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 #496 ecto, Number 496 Saturday, 20 March 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* Story, Phillips, Penn Re: I have a Heart Maniacs and Poetry Songwriters Re: Christine.. Today's combination of ingredients for slow-slow-slow reading :-) Spoilers (maybe not) This week's my anniversary friends... ======================================================================== Date: 19 Mar 93 15:56:17 EST From: Mike Mendelson Subject: Story, Phillips, Penn I'm sorry I started this whole pretentious thread, as it is something that never really bothers me and that I rarely think about regarding music... my brother brought it up so it made me think about it. Anyways, one of my fellow employees' younger sister was just found dead after being missing for a day. Everyone around is walking around in a state of disbelief, shock, and incomprehension. She was 18. Cause of death as yet unknown. (sorry to depress everyone there) I've been listening to Grace in Gravity, and I just wanted to note that the title track, about the black dancer in S.Africa who was paralyzed in an accident (possibly) because he was rejected at the first hospital to which he was brought, made an impression on me when I first heard it (in concert) and still does whenever I hear it. The idea is that this guy still works on dance stuff (choreography and such) but he can only *say* what he wants people to do rather than show thru motion. This "anecdote" is labelled, to my best understanding, "Grace in Gravity" and the image this conjures up, combined with the way they sing it, is particularly effective. Gravity is a repressive, resistive force which we are always struggling against, while it is also a necessary force that keeps us anchored down. To achieve grace under this weight is no small feat, yet it is a challenge we humans undertake every moment. Even as we are graceful despite the pressure, so the paralyzed, ex-dancer is still dancing. Beautiful, ay? I also recently acquired Cruel Invention, Sam Phillips' second CD. I like it a lot. She strikes me, on this album, as a female Michael Penn (who I also like quite a bit). This was not as evident on her first album --- I think CI is stronger than Indescribable Wow, though I love both titles. -mjm ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 14:18:11 -0800 From: Michael G Peskura Subject: Re: I have a Heart Vickie, (caps lock on) WILL YOU TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!?!? (resume normal levels) i know hospitals are no fun -- i was stuck in one for a couple weeks in 1987 -- but don't EVER feel guilty about taking care of yourself! Some of us are on this list, and some of us are listening to a wonderful variety of music all BECAUSE of Vickie Mapes. So, we want her to be around for a long, long time. Enough said. Mp ======================================================================== From: Tree of Schnopia Subject: Maniacs and Poetry Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 17:42:45 EST Forwarded message: > From METH@delphi.com Thu Mar 18 22:56:22 1993 > Date: 18 Mar 1993 22:41:30 -0500 (EST) > From: METH@delphi.com > Subject: Maniacs and Poetry > To: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu > Message-Id: <01GVYXJX1OKY8ZEW22@delphi.com> > X-Vms-To: INTERNET"ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu" > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > > I had no intention of patronizing you, I was merely pointing > something out. I didn't think you had; the "um" gave me a questionable impression. > }> WHAT????? "Scorpio Rising" is "anemic and colorless"? Oh, > } > }No, it's not. I had forgotten that track. :) > > Just as long as we're clear that it is in reality far from > "anemic and colorless"... :) Oh yes. "SR" is one of my favorite Maniacs songs, actually, and not just because it's about my sign. :) > on it). In one sense the Maniacs lost a lot when he left the > band, but they recovered well. Oh, my, yes. > Yeah, okay, the melody is a little bit bland, but this goes back > again to the music reflecting the mood of the song's subject. > There this poor guy is, it's his last night on Death Row, and > he's replaying the events in his head over and over "until the > cinderblocks can breathe". The way Natalie sings it is what > attracted me first to this song- I don't think she moved her > lips once while recording it, from the sound of it. She sounds > so defeated and deflated, just like I would imagine I would > feel, were I in the same situation. Her vocals seemed that way throughout most of the album to me. It was agonizing. But now that I think about it, I think these songs might work better live than on CD. > > And the song is in the first person, so of course there's going > to be a perfusion of personal pronouns. If it weren't from > the personal point of view, it would lose all of its power and > most of its meaning. But the use of the first person seems a bit ambiguous and inconsistent (the shifts between "he" and "I" could have been clearer). > > }I think so. I think she's quite beautiful in a wholly Schnopic > }sort of way...which is, of course, the best way. > > I'd gathered that, from your reactions to opinions that differ > from yours... I'm just a naturally argumentative person. I have well-thought-out reasons for most of my opinions and I find that discussing them in a heated context helps refine my ideas, or discredit them if they're totally fallacious. It's all part of truth-seeking. However, you've misunderstood Schnopia. It's a personal philosophy with a specific meaning. That meaning is NOT "all things Drewcifer." > I submit for your approval one of my favorite bits of poetry of > all time: > > "Take away the love and the anger > And a little piece of hope holding us together > Looking for a moment that'll never happen > Living in the gap between past and future > Take away the stone and the timber > And a little piece of rope won't hold it together." > > Kate Bush > "Love and Anger" APPLAUSE! One of THE most affecting and beautiful Katesongs ever, in my opinion. I nearly cry with joy every time I listen to it; it has a wonderfully powerful sound to it. Drewcifer ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 18:52:09 +0100 From: yngveh@stud.cs.uit.no (Yngve Hauge) Subject: Songwriters Re: Christine.. First of all I want to say Happy Birthday to all those who I've missed... I loved your story, Christine......I do often 'forget' my CD around so that people can listen to what it is all about and I've got a lot of positive responces that way. So to the main-subject. Two years ago I had Radio at school and I started a series about female artists. I did never get very much done but some manuscripts did I write. I did some research and duped into one of the maybe most successful songwriters ever. Most of us have heard songs like Will You Love Me Tomorrow, You've Got A Friend, Lo-co-mothion but who did write those songs? Carole King........She has done some solo-works and her album Tapestry was for a long time the most sold album by a woman. I first bought Tapestry of course but then I found 5 of her albums in a CD-shop in Kristiansand (where I'm born and have been every summer since that occasion :) ) I bought them as well and liked what I heard. The combination Gary Goffin/Carole King gave me some of my favorite songs like Child Of Mine and Eventually from her album Writer (1970). The sad thing about this album is that it is badly produced. Carole King did as Tori Amos start to play the piano early. But she was a nightmare for her teacher :) She wasn't interested in the playing in itself but how to make music. She grounded her first group at High School - a female group very like those she was goinfg to write music for later on. The group mostly played her stuff and one of the songs written in the period she went to High School is Goin' Back which you also can find on her album The Writer. But she didn't want to make money on her music but went instead to the University (What univerity I don't remember right now). But the music followed her - There she met Gary Goffin a Chemi-student some years older than her. They found out that they did fit together and started to write songs (They married short tyime afterwards). The Brill House had just started at that time and they got job there even if both Gary Goffin and Paul Simon were against it. One of the first songs they wrote was Will You Love Me Tomorrow which The Shirelles brought to No. 1 spot. After that followed an incredible amount of songs. I've never tried to find out how many they wrote together in that period (1970-1979). But at the end of the 70th artists began to write their own music so they got less to do. Their marriage which was based on the music broke up. But they continued to write songs together until Gary Goffin died in a tragic accident in 1979. She has written a lot of music for different movies in the 80th. And done some albums which I haven't found yet. But I can list up the available CDs by her : The Writer (1970) Tapestry (1971) Rhymes & Reasons (1972) Music (1972) Fantasy (1973) Wrap Around Joy (1974) Thoroughbred (1975) City Streets (1989) Fantasy is one of my favorite albums. She has written all the lyrics too on this one. Just had to write this mail :) Regards, -- *** Yngve Hauge ******* And the summer became the fall ****** ** University of Tromsoe ** I was not ready for the winter ** * yngveh@stud.cs.uit.no ** It makes no difference at all **** *********************** 'Cause I wear boots all summer long * ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 16:47:21 CST From: "Directorate of patient education :-)" Subject: Today's combination of ingredients for slow-slow-slow reading :-) Mike's reply to Drewcifer's query about my all-epigrammatic post notwithstan- ding, it seems to me that Drewcifer may have indirectly answered his own question when he quoted himself in his next post: > > | > make me any more nauseous than Kate Bush singing about nuclear > > | > war or dead soldiers. The notion (undoubtedly developed in greater detail in the full post for which the above was originally written) that Kate has no direct experience with eith- er nuclear war or dead soldiers, _ergo_ anything she might write about those is pretentious at best and intellectually bankrupt at worst, is classic insider doctrine. I recommend the full Merton article to all. > [...] Informally, I > subscribe to the Humpty Dumpty school of definition, where words mean what I > want them to mean. There's glory for you! Seems deconstructionism didn't start with Derrida, albeit Dumpty didn't originally call it that. Guess it all harkens back to the great words of Adlai Stevenson: "Eggheads of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your yolks." :-) Alan's report on recent events in southern Africa reminds me of a notion that came to me quite some time ago: that if we of the worldwide ecto movement are ever persuaded that we need a marching song, there might be some potential in taking the old white Rhodesian patriotic song that goes, in pertinent part, "We were founded by an Englishman/By the name of Cecil Rhodes" and retrofitting it with appropriate lyrics that might, in pertinent part, go something like "We were founded for an Albanite/By the name of Happy Rhodes." Alan, you supp- ose that could still work now that Happy has undergone the status passage from Albanite to Woodstockian? :-) Some attention to Vickie's account of her encounter with the status quo in American health care is in order. Might I start by relating an experience of my own. One day in January of 1985, I was browsing in an art museum near my office at the time when I began to feel weak, nauseous, diphoretic (as they worded it on my chart) and experienced some degree of pain in my left arm. All of these have been represented in the popular media as classic cardiac symptoms. After returning to the office to see if simply sitting down, at length, would make me feel better (it didn't), I walked over to the emergency room of one of the city's leading hospitals, which happened to be in the next block. I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon supine on a gurney, wired to an EKG, coping with the expressions of discomfort coming from the patient in the next stall. After sundry bloodwork and consults, all of which went on my tab, they finally reached the conclusion that it all was a touch of the flu talking. I spent the next 3 days (not counting the weekend) at home, and eventually felt better if you disregard the root-canal restoration that fell out of my maxilla during this period, which is another matter altogether :-). I didn't have a regular doctor at the time, and so had nobody to check with before going to the ER. The HMO I'm in now _requires_ that I call them first; had I done so in the instant case, I might have found out that I was healthier than I felt, and saved myself that portion of the bill that the fee-for-service insurance I had then didn't pick up (which was most of it). In the alternate, a doctor might have decided it did merit further inquiry. The upshot of this whole digression is that there is no reason for Vickie, or anyone else in a similar situation, to feel self-conscious about having utilized the array of clinical services that she did. The fact that her doctor advised the ER visit makes the latter all the more defensible from a medical standpoint. Cardiac pain can be intermittent, so the lack of current symptoms during the examinatio n did not, in itself, guarantee the absence of any actual problem. BTW, hospit als which receive Federal funds (most do) are legally required to provide a modicum of uncompensated care to patients demonstrably unable to pay the full bill; this may be useful to keep in mind in the event that the total bill sig- nificantly exceeds the total insurance. Turning back to things _mehr heiter_: The CD section at Sound Warehouse on Rush street has a card with Happy's name on it in the CD bin, and even had a single copy of the Warpaint CD in that section of the bin. Not too shabby. WRT Klaus' query about Shona Laing: She's from New Zealand, and came out with the album _South_ on TVT in 1978. The best known tracks thereon are "Soviet Snow" and "I'm Glad I'm Not A Kennedy." Last year she came out with another album, I think on Columbia. I mentioned it in these pages last October , but still haven't had a chance to listen to it. In connection with Yngve's discussion of Carole King: Gillian Garr's new book _She's A Rebel_, which deals with the history of women in rock music, goes into some detail about her, as well as much else of interest about many other women in rock. She attended Queens College, BTW. Condolences to Mike's colleague. Vickie, get well if you haven't already. Happy anniversary of Happy's original Philadelphia concert. Mitch ------------------------- "REJOICE! Warm Weather Cometh" --Imprimatur on the cover of the "Weekend Plus" section in today's _Chicago Sun-Times_ "BZZZZT!" --Venerable old Internet aphorism (It's cold and snowy outside as I write this. Happy Vernal Equinox or its British Oceanean equivalent anyway.) ======================================================================== Subject: Spoilers (maybe not) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 19:30:55 EST From: Angelos Kyrlidis Well I was pleasantly surprised when opening my mailbox I found an AG Newsletter!!! Didn't know it was coming, and so don't want to spoil the surprise for those who haven't received it yet, (no *real* news to us anyway). Summary: Bob Leonard's in Europe schmoozing with the dinosaurs. Happy's on a radio tour (or will be shortly) in Philly with dates in Maine, Detroit, LA, Dallas expected in the future (What? NO BOSTON?? :-(). In other news I went to Tower today and found a whole stack of Happy CDs on the shelf. 1st4, WP and 2 EQP. I conveniently re-arranged them to make a small display and left. ;-) That's all the news from Cambridge, MA. Angelos ======================================================================== From: composer@beyond.dreams.org (Jeff Kellem) Subject: Re: Spoilers (maybe not) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 20:49:04 EST On the ecto mailing list, Angelos Kyrlidis wrote... > In other news I went to Tower today and found a whole stack of Happy CDs > on the shelf. 1st4, WP and 2 EQP. I conveniently re-arranged them to make a > small display and left. ;-) > > That's all the news from Cambridge, MA. At the Boston Tower Records store, for a while, they had Happy's CDs in the Underground section. They're now in the more general section. FYI... -jeff Jeff Kellem Internet: composer@Beyond.Dreams.ORG ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 19 Mar 93 23:01:48 EST From: WretchAwry Subject: Re: Spoilers (maybe not) > On the ecto mailing list, Angelos Kyrlidis wrote... > > In other news I went to Tower today and found a whole stack of Happy CDs > > At the Boston Tower Records store, for a while, they had Happy's CDs in > the Underground section. They're now in the more general section. > > FYI... > > -jeff > > Jeff Kellem > Internet: composer@Beyond.Dreams.ORG Hey, welcome to Ecto Jeff! (how long is your hair and what color is it?) Vickie ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 20 Mar 93 0:13:40 EST From: WretchAwry Subject: This week's my anniversary friends... Hi everyone, thanks *SO* much for all the wonderful well-wishes! I feel pretty good, but I didn't go to work today, I just felt too weak. I spent most of the day in bed, then got up to record a couple of Kansas City shows because Chris went down there again for an emergency help-someone-out deal. he took the shows with him to give to Sue. Through my foggy haze of a brain I realized the date and remembered that it's near-about my 5th-year anniversary for Suspended In Gaffa!! Rather than type the story I want to tell all obver again, I'm going to cheat big time and excerpt from an e-mail letter I sent to someone. I used to dub tapes of SIG for folks (I just don't have the time and the willpower to keep from cutting out all my talking. Which is why I sent tapes to Doug for his collection.) This is long, but I hope you enjoy it! Suspended In Gaffa airs on: KKFI 90.1fm Kansas City, Missouri 5 years 100,000 watt stereo WZRD 88.3fm Chicago, Illinois 2 1/2 years 100 watt mono (yuk!) ====================================================================== begin excerpt The first 50+ shows were 90 minutes, then they expanded the schedule and my show got 120 minutes. I could use 3 of the 120s just for my SIG extravaganza, which aired right before we moved up to Chicago. The program director let me have *6* hours for the show! That's SIG 118, which Jeff Burka was talking about. I spent the entire last hour playing Happy. I recently sent that show to Happy and instead of putting it on audio cassettes, I dubbed the whole thing onto 1 video cassette tape (set at 6 hour speed) and mailed it off. That was a sad/fun/crazy one. I thought it would be my last live show and I wanted to get as much music as I could played, and I invited people to come down to the studio for a party. By the last hour I was exhausted and just decided to focus on Happy. By the time I came on to talk and say my last goodbyes I was a mess, tired and teary. I boo hoo all over the last song "To Be E. Mortal" so it's very emotional (to me anyway, I still cry whenever I hear it). When I moved up here and started sending taped shows down to KC, I went from 2 hours to 1 hour, but I also quit dubbing copies for myself. SIG Chicago shows are 1 hour, and I've got lots of those, though I don't keep them all. I keep playlists of every single show (KC and Chi) so I don't feel I have to keep the actual shows. I still do sometimes. Since I hate my talking, I feel that if I want to recreate the show, all I have to do is look on my playlist and see what music I played and in what order I played it. When I do dub the shows I have taped, for other people, I never dub my talking, only the music, and 2 shows almost always fit on a 100 tape. (Since I wrote that, I quit dubbing shows for myself at all.) I know you said you like my talking, thank you. There is however, a major difference between my talking when I'm live and when I tape shows. The live microphone in the studio at KKFI was great. It made me sound so good. I may say dumb things, and get flustered and make mistakes, but hey, I sound good doing it. :-) I do try to cut out mistakes as much as possible, I tend to edit a lot when I'm making dubs for other people. Rarely will you get a complete show exactly as it was when it originally aired. Anyway, the mic I have here for my taped shows isn't as warm-sounding, and I tend to sound flat and loud, so I have to talk softly and try not to pop my "p"s. I'll find a couple Chicago shows with my voice still on and dub them for you. On WZRD I can get away with murder and so I only talk twice during the program. Once at the beginning and once at the end, when I'm telling what I played. Storytime: Chris had a friend he worked with named Kim. She had a boyfriend named Richard. We all became pretty good friends, Richard even got me a job working where he did, at a One-Stop (that's a record/CD/cassette distributor, where other record stores can come and shop for all kinds of music to sell in their stores) located in the basement of a record store. Richard and Kim had been involved in getting KKFI on the air. People had been working for 11 years to get KKFI on the air, working on raising money, getting permits, equipment, site locations, staff, everything. K&R had been volunteers for a few years. They were the lobbying for a spot on the station to have alternative music. No other station in KC plays alternative music. When the station was nearly ready to go operational, the new program director finished up the schedule of what would air when. He designated a strip-style programming schedule, one where a certain show or type of music would be on at the same time every day. He gave the 9pm-10:30pm spot to alternative. He didn't know anything about alternative music, so he put my friend Richard in charge of putting programming in those spots. Richard was very pleased, but somewhat panicked too, because he had to find people to do shows. He came to me and asked me if I wanted to do a radio show. I laughed and thought he was joking. No, he was serious. I said no, there's no way. I didn't have any experience at all, had never done anything even remotely like it before, had never even been inside a radio station and had never spoken into a microphone. The very thought of it terrified me, I was very, very, very shy. Richard encouraged me to at least give it some thought. I did, and realized that, even though I couldn't do it, it sure would be great if someone did a show that featured female vocalists, but wasn't sexist or hard-core feminist in nature. Just a nice music show, with lots of nice vocals, for people who like the female voice. I gave him that suggestion and said he should find someone who could do a show like that. He just gave me a funny look and said, you know Vickie, that's a great idea for a show. What kind of artists are you talking about? Oh, I said, Kate Bush, Jane Siberry, 10,000 Maniacs, people like that. Lots of alternative and progressive, but also throwing in things from the 30s, oh, lots of various styles of music mixed together. He just smiled and said Hmmm, Vickie, are you going to help me find this person? This person who has the same tastes in music that you do? This person who has the same resourses as you do? This person who has the same record collection you do? This person who only wants to play female vocals? *NO ONE* is going to do it unless *you* do. I just gave him a funny look and walked away. I kept on thinking about it, trying to imagine what it was like. The thought made me shiver, it was so scary. I also kept on thinking about the music that I had in my collection, the music I loved and liked, that never got played on the radio in KC. Well, the music won out over my fears and I got up my courage and told him OK, I'd do it. Yikes! What had I gotten myself into? I was terrified!!! The on-air studio wasn't finished being built when the scheduled date of KKFI's going-on-the-air came around. It was decided to have 18 hours a day of programming, and that it would all be on tape, until the studio was finished. They set up 2 production studios in the basement of someone's house, but it was hard to get time to tape there, there were so many hours that needed to be taped. To ease the crunch, and to make the alternative programmers feel more at home, K&R set up a production studio in their living room and that's where we taped shows for a few weeks. My first show was a nightmare to tape. I was terrible and kept making mistakes. Chris was there to help me with the technical side, thank goodness. I don't know what I would have done without him. The 90 minute show took 5 hours to tape! I finally got it done and heaved a sigh of relief! As time went on, it became easier and easier, and I got to where I could handle all the equipment by myself, but those first few shows were horrors! A bunch of us were at home the night my first show aired, and I was so embarrassed, I thought it was awful! But everyone else said it was great, and I got phone calls from other friends saying they loved it. The nicest thing was seeing the program director a few days later and he told me that the day after it aired, they got a phone call from someone who just raved about it, wanted a playlist, wanted to talk to me, wanted to tell the PD that it was the best show he'd heard so far on KKFI!!! Wow! And it was someone I didn't even *know*! Wow! I didn't even pay him to say those things! :-) Wow! That guy calling (we later became friends) was just the "outside" encouragement I needed. His call literally kept me from quitting in embarrassment and, well, here I am, 3 1/2 years later, still doing it. (5 years!!!) My first 17 shows wre on tape, then they got the live studio up and running. That was the second trauma of the show, because I had gotten so used to being on tape, and I made lots of mistakes that I could just rewind the tape and do over again. I almost quit then too, I was absolutely, utterly, truly and no kidding, terrified of going live. Well, in the vein of "it's almost never as bad as you think its going to be" I did OK, and found out very quickly that it was fun being live on the air. The neatest thing was finally being able to take phone calls and that first live night I had a bunch! People who had been listening for weeks and just wanted to tell me that they'd enjoyed it, and to make requests and thank me for playing things they'd never heard on the radio before. Kate fans, Jane Siberry fans, people who became Kate and Jane fans after hearing my show, those were wonderful calls! Lots of others too! SIG 118 was tramautic because I knew I'd never be live on the air again, and it really hurt. (Actually I ended up being live the week after, but that's another story, and I didn't know it at the time) That's one of the reasons I cry at the end. I couldn't help it. There's just a different feeling between live and tape, more serious, less giddy. That's why I sent you early shows. I'd go back and change some of the things I say (for instance, I *don't* like The Cocteau Twins' _Blue Bell Knoll_ as much as I do _Treasure_ and I don't know why I said that. Also, I'm embarrassed at calling Kevin Happy's "boyfriend/manager-type person") but in all, I still like my live shows best. That's in re my talking, but the music is good no matter if I'm live or on tape. Well, there's my story about how I got on the radio. I don't consider myself a "DJ" because I don't get paid for my shows. It's a labor of love. To me, "DJs" are people who get paid to play music they generally don't like. I'd rather not get paid and be able to play what I want, than to get paid and be told what to play. So call me an "RP" (radio programmer) instead of "DJ" OK? It's a silly distinction, I know, but important to me. This was all fairly convoluted and confusing, but oh well, you asked! :-) (Here are the playlists for my 1st 2 shows) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Suspended In Gaffa 1 March 13, 1988 Kate Bush Suspeneded In Gaffa Le Mystere des voix Bulgares Erghen Daido Jane Siberry Extra Executives kd lang Turn Me Round Zella Jackson Price Say A Little Prayer For Me Judie Tzuke Sukarita Victoria Williams Main Road Nina Hagen Cosma Shiva Connie Francis Where the Boys Are Poison Girls Voodoo Pappadollar Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin Siamese Cat Song Lene Lovich Bird Song Lonette McKee Ill Wind Shelleyan Orphan Blue Black Grape Carolyn Mas Snow Siouxsie & the Banshees Cities In Dust Virginia Astley A Summer Long Since Passed Sylvia Woods Gypsy Mirage The Cocteau Twins Beatrix Priscilla Bowman Spare Man Mari Wilson Ecstacy 10,000 Maniacs Scorpio Rising Kate Bush Night of the Swallow -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Suspended In Gaffa 2 March 20, 1988 Siouxsie & the Banshees Christine Billie Holiday Please Don't Talk About Me... Suzanne Vega Solitude Standinggg Grace Jones Fashion Show Maggie Reilly To France Edith Piaf Milord Sally Oldfield Child of Allah Leslie Gore You Don't Own Me Jane Siberry Symmetry Monsoon w/ Sheila Chandra Third Eye & Tikka TV Mildred Bailey I'm Nobody's Baby Maggie & Terre Roche Wigglin' Man Laurie Anderson Big Science The Creatures Right Now Kate Bush Coffee Homeground Bette Midler Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Erika Eigen ...Marry A Lighthouse Keeper Psychowelders Precious Hush Claire Hamill First Night In New York Nico Le Petite Chevalier Nico My Funny Valentine Maddy Pryor Gutter Geese Rickie Lee Jones The Returns -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-i Thanks to everyone for the support, warmth, good wishes and hugs. One of the symptoms of clinical depression is "loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities" or something like that and it's an accurate symptom, at least for me. For the past couple of years I've had nearly zero interest in doing Suspended In Gaffa. I still love the music of course, but the actual act of recording the show has become a chore I dread. It's not the equipment, because Chris, bless his heart, has built me a wonderful little studio. It's just that I don't feel any enthusiasm anymore, and that was the main thing that kept me on top of the world when I was live. Something very important disappeared when I went to tape. My contact with the listeners, for one thing. The spontaneity. The live in-studio sound. The friends dropping by while I was on the air (as long as they didn't talk to me *too* much. Many of my mistakes on the air came from getting involved in conversations with callers or visitors. I loved hearing from/seeing them, but I'm easity distracted :-)) as well as the sheer adrenaline coursing through my body while live. It's all gone now, and I realized not too long ago that I *miss* it all really badly. Not enough to move back to Kansas City, mind you, but I think I would love to be live again. There aren't any radio stations that would take me though. I honestly don't want to be just a "DJ" playing whatever they're told to. I couldn stand it unless it *were* Suspended in Gaffa. Maybe someday I could enroll at either Northeastern or Northwestern. NEU would let me be live in a second (it's got the station, WZRD, that my show airs on now in Chicago) but I can't unless I'm a student. Northwestern is *expensive*, but their radio station is a lot more powerful than WZRDs, and it's in stereo . One of these days.... People have told me that I should syndicate, and I've actually had chances before. Kiri offered, for one, when she was up in Potsdam, but I hemmed and hawed (which I've been doing a lot lately) and never brought myself to actually make one for her, let alone on a weekly basis. Why not? I don't know, but I do think that moving to Chicago was the jolt that sent my system spinning, and turned into depression, which in turn led me to examine my past and try to exorcise my demons, which in turn has caused me way too much stress, which....very possibly could have led to a minor heart attack yesterday. Whew! I was suprised when I finally sat down to trace the beginnings of my depression. I didn't trace it back that far at first because I was pretty happy then. I was ecstatic at moving to Chicago. I *LOVE* Chicago! I knew I would, I did, I do and I always will. I'd feel terrible if I had to leave here (um...unless it's somewhere in the Northeast. Sorry to the geographically elsewhere, but the NE United States is "Happy Country" and I'd love to be near where the action is. Chris wants to move to Maine just for the lobsters. I say Boston or NYC. Maybe Philly. I couldn't handle Washington DC, sorry JWTLBH.) Ok, so I loved moving to Chicago, but a move is a move, and any move is going to be stressful. Ours definitely was, one reason being that we were giving up a *wonderful* apartment. It was huge (3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, Dining room, Kitchen, Pantry, Mud porch, back porch, front porch made of stone, living room with fireplace, parlor (which we used as a living room) *and* the back bedroom had a sunporch!) and it was in a beautiful old building built in 1923. It was called the Illinois Building, so it was a premonition. It also was close to the "hip" part of Kansas City, "Westport" was within walking distance. It also had covered behind- the-building parking. To put the cherry on the cake, it was only $360.00 a month, including heat and water. The apartment we moved into is teeny-tiny and more expensive, pffft! It worth it, living in Chicago. Anyway, getting back to my point. Besides just the stress of the move, I think losing SIG as a live show really hit me hard. At the time though, I was so happy to be moving and just the fact that SIG was still going to be aired in any way (my good friend Sue offered to take my place and play my show within her own, and the PD approved it) made me feel good. Still, I think the beginning of my depression was just a "delayed reaction" and it's kind of a relief to know how it started, where the depression got a hold. It's *always* been with me, I've just been able to keep it at bay, submerged, for years and years. Well, Jorn came over and he's been waiting patiently for me to finish this post so we can watch MST3K, so I think I'll go. I've been playing early Camper Van Beethoven for Jorn. he likes Ween and he's never heard CVB. Thanks for the memories, those who've mentioned hearing and liking my shows. ('specially Michael Peskura and Barry Wong!) Thanks for the support, encouragement, pep talks, warmth and hugs. ("You like me! You *really* like me!") :-) **HUG** Vickie ======================================================================== 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)