From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V8 #349 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, December 16 2002 Volume 08 : Number 349 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Today's your birthday, friends... [Mike Matthews ] happyrhodes.com ["Lyle Howard" ] Will your CD player tell on you? [Michael Curry ] Falcon Ridge "Summer In December" Tour [meredith ] *sigh* Firefly cancelled [Michael Curry ] Re: *sigh* Firefly cancelled [meredith ] Re: Falcon Ridge "Summer In December" Tour [Neal Copperman ] Re: *sigh* Firefly cancelled [Greg Bossert ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 03:00:01 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Matthews Subject: Today's your birthday, friends... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ***************** Julie C. Kammerzell (kammerzj@peak.org) ***************** *************** Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti (no Email address) *************** *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Julie C. Kammerzell Sun December 15 1968 Sagittarius/Scorpio combo Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti Sat December 15 1956 queen_nefertiti@prodigy.net Damon Harper Tue December 16 1975 COOL BANANAS Laura Clifford Tue December 17 1957 Sagittarius Dirk Kastens Tue December 17 1963 Sagittarius Milla Wed December 17 1975 Sagittarius Chris Schernwetter Tue December 17 1974 Sagittarius Sherry Haddock Sat December 17 1960 Sagittarius Tracy Benbrook Tue December 18 1973 Sagittarius Mark Lowry Mon December 22 1969 Capricarius Kay Cleaves Wed December 22 1976 Prancing Pony Uli Grepel Wed December 25 1968 Steinbock Joseph Wasicek Sat December 25 1976 Brown Eagle Stuart Castergine Mon December 30 1963 You Are Here Marvin Camras Sat January 01 1916 Tapehead Jeanne Schreiter Tue January 03 1967 Capricorn John Sandoval Wed January 04 1967 Capricorn Paul Cohen Tue January 05 1954 Capricorn Tony Garrity Mon January 08 1962 Pool of Life Greg Bossert Tue January 09 1962 OfTheTimes Troy J. Shadbolt Thu January 14 1971 Capricorn Chris Sampson Wed January 15 1964 Void where prohibited - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 00:57:40 +0000 From: "Lyle Howard" Subject: happyrhodes.com Hola, So it's finally happened. Someone did clone Happy. Apparently something went awry (how wretched) and the X chromosome mutated into a Y chromosome. Well, Happy does make a hunky hank of man. I see the techno tendencies won out over the folkie tendencies. He's a cyber cowboy complete with vocoding/sample-crunching keyboard. Is it too much to hope for a duet from Happys some day? Lyle n.r. Foundation Trilogy. Asimov. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 21:16:57 -0500 From: Michael Curry Subject: Will your CD player tell on you? A disturbing piece of news about a company called Bandlink: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/15/2024207&mode=thread&tid=141 Apparently it's easy enough to avoid if you have autorun disabled and/or don't agree to the popup agreement, but still.... Michael np: Tori Amos - SW nr: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 21:29:29 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Falcon Ridge "Summer In December" Tour Hi, This past summer at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, a small ad in the program caught my eye: the "Summer In December" tour, featuring The Kennedys, Nerissa & Katryna Nields and Susan Werner. I immediately marked my mental calendar, and finally last night I got to see the tour at the Joyful Noise Coffeehouse in Lexington, Mass. This was my last concert of 2002. What a way to end my concertgoing year! In a word: amazing. The best concert I've seen this year (which, in a year in which Tori Amos was on tour and we hosted some kickass house concerts, is saying something). Considering the lineup (two of my all-time favorite musical acts (Nields and Werner) plus one of my high A-list acts (Kennedys)) and the reviews I'd read of the tour so far, I had pretty high expectations for this show. I'm happy to say they were all exceeded. The Kennedys kicked things off, doing their usual thing sandwiched in between renditions of "Life Is Large". There were several songs from _Get It Right_, the latest in the line of perfect pop records the duo has been turning out lately. They even premiered a brand-new song, a Celtic-sounding ballad based on a traditional story, with a postmodern feminist twist. It was lovely. Maura has such a pretty voice! Pete Kennedy is one of the best guitarists on the planet right now, and Maura is no slouch either. I used to think they were just showing off, but now I accept that they definitely have the chops to back it up, and as woj pointed out they could really be showing off a lot more than they do. They're not as cloyingly sickly-sweet on stage together, either -- I guess their 5-plus-year newlywed period finally came to an end. :) Plus, they are great people, very approachable. Even though they had someone manning their merchandise table, during the intermission they made a point of being there to sign CDs and just say hello to anyone who wanted to stop by. Next came Nerissa & Katryna, and the Kennedys stayed on stage to join them on "Jeremy Newborn Street" and "The Sweetness". Later on Susan Werner appeared to play piano on "100 Names", the studio version of which she also appears on, which was beautiful -- but very painful to watch Nerissa sing, considering she wrote it for her now-ex-husband. (Katryna mentioned that the song is in F-sharp, and she wasn't kidding. That's what happens when you decide after the fact to transpose to piano a song that was written on guitar. It's a testament to Susan's musical talent that she was able to make it work!) After intermission, Susan Werner started her set by having the Kennedys accompany her on "Time Between Trains". She proceeded to do a condensed version of her usual set, in the middle of which Pete came back out and the two of them did the most amazing jazz guitar duet of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" segued into "The Christmas Song". Pete noted that since it was a "Summer in December" tour, he should start it off with a surf intro, which he did -- it was hilarious. He told me afterwards that last weekend he and Susan were noodling around during sound check, and the others convinced them to do it on stage. I'm *so* glad they did!! Susan is no slouch on the guitar, and playing with Pete really brought out her best. After Susan concluded her set with a moving rendition of "May I Suggest", the Nields and Kennedys came back out and, impossibly, everything got ratcheted up a few more notches. Katryna explained that their manager Patty had reported some disquiet on the Nields list about the lack of summery songs on this tour, at which point I thought "oh cool, they're going to do 'Living It Up In The Garden'," but then Susan laid down a riff and before we knew it, Nerissa was singing "Summertime ... and the livin' is easy." It was jaw-dropping. After that they continued the four-guitar, five-part-harmony, including the Nields' "Easy People" (which Susan is still learning, it was cute watching her staring at Pete and Nerissa trying to figure out where to go next), the ancient "Dona Nobis Pacem" (heart-achingly beautiful), and "For What It's Worth". (Katryna's "air caterpillar" during that last, using one of her daughter Amelia's toys was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. :) Then for an encore they did "So This Is Christmas". What a way to end it. I heard afterwards that it was the best night the Joyful Noise Coffeehouse had ever had. They were completely sold out (350 people were crammed in there), and the artists sold many, many CDs. It certainly seemed to be a well-run operation, and I was happy to be among the crew who helped move the piano after the show. :) Now to set a reminder for myself to call and order Falcon Ridge tickets tomorrow ... for a limited time, they're selling 4-day with camping passes for the stunningly low price of $65. (!) ============================================== 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://muzak.smoe.org NEXT UP: Holly Figueroa, 1/26/03 ============================================== ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 21:36:54 -0500 From: Michael Curry Subject: *sigh* Firefly cancelled I'm both disgusted and unsurprised by this. The episodes just kept getting better and better (despite being showed in the wrong order), but Friday at 8pm has long been the timeslot of death on FOX. Guess now they'll have more time to show When Animals Attack Mimes or something equally worthwhile. Anyway, here's some words on the subject from Joss: http://www.buffistas.org/showthread.php?thread_id=13&post_id=7717 >joss - Dec 13, 2002 7:49:36 am EST #7717 of 8913 >Kiba owes me her life. > >Four AM. Can't sleep. Who'd have thought? > >There's a couple of things I'd like to say. And a few things I really can't. >First of all, I'm prouder of this show and the people I worked with on it >than I can express in words, monkey noises, or hyroglyphics. I believe this >has been some fairly great TV. And the experience of making it... I've had >crew members who've been working for 20 years say they've never worked >around such excitement, support and love. You walk on that set, you're >transported. The cast: 9 count 'em 9 incredibly talented actors who are all >decent, wonderful people. This phenomenon cannot be explained by science. > >Second of all, don't think for a second that I have given up on this show. I >think it has been mistreated shamefully, but the Fox network has indicated >that they would not stand in the way (which they can) of my finding a new >home for the show. That's no easy prospect. But I will do everything in my >power, as always, to keep this bird in the air. Of course I'll post if >there's any news. > >But even if the show goes back up elsewhere, I'm going to lose a good >portion of my crew. Production will halt, they'll need to find new jobs. You >can't imagine how that feels. How much they brought to the table, how hard >and well they worked. And their Christmas bonus is this. As much as the >cast, the staff, and my not so secret lover Minear, I honor those guys, and >hope to get them back on board. > >So for now, I proudly take my place beside Profit, The Ben Stiller Show, the >Tick, and Action. But I won't rest until I've found safe harbour (no, not >the Gregory Harrison show) for this vessel. > >I've got the time. > >It ain't like I'm sleeping. > >-joss. Michael ============================================ Michael Curry mcurry@io.com Wake Up -- a weblog http://www.io.com/~mcurry/weblog/wakeup.html ============================================ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 22:51:18 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: *sigh* Firefly cancelled Hi, Mike posted: > I'm both disgusted and unsurprised by this. The episodes just >kept getting better and better (despite being showed in the >wrong order), but Friday at 8pm has long been the timeslot of >death on FOX. Guess now they'll have more time to show When >Animals Attack Mimes or something equally worthwhile. FOX set up _Firefly_ to fail from the very moment they ordered Joss to trash the pilot episode and throw together another blander, "safer" one on short notice. And then there is the matter of the timeslot, of course. One hopes UPN comes riding to the rescue... ============================================== 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://muzak.smoe.org NEXT UP: Holly Figueroa, 1/26/03 ============================================== ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 21:31:23 -0700 From: Neal Copperman Subject: Re: Falcon Ridge "Summer In December" Tour At 9:29 PM -0500 12/15/02, meredith wrote: >Pete Kennedy is one of the best guitarists on the planet right now, >and Maura is no slouch either. I used to think they were just >showing off, but now I accept that they definitely have the chops to >back it up, and as woj pointed out they could really be showing off >a lot more than they do. Hmmm, my memory says something like woj was not a Kennedys fan, but I could be off track on that one (or has he, too, been converted?). I like the Kennedys pretty well myself. My biggest problem with them is that their shows tend to feel VERY scripted. Fun and enjoyable, but too often the same or very similar. I saw Pete play solo a few times, back before Pete & Maura, and late the Kennedys, and the comments about him having the chops and being able to show off more are totally true. His solo show was wildly showy, but also very exciting. In fact, I sometimes have missed the out-of-control adventurousness that went with those shows. He would push his guitar in all sorts of directions, playing helicopters for a Vietnam song and genre hopping like mad. The folk-pop jangle of the Kennedys doesn't seem like much of a stretch for him. >Next came Nerissa & Katryna, and the Kennedys stayed on stage to >join them on "Jeremy Newborn Street" and "The Sweetness". Later on >Susan Werner appeared to play piano on "100 Names", the studio >version of which she also appears on, which was beautiful -- but >very painful to watch Nerissa sing, considering she wrote it for her >now-ex-husband. I haven't been tracking the Nields personal lives, so this was news to me :( I was sorry to hear that. Does that mean the Nields are officially no more? Is there anything in the works beyond the duo? neal now editing: Rivercane House Concert - I didn't think I'd have anything to post about our last house concert, which featured a 6-piece local world music group. It was notable for us because of the large size (and instruments, including harp, cello and string bass). The lead singer was a Norwegian woman, and the music they played covered a wide range and was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we spent a long time with her going over all the Nordic music in Jeff's CD collection. But the funny ecto-connection that brought on a note was the fact that she rented her Oslo apartment to Mari Boine and said she was a total prima donna! "She wanted me to carry her bags up to her apartment! Worse yet, I did!" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 23:46:07 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: Falcon Ridge "Summer In December" Tour Hi, Neal responded: >Hmmm, my memory says something like woj was not a Kennedys fan, but I >could be off track on that one (or has he, too, been converted?). He's always liked them fine, as far as I know. Neither of us has been (or is) their biggest fan, but we've enjoyed seeing them this year. >I like the Kennedys pretty well myself. My biggest problem with them is >that their shows tend to feel VERY scripted. Fun and enjoyable, but too >often the same or very similar. I guess I haven't seen them enough to get this feeling, but that is too often the case for many performers. >I saw Pete play solo a few times, back before Pete & Maura, and late the >Kennedys, and the comments about him having the chops and being able to >show off more are totally true. JeffW made me pick up the old solo album of his they had for sale. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, though. >I haven't been tracking the Nields personal lives, so this was news to me >:( I was sorry to hear that. Does that mean the Nields are officially no >more? Is there anything in the works beyond the duo? The band is officially defunct, yes. Sadly, the last performance they ever did as a band was in New Haven in August of last year (of course nobody but the band knew that then). Dave Chalfant is going to continue to produce (and play on) the duo's albums as far as I know, and Dave Hower appeared at their most recent Iron Horse gig and played drum (Katryna only had one tom drum with her :) on one song. If they ever do get any sort of a band together, it will probably only be at Falcon Ridge. It's sad, but these things happen, and the duo is doing fine on their own for now. I don't know what the future is going to hold, though - 2003 is going to bring the publication of Nerissa's first jaunts into prose writing, so who knows whether that's a harbinger of a complete career change? (And in case anyone is wondering, Nerissa has discussed her divorce from David in interviews since _Love And China_ came out, so I'm not pulling anything out of my nether regions as far as that goes.) ============================================== 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://muzak.smoe.org NEXT UP: Holly Figueroa, 1/26/03 ============================================== ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 21:04:01 -0800 From: Greg Bossert Subject: Re: *sigh* Firefly cancelled On Sunday, December 15, 2002, at 06:36 PM, Michael Curry wrote: > Anyway, here's some words on the subject from Joss: thanks for the info, Mike, sad and/or infuriating though it is. what's maddening (and this, of course, applies to many an ectophilic musicians as well) is that there's more than enough audience to support such a show (album/tour/topiary/etc). however, the people who control the traditional means of distribution are not only achingly slow to understand social and technological shifts, they're just plain incompetent; e.g. try to build a sponser base on a schedule that changes every few months. it's not necessary to argue talent or taste here -- it's simply a matter of poorly educated people failing to achieve even their misguided goals. mind you, the US government surely sets a standard there... don't watch "reality shows". don't buy anything in the top 40, even if it's good. use the time and money and, say, buy something from another ecto member, or find a busker and tip big, or spend the money and time on something to record with (in whatever medium) and make your own entertainment. On Sunday, December 15, 2002, at 07:51 PM, meredith wrote: > One hopes UPN comes riding to the rescue... mmmm... imagining a lineup of Farscape, Firefly, and -- what's another "F" show -- how about "Faith the Rogue Slayer" (with lots of cameos from the Scoobs) thank goodness for this list and the music that swirls around it -- one of the few signs of intelligent life visible via this box. (there's some kind of SETI@home joke in there, but i'd need a few more machines hooked up to find it...) so this isn't a total rant: i just found some good stuff in the "under $10" bin at Tower Records (yes, going to Tower isn't real consistent with my little rant -- if this bothers you, go look up "hobgoblins") lessee, there was "Title Tk" by the Breeders, "guestroom" by Ivy, "the scavenger bride" by black tape for a blue girl, and Robin Holcomb's "The Big Time". i reckon i saved most of the money i just spent buying a couple of Land of the Blind albums from CD Baby -- take that, you cheeky little hobgoblins. :) 'tah - -g n.r. Steven Brust "The Paths of the Dead" n.p. Happy Rhodes (who'da thunk?) "Warpaint" - -- "i've never been afraid to change the circumstances of the world" - -- Happy Rhodes - -- "except for bunnies..." - -- Anya ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V8 #349 **************************