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 #340 ecto, Number 340 Friday, 2 October 1992 Today's Topics: *-----------------* Connie Kaldor US and other bits and pieces Vickie is not alone and other stories Discovering Happy Les Labeques, sont elles francaises? Who's that girl? Miscellaneous platter chatter Ecto Cd Computer noises and CD crashes Subject. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:02:42 -0230 From: eperry@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: Connie Kaldor Hi folks! Yes Mitch, Connie Kaldor is Canadian. Which album did you get? Beth ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 20:48:12 EDT From: kosky@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Anthony Kosky) Subject: US and other bits and pieces Hi All! I got US yesterday, when it came into hour local CD store. Three more people bought copies of it while I was waiting to talk to a friend who works there. Listen to it three times so far (not counting the songs I heard on world cafe or in the record store). I shan't bother saying how utterly brilliant it is since enough other people have already said so, and since anyway this goes without saying for anything Peter Gabriel does. What I did want to say was that, musically, it reminds me of The Lamb Lies Down far more than any of his other solo albums. Does anyone else think so, or is it just me? Have I finally cracked? On the subject of music for a Celtic compilation, can I put in a vote for Mairi MacInnes (same one as on the Mouth Music CD single). I have an album of hers called Causeway, which a very nice album of Gaelic folk songs, and she has a excellent voice. Oddly enough the songs I'm not so keen on on this album are the few that are in English, though I'm not sure what this means. There are a couple of other recent aquisitions that I've been meaning to post something on for a while. One is Roger Waters' new album, Ammused To Death. It strikes me that RW is back on form with this album, after the last two which I found a bit dissapointing. It's still not up to the standards of The Final Cut, but then what is? Also, on my recent visit to England, I got hold of a new, limitted edition, live tape by Roy Harper, Born In Captivity II. It would be difficult to give an objective opinion on this one since Roy is one of my all time heros (more so, even, than Peter Gabriel). When he's on form his live performances are incredibly good, and his stage personallity is at the same time approachable and extremely intense. It's a difficult thing to explain to anyone who hasn't actually seen him perform themselves. Anyway this tape has very good quality recordings of some pretty good (by his standards) performances. In doesn't have too much of his between song banter, or capture his personality as well as perhaps it could. It includes a recording of Back To The Stones which is one of my favourite of his more recent songs, and which I doesn't appear anywhere else except on bootlegs. It also has a recording of Short And Sweet which he co-wrote with David Gilmour. This came as a minor revelation to me since I'd never heard him perform it before, or looked at the credits of Gilmour's first album closely enough to notice that he had co-written it. Also I didn't recognise the song from the title on the casette box, but recognised the tune as being from DGs album immediately. It sounds like I'm going to have to get Suzanne Vega's new album. I've avoided it so far partly because I thought I wouldn't listen to it much, due to the new Roger Waters and now Peter Gabriel albums, and also because I wasn't keen on her trend towards more synthesized and electronic music. Still I'm only putting off the inevitable. This message seems to be getting pretty long, but there's one more thing I feel I want to add, since I'm particularly excited about it: I got tickets to Tori Amos' two shows at the Keswick theatre in Philadelpia. The tickets for the first show are merely 9th row center, but I ordered tickets for the second show within about a minute of their going on sale and got front row center seats! Well, that message should be more than long enough to make up for not posting in a while. Bye for now. -Anthony ======================================================================== Date: 30 September 1992 12:44:08 CDT From: Subject: Vickie is not alone and other stories I, too, bought the new Peter Gabriel CD yesterday, and have yet to listen to it . She's been in this condition about three hours longer than me, I having arr- ived at Rose's Broadway branch about elevenish give or take, but that's neither here nor there. I had had pipe dreams of listening to it last night, but char acteristically dozed off before I had a chance to. With all that concentrated sleep, I ended up waking up (maybe it was good :-) ) around sixish this morn- ing, but was in no condition to listen to it then due to the need to keep gett- ing up to reconstitute stacks of stuff that the cat had just upended. (Remembe r: whenever there's no storm to share, a kitty will always be able to create one for you :-). [Two Happy puns in one post--I must be on a roll today :-).]) Rose also had attractive prices on the CD's of _99.F_ and Eric Clapton's _Un- plugged_, so I bought those as well even though I had bought them earlier on tape and haven't listened to them yet in either format. There was a review of Juliana Hatfield's latest album in the issue of _Rolling Stone_ that was on sale around the third week in August, the one with Michelle Pfeiffer on the cover. I don't recall all the details, but I think the reviewe r found it rather weird and dissonant. I have the cassette, but true to form, I haven't listened to it--a latent dysfunction of my addiction to listening to NPR all day. (Meredith, how _do_ you manage to strike a balance between NPR and life :-)?) I think I will want to acquire a Drink Me recording if there is one, based on what I could pick up from the _ATC_ piece whilst listening in the midst of a rather crowded and noisy bus. Sadly, I wasn't plugged in when they did either the Gabriel or the Williams pieces. (Which gives me an idea for another creative synthesis of Happyvangelism and public radio: at this writing , WBEZ is presumably still shopping around for a new program director. If Vick ie is interested in a broader radio audience than her current station's recep- tion area, this may be worth her while to look into :-). ) For the benefit and use of Chicago Ectophiles: Kroch's and Brentano's on Wabas h still has a few copies of the issue of _Q_ that featured the interview with Sophie B. Hawkins, along with a full-page picture of her sensuously drinking a glass of grapefruit juice. Monday night, Arsenio Hall had Melissa Etheridge on. Miraculously, I woke up in time to catch a fragment or two of the conversation (albeit not the musical numbers). I don't recall if anything especially profound was said, but I tend to think not. Mitch ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 23:40:08 PDT From: spotter@darwin.bio.uci.edu (Steve Potter) Subject: Discovering Happy Thanks, Vickie for your prompt reply (before I even logged out!) No, electronic voyeur I am not, so here is my second posting in as many days on Ecto: How I found out about Happy Rhodes (by popular request). This is kind of odd and personal, but I FELL oops--feel (dont you hate that when your caps lock goes on _and_ you make a typo and hit return, resulting in a SHOUTING typo??) like yous are my friends already, since youre so homey and non-flamable. So there I was, dozing off, and listening to KCRW at about 12:30 or so, as I often do whilst dozing off. I was in that bizzarre state of mind when you can still hear stuff around you, but your thoughts are following such a strange progression, that if someone were to ask you what you were thinking you would not be able to put it in words. Its that state when you think of stumbling and your whole body jerks--know what I mean? Well this amazing and beautiful song came on the radio,amd although I said to myself that it was amazing and beautiful, I made no attempt to rouse myself to full awakeness to enjoy it. Although it was filtering in through my auditory channels, that is not how it felt. I had a synesthesia, which I have only had before during a high fever as a kid. I actually felt, in a tactile way, and saw, in a fully visual way, the shape of the song. Its shape was several flattish cylinders (about 5), in a row (partially overlapping, actually). They increased in height from one to the other, and all of their top surfaces were coplanar, thus sloped. They were sort of reddish brown, and covered with an intricate, detailed textured pattern that was some transformation of the amazing lyrics. The song was about words, and I remember being delighted by the self-referential nature of this fact: that lyrics (words) were about words themselves. Again, it was not as if the song _reminded_ me of a shape, it actually *had* a shape, and a texture, color, etc. Very powerful. I thought it was Kate, for sure, and was so glad she still had it in her to make amazing and beautiful music (of 7th wave or Dreaming caliber). When the DJ came on, I wrote down "Words werent made for cowards" on the clipboard I keep nearby for just such an emergency, but I didnt catch the name (I guess Happy Rhodes was filtered out as being another song title in her list.) Although I woke enuf to write the song down, I remember laying there right after, going "Could that song have had a shape? Sure. Of course it did. Do all songs?" When I got up the next day, the idea was ludicrous (I think), and I really could not even remember anything specific about the tune or the words, just that meaningless shape,and how beautiful and amazing it was. I had to know more, so asked rec.music.gaffa. This is where yous come in--several ectophiles steered me straight, told me about Happy, and even sent me the FAQ. So I downloaded the lyrics to Warpaint. Immediately, I was sold. I knew it was no dream--the words alone were fabulious! So I sent off for the CD and finally heard Words in a normal state of mind. And guess what? It *_WAS_* beautiful and amazing! I like every single song on the whole album, which almost never happens. Not like, love! Why is she so obscure, with talent far beyond just about anything else on the radio? And FIVE albums, no less. Well, I have already gotten several of my friends hooked, so the flame is catching. Steve (but my friends call me Skaludy) Potter UC Irvine Psychobiology dept. Irvine, CA 92717 spotter@darwin.bio.uci.edu ======================================================================== From: S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk Subject: Les Labeques, sont elles francaises? Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 10:46:04 BST Mitch suggests that Katia & Marielle hail from Montreal. I'd be interested in a reference for this as the Oxford Dictionary of Music assures me that they were born in Bayonne (Katia in 1950 and Marielle two years later) and describes them as a "French piano duo". There is a Bayonne near Biaritz on the Atlantic coast in southwest France near to the border with Spain. Maybe there is also a district of Montreal called Bayonne. Maybe we are talking about two different set of sisters! Pedantic? Yes, it's my middle name. :-) I realise this is of limited interest to the rest of the list, and would have taken it to private Email except that I don't have an up-to-date address for Mitch, please accept my appologies! -- Regards Steve Fagg ( S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk +44-279-402437 ) BNR Europe Ltd., London Road, Harlow, Essex, CM17 9NA, UK *** "Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won't drown". *** ======================================================================== Date: 01 Oct 92 10:40:56 EDT From: MJM Subject: Who's that girl? Um, I caught the last half of Vickie's show last night, in which she played a number of songs all by the same artist. Unfortunately, I managed to miss both the intro and the closing, so I *didn't* catch the name of the group/person. But, I loved the music. So, Vickie, my question is, *who* was that? And, *where* can I get my copy? (It sounded kind of like a Kirsty MacColl meets 10,000 Ms, distilled down to a Mary Margaret O'Hara paste with a touch of Marine Girls realism. Yeah, right.) There was a song about Sharks, which might have been the name of the group, I'm not sure. Today I will endeavour to purchase the new PG and SV. -mjm ======================================================================== Date: 1 October 1992 14:43:48 CDT From: Subject: Miscellaneous platter chatter One of the latent functions of falling asleep on the vaunted nude scene episode of _Civil Wars_ last night was that I woke up hours later, refreshed enough to listen to _Us_. My cat even helped out by staying quiet during the period in question. Others have already given a knock-for-knock analysis of the respec- tive tracks, and probably done it better than I could; so suffice it to say that I found the songs imaginative and fun to listen to. Reproducing a work of art in the booklet for each track was an imaginative touch. Those of us who haven't listened yet have something to look forward to. When it was over, I still had the wherewithal to listen to the EP CD's I got last weekend, and I commend them all to you. _The Guild of Temporal Adventur- ers," by Kendra Smith, is the best of the lot, in the best tradition of the ecto canon. _Slow Dust_, by ex-Throwing Muse Tanya Donnelley's new group Belly , I found perhaps less transfixing, but still pretty good. In a slightly diff- erent vein is _Fan_, by a Detroit garage band called Majesty Crush; it's good, bread-and-butter guitar rock. Chicagoans can find all three at Rave on Clark Street; out-of-towners may be able to find them somewhere else. Today's musical interlude on _Morning Edition_ was devoted to the wider Seattle sound, to which there's more than just grunge rock. Particularly good were a couple of Robin Holcomb's songs that they played, along with interviews with her and others. Personal to Beth: I'll look up which Connie Kaldor tapes I picked up recently. I think one of them is her latest. Meantimes, have you any insight into Steve' s latest query on the Labeques? (There's also a Bayonne in New Jersey, but I doubt if they're from there, notwithstanding anything that's been said about the real native region of Yma Sumac :-).) Speaking of Celtic music: One of the used CD's I found a couple of weeks ago was a solo album by Maire Brennan of Clannad. I haven't heard it yet (natch!), but it must be pretty good. Mitch ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 18:16:21 CST From: kiri Subject: Ecto Cd If I didn't say it before i'll say it now...... Look for the Child is a wonderful wonderful wonderful song!!! I adore it!! It's fast becoming one of my all-time Happy favi's....it's becoming my neighbors favi too since I play it at obnoxious volumes, and over and over... esp. when I pump up my bass and work on developing an ultra groovy bass line to it..hehe kiri - "not vicious or malicious just de-lovely and delicious" deee-lite ======================================================================== From: kyrlidis@athena.mit.edu Subject: Computer noises and CD crashes Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 12:12:20 EDT Hi, What a morning. You walk into your office, and the computer you do all your research on has decided to die. Bigtime. Then you thank God that magnetic storage media exist, and all five years of research are on those tapes too. And then you log on to athena, and complain about it, and wait til the customer support of Kubota get back to you. So what? You ask. Well, I was inspired to write this post, by the noises that came off the squeaking disks that wouldn't tell the computer to boot. Seriously. And the question is: *drum roll* What instrument does all the noise in the first minutes of Gabriel's 'Come talk to me'? Is it the bagpipes? Now I'll rush to the rescue of poor ol' titan. Angelos ======================================================================== From: Martin Dougiamas Subject: Subject. Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 1:45:27 WST Hiya, folks ... greetings from the future (unless you're on digests :) ). I have some good news for those of you who, like me, had quiet little niggly bad feelings about the recent WXPN Happy concert, which was so ably reported by Jessica and others recently... I just talked to Kevin on the phone (Or Kev as his friends call him... really close friends like me call him Ke. :) ) <-- old Alexei Sayle joke. I asked him if he was disappointed about the recent concert, and he said that although technically things went badly, the concert still resulted in lots of new business because of the very able and professional way Happy dealt with the situation... Apparently people realised the faults were not those of our Holy Ghost. A "bittersweet success" he called it. :) The guy should have the same starsign as me in the birthday list. :) He also said they've been REALLY busy lately... apparently they're into production on the new album and only have two (2!) songs to go. Yay! Maybe my 1st4 CDs will get here after No.6 does! :-P Well, back to antipodean life... Martin "wish my thesis was on lying around listening to music" Dougiamas -- ,----------------------------------------------------------------. _ . | Who's been feeding tomatoes to | Martin Dougiamas. | _r| Ll\ | to the cat? | martin@cs.curtin.edu.au | | | \ | I've never seen a vegetarian cat.| Curtin University | \ |_ / | -- Robyn Hitchcock | Perth, Western Australia -+-> x~ `-' `================================================================' V ======================================================================== Subject: Re: Computer noises and CD crashes Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 15:41:23 -0400 From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu >What a morning. You walk into your office, and the computer you do all your >research on has decided to die. Bigtime. Then you thank God that magnetic >storage media exist, and all five years of research are on those tapes too. >And then you log on to athena, and complain about it, and wait til the >customer support of Kubota get back to you. My, what an almost coincidence. My hard drive is a nasty seagate that has a sticky mech--if it loses power for more than a couple of minutes, the platters seize up and the only way to make the hard drive work again is to open the hermetically sealed "DO NOT OPEN ME ON PAIN OF DEATH" panel and crank the beast by hand. I was oh-so-pleased to discover when I got home from work today that we'd lost power at the house and my drive had shut down. What joy! It seems to be working, but I haven't checked yet to see if I lost any data. >What instrument does all the noise in the first minutes of Gabriel's 'Come >talk to me'? Is it the bagpipes? The very first noise on "Come Talk To Me" is *not* bagpipe. The first 2 times I heard the song I thought "synth" but when I listened on headphones last night I realized that it's a guitar. Jeff ======================================================================== 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)