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 #435 ecto, Number 435 Saturday, 13 February 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* Re: Hmm. Eh. _Hmm._ OK. Hmm. ... bramble ramble A Happy Story Happy is quick! The battle of the -inas and other stories Further Aural Gratification cohabitants FINALLY!!!!! An unusual interpretation of _Out Like a Lamb_ Re: Apologies... ======================================================================== From: meth@aol.com Subject: Re: Hmm. Eh. _Hmm._ OK. Hmm. ... Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 12:58:39 EST Hi! woj isn't a big lyric listener... methinks the gentleman doth miss too much that way. Meredith :) meth@aol.com ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 17:10:44 EST From: woj@remus.rutgers.edu (l.l. cool bean) Subject: bramble ramble jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu sez: >I was the one who first made the comparison to _The Dreaming_ and I'm >going to stand by that for one simple reason. One of the most common >reactions people had to _The Dreaming_ when it came out was surprise and >shock and yes, disappointment. Most of those people now claim TD as their >favorite Kate Bush album. eh, that's tenuous reasoning, i think. what sets _the dreaming_ off from most of KaTe's other work is its sound, not people's reaction to it... >We've had a surprising number of Ectophiles admit that they were rather >startled and disappointed when they first put on _Equipoise_. Most of >those people have either mostly (woj, for instance) or completely >revised their opinion and now really like the album i, for one, have not had my opinion of the album mostly revised. i like four or five songs a *lot*, but i could just as easily ignore the others. that's what my opinion of it was more or less after one listen as well. i will concede that it took a bit for "out like a lamb" and "cohabitants" to fully hit me though... jim@medinah.atc.ucarb.com sez: >Ingrid was a late add on to the show so she is not listed in any of the >show ads that I had seen. I called the station and they said she will be on >this Sunday (The Bobs, Brave Combo, Peter Stampfel, and Vic Chestnut fill >the lineup). vic chestnutt? coolness! he does an absolutely wonderful destruction (er, cover) of r.e.m.'s "it's the end of the world..." which appears on the tribute album tp r.e.m. entitled _surprise your pig_ (don't understand the significance of the title at all myself). i guess i'm going to have to figure out what station in my area carries mountain stage, eh? i know that wfuv out of nyc has it late at night on (um) saturdays (?), but that comes in rather poorly out here in morristown. anybody know where i can get mountain stage in northern new jersey? Mike Mendelson sez: >Don't misinterpret this, but do you know who Happy bares a very strong >resemblance to? Blossom!!!!! (from the TV show) yeah, someone pointed this out a while back. personally, i don't think that full lips (ala lipstick) and teased hair suit happy very well, so i'm not too keen on the cover either (gods, just a font of grouchiness am i :) woj ======================================================================== Date: 12 Feb 1993 18:12:05 U From: "Chris Waite" Subject: A Happy Story Subject: Time:6:14 PM OFFICE MEMO A Happy Story Date:2/12/93 I just called up Tower Records in NYC (by NYU) to see if they had Equipoise and they said that they were all out of Happy Rhodes!!! I was in there less than a week ago and they had two CDs of Vol. I and two of Vol. II!!! Also, I've been doing a lot of used CD shopping in the city (Got Bel Canto for $5!) and haven't come across any Happy in the used bins!!! It seems that whoever is buying all the Happy albums are happy with their purchase!!! Just my little story... Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!! Christine :) ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 14:12:09 est From: ajs@jloda.cci.com (Alan Sodoma) Subject: Happy is quick! Well, I sent out a check last Thursday for Equipoise and exactly one week later, it was in my mailbox!! Also, since I still don't have the 1st4, I put in enough $ for 1 more cd. I didn't know which one to pick, so I asked Happy to pick one out for me. She picked out Ecto! Why? I have no idea. Anybody have any ideas as to why she would send me that one, instead of any of the other 3? She also signed my Equipoise cd on the inside of the back cover, right under her picture-> Best wishes, Al! Happy Rhodes Time to warm up the cd player!! Al Sodoma ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 18:13:16 CST From: Mitch Pravatiner Subject: The battle of the -inas and other stories As I write this, I have come shortly before from watching Martina Navratilova beat Zina Garrison in straight sets at the Virginia Slims quarterfinals. Always reassuring to see people in my general age bracket come out on top of stuff :-). In the preceding match, Pam Shriver seemed to falter against Katerina Maleeva--must not have had her Nuprin :-). The whole thing actually gave me limited insight--but only limited--into how the game's rococo scoring system works. Amazing what you can learn when you go offline for a day :-). Irony of the week: seen in the window of Coconuts: a sign touting the new Michael Jackson album, next to one that says "The Color of Change: Sony Music Salutes Black History." Yesterday at Second Hand Tunes in Oak Park, I saw a CD on a shelf behind the counter in a bin marked "country," where the picture looked (to me, anyway) a lot like KaTe. I asked who it was, and the man said it was Pam Tillis, and added that Kate wasn't that pretty. I said I had friends who would disagree. He said he had a disk--which I ended up buying--by a guitarist --whose name I now forget--on which Kate sang backup on a couple of tracks, and that, for that matter, this guy had discovered her in the first place. So I may or may not have a collector's item. He added that he gave quite a few copies of _Y Kant Tori Read_ to charity; so you now know where to ask about finagling one in exchange for a contribution :-). WRT Vickie's query: Oscar Levant was a famous actor/musician/humorist of the 30's thru the '50s, who was also a close friends of George Gershwin and appeare d in the films _Rhapsody in Blue_ and _An American in Paris_. His (at least ostensible) hypochondria and other neuroses were the stuff of legend. The first time I heard "No One Here," I wondered if the cat was real or elec- tronic. It's nice to know there may be electronic cats. Sometimes I wish mine was electronic, when he gets into things and inconveniences me :-). Speaking of electronic animals: Add me to the list of _DW_ freaks on ecto. Tom Baker is my favorite too. My favorite companion is Leela, probably for the same reason I like to go to the Virginia Slims. It must all be a function of whatever it is that makes me tick psychosexually :-). Romana I and Nyssa are tied for 2nd, and of course K-9 has his own spot in the pantheon. Channel 11 apparently "lost the rights" a couple of years ago; dunno what that meant. Years ago I came up with a conundrum: If the only way Margaret Thatcher could be turned out of office was if her administration cancelled _Dr. Who_, would that be a reasonable price for the nation to pay? :-) _Chloe Loves Olivia_ is indeed a Two Nice Girls album, but I've never heard it. What I have heard sounds more folk-oriented than Laurie Freelove's solo stuff. WDCB in the west suburbs of Chicago (audible hardly anywhere else on 90.9 FM) runs _Mountain Stage_ on Tuesday afternoons, should anyone be passing thru those parts then. I read in the paper Wednesday that Tuesday was Donovan's 47th birthday; the "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" thread in these pages the other week provides a rational nexus. Tuesday would also have been the birthday of Bill Veeck, the legendary baseball executive who died in 1986. In his autobiography, he recalls the time when, as the owner of the old St. Louis Browns, he was trying to trade a player named Hank Arft, and sending appropriate communic- ations to the other club on the teletype, when a malfunction caused the player' s name to come out as ARFARFARFARFARF [and so on, and so on, and so on]. When the machine finally was unstuck, the reply was "I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING. KEEP THAT DOG IN ST. LOUIS." Apparently, the references to birthdays on Tuesday and K-9 converged to make me think of this. Steve Potter's misspelling of my name made me think of the time in an under- grad anthro class when the syllabus stated we would be reading about the Yanomamo" tribe of Brazil, complete with umlauted o, and then added the parenthetical note "learn to spelll it [sic]." Happy birthday to Doug. Happy Valentine's Day to all. Mitch Pravatiner (learn to spelll it :-) ) ---------------------------- "It's late at night, you're wide awake And you're not wearing pants So grab your _World News Now_ mug And everybody dance" --Barry Mitchell, "World News Polka" (Performed weekly at the close of _ABC World News Now_) ======================================================================== From: meth@aol.com Subject: Further Aural Gratification Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 22:04:19 EST Hi! Well, I finally listened to _Equipoise_ through headphones. Twice through in succession, in fact. Wow. It's incredible how much you miss when you have it on regular speakers with Life Noise in the background! This is an album that should have a warning on it not to listen to it any other way than piped directly into your head. They should be commended on the clarity of the recording- it's great stuff. They should definitely do a Radio Edit of "Runners" (and most of the songs on the album). I'm afraid it's going to miss out because it's too damn long to be noticed by most stations. I'm not going to let that stop me from playing it at every opportunity, but I'm just a tear in a salted sea (to steal an image from Natalie Merchant- I'm sure she won't mind ;). I've decided I really don't like "Cohabitants", and I know I would love it if it weren't for that silly voice effect. She could have done so much better than that, really. As for the meaning of "Out Like A Lamb": I can definitely see where a comparison to "Silence of the Lambs" could quickly spring to mind, and in some ways it does make a bit of sense, but upon thinking about it I think it's about a former lover/friend (hard to tell- "I think he's always seen how deeply he'd affect me" could go either way) who has died. She's convinced that in his next life he'll cross her path again ("he'll call me when he's back in town, he'll cal me when he's coming round this circle again"), so his death isn't an absolute end but a sort of beginning. At least, that's how it struck me from first listen. And the way she sings the lines: "it's a case of perfect hindsight maybe we can try again i did love you more than you know now we see our history" gives me *chills* every time. Her tonality is almost Medieval here, and she's never sounded so much like Kate as she does at that point. Yep, it's a good album. No doubt about it. :> Meredith meth@aol.com ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 22:27:34 EST From: jessica@maurolycus.rutgers.edu (jessica) Subject: cohabitants Hmm, meredith can't stand cohabitants, because of the vocal effect.. I on the other hand absolutely *love* that song - not just becuase of the vocal effects, but the whole song, the lyrics, the overall sound, the song structure. it's scary :) and pretty and soothing at the same time. I don't tihnk the vocal effect sounds cheap or old or anything - greg, who knows a lot more about such things says it does not sound at all like a vocoder, and he can't determine what they *did* use to get that effect. I just know how my ears reacted to it the first time i heard it - they perked up and said "WOW that is awesome". I tihnk the sound of it - the affected vocals - fits perfectly with the tone and meaning of the song. the monster inside her head says those lines... Maybe it is just that the monster in my own head sounds just like that.. :( :) jessica ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 19:30:30 PST From: stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender) Subject: FINALLY!!!!! Mike Mendelson writes: > Since I have been avoiding (like the plague) reading everyone's spoilers, > has anyone commented on the arrangement of the words on the front > cover? I love it. Does the analogy follow? > equi:poise == happy:rhodes > equi:happy == poise:rhodes Wow. My tape of the CD is labeled equi poise happy rhodes on side one, and equi happy poise rhodes on side two (which has what fits of the album, starting with _The Flight_, after finishing off the songs that didn't fit on side one). In an analogous fashion, I made a _Warpaint_ tape labeled _More Paint_ on side two :-) _Equipoise_ is continuing to grow on me. I'm not always sure I like the trend towards sparser arrangements with more subtle details, since I'd say I'm most easily won over by a dominating wall of sound (take _The Dreaming_, for example). I'd have to say that Happy won't really have a _Dreaming_ until she really cuts loose. Can you imagine Happy really letting her vocals go the way Kate does? Or going for a little more intensity in the musical arrangements? Not that she is obligated to imitate Kate in those ways, but I can't really get around saying that Happy's music is a little cerebral and subdued most of the time. But I love it all no matter what. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 19:55:48 PST From: stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender) Subject: An unusual interpretation of _Out Like a Lamb_ _Out Like a Lamb_ conjures up the most interesting association for me, and one that will take me a bit of time to explain. I get a vague impression that the lost lover referred to by the protagonist is a soldier of some kind, who has a brief fling with the protagonist and then goes off to get killed. It also reminds me of a part of the Ursula K. LeGuin novel _Always Coming Home_. Although ACH is not really a conventional novel, consisting of pieces of study of an imaginary people called the Kesh, it does have several pieces of more conventional narrative, the longest of which is the story of a woman named Stone Telling. Stone Telling is the daughter of a Kesh woman and a man from the Condor People. The Kesh have a very peaceful society, and their central cultural concepts are closely tied to natural images and a circular perception of time and circumstance. The Condor People, on the other hand, are highly militaristic and focused on conquest and control of as large of an empire as they can obtain. Their meeting with the Kesh is peaceful, and the Kesh are divided over whether they should continue to deal with the Condor People or to ask them to leave, since the Kesh consider the Condor People's ideals to be a sign of sickness. Stone Telling goes on a journey to find her father after the Condor People, finding that the Kesh will not resist them, more or less leave the area considering it already effectively conquered. The ineffable feeling I have that the protagonist's lover in _Out Like a Lamb_ is a soldier, combined with the protagonist's feeling that he'll come "back around the circle again", reminds me strongly of elements of Stone Telling's story, to the extent that I wonder if it was an influence on Happy. If not, it's an interesting and evocative coincidence for me. ======================================================================== Subject: Re: The battle of the -inas and other stories Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 00:41:58 -0500 From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu Mitch sez: >He said he had a disk--which I ended up buying--by a guitarist >--whose name I now forget--on which Kate sang backup on a couple of tracks, >and that, for that matter, this guy had discovered her in the first place. >So I may or may not have a collector's item. This is decidedly odd. No one really "discovered" KaTe in the traditional sense; David Gilmour was, I believe, a friend of a friend of her brother's, and a tape was passed on to him. It was Gilmour (guitarist for Pink Floyd) who produced KaTe's first demos and pushed her at EMI. To my knowledge, KaTe and Gilmour have only worked together on three "projects." Gilmour is credited with BVs on "Pull Out the Pin" (The Dreaming) (though for the life of me I can't recognize his voice in there...). The two did "Running Up That Hill" at _The Secret Policemen's Third Ball_. And, of course, Gilmour played guitar on _The Sensual World_ ("Love and Anger" and "Rocket's Tail"). Kate has not sung on any Floyd album, nor on either of Gilmour's solo albums. Did you, perhaps, buy a Roy Harper album? KaTe's sung BVs on a couple of them (and she and Gabriel covered his "Another Day"). And, there _is_ a Pink Floyd connection in there--Harper sang the lead on Floyd's "Have a Cigar", from their _Wish You Were Here_ album (which was the album being recorded when Gilmour first started getting EMI hooked on KaTe). Yes, I know this is Ecto. ;-) Does it help that I've been listening to "Mother Sea" and "I Say" whilst typing this? >The first time I heard "No One Here," I wondered if the cat was real or elec- >tronic. It's nice to know there may be electronic cats. Sometimes I wish >mine was electronic, when he gets into things and inconveniences me :-). Seems like I'm rather lucky; as I recall, the first time I heard "No One Here" I believe I was in the car and thus *knew* the sounds had to be on tape. ;-) (unfortunately, my first memories of hearing a lot of Happy's 1st4 songs are blurry because they were on a compilation, and I used to listen to it without the track listing handy. The Happy stuff was preceded by 3 songs by Area, and though I'm embarrassed to admit it now, there was a time when I had trouble telling when Area ended and Happy began. 'Course, now I own all 6 Happy albums and have CDs and tapes of all 3 of Area's albums...) >_Chloe Loves Olivia_ is indeed a Two Nice Girls album, but I've never heard >it. What I have heard sounds more folk-oriented than Laurie Freelove's >solo stuff. _Chloe *Liked* Olivia_ (the title is a reference to Gertrude Stein, for those not in the know) is rather, um, eclectic, and not nearly as folky as some of the earlier 2NG material. This isn't to say there aren't folk and/or folky songs on it ("Eleven", the first half of "For the Election" (or is that 'inauguration'?), and a few others come to mind). But there's also some disco (gack!), rap (!) (and even more so--the rapper is doing an impersonation of George Bush having sex! "I'm gonna make you see a thousand points of light" It's hysterical!), R&B, and electric-guitar-cruncy power rock sort of stuff. The album has a few problems, but overall it's really cool. I've still not heard the Laurie Freelove album, but from what I've heard, I think I can guess what songs she sings on _Chloe Liked Olivia_. >parenthetical note "learn to spelll it [sic]." Hmmm. Sounds like the prof who handed out a 26 page syllabus complete with exhortations to buy all the various grammar and style guides. I debated whether or not to circle all of the grammatical errors in the syllabus and giving it back to the prof before dropping the class. I decided it wasn't worth the effort of wading through the excess verbiage. ObHappy: my sister came home tonight from an evening of being a mall rat at Pentagon City, a rather posh mall right near--you guessed it, our favorite five-sided building. It seems that whilst in the Sam Goody, she bought a copy of _Warpaint_! She said they had one copy each of the 1st5; no _Equipoise_ though. The third floor of my house now contains 7 Happy CDs and 4 AG tapes. I think we're getting out of hand. Jeff ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 0:46:57 EST From: WretchAwry Subject: Re: Apologies... > -- >,-----------------------------------------------------------------. _ . >| Oh, get to the point you sappy wimps Martin Dougiamas. | _r| Ll\ >| I haven't got a lot of time martin@cs.curtin.edu.au | | | \ >| Simplicity is beauty martin@dialix.oz.au | \ |_ / >| Are there poets less sublime? Perth, Western Australia --+-> X~ `-' >`= Poetic Justice - Happy Rhodes =================================' V ^^^^^^^^^^ Would one of the Aussiephiles give us a map like this with the locations of all the Down Under Happy fans? (while you're at it, show where the WOMAD festival is being held, please.) I'm just curious, and want to "place" you all. Thanks! (While I'm at it, what do the "r" "LI" and "V" stand for?) (And why is the country divided in half on the map here?) Congrats on your new job Martin! Vickie ======================================================================== Subject: Re: Further Aural Gratification Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 00:57:31 -0500 From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu meth adones: >It's incredible how much you miss when you have it on regular speakers with >Life Noise in the background! Nice, isn't it? ;-) >This is an album that should have a warning on >it not to listen to it any other way than piped directly into your head. Yeah, but how are ya gonna listen to it in the car? >They should be commended on the clarity of the recording- it's great stuff. We had this discussion when _Warpaint_ came out. How is it that Happy and Kevin (and Pat and Toby) manage these absolutely incredible recordings on these ultratight budgets, while Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel and all sorts of other people just >They should definitely do a Radio Edit of "Runners" (and most of the songs on >the album). I agree that "Runners" should have a radio edit, and that's been on my mind for most of the last week. I think most of the songs are just fine at their full length, but "Runners" is really just a slight bit over (which of course hurts its potential). At least Happy's not out of control like she was with the full-length version of "The Chase". >I've decided I really don't like "Cohabitants", and I know I would love it if >it weren't for that silly voice effect. She could have done so much better >than that, really. Argh! That vocal effect is *perfect*. To me, it's just slightly out of phase--it's the voice in her head: you know how what you hear when you speak is different from what you sound like to other people. But *this* internal voice is different yet again--it's steppied between the molecules. It's very similar to and yet very different from early Laurie Anderson type vocoder effects. And those, particularly on _Big Science_, still effect me very deeply. Besides, how can you not love that last verse? "I will feast on your sweet fear/ I know your mommy said there weren't any devils / but this little earth comes with many different levels / oh" Vintage Happy! It's a pity woj doesn't pay attention to lyrics. I like your interpretation of "Out Like a Lamb" but I still have problems making sense of a lot of the lyrics. Oh well. Maybe it'll hit my someday. Jeff ======================================================================== The ecto archives are on hardees.rutgers.edu in ~ftp/pub/hr. There is an INDEX file explaining what is where. Feel free to send me things you'd like to have added. -- jessica (jessica@ns1.rutgers.edu)