From: owner-ecto-digest To: ecto-digest@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto-digest V2 #103 Reply-To: ecto@nsmx.rutgers.edu Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Wednesday, 10 May 1995 Volume 02 : Number 103 The Ecto digest is now being generated automatically. Please send problems and questions to: ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: matthew something Date: Tue, 09 May 1995 17:15:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: lucky northridgers It seems that Jewel will be playing a free in-store concert at the Northridge Tower Records, this Friday (5/12) at noon...anyone lucky enough to be there? I haven't gotten to hear jewel yet, though the single line I heard on the radio ad sounded lovely...it probably will be my next cd. egads! What a pathetic first post! I would have waited longer and written something interesting, but I decided that the need for news overrules that... yours very truly matthew "Mirrors would do well to reflect before sending back images." -Jean Cocteau _Sang d'un Poete_ hi, rdters! ------------------------------ From: Gray Abbott Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 19:09:05 +0100 Subject: Re: sailing songs > From: jeffy@wam.umd.edu > Date: Tue, 09 May 95 13:04:16 -0400 > Subject: sailing songs > > Hey, peoples... > ... > I'm basically looking for stuff mentioning sailing, but in a positive > light. "Thousands are Sailing" by the Pogues might be usable, but "Turkish > Song of the Damned" probably isn't. > ... > So whaddya think, folks, any thoughts? There must be more than a few songs by Stan Rodgers that could fit the bill. Most that I remember are more about life on ships than sailboats, but they're generally powerful and inspiring stuff. The most famous is "The Wreck of the Mary Ellen Carter" (I think that's the title). It's kind of the "Rocky" of seafaring folk songs - leaves everyone cheering at the end. There's another, called "White Squall", which might make one think twice about sailing on the Great Lakes. Gray Abbott (gabbott@tpoint.net) "Everything's real here. Many Sofgry Systems people are surprised." Scientific & Engineering Software Mr. Edwards, The Sword in the Stone ------------------------------ From: THE OLIVE-LOAF VIGILANTE Date: Tue, 09 May 1995 22:23:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: woj is a god Hi! Steve proclaimed: >This e-mail is the formal deification of our own woj. Oh no! The secret's out!!! >However, woj managed to arrange it, so yesterday, ON MY BIRTHDAY, I arrive >home, and find a cheerful little package sitting on my front doorstep. When >I open it, out slides a minor holy grail: Jewel's _Save the Linoleum_ promo >disc! And he even does the dishes and puts out the recycling. Amazing, innit? >Truly, woj is a god! > >All hail woj! As John Sandoval pointed out in a later e-message to me, shouldn't we all capitalize it now? "All hail Woj!" ;> Just be warned, people: worship is fine, but only from afar. Anyone trying to abduct him to inhabit a mountaintop temple or anything will have to deal with me (not to mention the cat) first. ;> ;> ;> P.S. Happy (belated) birthday, Steve! +==========================================================================+ |Meredith Tarr meth@delphi.com| |Boonton, NJ USA finger info at: mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu| +==========================================================================+ | "Turnips do not invite fan members to sit on their couches on stage." | | -Irvin F. Lin | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ From: THE OLIVE-LOAF VIGILANTE Date: Tue, 09 May 1995 22:22:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: lots of ut Hi! First of all, a plea to Vancouver/Seattle/St. Louis area ectophiles to please watch the Canucks/Blues game on Thursday night (preferably with VCRs running :) and see if they show Sarah McLachlan singing the Canadian national anthem. Doesn't look like we East Coasters are going to have much luck in that depart- ment. Sigh. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help a Rabid Sarah Fan (tm) feed her addiction. Second, did anyone happen to catch the report on the Champaign/Urbana, IL music scene on NPR's Morning Edition this morning? Prominently featured in the report was the music of The Moon Seven Times, and they interviewed Lynn Canfield and their manager, Michael Roux (sp?) briefly. Nothing earth-shat- tering revealed, mostly Lynn going on about how it's a small scene because the University of Illinois is so conservative and everything, but it's a good one nonetheless. Needless to say, I was really suprised to hear M7X on NPR!!! Third, a poster plastered to a wall in the outskirts of Greenwich Village the other night has revealed that Philip Glass is engaged at the Knitting Factory from May 16 - 20 for a series of solo piano shows, and Diamanda Galas is on the bill for sometime around June 20. I also found this on love-hounds (sorry if this is a repeat for some of you, but this promises to be highly amusing and I don't want anyone to miss it who might otherwise get to see it :): ============ Kat Devlin (The Artist Formerly Known as Kat Ellwyn Devlin) will be returning to 88s in Greenwich Village with an all-new Kate Bush show: Saturdays May 20 thru June 10 at 5:30 pm $12 cover, 2 drink minimum, no credit cards Eighty-Eights 228 W 10th Street New York City Reservations: 212-924-0088. Mickie, Kat's publicist, can be reached at Mkymaky@aol.com. Entitled "Reaching Out", this is a follow-up engagement to Kat's stint at 88s last fall. ============ Apparently this Kat woman puts on a show comprised of entirely her own interpretations of Kate Bush songs. The same person who posted this recently posted a review of her previous show, and it sounded totally surreal. I don't think I need to tell you all that woj and I will be at one of these perform- ances -- if any area ectophiles would like to join us, please send e-mail. :) Fourth, some replies to various and recent sundry: mjm reported: >I was elated to see fellow longtime ectophile, Val Nozick, who was >dutifully saving Nancy and me seats without really knowing it (!). Valerie's alive!!! I was just going to call out the posse. Thanks, Mike! :) >(It was amazing to me that Val said she'd only ever been to >*one* concert in Chicago the whole time she was here... she'd >never been to Schuba's before, never been to the Park West, etc. >Talk about poor timing and luck. Erm, now *there's* the understatement of the century! Valerie and concerts are like matter and antimatter. I'm surprised Schuba's wasn't reduced to a small pulsing singularity the minute she walked through the door. ;> footah flashbacked: > * Maire Brennan, _Misty Eyed Adventures_: UK pressing of the latest > from Clannad's singer, with Davy Spillane, Donal Lunny, the Blue > Nile, and others... This is due for domestic release realsoonnow... I've heard a few tracks off it on the radio, and it sounds like it's a good one. "Big Yellow Taxi" is especially good. > * Bobo in White Wooden Houses, _Passing Strangers_: as recommended by > Klaus and Claudia. Whoa -- I'm going to have to start paying more attention now, I had no idea one could even find that on import over here! >we never did eat dinner... ;) though we had some serious pints in the >Old Peculiar Pub to make up for the lack of food: Newcastle Brown Ale, >Rogue Mogul, Watney's Cream Stout, and Pilsner Urquell all on tap. >*yum* any persons in, for example, the environs of boonton, nj, who >wanted to take a trip to this fine establishment should call me, no? Yes. Definitely, yes. :> Jens responded: >I'd perhaps agree that SM is a bit restrained on (some tracks of) >"Solace"; however, even if she is holding back, this in turn makes for >higher emotional intensity in my ears. Altogether, I'd say that the >tracks from "The Path of Thorns" to "Mercy" is my favorite SM songs >and, symptomatically, "Black" is the best of all... It's funny, I never really got into anything from _Solace_ besides "Into The Fire" and "I Will Not Forget You" before I saw Sarah perform live. I listened to the album quite often, but the songs all ran together and I couldn't tell you what any of them were called, or even hum a few bars. Then I saw (several installments of :) "The Path Of Thorns", "Drawn To The Rhythm", "Lost", and especially "Home", and then the songs started to make sense to me. "Home" is so intense live: Sarah puts just so much power behind her voice, it's literally stunning. Then when I go home and listen to the album version, there's not nearly the power nor the emotion of the live version -- that's what I mean by restraint. Sarah could well have belted out the several blasts of "home" at the end in the studio, but she didn't for whatever reason, and I think the track is lacking as a result. >Actually, I think the biggest difference is in the production: FtE is >much slicker, and uses a lot of overdubbing to augment SM's voice (not >to speak of the, perhaps, too loud instrumental parts) - it could just >be a good dose of echo, but to me it sounds like overdubbing. She's using her voice as an instrument, not as augmentation -- I offer "Plenty" and "Fear" as the best examples of this. >On "Solace", on the other hand, her voice is mostly allowed to stand on >its own and thus display it strengths - true, on "Mercy", for >instance, overdubs are certainly used, but only after the pure voice >has been established. That's just what I'm trying to say -- her voice is allowed to stand on its own, but when she has the opportunity to take it to its limits and show just how powerful it is, she doesn't. IMO there's a lot of potential emotion lost because of this (see above). >Oh, I do have another complaint about FtE: The engineering is pretty >bad; there's quite a bit of noise and the distortion of Sarah's voice >is pretty terrible on a track like "Ice" The whole thing was recorded at too high a level, for sure. Way back when woj had his copy of the new Canadian release I tried to make a tape dub of it for myself on my fixed-level portable deck, and the tape was completely saturated from start to finish. At the time I thought it was some evil plot to prevent us Yanks from making dubs of the elusive Canadian-only release before Arista got its act together, but now I know it was just bad engineer- ing. :) >Of course, all this is just IMHO, and I certainly wouldn't claim that >FtE is anything less than a great album - just that McLachlan can do >even better... ... agreed. Which is why I can't *wait* to see what she comes up with next! >Or just put 10.000 Maniacs' "Daktari" on infinite repeat... :-) :) That would produce some *very* interesting dreams if one were to do that and then fall asleep. I should try that sometime... footah pried from ut: >Monday. Morning. what can you do? Everyone please note that "morning" in footah's universe translates to approx- imately 2:00 PM. Of course, he can't help it that his consciousness is in the Alaskan Time Zone while his body is trapped in New Jersey... ;> Neile yahooed: >Seeing as how I've inflicted lots of info about my writing to ecto, I >thought I couldn't bear not telling you my most recent good news: not >only did I win third prize in the League of Canadian Poet's National >Poetry Contest (which is small-time cool, but the $500 that goes with it >will definitely come in handy), but my book that came out last year, >_Spells for Clear Vision_ is on the short list (of three books) for the >best book of poetry by a Canadian woman! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's way beyond cool! Good luck making it to the winner's circle! Jeffy inquired: >I'm basically looking for stuff mentioning sailing, but in a positive >light. "Thousands are Sailing" by the Pogues might be usable, but "Turkish >Song of the Damned" probably isn't. If you have the new Chieftains album, the one Ry Cooder sings is about sailing, I think. If you want to stretch it a bit, there's "Beautiful Pea Green Boat" on Laurie Anderson's _Bright Red_. Besides "Sail Across The Water", there's also "At The Beginning Of Time" (also stretching it) from WIWAB. >If it looks like we'll get onto but not complete a second tape, I'd >probably start pulling songs generically about the water. Gee, then take your pick of Sarah McLachlan songs -- particularly "Drawn To The Rhythm". All of "The Ninth Wave". Handel's Water Music. Bjork's "The Anchor Song". etc. etc. etc. >(who can't think of a single appropriate Happy Rhodes song... :-/) What about "Down, Down"?!? Happy's said it's about a submarine, but it could just as easily be about anything nautical, really. +==========================================================================+ |Meredith Tarr meth@delphi.com| |Boonton, NJ USA finger info at: mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu| +==========================================================================+ | "Turnips do not invite fan members to sit on their couches on stage." | | -Irvin F. Lin | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ From: Robert Lovejoy Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 22:57:21 -0400 Subject: Music and Nature On Tue, 09 May 1995 SBI!200HUBBARD!AMYD@lmbinc.attmail.com said: >Robert "Mr. Bassman" Lovejoy .... :-) mentioned Celestine Prophecy >again... (YES!!) but one of the things this brilliant book discusses is the >idea that there is beauty in everything, every person... and it can be >noticed easiest in a natural setting such as a beach and/or old growth >forest. I don't think it is an coincidence that "new agers" have been >producing cassette tapes with ambient, soft music played over ocean sounds >or the sounds of birds in a forest, etc. Nature has a "music" all its own. > (I'm surprised none of you feline-owned mentioned the beautiful soothing >sounds of a cat's contented purr.... ) To clarify my original point a little, indeed there is great beauty in natural sounds (as well as some man-made sounds!). I wouldn't call them music, however, because I have too much respect for those who deliberately craft tones into feelings! I would say that Humpback Whale Song is true music, but not the waves of the ocean lapping on the shore. To be sure, these natural sounds are probably responsible for the earlist human music, an man began by imitating the rhythms of nature. But to me, music is a deliberate creation by an artist or group of artists for the express purpose of invoking feelings. Natural sounds may have musical attributes, and they are certainly worth appreciating on their own level, but truly speaking, music is a gift to humanity that gives us a little insight on the majesty of the universal creation. Nature indeed has a "music" all its own, and its beauty is to be appreciated. I'm just suggesting that humans have been given an ability to coax emotions out of mathematical principals, and that artists amongst us have specifically crafted works that can reach deep into our psyches, and that the result of this is specifically Music to me. Natural sounds are indeed beautiful, but I appreciate them on a different level than I do music. Nature is doubtless grander overall than Mankind, but should the human race disappear, if whatever follows finds our music, our composed music. I think they may be impressed... Robert ------------------------------ From: wombat toga party Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 23:56:39 -0400 Subject: Re: woj is a god itos@pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca (Steve Ito) sez: >This e-mail is the formal deification of our own woj. aw, shucks... *blush* THE OLIVE-LOAF VIGILANTE sez: >And he even does the dishes and puts out the recycling. Amazing, innit? i'm practicing responsibility (for a change). i'll get the hang of it eventually. >As John Sandoval pointed out in a later e-message to me, shouldn't we all >capitalize it now? um, no. thanks. woj. just woj. ps. ;) ------------------------------ From: "Joseph S. Zitt" Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 23:46:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Music and Nature > On Tue, 09 May 1995 SBI!200HUBBARD!AMYD@lmbinc.attmail.com said: > > To clarify my original point a little, indeed there is great beauty in > natural sounds (as well as some man-made sounds!). I wouldn't call them > music, however, because I have too much respect for those who deliberately Well, I think this just kinda shows the basic uselessness of trying to determine whether something is "music" or "art" or some such. We might be better off just not asking those questions. I am, however, interested in these discussions because they touch on a lot of what I'm doing in my own composing and performance. For most of what I've been working with musically recently, performer virtuosity, in a conventional sense, has been beside the point, since I've been intentionally been designing work that almost anyone can play; much of my work has consisted of verbal scores and the like. (For an example, see http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/sponhtml.html) I am finding, however, that for the works to be played well, the performer does have to be sensitive to the materials, the environment, and the other players. I don't know that I would call these particularly musical traits, though -- they are just the traits one needs to act well within a team in any context. (Much of my composition (in an obvious nod to John Cage) involves designing musical situations (that is, situations the most notable results of which are the creation or manipulations of sound) that echo my view of how I would like to see society work (a model for which, for example, the conventional orchestra/conductor/composer interaction is a clear *counter*example; the orchestra is a clear model of the factory at its most restrictive (See Chris Cutler's "File Under Popular" for more on this)); I would think that any creator of artistic situations does that in some way (unless the dissonance between the composer's goals and methods have not yet struck him or her).) (No, that last sentence was not in Lisp! B-]) One point that should be clarified, however, since it has popped up here, is that the overtone series has little-to-nothing to do with how we have been trained to want things to resolve. This may (arguably) have been somewhat true several centuries ago when people used tunings that related to the overtone series. Nowadays, however, almost everything is in equal temperament, where the relationships between tones are no longer simple integers, but are actually manipulations of the twelfth root of two. The ideal third that comes from the overtone series is neither the minor not the major third but is, if I recall, somewhere between the two. People nowadays have heard so little music that uses the pure integer tunings that it actually sounds *wrong* to most, not better -- most people for whom I have played La Monte Young's Well-Tuned Piano, for example, or Terry Riley's just-tuned works for string quartet think that stereo's broken. There's also the problem that the limited Western set of twelve tones, a handful of modes, etc, is irrelevant to much of world music -- gamelans, for example, not only do not share the Western tunings, but even rarely share a tuning among two distinct ensembles. Math and conventional musicianship are interesting add-ons to the musical experience; they're just far from essential to it. (I'll now return to trying to decide whether to continue listening to the thunderstorm or to put on the Zappa cd again.) ------------------------------ From: Irvin Fei-Chiang Lin Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 23:48:10 -0500 (CDT) Subject: sarah sighting.... did anyone catch a picture (not very good one at that) in the latest issue of OUT magazine? she was in this tiny picture (on the sort of paparizzi page-pg34) with some one from Mtv jackie farry (have no clue who she is...i don't watch EmpTyV) as well as COURTNEY LOVE. jackie and courtney were kissing, and it looked like sarah was laughing up a storm. gosh OUT was great this month. a small pix of sarah and a great article on Jill Sobule... irvin ------------------------------ From: wombat toga party Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: Re: happy peppy upbeat music. Michael Colford sez: >I love Velocity girl! I just can't stop listening to Simpatico, and >I got it over a year ago. They remind me of one of my all-time >favorite defunct bands, The Reivers, from Austin Texas. mmmmmm! the reivers! well, you just prompted me to pull out very well-worn dubs of _saturday_ and _end of the day_ out of the piles of cassettes. let's see, did zeitgesit become the reivers? or was it the other way around? argh, the brain hurts when i try to think after 1:00 am. not sure where the velocity girl comparison comes from, though. then again, the only thing by velocity girl i've heard since the "my forgotten favorite" single is the "sorry again" single. one of these days... woj ------------------------------ From: Feline/human combo Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 17:22:32 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Re: sailing songs On Tue, 9 May 1995 jeffy@wam.umd.edu wrote: > (who can't think of a single appropriate Happy Rhodes song... :-/) "Mother Sea", of course! :) Urs :) - -- Urs Stafford (stafford_u@ix.wcc.govt.nz, whiskers@mu.sans.vuw.ac.nz) Mail any answers to stafford_u@ix.wcc.govt.nz please! [qlc] ------------------------------ From: Stephanie Parsons Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 00:23:10 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: sarah sighting.... On Tue, 9 May 1995, Irvin Fei-Chiang Lin wrote: > > gosh OUT was great this month. a small pix of sarah and a great > article on Jill Sobule... > so what is the deal with this sobule person? is she for real a lesbian or does she just sing about being one....we have all been wondering here in lesbianland,wisconsin thanks! stephanie ------------------------------ From: wombat toga party Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 01:29:04 -0400 Subject: Re: happy peppy upbeat music. "Scott S. Zimmerman" sez: >Hmm... I don't understand the appeal of That Dog. gotta agree with irvin on this one. there are a few clunkers on their album, but the good songs are fantastic. there's a promo-only disc with some acoustic stuff and other miscellany which is also worthwhile. >Do you subscribe to the indie-pop list, Irvin? has that list finally settled down? i was on it when it first started, suffered through the initial wanking after the mentions in various british magazines of ill-repute and finally unsubbed before leaving for japan last winter. i haven't worked up the gumption to rejoin. Irvin Fei-Chiang Lin sez: >overseas i >hear they are singed to 4AD though (!!!) odd, but then so is bettie seveert. well, not really. the that dog album and the first bettie serveert album were released on guernica in the uk. guernica is run by 4ad-guru ivo watts-russell for the sole purpose of licensing albums for release in the uk (another example is unrest's _imperial f.f.r.r._ which was licensed by guernica from teen beat for the uk). >> the la's, > trippy manchester stuff...did they have a female singer? nope. the only song of theirs that i liked was "there she goes". the others were either boring or just that song redressed. their live show wasn't too great either...but "there she goes" is *perfect*. > heartthrobs, sorta sound like the primitives. uhhhhhh, i don't think so. the heart throbs are heavier and a lot more menacing lyrically. the primative were (are?) great light poppy stuff, but the heart throbs always left me uneasily happy - they had a great live show - i think that's when i invented the patented walking-beer-bottle-roll at maxwell's. :) woj ------------------------------ From: wombat toga party Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 01:39:32 -0400 Subject: Re: the castle aaaaargh! veronica sawyer sez: >ok let's try this: the Swans? they have a new one. i forget the title, but a track from it is on the latest cmj new music monthly sampler. swans have recently gone through a transformation from a fairly noisy new york city no-wave thang to the trancey/loopy stuff they are doing now. there's at least once previous album in the more ecto-friendly vein, but they have flirted with calmer material in their darker past as well. you'll have to excuse me for liking the noisy stuff more than the new direction they've taken (paging dr. krylidis, please report to your local record store...). woj ------------------------------ From: wombat toga party Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 01:57:10 -0400 Subject: Re: happy peppy upbeat music. i said: >mmmmmm! the reivers! well, you just prompted me to pull out very >well-worn dubs of _saturday_ and _end of the day_ out of the piles of >cassettes. i'm just finishing up the latter of these albums and i finally realized who reminds me of the reivers: the pursuit of happiness! yes? no? am i insane? woj ------------------------------ From: Dan Stark Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 02:09:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Alternative Radio In a previous posting, Chad Lundgren wrote: > Radio stations: > > People were discussing some mainstream alternative radio stations. > I have to publicly harrangue our local station, New Rock 102.1. > Apparently their idea of alternative is Seatle bands with a mix of > what is popular. I have nothing against Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone > Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. I like their > music. However, when they play them over and over and over and over > I want to destroy every record of theirs that I get my hands on. > There are two other rock stations in Milwaukee that play the above > artists as well. Chances are high that if you turn on the radio at > any given time of the day and scan those three channels, you can > find a Pearl Jam song. When I ask the DJ's what the hell is with > the repitition, they point the finger at the programming. A couple > of DJ's have gone on the air saying that they're sick of playin it. > What's the deal folks? How do we change this practice? The local > college stations play a variety of very alternative stuff. Most of > which I have never heard before and will probably never hear again. > I can't listen to them either. Well commercial radio stations, even the 'Alternative' ones, can only stay in business by being profitable through ad sales. That means they have to maintain a large audience so they can justify reasonable ad rates. As you know from trying to listen to the college stations, if you hear a bunch of stuff you don't know and don't like, you won't listen. And since statistically, the average person spends less than an hour a day listening to the radio, that means hit songs must be repeated so that average listeners will hear their favorites whenever they turn on the radio. The only true alternative stations are those that don't depend advertising sales, like the college stations. But they've got every variety of alternative music for all kinds of tastes, and half the staff is trying to be too damn cool, meaning you won't likely hear what you want unless you know exactly when to tune in. The answer is, there's pretty much nothing you can do to change this. That's what makes a mailing list like this such a great resource. Now you've got a place where you can find out about all kinds of music that likely does suit your taste, and you can hopefully take that info down to your local independent record shop where they'll let you listen to the CD before buying it. I've been here for two days, and I've already learned about all kinds of bands that I want to check out like this! Make up your own tapes, and you won't have to listen to those radio stations. Or at least when you do, the songs won't seem so burnt out and you can enjoy them more! - ------------------------------- DAN STARK dstark@freenet.niagara.com St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V2 #103 ************************** ======================================================================== Please send any questions or comments about the list to ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu