From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V6 #167 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, June 12 2000 Volume 06 : Number 167 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Worst song ever! ["Renee Campbell" ] Re: Napster compromise? [Damon ] Acoustic Vaudeville crosses the pond. ["Adam Kimmel" ] Sound sample links for The Ectophiles' Guide--search volunteers? [Neile G] Jane Siberry ["Adam Kimmel" ] Re: Napster: a blessing for live music? [burp@mindspring.com (Scott Burge] Re: Worst song ever! ["Michael Pearce" ] Re: Jane Siberry [neal copperman ] Re: Napster: a blessing for live music? ["Scott S. Zimmerman" ] Re: Worst song ever! [steve ] Re: Napster [damon foam ] Re: Napster [Joseph Zitt ] Re: Napster: a blessing for live music? [damon foam ] Re: various things [damon foam ] Re: Napster [damon foam ] Napster stuff [josh burnett ] Re: Sound sample links for The Ectophiles' Guide--search volunteers? [And] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 03:03:23 CDT From: "Renee Campbell" Subject: Re: Worst song ever! Well, I have never heard of these songs, but I would wager that "little" Nell Campbell's rendition of the Peggy Lee song Fever is a close contender for worst song!! - ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Ted Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 11:19:54 -0400 >Oh that's easy, "Fudd on a Hill" (Artist forgotten, But it's on Rhino's "Best of the Worst vol 2" compilation.) Terra Incognita wrote: > I challenge anyone to find a song worse than Sergio Mendez and Brazil > '66's version of "Fool on the Hill." AARGH!! > > Sharon > Terra Incognita > http://www.geocities.com/runly/terra.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 02:10:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Damon Subject: Re: Napster compromise? > >Perhaps we could even have a page at the Ectophiles' Guide featuring > >links to ectophilic artists who have music available at MP3.com. This is a > >nice legal alternative, so let's use it. :) > > This sounds _great_ to me, except I know I don't have time to put this > together myself. Will anyone volunteer to be the compiler and updater of > such a page? You wouldn't necessarily have to do coding--I think that > Damon and or I could do that--I just don't have time to do the research for > it and am guessing that Damon doesn't either. true, i'm afraid. time seems to be at a premium lately. heck, i haven't even been keeping up with ecto... and after being so good about it for a while, too! i'm wondering, though... are we basically talking about putting the mp3.com site in the artist's entry as a `related link'? i have a feeling that's the best and simplest way to handle it. could come up with something more fancy, of course, if it were warranted. - -damon, up way too late (np - hand to mouth, _weightless_ - for which i recently did the guide entry :) Damon Harper _/\_ "In the school debating society, damon@jumeaux.bc.ca __\ /__ i was voted the boy least \ / likely to complete a coherent.. http://jumeaux.bc.ca/damon/ |/||\| uh..." - George, BlackAdder IV ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 13:40:29 +0100 From: "Adam Kimmel" Subject: Acoustic Vaudeville crosses the pond. Just found out that the Acoustic Vaudeville tour (Aimee Mann AND Michael Penn!!) is COMING TO ENGLAND!!! According to their website, they are playing the Shepherd's Bush Empire on July 13th. Excellent venue, come along all you Anglo-Ectos. np -- Yo La Tengo - And nothing turned itself inside-out (well, there I went believing reviews again) nr - Female Friends by Fay Weldon ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 13:40:51 -0700 From: Neile Graham Subject: Sound sample links for The Ectophiles' Guide--search volunteers? Hi, all-- Music samples weren't common when The Guide began so there wasn't a section for that (and I also think it's kind of intuitive to check out the artists' home page to see if they provide sound files or links to sound files, but that seems to be more steps than people are interested in making a lot of the time). Now that we're over 400 artists (when I do my update later today we will be at 433 artists) it's a real bear to add something like that; however, I'm more than willing to do it, and think it's worthwhile. So--what would be great is if we could have volunteers willing to search out locations or one or two sound sample sites for artists already listed on The Guide. If enough people are willing to do it, no one would have to do too many artists. Say, if we had 20 people, everyone could do less than 25 searches. It also would be great if someone else were willing to coordinate this particular effort, so I can save my energy for the usual tasks of The Guide and for actually incorporating the links into Guide entries. For a long time I have fought adding commercial links to The Guide unless it was unavoidable or an artist specifically requested it (a number of artists have asked us to link to their pages on CD Baby or mp3.com), and we have frequently linked to label sites--so anyway, my preference would be wherever possible to use the samples artists themselves provide, then go to indie commercial sites like CDBaby and mp3.com, then if necessary to the bigger corporate sites like the big online labels (Atlantic, etc.) and music sales sites (CDNow, Amazon, etc.) So---any volunteers? - --Neile - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Neile Graham ...... http://www.sff.net/people/neile ....... neile@sff.net Les Semaines: A Weekly Journal . http://www.sff.net/people/neile/semaines The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music ....... http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 18:48:27 +0100 From: "Adam Kimmel" Subject: Jane Siberry I guess "Teenager" wasn't too smart a place to start with Jane Siberry, was it? Part of a day of music bingeing that is revealing the perils of impulse buying, it's not as bad as some (Yo La Tengo? Smog? Oy gevalt!) but it's not about to make me want to pursue anything else by her. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 17:35:24 -0500 From: burp@mindspring.com (Scott Burger) Subject: Re: Napster: a blessing for live music? >On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 09:51:45PM -0500, Scott Burger wrote: >> >In other words, by making it possible for people to get any music they >> >want for free instantly in the comfort of their own homes, they will be >> >encouraged to go somewhere out of their way and spend money to get it? >> > >> >> Kinda like...radio? > >In a sense -- the fundamental difference being that you could choose >what music you'd here *whenever* you'd want it, without being subject >to the DJ's choices. Radio did not stop people from seeking out live music and neither will Napster. In fact, like radio, Napster could create new music fans. >> Yeah, like I said, it may take time, but I believe people will get tired of >> watching screens and want to be part of the moment, so to speak. Call it >> naive, but I grew up with punk, which in a large part was about immediacy >> and action. It sure as hell was not about comfort. > >People have now had about a century to get tired of listening to and >looking at inanimate boxes in their living rooms. Seen any sign of >this fading? How will making this experience even easier change this >for anyone other than the small group of mostly young, mostly >unencumbered people who make up the music-activist audience? My point is that it may take time for the culture to shift but in the end live music will be seen just as if not more important than it is now. Sure, there will always be couch potatos, but who cares about them anyway? What do they do for live music now? Napster and MP3's cannot make the live music situation any worse, it can only make it better. >I came up through classical music and performance art, in the latter >of which, at least being there was part of the experience. > >Both punk and performance art, however, appealed to a vanishingly small >audience. (I'm reminded of a truism/gag that the Velvet Underground >only sold records to 1000 people, but everyone of them went out and >started a band.) How would you suggest that we translate the immediacy >to a form where enough people know about and want to participate that >they can support bands to the extent that the bands can thrive? And >what about those musics that require large studio resources and budgets? Some interesting news: a struggling dot-com company, Riffage.com, just bought one of the large, somewhat historic concert halls in San Fransisco, the Great American Music Hall. They believe they can creat a 'synergy' for both the concert hall and their website by streaming concerts. Guess who has more profits right now? That's right, The Great American Music Hall. Who is going to get more out of the relationship in the end? The concert hall or the website? My money is on the concert hall. More people are going to see it on a screen and wish they could be there in person. It will help build The Great American Music Hall's status as a landmark even if the website is not successful. Then again, I would not be completely surprised if pay-per-view webcasting became a viable format. As for your questions, I think a lot of it depends on your definition of success in the music biz. I think the members of the Velvet Underground should be very happy with their success even if, like so many things, it was not recognized until after they had disbanded. I think there are a lot of different ways to translate that immediacy that do not necessarily have to do with new technology. How can you say performance art is in decline when professional wrestling is so huge, both live and on tv? For example, although I am not that familiar with classical music, I know the local symphony now sometimes does 'kick back classics' where they play their concert outside of a stuffy hall and serve pizza. Gimmicky, yeah. But it gives them a paying crowd. Live competition can be good. What about a 'cage match' between symphonies for the most original and inspiring work? More audience participation can help. 'Stomp' comes to mind. I think the 'Living Room tour' that is mentioned on ecto is a good example of artists seeking out audiences rather than waiting for the audiences to seek them out. - -Scott P.O. Box 14738 Richmond, VA 23221 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 2000 14:42:09 -0700 From: "Michael Pearce" Subject: Re: Worst song ever! At 1:55 AM -0400 6/11/00,Terra Incognita wrote: >I challenge anyone to find a song worse than Sergio Mendez and Brazil >'66's version of "Fool on the Hill." AARGH!! Easy. How about 1910 Fruitgum Company's "Yummy Yummy Yummy I've Got Love In My Tummy." Just stating the name is enough to make people's brains replay the damn thing, for which I expect, and deserve, serious flamage for reminding you of it. Closer to the suggestion, how about Captain and Tennile's "Muskrat Love," a perversion of a very pretty song called "Sun Down" from the album "Sun Down Lady" by Lani Hall, one of the former singers of Brasil '66. Appropos of nothing, she later married Herb Alpert, who released her album, which shows he has good taste. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 16:21:34 -0600 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Jane Siberry At 6:48 PM +0100 6/11/00, Adam Kimmel wrote: >I guess "Teenager" wasn't too smart a place to start with Jane Siberry, was >it? Part of a day of music bingeing that is revealing the perils of impulse >buying, it's not as bad as some (Yo La Tengo? Smog? Oy gevalt!) but it's not >about to make me want to pursue anything else by her. No, Teenager probably would not be anyone's recommended starting point, I don't think. While I love Jane, and I do like Teenager, it is certainly my least favorite of her albums. It's kind of hard to suggest where to start, since her career has really gone all over the place. Here's a few suggestions if you are game for another shot. (I'd highly recommend another try too.) 1. When I Was A Boy - I (and many others) think this is Jane's masterpiece. It's the kind of dense recording with all sorts of sounds and voices that calls to mind Kate's Dreaming and Hounds of Love. (Jane does not SOUND like Kate though.) 2. Bound By The Beauty - Jane's self-titled debut album was a straightahead folk album. BBtB (her 5th?), was a return to the folk sound after her densest album to date (The Walking). This one has a slight country tinge to it too. It's a great intro to Jane at her catchiest and has many doses of her humor. 3. The Walking - This is another fairly dense album, but on a more intimate scale the WIWAB. Beautiful, haunting, kind of stark. 4. Maria - Jane expands the jazzy touches that were showing up on WIWAB and lets them take over the album. Sounds like she's been hanging out with Holly Cole. 5. No Borders Hear, Speckless Sky - Early Jane from the early 80's. You can tell when you listen to it by the synth sounds. The new wave sound is a bit dated, but if that doesn't bother you, the albums are great. I think there is a greatest hits/retrospective type thing that probably samples from her whole career. Jane's web site is http://www.sheeba.ca. Maybe there are some sound samples there? Anyway, I'm a huge Jane fan and I'm sorry you started with Teenager. neal np: Remedy - Basement Jaxx ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 15:32:00 -0700 (PDT) From: "Scott S. Zimmerman" Subject: Re: Napster: a blessing for live music? > Napster and MP3's cannot make the live music > situation any worse, it can only make it better. It could drive ticket prices up. For a lot of the major shows where you'd think there would be a discount because of increased interest, they are already through the roof. Just as an ectophile type-example, the upcoming bay area natalie merchant tickets are going for $69.00 - $100+++ That's just wrong. [the shows i go to are usually around $8 - no complaints there] Scott ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 19:01:33 EDT From: JavaHo@aol.com Subject: Re: Jane Siberry Adam writes: << I guess "Teenager" wasn't too smart a place to start with Jane Siberry, was it? >> You are correct, sir. Try "When I Was A Boy". Although Jane's albums have crossed many styles (from jazz to country, sort of), this seems to be the most accessible to the most palates. Don't give up after this one. "Teenager" was an artist's album. Kind of, "here's stuff I wrote when I was younger and never had the opportunity to record." Lisa ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 16:36:50 -0700 From: "phclark" Subject: Re: Jane Siberry - ----- Original Message ----- From: "neal copperman" To: "ecto list" Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 3:21 PM Subject: Re: Jane Siberry > No, Teenager probably would not be anyone's recommended starting point. > 1. When I Was A Boy - I (and many others) think this is Jane's > masterpiece Tour de force. > 2. Bound By The Beauty - Perhaps the most accessible to the newly initiate. Great stuff on this. > 3. The Walking - My personal fave. > 4. Maria - Sounds like she's been hanging out with > Holly Cole. Not a recommendation for Holly, I fear. She should stick to folk or dreamscapes. > 5. No Borders Hear, Speckless Sky - Good. And you certainly ought to know where she was coming from, even if you don't like them. > Anyway, I'm a huge Jane fan and I'm sorry you started with Teenager. Amen and Alas. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 19:11:20 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: Worst song ever! Michael Pearce: >Closer to the suggestion, how about Captain and Tennile's "Muskrat >Love," a perversion of a very pretty song called "Sun Down" from the >album "Sun Down Lady" by Lani Hall, one of the former singers of >Brasil '66. Wasn't the original "Muskrat Candlelight" on Willis Alan Ramsey's self-titled album? - - Steve _______________ We're all Jesus, Buddha, and the Wizard of Oz! - Andy Partridge ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:09:21 -0400 From: damon foam Subject: Re: Napster Joseph Zitt wrote: > > On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 04:04:09PM -0400, damon foam wrote: > > > if you want to buy art, shouldn't you be willing to pay money for it? > > The question may center around the word "buy". What means of > financial compensation for art can you imagine that doesn't > necessarily involve the transfer of possession of material objects? > this begs the question as to why we should compensate artists in a different or unique manner. - -- The universe has a different ending. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 22:23:21 -0400 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: Napster On Sun, Jun 11, 2000 at 11:09:21PM -0400, damon foam wrote: > > > Joseph Zitt wrote: > > > > On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 04:04:09PM -0400, damon foam wrote: > > > > > if you want to buy art, shouldn't you be willing to pay money for it? > > > > The question may center around the word "buy". What means of > > financial compensation for art can you imagine that doesn't > > necessarily involve the transfer of possession of material objects? > > > > this begs the question as to why we should compensate artists in a > different > or unique manner. I don't think it begs the question, but it does stimulate it. As to why, the current situation in which it is becoming increasingly to have access to art without purchasing objects presents the reason for considering alternative methods. - -- |> ~The only thing that is not art is inattention~ --- Marcel Duchamp <| | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | Latest CD: Jerusaklyn http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:44:38 -0400 From: damon foam Subject: Re: Napster: a blessing for live music? Scott Burger wrote: > > >Scott Burger wrote: > >> > >> Personally, I am not going to cry if people buy less cds. I am hoping that > >> Napster and other programs will eventually help make music available to > >> anyone, anywhere. > >> And even if that is being naieve, I hope this stuff forces people to put a > >> premium on live shows. Maybe that will help touring artists make more of a > >> living, open more clubs, take the emphasis off looks and videos, etc. > >> -Scott > > > >live shows can't support artists. > > what do you mean by support? I know plenty of bands whose main source of > income is not cds but live shows. is it their main source of income or their main band source of income? > >plus there aren't really enough clubs now to do it like you think it > >would be done. > > I know. My argument is that MP3's will make recorded music free, but live > shows will have more importance attached to them because they are not > always readily available. It may take take time, but I believe this new > premium on live shows will create a market for more clubs. Not everybody > wants to sit in front of a big screen their whole lives oh, i don't. going to clubs is often icky. y'all remember velocity girl? methinks they'd be listened to by ecto folks a lot. tried to see them once, gave up after the middle act was 4 hours late onstage. > >artists will make LESS of a living, meaning less time for > >making art and more time for making a living. > > > > Maybe in the short term, but I believe there will always be artists who can > figure out a way to make their living off their craft. i want MORE artists, not less. Besides, there are a > lot of crappy artists NOW who are spending more time making a living and > less time on making art. I say let Napster and MP3s take some of the > commercialism out of today's music. I think it is a good thing. nonsense. crappy is always subject to opinion. there are crappy popular bands and their are spectacularly good popular bands. - -- The universe has a different ending. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:53:03 -0400 From: damon foam Subject: Re: various things meredith wrote: > > glenn commented: > > >Letting popularity distort your tastes in either > >direction is, I suspect, more often than not a form of snobbery. Ecto seems > >particularly vulnerable to it, and it's nothing to be proud of. > > I bought _Surfacing_ before it was officially released, therefore well > before it became a huge seller and rocketed Sarah McLachlan to > superstardom. I don't listen to it for one simple reason: it's a bad > album. The number of units sold has absolutely nothing to do with it. Do > I feel that Sarah was *trying* to get more popular, and that affected the > quality of the album? Yes. (Her strategy obviously worked, so more power > to her.) Will I buy Sarah's next album? Probably, though I bet I'll check > it out at a listening station first. i find this weird. first, the disc is still better than her first two or three discs, if not as good as fumbling.... second, she had been progressing towards more straight pop since disc one, which was good but not great. ==================+ - -- The universe has a different ending. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 00:09:21 -0400 From: damon foam Subject: Re: Napster Joseph Zitt wrote: > > On Sun, Jun 11, 2000 at 11:09:21PM -0400, damon foam wrote: > > > > > > Joseph Zitt wrote: > > > > > > On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 04:04:09PM -0400, damon foam wrote: > > > > > > > if you want to buy art, shouldn't you be willing to pay money for it? > > > > > > The question may center around the word "buy". What means of > > > financial compensation for art can you imagine that doesn't > > > necessarily involve the transfer of possession of material objects? > > > > > > > this begs the question as to why we should compensate artists in a > > different > > or unique manner. > > I don't think it begs the question, but it does stimulate it. errr, just what sort of stimulation are we talking baouthere? As to why, > the current situation in which it is becoming increasingly to have > access to art without purchasing objects presents the reason for > considering alternative methods. > wrt music, yes. not wrt books or paintings or whatnot. in essence, unless they are advocating entire novels be available for free online, the mp3ites are holding music to a different standard. - -- The universe has a different ending. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 01:21:56 -0400 (EDT) From: josh burnett Subject: Napster stuff Since the Napster debate seems determined not to die, I have a couple of points which I haven't seen anybody bring up. First of all, what a lot Napster supporters seem to be forgetting (or so it seems to me) is that not everybody has (or can afford) a computer with a lot of memory and a high-speed Internet connection to download tons and tons of mp3s with. So, if the pseudo-utopian future that many Napster supporters seem to want to come true does come true, and the record industry is killed and recorded music is just downloaded via mp3, are these people just not supposed to be able to listen to music anymore, or what? I think I phrased that whole thing rather awkwardly, so let me try it again: if mp3s take over recorded music and kill the record industry, how are people who can't afford computers, Internet connections, et al., supposed to listen to music? Okay. So, an argument I've seen many times is that, if Napster makes it impossible to sell cds, merchandizing is one of the other sources that will pick up the slack. Now, call me crazy, but that sounds an awful lot like television to me. I mean, you get the main product for free, and money comes from advertising. And we all know how non-commercial television is. If there are no cds to be sold, I'll bet you anything that you'd start seeing a LOT more corporate sponsorship in music. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, maybe napster could make music less commercial, but I think it's at least as likely that the opposite could happen. Call me crazy. Josh "Music doesn't want to be free, people just want to get music without paying for it" Burnett (apologies to Paul Kim for stealing his gimmick ;)) Josh Burnett * http://www.freespeech.org/jcb/index.html (home) http://www.freespeech.org/jcb/dontsay/index.html (journal) "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 15:26:07 +1000 From: Andrew Fries Subject: Re: Sound sample links for The Ectophiles' Guide--search volunteers? On Sun, 11 Jun 2000, Neile Graham wrote: >So--what would be great is if we could have volunteers willing to search >out locations or one or two sound sample sites for artists already listed >on The Guide. If enough people are willing to do it, no one would have to >do too many artists. Say, if we had 20 people, everyone could do less than >25 searches. I'm be willing to do some if we decide to do this, but I'm slightly doubtful. I'm just thinking not only of the initial effort, but then keeping those 400+ links up to date... It seems like a lot of work for not a lot of return, in the sense that most of the time it will just be the link to a specific page on artist's website, and I'm just not sure, is it really worthwile? But if the consensus is YES, you can count on my 25 links :) - ------------------------------------------------------ "You know you're a Mac addict when you build your house without windows or gates." - ------ http://www.zip.com.au/~afries/hall.html ------- ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V6 #167 **************************