Errors-To: ecto-owner@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 #1023 ecto, Number 1023 Wednesday, 23 February 1994 Today's Topics: *-----------------* Because the Night Re: ectopics Re: Because the Night Re: sTuff RE: Stay (Faraway, so close) video On letting your fingers do the talking in real time henry frayne interview ======================================================================== From: p.cohen@genie.geis.com Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 02:05:00 BST Subject: Because the Night > A friend of mine is looking for the original version of Because the > Night by Bruce. This was sparked by the 10K Maniacs cover of it in > Unplugged. Now, wasn't there a popular version done by Patty Smyth? > Or someone like that? And, is the Springsteen original actually on a > Springsteen album? Is it on the Live collection 75-85? This is an > interesting question. The original version was by Patti SMITH. Substantial difference there. Bruce did record it on the live album, but the original studio recording was not his, though he did co-write it. +########################################################################+ +###+ Paul Cohen, Philadelphia, PA +###+ +########################################################################+ +###+ P.COHEN@genie.geis.com +###+ PMCOHEN@aol.com +###+ +###+ 70703.3126@compuserve.com +###+ PMCOHEN@delphi.com +###+ +########################################################################+ ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 11:42:07 -0800 (PST) From: David Dixon Subject: Re: ectopics On Wed, 23 Feb 1994, the king of spain wrote: > Suspended In Duct Tape sez: > >woj has one of the limited-edition, hand-packaged Lanterna cassettes, > >and it's truly brilliant. It's a lot more ambient than M7x, and I think > > the packaging is beautiful. the booklet is hand-bound, gauzy pages with > art and liner notes and everything. the cover of the booklet is inlaid > with an engraved metal plate with the number of the edition on it. the > music is pretty nifty too - ambient guitar noodling (though the songs > are a lot more advanced that simple noodling) with some other sounds > thrown in for good measure. henry actually asked me to write a review > for lanterna for their newsletter...but he decided not to use it in the > end. sigh. I just got my Lanterna in the mail last Friday, and I really like it. Some of the songs near the end sound thrown-in, but all in all it's a very enjoyable listen. Everybody buy one; Henry could use the money. :) > hey, that reminds me: i did an interview with henry last summer for a > fanzine - would folks like me to post it here? Definitely! D^2 ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 15:05:11 -0500 From: gmcdonald@zdi.ziff.com (glenn mcdonald) Subject: Re: Because the Night >The original version was by Patti SMITH. If anybody is feeling particularly masochistic, the band Keel does a cover of "Because the Night" on their 1986 album _The Final Frontier_ that may well be the worst cover song ever recorded. glenn ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 09:55:08 +1300 From: Philip Sainty Subject: Re: sTuff Yay! I'm receiving ecto again! Thanks Jessica!! *HUG* Meredith Meths: > Well, what a weekend. Thank the goddesses it was a long one... of > course I was deathly ill on Sunday, which was the most gorgeous day of > the year so far, but hey, that's the way the universe works, isn't it? :-( I hope you are feeling better now! ? > I also was forced to miss my radio show again, which probably means > I'm off the air for good, since technically if you miss two in a row > you're gone, but I did have a sub for both weeks and both circumstances > were totally beyond my control, so we'll have to see what happens... Tell them how many people consider Champagne Jam play-lists essential reading :) (Seriously, they'd have to be pretty cruel to drop you under these conditions!!) and of her CD-haul: > That's not such a big purchase as some people around here have been > known to make in a day, but it's rather of a stretch for me. I'm > hoping that tax return comes in soon! :} Well the only times I've bought more than about 2 in a day was my first CD-buy (the TWW box-set) and a couple of weeks back in Auckland, when I managed 12! Of course I am still a mere CD-buying grasshopper when compared to the likes of Sensei Tim :) > On Sunday I got the opportunity to participate in the Chat Session > with Sarah McLachlan on the Nettwerk BBS, and in ten minutes proved > the human brain's capacity to completely shut down when in the > presence of one of its goddesses. :P Jane's non-concerts end with a question-and-answer session... Guess who failed utterly to ask anything of any worth at all... :/ If any of you are going to see her, prepare something!! > Sigh... oh well, it was fun, and was the best excuse > I've had in ages for why my line was busy when my mother tried to call > me. "I was talking to Sarah McLachlan, mom." "Really? Is she the one > on the tape? I *love* her music- that's so wonderful that you got to > talk to her!" :) I love my parents. They have cool taste in music. :) I wish I could say the same :) (It's not for lack of trying on my part either ;) > Life is hard. :P ...and so is love... I wonder if Kate envisioned the :P :-) > Torville and Dean were ROBBED!!! I couldn't agree more! I taped it and watched it yesterday... unbelievable... Philip (back in blue fuzzy land at last :) ps. Welcome to the wonderful world of irc, Mitch! ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 16:24:48 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Colford Subject: Re: sTuff On Wed, 23 Feb 1994, Tim Cook wrote: > > > Torville and Dean were ROBBED!!! So was Elvis! ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 16:36:02 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Colford Subject: RE: Stay (Faraway, so close) video I have to agree with woj, U2's video for _Stay (Faraway, so close)_ really struck me. I like U2 enough, but not so much that I buy all their CD's etc. I also enjoy Wim Wenders' films, but when I saw the video for _Stay_, the "band as angels watching over the band" portion of the video was just so effective! It's really well done. Nicely tied in with the movie, (Faraway, so close) too. Michael ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 15:17:49 CST From: Subject: On letting your fingers do the talking in real time Having discovered yesterday, serendipitously, that there's an IRC client installed on this system, I've now proceeded to the next step of this great journey into the unknown. I've actually gotten into an ongoing #ecto session --sort of. The IRC connections themselves seem tenuous at times; the /who command seems, rather than list those on the #ecto channel, to list everyone on the server, then kill the IRC session. Some other informational command, which escapes me, also does that. I don't recall whether there's any sort of prompt for input, if the thing is working correctly; I didn't get any prompts, and when I typed messages, they apparently didn't go out, and I got back messages from the server saying "no text to send." Steve Fagg, I think it was, sugges- ted prefacing everything with "/msg #ecto," which causes my words to go out OK, but only as far as the first embedded blank--necessitating the use of other delimiters between words. (Then again, some may deem it a unique experience to read such tight writing on my part, when only one word per sentence went through; I guess you had to be there :-). ) All in all, it certainly was a learning experience. My thanks to Brian Bloom for attempting to find a solution in real time. For the benefit of anyone interested in joining this puzzle, the relevant TekSpex are: I'm on an IBM 3090 mainframe, running under VM/CMS, generally using an Esprit 6110 dumb terminal. The client program on this machine is RXIRC, a copy of the code for which can be obtained by anonymous ftp from cs.bu.edu . Moving right along... :-) Meredith laments: > [...] I also was forced >to miss my radio show again, which probably means I'm off the air for good, Should this worst-case scenario come to pass, I propose we follow the example set locally by Stuart Rosenberg's fans, and set our minds to organizing... C H A M P A G N E J A M L I V E :-) . Was it anything besides the Icelandic Coca-Cola talking when Tim wrote: >[Nina Simone] has had some hits, especially in the 60s. You can hear some of >her music if you watch the movie The Assassin (?) with Bridget Fonda. >(Anybody know if the original movie referred to Nina Simone too?). Like I wrote the other day, it's actually called _Point of No Return_. I don't remember if Anne Parillaud in _La Femme Nikita_, of which the later film is a remake, was also a devotee of NS. Turns out the last Wednesday rerun of _The Midnight Special_ played a record by Uncle Bonsai, which, then being in the throes of an IRC session, I didn't even recognize as such. Oh well :-). Stuff of interest from the folk_music list: Somebody mentioned a song called "When I Was a Boy," by a woman named Dar Williams. The Electric Bonsai Band (son of Uncle Bonsai) will be performing March 13 at the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus in Westboro, Mass. Some of the scheduled headliners at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, July 22-24 in Sharon, Conn., include Ani DiFranco, Disappear Fear, and the Story. Somebody's capsule reviews of acts at a recent festival include d Ingrid Karklins, whom the reviewer called "the least interesting act, mostly because the arrangements were overdone." Go figure :-). Mitch ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 17:14:32 EST From: woj@remus.rutgers.edu (the king of spain) Subject: henry frayne interview by popular request... :) i did this interview with henry at the beginning of last summer (i know that cos it was before i moved to new brunswick which was at the end of last june). the first album's release was imminent, though through henry's generosity, many net.folk were already intimate with the material thereon since he had been sending out dubs of it to folks since 1991. we did this for the dewdrops fanzine, which is printed by brant nelson (if you want more info about dewdrops, finger nelson@eggneb.astro.ucla.edu). hope you enjoy it! +woj ----- For sometime now, I've been in correspondence with Henry Frayne from The Moon Seven Times, which is made up of Henry, Lynn Canfield (who together with Steve Jones made up Area), Brendan Gamble and Don Gerard. So I learned that their debut CD was ready to be released, I spent about a hour talking to him on the phone about it, their plans and their past. Henry: Okay, I'm here. Did you get the t-shirt? Dewdrops: Yeah. In fact, I'm wearing it now. [this t-shirt was later stolen in what has become known as the great new haven laundry lift ;) +w] H: Great. D: It came yesterday and I didn't open the package until after I was dressed, but then I decided I'd wear it today. It's very nice. Did you do this? H: A friend, Eric Stenzel, did them. He did the booklet too. D: Your graphic artist? H: Yeah. He did the insert for the demo tape and that lunar image on the postcard and the shirt. He's kind of been working for and helping us out for a long time. I've known him since first or second grade. He went out to L.A. for six or seven year and worked on movies and set designing and stuff like that. He amazes Jimmy Dobson from The Peddlers. We've gotten together a couple times recently just to watch movies and Jimmy's just amazed at the movies he's worked on - "You've worked on the Exorcist III?!?" There was some parody of The Exorcist and Eric did some model or the mask or some thing for it and Jimmy was just flabbergasted. Oh, before I forget, the video tapes should be being made this week up in Boston. I have a stack of tapes here with footage from the Blind Pig and from China Club and from the video rehearsal date. We're just going to go through all that and come up with a second hour for the video and it just hasn't happened - we've been too busy, so I just added the video for "Paris Luna" on there. D: You made a video? H: Yeah, about a year ago, someone approached us at a show up in Chicago and said he was trying to make his demo tape or director's reel and that he needed a band and that he really liked our sound and wanted to use us. We went back and forth and told him we had absolutely nothing as far as money. He said he really wanted to do it and that it was something he was doing to get a job, so he would go ahead and make it. So we got together in October, just over two days. Part of it was shot outside in this wooded area in Northern Illinois. Lynn was doing that the same day I was mastering the CD. It was this really bright, fall day and the colors in the video - I was up in Evanston, so I really wasn't out in the woods - out in the woods, the colors were just incredible. The next day we went into the sound stage at the Art Institute. It was this big blank area with a wood floor and did the rest of it there. D: So it's half performance and half whatever? H: Yeah. The colors and the camera - there are some really nice shots in there. D: Does Lynn lipsync? H: Yeah, there are several parts of the video with verses and choruses where she's the focus of it, like the first verse. Then the band comes in. The director, his name was Jerold Johnson, spent a lot of time on it and came down a couple weeks ago and said, "Here it is!" We were surprised it turned out so nice. It was done in 16mm. Not that I expected it to be bad, but I hadn't seen any of the other footage so I was really surprised with what they had done on that other day. D: I'll keep and eye out on 120 Minutes. H: Well, the guy from Third Mind called last week and said, "You know, think about a video...if there's someone you want to work with, there might be some money available." I told them that I was going to call them cause this guy did a video with us. I had told them about it last October, but of course, they didn't remember. And he said, "Oh, you mean you have something? We want to see it right away and blah blah blah!" The last three weeks have been sending this thing back and forth, them making comments and asking us to tighten up some stuff and remix it for television. Those things were basically to try and get it so that it could be sent to MTV. We've gotten it to a point where we probably have a chance of getting it on 120 Minutes, but if we tighten up some of these thigns, we have a better chance. We're going to send four 1" copies over to Europe - France, Germany, Italy and the UK - so they are going to try and get some play over there. D: With Third Mind being international, you can do that kind of stuff. H: Yeah, well, I have no idea what other bands they've gotten on MTV cause I haven't watched 120 Minutes in a long time. And I don't have cable so it's kind of difficult. Very difficult. D: How did The Moon Seven Times develop? Was it your idea or Lynn's? H: No, it was really all three of - Brendan, me and Lynn. Technically, I suppose it was about nine months before I left Area. In the spring, I got together with Brendan and recorded three songs, "My Medicine," "This and That," and another one called "SG" on his eight track. Over that summer, I hardly talked to Steve Jones at all and then in the fall or into the winter, I got together with Lynn and she did vocal parts for both of those songs. I sent them to Steve and he was kind of interested in them, but he had a whole bunch of songs for the next record, which was _fragments of the morning_. He was, like, I have all these songs and there's not really any room so let's wait on those. Then things started to go worse and worse so nine months later rolled by and we split up as far as Area was concerned. I had some more songs that Lynn had sang on which we were going to use for Area so I asked Lynn if she still wanted to work together and she really did. And she also wanted to work with Brendan since we always wanted to have a real drummer, but it just had never happened. Brendan and I continued for the next couple months jamming on some of these ideas and Lynn writing lyrics to them. D: I wasn't sure where Brendan fit in. I guess he was there from the beginning. H: I got together with him to work on those three songs cause I wanted to work with a real drummer. Working with a drum machine is okay, but I thought that the direction that it was going in was just ridiculous. D: The thing that struck me most about the tape the first time I heard it was that there were drums. It's incredible how much of a difference that makes. H: It's not just real drums, but the way that Brendan added a lot in the way that he plays and the dynamics that he uses. D: Somewhat of a switch for him after being in Poster Children and stuff like that? H: In some ways. In other ways, I saw songs like "Rise" and "My Medicine" as somewhat upbeat. He's played pretty different styles before that. Ack Ack! was maybe closer to Moon Seven Times, but I'm not sure. D: Is there still Ack Ack! material available or is it hiding in shoeboxes underneath your bed? H: That was Lynn and Brendan and myself and another guy Steve and Joe, who played bass on "Rise". There was a 12" and there was a 45 single. I don't know if that stuff is available anymore. Lynn played keyboards, Steve Shields was the singer and Joe Stell was the bass player. Brendan played drums. It was a really creative band. We wrote a lot of songs, all five of us getting together to write the music. D: Is that how Moon Seven Times works too? H: In a similar way. There are two different ways that we work. For the first album, there was a lot of guitar ideas. I'd get together with Brendan and play ideas and we'd arrange them into a rough structure and give a tape to Lynn and she'd arrange it and write lyrics and make vocal structures for it. With the new stuff, we work that way, but Lynn and Brendan also have a studio. Brendan writes on keyboards and guitar and makes these finished demos that sound actually almost finished. There's no reason to re-record them. They've written a fair amount of ideas or songs too in the last two years. D: Is there more material besides what's on the CD? H: We have a batch of new songs. D: Any plans to get them out as well? H: I hope so. We under contract so.... About summertime, we'll get together with the label and see if they want to renew our contract with them if the record sold well enough, etc. After that, we'll try to think about if we want to do it ourelves again or get a producer. Michael Brook's name has been mentioned. I've heard his solo record, but I've never met him or heard anyone he's produced. That's just been talk. Getting this CD out has been enough work. We're definitely looking forward to recording again. Doing the song "Michelle" for the _Thurtene_ compilation was really great. It was recorded at Brendan's studio and he mixed it there. D: How did Chris Bigg get involved in this? H: I think Gary - Gary's the guy who lives in London - knew him or had a contact with him. Gary knew a designer, Dave Coppenhall, who did the Heavenly Bodies record for C'est La Mort and all the designers know each other. The story I was told was that Vaughn Oliver had an Area cassette and Chris thought it was fantastic. When I was over in London two years ago, we hooked up at the 4AD office and had a drink across the way at the pub and talked about the design and our ideas. At that point, who would have known it was still two years away. Chris had the cassette for almost two years and he was really interested and excited about it. When we finaly got the deal together and started to get the artwork, we were pretty confident that he would come up with something. But we still got together on the phone and, "What do you think? Blue or brown or gold?" I really didn't know what to tell him. I'm really happy with what came out. I just found out that the American ones, the actual disc itself, are black with "The Moon Seven Times" in this different typeface and the ones that are in Europe have this script and is a completely different CD. The rest of it is the same. I was going to talk to Chris or get Roger Dean involved and get a big backdrop of the album art or this big light thing - well, I don't know Roger Dean, but it'd be nice to do one of those big stages or something. D: Kind of like a Yesshow. H: I've been saying that too much. "What are your influences?" Well, I don't know... D: Don Gerard. How'd he get involved? H: About a half a year after we recored, we wanted to start playing live and it took about a half year - we had a couple practices and just played together thinking how we were going to do this and how we were going to find a bass player. Don played bass and we knew him and asked him if he'd help us out and play bass for us on stage. Four months later, we were playing shows. Last year, after we had been playing out for about a year, I couldn't belive it. When we recorded it, it was wasn't like a stage band. It was hard to think that songs like "Her House" would actually translate to the stage at all. It turned out that they actually sound better, in some ways, a lot more raw. D: Any chance of getting out of Chicago with the show? H: This is just conjecture, but Gary called us up a couple weeks ago and asked how much time we could spare to do a tour and that there were some places interested in that. There's one place up in Holland and they are thinking about bringing up over to do a European tour of two weeks or so. It seems that the label is really interested since there's another band, Zuzu's Petals, who are over there creating this enormous stir in the British press. So I think they're thinking, "Hmmm. Maybe we could make some money." D: How about the east coast? H: We were thinking about that until they started talking about Europe and then we decided to try and do that. The east coast would be getting into evertbody's spring break and and it's just too early. I thought it'd be great to go out the first or second week after the release but everyone is saying wait, wait, wait. I think realistically in the fall would be a good time to go and we might try to do two weeks of shows. I'd really like to play in those places. It'd be nice to play the west coast as well, but it takes so long to get out there. D: One question Brant asked me to ask you was this: he wanted to know if you were a stamp collector? H: No, I'm not, but I did buy a book last y ear just cause it's the sort of thing which is really cool, but I'm not the kind of person that would really go and get into all the values of things and the rare stuff. D: You seem to have a lot of stamps that you send out with newsletters and that kind of thing. Remember those? H: Yeah, I still have a couple thousand sheets of those around somewhere. [laughs] And they're finally getting used - or at least The Moon Seven Times ones are. I'm not a stamp collector, but I did want to create something that was really small and had something on it. It was really inspired by the Independant Projects people. Bruce Licher. I had seen some Savage Republic stamps and wanted to do something like that, but Bruce has a letterpress and it's really expensive to do it that way. D: Anything you want to add? H: Just that even though the music is kinda old, but once you get it on CD, it melds together. Once it has artwork and is on a disc and is in a case and everything, it really feels complete. D: Thanks and good luck. ======================================================================== 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)