From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V4 #248 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, July 27 1998 Volume 04 : Number 248 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view ["Joanna M. Phillips"] Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view ["Joanna M. Phillips"] Today's your birthday, friends... [Mike Matthews ] Re: Samson Site / Holly Cole [Rolf.Peukert@theoinf.tu-ilmenau.de (Rolf Pe] Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view ["Xenu's Sister" ] Re: Lucinda and Thelonius Monk [Valerie Kraemer ] Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view [dsr@mail.lns.cornell] Re: Samson Site / Holly Cole ["Joseph S. Zitt" ] Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view [larnep@pathfinder.co] Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view [ken@engr.st.3com.com] Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view ["Kevin Pease" ] Denver Lilith Fair ticket for sale [KBolin0418@aol.com] Rock On TV This Week (selected information) [Riphug@aol.com] New Releases for July 28th [Riphug@aol.com] Re: Math Rock & St. Francis. [jjh969@juno.com] The 'problem' with Samson's home page [Phil Sainty Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view > From: Joseph Zitt > To: Andrew Fries > Cc: ecto@smoe.org > Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view > Date: Monday, July 27, 1998 1:19 AM (snip) > Clicking on that led me to the graphically obese menu page. > (And while there are ALT tags on the graphics, IE4 does not display > them in the graphics boxes while waiting for the graphics to load, > but only uses them in mouseovers.) This is a bit off-topic, but yet not: I feel I have to defend IE4 here. I have alt tags on most of my graphics on my site. If you go there with IE4, you will see them in the graphics boxes while you wait for the pics to load. This leads me to wonder if it's how the HTML is written? I have done my pages with FrontPage Express (earlier on) and FrontPage98. (yes, I don't really know how to write HTML...but FrontPage must be doing something right) fleur - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Joanna M. Phillips | "The magic we imagined as children does exist and fleur@one.net | the power to access it is within each of us." | --Amanda Pike - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://w3.one.net/~fleur/ <*> The Mouse House ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 02:07:29 -0400 From: "Joanna M. Phillips" Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view > From: Joanna M. Phillips > To: Ecto > Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view > Date: Monday, July 27, 1998 2:01 AM > > > From: Joseph Zitt > > To: Andrew Fries > > Cc: ecto@smoe.org > > Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view > > Date: Monday, July 27, 1998 1:19 AM > (snip) > > Clicking on that led me to the graphically obese menu page. > > (And while there are ALT tags on the graphics, IE4 does not display > > them in the graphics boxes while waiting for the graphics to load, > > but only uses them in mouseovers.) > > This is a bit off-topic, but yet not: I feel I have to defend IE4 here. I > have alt tags on most of my graphics on my site. If you go there with IE4, > you will see them in the graphics boxes while you wait for the pics to > load. This leads me to wonder if it's how the HTML is written? I have done > my pages with FrontPage Express (earlier on) and FrontPage98. (yes, I don't > really know how to write HTML...but FrontPage must be doing something > right) Whoa-ho-ho-ho, stop the car! I just went to Samson's Happy page and the alt tags show up in the graphics boxes for me just fine (this is while waiting for the graphics to load). I am using IE4. So I wonder if it's something in the settings for IE4 that a person can toggle? fleur ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 03:00:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Matthews Subject: Today's your birthday, friends... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ******************** Alvin Brattli (alvin@mack.uit.no) ******************** ****************** Christy Eger Smith (no Email address) ****************** *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Alvin Brattli Sun July 27 1969 Lefthanded Christy Eger Smith Thu July 27 1944 Horse Crossing woj Sun July 28 1968 children at play John Relph Sat July 28 1962 Leo Bob Kollmeyer Wed July 28 1971 Leo Steve Lusky Tue July 29 1952 Bike! Kate Bush Wed July 30 1958 God Chuck Smith Wed July 30 1958 Reboot Yves Denneulin Fri July 30 1971 Lion-Heart Joel Kenyon Wed July 31 1963 Leo Eli Brandt Sun August 05 1900 Leo Martin Bridges Sat August 08 1970 BigGuy Happy Rhodes Mon August 09 1965 HolyGhost Michael Stevens Sat August 12 1967 For Sale or Lease Vickie Mapes Wed August 15 1956 WretchAwry Martin Dougiamas Wed August 20 1969 Positive Tori Amos Thu August 22 1963 Leo Sam Warren Tue August 22 1961 Leo Henk Van Wulpen Sat August 22 1970 Leo Kerry White Wed August 22 1951 Exact Leo/Virgo Don Gibson Wed August 26 1959 Virgo - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 98 10:45:36 +0200 From: Rolf.Peukert@theoinf.tu-ilmenau.de (Rolf Peukert) Subject: Re: Samson Site / Holly Cole The Samson Music site was changed sometime during last week (!?). Now there's a clickable image in the entry page that leads to the home page, where "Rhodes" is now spelt correctly. -> now it's accessible with Netscape under Linux (Java, -script and images off). A few photos from the Veda Hille/Holly Cole gig are available now at http://maui.theoinf.tu-ilmenau.de/~peukert/music/wuerselen.html (don't bookmark this page, it won't be there for long) ciao, Rolf ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 04:27:52 -0500 From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view At 02:02 PM 7/27/98 +1000, Andrew Fries wrote: >In a message "Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view" on >26/Jul/1998 22:15:36 Xenu's Sister says: > >> There is *N-O R-E-A-S-O-N* for Shockwave/ >> Java/Active X or whatever else fancy program to be used on the >> opening page. > >Amen to that. However I'm left scratching my head trying to see why Vickie has >so much trouble with that particular page. It displays perfectly fine on my >system and while I use Netscape 4 I never installed Shockwave and since I use a >Mac, I certainly don't have Active X. Yet the page in question works for me >just fine - it just displays a graphic that acts as a link... no problem! So >Vickie, even if what they did doesn't work on your particular set-up, it seems >to me that they *are* trying to do the right thing from the design point of >view... No. No they're not. Not yet anyway. They're doing the right thing from your point of view, but definitely not from a design point of view. I'm still optimistic that it'll happen, but if it doesn't, it's Samson's and Happy's loss, as well as the people who *won't* get the information they might want or need. Honestly, isn't that obvious? >Tell them it doesn't work for you, by all means, They know it doesn't work for me. They know it doesn't work for a lot of people. They're doing some things very right (alts, yes!!) and I give them credit, but nothing will matter until they fix the opening page (and any inside pages that need it) so that the site works as an easy conduit for information for everybody who goes there. > but is all this anger really necessary? Huh? I'm not angry. I said that. I said that I was frustrated, and I am. They're not the same thing. I was very offended that I was called a whiner, but being offended and being angry are still not the same thing. Ecto has never seen me really angry. (Gaffa has!) >Personally I thought the Samson site looks quite good, and I especially >appreciated them providing sound samples in both Real Audio and mp3... I'm glad it works for you, I truly am. I speak for those who *can't* see it. I'm not the only one. Vickie DIVX = GREED - Boycott Circuit City! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 04:37:19 -0500 From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view Thanks to Joe and Steve for understanding what I'm concerned about. (And to Joe for trying it out too and letting everyone know that I'm not a raving looney, with a broken browser to boot.) At 02:07 AM 7/27/98 -0400, Joanna M. Phillips wrote: >Whoa-ho-ho-ho, stop the car! I just went to Samson's Happy page and the alt >tags show up in the graphics boxes for me just fine (this is while waiting >for the graphics to load). Do you, as a rule, always wait for every graphic to show up, or do you click on the alt and go to where the information you want is? Not just at Samson, but any web page you visit? >I am using IE4. So I wonder if it's something in >the settings for IE4 that a person can toggle? My browser is as it was installed, with the exceptions: "Launch browser in full screen window" - is turned on "Underline Links" - Never "Cookies" - Prompt before accepting cookies Also, I'm going through a proxy server since we have a network in our home, but that shouldn't matter because Joe got the same results I did. And besides, I'm not the only one who has had problems getting in, then moving around after entering. Other people not using IE4 have had problems. Even if it were just as simple as changing an Option, really, how many non-geeks ever actually look at the Options menu? How many non-geeks actually bother with Plug-ins or anything over and above clicking their mouse or typing in a URL? (Yes there are "non-geeks" who do these things, but I'm talking about the majority of regular folks). The point is, a site's information should be accessible to everybody who goes there, no matter what computer and browser they're using. Vickie Lisa McPherson Memorial Page http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/lisa.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 07:14:23 -0400 (EDT) From: jason and jill Subject: Re: Samson Site / Holly Cole > The Samson Music site was changed sometime during last week (!?). > Now there's a clickable image in the entry page that leads to the > home page, where "Rhodes" is now spelt correctly. -> now it's > accessible with Netscape under Linux (Java, -script and images off). I just read the frigging side with lynx, for god's sake, so how exclusive can the thing be? THen with Netscape on a linux system...no request to load shockwave, first page took a second or two on a shitty 28.8 modem that couldn't make a 28.8 connection to save its life, clicking on the first page image lead to the main page, which took 3-5 seconds to load. The first Happy page had a little more graphics, but still no bigee, and none had to be loaded to access any of the info, which, remember, I could access with lynx. Maybe they changed the page overnight. Either way, not exactly the subject for several days of long rants... Jason ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 08:14:38 -0400 From: Valerie Kraemer Subject: Re: Lucinda and Thelonius Monk Richard wrote: > I also have to say that I'm a bit surprised at the total lack of > attention here to what may be one of The Albums Of The Year by a female > artist, Lucinda Williams' _Car Wheels On A Gravel Road_. I agree with Richard. I haven't had Lucinda's new CD off the player since it came out. I've been a big fan of hers for many years. For those who like the new CD, you might also check out her previous release _Sweet Old World_. Many of the songs on this release were written in response to her brother's death after a very troubled life. It is a truly powerful work. I was dismayed a couple of years ago when the New York Times came out with a particularly nasty article about Lucinda because of the long period of time between that CD and her new release. They said that she was being neurotic and overly perfectionistic while working on the new recording. In this past week's Times, there was an article about the long period of time between releases by Dr. Dre, Trent Reznor and Axl Rose. Neil Strauss of the Times explained these lapses by saying that the artists were deeply involved in exploring new musical directions. Double standard?? > Yes, she's not > technically Ecto, but she DID share a stage with the other Williams > girls last year, Dar and Victoria, at a Rolling Stone event at The > Troubador, and she contributed a track to _Sweet Relief_ , the Victoria > Williams benefit CD. Having been born a Williams, I've been amused at the number of contemporary female singers with the same name, although of course there are a zillion Williams's in the country. My Williams relatives are all very musical in a Southern, four-part harmony, gospel singing way. One of my cousins has made a very successful career as a Nashville songwriter. Re: Recent discussion of Thelonius Monk and "The Loneliest Monk": Another CD I've been playing a lot this summer is _What Did He Say?_ by Victor Wooten, the bassist for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Again, it isn't Ecto, but good. The music is jazzy/funky and the lyrics are very, very clever. One of the songs is "The Loneliest Monk" with a small sample of Monk's piano playing during the course of the song. - --Valerie Williams Kraemer "He uses chopsticks to eat ice cream." Victor Wooten, "The Loneliest Monk" ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jul 1998 09:28:41 -0400 From: dsr@mail.lns.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view Andrew Fries writes: > Amen to that. However I'm left scratching my head trying to see why > Vickie has so much trouble with that particular page. There's a whole bunch of conditional code in the samson front page that changes the behavior of the page depending on what features the browser supports. The key one is this: //If this browser understands the mimeTypes property and recognizes //the MIME Type "application/futuresplash"... if (navigator.mimeTypes && navigator.mimeTypes["application/futuresplash"]){ which tests to see if the browser claims to understand the document type "application/futuresplash". If it it does, all you get is the embedded shockwave plugin (regardless of whether you have the player or not). You only get the jpeg link to home.htm if your browser has no clue about "application/futuresplash", doesn't support javascript, or doesn't support the entity. Result: puzzling behavior that depends on the browser used and its configuration. > even if what they did doesn't work on your particular set-up, it > seems to me that they *are* trying to do the right thing from the > design point of view... What they are doing strikes me as excessively fragile, but I'm known to be way out of step with modern web page "design". - -- Dan Riley dsr@mail.lns.cornell.edu Wilson Lab, Cornell University "History teaches us that days like this are best spent in bed" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 08:43:54 -0500 (CDT) From: "Joseph S. Zitt" Subject: Re: Samson Site / Holly Cole On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, jason and jill wrote: > I just read the frigging side with lynx, for god's sake, so how exclusive > can the thing be? > > THen with Netscape on a linux system...no request to load shockwave, first > page took a second or two on a shitty 28.8 modem that couldn't make a 28.8 > connection to save its life, clicking on the first page image lead to the > main page, which took 3-5 seconds to load. In other, less technical terms, "Let them eat cake." That you were able to load it is commendable. However, that doesn't change Vickie's or my experience. However, using an unaltered, out-of-the-box IE4, which is the way that, for better or worse, a huge and growing percentage of Net users access the Web, I got nothing. In looking closely at the code, I think I see where it broke: While a tag follows the image code, there is no preceding it. I would think that it would be the responsibility of a Web designer to do at least a little consistency check in the code. > Either way, not exactly the subject for several days of long rants... We'll only bring it up until it's fixed. Either way, not exactly the subject for derisive dismissal. - - ---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------- |||/ Joseph Zitt ===== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \||| ||/ Maryland? = <*> SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List <*> = ecto \|| |/ http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt ====== Comma: Voices of New Music \| ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 10:22:46 -0400 (EDT) From: larnep@pathfinder.com Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view For what it's worth, the Samson designers did the right thing with their home page... in theory. Their page says, in effect: "Show the user this shockwave. If they can't see it, show them this picture. If they can't see the picture, show them this text." This is exactly how the WWW Consortium specifies that documents should downgrade. 10 points for the Samson designer for following the current HTML specs. However, the difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference, but in practice there is. Many browsers do not correctly handle this downgrade, and in particular it seems that some versions of IE and Netscape don't make the distinction between not being able to display a plug in, and CHOOSING not to have it. It seems that these browsers say to themselves "Oh, look a plug in. Yup, I can handle that, so I'm not going to bother with the image or the text. Whoops, don't have this installed yet, better ask the user for it. What, they don't want it? Well, here's a blank screen." Minus several hundred points for the Samson designers for not doing sufficient cross-browser testing. Minus several million points to the manufacturers of these browsers for deciding they know what is best for users. Since I first looked at the page, Samson has tried to fix the problem by adding some JavaScript to determine if they shockwave option should be sent at all. Unfortunately this solves the wrong problem. It handles older browsers that can not handle the way they send the shockwave, but still does not address people who just plain don't want it. (Or folks like me, on Unix. Unfortunately the Unix version of IE and Netscape don't realize that none of these plugins exist for Unix). And since JavaScript is notoriously buggy, this 'fix' has probably introduced several new bugs. By the way, this is also why the page does work in Lynx. I bet it works in Opera as well (it sort of works, with some interesting glitches, in Arena and Hotjava). Lynx is a solid, well thought-out, HTML compliant browser. Microsoft and Netscape are too busy trying to be incompatible with each other and establish dominance to worry about actually meeting the needs of their users. Every time I think about the potential of the web, and what these two companies have done to ruin it in the name of furthering their own glory, I alternately get furious and cry like a schoolgirl with her first broken heart. Well, that was my Monday morning web rant. I hope you enjoyed it. Back to music: am I the only one here who's pantheon would include Siouxsie Sioux? - Larne ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 98 10:37:22 EDT From: ken@engr.st.3com.com (Ken Descoteaux) Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view > > Result: puzzling behavior that depends on the browser used and its > configuration. > > > even if what they did doesn't work on your particular set-up, it > > seems to me that they *are* trying to do the right thing from the > > design point of view... > > What they are doing strikes me as excessively fragile, but I'm known > to be way out of step with modern web page "design". If no two people can agree on how the web page behaves, then that would certainly support the claim of fragility. Now if people want to see how a big record company screws up their web site, try visiting EMI. There is no (as far as I can tell) umbrella web site. Instead each division has their own web site. Each different. Most top level URLs unguessable. And God forbid you don't know which division your favorite EMI artist is signed with. Some divisions seem to only be listed "featured artists". This is obviously a company without a plan. Fractured into fiefdoms. They should grab a clue and visit someone like Sony. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 10:52:12 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" <kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net> Subject: Re: THE SAMSON SITE...... a different point of view >>Andrew Fries writes: >Amen to that. However I'm left scratching my head trying to see why Vickie has >so much trouble with that particular page. It displays perfectly fine on my >system and while I use Netscape 4 I never installed Shockwave and since I use a >Mac, I certainly don't have Active X. Yet the page in question works for me >just fine - it just displays a graphic that acts as a link... no problem! So >Vickie, even if what they did doesn't work on your particular set-up, it seems >to me that they *are* trying to do the right thing from the design point of >view... Tell them it doesn't work for you, by all means, but is all this anger >really necessary? I'm using IE4... first time I tried to load it, I got: "Your current security settings prohibit ActiveX controls from being run. This page may not display properly." So, I went into my Internet Options, and changed my security to "Low", which did away with this warning. I then tried to reload the page, and was presented with the option to download "fsplash" or something like that as a plug in. I did, and was still presented with a blank white screen (no links) after the download. Refresh just left me with a blank screen, too. Luckily for me, I was able to pull up the document source (right-click, view source), and figure out that the ultimate goal of that page was to get me to a page called "home.htm"; I typed that URL in, and voila! I was in. That's a lot of hassle to go through just to read a music company's web page. Most "regular" (read: non-html-&script-literate) users probably wouldn't be able to figure that out... I have a nearly standard IE4 setup on my machine, too. From a "design point of view", their page is certainly not well-designed. From a "good design" standpoint for a company, whose goal is to make money and distribute information about their product as widely as possible in order to make more money- You don't put multimedia content on your opening page; You don't use "Netscape4-only" or "IE4-only" tags; You offer the option for a "text only" version of your pages. (Not everybody has a fast, or even graphical, web browser... I had to use Lynx quite frequently when I was using the terminals at my school... if you're not on an X-Windows machine, unix don't do graphics.) You make your first page offer these choices, or AT LEAST, you offer an alternate way into the site, either by a redirect, or by saying "Click here to enter." That's good design. If people can't get into your web site, what's the point in spending the money to put it up? I wouldn't call it anger... I would call it frustration. There are plenty of books out there on good user interface designs... it's not hard to find one and read it, and follow the guidelines in it, at least loosely. Once I was into the site, yes, the graphics are slick, and it looks nice, and there's a lot of good info. But it took me 10 minutes to figure out a way to get into the site... how many people do you think are going to spend that much time? Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "Well if I were an angel, I could fly over Jordan, and I wouldn't need no Greyhound to save my soul, but maybe that's a good thing, 'cause I'll be home before I know it, And if I was an angel, I'd have a long way to go..." --(Matraca Berg)-- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 11:12:35 -0400 From: "Tom Ditto" <ditto@taconic.net> Subject: re: Samson site Flamers unite! You have nothing to lose but your oxy-acetylene. Notwithstanding that I'm red-headed and likely to flame at any time, I don't think it hurts for Ectophiles to alert Samson to flaws in their site. Samson is a business. They are not excused for any shortcomings, because they PAY people to put up web sites. When the amateurs are running circles around the professionals, it's time for the professionals to shape up. Any textbook on webage will say that rule No. 1 is to make the first page simple. Reserve those animations for deeper down and give the user an option to access them. This allows everyone through the front door while still permitting those with full blown and functional computer systems to take advantage of all their privately owned whistles and bells. Yes, I personally had no problem getting into the Samson site with a Pentium Pro running Netscape Communicator sporting the Shockwave plug-in, but I could have looked at the animation AFTER I got in the door. Here's another Samson web page problem - Visibility. I note that HotBot returns 576 Happy Rhodes items. Happy Rhodes AND Samson return six, none of which are the Samson site. Clearly the Samson web people also need to make a publicity effort. Happy Rhodes AND Worlds returns no link to Samson, although it does bring in 47 mostly unrelated sites. Many Worlds Are Born Tonight (Exact Phrase) yields exactly one (http://www.smoe.org/lists/ecto/v04.n093) period. I've only got time for HotBot right now, but I think this is revealing. Any other surfers out there want to sample the waves? One more flame. I am not one of those cheering the giveaway mouse pads for "highly placed executives." This makes my blood boil. Take that $2500 and spend it on Happy's tour or by paying a real hacker to launch the web site. Any musician can be represented by a mouse pad. I'm sure Spice Girls mouse pads are quite an item to behold, but it says nothing about the music. I repeat what I heard directly from the lips of Ms. Rhodes, "It's the music." That's a pretty simple instruction, IMHO. Tom ditto@taconic.net "Do you copy? Over" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 12:04:41 EDT From: KBolin0418@aol.com Subject: Denver Lilith Fair ticket for sale Aug. 23rd, Fiddlers Green Amph., Denver. The line-up is: Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, Paula Cole, Joan Osborne, Cowboy Junkies, Lisa Loeb, Patty Griffin, Mary Lou Lord, Neko Case, Nina Storey, Joan Jones, Kristin Hersh. The seat is Sec. 1, Row DD, Seat 137. This ticket cost $60 on my Visa but I will take whatever I can get for it if anyone is interested! Thanks, Karen ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 12:37:04 EDT From: Riphug@aol.com Subject: Rock On TV This Week (selected information) From www.rockontv.com: All times are EST: <<MONDAY, July 27th 5:30 pm CNN Showbiz Today singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams talks about her new album, "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" 6:00 pm VH1 Women First: Lilith #1 videos by Lilith Fair artists including Natalie Merchant ("Carnival"), Bonnie Raitt ("One Belief Away"), Meredith Brooks ("Bitch") and Paula Cole ("Where Have All the Cowboys Gone") 11:00 pm MTV FANatic fans are yanked out of their daily life to interview their favorite stars; this episode features: TBA 11:35 pm CBS David Letterman musical guest Tori Amos performs her new single "Jackie's Strength" TUESDAY, July 28th 2:00 pm MM VideoFlow interview with the Barenaked Ladies (also airs on Much USA) 5:30 pm CNN Showbiz Today in a taped interview, Irish siblings The Corrs discuss their new album, "Talk On Corners"; various celebrities talk about their memories of attending their first concert 1:00 am VH1 Road To Fame: Paula Cole for VH1 Save The Music various clips from Paula Cole's past that document the importance of music throughout her life; features old home videos of her high school plays and interviews with Cole and her teachers; VH1's Save The Music campaign is also highlighted in the show WEDNESDAY, July 29th 2:00 pm MM VideoFlow interview with Neil Finn (also airs on Much USA) 11:35 pm CBS David Letterman musical guest: the Barenaked Ladies THURSDAY, July 30th 10:00 pm MTV Celebrity Death Match claymation fantasy bouts featuring John Popper vs. Fiona Apple; Christopher Walken vs. Gary Oldham; and Garth Brooks vs. Marilyn Manson (featuring Hanson) 12:35 am NBC Conan O'Brien musical guest: Morcheeba (originally aired 05/07/98) FRIDAY, July 31st 9:00 am SYN Regis & Kathie Lee singer Tori Amos performs "Jackie's Strength"; singer Larry Gatlin discusses his new book SATURDAY, August 1st 11:00 pm SYN Sessions at West 54th taped performances by Beck and Ben Folds Five (rerun; air date & time may vary; check local listings!) 12:00 am CNN World Beat a look at Lilith Fair >> ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 12:52:31 EDT From: Riphug@aol.com Subject: New Releases for July 28th ROCK & POP: 12 Rods Split Personalities (V2) A-G-2-A-KE Mil Ticket (Noo Trybe/Virgin) Mary J. Blige Live (MCA) Bomb 20 Field Manual (Digital Hardcore) Adam Cohen (Leonard Cohen's son) Vague Assumption (Columbia) Consumed Breakfast at Pappa's (Fat Wreck Chords) Crimpshrine Sound of a New World Being Born (Lookout) Tami Davis Only You (Red Ant/Mercury) Delinquent Habits Here Come the Horns (RCA) Des'ree Supernatural (550 Music) Dreams Come True Sing or Die (Japanese pop) (Virgin) E.A.R. Beyond the Pale (Big Cat/V2) Echobelly Lustra (Epic) EOL Elements of Life (RCA) Esperanza They Don't Understand Me (LaFace/Arista) Explorers Club The Age of Impact (w/Steve Howe, Terry Bozzio, John Petrucci, Billy Sheehan and John Wetton guesting) (Magna Carta) Fa Sho Fa Sho (Universal) Fear Factory Obsolete (Roadrunner) Freak Nasty Dowhatchafeel (Power/Roadrunner) Gearwhore Drive (Astralwerks) Grandaddy Under the Western Freeway (V2) Tami Hert Hert So Good (550 Music) The Hollowbodies Viva La Dregs (Polydor/A&M) Icos At the Speed of Light (Slipdisc/Mercury) In Ruins Four Seasons of Grey (Metal Blade) Indo G Angel Dust (Relativity) Inner Circle Speak My Language (Republic/Universal) Joydrop Metasexual (Tommy Boy) Labyrinth Return to Heaven Denied (Metal Blade) M.O.P. First Family 4 Lif (Relativity) Mad Caddies Mad Caddies (Fat Wreck Chords) Mayfield 4 Fallout (Laundry Room) Mount McKinleys The Indescribable High Rise Sounds (Pittsburgh garage/surf/psychedelic band) (Get Hip) Myron Destiny (Island Black Music) Neatbeats Far and Near (garage rock from Tokyo) (Get Hip) Rah/Sun It's Not a Game (550 Music) Razzels Razzels (pop-punk from Rochester, NY) (Get Hip) The Samples Here and Somewhere Else (W.A.R.?) Skull Duggery These Evil Streets (Tommy Boy) Sloan Navy Blues (murderecords) Spearmint Songs for the Colour Yellow (Tim/Kerr) Straight Faced Conditioned (Epitaph) Twelvetrees Boy on a Cloud (Dubbly/Mercury) Gillian Welch Gillian Welch (Almo Sounds/Interscope) Lari White Stepping Stone (Lyric Street/Hollywood) Yankee B Mucho Dinero (Gee Street/V2) OST Snake Eyes (Brian DePalma film starring Nicolas Cage) (Hollywood) OST The Negotiator (film stars Samuel Jackson and Kevin Spacey; score by Graeme Revell) (Restless) FROM THE VAULTS: Aggregation Mind Odyssey (w/bonus tracks) (Sundazed) Bay City Rollers Bay City Rollers (w/five bonus tracks) (Varèse Vintage) Brand New Unit Diddley Squat (Creativeman Disc) Chaos UK Enough to Make You Sick (Creativeman Disc) Climax Blues Band A Lot of Bottle, Gold Plated and The Stamp Album (Plum) Clique Clique (from 1970; w/six bonus tracks) (Varèse Vintage) Nat King Cole The Greatest Hits (gold disc) (DCC) Marshall Crenshaw The Nine-Volt Years: Battery-Powered Home Demos and Curios (ICE #136) (Razor & Tie) Culture Club VH1 Storytellers - Greatest Hits (Virgin) Doctor Explosion The Subnormal Revolution of (best of their two Spanish releases) (Get Hip) The Donnas The Donnas (Lookout) Peter Frampton Frampton Comes Alive (two LPs on one CD) and Frampton (A&M) Aretha Franklin One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism (remastered) (Arista) The Free Design Kites Are Fun - The Best of (w/bonus track "You Are My Lover" from lead singer Chris Dedrick's unreleased solo album) (Varèse Vintage) Earl Grant Singin' and Swingin': The Best of (MCA) Jan Hammer & Neal Schon No More Lies: The Best of (collection of their two albums Here to Stay and Untold Passion) (Razor & Tie) Hot Tuna The Best of (two-CD set; w/previously unreleased track "Rock Me Baby") (RCA) Jermaine Jackson Definitive Collection (remastered) (Arista) Waylon Jennings Folk Country (his first album from 1966) (Razor & Tie) Kashif Definitive Collection (remastered) (Arista) Kennelmus Kennelmus (Sundazed) B.B. King Live in Japan (MCA) Patti Labelle I'm in Love Again (Philly/Right Stuff) Liberace Lounging with Lee (Hip-O) Next Morning Next Morning (Sundazed) The O'Jays So Full of Love (Philly/Right Stuff) Teddy Pendergrass TP (Philly/Right Stuff) Elvis Presley A Touch of Platinum Vol. 2 (two-CD set) (RCA) Lou Rawls All Things in Time (Philly/Right Stuff) Sex Pistols Back and There Again (four-CD box set; ICE #136) and The Swindle Continues (Creativeman Disc) Nina Simone The Very Best of (two-CD set; ICE #136) (RCA) Smartbomb Ca Smartbomb Ca (Creativeman Disc) The Sons of Champlin (w/Chicago keyboardist Bill Champlin) Live (Grateful Dead Records) Twentieth Century Zoo Thunder on a Clear Day (w/bonus tracks) (Sundazed) Vanilla Fudge Near the Beginning, Renaissance, Rock `N' Roll and The Beat Goes On (all w/bonus tracks) (Sundazed) VA Baggys, Heavies & Honeys: The Essential Surf Compilation (w/The Frogmen, The Trashmen, Dick Dale, et al.) (Fuel 2000) VA Oliver Stone Collection (Hip-O) VA Sunshine Days: Pop Classics of the '60s Vols. 4 & 5 (two separate discs) (Varèse Vintage) VA UB40's Jukebox (ICE #136) (Fuel 2000) OST Virus (Hip-O) COUNTRY: Diamond Rio - Unbelievable (Arista) Lari White - Stepping Stone (Lyric Street) Billy Joe Royal - The Royal Collection (Intersound) JAZZ: Eliane Elias - Sings Jobim (Blue Note) Joe Lovano - Trio Fascination Edition One (Blue Note) Kurt Elling - This Time It's Love (Blue Note) Don Byron - Nu Blaxploitation (Blue Note) JAZZ - FROM THE VAULTS: Erroll Garner - Campus Concerts (Telarc Jazz) Stan Kenton - Conducts the Neophonic Orchestra (Capitol Jazz) Buddy Rich - The New One (Pacific Jazz/Blue Note) Don Ellis - Live at the Monterrey Jazz Festival (Pacific Jazz/Blue Note) Duke Pearson - Introducing the Duke Pearson Big Band (Blue Note) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 13:08:48 -0400 From: jjh969@juno.com Subject: Re: Math Rock & St. Francis. Nick Didkovsky of Doctor Nerve ( a math teacher from the Bronx who occasionally performed in the late eighties at the Knitting Factory) experimented with Math Rock. Some of his computer pieces were generated by "DrNerve.hmsl", a program written by Didkovsky in Hierarchical Music Specification Language. Some of the more interesting pieces were as a result of his using formulas relating to fractal geometry as a baseline input or catalyst. The results (some of them) were strangely reminiscent of late Zappa midi works. Zappa is the "Holy Ghost" in my pantheon. I also like to think of him as Saint Francis, Patron Saint of Electric Guitarists. John On Sat, 25 Jul 1998 10:41:55 -0400 (EDT) "Donald G. Keller" <dgk@genie.idt.net> writes: >I have the greatest respect for Chris Butler, and the one and only Tin > >Huey album is an oddball masterpiece which--a musical crime--is not >available on CD...but to say that Mr. Butler "invented math rock" is >to >stretch things a bit. > >I heard Tin Huey's album when it first came out...and even then, great >as >it was, =it wasn't something I'd never heard before=. > >Let's focus on that moment (1979, I believe--I don't have my copy of >the LP >handy). Pere Ubu's =Dub Housing= (also by a group of Ohio musicians, >by >the way), an even greater album in the same vein, came out in 1978. >Captain >Beefheart across the decade break recorded three albums (his last, >alas--he >retired from music after that) at the height of his extreme style. >Even such >more "mainstream" acts as Talking Heads (1979's =Fear of Music= was >their >peak), Devo and the B-52s (whose debut albums were both 1979, I think) >approached Tin Huey's jagged waywardness. > >In Europe you had bands like Henry Cow and Univers Zero producing >great >albums like the former's 1978 =Western Culture= (their last) and the >latter's 1977 =1313= (their first). > >And =all= this stuff goes back to Frank Zappa and King Crimson in the >late 60s; and as Zappa and KC's Robert Fripp acknowledged, =their= >music >goes back to Bartok and Stravinsky (who kinda sorta "invented math >rock" in the classical realm)...and =their= music is derived from >Eastern European folk music. Which, if you think about it, is full of >uneven meters, discordant melodies, and a tendency towards twitchy >stops >& starts. > >So all praise to Chris Butler and give him his due (Tin Huey, the >Waitresses, =The Devil Glitch=); but let's not exaggerate his >originality. > > > > > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 05:31:06 +1200 From: Phil Sainty <ectophil@netlink.co.nz> Subject: The 'problem' with Samson's home page Joseph wrote: > I just tried to load it with IE4. It first demanded that I download > and install Shockwave Flash. Since I didn't want to wait for a > download, and just wanted to view the $%^*(*& site, I declined. It > then presented an utterly blank page with no way past it hmmm... I get a page with a graphic. Didn't load the image, but it was a hyperlink to "home.html" so I followed that and got to the main page. > [...] > Clicking on that led me to the graphically obese menu page. (And > while there are ALT tags on the graphics, IE4 does not display them > in the graphics boxes while waiting for the graphics to load, but > only uses them in mouseovers.) Okay, that is 100% IE4's problem. A browser should display what it can at all times, and withholding that ALT text is just stupid. And as for the initial 'blank page' thing... well, that's IE4's fault too. Here's the problem: <OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" WIDTH="507" HEIGHT="380" CODEBASE="http://active.macromedia.com/flash3/cabs/swflash.cab#version=3,0,0,0" salign=lt> <PARAM NAME="MOVIE" VALUE="/flash/main2.swf"> <PARAM NAME="PLAY" VALUE="true"> <PARAM NAME="LOOP" VALUE="false"> <PARAM NAME="QUALITY" VALUE="autohigh"> <param name="PLUGINSPAGE" value="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"> <a href="home.htm"><center><img src="/img/home/samson.jpg" width="243" height="264" alt="samson music - the strongest name in music" border=0></center></a> </OBJECT> It's an object, so browsers that don't understand objects (incl. mine) get the hyperlink I mentioned (the last thing before </OBJECT> in the above HTML), and those that _do_ understand objects will get the other stuff... Objects are one of the nice things from HTML 3 that got left out of the (rather sad) HTML 3.2 spec, but have happily been included in HTML 4. The idea is that you can include fancy stuff in your pages, but if your browser can't handle the object, there's an (invariably less fancy) 'backup' (with more or less the same information) to take its place. Unfortunately, I presume that many browsers are saying "hey, I understand this object... now, I'll just wait until I have the plug-in I need." -- that is to say, they're not treating the lack of the required plug-in as grounds for using the 'backup' code. Now, the spec says: ``If the user agent is not able to render the object for whatever reason (configured not to, lack of resources, wrong architecture, etc.), it must try to render its contents.'' This means that if your web browser is displaying a blank page to those who don't have the shockwave plug-in, it is the fault of the *browser*, as a plug-in is certainly a 'resource'. So Samson are in actual fact doing it right! Unfortunately, we have to live with the fact that many web browser applications are stupid... A simple text link added below the object will make everyone happy, methinks. (except, perhaps, Samson's web designer :) - -Philip ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V4 #248 **************************