From: owner-ecto-digest To: ecto-digest@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto-digest V2 #108 Reply-To: ecto@nsmx.rutgers.edu Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, 15 May 1995 Volume 02 : Number 108 The Ecto digest is now being generated automatically. Please send problems and questions to: ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: neilg@sfu.ca (Neil K.) Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 03:10:42 -0700 Subject: Spirit of the West live (non Ecto warning) Well I just got back from seeing Spirit of the West in concert with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Quite an odd experience! I'm not sure what to say about it. I feel like writing a mini-review, though, so those uninterested in SotW should hit 'D' now. (I know there's not much ecto content to this, really, but there are a few people on Ecto who might be interested, so please indulge me.... :) For those who don't know the name, Spirit of the West are a local band with quite a loyal following around these parts. They started out 10 years ago as a Celtic folk band but have since hardened their sound to a more rock sound with the addition of electric instruments and the like. And they've harboured this dream of playing with the VSO for a while now. So they finally did it! I'm a bit unsure about the whole concept,though. It seems to me that mixing rock music with classical orchestras can end up with loud bombast (like "Down the Dolce Vita" from peter gabriel's "car" album) or can tread dangerously close to sounding like the Nashville Strings or something. On the whole SotW were closer to the latter at times. The show began with the VSO churning out a few light pops numbers, in a marketing attempt to get more young people going to the VSO I suppose. Stuff like Khatchatourian's Sabre Dance and Saint-Saens Bacchanale and whatnot. The weird thing was that the orchestra was *amplified*. And sounded quite awful. The Orpheum has lousy acoustics to begin with, but orchestras shouldn't be amplified. I felt like I was listening to a giant boombox or something - tons of bass and way too much high end with no midrange - while all these people on stage were pretending to play. Bizarre experience! Then the show began after a break, during which roadies installed clear plastic sound baffles around the drumkit which made it look like the drummer was playing inside a fishtank. The band opened with "Political" with full orchestra, though it was hard to hear the details of the orchestra much of the time... the mix had the vocals and rhythm section pushed up very high. And it was... interesting. The power of the orchestra in the background did lend a pretty potent emotional feel to the material, but it also seemed a bit ponderous sometimes. The numbers in which the band launched into some of their crowd-pleasing hits without an orchestra were a lot livelier... I guess the band was more at ease and felt less tied down. Some numbers worked better than others... Venice is Sinking, with its tuba solo, was quite good. And some of the large assortment of new songs worked reasonably well, though a few trod awfully close to the mire of cheesy strings sometimes . But I never thought I'd hear Home for a Rest and The Crawl - both good ol' Canadian drinking songs - done with a full orchestra! :) There was a cute moment when all the second strings produced beer bottles during The Crawl and pretended to swig... And speaking of cute moments, the highlight of the concert had to be Vince Ditrich, the drummer, emerging from behind the kit in his bulging tux, to sing It's Amore with orchestral accompaniment. :) Living out a lifelong dream, no doubt! He hammed it up to its comic fullest. Anyway, I could ramble on but I think I've said enough. I felt the show was interesting, and a bit self-indulgent, but I also felt like I was sitting in a recording session and that the show was largely set up for the benefit of posterity. It was hard to ignore the video crew swarming around the stage and the big floating camera on a crane that swung back and forth like a pendulum. I was also at the back of the main floor so I could hear the video crew muttering to the camera ops. Hopefully the album (and video) produced from these concerts will be good and mixed in such a way that you'll actually be able to hear things! So musically I don't know if it was a total success, though some of the new songs sound pretty good. But the performance itself was great, and the energy of a hall full of fans was quite something! I've never seen people standing up and dancing during an orchestral concert before! :) Neither have I heard someone say "shit" during one either. I wonder what the orchestra made of it all. Probably just another gig for them, albeit a rather noisy one. Anyhow, I had a great time! :) - Neil - -- Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * nkg@helix.net 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada ------------------------------ From: John and Andrea Stolz Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 11:06:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Jill Sobule Hello! I'm actually new to this group (a non-tech, H Rhodes-loving friend asked me to check it out) so, I hope I'm not overstepping my newbie boundaries when I say the following: I just bought the Jill Sobule album and I think it is excellent. I saw her perform "I Kissed a Girl" on VH1 and thought, "how quirky, I wonder if the whole album is as fresh-sounding." It is. I THINK that the experience, if it was biographical, was a one-time event. At the close of the song she says, "I kissed a girl...and I might do it again!" In another song (Good Person Inside) she refers to her ex as "a dick and a liar." Could be an ex lesbian lover, but my gut tells me no. In Resistance Song she talks about a dream where she was a man and her lover was a woman--perhaps she just has some very fluid ideas on sexuality. :> My analysis, for what it's worth. - --andrea > At around 6:53 PM on 5/12/95, Jerene Waite wrote: > > >>Stephanie was wondering if Jill Souble *was* or *wasn't*... I don't know, > >>she might be bi . . or just writing about it in her song. > > - --=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= Janda@widomaker.com Andrea and John Stolz ------------------------------ From: jwaite@popmail.ucsd.edu (Jerene Waite) Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 12:07:02 -0700 Subject: Re Re Replied Neil K., on Saturday, May 13: >>>Stephanie was wondering if Jill Souble *was* or *wasn't*... I don't know, >>>she might be bi . . or just writing about it in her song. >> >>Do we know for sure that Jill is a *she*? > > The photos on the Atlantic Records promo Web page show a person who looks >generally female, for what it's worth. Yes, "generally . . . for what it's worth" --without chromosomal analysis! ;-> Facetious doesn't always translate via electrons. I guess I was trying to take a thread to an exaggerated extreme to show what I consider it's absurdity. (I do this alot; forgive me.) I believe it is never my business to speculate about someone's sexual orientation unless I am thinking of having sex with him/her/it. - --Jerene - ----------------------------------------------- Cherish the cycle; Freedom in time. --Happy Rhodes - ----------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: veronica sawyer Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 15:38:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: cranberries in boston hi there, this is probably old news but just in case... i heard an announcement for a Cranberries concert in the boston area (at great woods) on august 5th. (i'm not 100% sure about the date but it was definitely early august.) the key part is that tickets just went on sale today, may 13th. anyway, FY(collective)I. hugs and smiles, veronica ------------------------------ From: "Lundgren, Chad" Date: Sat, 13 May 95 09:35:21 CDT Subject: Happy Birthday Steve! 'Lo there, Throwing out the big happy birthday to Steve today! What a great guy! Chad For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us! Chad Lundgren--------->lundgren_c@music.lib.matc.edu 2211 N. Newhall St. ************************************************* Milwaukee, WI 53202 *"Bumbie's mom is...AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" * * -Skippy (Animaniacs) * *HUGS* and *PONGS* ************************************************* for all!!! * "Taz like Dingo" * * -Taz (Taz-Mania) * ************************************************* ------------------------------ From: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 22:10:23 -0700 Subject: Re: the castle aaaaargh! veronica writes: > On Sat, 6 May 1995, Michael C. Berch wrote: > > Does anyone have any information about Sleeper? They appear to be > > from the London area (or at least record there), there's a female > > singer who also appears to write lyrics, > > that's Louise Wener (it is Louise right? i've left the cd at home) and > i think she writes most or all of their songs. they have at least one > album, _Smart_, which is recently out, and there's a single, _inbetweener_. > i *think* there's another single, but could be dreaming again. Aha. I'll have to try one of those WWW CD stores and try to chse it down; the local places do not seem to have anything other than the "Delicious" CD single which came out in '94. > > and they had a couple of songs on US radio in 1993-94. > > have they been on the radio *that* long? wow... i have to get out more. I first heard Sleeper with "Alice in Vain" [vein?] around Christmas '93, on Live 105 in San Francisco, but they may not have gotten much airplay elsewhere; the 105 music director goes on weird disc-buying junkets all over the world, and has people in a whole bunch of countries mailing him stuff, so we *do* get to hear a lot of really eclectic stuff whenever the station managers decide that we're gotten our full ration of Pearl Jam or whomever for the week. > > The songs are sort of punky and feminist and I was completely blown away. > > to my ears they're poppier than Elastica, but oddly enough, i like them > *less* than Elastica. i *do* like them, although when i read interviews > with Louise i can only hope she's pissed out of her mind and doesn't mean > what she says. :) Ooooh, tell! Where/what? Sounds intriguing! - -- Michael mcb@postmodern.com http://www.postmodern.com/ ------------------------------ From: neilg@sfu.ca (Neil K.) Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 02:40:55 -0700 Subject: Odds 'n' Ends Hm. Why does all this stuff happen when I have no money at all and have to resort to returning empty milk bottles while I await my contract payment? Mae Moore's new album "Dragonfly" is out, and it's being promo'd at $12.77. (under $10 US) Her previous albums are also on sale at $12.77 and $9.77 each. Massive loss leader pricing. She's playing town (in a rather gross nightclub) at the end of the month. Jewel is opening for Ani DiFranco tonight and will be back on the 20th and is getting a fair bit of print promotion. (what happened to Kilcher, btw? Warner decided to market her as "Jewel," as a one-name person like Sting or Cher?) Holly Cole is playing at the end of June and the Rankin Family are playing next week. Well... I can *imagine* what these concerts are gonna be like... - Neil K. - -- Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * nkg@helix.net 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada ------------------------------ From: Neal Copperman Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 11:45:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Odds 'n' Ends > Jewel is opening for Ani DiFranco tonight and will be back on the 20th and > is getting a fair bit of print promotion. (what happened to Kilcher, btw? > Warner decided to market her as "Jewel," as a one-name person like Sting or > Cher?) > What a cool show! Wish that would come here. Anyway, Jewel dropped the Kilcher a pretty long time ago, I think about a year and a half ago. I can't remember if it was before or after her first dealings with Atlantic (not Warner), but she had been playing around the coffeehouses as Jewel long before the recording of the album started. I think it just fit easier on the marquee at the Inner Change, which often abreviated it's regulars down to their first names. neal ------------------------------ From: Colin Stuckless Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 14:28:00 -0230 Subject: Re: Odds 'n' Ends On Sun, 14 May 1995, Neil K. wrote: Neil K wrote on the ecto mailing list: > Jewel is opening for Ani DiFranco tonight and will be back on the 20th and > is getting a fair bit of print promotion. (what happened to Kilcher, btw? > Warner decided to market her as "Jewel," as a one-name person like Sting or > Cher?) This was talked about on the CBC radio interview. Jewel explained it like this - when the CD cover for Pieces Of You was made, Kilcher would have taken up the whole area, so just Jewel was put there. It didn't seem like a deliberate attempt at a Madonna/Cher/Sting/etc type of thing. In fact, so said that she hopes she can change that on the next CD, to which the interviewer said "change it back you mean?" and Jewel replied, "it's not even 'back', it just 'is'" (or something to that effect - I'd listen to it again now, but my walkman needs batteries :) Jewel also said because of the single name thing she was beginning to feel like Barbie or something ;) > - Neil K. > > -- > Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * nkg@helix.net > 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada ___________________________________ Colin Stuckless colins@cs.mun.ca Memorial Univeristy of Newfoundland http://www.cs.mun.ca/~colins/ ------------------------------ From: Robert Lovejoy Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 15:45:10 -0400 Subject: Happy confession On Fri, 12 May 95 kcd@romulus.cray.com (Kevin Dekan {x66440 CF/DEV}) said: > So does this > imply that Happy's other albums have a different sound and > feel? And that the versions of the songs on RS are mainly > acoustic renditions much like Sarah McLachlan's "Freedom > Sessions"? What would be a good next album to try out? > Probably "Ecto", huh? ;-) Yes, generally. No, RS has a few acoustic covers but a lot of it is right from the album. They're all really wonderful! I'd go with "Warpaint", but any of them will be rewarding! Happy listening! Robert ------------------------------ From: Damon Harper Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 18:49:26 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: Odds 'n' Ends On Sun, 14 May 1995, Neil K. grociblised: > Mae Moore's new album "Dragonfly" is out, and it's being promo'd at > $12.77. (under $10 US) Her previous albums are also on sale at $12.77 and > $9.77 each. Massive loss leader pricing. She's playing town (in a rather > gross nightclub) at the end of the month. well, neil... i live here, and i have a bit of money, so convince me to buy these albums while i still can! :) (er, what i'm saying is, tell me about mae moore's music - what's it like? i know i've heard her name here in the past, but it was at a time when i didn't really have the time to pay attention, so i never followed up... you know some of my tastes; think i'd like her?) > Jewel is opening for Ani DiFranco tonight and will be back on the 20th and > is getting a fair bit of print promotion. ooh, ooh... a must see... i've still never heard either one of them. umm... are you sure you're not going? (i'm not sure i *can*, but maybe we could arrange something?) see you around :) Damon \__________________________ _____________________________________/ \ _/\_ / Damon_Harper@mindlink.bc.ca __\ /__ "How long 'till my soul gets it right? \ / can any human being ever reach nomad@acca.nmsu.edu |/||\| that kind of light?" Damon_Harper@real.life `' - Indigo Girls, "Galileo" ------------------------------ From: Dan Stark Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 00:33:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Victoria Williams & Jewel concert - Buffalo, NY On Fri, 12 May 1995, Michael J Loftus wrote: > > Just heard about this one: > > Victoria Williams will perform at Network in Buffalo, Ny on > Monday May 22 (that's Victoria Day - how appropriate). > Jewel is the opening act. Tickets are an unbelievably low $9.00. > Call Prime Seats at (716) 847-1688 to order. I'm not sure if > these are available anywhere outside of Buffalo. > > Mike Loftus mjl9466@cs.rit.edu > mloftus@interramp.com > FYI, As posted on the Jewel mailing list: MJ> >Bad news! Victoria Williams has cancelled her May dates that MJ> >Jewel was opening for--except the Buffalo one, but Atlantic MJ> >wont be sending Jewel out for just the one show. Jewel will play some shows in the area later, however. The Hideaway in St. Catharines on June 8, and The Bathurst St. Theater in Toronto June 9. I have the entire June/Early July tour sked here, if anyone wants it let me know, and I can either post it or e-mail it. - ------------------------------- DAN STARK dstark@freenet.niagara.com St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada ------------------------------ From: awphili@xs4all.nl Date: Mon, 15 May 95 11:41:19 Subject: Margot Smith Hi! I have been listening a lot lately to a tape Urs sent me of Margot Smith's _Sleeping with the Lion_, and have grown quite fond of it. It would be very nice to have a more permanent copy of the album on CD, and also to support the artist by buying an official copy. As I understood, this album is not available outside Australia. Is there someone who wants to send me a copy of this album, in return for a CD that is hard to get in Australia? Listening to this album made me wonder if it is true that songs featuring the sound of a thunderstorm tend to be the closing song of an album. I know of three albums that end this way: _Sleeping with the Lion_, Enya's _Watermark_ (not all versions) and Loreena McKennitt's _Elemental_. On the other hand, I can only think of two songs featuring the sound of thunder which are not final songs: Happy's "'Til The Dawn Breaks" and Enya's "Evacuee". Albert ------------------------------ From: justicek@edge.ercnet.com (Kim Justice) Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 10:59:47 -0500 Subject: Re: Margot Smith At 11:41 AM 5/15/95, awphili@xs4all.nl wrote: >. . . made me wonder if it is true that songs featuring >the sound of a thunderstorm tend to be the closing song of an album. A couple of Kit Watkins albums have thunder on songs in the middle: "Thought Tones, Vol. 1", "Circle", and I think also on the new one, "Holographic Tapestries" (but I'd have to check.) Of course, if you enforce an ecto-only policy on this question, you'll have to throw out these entries. kj - -- justicek@edge.ercnet.com (Kim Justice) "Where there's smoke, there's work." -- Firesign Theatre ------------------------------ From: "Mitchell A. Pravatiner" Date: Mon, 15 May 95 14:20:29 EDT Subject: Pleasures of the rotgut? I agree: Happy's Liquor, at least the one near me, has undoubtedly not heard of sake. Sometimes I wonder how downmarket one must go before hitting a potable that they _have_ heard of :-). Perhaps Phil Ochs' "Pleasures of the Harbor" should be considered for inclusion prior to Nanci Griffith's (I think it was) "Leaving the Harbor" in any contemplated segue on the sailing sampler. Be a pity to leave the pleasurable harbor prematurely, IMHO WIVH :-). Mitch ------------------------------ From: jeffy@wam.umd.edu Date: Mon, 15 May 95 14:22:37 -0400 Subject: wotta disgrace I tried to go to the free acoustic cranberries set down on the Mall today. Y'know, I had a *feeling* that something just Wasn't Right [tm] and almost took off before the band arrived. Probably should have. The opening act was a local band, Chisel, which had apparently never performed acoustically before. Unremarkable, other than that they covered one of my fave songs, the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset". I imagine they'd be more interesting in their native environment. Then the cranberries arrived. Sang "Dreaming My Dreams" (lovely!), got about 1/3 of the way into "Linger", and then the show was shut down by the park police. I dunno...maybe things would have quieted down enough for the show to continue, but apparently the band left within a few minutes of the initial shut-down. From what I saw, there wasn't *that* much going on. Apparently some folks were moshing up front and maybe rushing the stage a bit. After it was announced that the band had left, I got the hell out as fast as I could. I heard on the radio on the way home that, while there wasn't a riot, a lot of folks were throwing stuff on the stage (beer bottles, rocks, etc) rather than dispersing, but eventually it started to clear out. And apparently Dolores' custom guitar was stolen... All in all, *quite* a disappointment. It wouldn't have been that great a show anyway -- despite being fairly close to the sound board, the sound was pretty shitty. Still, Dolore's voice sounded great and the song and a half were a nice treat. They don't know how many people showed up for this free show which was just announced about a week ago, but they guess it was somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000. Yeesh. Jeff |Jeffrey C. Burka | "When I look in the mirror, I see a little clearer/ | | | I am what I am and you are you too./ Do you like | |jeffy@wam.umd.edu | what you see? Do you like yourself?" --N. Cherry | ------------------------------ From: pearceja@wl.wpafb.af.mil Date: Mon, 15 May 95 14:28:33 -0400 Subject: Jewel on Conan I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M Date: 15-May-1995 02:22pm EDT From: Lt Jeffrey A. Pearce PEARCEJA Dept: POPS Tel No: 52089 TO: Remote MILNET Mail ( _DDN[ecto@nsmx.rutgers.edu] ) Subject: Jewel on Conan According to the the TV Tonite homepage (http://metaverse.com/vibe/tv.html) Jewel is appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien tonight. Thought some of you might be interested. Jeff pearceja@wl.wpafb.af.mil ------------------------------ From: Neal Copperman Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 15:39:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Cranberries debacle Well, I recently returned from the free Cranberries show on the Mall in DC. It was a total disaster. The only thing I can imagine is that the sponsoring radio station, for reasons unknown, thought only a few hundred people would show up, rather than the many thousands who did. The stage is in a small wooded lot, south of the Washington Monument, and the crowds filled up the entire section between. I got there pretty late, and missed the opening local band. From my vantage point, about 3/4 of the way from the stage to the monument, I was able to see occasional glimpses of Dolores' head and every once in a while, a seated guitar player. The sound system would have been adequate for a few hundred people, but the sound was virtually inaudible for the larger crowd. Since the Cranberries are going to be in NYC tonight, they announced they would only play a few songs before leaving. First was one I was unfamiliar with, but then again, I could hardly hear it. What little I heard sounded almost exactly like Sinead. Next up was a very restrained minute of linger, before the police came out and said if the crowd didn't spread out more, the show would be shut down. Well, that didn't generate any crowd response, so after about 5 minutes of milling, radio personalities (who have been trained to say the name of the radio station every 5 words) attempted to ease things up. "Hey, this is Rob from HFS, that's right Rob, from HFS. If you want the band to come back, you'll have to be HFS cool. So, please be HFS Cool, Ok?" After a while of that with no response, they went away. About 10 minutes later, they announced that the Cranberries had left, and we should all try to leave in a sort of orderly manner, oh, and by the way, we here at HFS will be bringing you lots more concerts throughout the summer, and hopefully we'll get some more of these bugs worked out. THen about half the crowd started to leave, while the remaining half proceeded to do all the things they really came to a concert for, which is throwing things and stage diving. Egged on by many, people jumped off concession stands and scaffolding onto the packed crowd. That's about where I felt embaressed having anything to do with those people, and left, after a brief attempt to rally a crowd into tipping the Washington Monument over in protest of, well, whatever. On the drive back to work, I heard what changed the concert from an embaressment to a disaster, which was that someone stole Dolores' custom-made guitar. So now the radio station is offering a reward for it. I'm sure they will have fond memories of their visit to Washington to carry with them for a long time. Oddly enough, on the opposite end of the mall, in celebration of National Peacekeepers week, there were probably a similar size gathering of police officers from all over the country. Neal ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V2 #108 ************************** ======================================================================== Please send any questions or comments about the list to ecto-owner@nsmx.rutgers.edu