From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V6 #257 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, September 5 2000 Volume 06 : Number 257 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Report from Ectofest: Happy Rhodes / no Kate content [Ted ] Re: Ectofest 2000 - crazed eye view [cjmacs ] Ectofest Pics and Such [erroclese mortal ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 02:12:20 -0400 From: Ted Subject: Re: Report from Ectofest: Happy Rhodes / no Kate content David Todd & Cynthia Conrad wrote: > Hey all, Hey right back atcha' > > > Finally have a chance to post re yesterday's Ectofest 2000. Here's a quick > review for those of you who didn't brave the rain to trek out to Danbury CT. > (d~ *where were you*? :-[ ) > Yeah d~ ! > > > Brave soul Ted (who later stomped around in the rain, cute as a ducky in his > yellow mackie :^D) turned up in time for Sloan Wainwright, who I had seen at > last year's fest. I thought if I dressed like a ducky I might get some free food handouts from d~ > Susan McKeown was next. She's sooo beautiful. Sigh. I wanna grow up to look > just like her. She played a few from last year (notably that musical > adaptation of Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for death," that > one about all the bodies of water in Ireland), and a song about a woman who > dresses up as a sailor to follow her boyfriend out to sea (*not* the > Handsome Cabin Boy) and a few others. I think I called her Natalie MacMerchant last year. She sounds like Natalie with a brogue. Every now and then she'd hit a note that was so close to Natalie, it would set my foot to start hurting. I'd take Sue over Natalie any day, Susan seems to be nicer than Natalie, that bitch. (Yikes! That was horrible! Methinks I've gone to the "Natale Merchant stepped on my foot and I called her a bitch" well one too many times, gotta retire that one) > > > Next up was Merrie Amsterberg. It was fun to watch her guitarist go Townsend > on his buzzing amp (well, not really, he just kicked it swiftly several > times during the set) and she rounded out her set with a rousing cover of > Dream On (yes, *that* Dream On). > Acoustic or electric, that song just makes me wanna puke. I did like her other stuff, but when she did "Dream on", I started regretting the fact that I didn't attend "Burning Man", even if it did mean I might run into |>oug cycling around in the nude with an aardvark airbrushed onto his weenie. I was seriously considering taking my donation back and leaving at that point, but Cynthia convinced me that I wouldn't look cool if I did that. Looking cool is important, so I held my nose. > At last, Happy came on. After heckling some poor guy in the audience... That guy was standing right behind me, I thought she was talking to me originally. (I wrote a "humorous" passage here about getting into a fist fight with Happy for talking trash to me, but I deleted it because it wasn't funny. It was so unfunny, in fact, that I still feel I must apologize for it despite the fact that is now edited out) > Well, I must say, I > enjoyed her a lot better this time sans band. Last year, there was just too > much stuff up on stage, too many monitor and mike problems, too many band > mates. This year it was just Happy and her acoustic, and Bon Lozaga, I like Happy in any flavor, even if her name is an adjective . ( Why I left this line in I have no idea! It certainly isn't any better than the fight sequence, sorry folks, just a bad humor day. This stuff here is Grammy presentation speech material.) I should have taken a few moments to introduce myself to her and mention that I am sampling her into at least one song our new CD. (heavily processed and possibly unrecognizable in the final mix, Happy will be in the company of Wayne Newton, Judy Garland, Lori Anderson, Annie Haslam and the Pope, so far.) I didn't want to bug her though, it's hard for me to tell if the star of the show wants to be bugged with so many other people hanging around and gushing, maybe next time. > Well, that was fun! Can't wait for next year--hope the weather's a little > better, though. If it isn't, I'm sure the Ectofest folks could drag in some more cash by having a Mud wrestling event between Happy and Susan McKeown. I don't care who wins, I just hope it goes the distance. Ha! I knew I had some good material somewhere! I just need to be more of a pig! -ted PS - I just wanted to echo Happy's Sentiments that the real stars of the show were the people who put things together for a good cause, I'll be there next year too. Thank you Meth, Chuck , and Woj! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 03:00:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Matthews Subject: Today's your birthday, friends... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ******************** Scott Zimmerman (scottz@best.com) ******************** ********************* Mike Mendelson (mjmjm@usa.net) ********************** *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Scott Zimmerman Mon September 04 1972 Virgo Mike Mendelson Fri September 04 1964 Virgo Richard Dean Wed September 06 1967 Virgo David Blank-Edelman Sat September 09 1967 Neon Holly Tominack Thu September 10 1970 Virgo Sharon Nichols - Terra Incognita Wed September 11 1963 Victim of Christianity Heather Russell September 11 Total Virgosity Karron Lynn Lane Tue September 14 1751 Ophelia Virgo Troy Wollenslegel Mon September 18 1972 Virgo Mark Frabotta Sun September 19 1965 Don't even THINK about parking here Joe Zitt Sat September 20 1958 Will Hack for CDs Ani DiFranco Wed September 23 1970 Virgo Paul Kim Sat October 01 1977 fetal position JoAnn Whetsell Fri October 01 1976 Pendulum - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 14:42:18 -0400 From: cjmacs Subject: Re: Ectofest 2000 - crazed eye view hi all! wow i sure am glad that meredith wrote about the show before i did! reading her diary of the day had me laughing so hard that it brought tears to my eyes as i flashed back on some of the wonderful moments of another incredibly memorable ectofest! i just have to add some comments of my own (to give a more BALANCED view of the backstage proceedings ;-) > - -- 8:15 am. God I'm tired, why couldn't I get more than an hour of sleep > last night? Oh yeah. Never mind. i'm on cup of coffee number one at this point. i change the home answering machine message so that any calls looking for info will be directed to my cell number. unbeknownst to me at the time, happy and alex the barking dogs obliterate my voice so badly that people have to call back three and four times just to understand my message! of course if i had played it back i would have realized it was near unintelligable... moments later john henshon calls. he's at the park waiting!! damn, joe and i haven't even loaded mr. z yet! (mr. z is my neighbor steve's truck, which he graciously lent to us for the day... i know it's weird but we name our vehicles around these parts ;-} so i jump into stella (my car), get to the park, open the gate for the guys, drive to bagelman and order a dozen bagels with cream cheese and half a dozen large coffees, meet joe and the dogs and start loading the truck, get back to the park and have the truck unloaded - all by 9am! > > - -- 9:45 am. Driving to Danbury with JeffW, and the constant feeling I > forgot something (in denial about the fact that we passed through a > rainshower on the way there). it's sunny and VERY humid. i swear it will not rain. i don't even want to hear that word today! the p.a. is being set up. several people show up at the park looking for ectofest- the first couple have driven from west virginia and want to make sure they found the show (hi josie! hope you had a great time and a safe drive home!), the second arrival is tim from the band drama chic (who opened ectofest last year - he had such a great time he didn't want to miss a second of it!) > > - -- 10:30 am. Why do so many geese have to call Kenosia Park their home? > Better yet, why do they all have to crap right in front of the pavilion?! according to parks and rec, mass goose slaughter was out of the question... > > - -- 10:32 am. Oh good, Parks & Rec did finally cough up a > handicapped-accessible portajohn. Yay, Chuck and his powers of persuasion > (though still making mental note to mention to the mayor if he shows up (as > advertised) that there is no permanent handicapped-accessible portajohn at > the park, which is illegal according to ADA). as an aside, the day before there were NO porta-johns at all. i called parks and rec and had to order two regular and one handicapped-accessible. this cost $170, an expense we didn't need. the reason why they do not provide an h-c john is because the park already has one. however, it is located by the beach, waaaaaayyyyy over on the other side of the park- a totally inconvenient location for anyone using the area of the park we were in. > > - -- 10: 33 am. It's cloudy. It can't be cloudy. Cloudy means rain, and > that would be Bad. > - -- 10:34 am. It's humid and sticky. Ick. by this point i've driven back and forth between the house and the park six times... twice without my house keys. :-} god forbid i should ever make a list of what i need to bring with me! maybe i should actually use my palm pilot... on one of the brief trips home i catch the phone as it rings. it's anja and she's waiting at connecticut limo to be picked up, so i make a brief detour on the back way to the park. > - -- 10:35 am. Thank you, Josh Weichel for folding the programs! Thank you, > Anja Baldo, for helping hang "ectofest" directional signs along the road! > Thank you, Chuck's neighbors for raking up goose crap for an hour before > the gates opened! josh was the third festivalgoer to arrive and insisted on helping. of course after he'd already folded 225 of the 250 programs, we decide that the eli whitney folk festival flyer should be inserted into each of the ectofest programs... my co-worker christina and her fiancee larry show up with rakes, after i had mentioned to her the day before how appaling the amount of goose poop was. they rake up a HUGE garbage bag full of poop, and it seems to make next to no difference. > - -- 10:45 am. Determine that Chuck is on drugs. The t-shirts do look very > cool, even if they aren't at all what he ordered. > - -- 10:50 am. Discover bagels on one of the picnic tables. No napkins, > which is a problem considering how much cream cheese is on them, but hey. hmmm...not having eaten yet, i wonder where all the bagels have gone.... steve vandevender calls to say he's awake and ready for his park shuttle. joe (the official ectofest shuttle service) is on his way to pick up juha and paul blair, so it's left to meth to pick up steve. > - -- 11:00 am. JeffW and I get to apply our Susan Werner merchandising > experience to setting up the merch table. Jeff, you are the master of > counting in. :) > - -- 11:10 am. My mantra for the day is fast becoming "Where's Chuck???" (I > really do think that should be the slogan on the staff t-shirts next year.) in case anyone didn't notice (since the printing on the t-shirts was IMO near-unreadable and the posters were scoffed up pretty quickly, the slogan this year was "voices crafted from thunder, the power of life". i don't recall happy singing "where's chuck" in any songs (yet), but if she does i suppose we could consider it for our slogan in 2001... ;-) > - -- 11:20 am. I head over to the Ethan Allen Inn to pick up Steve V. Make > an ass of myself trying to get the wheels off his chair in order to fit it > into my car. i drive back home again (seemingly for the umpteenth time) to get changed. the dogs are going wild with confusion. the phone is ringing. jessica weiser is stuck in traffic and will most likely be late. my cell phone is ringing. the mayor's office tells me he is not coming. he must have heard about the porta-john fiasco. > - -- 11:52 am. Oh my god, I did NOT just get a call from Kristeen Young > wailing that she thought ectofest was on *Monday*. meredith calls to tell me the kristeen news. major bummer for me since i've never seen her live and was really looking forward to hearing her since i'm a loser and never make into nyc for her shows. or anyone else's shows lately for that matter... > > - -- 11:55 am. Oh my god, Jessica Weiser did NOT just call to say she's > stuck in traffic. > - -- 12:00 noon We have more volunteers than jobs to do. I guess this isn't > the worst thing in the world. > > reminders to self: make sure to thank all of the wonderful people volunteering their time, service, artistry, etc... hawk t-shirts and merchandise raise awareness of the superb food being provided by emerald city cafe (this ended up being unnecessary since everyone was raving about the wraps and salads already!) get someone to sing happy birthday to meredith (and joe and don keller) > - -- 12:05 pm. Amy Fairchild is here. Well, if Jessica and Anne Heaton > don't show up, we can at least get *somebody* on stage. (Amy is very cool. > Thank you, Rachael Sage for pointing her to us when you found out you > couldn't make it this year!) > - -- 12:15 pm. There's Jessica! Yay! Of course, she has the biggest setup > of the day. We can do this. :) We have a surplus of volunteers anyway. > - -- 12:25 pm. I introduce Jessica Weiser. Yay!! ectofest 2000 is > underway!! joe is by now on his third trip to the train station in brewster. the people slated to arrive never show. however he runs into anne heaton and frank marotta jr who ask to follow him back to the park (i never did find out what the heck they were doing driving around brewster...) > - -- 12:45 pm. Anne Heaton is here. Yay. Oops - she's driving away. Hmmm. > - -- 1:00 pm. Anne Heaton is back. Perfect timing. She brought Frank > Marrotta, Jr. with her to play guitar - yay! jessica weiser does a great set! the last song she does is VERY cool, kind of throwing muses-ish. everyone likes it a LOT! > - -- Jessica's last song really rocks. I like it a lot. frustrated joe gets sent back out to buy raffle tickets (the ONE thing i couldn't find anywhere in the house this morning). the next day i notice that he used half a tank of gas doing all this driving around. > - -- We finally get the raffle tickets - only an hour and a half late. Okay, > start selling for the raffle! > - -- Anne is playing. It really looks like it's going to rain soon. It > can't do that. > - -- It's starting to rain. This sucks. > - -- Now it's POURING. > - -- "Where's Chuck?!" count is up to around 55 at this point. chuck is in awe of anne heaton at this point. in fact i'm standing out in the rain watching the show and the aggregation beneath the pavilion roof and enjoying the warm vibe anne has going. her humor is hilarious (especially when happy and alex get into a barking match with jessica's drummer's beagle), her playing and singing are phenomenal. frank is an awesome presence as well. note to self: see these two as often as possible! no surprise that the heaton cds are totally gone by the end of their set. > - -- Anne Heaton is doing a kickass set. People are really getting into her > music. Valerie reports she is rapidly selling out of Anne's CDs. I am > very happy about this. > - -- I lose my clipboard. i lose my clipboard too, along with joe's house keys, steve's car keys and a pair of eyeglasses... > - -- Sloan Wainwright has arrived. She is still one of the nicest people on > the planet: the Earth Mother of roots music. She apologizes on behalf of > the elements for us "getting totally pissed on". sloan is one of the world's most wonderful people! i introduce her to happy the minpin, whom she adores; she tells me that she has sold the bakery to her sister and that she's sorry she missed me there this past week. i didn't mind her not being there so much, since the staff made sure i was well-fed... > - -- Thank you, Jeff Wasilko for agreeing to be stage manager! YES YES YES! jeff did an incredible job of keeping it all together on the stage! and he had time to take some incredible pictures too! > - -- Amy Fairchild is turning heads all over the park, not least of which is > mine. amy IS turning heads! i think it's the flourescent pink flip-flops she has on... ;-) my jaw is slack once again as amy plays a gorgeous set... can this be possible? the music is getting so good that it can't possibly keep going like this! > - -- It's stopped raining. Thank god. peter linton calls for the third time - its been POURING in boston and he and merrie want to make sure they're not coming all that way for a rainout. as i'm speaking with him, joe calls from the brewster train station - five miles away where the sun is shining brightly. i tell peter not to worry, the show is going on no matter what. my phone rings again - it's congressman maloney calling saying he will be unable to make it. now i'm going to have to write letters about the porta-john fiasco. > - -- Merrie Amsterburg has called from a traffic jam in Hartford. At least > we know she's coming. Susan McKeown is MIA, and she's on next since > Kristeen has been scratched from the program. Slight pangs of panic ensue. > - -- "Where's Chuck?!" count is now approaching 90. > - -- I send Chuck home to look up Susan's number and call her and desperately > hope she doesn't answer. meredith and i panic. where is susan? did she remember? maybe she thinks the show is monday as kristeen did? are she and jon stuck on 684 in traffic? i couldn't remember the last four digits of susan's number, so i had to run home to call her. the answering machine picks up and i hear brendan's voice. well, at least she isn't home... > > - -- For the second time, I lose my clipboard. > - -- People are still arriving, despite the weather. Though the attendance > is still much lower than we'd hoped, at least we've got SOME people here. > Folks are spreading out onto the grass again. > - -- Sloan is doing a wonderful set. She's so amazing. She's accompanied by > guitar and bass, and it sounds great. She's in fine voice, too. I don't > catch much of her between-song stuff, but she's making people laugh. This > is good. i rush back to the park to hear sloan who is utterly amazing today. she's in between songs when jon and susan fly past the stage in the new audi. i didn't catch sloan saying anything but "whoa!!!!...." but those up close laughed heartily. sloan's version of lennon's "across the universe" is the highlight of the day so far. she introduces it as "a prayer, written by the king... and NOT elvis!" > - -- Susan pulls up in style, driven by Jon Spurney in his brand-new Audi TT > Quattro convertible. > - -- Thank you, Susan for showing up even though you're not feeling well! > Much appreciated. if i knew she was sick i never would have kissed her hello (kidding!) > - -- I find my clipboard. Chuck has been walking around with it, thinking > it's his. Moron. ;) i figured by giving meredith and i matching clipboards we could easily distinguish them from everyone else's. liitle did i think that we'd confuse them between the two of us... > - -- Happy arrives. I miss the introduction of Happy to her namesake, > Chuck's miniature pinscher who has been the life of the party all day. > Apparently it was quite amusing. standing with meredith and her clipboard i see a vehicle pull up to the park gate. as it drives in i turn to meth and ask "is that who i think it is?". yep, it was the hapster herself! hallelujiah! she is here! woj and jeff mob her car ( i think they're trying to keep the hordes of fans at bay). i fight my way between them for my hug and kiss. we get to chat for a few minutes and joe brings over the beasts so that happy can meet her namesake. needless to say they got along famously! i explain to hr how similar they are in personality and i get one of those "looks" ;-) from this point on, hr keeps referring to me as her "stalker!" > - -- Chuck gives Susan an appropriately gushing introduction. She starts off > with "In London So Fair". I try to make time to pay attention to as much > of her set as I can. > - -- "Where's Chuck?!" count has now hit 100. at this point i'm out in the field with hr and my brother talking about music, mostly about yes. we discuss the differences between trevor rabin and steve howe and talk about an upcoming howe solo gig on long island in a beautiful old theatre my brother says would be a great place for happy and project lo. happy tells us about a friend of hers that said that steve howe looks like a real life version of mr. parks on the simpsons! happy comments on how beautiful susan sounds. she heads off to hang with bon. susan and jon are fabulous as always. every time i hear that voice i get chills! fellow ectoplasm patrick comments on jon's stunning guitar playing - a great example of difficult playing done so well that he makes it sound really simple! > - -- I run into someone from Green Linnet whom I'd met at a seminar back in > December. We'd talked about ectofest back then, and it's nice to see her > here to see Susan (the label is right in town, after all). She has three > copies of _Lowlands_ in her bag. She gives me one for Rick's prize > package, and another for me to keep. 8> Not even Chuck has this! This is > incredibly satisfying. i'm not jealous at all! i have the autographed c:/happy rhodes e.p. and you don't! nyah nyah! :P > - -- Merrie sounds great. Peter's amp starts having issues halfway through, > so we end up with the Fuzzbox version of "Lay Of The Land". It's all > Merrie can do to keep a straight face through the rest of the song. He > gets it under control, but it keeps buzzing back at him here and there for > the rest of the set. Oops. (After they're done, Merrie notes that it > probably just needs new tubes.) the whole time this is reminding me of my fender twin amp which used to do exactly the same thing... until it fell off the back of a truck, which mysteriously solved the problem! > - -- "Where's Chuck?!" count has topped out at somewhere near 135. i'm with happy and reverend wisdom, who are discussing meditation classes. official e-fest photographer cathy scott powell comes over and takes pictures of me and happy and happy. > > - -- Time for the last raffle! Valerie tells Chuck to pull out one of her > tickets when we draw for the signed poster. > Finally is the drawing for > the poster. Valerie is the winner!!! > This was NOT rigged, I swear!! no it was NOT rigged! and the weirder thing is, on the first ticket pulled (which no one claimed) the number was 003. the NEXT ticket pulled (valerie's winning ticket) was number 300! > - -- I don't think I have the exact order, but here's what she played as I > can recall: > > Given In > Ashes To Ashes > To The Funnyfarm > Summer > Ra Is A Busy God > Look For The Child > I Have A Heart > The First To Cry > > Just Like Tivoli (encore) funny how meredith left out one of the set's highlights... the "happy birthday" portion where happy had meth come up in front of us all and stand on one leg. (meth has a tough time doing this becuase of inner ear problems - - i attribute her off-kilter taste in music to this as well ;-) then happy gets to the corny part and makes us all sing happy birthday as the red-faced one resumes her seated position on the ground in front of the goddess ;-) jeff's pictures of this are great! > - -- All too soon, it's over. Chuck and I give our closing thanks. We've > made a good amount of money for the charities this year, despite the > weather and the depleted crowd. at the most recent count, we've cleared the $2000 mark! > - -- The ectophiles are positively buzzing. "Can you BELIEVE that set > list?!?" everyone present is awed. my dad, sister and brother come up to hr at the show's end and are positively gushing. hr thanks me for having her play and i almost fall over! i can't thank happy and susan and merrie and sloan and anne and amy and jesica enough for the incredible music! and to do it for charity shows that these musicians are wonderful good-hearted people! a million thank yous to all who attended and all of our volunteers too! the fact that we KNOW we can do this, we KNOW we can raise money, and we KNOW we we can get that ectofest "vibe" back, makes it worth all of the hard work we put into it, and it makes me smile when i think of some of the great ideas meredith and i have already started planning for next year! :-) thank you again everyone! see you at ectofest 2001! chuck ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 15:24:03 -0700 From: erroclese mortal Subject: Ectofest Pics and Such Hey all. Jayke and I had a great time at Ectofest. Everyone was amazing, especially all of ya that put the show together! Happy was brilliant, loved all the old songs - such a treat. Her voice has just gotten better and better over time. I've put some photos that I took at the show up at http://www.deliciousbutt.org/ectofest/index.html sorry no thumbnails cause i'm a lazy bastard. Enjoy! Thanks again for the wonderful day! It's been a long while since I've seen that many trees! kiri n.p. Kristeen Young - I like it Woj! ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V6 #257 **************************