From: owner-ecto-digest To: ecto-digest@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto-digest V2 #41 Reply-To: ecto@nsmx.rutgers.edu Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, 6 March 1995 Volume 02 : Number 041 The Ecto digest is now being generated automatically. Please send problems and questions to: ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 13:36:17 -0800 Subject: Re: Cool story to look for in the future Aaron Hawkins writes: > On Jane Yolen and con appearances/readings: Jane once lamented, > after Neil Gaiman related a story of a young woman asking him > to sign her chest, that this seemed to be a male author thing, > and no male fan had ever asked her to sign him. > > Now, while I'm not suggesting that anyone should try to make > Jane regret having said this in a public forum... :-) Now *that* takes me back... as a freshman at Berkeley some, er, years ago, my roommate and I went to see William S. Burroughs, and we both had him sign our foreheads with a marker pen, and he graciously obliged. The ink (plus the impression) lasted quite a while, and needless to say, it was a pretty cool conversation starter. - -- Michael mcb@postmodern.com ------------------------------ From: jeffy@wam.umd.edu Date: Sat, 04 Mar 95 23:28:25 EST Subject: Re: Wall of Death Neal writes: >JeffW pointed out Wall of Death on the new Maura and Pete Kennedy >album. (They are MD locals, so I'm embaressed that out of towners >saw them before me.) Just thought I'd point out that that's an >old Richard Thompson song, originally on the Richard and Linda Thompson >album "Shoot Out the Lights". To further this, the first time I ever heard "Wall of Death" was when I saw Shawn Colvin in '89, I guess. She opened with it, explaining it to be a Richard Thompson song. At that point, my only exposure to Richard Thompson or his music was on the experimental album _Live, Laugh, Larf, Loaf_ (sp?) by French Frith Kaiser Thompson. A *very* weird album. I was blown away by Shawn's performance of this wonderful song. Then I didn't hear "Wall of Death" for another 5+ years when just a couple of weeks ago I heard the REM version of the song (recorded for the Richard Thompson tribute album a year or two ago -- I knew it existed, but hadn't heard it yet) on WRNR. So imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden I heard it *again*, just a week later, when I saw Pete and Maura Kennedy at the Bottom Line. Like Shawn, it was the opening number. A very nice rendition. One of these days I'll get to hear the original. In the meantime, I have gotten more interested in Richard Thompson, and own one of his albums (his latest, _Mirror Blue_ -- how can you not love an album whose name is drawn from a line in _The Lady of Shalott_?) Jeff ------------------------------ From: jeffy@wam.umd.edu Date: Sat, 04 Mar 95 23:28:25 EST Subject: Re: Wall of Death Neal writes: >JeffW pointed out Wall of Death on the new Maura and Pete Kennedy >album. (They are MD locals, so I'm embaressed that out of towners >saw them before me.) Just thought I'd point out that that's an >old Richard Thompson song, originally on the Richard and Linda Thompson >album "Shoot Out the Lights". To further this, the first time I ever heard "Wall of Death" was when I saw Shawn Colvin in '89, I guess. She opened with it, explaining it to be a Richard Thompson song. At that point, my only exposure to Richard Thompson or his music was on the experimental album _Live, Laugh, Larf, Loaf_ (sp?) by French Frith Kaiser Thompson. A *very* weird album. I was blown away by Shawn's performance of this wonderful song. Then I didn't hear "Wall of Death" for another 5+ years when just a couple of weeks ago I heard the REM version of the song (recorded for the Richard Thompson tribute album a year or two ago -- I knew it existed, but hadn't heard it yet) on WRNR. So imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden I heard it *again*, just a week later, when I saw Pete and Maura Kennedy at the Bottom Line. Like Shawn, it was the opening number. A very nice rendition. One of these days I'll get to hear the original. In the meantime, I have gotten more interested in Richard Thompson, and own one of his albums (his latest, _Mirror Blue_ -- how can you not love an album whose name is drawn from a line in _The Lady of Shalott_?) Jeff ------------------------------ From: stevev@greylady.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 95 21:56:30 PST Subject: censorship. (fwd) "Ray H. Misra" writes: > Thought you'd all want to help with this.... [description of Senate bill S. 314 deleted] Every Internet mailing list and USENET newsgroup exists with some kind of agreement as to what will be discussed in that group. The reason that most groups desire some limited topic of discussion is to allow readers and potential readers more ability to read material that they find interesting and, more importantly, to AVOID reading material that they are not interested in. This is a fundamental principle of electronic communication, and, unfortunately, one that is not always well-communicated or well-practiced. More unfortunately, the ease of sending mail to a quantity of recipients often causes well-intentioned people to send mail that they personally consider to be important to huge numbers of people, without any consideration for whether all of the recipients will actually be interested in that information. While S. 314 is undoubtedly very important to the future of electronic communication, I would argue that it is well outside the fuzzy boundaries of the Ecto mailing list. Those of us who are interested in such things have already heard a great deal about it in many far more appropriate forums. Sending this form letter to Ecto shows disrespect for the right of people to choose what they read. If you get a form letter asking you to distribute it to many people or to many other mailing lists or newsgroups, please exercise the most careful judgement about what other forums you send the letter to. It is wrong to assume that your perception of what is important should override the topic restriction on a mailing list or newsgroup. Just as you would not want to be presented with large amounts of irrelevant or unuseful information in your mail and have the ability to choose what you read, your careful choices in how you redistribute information will give others the same courtesies. ------------------------------ From: Greg Bossert Date: Sun, 5 Mar 95 9:54:28 EST Subject: Jane Scarpantoni, Bill Dillon, Pierre Marchand quick, name a group that Jane Scarpantoni *hasn't* played with! *bzzz* nope, sorry, she played that cello cadenza on the last Gwar album... okay, maybe not, but she did play on three of the four CDs i just stuck into the CD changer, and that prompted me to ask if anyone here has a Jane Scarpantoni discography. for those confused, Jane is the leading alternative rock cellist (John Cale having been focused on keyboards and vox in recent years). i only have 70 or so CDs here at the office (of the 1000+ i've accumulated... not nearly enough, either!) and yet i found 6 CDs with Ms. Scarpantoni bowing: Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey - Mavericks Kristen Hersh - Hips and Makers Throwing Muses - University Tiny Lights - Hot Chocolate Massage (as member of the group) Syd Straw - Surprise! i actually saw Jane perform at a fantastic Syd Straw show in NYC some years ago. i suspect she's been on other Throwing Muses stuff, and on Ms. Hersh' _Strings_, and i think she's dropped in on R.E.M.... so, dig into your collections and let me know what more you find! and while you're looking, how about tracking down Bill Dillon? he plays great atmospheric guitar on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. i swear i know him from somewhere else, but i can't figure out where... and to finish out the FTE-inspired album-hunt, anyone have a produce-ography for Pierre Marchand? his work with Sarah is lovely, and the recent live/studio video and an article in Electronic Musician have got me swooning over his Wild Sky studios (and general musical philosophy...) footahing towards ecstacy, i am - --+ greg bossert rutgers university network services +-- - --+ bossert@noc.rutgers.edu +-- - --+ http://www-ns.rutgers.edu/~bossert +-- - --+ i have never been afraid to change -- Happy +-- - --+ the circumstances of the world -- Rhodes +-- ------------------------------ From: Greg Bossert Date: Sun, 5 Mar 95 13:02:17 EST Subject: ooooops Apparently I got something backwards and sent a bunch of perfectly-well subscribed Ectophile a message suggesting that they were currently not subscribed... *sigh* I'm sorry for the confusion! I'm not sure what went wrong, but I'll go figure it out and mail the right people this time... footahless, - --+ greg bossert rutgers university network services +-- - --+ bossert@noc.rutgers.edu +-- - --+ http://www-ns.rutgers.edu/~bossert +-- - --+ i have never been afraid to change -- Happy +-- - --+ the circumstances of the world -- Rhodes +-- ------------------------------ From: mklprc@teleport.com (Michael Pearce) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 18:52:12 -0800 Subject: Land of the Blind; good radio Saw my friends playing Friday night. They are good! Four women in the band and 2-4 men depending. This time there were two. They had two drummers (sometimes 3) and a Digery player, who also did the electronics. Four women sing, three exchange lead on different songs. All harmonize. One plays flute, one keyboards, one drums, tambourine and trade off. Pretty versatile bunch! Covers played were The Big Sky, Running Up That Hill, a Eurhythmics song "In The City," and Jane's "Calling All Angels," which is on their CD, released next week. Cover art is by lead singer/writer Cyoahka, who is also a photo artist. The venue was awful: a Vietnamese restaurant/lounge with floor-level stage and a lot of loud drunks. They played 3 sets concentrating on intensity and power rather than subtlety; if I hadn't been in front "Angels" would have been drowned out. Jane gave her blessing to their cover of "Angels," by the way. Good sign! Hopefully better venues lie in their future. They will be playing sites on the Oregon Coast March 17 and 18, San Francisco March 10-12 (will post where when I find out), a concert for fans on March 21 at The Chambers which will also be an exposure to industry people, and in April a giant CD release party. Cy is so enamored of Happy they just might start covering her songs. =+=+= On another note, FINALLY, for the first time since 1980, Portland gets a real "alternative" radio station on FM. I heard Tori, Kate, Mazzy Star, Peter Gabriel and some other Ecto-mentioned artists in their first weekend of play. I called in and was told that they intend to be a real alternative, playing local music and interesting tracks, not just an "alternative top-40" station. Portlanders, this is the time to start. Listen in (94.7FM) and call in your ecto-requests. When I find their mailing address I will email AG so they can send Happydisks for them to play. We gotta push hard and sell the station to others if we want it to be good. If they die from lack of support, or go for the unimaginative audience, we may not get another chance for another 15 years. - -- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ | Please don't add "*@aol.com" to your twit filter. Thank you. | | mklprc@aol.com | Knowledge for the pupil -er- people. | | mklprc@teleport.com | Give them a light and they'll | | "annoying Xists since 1966" | follow it anywhere! -- Firesign | - ----------------------------->((^o0o^))<---------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Michael Bravo Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 11:56:23 +0400 Subject: Re: Virtual community and real death 28 Feb 95, Mitch writes: U> Electronic social relationships are as real as ftf ones. It's too bad U> that virtual life had to meet real death to drive the point home. Maybe it's only a matter of time to reach the implementation of virtual life... reading William Gibson might drive you to think so. /\/\ike - --- GoldED 2.41 ------------------------------ From: Michael Bravo Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 11:56:29 +0400 Subject: Re: and now for something completely... 28 Feb 95, METH@delphi.com writes to Michael Bravo: Mc> Are these chart-topping bands Russian, or do you get stuff like Whitney Mc> Houston and Ace of Base too? Erm, I think I will have to explain. Thing is, we do not have anything close to the complicated chart thingy you got in States or elsewhere... I'd even say there's no 'official' charts like Billboard or something. All that are present are mostly de-facto digits, based on play frequency, say, on a specific radio statn. To answer your question, we get both - russian ones and foreign ones. >> CDs can cost from $7 to $20 and sometimes more. For example I bought >> Cocteau Twins _Treasu_ and Alison Moyet _Essex_ for $19 each. Mc> Hey, that's not too bad! I'm impressed. Me too :) - and I even found a guy that can fetch me 'special order' stuff at around $16 disc. Maybe it'll make my life a little easier. What I'm currently figuring out is the best way to get the Happy CDs collection. Can I order directly from AG? Mc> :) Thanks, but Cyrillic melts my brain. Never took Russian, though Mc> enough of my friends did! It isn't hard, just mindboggling ;) Mc> Are both sets of characters printed on the keys too? If you buy a decent keyboard, yes. If you don't, you'll probably end up sticking another set with scotch tape or something... /\/\ike - --- GoldED 2.41 ------------------------------ From: Michael Bravo Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 11:55:54 +0400 Subject: Re: Female artists 03 Mar 95, yosborne@yorkcol.edu writes to Michael Bravo: ye> My name is Yvette and I recently received word from a person, Michael ye> Mendelson-MJM@zylab.mhs.compuserve.com, and he mentioned that you knew all ye> the new music and stuff about female artists. My favorite artist is Tori ye> Amos. I was wondering what you had on or about her. Yvette, there's no doubt that people here will tell you a lot about Tori Amos, and moreover, will put you in a midst of a HUGE heap of new wonderful music :) However, if you have access to WWW (or Mosaic, if hat sounds more familiar to you), you can try this mailing list home page and/or archive, at http://helix.net/ecto/ and http://www-ns.rutgers.edu/ecto/ respectively. They both have a load of useful links out of them, including, of course, Tori Amos. And welcome to Ecto :) /\/\ike - --- GoldED 2.41 ------------------------------ From: neilg@sfu.ca (Neil K.) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 05:23:02 -0800 Subject: Re: Female artists At 11:55 AM on 3/6/95, Michael Bravo wrote: >http://helix.net/ecto/ Actually, just a minor correction here... the URL is: http://www.helix.net/ecto/ It won't work if you omit the "www" part. The list of pointers to other Ectophilic musical pages is: http://www.helix.net/ecto/ectophilia/other.pages.html If you're finding that your computer can't connect properly, you could try this in the meantime: http://204.244.2.3/ecto/ though the numerical form of the address isn't guaranteed. - Neil K. - -- Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * nkg@helix.net 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada ------------------------------ From: neilg@sfu.ca (Neil K.) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 05:22:55 -0800 Subject: Happy Come Home From this weekend's Toronto Globe and Mail, for Victoria Williams fans: TOKYO: A dog has been rescued after 44 days trapped under the rubble of January's Kobe earthquake, the Kyodo news agency reported yesterday. When the earthquake hit early on the morning of Jan. 17, Kazuko and Yutaka Inui, both 63, escaped from their collapsed two-storey house. But their 10 year-old dog Happy was trapped after her doghouse was smashed by a falling wall. The couple returned several times to look for her, but when she did not answer their calls they gave her up for dead. However as workers were removing debris from the earthquake Thursday, Happy staggered out - emaciated and too weak to make a sound. "She probably ate cookies and other things we had at home," said Ms. Inui of the dog's survival. "We have no idea where she got water." - -- Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * nkg@helix.net 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada ------------------------------ From: Jacob Paul Leonard Date: Mon, 06 Mar 95 06:06:00 M Subject: ...hold on. Hold on to yourself... i remember buying BtC about 3 months ago (my first Happy CD) anxiously awaiting the beautiful sounds of Happy when I hear what sounds like Kate Bush with a Casio... ...don't get offended yet...the story turns out well I promise...so I give it a few more listens and I still can't understand what all of the fuss was about on this list...so I put it in my CD case promising myself that I would come back sometime to it and give it a better chance. Well I got Vickie's post about how she was feeling about Rod and she quoted the lyrics from "ODE" in that post...I am really new to ecto and so I didn't know him at all but I have had a few close deaths in my short lifetime and so it hit close to home for me...well I read those lyrics over and over again hoping that I had missed something on BtC and knowing that the person that wrote these lyrics was no flash in the pan...I vowed that I would go straight home and listen to the whole thing reading the lyrics while it played...I have not taken that CD out of my CD player for 3 days...I know that it sounds stupid that something as menial as liking a CD came out of something as moving as a death...but I thank Vickie for posting her feelings and allowing me to see what effect Happy can have on people's lives...I am going to go up to Provo next Thursday and buy as much as my small budget can afford...I would just like to offer my peace to all of the people effected by Rod's death and thank all of the people that have posted their true feelings about the entire situation...I wish you all Happy swirls... -Jacob Paul Leonard ...do we soon forget the things we cannot see... ((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((*))((* ------------------------------ From: Neal Copperman Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 09:50:56 -0500 Subject: Re: ticketbastard...grrrrr! Jeffy's justly unhappy about TM charges at the box office ---- >>Is there *any* way around these schmucks, short of missing shows I'm dying >>to see? Most of the cool DC shows are IMP productions, and you can buy tickets to all IMP shows at the 9:30 club with no service charges. If you call their recording (202) 393-0930, you can find out their hours, which is something like daytime M-F and until 11:30 if they have a show. Much less satisfactorily, you can try to buy tix on the street, and refuse to pay more than list price without the service charge. That actually works on the rare occasion. However, if you do that and pay more than the ticket plus service charge, you can usually get better seats than a belated trip to Ticketmaster. Haven't tried it in DC for awhile though. I haven't gotten info on cost for all those cool shows at the Birchmere. THeir recording doesn't go that far ahead. Sounds like Woj and Meredith are coming down for Kirsty MacColl on the 17th (how about staying for the Nields on the 19th???), and a friend and I are going to go too. I think the general consensus is to risk not gettting in and try to buy tix at the door (though I wouldn't drive from NJ and do that). Though I might break down and buy tix in advance. Neal ------------------------------ From: "Robert P. Keefer" Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 13:54:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: P.J. Harvey in the Philly Inquirer \Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday, February 28, 1995, E1,E6.\ [Headline] 'Love' shows Harvey's debt to the blues [Sub-Headline, E6] Polly Jean Harvey's latest album shows her affinity for the blues. [Picture E1: Harvey, eyes downcast, in red halter-top dress; Caption:] Polly Jean Harvey is moving toward the mainstream with her forth album. 'On Music' By Dan DeLuca [Inquirer Staff Writer] Nothing gets in Polly Jean Harvey's way. "I've climbed over mountains, traveled the sea," she sings with menacing intensity. "Cast out of heaven, cast out on my knees... I've lain with the devil, and cursed God above." The landscape is biblical, swept clean by the flood and conjured by another Flood, the single-named producer of U@ and Nine Inch Nails, whose artful soundscapes heighten the drama. Harvey bellows in desperation, as if utterly alone. And in truth, she is. _To Bring You My Love_ (Island) -- the artist's fourth album if you include _4 Track Demos_, a collection of work-tapes recorded in preparation for 1993's _Rid of Me_ -- is essentially a solo project. It is a great leap forward for the 25-year-old singer. And it confirms the impression made by _Dry_ -- the 1992 debut by P J Harvey, then a vise-tight trio -- that despite the "woman in rock" roundups and Patti Smith comparisons (they're both small-ish brunettes who make ferocious music, aren't they?), Polly Harvey stands apart. _To Bring You My Love_ raises the stakes. Though it sacrifices none of her primal power, it's more refined and far more accessible than anything Harvey has previously released. Knowingly dolled up in a red dress, she's ready to mess with the mainstream. The raw power of Harvey's music grows out of her obsession with female desire and male power and deceit, and her taste for mythic settings and elemental imagery. On _Dry's_ "Sheela-Na-Gig," the former sculpture student, who was raised on a farm in the tiny village of Yeovil in Dorset, England, evoked a figure from Welsh mythology in a harrowing battle of sexual name-calling. And on "Man Size," from _Rid of Me_, an album on which she gleefully played the role of a "50-foot queenie," Harvey sought escape in fire: "Douse hair with gasoline, set it light and set it free." Previously, Harvey was liable to mix timeless symbolism with up-to-the-minute references. But _Love's_ terrain is devoid of contemporary signposts. The songs are set in the desert, down by the water, under the bridge. Harvey wrestles with motherhood, abandonment, and a "big black monsoon." Appropriating the bluesman's metaphors for her own ends, she calls out "You oughta hear my long snake...MOAN!" She implores the Lord for deliverance, and her prayers are answered in the form of a lone rider who appears "like a Phoenix out of fire flames." And while retaining her flair for the dramatic use of silence, Harvey has avoided the stop-and-start bludgeoning that made _Rid of Me_ such a chore to get through. That album's anti-commercial production by Steve Albini turned Harvey's whisper-to-a-scream attack into a conceit so mannered it hardly seemed worth the trouble. On _Love_, Harvey breaks free by going it alone. She shares production credit the Flood and Joe Parish, a multi-instrumentalist who fronted Harvey's first band, Automatic Dlamini. And Tom Waits guitarist Joe Gore chips in as well. But _Love_ is really Harvey's show. She plays keyboards on all 10 songs, plus vibes, various percussion, and guitar. Occasionally, she accompanies herself by double-tracking or distorting her voice. Nearly every song has a slow-building approach that gathers momentum inexorably. "Down by the Water," _Love's_ first single, begins with a rumbling bass, then, one by one, adds other elements to the eerie tale of a man who leaves his daughter to sleep, quite literally, with the fishes. First percussion, then a chorus of Harvey's multi-racked voice, then distorted guitar and strategically plucked violin come into play, followed by the creepy, catchy sing-song, "Little fish, big fish swimming in the water, come back here and give me my daughter." "Meet Ze Monsta" takes a similarly layered approach. It's a powerful stomp that begins with a punishing crunch, and builds to over-the-top fury. "Yeah, it's coming, be here soon," Harvey sings with fevered delight, knowing full well what she's in for. "Big black monsoon, take me with you." In concert and on 1993's _Man-Size_ EP, Harvey covered Willie Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle," and traces of blues musicians from Howlin' Wolf to Robert Plant could always be heard in her work. But with _Love_, she's internalized those influences. She doesn't need to slur her vocals or toss in slide-guitar licks to prove her credentials. At her most intensely emotive, on the supernaturally boastful title track or the pleading "C'mon Billy," she is as convincingly haunting as Blind Willie Johnson, moaning his way through "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground." Throughout _To Bring You My Love_, Harvey begs for redemption. "How long must I suffer? Dear God, I've served my time," she sings on "Send His Love to Me." On the stunning last song, "The Dancer," her pleas to "bring peace to my black and empty heart" are met in the ghostly form of that apocalyptic lone rider. "I can't believe what the Lord has finally sent me," she sings, and becomes enraptured. Rock-and-roll fans will welcome _To Bring You My Love_ with the same ecstatic delight. ---- 30 ---- - ----------------------- --------------------- ---------------------- Robert Keefer Psychology Department And we know that we're Mt. St. Mary's College (301) 447-6122 alive, If we weren't Emmitsburg, MD 21727 keefer@msmary.edu sure before/I reach - ----------------------- --------------------- for you by my side [Speaking for myself.] [I'm baaack!] and soar. - B-52's ---------------------- ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V2 #41 ************************* ======================================================================== Please send any questions or comments about the list to ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu