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 #394 ecto, Number 394 Thursday, 14 January 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* (none) Happy Birthday dude fuzzy colors... World ecto now 1 7/8 ips forward, 7 1/2 ips back? Re: 1 7/8 ips forward, 7 1/2 ips back? Newness 4 weeks to go Re: 4 weeks to go Boo Hoo SP best of 92? Recommendation for Boston ectophiles was it mitch who said...? "It weren't me babe"--not exactly Bob Zimmerman Re: 4 weeks to go HaPpY Birthday Some new stuff how to persuade universities to keep ecto Accuracy for the hell of it Graham Parker, anyone? Re: Graham Parker, anyone? ======================================================================== From: depeche@cs.mcgill.ca (S. A. Ezust) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 19:14:27 EST Finally caught up to digests... Message for you, vickie - Often, I seriously doubt the benefit of a psycho-therapist. The common reasons for seeing one is if you have very disorganized thoughts and need help organizing them. Some people can't do this on their own, cause they a) don't have enough support, or can't trust their close ones, or b) they can't express themselves very well (i.e. writing, or other "outlets" for creative throught). But as far as I can see, you have all three of the above... You have support from friends, and Chris... You can trust everyone on the ecto list [qed - you already posted your story], and you can ALSO write. Personally, when I am depressed, I find that it is very theraputic to write down my thoughts. Sometimes I put it into poetry, sometimes I put it into prose. I prefer poetry because it organizes my thoughts "that much better" than prose, and someday, when I have the time, I might even set some of them to music. Sometimes, I write letters to friends to discuss my problems. I have resorted to all three of the above for the past 3 months, in the process of dealing with harsh realities of life. I'm much better now, thank you! But the goal of it all is to organize and understand your thoughts, and then to feel good about yourself afterwards. Therapists can only do the former for you... Your friends can help you do the latter, sometimes. Yes, your story is horrifying, but by writing it all down, and POSTING about it on top of that, it sounds like you're already very close to the end of your journey to mental health. best wishes for a smooth recovery. -Alan ======================================================================== Subject: Happy Birthday dude From: rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 19:35:58 PST Happy b.day to Greg, the nicest guy on the net! --- rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill) NetRunner's Paradise BBS, San Diego CA ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 11:17:17 +0100 From: Ulrich Grepel Subject: fuzzy colors... Fuzzy green? today I looked at my towel and read what I found: They call it "Superwuschel", you might translate that as "super fuzz", but that's not the right thing: fuzzy means either flaumig or wuschelig in German, fuzz means only Flaum, since Wuschel is not a normal word. Anyhow, I found Superwuschel a funny name for a towel. Oh - unfortunately the towel is green... Bye, Uli ======================================================================== Date: 11 January 1993 14:26:56 CST From: Subject: World ecto now While I was on the phone to Vickie over the weekend, she repeated the query that she had put to me in these pages the other day, WRT whether she could obtain certain academic credit from Boomdidiwana High School for her recent first person article, as the Reader's Digest used to call them. (The latter publication is in no sense a Guilty Pleasure of mine, but it came into the house when I was a child, and I would pick it up from time to time, and appar- rntly some things have stuck in memory :-). I replied, sort of off the top of my head, that I'd have to run the question by the clnical psych department. At this writing, they have yet to get back to me :-). But to make a long story longer, as either Groucho Marx or George Burns (I forget which) wrote in a narrative-based beer or spirits ad (I again forget which) in _New York_ maga- zine toward the end of 1972 (I think it was), toward the end of the conversa- tion, Vickie suggested that I explicate this in-joke for the large number of subscribers who have joined _de novo_ since I first brought it forth over a year ago. _World News Now_, ABC's all-night news program (infinitely more interesting than Reader's Digest, though it doesn't always make up for the hours of sleep through everything worthwhile in life that leave me awake during those hours), has a feature called "World News Then," in which they replay footage of long ago news events, as they were covered at the time. What follows is very much in that spirit. I had to search through at least four or five large files to find it, but this was well compensated for by the gratifications of reliving what we on ecto were talking about not all that long ago. In consideration whereof, a slice of World Ecto Then. (I added additional dimensions in later posts, but have been unable to locate any of them to date.) [a repost - Mitch] <--(apologia to Carl Kadie and the CAF-talk list) Date: 15 November 1991 14:55:22 CST Subject: Fast Times at Boomdidiwana High (was: The educational value of Ecto) Some of the recent discussion on the Computers and Academic Freedom mailin g list (comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org) has touched on regulations at some academic computing installations, prohibiting or restricting use of the system for purposes unrelated to the university's educational mission. It has occurre d to me that the need may eventually arise for Ecto to defend its educational purpose, so as to preserve its niche on numerous university-connected systems. As my contribution to the cause, I now suggest a number of areas where we may be able to establish a rational nexus between the content of what we post, and the curriculum. ENGLISH LIT: Discussions of science fiction, its role in music in general and Happy's music in particular; analyses of the works of Stephen King. FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Exercises in the translation of German texts into English; translation of individual sentences between German, Latin, and Japanese. MATHEMATICS/STATISTICS: Construction of frequency distributions from raw data observations on birth dates, astrological signs, etc. ZOOLOGY/ANIMAL HUSBANDRY: Assorted bits of business in relation to contributor s' cats. CONSUMER EDUCATION: Results of comparison shopping for CD box sets at HMV and Newbury Comics. EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY: Presentation of observational data on the "carrie" concept as it applies to secondary-school student culture. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: The social facilitation of self-disclosure, with times of birth and other personal data as a case study. MUSIC PERFORMANCE: Tryouts for the Ecto cover band, and for Happy's backup band. Feel free to add your own contributions to the master list. Knowledge is power! :-) Mitch Pravatiner _______________________ Say no to moral entrepeneurs. ======================================================================== Date: 12 January 1993 11:17:21 CST From: Subject: 1 7/8 ips forward, 7 1/2 ips back? Jeff's recent remarks in these pages about having worn out some cassettes of Happy's music inspired me to look up the following published statement, which Columbia Records used to put on the boxes of its prerecorded open-reel tapes in the early '60s: >"Stereo tape...unquestionably the finest method of reproducing music in your >home. In addition to the living excitement of stereo in high fidelity sound, >stereo tape never wears out, never scratches, never warps. It provides you with literally endless hours of listening pleasure, giving you tomorrow's >sound today." [quotation marks in original] Kind of makes you wonder....The recording medium that putatively rendered Tomorrow's Sound Today 30-plus years ago now seems at ubiquitous risk of sticking the hapless audiophile with Yesterday's Sound Tomorrow. Is this another example--more benign than some others, to be sure--of the often naive faith in high technology that typified the Age of the Right Stuff? Or don't they make oxide like they used to? When even CDs are not indestructible, as the sign at the music circulation counter in the Harold Washington Library Center is so quick to point out, one learns skepticism about the ultimate fate of any of the recent stops on the trail toward Higher Fidelity, especially with the MD/DCC affray looming on the horizon. When all of our CDs have oxidized seven years hence, as was asserted some time ago by one poster to Gaffa, what will we do next? Ah, futility....Ah, historical perspective :-). Mitch -------------------- "There's music there, neither sharp nor flat The ear can't hear as high as high as that Still it ought to please any passing bat It's high fidelity" --Flanders and Swann ======================================================================== From: drk@leland.stanford.edu Subject: Re: 1 7/8 ips forward, 7 1/2 ips back? Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 12:57:26 PST Hi all, Mitch writes: [most stuff deleted] > the MD/DCC affray looming on the horizon. When all of our CDs have oxidized > seven years hence, as was asserted some time ago by one poster to Gaffa, what > will we do next? > > Ah, futility....Ah, historical perspective :-). > > Mitch This discussion goes 'round and 'round on rec.music.cd constantly. I don't want to open it up here, but I must point out that CDs have been around since ~1980 and none have failed yet due to simple ageing. (There was a batch of French-pressed CDs that had defective adhesive and failed due to the attack of water or oxygen on the adhesive.) The aluminum itself is already aluminum oxide, and the adhesive(s) are quite impervious to water and oxygen in the polycarbonate plastic disc. Nobody really knows how long they'll last but most estimates seem to be in the 50-100 year range. If I remember correctly, the rec.music.cd FAQ post has a section dealing with estimated CD life. Cheers, David ======================================================================== From: "Michael Blackmore" Date: 12 Jan 93 16:33:28 EST Subject: Newness I'm very new to Ectomania. I'm still trying to get my first Happy Rhodes tape! All the record stores around here (HMV, Strawberries, Tower - Harvard Sq, etc.) look at me like I'm crazy when I look or ask (even my favorite used record/collectors havens act that way) about Happy: "Happy Rhodes??? You sure you don't be Abbey Road by the Beatles?! or Happy Mondays?! So I guess I'll call Aural Gratification direct-like and place my order! Then we'll see what we see, ya'know? I'm looking forward to hearing my first HR tune! Question #1: I've seen reference to Love-Hounds. A Kate Bush mailing list/group I presume? Can someone tell me how to sign on there? I'm a big, big, big Kate Bush *sigh* fan! Who(why) I am: I'm Michael Blackmore (Michael B.). 29 years old, ocassionally white male (B-day: 10/4/63). I work in the slightly skewed world of the Kennedy School of Government where I do research, computer work and secretarial work for some faculty members and a research center. I volunteer heavily with a Central America political group, and am ovo-lacto vegetarian, cat-owning, bread-baking, water-color painting, recycling, chinese food junkie, egalitarian, and generally fun sort of person. I found out about this group via Femen (feminist men) mailing list where I mentioned that I was a Kate Bush *sigh* fan, and some said that I should check out HR and things in Ectoland, b/c it is fun here and HR is JLK (Just Like Kate). - Michael B. (michaelb@ksgrsch.harvard.edu) ======================================================================== Subject: 4 weeks to go Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 17:59:05 EST From: Angelos Kyrlidis Hi, Here I am, trying to finish my thesis in June-September and all I can think of is that in 4 weeks there will be a *new* Happy album out. ;) Check out the new (?) Boston band Come. Their CD eleven:eleven is quite good. Grunge with passionate aggressive female vocals of the non-ethereal type. They are receiving a lot of press in and out of Boston. Oh, and by the way, does anybody have any Suzanne Vega tour dates? I read in rec.music.misc that she'll be touring with the Kitchens of Distinction (?) pretty soon! If anybody finds out the tour schedule *please* post. Angelos 'see the smoke and cinders fly, feels as if i'm on fire just another jealous guy, looking for a bonfire'-TR ======================================================================== Subject: Re: 4 weeks to go Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 18:10:53 -0500 From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu Angelos says: >Here I am, trying to finish my thesis in June-September and all I can think of >is that in 4 weeks there will be a *new* Happy album out. ;) Exciting, isn't it? AND THEN MAYBE A TOUR!!!! >Oh, and by the way, does anybody have any Suzanne Vega tour dates? I read >in rec.music.misc that she'll be touring with the Kitchens of Distinction (?) >pretty soon! If anybody finds out the tour schedule *please* post. She'll be at GW University here on January 29, with Kitchens of Distinction. That's the only tour date I know, and I'm afraid to check on ticket prices because if I do, I'll be that much more likely to convince myself to go, regardless of how ridiculously expensive it is. Weird, hunh? Jeff ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 2:04:10 EST From: WretchAwry Subject: Boo Hoo I did *not* need this, I did NOT! Boo Hoo. I was in mail when the Rutgers system shut down, then when I logged back on and entered mail again, it said the mail system was locked due to a crash and asked me if I wanted to override the lock. Sure thing Jack! So I did override and so I did enter mail and lo...all my mail was gone!! Whoosh! Casper! Outta There! I frantically checked the backup file and it was gone too. I even more frantically e-mail Jessica but she be all gone away away, far far away. Ahhhhhhh!!!! I'm very upset, *MAINLY* because all your beautiful letters of support were in there. I kpet them on-line so I could answer them, and didn't worry about them because of the backup file. I should have put them in my "To Be Administered As Needed" file immediately, but didn't want to until I'd answered them all. :-( Teach me to not trust on-line backup files! :-( Teach me to answer e-mail ASAP! :-( (That's my all-time worst fault) Hey, even if you didn't hear from me, *please* know that I appreciated your support and encouragement and that your letter was important to me. Hey too, WELCOME to the new Ectophiles! Vickie ======================================================================== From: drk@leland.stanford.edu Subject: SP best of 92? Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 9:30:09 PST Best record of 1992? _Last Rights_ by Skinny Puppy? Oh lord help me, I'm turning into Jon Druckman... =:-O 8-) "Nurse, give this patient hourly, 10 cc injections of Extract of Enya and slap vigorously until he comes around..." -- David ======================================================================== Subject: Recommendation for Boston ectophiles Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 13:14:54 EST From: Angelos Kyrlidis Hi, I was reminded by MIT's newspaper _The Tech_ to recommend a current exhibition in the List Center called 'Corporal Politics'. It's the controversial art exhibition centered on the human body that had its funding rejected by the NEA, and was partially funded by donations from Aerosmith and other less known private donors. It includes pieces by Kiki Smith, David Gober, Annette Messager, and David Wojnarowicz some of which are really stunning. It's free and most definitely worth checking out. It's at the MIT Media Lab building on Ames Street. Angelos ======================================================================== From: depeche@cs.mcgill.ca (S. A. Ezust) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 14:22:01 EST Subject: was it mitch who said...? Someone posted a message here earlier to the effect of how pissed off he was at the US press for making such a big deal of a snowstorm or something in the US while there was an earthquake in Indonesia which killed 2500 and got hardly any coverage. Well, this message isn't meant to defend the US press handling of international affairs, but it is an interesting point which I think is relevant. >From the Economost, December 19th, 1992: Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago of more than 13k island. Perhaps that is why the disaster that befell the island of Flores on December 12th was not declared a national emergency until December 15th. By then, as president Suharto called on provincial governments to join the effors of the national government, the known death toll... had risen to 2500 and the relief workers were complaining of a lack of tents and medicine. Bringing help to Flores is not easy. The island, in the little-developed province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, is a six-hour flight from the capital, Jakarta. A local guide book says that "Flores has the worst road system in Nusa Tenggara" and advises that, although the island is only 360km (225 miles) long, "under the best conditions, it takes five to six days to cross Flores overland." Even so, some in Indonesia still believe that the response to the earthquake could have been more effective. _MEDIA INDONESIA_, a Jakarta based publication, has argued that the earthquake shows that "nationally we are not fully prepared to face emergencies. Twenty-four hours after the disaster took place, the regional military command still ahd difficulty establishing a public kitchen." A national command post may soon be established for future emergencies. So it appears that the island of Flores isn't even that important to the Indonesian public either! -- | Alan Ezust depeche@cs.mcgill.ca McGill University Computer Science | |------------------------ Montreal, Quebec, Canada --------------------------| #include ======================================================================== Date: 13 January 1993 15:49:31 CST From: Subject: "It weren't me babe"--not exactly Bob Zimmerman In the sweet name of resolving the ambiguity created by Alan's post: I have never been disaffected, much less expressed disaffection, over the news judgmen t of editors who favor snowstorms in American over disasters in Indonesia in their news budgets--nor those who make the opposite choice, for that matter. As this is written, WBEZ has knocked out both of those things--and the rest of its regular schedule--to stay with the story of the latest sortie over Iraq. (Ironically, they returned to the regular schedule just as I finished the previous sentence.) For some reason, this all reminds me of the end of _Inside Daisy Clover_, a film of the mid-60's remembered today chiefly for being Robert Redford's first picture. Natalie Wood, as a rebellious manufac- tured adolescent movie star, has just managed to escape the house in which the studio has sandbagged her. For good measure, she turns on the gas in the oven and lights all the burners before taking it on the lam. As she runs away, the kitchen predictably experiences an explosion. A passerby asks her what the noise was, and she replies, "somebody's declared war." Today, according to the early news, President Bush presented an award to former President Reagan, whose whole construction of reality often seemed to be rooted in the movies. Somehow , I am able to discern things in common among all these exigencies. That and the fact that today is also opening day for the new session of the Illinois legislature, which often seems to be as much of a combat zone as anything else in these United States. Check out the Tori Amos thread in the newsgroup soc.bi . Mitch ======================================================================== From: meth@aol.com Subject: Re: 4 weeks to go Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 19:23:34 EST Hi! Angelos, I know that Suzanne is playing in Poughkeepsie on 27 January, and in Hartford on the 30th. I'm sure she'll be in Boston soon thereafter- check the Boston Globe tomorrow, there should be a mention in there if that's the case. woj and I will probably be at the Hartford show, and I know woj is going to see her at Vassar. Hope this helps! Meredith :) meth@aol.com ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 08:28:36 +0000 From: Terry Partis Subject: HaPpY Birthday Here's wishing a very Happy Birthday to Chris Sampson on January 15th. Have a great day Chris. Peace Terry =============================================================================== _ __ Jolly Hockeysticks _ __ / `-' ( ,,, / `-' ( ,,, | I I ||||||[:::] | I I ||||||[:::] \_.-._( ''' Terry (Tel Boy) Partis \_.-._( ''' _ __ (tgp@ukc.ac.uk) _ __ / `-' ( ,,, With a smile and a song / `-' ( ,,, | I I ||||||[:::] I'm HaPpY | I I ||||||[:::] \_.-._( ''' \_.-._( ''' YYUR - YYUB - ICURYY4ME ================================================================================ ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 10:00:23 MEZ From: Dirk Kastens Subject: Some new stuff Hello, out there, I just want to comment on some new stuff that I acquired during the last weeks and that might be interesting for some of you: Worldwide: Ten Years of WOMAD (Realworld RWBK1) ----------------------------------------------- It's a jubilee-CD that comes with a 96-pages book in LP format. The CD is 74 mins long and contains 17 songs from artists from all over the world (Peter Gabriel: Across the river; Youssou N'Dour: The Lion; The Pogues; Jah Wobble; Salif Keita; ...). The book features outstanding, mainly coloured photographs from every WOMAD festival since 1982, a foreword by Peter Gabriel and an interview with him ("I think my music definitely is a hybrid. In my own work, I've tried to take elements and integrate them into a sort of no-man's land that isn't England or Africa...which is 'Big Blue Ball' music."), an article by Youssou N'Dour ("'World Music' or a world of musics - an African perspective"), a discography (Realworld/WOMAD/ Earthworks), etc. etc. etc. --> book: outstanding --> CD: nice, a good compilation --> both: highly recommended Trisan - Trisan (Realworld CDRW32) ---------------------------------- The new band of Pol Brennan (ex-Clannad). Pol Brennan: vocals, keyboards, tin whistle Guo Yue: bamboo flute, vocals Joji Hirota: percussion, shaku-hachi, vocals Pol: "I left Clannd in 1990 because I felt I was in need of further musical challenges and horizons. If someone had told me that by the end of September 1991 I would have embarked on a world tour with two Oriental musicians, I would not have believed them!" It's a very quiet album with spheric synths sounds, flutes as the main instruments, few percussions and few vocals, not very varied. Imagine some quiet Clannad songs with Asian influences. --> nice, good background music to calm down Martha and the Muffins - Modern Lullaby --------------------------------------- 11 perfect pop songs in the typical M+M style. Martha at her best. Fortunately, Mark Gane did only some backing vocals - he never was a good singer. Very eventful, excellent sounds. --> highly recommended Buffy Sainte-Marie - Coincidence and Likely Stories (Ensign CCD 1920) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Great album with Red Indian influences. Reminds me of Joni Mitchell. Great voice, rhythmic music based on keyboards. --> highly recommended I should have waited with my top ten of 1992. There's still some great music to discover and the year wasn't as disappointing as expected :) Dirk ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 11:29:42 +0100 From: Ulrich Grepel Subject: how to persuade universities to keep ecto Mitch was searching for 'excuses' to get on with Ecto on some restricting university sites. Here are some more: GEOGRAPHY: Learn about all cities that have record stores that have Happy CDs. Work on the subject that this list of cities grows and covers the whole world. MANAGEMENT STUDIES: Multilateral trade relations - how to order CDs from various countries and how to pay for them. and - not to forget: COMPUTER SCIENCE: Some practise... Bye, Uli ======================================================================== Date: 14 January 1993 10:57:50 CST From: Subject: Accuracy for the hell of it The other day I ended my post on the declining quality of tape since 1963 with an epigraph from Flanders and Swann, which I reproduced entirely from memory. When I subsequently did a reality check on my recollection, I discovered that I'd gotten some of it wrong. My first impulse was to simply share with you the lines in question as they really were; but it then occurred to me that the entire lyric is amusing, not to mention tangentially relevant to the whole ostensible _raison d'etre_ of this mailing list. In consideration whereof, this ode to the state of recorded sound as it stood in the early childhood of some of us, anyway. SONG OF REPRODUCTION Michael Flanders and Donald Swann I had a little gramophone I'd wind it round and round And with a sharpish needle It made a cheerful sound And then they amplified it It was much louder then And you sharpened fiber needles To make it soft again Today for reproduction I'm as eager as can be Count me among the faithful fans of high fidelity High fidelity Hi-fi's the thing for me With an LP disk and an FM set And a corner reflex cabinet High frequency range Complete with auto change All the highest notes, neither sharp nor flat The ear can't hear as high as that Still I ought to please any passing bat With my high fidelity [Spoken passage:] Who made this circuit up for you, anyway? You bought it in a shop? Ooh, what a horrible shoddy job they fobbed you off with. Surprised they let you have it in this room anyway, the acoustics are all wrong. If you raise the ceiling four feet, put the fireplace from that wall to that wall, you'll still only get the stereophonic effect if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard. I see you've got your negative feedback coupled in with your push-pull input-output. Take that across through your added pickup to your tweeter, if you're moding more than 8 you're going to get wow on your top. Try to bring that down through your preamp rumble filter to your woofer, what'll you get? Flutter on your bottom. High fidelity FFRR for me I've an opera here that you shan't escape On miles and miles of recording tape High decibel gain Is easy to obtain With the tone control at a single touch Bel Canto sounds like double dutch Then I never did care for music much It's a high fidelity I almost dread to speculate on what those two could have done with con- cepts such as the dubbing dual cassette deck, Type IV metal tape formulations, DAT, the DCC/MD affray (in its own way, a latter-day analog to the 33 1/3-45 imbroglio of yesteryear), and--of course--the ever-lovin' Compact Disc and its ramifications such as longboxes, digicrap packaging, their alleged indestruc- tibility _vel non_, etc., etc., etc. Mitch ------------------------- "Sometimes truth is more exciting." --Advertising slogan for the film _Elvira Madigan_ (circa 1967 or 1968) ======================================================================== Subject: Graham Parker, anyone? Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 13:52:04 EST From: Angelos Kyrlidis Hi, I am listening to a sampler tape that came with a SPIN magazine I picked up in NYC (the tape wasn't included in the Boston area), called 'Stick with us' and it just played the Graham Parker song 'Here it comes again', I've rewound and re-played about 4 times, and am totally surprised at how good this is! Anybody familiar with his music? Any recommendations? I always thought he was Elvis Costello-like, and I don't really like Elvis Costello. Is this song an exception, or should I try to find more? BTW, thanks for the SV info. I'll look for dates in the Phoenix today! Also does anybody know if the WOMAD disk that Dirk talked about is available in the USA? It sounds more than interesting!!! Angelos (debugging the last major new code of my thesis (I hope!)!!! :) ) ------- 'To stand aside is to take sides'-Tom Robinson ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 12:19:03 MST From: dbx@teton.atmos.colostate.edu (Doug Burks) Subject: Re: Graham Parker, anyone? Greetings, Angelos asked: I am listening to a sampler tape that came with a SPIN magazine I picked up in NYC (the tape wasn't included in the Boston area), called 'Stick with us' and it just played the Graham Parker song 'Here it comes again', I've rewound and re-played about 4 times, and am totally surprised at how good this is! Anybody familiar with his music? Any recommendations? I I always thought he was Elvis Costello-like, and I don't really like Elvis Costello. Is this song an exception, or should I try to find more? I haven't heard "Here It Comes Again", presumedly on his recent album, which I also haven't heard (yet. Sigh! Too much music, too little time) and can't even remember the name of, so I can't say if it's typical Graham Parker. However, I highly recommend him. As for specific recommendations, practically any of his stuff is worth picking up, except for the tail end of his Mercury (I think (I'm writing this from the top of my head)) catalog (_The Parkerilla_ and one other album), released when he was trying to get out of that record contract. His new album has gotten excellent reviews, so you might try that. If you go farther back, try _Shooting Out Sparks_ (That may not be exact, but definitely has "Sparks" in the title) or _Howlin' Wind_. For me, Graham Parker is one of those artists who is always better than I remember, for some strange reason. I'll have to play some of his stuff Real Soon Now. :) Doug Burks _O_ dbx@olympic.atmos.colostate.edu |< She really is!! ======================================================================== 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)