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 #242 ecto, Number 242 Monday, 18 May 1992 Today's Topics: *-----------------* 10,000 Maniacs Concert Report Wait... there's more! 10,000 maniacs & red sox !!!PARTY ALERT!!! guess what Happy and Tori on WXPN Happy news?? Curtin's been cut off. ======================================================================== Date: 17-MAY-1992 19:35:28.64 From: MTARR@eagle.wesleyan.edu Subject: 10,000 Maniacs Concert Report Hi! Valerie and I just got back from seeing 10,000 Maniacs perform in Danbury, at the Charles Ives Performing Arts Center on the Westside campus of Western Connecticut State University. It was outside, and I'm fried to a crisp, but it was definitely worth it! The venue was a gazebo literally on a lake (so much for stage-diving :), and the audience hung out on blankets and with coolers on the hill rising up from the water. There was a moat around the front of the stage, and since the lake had fish in it the roadies spent quite a bit of time fishing during the show (but nobody caught anything). The opening band was The Heartbeats, a bluegrass-cajun-type band featuring four women, three of whom sang. One played banjo and accordion, one fiddled, one was on double bass, and the other played guitar. They were pretty good, a good background soundtrack to what was going on around the stage. Off to the side in the restricted area, Natalie was hanging out with some friends of hers who had little kids, and watching her play with them was a scream. They finally came on at 2:45, after the opening act had started at 1:30 (on time! Unbelievable). They opened with three new songs, then played everything from _In My Tribe_ except "Peace Train" (of course), "Don't Talk" and "The Painted Desert"; they played "Maddox Table" and "Scorpio Rising" (at my request, with some help from Val :) :) :) from _The Wishing Chair_, and "Trouble Me" and "Eat For Two" from _Blind Man's Zoo_. "Eat For Two" was a request- someone asked for "Dust Bowl", but Natalie apologized and said they don't know the chords any more. :P :) Aside from all that, in all I think they played 8 new ones, and if they're any indication, the new album is going to be their best yet. There were also a few surprises, all of them absolute gems. As usual during "A Campfire Song" Natalie headed to the side of the stage to recruit someone to sing the duet part, and two HUGE guys jumped up and volunteered, and she wasn't about to say no. They were pretty horrible, and afterwards she "complimented" them on their booming voices. During "My Sister Rose", which she dedicated to two people in the audience who are getting married soon, she yelled "Make a chain!" and ran off to the area where people were dancing wildly. Unfortunately they hadn't been paying attention and all rushed around her trying to get autographs, while she ran around trying to get a chain going. Two women followed her back on stage, and she let them sing along the end of the song. After the music stopped she explained to "You lame-o people dancing there" that "the idea of that was to get a chain going and dance all around the field, but no, you all had to crowd around me yelling for autographs". She wasn't really mad, just bemused. One of the new ones is entitled "Tolerance", and they did it as an instrumental. I yelled "Put lyrics to it" and Natalie replied that she had, she just can't play the piano part and sing it at the same time. If the lyrics are anything like the music, this is going to be the most powerful song they've ever done. It went over the best of all the new songs, which sound more like _In My Tribe_ than anything else- since they weren't too big on playing stuff from _Blind Man's Zoo_, I think they didn't like that album too much themselves. Another amusing bit was when she noticed a guy in the front wearing a Cure T-shirt. She said, "Oh no, not Robert SMITH!!!" and launched into a parody of "Boys Don't Cry" that had everyone, including the band, in stitches. Afterwards she said, "Now before this all gets back to them I just want you all to know that they're label-mates of ours and we like them a lot, really. Why just last year at the Elektra picnic I went up to Robert Smith and said, `Hey Bob, can I borrow your lipstick?'" :) Definitely the highlight of the afternoon was when Natalie took Robert Buck's guitar and started fooling around with it. With his help she got some serious feedback going, and she took the three chords she knows and started jamming. Jerome came with a thrash-beat and then Steven added some thrash-bass and they treated us to thirty seconds of hysterically funny hardcore- she gave the guitar back to Robert and he kept it going, so she went to the mike and started crooning something that sounded like something by Nirvana (that wasn't "Smells Like Teen Spirit"). By that point not even they could keep from cracking up, so they slid into "Hey Jack Kerouac" and things settled down a bit. The two encores consisted of requests: they played "Scorpio Rising" for me and Val, then "City of Angels" for someone else and finally "Gun Shy". Then since we weren't about to leave Natalie came back and struggled through "Verdi Cries", which she obviously hadn't played in a LONG time- we had to help her out with the lyrics, but it was beautiful anyway. :) Look for them in the area, if you're in the Northeast- they're recording the new album and taking Sundays off to play at colleges and stuff. The whole thing was completely informal, in case you haven't noticed, and they seemed to be having as much fun playing as we had listening and watching. Natalie was cool about taking questions from the audience, no matter how bizarre, and the request thing was awesome (even if she did leave out my favorite verse of SR). One thing was, she didn't spin! Someone asked her about that and she said, "Not without the hair"- her hair is now in a chin-length bob, and spinning doesn't do anything to it so she doesn't spin any more. She still dances like a, well, like a maniac though. :) It was the most utterly *FUN* concert I've been to in my life- Natalie is wonderful even if she does refuse to sign autographs (but I did manage to get Robert and Steven to sign my _Hope Chest_ CD), her stage presence is great and it was neat to see the band having so much fun. I think it's great that they're playing shows on their "days off" from recording- there's no pressure to be promoting something and they'll always have a willing audience. So I guess we can look for an album by the end of the year. Yay! ====================================================================== |Meredith Tarr "Get to the point you sappy wimps| |Wesleyan University I haven't got a lifetime | |Middletown, CT Simplicity is beauty | |USA, Earth Are there poets less sublime?" | |mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu -Happy Rhodes | ====================================================================== ======================================================================== Date: 17-MAY-1992 20:21:30.33 From: MTARR@eagle.wesleyan.edu Subject: Wait... there's more! Hi again... A couple things I forgot to mention about the concert: I was wearing my ecto-T, but nobody noticed. :( I was hoping Natalie would notice once I made my way up to the very front, along the moat... then if she'd asked me "Who's Happy Rhodes" I could've said, "An awesome singer- you'd like her stuff, her new songs sound a lot like your new songs." Which is true- the second new one they played starts off very slow, and I thought "Mother Sea" almost immediately. Then it abruptly got very bouncy, but the slow part really did sound like MS. It was weird. Wow, what a way to spend an afternoon!!! I'm off to slather myself in aloe now... ====================================================================== |Meredith Tarr "Get to the point you sappy wimps| |Wesleyan University I haven't got a lifetime | |Middletown, CT Simplicity is beauty | |USA, Earth Are there poets less sublime?" | |mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu -Happy Rhodes | ====================================================================== ======================================================================== Date: 17-MAY-1992 19:48:46.94 From: Valerie Nozick Subject: 10,000 maniacs & red sox what a weekend! first going to fenway park for the first time, and then seeing 10,000 maniacs in concert. geesh...is this what it means to be a graduating senior? shame it only happens once in your life. friday night was the red sox vs. angels game. 10 people, 1 an angels fan. needless to say, after the angels' 3-0 loss, i was eating crow. everyone see meredith gloat. see meredith gloat. plpth! but what a field. i'm only used to anaheim stadium, a very modern ballpark. so it was exciting to see baseball pre-million dollar salaries. and even a home run over the green monster! and abbott vs. costello...oops, that's abbott vs. clemens. :-) then onto the 10,000 maniacs concert this afternoon. natalie merchant and gang gave me one of the most entertaining afternoons in a long while. me, meredith and shura (meredith's housemate) left at about 10:30 this morning. after buying the requisite french cheese & crackers (it was an outdoor concert), and fretting over what state to buy the bottled water from (maine won out over vermont), we were off to exciting and beautiful danbury, connecticut. the charles ives entertainment complex is the sort of place begging for a rennaisance fair...lots of bushes (would be easy to sneak in) & shrubbery. our friend tom tried to sneak in a tape player, but got caught, so no record of this one. :-( so we finally got in and found a place to sit...about 50 ft. from the stage, and in the center. the stage itself was beautiful. it was on a lake, and was separated from the shore by a moat filled with lots of green gunk which natalie called life. i wasn't able to get a t-shirt, since they were sold out by the time i got to the line :-(, so we sat down and i checked out the lighting. (this is a tradition with me and concerts). silly, since it was a daytime, ouutdoor concert, & lighting was unnecessary and unused. but it was neverthe less fun. so the music started. but it wasn't natalie yet...the opening band was 'the heartbeats', who were introduced by a nameless person as 'my favorite group'. how wonderful. luckily natalie was sitting near the stage playing with a kid and talking the whole time, so i watched her instead. she picked at the tree, played mindgames with the kid, and generally had a good time. actually, she seemed to be having a good time with the kid, it's just that she played the 'now you see it, now you don't' game with her. finally they came onstage at about 2:45pm. lots of new songs, and almost everything from 'in my tribe' was played, and thankfully almost nothing from 'blind man's zoo', plus some earlier stuff. they played one great song without lyrics...afterwards, natalie explained that it was called 'tolerance', and that it was spelled wrong on the play list. so our buddy meredith asked if there were lyrics for it. natalie responded that it did, but that she wasn't able to play the piano and sing it at the same time. (but jerome can play drums & chew gum at the same time...even in beat!). luckily natalie didn't have this problem with several other songs. not long after that natalie ran out into the audience for 'my sister rose', then berated them (she only went into the dancing section) for not forming a dancing chain to run around the fields in. seems they all just wanted to ask her for her autograph. a pretty popular pasttime for all of us there! then she tried to sing another song at the piano, but stopped in the middle...she thought there was a tick on her. but she decided it was only a gnat, so she continued on like a trooper. other crazy incidents involved her spotting of a cure t-shirt in the audience...i quote: "robert smith! robert smith! love me! (imitating robert smith) oh, don't love me. i'm rich and famous, my life is miserable (etc.)" then she sang from 'boys don't cry', doing a really great cure impression. maybe she should consider it for the next album :-) actually, she mentioned that today was their day off from recording the album, so in a couple of months watch your favorite record store. it was the day for bizarre questions...one person carrying a reporter's notebook asked natalie what she thought about capital letters in the english language. she merely stated that she never was the type of person who wrote in all lower case, and denigrated us lazy ones. so someone asked what she thought about pronouns. her response: "babies are never referred to by he or she. we call them it for so long...that's what i think about pronouns." odd. they played several encores, with it turning into request hour. included (not a request) was 'starman' (it sounded fantastic) and several songs which she couldn't remember the lyrics to. it's okay...the audience helped her. finally she ran off stage (after deciding not to sing someone's request of the star trek theme) and got them to turn the music up *real* quick. otherwise, the audience would have pulled her back and never let her go. then came the attempt to meet her. after lots of 'should we go back there? should we?', we finally tried. we got the autographs of a couple of members of the band, and tried to walk into the building with natalie in it. nope...5 feet away, and i was stopped. :-( i begged, pleaded and stopped just short of seducing the dude in the neon orange shirt, but all he would say was that natalie couldn't sign autographs for the general public...it was against her contract. ble. so off it was, into the wild blue yonder they call wesleyan, and the end of a great day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerie Nozick "And if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom" vnozick@eagle.wesleyan.edu --Tori Amos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ======================================================================== Date: 17-MAY-1992 20:34:28.52 From: Valerie Nozick Subject: !!!PARTY ALERT!!! Official notification of a little get together involving, wine, music, dancing (well, maybe a few videos and food) at val's place in connecticut. Next Sunday (that's one week from today -- memorial day weekend) in middletown, ct at wesleyan university (i'll send you the exact address when you tell us you'll be there. :-) ) at 3pm. hopefully we'll be barbecuing, and hopefully the weather will be nice. if you think you can make it on sunday, let me or meredith know asap. e-mail is always nice, although you can also call me at (203) 638-4746. also, if you have any videos that people would want to see, let me know, since mine and meredith's collections are limited. our e-mail addresses are: (valerie) vnozick@eagle.wesleyan.edu (meredith) mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu middletown is about half way between boston and new york, smack in the middle of the state (note the coincidence). so even if you think you might be coming, let us know. ==> valerie & meredith ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerie Nozick "And if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom" vnozick@eagle.wesleyan.edu --Tori Amos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ======================================================================== From: "Klaus Kluge" Date: 18 May 92 10:09:14 MET-1 Subject: guess what Hi, your friends in phobos are currently cut off from the net _again_. For 4 days now our gateway to the net didn't reply to our calls. Our outgoing mail queue is nearly bursting (as our incoming mail queue on some other system surely will be as well), and I hope we will be back soon. In the meantime, all important messages can go to kkluge@materna.de Sorry for the inconvenience. Let me tell you that I _hate_ this situation. :( (as much as elevator music :) ... later ... Klaus _____ Klaus Kluge, Dr.Materna GmbH, Vosskuhle 37, DW-4600 Dortmund 1, Germany INET: kkluge@Materna.DE TEL: +49-231-5599-301 FAX: +49-231-5599-100 ======================================================================== Date: 18 May 92 10:52:00 EDT From: Bob Brown <74756.1557@compuserve.com> Subject: Happy and Tori on WXPN Jessica writes: >> I heard Phobos today on WXPN! I just thought i'd say so, i'm >> still not used to hearing happy on the radio:) Wow...glad you heard it. It was I that called Helen Leight on Saturday and requested it. I had a nice chat with Helen about Happy. Helen also hosts a show on Sunday mornings on WMMR in Phila. and she has been playing Happy their also. Helen told me that Happy will be in Philly on the June 13th (ECTO birthday - right?) to be on Helen's show and then Happy will be making an appearance at 21st Century Sound in Bryn Mawr, PA to kick off the 1st 4 CD's. Does anyone have any firm Happy concert date appearances for the summer? Jessica - you said something about the Ironhorse (?) in June. Is that on and if so when? I'm ready for a road trip...anywhere...to see her again. I had gotten together info for H&K to come back to Philly at a nicer, better acoustically venue here (and I've got financial backing to make it happen) but I haven't heard anything. I sent all the info to Bob Leonard...gess I'll call Kevin directly. Jessica also writes: >> Tori will be with David Dye on the World Cafe show tomorrow. >> In the philly area, that's on WXPN at 10am. >> Is anyone else near enough to a station who can tape it?? Besides the morning edition, World Cafe is rebroadcast in the evening from 8-10 PM. I get WXPN perfectly here and I will do my very best to try to remember to tape it this evening. Doug & footah - I never have gotten a chance to thank you guys for the great taping jobs. I certainly appreciate your efforts! Bob Brown - The Radio Boy 74756,1557@compuserve.com ======================================================================== From: kyrlidis@athena.mit.edu Subject: Happy news?? Date: Mon, 18 May 92 13:07:33 EDT hi I was wondering if ectoland has had any recent contact with happy, motivated by Bob's post about the Philly visits, the possibility of another concert there and the lack of confirmation of the Iron horse gig. Greg, have you had any feedback from Happy regarding the live tapes?? Do we know anything for sure other than that the 1st4 will be out on CD any day now? I guess I should call Vickie to find out if she knows something, but on the other hand if she did, I am sure she would have told someone... No Happy news since the last newsletter suddenly feels like a long long time. Angelos +=====================================+ |'My ears have parasites'-hApPy RhOdEs| +=====================================+ ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 18 May 92 16:09 GMT From: Merow!! just a quick note to say hi to everyone.. i have been lurking around reading mail but not doing much writing..I have MAJOR exams coming up and am chained to my room for alot of the day... thanks to Meredith and Valerie for those 10,000 Maniacs posts..sounds like you two had ALOT of fun!! i wish i could have been there!!! What a neat place to have a concert. Hope those sunburns get better!! =) Klaus and Claudia: *hugs* to you two!! It must be hell having email as well as snail mail all shut down!!!I hope the situation gets better SOON!!! Mitch: i already wrote privately but in case it bounces (as this system is wont to do to foreign mail), i want to thank you for the tapes on the way! Stephen and Terry: I am really excited about coming to see you this weekend! Dont be too concerned if i get too worn out and collapse on the floor or anything..nothin to wory about..just my glandular fever acting up again. but DONT worry..i am NOT..repeat NOT..contagious!!!! =) watch out for those camera flashes as well!! hehehehehee!!! thats all from me for now...back to the batcave to study welsh and other torturous classes...*sigh* meow! Courtney! ======================================================================== From: Martin Dougiamas Subject: Curtin's been cut off. Date: Tue, 19 May 92 10:13:16 WST Hi, Martin here. Curtin University (the place I seem to be living in more than anywhere else lately :( ... not all of us have finished studies..) has been cut off from the Internet since last Friday. I've replied to all mail I've got since then, so if you mailed me anytime from last Friday onwards and I haven't replied... could you please try again? On a Happier note, I got my Alice card yesterday and a very, very nice couple of photos and note from a certain Herr K.Kluge and C.Spix of our aquaintance! Thanks, Jessica for the card, and big thanks to Klaus and Claudia for the photos... I've been going back to them every hour or so while I've been studying all night. I amused myself when I first got them by trying to guess the occupants of the photo before reading the names on the back. Court I guessed right away, then with a bit more work I figured out Claudia so Michelle was pretty easy at that point :) The guys were harder. I was totally thrown by the fact that I've always imagined Klaus to look nearly exactly like Jeff does, so I just assumed that Jeff was Klaus. Things went downhill from here. Albert... well, I hope you won't laugh too much, but I've always imagined you as a very small oldish guy... so I was wondering... Who the heck is that big young guy? :) You should have had the Happy Nosering installed! :) Now of course, it's difficult to imagine any of you looking different. I liked the setup there, guys.. your t-shirts etc, and the ecto logo on the monitor and the Warpaint album placed strategically in the background. :) And especially the chair with my name on it! :) :) I'm still working on the titles of the books on the shelves and the CDs in the wall-racks... (perhaps all that image processing and enhancement stuff I've been doing lately will come in useful after all!) Two photos to be treasured. BTW, they took exactly 9 days to get here. The old Bundespost seems to be doing rather well with it's backlog. Well, back to meaningless descriptions. Martin P.S. Klaus, why is it you're the only blurry person in both shots? Are you really blurry in person? :) Maybe you'd been getting stuck into the blue fuzzy cocktails before anyone else! :) :) P.P.S. I will post the current version of the Ecto Email/Phone/Address database to Ecto in a day or two... it's gotten quite comprehensive now, ...and I'm kicking myself for not keeping all the shoe sizes you people have been diligently sending. It was only a joke! ;) -- ,-----------------------------+-------------------------------. _ . | "The shallow drowned lose | Martin Dougiamas. | ~ _r' Ll\ ~ | less than we", you breathe, | martin@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au |~ | \ ~ | the strangest twist upon | Curtin University | ~ \ ._ / ~ | your lips. - The Cure | Perth, Western Australia ----+--> x~ `-' ~ `=============================+===============================' ~ V ======================================================================== 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)