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 #300 ecto, Number 300 Monday, 20 July 1992 Today's Topics: *-----------------* Echoes of Rhodes past traveled Response to Vickie, take two 7 wonders LESBIAN MUSIC, DOMESTIC ABUSE/POLITICS :) Mondo Syllables ======================================================================== Date: 19-JUL-1992 22:39:06.04 From: MTARR@eagle.wesleyan.edu Subject: Echoes of Rhodes past traveled Hi! Listening to ECHOES on good ol' WSHU... they just announced "and coming up, music by Happy Rhodes, so stay tuned!" I'm staying........ Hey! They played "I'm Not Awake, I'm Not Asleep"! Wow... this is the first time I've ever just casually been listening to the radio and heard a Happy song... and something not from _Warpaint_ no less! Wow. Damn, if they'd only carried the ECHOES Happy was on... :P Gave it a good announcement, too- "That was Happy Rhodes, with something dating back to 1984-85 and her most early work, "I'm Not Awake, I'm Not Asleep", from her first album, _Rhodes I_. That's a new CD, just released as part of four containing her earlier material." Hee... that's also the only piece of music he's played tonight that's had words, so people are bound to notice. :) +===============================================================+ | Meredith A. Tarr | | "I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind | | Got my paper, and I was free" - Indigo Girls | | mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu | +===============================================================+ ======================================================================== Date: 19-JUL-1992 22:40:26.67 From: MTARR@eagle.wesleyan.edu Subject: Response to Vickie, take two Hi! Thanks to Justin, who was kind enough to dig into his mail files and send me Vickie's message in question, I can belabor my point even further. :) I was glad to see I didn't misremember the post too badly- I have a bad habit of hallucinating at the worst times. Vickie wrote: /of course, it's just that it's funny that someone who looks like /kd lang will get hounded to death about her sexual identity, but /becuase Sophie looks the way she looks, everyone's taking it for /granted that she's purely heterosexual. And isn't it funny that one line of one song will have people thinking she's a lesbian? (I'm not pointing this out as a flame, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate for a minute because it's hot and I'm feeling cantankerous.) }I want to see the day when someone will come along looking like }kd and *no one* will think about asking her about her }preferences. Hear, hear. I also want to see the day when there will be as many same-sex saccharine love songs on Top-40 radio as hetero saccharine love songs, and no one will notice or care. Equal- opportunity saccharine. Yecch and yay at the same time. :) /I just thought of another Sophie/kd parallel. In both cases, the /"mainstream" audience found them before the lesbian audience /discovered them. That happened with The Indigo Girls too. If I /know anything about lesbian/feminist musical audiences, when /they discover Sophie, they'll act as if *they* discovered her, /like she didn't exist before. Okay. Taking your point of view and assuming Sophie B. is a lesbian for a second, I don't think the "lesbian/feminist musical audience" would be able to claim they discovered her- she's got a mega-hit song under her belt. k.d. lang and Indigo Girls, having not had such success when they were "discovered" by said audience, were easier claims. Is this where you got the idea that Indigo Girls are lesbians, Chris? Vickie, could you tell me why you've included them in this example? Having not heard this rumour before, I'm thinking you meant the feminist audience latched onto them because they are a female duo doing their own thing, but I don't know. Could you please clarify that for me? Thanks. /*Please* don't anyone think that I have anything against either /lesbians or feminists, honestly I don't. It's just that if yu /combine the 2, very often-not always-you get extremely someone /who is narrow-minded beyond belief, politically, socially, /musically etc.... I've read your essay on the subject, Vickie, and I know exactly where you're coming from. But I also think that many of the women who are into the brand of "womyn's music" you so ardently despise are into it because they are simply ignorant of what else is out there. If Valerie and I had kidnapped a bunch of our fellow audience members at that Margie Adam concert and locked them into a room with your Femme Music Collection tapes, they would've undergone such a revelation that some of them may actually have exploded. And many of the survivors would probably have run out after we set them free and bought a lot of it. /I've asked Sue to keep feelers out for any "Sophie-awareness" in /the les/fem community (She still deals with the woman who does /the "Womyn's music" show in KKFI, the same woman who refused to /play kd and Two Nice Girls and The Indigo Girls until they were /"discovered" by the "womyn's" community) and she'll let me know /how long it takes. Well, there's plain snobbery for you. Still, in case you haven't figured this out by now I don't think the "les/fem" community is going to do much about Sophie B., because I don't think she's one of them. I don't think she's a lesbian, and I refuse to do so until I hear it in her own words. Please don't get me wrong- I have no intention of flaming here. This just happens to be a subject I love to discuss, and I'll jump at any opportunity. Again, if people don't want this here let me know, and I'll go away. And on another note: /I have a mission. In the Chicago Tribune there was an article /about the New Music Seminar that was quite long and very well /written. The only problem was that, if you didn't know any /better, by the end of the article you would assume that there /were *no* women in alternative music at all, and if there were, /they certainly were not at the New Music Seminar. Argh. Figures. Such a sad musical world it is... which is why I've decided that no matter which job I get (there are two possibilities- one at Wesleyan and another in the New Haven area), I'm going to go get my show back at WESU. A 90-minute round trip one night a week is definitely worth being able to educate people to the other side of music, and I know the people running the station next year, so they should let me be a community volunteer even if I'm not living in the actual listening area. (This is all part of my secret plan to interview Happy when the new album comes out, you understand. :) Go get 'em, Vickie! :) +===============================================================+ | Meredith A. Tarr | | "I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind | | Got my paper, and I was free" - Indigo Girls | | mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu | +===============================================================+ ======================================================================== Subject: Re: Response to Vickie, take two Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 00:36:09 -0400 From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu Meredith wrote: >And isn't it funny that one line of one song will have people >thinking she's a lesbian? (I'm not pointing this out as a flame, >I'm just playing Devil's Advocate for a minute because it's hot >and I'm feeling cantankerous.) And why not just assume from the outset that Sophie (or anyone else for that matter) is lesbian until "proven" otherwise? As Vickie has pointed out, it's more than one line of more than one song. And it's not as if assuming her to be a lesbian is a bad thing. Or do you think that's an insult? Unfortunately, I don't seem to have saved your last message on the subject (and I can't find it in the 'renamed-so-they-won't-show-up-in-the-mailbox- but-not-actually-deleted section'), but I think you went a bit overboard when you were discussing Tori Amos. wrt Tori, you brought up two lines from "Precious," a song that to me never really made me think of the 'is Tori a lesbian or bisexual' issue. Rather, it's the fact that virtually all of her songs that deal with 'love' (whether a relationship, sex, or whatever) are gender-independent. For instance, in "Leather," what gender is the person about whom she sings the line "I can scream as loud as your last one, but I can't claim innocence"? What gender is the ex-lover in "Happy Phantom" or "Tear In Your Hand"? Does it matter? As for your mention of the "running after lorraine [sic]" business, well, I never heard anything about that (was it discussed on really-deep-thoughts?) but according to the liner notes, the lyric read "running after the rain." Other Tori "evidence" would include her BVs on Ferron's latest album. You keep saying that you don't want to judge someone by single lines in single songs. Why not? Why not look at Melissa Etheridge's quote "Hello, hello, this is Romeo", decide that if it's Romeo calling, "he" must be calling Juliette, and therefore Melissa Etheridge is a lesbian? You would, in fact, be correct: Melissa Etheridge _is_ a lesbian. (I was rather surprised to see her wearing a labrys earring when she appeared on the Tonight Show a few weeks ago, even if her hair was covering it most of the time). >Hear, hear. I also want to see the day when there will be as >many same-sex saccharine love songs on Top-40 radio as hetero >saccharine love songs, and no one will notice or care. Yet you seem awfully eager to play devil's advocate. Why? >Is this where you got the idea that Indigo Girls are lesbians, >Chris? Vickie, could you tell me why you've included them in >this example? Having not heard this rumour before I'm amazed that you haven't heard this rumor before. It's been floating around for years... >I don't think she's a lesbian, and I refuse to do so until I hear it in >her own words. Meredith, I think you're a lesbian and I refuse to believe that you might be heterosexual until I hear it in your own words. I don't recall ever reading anything you've written to the contrary so it seems like a safe assumption. Jeff |Jeffrey C. Burka | "Show what you are / Be strong, be true | | | Time for you to / Be who you are." | |jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu | --Happy Rhodes | ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1992 07:20:05 -0500 From: kennel@herky.cs.uiowa.edu (Chris Kennel) Subject: 7 wonders I haven't read all of the Digests, so am only caught up to a point. In regards to the 7 Wonders of the World, I can provide the "Seven Ancient Wonders of the World" according to my handy-dandy pop-up book by Celia King. 1) The Pharos of Alexandria c. 280 B.C. 2) The Colossus of Rhodes, 280 B.C. 3) The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, 353 B.C. 4) The Statue of Zeus, 433 B.C. 5) The Temple of Artemis, 560 B.C. 6) The Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon, c. 600 B.C. 7) The Great Pyramid of Egypt, 2580 B.C. My apologies if someone has posted a complete list already :) --chris kennel ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 10:42:47 EDT From: Chris Sampson Subject: LESBIAN MUSIC, DOMESTIC ABUSE/POLITICS :) Yes, as the "Subject:" line indicates, this may ramble a bit and sweep through a coupla more or less unrelated topics (That's the price one pays for having three digests waiting....:) ) Lesbian Music first: I know little of the women who practice this genre, though I occasionally happen upon WHUS' (91.7, in CT) show devoted to it. The significance of a "Lesbian" point of view to the music around it occasionally mystifies me. Last week, on the aforementioned show, I heard a lot of mediocre music w/ some mildly interesting lyrics behind it. Most of the songs dealt, either seriously, or less-than-seriously, with asserting one's proclivities, but nothing hooked me in the music itself. I'm a music-lover before a song-as-manifesto officionado. Ideally, some of the best works are both; whatever the manifesto involved. An aside, one of the mediocre IMHO songs was sung to the tune of Glory, Glory Hallelujah... Glory, Glory I'm a lesbian Glory, Glory I'm a gay man Glory, Glory I'm a homosexual I am truth marching on. I agree with Vickie, that "purists" (read "separatists") who avoid any music that is not of a lesbian bent (:)) are missing out on a lot of good stuff in the name of one-issue politics. One interesting point that arose twice is the idea of taking the "well-how-do-you-know-you're-gay-if-you-never-tried-"straight"-sex?" argument from the other side. I have a questionnaire that was written from the point of view of "would-you-tell-your-kids-you're-straight"?. Also, there was a song in which a woman sang to another woman abouthow sorriy she is that the other is straight, and has she tried therapy, or prayer.....etc.? All in all, I care not a whit about the performer's sexual orientation (NNE?) I was a great Elton John fan, and didn't stop listening because I found out he's bi, but rather because his music began to deteriorate IMHO. I too, have heard the Indigo Girls rumor, and doubt it. But it doesn't matter anyway, I like alot of their music, because it's good. Re:SBH, again, the ambiguity of the relationship between the women involved is not as important as the underlying care and nurturing involved. Salacious interest aside, and all that. ;) I, too, dislike the PMRC, and have unjustifiably(?) linked Tipper Gore with this one-issue topic. Regardless of her motivation, I think the PMRC is a dangerous thing. All that aside, she's a damn-sight better than Marilyn Quayle! Well, I'm outta breath. Post soon and post often. Chris "...hopes and dreams... ...notes and themes... ...scope and schemes..." ...py Rho... ======================================================================== From: guetzlaf@gravity.cray.com (Cathy Guetzlaff) Subject: Re: Response to Vickie, take two Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 10:13:41 CDT Hi. I just had to comment on a couple of Meredith's comments about *Vickie's* comments (confused yet???). >Vickie wrote: > [...] >/I just thought of another Sophie/kd parallel. In both cases, the >/"mainstream" audience found them before the lesbian audience >/discovered them. That happened with The Indigo Girls too. If I >/know anything about lesbian/feminist musical audiences, when >/they discover Sophie, they'll act as if *they* discovered her, >/like she didn't exist before. > >Okay. Taking your point of view and assuming Sophie B. is a >lesbian for a second, I don't think the "lesbian/feminist musical >audience" would be able to claim they discovered her- she's got a >mega-hit song under her belt. k.d. lang and Indigo Girls, having >not had such success when they were "discovered" by said >audience, were easier claims. As I wrote Vickie, the lesbian audience was very much aware of The Indigo Girls long before 'the mainstream'. The IGs were playing at women's music festivals for years before they were 'discovered' by everyone else. >Is this where you got the idea that Indigo Girls are lesbians, >Chris? Vickie, could you tell me why you've included them in >this example? Having not heard this rumour before, I'm thinking >you meant the feminist audience latched onto them because they >are a female duo doing their own thing, but I don't know. Could >you please clarify that for me? Thanks. This absolutely amazes me. How could anyone have *not* heard the rumours about the Indigo Girls???? >I've read your essay on the subject, Vickie, and I know exactly >where you're coming from. But I also think that many of the >women who are into the brand of "womyn's music" you so ardently >despise are into it because they are simply ignorant of what else >is out there. If Valerie and I had kidnapped a bunch of our >fellow audience members at that Margie Adam concert and locked >them into a room with your Femme Music Collection tapes, they >would've undergone such a revelation that some of them may >actually have exploded. And many of the survivors would probably >have run out after we set them free and bought a lot of it. Meredith, has it ever occurred to you that quite possibly some lesbians actually *prefer* womyn's music? Imagine how it must feel for a lesbian to turn on the radio and hear nothing but men singing about women and women singing about men -- hardly validating is it? So then, imagine a lesbian hearing music where women sing about loving women. It seems that that would be much easier to identify with. I'll be the first to admit that tons o' womyn's music is really *really* bad, but at least it's not some guy singing "oooooo baby I need you I want you I gotta gotta have you baby". I'm one of those women who enjoys going to see Ferron, Margie, Teresa Trull, et aliae, when they hit town. But I also go see Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Everything But The Girl, Happy (if she'd ever get here!), etc. Don't assume that because people go see 'womyn's music' artists they're ignorant of other music. It just may be that after being bombarded 24 hours a day by hetero- sexuality, listening to women sing about women is a blessed relief. It's cheaper than therapy! :^) >Well, there's plain snobbery for you. Still, in case you haven't >figured this out by now I don't think the "les/fem" community is >going to do much about Sophie B., because I don't think she's one >of them. I don't think she's a lesbian, and I refuse to do so >until I hear it in her own words. Well, there's plain snobbery on *your* part. Just so you know, the lesbian community is well aware of Sophie. But it seems that it's 'the mainstream' getting all bent out of shape about her. You stated earlier that you were looking forward to when lesbian love songs were in the top 40 -- how come you're objecting so strenuously to one now?? >Please don't get me wrong- I have no intention of flaming here. >This just happens to be a subject I love to discuss, and I'll >jump at any opportunity. Again, if people don't want this here >let me know, and I'll go away. No flaming intended on my part either. I'll take this to email too if others find it uninteresting. -- Cathy Guetzlaff Cray Research, Inc. guetzlaf@gravity.cray.com ======================================================================== Date: 20 July 1992 13:17:27 CDT From: Subject: Mondo Syllables I have been beaten to the punch on this by Jeff and others, but when I finally heard newsclips from the convention's closing session (which, typically, I was dozing through as it was happening), it became apparent that it was indeed the original Fleetwood Mac recording of "Don't Stop" that was played, as opposed to the house band cover that I'd originally assumed. It is unlikely that many fans of the current film _Universal Soldier_ know that a song of the same name was written in the 60's by either Buffy Ste. Marie or Donovan (I forget which), and recorded by each of them. The message of the song, to say the least, was quite at variance with the motif of the movie. As long as we're presently strolling down memory lane, I happened to read last week that Jerry Rubin, the Chicago Sevenite turned organizer of yuppie card swaps, also has the same birthday as I do. Quoth Valerie: >i think i'll end this while my synods are still functioning. less than a week Do you really mean "synapses," or is the Church of Happyvangelism already more of a going concern than even we thought possible? How was Annie Lennox's appearance on Leno, one more of the many world events I miss out on due to my periodic need for sleep? Last week, NPR interviewed a record exec who opined that the industry had less of a problem with Tipper Gore than with some others, since she was only advoca- ting labeling, not censorship. Be all that as it may, some observers did opine that the PMRC connection might turn younger voters--especially the headbangers --off the Democratic ticket. One network anchor wondered out loud if Frank Zappa would enter the race as a result of all this :-). More recently (viz., this morning), NPR did a feature on a Canadian recording artist named Maren Cadell (sp.?), whose single "The Sweater" and album _Angel Food for Thought_ have gotten her characterized as a cross between Laurie Anderson and Sandra Bernhard. She apparently has some good straight songs in addition to her performance pieces and humorous songs. Sounds like a good bet to me. Good to learn that _Echoes_ is playing stuff from the 1st4. Sunday morning, they apparently played something by Loreena McKennitt, but it being sometime between 5 and 7 AM when they did I can face having slept through it with great- er equanimity than my missing out on a lot of other stuff that way (like if I'd zonked out on the Happy interview itself). Last Thursday (I think), the _Chicago Tribune_ ran a short story on Sara McLachlan, in which, as I recall, it was noted that her music is often compared to that of Sinead O'Connor. Go figure. Valerie's yarn about the KaTe almost-look-alike's campaign poster inspires me to drag out my year-old idea for a poster of the real KaTe with the slogan "Bush '92" overlain. As I recall, at some point I also came up with an idea for a poster of the picture of KaTe with a peach (I forget, was that the TSW cover?), overlain with the slogan "Impeach Bush." I have a sneaking suspicion that in the current electoral climate, either would stand a good chance of pulling a modicum of write-in votes :-). Finally, might I throw my own left-field interpretation of DIWIWYL into the pot. For better or worse, it appears to have been zapped right between the eyes by the line: >I lay by the ocean making love to her which seems to me to be the only explicitly homoerotic line in the whole song, in the context of other lyrics which specifically indicate a female narrator. But prior to picking up on this single dead-giveaway line, it was still plaus- ible to interpret the song as a woman's remarks to a man (which, believe it or not, was the first way it came across to me). The empirical frequency of men abused by female SO's is much lower than that of abused women, but it does happen, and is said to be one of the more unsung social problems of our time. Apart from the one line, it's plausible to interpret the lyrics in that light. The above apparently won't be the final item after all. I have just begun to play the new Buffy Ste. Marie album, _Coincidence and Likely Stories_. It seems a departure from the stuff the now-fiftyish Buffy used to do when she was a mainstay of the Sixties folk movement. Only a few tracks of side 1 have elapsed, but musically the dominant style seems somewhere between soft rock and new age (or as a local radio station that deals in the stuff euphemistically calls it, smooth jazz). Overall, not bad, though. A glance of the lyrics on the inlay card indicates that she has maintained her old commitment to polit- ical and/or Amerindian themes. If all that can contribute a more painless political education for lettuce-washing yuppies, more power to her. Last but not least, my 2 centavos on the Women's Music thread. I have enjoyed the music of a number of the artists in this tradition, though I can't say I go for polemics in the "Lavender Jane Loves Women" vein. It is good to have openly les-bi-gay performers pitching their music at the general audience (a sector of the music industry which, I'd have to assume, has had its fair share of closet gays over the years). The prototype of the ideal gay performer, it seems to me, would be somebody like Tom Robinson--as out as they come, but whose songs, in the main, are not explicitly gay-themed. (Robinson's stock in trade, of course, is general leftist politics; among the historic mainstays of Women's Music, I suppose that Holly Near would be the closest analog, though not an exact match.) In the best case, the popularity of the likes of Hawkins, Etheridge, and by some imputations the Indigos will pave the way for a wider audience for the better material of Adam, Williamson, Near and the rest. BTW: The BSM album has just about reached the end by now, and while I have a feeling she'll get a certain amount of ragging for doing rock renditions of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," it's still not a bad album on balance. Mitch ----------------------- "Womyn, myn, byrth, dyth, infynity." :-) --Dr. Zyrba ======================================================================== The ecto archives are on hardees.rutgers.edu in ~ftp/pub/hr. There is a README file explaining what is where. Feel free to send me (or leave in the incoming directory, just let me know) things you'd like to have added. -- jessica (jessica@ns1.rutgers.edu)