From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V8 #155 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, June 4 2002 Volume 08 : Number 155 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Tift Merritt [Paul Blair ] new Laurie Anderson [Jeffrey Burka ] Re: Tift Merritt ["neal copperman" ] Re: Tift Merritt [ebgb@textmode.net] Re: new Laurie Anderson [Joseph Zitt ] what makes a star ["Renee Canada" ] Ithaca Festival report: Katherine Aelias Band [Dan Riley Subject: Tift Merritt Read an article in the paper the other day about Tift Merritt: "Can Alt Country Go Mainstream?" with comparisons to Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams. Clips and info at . Light twang, but not enough to put me off--though the clips are pretty short. Any other takes on her? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 11:17:06 -0400 From: Jeffrey Burka Subject: new Laurie Anderson The new live double CD set _Live at Town Hall New York City September 19-20, 2001_ has been available for about two weeks and I finally remembered to go buy it. Or rather, was reminded by a mention of it by Greil Marcus in one of his "Real Life Top Ten" columns in Salon, in which he remarks (http://salon.com/ent/col/marc/2002/05/28/69/index.html): May 28, 2002 | 1) Laurie Anderson, "Live at Town Hall New York City September 19-20, 2001" (Nonesuch) An exquisite piece of work in a situation that had to be close to impossible to navigate: Straight off, Anderson offers a brief, inhumanly effete little homily on the eight-day-old ruins of New York and the blood fear of what comes next. It's unbearably precious -- until, somewhere into the first or second of these CDs, you realize Anderson's whole performance is an exercise in breath control, and that introduction comes back as a stifled scream, a swallowed curse, whatever you think you might have said in the same circumstance, which Anderson pointedly didn't say in your place. Song after song becomes perhaps more of a song than it ever was before - -- "Let X=X," "Strange Angels," "Coolsville." But how Anderson managed to get through "O Superman" without losing the strict, science-fiction beat is beyond me. Dating from 1979, the composition, it's now clear, is Anderson's "Gimme Shelter," her "Anarchy in the U.K.," her Book of Amos, her "Sugar, Sugar"; it's the end of the world, and it's catchy. It was always terrifying; it was always cute. But now, instead of predicting the future, the song is looking back at a future that has already taken place. Who, what wrote such lines as "Here come the planes/ They're American planes/ Made in America/ Smoking, or Non-Smoking?" -- and how did Anderson sing those lines after it had been revealed that "Smoking" was the answer the song had always contained? These nights were a great patriotic speech, with, scattered through the audience, the dead: Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Abraham Lincoln. - --------- I remember meth posting about this show back in september and then the talk of it being turned into an album, and I looked forward to hearing it. Now that I've had a chance, all I can say is that as a live Laurie Anderson album, it's wonderful and about as much as I could hope for in a non-visual live recording of hers. But it also really stands out as a document of the time and place. Marcus comments on her maintenance of breath control and beat during "O Superman." But how she managed to get through "Statue of Liberty" (mentioned by meth is her original show review) is beyond me... Absolutely, unequivocably worth checking out... jeff ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 15:37:12 -0000 From: "neal copperman" Subject: Re: Tift Merritt I was tempted enough to go check this out. Unfortunately, the only page that doesn't come up completely blank is the tour page. All the pages with music and information after the front page come up without anything. All that in Netscape. Using IE, everything looks fine. But I can't stream, and your options are only Real Audio and Windows Media, so I'm out of luck. :( neal np: The Sunlight Embassy - Suvome Paul Blair said: > Read an article in the paper the other day about Tift Merritt: "Can > Alt Country Go Mainstream?" with comparisons to Emmylou Harris and > Lucinda Williams. Clips and info at . > Light twang, but not enough to put me off--though the clips are > pretty short. > > Any other takes on her? > - -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 15:33:19 +0000 From: ebgb@textmode.net Subject: Re: Tift Merritt A comparrison to Emmylou Harris was enough to get my attention, 'Red Dirt Girl' is such a good album! On Mon, Jun 03, 2002 at 03:37:12PM -0000, neal copperman wrote: > I was tempted enough to go check this out. Unfortunately, the only page that > doesn't come up completely blank is the tour page. All the pages with music > and information after the front page come up without anything. All that in > Netscape. Using IE, everything looks fine. But I can't stream, and your > options are only Real Audio and Windows Media, so I'm out of luck. The pages render find with Mozilla 0.98 (on Linux) but the streams don't work with my player. I found this: http://www.duckonbike.com/artistinfo.asp?artistid=85&source=P Tift Merritt sample tracks in a good ol' mp3 format. :) The above site does have Flash content but not having the plugin doesn't seem to stop you looking and downloading. G. - -- The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man. Carl Jung (1875-1961) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 14:46:46 -0500 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: new Laurie Anderson On Mon, Jun 03, 2002 at 11:17:06AM -0400, Jeffrey Burka quoted Greil Marcus: > Who, what wrote such lines as "Here come the planes/ They're > American planes/ Made in America/ Smoking, or Non-Smoking?" -- and how > did Anderson sing those lines after it had been revealed that "Smoking" > was the answer the song had always contained? From the card that falls out of the package too easily: "For me, singing lines from "O Superman" like "Here come the planes. They're American planes. Made in America." felt like I had written it yesterday. In fact, I wrote that song in 1980 during the Iran-Contra affair, which now seemed like part of a longer conflict that continues to rage between the worlds of Islam and the West. It wasn't that the songs were "prophetic" as several reviewers pointed out. It was simply that this war was still going on." > Absolutely, unequivocably worth checking out... I agree. - -- | 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: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 15:32:18 -0400 From: "Renee Canada" Subject: what makes a star I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes people such stars--I mean, beyond the persistence, the big bucks and excellent marketing/publicity behind people like Britney Spears, for instance. It's more than looks, more than talent. A person can become a huge musical artist without really being able to sing a clear note. A lot of it is due to, I'm sure, that connection between artist and audience. Singers whose can hone in on the dramatic flavor of the human voice, performers who seem as if they acting from the heart. Bands who can create an almost orgasmic experience with their audience. Singer/songwriters who share a common experience--a break up, feelings of isolation, the conflicts of adolescence--who can convey a vivid emotion that we can relate to. So I'm curious what you all think. What is it exactly about certain actors, musicians, etc. that creates such fandom? And what is it about *us* that makes fans wait days in line to see the next Star Wars movie? That causes thousands of teenage girls to faint and cry just spotting the faces of the latest hot boys band? I'm really curious--beyond the talent, what is about your favorite artists that makes you love them the way you do? Renee - ----------------------------------------- **Shades of Gray** Check us (and our new album) out online at www.shadesofgraymusic.com www.mp3.com/shadesofgraymusic - ----------------------------------------- _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 2002 22:12:00 -0400 From: Dan Riley Subject: Ithaca Festival report: Katherine Aelias Band [I'm tempted to put "On topic" in the subject, I post to ecto about music so infrequently...] This weekend was the annual Ithaca Festival, a four day event showcasing local musicians, dancers, storytellers, poets, jugglers and other entertainers; local arts and crafts; and, of course, local chefs. Thursday is the parade (with features like the "Volvo Ballet"), Friday takes place on the the three blocks of downtown pedestrian mall called "The Commons", Saturday adds 4 blocks of barricaded streets adjacent to the Commons, and Sunday moves the whole thing to Stewart Park. It's a pretty big deal considering it's put on in a city of ~30k by mostly volunteers. I usually refer to it as the city's annual celebration of the departure of the undergrads, since it is invariably held one week after Cornell graduation. So anyway, Saturday I happened on a surprisingly ecto local group, the "Katherine Aelias Band" (formerly known as "lindenberry beat reduction", but apparently they found that too cumbersome, so they renamed it after Katherine, since she writes most of the songs, fronts the band, plays guitar, mandolin and bass (not all at once), and is one of the two people in all the band's incarnations). The incarnation I saw had Katherine, Jeff Coleman (the other constant--BVs, guitar and mandolin), a drummer with a minimal drum set, upright acoustic bassist, and a pretty good electric violinist. I'd characterize them as vaguely Area-like -- somewhat droney and ambient, but still harmonically interesting. They have a CD just out, "Topless with Mandolins", which I've failed to find (I thought Katherine said it was on i-town, Ithaca's music publishing cooperative (we have our own currency too), but it isn't listed there, and the band has no internet presence at all), and are playing further afield, so any ectophiles in the upstate New York area might want to keep a lookout for them. (They were followed by a local Joni Mitchell impersonator, but I didn't stay...) - -dan np: Bela Fleck and John Williams playing Chopin Mazurkas ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V8 #155 **************************