From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V8 #104 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Saturday, April 13 2002 Volume 08 : Number 104 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Apologies [Tim Cook ] Re: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club [Neal Copperman ] LUNASCAPE - Belgische Pralines ["Inigo" ] Re: walkouts [Ellen Rawson ] RE: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club ["Phil" ] Re: Walkouts [jjhanson@att.net] Re: Walkouts [Jeffrey Burka ] Re: walkouts [Carolyn Andre ] What happened to DGM ? ["Russ Van Rooy" ] RE: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club [Steve VanDevender ] Rachael and Trina [meredith ] RE: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club ["Phil" ] Cosmology Inflation Theory ["JS News" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 06:21:45 +0000 From: Tim Cook Subject: Apologies If anyone on ecto has received an email from me infected with the PE_Magistr.B virus, please accept my sincere apologies. Before my scanning software caught it, it had managed to send itself to everyone in my address book. Please delete any emails received from tim@palare.demon.co.uk and in NO circumstances open or run any attachments. Tim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 00:06:31 -0600 From: Neal Copperman Subject: Re: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club At 10:31 PM -0400 4/11/02, Jeffrey Burka wrote: >(who's amused by the talk about the Black Cat, as his new house is >slightly more than one block from the new site of the venue, but >he's still never been there) What, the Black Cat moved???? Where is it now? BTW, I will be in the DC area from April 19 to May 6 (sort of). Anything interesting that people are doing? I will actually be staying in Arlington April 19 to 21, Annapolis for the next week, south of Baltimore in the confusingly named Annapolis Junction for the next few days, and then zipping down to West Virginia to visit my sister. Things I have been toying with doing: Stacey Earle and Ray Wylie Hubbard at the Barns on April 19th. (Nothing like driving an hour to see a show after flying all day.) Spiritualized at 9:30 on the 20th. Tan Dun at the Kennedy Center on the 29th. Possibly the last of the Suzanne Vega shows at the Birchmere on the 30th. And also possibly Eliza Gilkyson somewhere in Bethesday (Live at the Roxey? What's that?) on May 5. Though really I'm supposed to be visiting with all my friends, but those shows all sounded pretty compelling to me. neal np: Folk Music From Denmark 2002 (I am completely baffled by the current track, "Black Girl in the Ring" by Polcalypsy & Jamesie. Yes, Calypso from Copenhagen.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 00:13:30 -0600 From: Neal Copperman Subject: Re: Walkouts At 5:33 PM -0500 4/11/02, Cheri Villines wrote: >I walked out on the Edwin McCain Band at The Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS. >We had just watched Jewel, who was opening for the band, and she was so >amazing that we didn't want to risk spoiling the mood. :) Hey, I walked out on that show too! Though it was the DC version. I stayed for about a half hour of Edwin McCain, and that was plenty. Not terrible, but just boring, and not at all what I was interested in after such a great set from Jewel. Oddly enough, my other prominant walkout was also a Jewel opener, though I didn't know jewel at the time. I went to see Iris Dement based on adoring seeing 10K Maniancs live version of "Let The Mystery Be". I really wanted to like her, but whenever she stopped telling engaging stories, she would sing in a voice that caused me to cringe. After a half hour, I figured I wasn't going to warm to it and left. Amusingly, Jewel was one of three opening acts for that show and played a brilliant 20 minute set, cementing me as a loyal fan. I think I also walked out of a Social Distortion concert, mostly because the sound was such a muddy mess it was impossible to enjoy. I recently bought a supporting membership to the Outpost Performance Space, which entitles me to free tickets to all their shows. I love it! Cause I'm the kind of person that will go to a show on the off chance it might be interesting. And I've sat through an awful lot that really didn't do much for me. But now I don't pay for specific tickets, and it's really liberating. I feel no qualms about going late and leaving early, and often 30 minutes to an hour is just perfect to experience music I'm not that excited about. The only band I can think of that walked off was the Breeders about 2 songs into their set at Lolapalooza. I kind of had to applaud them though. They said they'd leave if people didn't stop throwing crap at them on the stage. That didn't happen, and they were out of there. On the other hand, it always seems a shame that a few idiots can ruin an evening for thousands. neal np: Still doing that Danish folk music thing. Only now it's Danish Cajun music, soon to be followed by Danish Klezmer music, and finally ending with Danish polka. I'm still confused. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 07:44:22 +0000 From: "Inigo" Subject: LUNASCAPE - Belgische Pralines Hello, I've listened several times to the first LUNASCAPE CD-album 'REFLECTING SEYELENCE' and I think that many ecto-subscribers might LOVE this album. The songs are well written and in the sound there's enough detail to discover each time you hear the CD. Kyoko Baertsoen is the lead female singer of Lunascape which also sung for the band Hooverphonic back in 1997. You can think the album as a mix of Bel Canto; Anneli Drecker ( in 'Tundra' ) and the Sinead O'Connor ( this combination is probably NOT an acurate approximation, but the album is quite similar/better. You should explore it yourself ). My perception would classify this album as ethereal/alternativ pop. You'll find more information and soundsamples on there cool website: http://www.lunascape.net/ Check it out... there is only a chance of 5% you will be disappointed :) Inigo ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 00:41:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Ellen Rawson Subject: Re: walkouts I walked out of a Waterboys show a couple of months ago. It wasn't the opener. He was okay. It was the guy smoking non-stop in the row in front of me. There were no-smoking signs, so I complained to the management. They don't enforce the no-smoking rules at rock concerts. The manager did offer to refund us our money, which we took and left the premises. Ellen, asthmatic. ===== "Literature stops in 1100. After that, it's just books." - -- JRR Tolkien Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 01:18:52 -0700 From: "Phil" Subject: RE: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club Joseph was talking about bluegrass: >Yeah, they were clearly good players, but the music fell under "the >kind of thing you'd like if you like that kind of thing." That's a genre that I have always found technically very impressive, but the music mostly leaves me cold, outside of my interest as a musician. Joseph's "impressive, but forgettable" remark resonated with me, I didn't see the contradiction that Steve saw in the statement. There are many real virtuosi playing bluegrass( impressive), but to me, "Er, this song sounds just like the last one and the one before it" (forgettable). However, a few years ago, I saw a band in an SF bar that played these wonderfully tongue-in-cheek bluegrass covers of pop songs. I had arranged to meet some friends there to go somewhere for dinner and we were preparing to leave as we'd seen some of the more ominous warning signs of an large-scale rural music assault: large, friendly men in enormous hats setting up pedal steels, banjos, fiddles, multiple Ovations (dead giveaway ;), double bass and a washboard with little horns and bells on it. They started playing before we managed to leave, which turned out to be great. The opening song was Madonna's "Like A Prayer; no female singer, all the friendly guys in enormous hats singing excellent, laid-back harmonies, and the lead singer with the requisite twangy drawl. All of this impeccably executed in the classic, fast-paced "oompah" Flatt and Scruggs b/g stylings, (those unfamiliar, think "Beverly Hillbillies" TV theme),including a washboard solo with the little bike horns. They then went on to deconstuct a variety of other female artists, I recall Celine Dion took a major trouncing a little later in the evening. We stayed there, getting increasingly more hungry as the night progressed, but none of us wanted to leave, it was way too much fun,and the visual imagery of these big, husky men singing so many female-based songs; I think they deliberately went after the really soppy ones. (but they still sounded all the same ;) They reminded me very much of some of the incredible musical parodies of the Bonzo Dog Band, but I don't recall the Bonzos ever trying to spoof bluegrass, although they recorded one of the most hilarious Dixieland Jazz parodies I've ever heard. P ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:02:34 -0500 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 01:18:52AM -0700, Phil wrote: > They reminded me very much of some of the incredible musical parodies of the > Bonzo Dog Band, but I don't recall the Bonzos ever trying to spoof > bluegrass, although they recorded one of the most hilarious Dixieland Jazz > parodies I've ever heard. One of the funnier things I ever heard was an Austin bluegrass band covering Pink Floyd's "Eclipse". The thought of that twangy drawl singing "The lunatic is on the grass" (or whatever the lyric was) still gets me giggling. - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt/ http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:17:28 -0700 From: "Phil" Subject: RE: Apologies Tim, Sorry you got virused, I'm not familiar with that bug; hope it didn't harm your files. I think I read from Woj sometime ago that the Ecto server blocks all attachments, probably for this very reason, so if this is correct you have no reason for concern. Maybe Woj or Meth can confirm? P - -----Original Message----- From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org]On Behalf Of Tim Cook Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 11:22 PM To: ecto@smoe.org; castaway@smoe.org Subject: Apologies If anyone on ecto has received an email from me infected with the PE_Magistr.B virus, please accept my sincere apologies. Before my scanning software caught it, it had managed to send itself to everyone in my address book. Please delete any emails received from tim@palare.demon.co.uk and in NO circumstances open or run any attachments. Tim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 14:00:09 +0000 From: jjhanson@att.net Subject: Re: Walkouts Jason wrote: > I think we must have walked out of the same show [was it at the Paradise in > Boston?]... Must have been the same tour--the show I walked out on was at First Avenue in MInneapolis. I also have 2 or 3 Lisa Germano CDs--think I sold or gave a way a couple and the only one I kept was Way Down to the Moon Palace--which I probably haven't listened to since. Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 10:15:55 -0400 From: Jeffrey Burka Subject: Re: Walkouts Jason 'n Jeff go on about walking out on Lisa Germano on the tour where she followed Melissa Ferrick... Well, for a contrasting (mostly) view, Craig, Neal Copperman, and I saw this tour when it played the old Birchmere. MF, who I hadn't seen live yet, was fabulous. Especially her encore when she performed "Jesse's Girl," which had the babydykes (the audience so termed by a lesbian friend who saw MF touring _Massive Blur_ a couple of years earlier) in the audience going nuts. I had seen Lisa Germano before, at the old 9:30, and was mesmerized. This time, she wasn't quite as good, but I still enjoyed her set a great deal and was completely blown away by the instrumental "Simply Tony." I didn't yet have _On the Way Down From the Moon Palace_ (actually, I think I bought it at that show) and was just amazed. jeff n.p. _Like a Prayer_, Madonna ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 10:01:57 -0500 From: Carolyn Andre Subject: Re: walkouts hey - add another to the list walking out on the Germano part of that Ferrick-Germano tour! At Schuba's here in Chicago. Yes, I had gone for the opening act, but figured I'd see what Lisa G was like ... about 1 1/2 songs into her set I found myself thinking: "I've been standing for over 2 hours", "I can hear others do much better with keyboards ... Tori, Sarah McLachlan, etc." ... I stayed another song and then left. Amusingly, Ferrick also shows up in another departure - but planned in advance; she was the opening act for some forgettable rock band (I think also on the W.A.R. label); a friend of mine was performing elsewhere in the city at the same time, so I caught Melissa's opener and then split for the other club. And then there's the show I left before it even started. I'm blanking on the name ... the movie about a bunch of kids from Dublin who got together and formed an R&B band. (back-something?) ... they were playing at the pub 3 blocks from my house. $30+ tix, I think. First, the venue was about 45 minutes late opening their doors. Then I discovered they had removed all the seats so as to cram in the biggest crowd possible. Then there was another 45 minute+ wait for the band to take the stage. Whilst the room was becoming crammed with standing folks. (and the doors were being guarded by the tour staff, with their headsets & all). I started thinking "I can hear any band I want here - sitting at a table with a nice pint - generally for under $12.... what's so hot about this group?" ... It was kinda amusing to see the reaction of the tour staff guy at the door when I said I wanted to leave, he reminded me I couldn't get back in if I left, and I said "yes, I know". I suspect there have been a few "this is getting waay to late and I can't stay any longer and get up for work tomorrow", but I can't place them. I do know there is a direct connection between the format of the audience setup (i.e. chairs of some kind vs. all standing) and my tolerance for a mediocre performance. Otherwise, I can remember some excruciating opening acts - but not premature departures. although I'm sure its just my aging memory failing to recall events back too far . Regards, Carolyn Andre - --- candre@house-of-music.com Chicago, IL / USA Support Independent Music! Use the Internet http://house-of-music.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:55:52 -0700 From: "Russ Van Rooy" Subject: What happened to DGM ? Went up to the Discipline Global Mobile web site today ( Robert Fripp's indie record label) and found this note: "Discipline Global Mobile has moved on. The world that DGM was created to address has changed. The old DGM business model is not only broken, it is almost irrelevant. The Bootleg TV venture was DGM's attempt to find a technological and business structure that could efficiently address DGM's position as a distribution channel. Rather than divert our creative energies to sustain an inappropriate way of doing business in 2002 and forwards, we have decided to begin again, again. Robert Fripp; Thursday 28th. March, 2002, DGM HQ. " Anyone know more about this ? =- Russ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 10:30:25 -0700 From: Steve VanDevender Subject: RE: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club Phil writes: > Joseph was talking about bluegrass: > > >Yeah, they were clearly good players, but the music fell under "the > >kind of thing you'd like if you like that kind of thing." > > That's a genre that I have always found technically very impressive, but the > music mostly leaves me cold, outside of my interest as a musician. > Joseph's "impressive, but forgettable" remark resonated with me, I didn't > see the contradiction that Steve saw in the statement. > There are many real virtuosi playing bluegrass( impressive), but to me, "Er, > this song sounds just like the last one and the one before it" > (forgettable). I guess for me "impressive" means "leaves an impression", and "forgettable" means "likely to be forgotten", and that's why I don't think those words go together. Just as you clarified, you have heard technically skilled bluegrass bands whose songs lack variety, which is quite a bit more specific as criticism. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 13:57:39 -0400 From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: [NorthernSoul79@aol.com: Beth album news (it has a name!)] - ----- Forwarded message from NorthernSoul79@aol.com ----- From: NorthernSoul79@aol.com Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 23:29:25 EDT Subject: Beth album news (it has a name!) To: trailer-park@smoe.org X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 114 what follows is a message from Beth's management that i got from another Beth Orton mailing list. i'm posting it here because i don't know if anyone here got it? - -kathleen >Dear All, > > Just to let you know that Beth's new album called 'Daybreaker' will be > released on the 30th July in the US and the 29th July for the rest of the > world. > > There are going to be some Canadian/US dates at the end of May through to > mid June, followed by some UK dates at the beginning of July. When > everything has been confirmed I'll send out a list with all the dates on. > > Beth's official website is finally under construction and will hopefully be > up and running by June. If anyone has any particular requests of what they'd > like to see on the website (apart from the usual) let me know. We're going > to launch the website with an exclusive downloadable track. > > With this week's edition of the NME there is a free CD which features a new > Beth track called "Daybreaker" which was mixed by The Chemical Brothers, > it's amazing! > > Best wishes, > > Pru Harris > Beth Orton's management > pru@roughtraderecords.com - ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 19:07:51 -0000 From: "neal copperman" Subject: Re: Walkouts (Lisa Germano) + non-walkout Carol Noonan Jeffrey Burka said: > Well, for a contrasting (mostly) view, Craig, Neal Copperman, and I saw > this tour when it played the old Birchmere. MF, who I hadn't seen live > yet, was fabulous. Especially her encore when she performed "Jesse's > Girl," which had the babydykes (the audience so termed by a lesbian > friend who saw MF touring _Massive Blur_ a couple of years earlier) in > the audience going nuts. Wow, is that the show we saw? For serious contrast, I don't really remember Melissa Ferrick from that evening. I do remember seeing her play Jesse's Girl, but had forgotten that was on the same bill as Lisa Germano. I've seen MF probably 6 or 8 times, so her shows sometimes blur together for me. I've only seen Lisa Germano once, and I thought she was incredible. My experience was virtually the opposite of most of those recounted here. I had several Lisa Germano albums, but never really liked them. Prior to seeing her, she probably won the award for "artist who I don't particularly like but keep buying her CD's". I thought her set was spellbinding, and from that point on, her music has really worked for me. I'd have to dig in the archives, but I remember saying something like "I was particularly struck with how she could make any piece, on any instrument, sound like it was playing on an old scratchy 78 sitting in a giant half-full bathtub". Which I guess was a compliment. neal np: Carol Noonan - Carol Noonan I've really been enjoying Carol's music over the years (originally the lead singer of Knots and Crosses, which I still haven't heard, she released 3 excellent albums on Philo/Rounder before being dropped. She's now self-released two albums, one of mostly traditional songs with a few originals, the other mostly originals with a few traditional songs. She has a lovely trad folk voice, maybe slightly reminiscent of Sandy Denny or some of the other folk revival singers from that time. You can get info on her at carolnoonanmusic.com). She recently sent out a mailing that highlighted the most, and worst, press she has gotten in years. She has tried to get word out about her music for years, and one day last week Associated Press showed up at her door. She couldn't really understand why they seemed so uninterested in her music, and kept asking her about the water situation there and how she was getting along. (She lives in rural Maine and has been very hard hit by the recent drought up there.) Turns out she was RANDOMLY selected by AP as a person to interview about the drought. So she gets national coverage, with no mention of the music. She seemed pretty amused about it, but it's pretty amazing the picture they end up painting of her. Here's the sections of the article that mention her: ROWNFIELD, Maine, April 9  Carol Noonan knew the drought was bad when she ran out of water in the middle of her shower and had to rinse her soapy hair with the only water around: in her dogs drinking bucket. After their 15-foot-deep well ran dry, Noonan and her husband let their dirty dishes pile up and started using paper plates. They stopped using their clothes washer and dishwasher. They recycled by dumping water from their pasta pot into the toilet tank. THE NOONANS are among thousands of Maine residents whose wells have run dry or slowed to a trickle because of a severe drought gripping the state  and much of the country. Its so bad the Federal Emergency Management Agency is considering making Maine the first state ever to receive disaster funds for a drought. Noonan and her husband, Jeffrey Flagg, recently bought two 100-gallon water tanks to keep in reserve, and are optimistic about having water in the months ahead. Of course, they felt the same way last summer when they first ran out. Having occasionally gone days without showers or fresh clothes, Noonan has learned a new appreciation of water. Shes also learned humility. You lose a lot of shame, Noonan said. Actually, Carol's own mailings have been much more tongue-in-cheek then AP (go figure), with observsations like: 2. I have learned that if you don't wash your hair long enough, it starts to look stylishand trendy. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 15:28:52 +0100 From: Ed Cole Subject: Re: Walkouts I wasn't there but Rolling Stone reported a humorous walkout in the early 70's I've never forgotten involving a favorite performer. After Dan Hicks dismantled the Hot Licks he was doing a solo tour. He was playing somewhere in Oregon. It was said that he was drunk and the performance was lackluster. The audience booed him and he supposedly said "Well, F**k you, if you don't like it you can leave." Everybody did. I saw him in the 60's with the Hot Lick, excellent show. Saw him about 14 years ago with the Acoustic Warriors, good band but he looked drunk and lackluster. I didn't walk out cause I wanted to see Gatemouth Brown. He was most excellent and well worth the wait. I do remember leaving a show at intermission a few years ago here on campus. It was a Turtle Island String Quartet show. They were playing okay but the sound was atrocious. It was in our campus chapel, a small venue. For some reason they miked the instruments. This changed the warm feel of the strings into something quite harsh and abrasive. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 23:58:41 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Rachael and Trina Hi, Thank the gods for ecto. If not for the ectophiles in the audience at the Acoustic Cafe this evening, Trina Hamlin and Rachael Sage would have literally played to an empty room. (People in Connecticut are *unspeakably* lame. ) Well, all those lame-ass Nutmeggers who preferred to stay home watching _Survivor_ missed one of the best shows of the year. Trina Hamlin went on first, accompanied by the divine Lyris Hung on electric violin (which was a very pleasant surprise). Trina was rather loopy, since she had been to the podiatrist earlier in the day and gotten some good drugs. :) That didn't affect her singing or playing, though in between songs there was much hilarity. She did her standards, including "A Thought", "Down To The Hollow" (the "Minnesota blues number" ;), "Jacaronda Tree" and "In My Life". Lyris added some amazing touches with her violin, and it was all great. Then after a short break, Rachael and her band took the stage together for the first time. She's just about to head out on tour, so this show was kind of a dress rehearsal for them. She had Dean Sharpe on drums (fans of Happy and Jane Siberry will remember his name, surely), and Jack (dammit, I knew I'd forget his name :P) on guitar. Trina also joined them on harmonica on a couple songs. They were, in a word, wonderful. They played lots of stuff from the brand-new album, _Illusion's Carnival_ (of which Rachael had promo copies for sale, yay!), as well as "Painting of a Painting", "Sistersong" and "Pictures They Took". It wasn't evident at all that this was their first gig as a trio -- in fact, at several points it sounded like they were all set to do the jam-band thing and just go off for a while. Check out Rachael's tour schedule -- if she's coming to your town, it's a must-see show. Her official CD release show is next Tuesday, 4/16 at Joe's Pub in NYC, with Jenny Bruce. Trina will also be joining the band to jam on some more songs. It should be a great night. I haven't had a chance to listen to the CD -- but I can't wait to put it in the player at work tomorrow. Stay tuned for the report. :) Judging from what I heard earlier today on WPKN (Rachael was on Ruth Eddy's show this afternoon, did I mention that?) and at the show tonight, it's really, really, really good. ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ======Next Up: N&K Nields 4/21/02====== ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 13:21:01 -0700 From: "Phil" Subject: RE: Walkouts. was: Dear Janes at the 12 Bar Club Steve wrote: I guess for me "impressive" means "leaves an impression", and "forgettable" means "likely to be forgotten", and that's why I don't think those words go together. Just as you clarified, you have heard technically skilled bluegrass bands whose songs lack variety, which is quite a bit more specific as criticism. Yes, we do take some liberties with the language, I suppose. I was especially taken with Adam's 'brief, but interminable', as it reminded me of being onstage halfway through a set waiting for the tech crew to fix a show-stopping problem. Or of waiting for the elevator doors to close/open when you're in a huge hurry. Despite the apparent contradiction it does makes a certain twisted sense from such a viewpoint phil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 14:26:34 -0700 From: "Phil" Subject: WAS: Janes/ Walkouts, now: all over the place (with cordless guitars) Adam said: ....Then the legendary McLaughlin came on, with a sprawling band and a cordless guitar. The guitar was quite an innovation in those days (this is around 1977, I think), and he wanted to show it off --- so off he rambled, offstage, onstage, backstage, sometimes disappearing for ages at a time. Adam, your telling of the McLaughlin gig in Central Park is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. And you have coined another wonderful contradiction: "brief, but interminable". I think I have played a few sets like that myself. Curiously, I still have a Nady Blue cordless guitar radio transmitter, circa 1977, which is, I believe, the unit, or at least the brand, that John M first played around with. It clips to a guitar strap and is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. This model worked on the standard FM frequency with a broadcast range of over 1000 feet, so you'd hook it up to your guitar, find a blank frequency on a regular old FM radio and hook that into an amp and voila! Instant Nigel Tufnel. One Sunday long ago in my apartment, I spent a good two hours with the Nady, shredding away at unsafe speeds, practicing fast licks and nasty distorted chords, and having a jolly time wandering around the place unfettered by the usual trailing guitar cord. I had deliberately kept the volume down, to preserve the Sunday's peace, but when I finally ran out of steam and switched off the transmitter, the delicate strains of Verdi immediately filled the room. I'd inadvertantly set the frequency of the unit to that of a local classical radio station, and had been "pre-empting" their local programming in probably a two or three-block radius. This got me thinking anew about the inherent possibilities of this increasingly interesting device. It didn't just work with guitars, you could plug in a microphone, or even a tape deck. I realized I had my own, albeit microcosmic, pirate radio station, right here in my living room. The fact that even on a good day, it could reach no more than about 0.0001% of the city's population dampened my spirits not a whit. I started to frequently broadcast my songs to the neighborhood, who really couldn't have cared less, providing my broadcasting didn't disrupt their regular station, which it generally did. ( I confess, I often did cut in on the regular stations, because that's where the listening audience was. After all, I reasoned, who but a lunatic tunes their radio to a blank spot in the hopes that some moron with a cordless guitar will start broadcasting there?) But loonies aside,audience demographics were of little concern to me: technically, my stuff was "on the radio" (and besides, the thought of advertising had yet to occur to me). However, my most entertaining cordless application discovery occurred a few years ago in SF, when I was being kept awake late by some inebriated troglodytes partying in the street with a car radio set at a volume calculated to sterilize small amphibians. The bass woofer in their trunk was actually vibrating the walls in my bedroom. To add to this, they were all screaming and whooping like a pack of howler monkies, which presumably explained why the radio volume was so loud. This was a marginal neighborhood, ( my live-in studio was there and it was cheap rent for a lot of space) and these people looked as if they had only recently discovered fire and were perhaps even now celebrating their new discovery. I recognized the physical risks inherent in going out and asking a bunch of drunken, post-adolescent gang-banger- wannabes to please stop screaming at the top of their besotted lungs and shove off. So I pulled the Nady from long disuse in a drawer, hooked it up to a microphone feed and set it to the frequency of their selected radio station, blocking the station's signal and permitting me to berate the offending bozos over their own car radio. I waited until a radio song had ended, then hit the On switch and started up in my best FM DJ voice "Ok, this is going out to all the screaming drunks in the blue Pontiac on 14th St...." Having thus acquired their stunned attention, I proceeded to break many, if not all of the FCC's laws regarding the on-air broadcasting of threats and profanities (not to mention the many laws regarding the illegal jamming of a licensed radio station). Their reaction was both impressive and unforgettable; they really thought that the DJ on the air at KFOG was cursing them out, and with their initial stupefaction wearing off, they started getting all excited (and louder) about being on the radio. It reminded me a lot of those really *interesting* people who appear on the Jerry Springer show. This was obviously the opposite effect of the one I had envisioned, so I changed tactics and told them they sounded like pretty nice people, for a bunch of howling drunks, and invited them to drive over to the radio station and hang out with me in the studio. Ah, the wonderful gullibility of the inebriated; they immediately got in a couple of cars and drove off. I'd like to think they went off to to an interesting encounter with KFOG security. ( another great contradiction). I still use the Nady now and then, to play in the garden late at night amongst the Redwoods, coupled to a cheap set of wireless headphones. It's beautiful to be in one of these enormous moonlit groves playing a guitar with just a little chorus and reverb added to enhance the sound. So in another interesting contradiction, I'm using modern technology to um, well, get back to Nature (!?!) Which I suppose is marginally better than using it to ascend to the stars from Central Park;) Phil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 23:18:46 -0400 From: meredith Subject: christine fellows tour info Hi, Attention you lucky western Canadian people ... Christine Fellows is going to be opening for The Waifs on their tour of western Canada in May. The dates are up at http://www.christinefellows.com/concerts.html. Whee! ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ======Next Up: N&K Nields 4/21/02====== ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 22:47:56 -0500 From: "JS News" Subject: Cosmology Inflation Theory Completely off topic however.......if anyone is interested in cosmology or inflation theory this is a wonderful site. http://snap.lbl.gov/news/news.html Snap stands for Supernova / Acceleration Probe . The link to the news section will take you to "billions and billions" of science mags and news articles on Big Bang, time, inflation theory etc. Enjoy!!! Jim ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V8 #104 **************************