From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V4 #453 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, December 28 1998 Volume 04 : Number 453 Today's Subjects: ----------------- NAME THAT GAME [FAMarcus@aol.com] no output from k.b./love-hounds [jfrancis@villagenet.com] the Raincoats, Placebo [queen of carrot flowers ] RE: NAME THAT GAME ["Foghorn J Fornorn" ] Kristeen Young/Radio Iodine news [rjk1@cs.wustl.edu (Bob Kollmeyer)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 18:47:01 EST From: FAMarcus@aol.com Subject: NAME THAT GAME i'm hoping that someone can help me out with something. my daughter got me a game called starcraft for christmas. is this the game that Happy was talking about and gave away at her painted bride show. if not, what is the name of that game? fred ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 19:19:22 -0500 From: jfrancis@villagenet.com Subject: no output from k.b./love-hounds Kate was precocious and probably totally naive to the "rules" of music making which allowed her to do the things she did much to everyones listening pleasure. The kind of insight, innocence, and imagination that combined to make the music what it was (as far as I'm concerned it was downhill after the brilliant peak of Hounds of Love) may just not be part of Kates personality anymore. A lot happens between 17 and 40+ years of age. Sort of like mathameticians & physicists do they're best work by the age of thirty, by way of analogy. You can see it coming when she asks the likes of Clapton & "the artist formally known as...." to collaborate. (first rule: stay away from the vh-1 commercial crap artists, kate!) She's a middle -aged women already and as a recording artist her image is frozen in time as the young brilliant kate. She may have lost that spark of originality and subsequently any further output may have Kates distinctive voice, but the music will be sadly lacking. Many other singers about may have the same "stylings" as Kate, but the time has move forward and her uniqueness was as much a product of the moment in history and any further likelihood of another "kate-like" artist is diluted by the glut of music in the genre. tried love-hounds for a day.....what a mess. but as dysfunctional as that group is, ecto is clique-ish and sickly sweet.... no offense. I rarely post. happy new year ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 21:10:13 -0500 (EST) From: queen of carrot flowers Subject: the Raincoats, Placebo There's not much going on here, so inbetween mailing out late Xmess tapes I might as well lay some musical eggs on people's brains. First off: the Raincoats. I've never seen them mentioned here on Ecto except when I bring them up, so it's always worth pumping them. Unfortunately, I chose the worst time to try and talk them up, since their American record label is taking their recordings out of print, but since they're easy enough to find in the bargain bins, maybe this will inspire someone to buy them and partake in their wonderfulness. They're one of those bands that's too pretty and folky to be considered punk, but between their outlook on life and the circumstances at the time (they were signed to Rough Trade before RT were signing such a wide variety of bands and musicians, and there wasn't much of a place for them to gig out aside from the punk scene). The Raincoats, quite simply, were wonderful -- a quartet with the unusual lineup of guitar/bass/drums/violin, with the latter element sounding nothing like what a violin should sound like, but instead like a human voice in the throes of anger or ecstacy (depending on the song). Their tunes were influenced by a wide variety of musical genres, from confessional folk to Eskimo music and modern composers like Gavin Bryars, as well as scenemates like the Slits and Lora Logic. Their albums were also an eclectic bunch; their first, self-titled LP was cut with jagged edges musically, but blended their emotional and musical rage with a great deal of exuberance. Even at its angriest, it made you want to come in for a spot of tea. _Odyshape_, the follow-up, was more pensive, its ballads dealing in currencies of modern femininity/feminism; Vicky Aspinall's squalling violin unleashed a torrent of rage within these restrained songs. The overall affect reminds me oddly of the film _Trust_; take that as you will. Their final album, _Moving_, was a dance-pop oddity whose lead-off single "No One's Little Girl", sounded strongly like Tom Tom Club. Their two "reunion" albums, one a collection of BBC sessions and the other a full CD of new material, but both of those are more traditional rock albums. Wonderful, but they can do so much better. I don't know if they would be considered Ecto-ish, but I've just rediscovered their self-titled first album and had a burning desire to discuss it with someone. The other band that I've been grooving to lately is Placebo. Among the most excellent swag I received for Christmas this year is their new album, _Without You I'm Nothing_. I hadn't heard much of their music before making the request, but their lead singer's unforgettable appearance in _Velvet Goldmine_ was enough for me to want to hear their music. (There's something about tall, androgynous men in glittery eye-makeup that does that to me. ^_-) Their album lives up to what I'd imagined, beautiful, cinematic pop melodies that float along to a glam beat. El swoono. Not Ecto at all, but I have this burning desire to share my deep admiration with as large a group of people as humanly possible. That is all. Thank you, and good night. - --- Chelsea the mod pixie tugboat@channel1.com http://i.am/modpixie "Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing...how the world so dearly loves a cage" -- Harold & Maude ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 21:26:57 -0500 From: "Foghorn J Fornorn" Subject: RE: NAME THAT GAME "Timelapse", from Barracuda Software, or if you have an older version as I do, GTE Entertainment. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org] On Behalf Of FAMarcus@aol.com Sent: Sunday, December 27, 1998 6:47 PM To: ecto@smoe.org Subject: NAME THAT GAME i'm hoping that someone can help me out with something. my daughter got me a game called starcraft for christmas. is this the game that Happy was talking about and gave away at her painted bride show. if not, what is the name of that game? fred ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 22:45:49 -0600 From: rjk1@cs.wustl.edu (Bob Kollmeyer) Subject: Kristeen Young/Radio Iodine news Hi all - Just wanted to echo Don's praise of Kristeen Young's "Enemy" - picked it up at her show here last week and it's spent quite a bit of time in my player. The few songs that are immediately accessable live and the bits and pieces of lyrics that I'd been able to digest from repeated exposure both pointed to a step forward in songwriting (both conceptually and stylistically) from "Meet Miss Young and Her All Boy Band", and finally being able to listen to it properly mixed with lyric sheet in hand that impression was definately spot-on. Quite surprisingly, though, she didn't break out any new original material at the show - the release party for "Meet Miss Young and Her All Boy Band" was peppered with pieces that would ultimately wind up on "Enemy", having grown tired of playing the MMYaHABB material for ages prior to its release. Instead, for the release of "Enemy", the 70 minute set contained mostly "Enemy" tracks, with a couple from MMYaHABB thrown in, a cover of what is sure to be the most-covered song next year in preparation for her New Year's show, and her wonderful cynical portrait of Christmas materialism that blew me away at her Christmas show a couple of years ago. Indeed, it was the presentation of that song then that moved her from a blip to a star on my musical map. Well worth the price of admission to see it again, even if she didn't have the stage space to choreograph it like she did that year. And news for those in the NY area she'll be calling home now: Jeff White has indeed decided to move as well, disappointing at least one band I know that had their eyes on him here. So the remainder of "All Boy Band" such as is, will still be with her. And as I believe Don mentioned, she's off World Domination and Enemy is self-released on "Test Tube Baby" records, though she said she's shopping it around. Secondly, here are excerpts from a St. Louis Post Dispatch article a couple of weeks ago regarding the demise of Radio Iodine. I know some here will be saddened to hear this. Personally, as one who prefered the 9 Days Wonder incarnation, I'm anxious to hear what she's got in mind for her solo stuff, even if her description of it leaves me shaking and scratching my head. All typos are mine, reprinted without permission, natch: - ----- "What a trip," Radio Iodine singer-songwriter Ellen Bledsoe says of the band's relatively short ride, which included local stardom, touring the country with My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, being romanced by - and then dissed by - a major record label, and finally reallizing they didn't want to be together anymore. ... Radio Iodine began its journey in the summer of 1995 after Bledsoe and Persyn did some resturcturing of its personnel and the music in their band 9 Days Wonder. ... Over a three month period the band's audiences rose from 200 to 500 to 800 fans. A Billboard magazine writer caught a 1995 MRMF showcase and wrote about them. Immediately afterward, "one sweet day in January" 1996, nearly two dozen calls from record labels and management companies came pouring in. The most serious of the talks wer with Radioactive Records, the same label housing the band Live. The day after Radio Iodine sent Radioactive a four-song demo, they got a call from the company president. "That flipped me out. These things usually take months and months," she says. They signed a contract and recorded "Tiny Warnings," but the label held the album. And held it. "We waited and waited and waited. And it (the album) died and died," says Bledsoe. Instead of shipping the album, Radioactive released a four-song EP. Months passed and the album continued to collect dust. In the meantime the band was offered the opening slot on the Thrill Kill Kult tour. "Tiny Warnings" finally came out the summer of '97, a full year after completion. But the promotion and distribution were screwy. For instance, on the official day of the album's release, the band was on local radio telling fans to go buy the CD, unaware that it wasn't available locally yet. Radioactive merged with Universal Records, leading to confusion. The labels fought over things like which song should be released. They settled on "Things I Do," which proved to be a mistake. "It's a great song, but unless you know the band, it takes a while for that song to grab you," Bledsoe says. The band's contract with Universal expired in the spring and the record company didn't renew. But Radio Iodine was relieved. The band began writing a second album and other labels became interested. They were set to do a showcase in New York in September when something unxpected happened. "Everybody got tense when we should have been relieved," says Bledsoe. "The fighting started, and we finally figured out we didn't want to be signed. And writing the second album was push and pull, push and pull. I wanted to go one way and Tony wanted to go another." They realized it was over, though Persyn will produce Bledsoe's upcoming solo album. She considers these new songs a mixture of Ani DiFranco, Jewel, Nanci Griffith and Rosanne Cash, and she hopes to see the songs released by spring. "My goal is to take things slowly. I don't want to get sucked into the national music scene that quickly." - ----- bob np - Shelleyan Orphan - Humroot ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V4 #453 **************************