I was striving for that Warpaint sound. So there isn't really a huge change in my mind. But I can understand that other people -- an objective person -- listening to it --- it's like oh, first she's folk, now she's electronic. ========== Phobos, HTR ========== The sound design of Warpaint may not be new but Rhodes' outlook is. She still writes about demons, only now she's not confronting them, or seeking redemption. On pieces like Waking Up, she sees the silver lining. We all watch the news every night -- when you watch the news it bums you out. And there's a lot of nasty stuff going and the corporate world is really kind of constantly stepping on -- trotting on the environment and the little man and this and that and it's just -- it's very depressing, very frustrating. But every once in a while I see a story about some old woman... ========== Waking Up, HTR ========== ...flying into a burning home to save a goldfish. And I go, "Yeah, that's the spirit, that's the way everyone should be." That is life encompassed right there as far as I'm concerned. So every once in a while -- you have to really look for them -- but there are stories about people doing incredible things to help other people and to, y'know, better the earth. And that's what waking up is about. ##### Despite the title Warpaint, HR's latest album is a playground of positive energy. The world kind of like dumped on me and revolved around me when I was writing that other material. When I wrote Warpaint, the world was like this big bubble that I could explore -- it was like --- I'm getting really foofy now [giggles]. ========== Feed the Fire, HTR ========== But it was more --- it was more --- life is an adventure now, as compared to a dismal -- y'know being trotted upon. ##### For Echoes, I'm Kimberly Haas. ========== All Things, HTR ========== [JDL] We're going to hear something from the HR album called Warpaint. This is All Things. ##### Some music by Happy Rhodes from her album Warpaint. ##### etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hope you enjoyed it. I will lend my tape to Vickie and she will combine with other stuff and head it over to Mr. Burks for dissemination. Till then, -mjm (mike mendelson) (mjm@zylab.mhs.compuserve.com) ======================================================================== Date: 07 Jul 92 16:03:29 EDT From: Subject: I believe the *mystery* song is actually Ecto. -mjm ======================================================================== From: kyrlidis@athena.mit.edu Subject: Tori nominated for 4 MTV awards Date: Tue, 07 Jul 92 18:53:54 EDT Hi, Since there are quite a few Tori fans among the ectophiles, and I sort-a-like her (translate--> like 75% of her songs) but not enough to subscribe to rdt, I want to pass the info that she has been nominated for 4 MTV Video awards: Best new artist, best female video and two more that I couldn't find. Here's hoping that the 1993 MTV awards will offer Happy-er nominations! Angelos 'It's only common sense, there are no accidents around here' ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1992 09:54:22 +0800 From: Ken Taylor Subject: Absolutely.. I haven't listened to many of the 1st4 as yet in detail, but I have fallen in love with Vol1 (Sue stole it today to play to some friends down at Hospital. She's an Intern in the Psychiatric ward at a local hospital, and that depresses her so much that Happy cheers her up :)... (I'm not sure if they make ashtrays there either).. What an incredibly long set of parentheses). I have to agree with Meredith on _He's Alive_, It get's fast-forwarded every time.. Mainly the Synth noise does it for me, it's not necessarily the particular Synth sound used on the track, as that same sound is used in other tracks on Vol1, but there is definately something about the sound of the track that grates.. I can't really comment on _Suicide Song_, _Box H.A.P._ or _I Have A Heart_ as I haven't listened to them much, but _To Be E. Mortal_ does drag... I'll need to spend more time listening to Vol2-Ecto sometime, but the tape section of my walkman blew up (I listen to a lot of my music whilst programming), and all I can listen to is the radio... Which reminds me, I was listening to the local Christian radio station here yesterday and I heard this song I immediately fell in love with, piano-vocal with quiet "orchestration" in the background... I was amazed to hear the DJ say it was Tori Amos.. It sounded nothing like the bits of Tori I heard from Martin's CD, but I suppose I'll have to steal it as well !!! On a completely different note, there was a brief discussion a while back about getting photos of the various ectophiles, and maybe scanning them, and making them available via ftp somewhere.. I'd love to see what all you guys look like in real life.. It often surprises me when I see pictures of people I have been talking to on the phone, or via the net... How 'bout it.. Anyway, enough rambles for now.. Ken -- Ken Taylor | "I have a friend who's seen inside my tiny brain ken@cujo.curtin.edu.au | He's seen the aging and the mildew from the rain Curtin University | And he does what he can to keep on top of every Perth, W. Australia | one of them" - Happy Rhodes ======================================================================== Date: 2-JUL-1992 23:42:22.43 From: MTARR@eagle.wesleyan.edu Subject: Stuff(tm) Hi! Steve inquires: }Does this mean that Meredith's last Champagne Jam has now been }officially added to Doug's list of available tapes? Yep. Order at your own risk. ;) And enjoy! Von Claudia: }I also like Phil Collins solo stuff! And I can't help to }especially like the "Schnulzen" (Meredith, any matching english }word? Means *very* soft and *romantic* sort of). }latest one and many more) and make a little something within me }vibrate along. Otherwise "Schnulzen" usually leave me disgusted }or bored. Hm. "Schnulzen" immediately brings the (is it Yiddish?) term "schmaltzy" to mind. Sickly-sweet? Insulin shock? Liquid Tofutti oozing over the airwaves? Am I getting close? :) Dirk notes: }During my researches I came across a big folio of medieval }songs. One of the nursery-rhymes goes like this: } Like a river joins the ocean } And the fish is in the sea } Like the Earth is still in motion } So the footah is in me. Ha!!! I've seen that one- it was a doodle in the border of the Magdeburger Codex of 1253- I wonder which one came first? (The doodle illustrating the footah was quite amusing- lots of hair! ;) }And if you switch on the radio you will hear chart music all the }time. Oh, if you're ever in Munich check out 93,3 XANADU- they're offically "classic rock", but I quickly found the German definition of same is anything that is, was inspired by, or sounds even remotely like what was on the radio when radio was good. Kate, Tanita Tikaram, Suzy Quatro, Uriah Heep, I'm sure Tori by now as well, Gabrielzeit Genesis, PG, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin............... Quite a mix. And from midnight to 6AM they play a 6-hour tape. (Well, they have more than one, but I could set my watch by the 12:37 airing of "Mr. Roboto" the first week they had that system running. :) I miss it. The only radio I listen to now is NPR (and the station here has World Cafe and ECHOES, the latter from 9-11 on Sundays, but they didn't carry the show Happy was on :P), which is why the only Sophie B. song I've heard is "Listen", which I played on my show because I'd read Angelos' mention of it. Pretty neat stuff. Anthony remarks: }The lyrics reminded me very strongly of one of the main }relationships in Fanny Flagg's book "Fried Green Tomatoes at the }Whistlestop Cafe". [Stuff about story deleted] }For those who saw the movie, which I saw after having read the }book, this excluded and simplified a great deal of the book and, }while it was a good movie in itself, really didn't do the book }justice. This is one of my very favorite books, and one of my very favorite movies as well. I saw the movie before I read the book, and while reading I realized that the movie screenplay was just a revision of the book. For putting it into that format it was a marked improvement- the book itself wouldn't have translated well to the screen at all. I'm glad Fannie Flagg wrote the screen adaptation as well- I don't think it would have been nearly as successful an effort otherwise. (I could go on at length about the specific relationships in the story, but I'll spare you all the bandwidth. :) Re Sarah McLachlan: While I like both of her albums and I think her latest videos are brilliant, I like her vocal style on _Touch_ a lot better than on _Solace_. Now she sounds like she's forgotten how to use anything other than her head voice, and it seemed on her debut that she was certainly capable of cutting loose. Now she sounds quite airy, like a flute being played by someone who hasn't quite gotten the technique down yet. Oh yeah- I found a more exact address for Raging Celt Productions, for those of you interested in hunting down Gael Kathryns' (Baudino's) harp music. Raging Celt Productions P.O. Box 1802 Englewood, CO 80150 The moral of this story is: always look on the tape shell when you're looking for information. :} ======================================================================= |Meredith A. Tarr mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu Life? WHAT life???| ======================================================================= ======================================================================== The ecto archives are on hardees.rutgers.edu in ~ftp/pub/hr. There is a README file explaining what is where. Feel free to send me (or leave in the incoming directory, just let me know) things you'd like to have added. -- jessica (jessica@ns1.rutgers.edu)