From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V11 #115 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, April 26 2005 Volume 11 : Number 115 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Today's your birthday, friend... [Mike Matthews ] 70s music [Bernie Mojzes ] Tori Article [Runly ] Re: 70s music [Bowen Simmons ] RE: Years of music ["Bill Adler" ] Re: 70s music [Russ Van Rooy ] Re: 70s music [Bernie Mojzes ] Re: 70s music [robert bristow-johnson ] Re: 70s music [robert bristow-johnson ] Re: 70s music [Bernie Mojzes ] Re: 70s music [] Re: 70s music [robert bristow-johnson ] Re: 70s music [Bernie Mojzes ] Re: 70s music [Neile Graham ] Re: 70s music [Bowen Simmons ] Re: 70s music [robert bristow-johnson ] Re: 70s music [Bowen Simmons ] Re: 70s music [Bowen Simmons ] judging art [Bernie Mojzes ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 03:00:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Matthews Subject: Today's your birthday, friend... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ********************** Matt Adams (no Email address) ********************** *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Matt Adams Thu April 26 1962 Taurus Brad Hutchinson Tue April 28 1964 What sign? Geoff Parks Sun April 30 1961 Taurus Marty Lash Sat May 01 1948 Taurus Barney Parker Fri May 02 1986 happy cat Gray Abbott Tue May 03 1955 Suprised Tamar Boursalian Tue May 03 1966 Taurus Richard A. Holmes May 07 Taurus Steve Ito Fri May 08 1970 DA Bull... Brian Gregory Thu May 09 1963 Eclectic Catherine Sundnes Sat May 09 1970 Very Catzy Heidi Maier Wed May 10 1978 Taurus Patrick Varker Wed May 12 1954 Torius Philip David Morgan Sat May 12 1962 Chinese Tiger in Bull Clothing Steve Fagg Tue May 13 1958 Nightwol Karel Zuiderveld Fri May 13 1960 Stier Michael Colford Wed May 16 1962 Taurus Christopher Boek Tue May 19 1970 Taurus Julia Macklin Mon May 20 1968 ethereus Yngve Hauge Fri May 21 1971 Gemini Lisa Laane Tue May 22 1973 Gemini Jewel Kilcher Thu May 23 1974 The Gem - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 03:55:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: 70s music i guess i shouldn't be surprised, considering the bad rap that 70s music gets, and in particular what gets put on display as "70s music." but i have to say that i was a little taken aback that >1 (>0, actually) people on this list professed an utter disdain for music from that decade. actually, my reaction was more like "gak! *choke splutter*" 'cause lets take a quick look at what was happening in the 70s. kate bush: the kick inside that in itself redeems the whole decade. :) we have the whole prog movement: yes, genesis, king crimson, gentle giant, peter gabriel, kate, van der graff generator, and so on. probably known better on the other side of the pond we've got hawkwind, can and (of course) gong. we've got david bowie's best albums. pink floyd. randy newman (one of the most subversive songwriters out there, btw - listen to the album "good old boys" sometime). patti smith. (one of the most brilliant lyricists ever) tom waits. frank zappa. captain beefheart. rickie lee jones (my math teacher in middle school interrupted his lesson one day to tell us how amazingly brilliant her debut album was - i just remembered that. :) warren zevon. (recommends "excitable boy" heart ("mistral wind" on "dog and butterfly" is still one of my favoritest songs ever) alice cooper. velvet underground. new york dolls. roxy music. iggy pop. fleetwood mac. ("what?!" you exclaim. listen to "rumours" - it's one of the best albums ever) pere ubu we have the birth of what we think of as "80s music": talking heads blondie the cars (whose first album is really quite good) xtc gary numan bauhaus adam ant b-52s elvis costello joe jackson the cure of course, punk in general, without which there'd have been none of the "80s music" above, nor would there have been throwing muses, siouxie, the cure, etc. we have brian eno, robert fripp, kraftwerk, tangerine dream, and mannheim steamroller paving the way for a whole style of "ambient" music which i know have informed some people on this list... we've got a whole lotta funk - parliament, james brown (whom i am not fond of), stevie wonder, edwin starr there's the whole "fusion" phenomenon, where people starting using elements of different types of music and mixing them together. some of this stuff was, well, unfortunate (hooked on classics comes to mind). but there was emerson lake and palmer, rick wakeman, and genesis mixing rock and classical, chick corea and return to forever, mahavishnu orchestra, miles davis, steely dan, jeff beck, joni mitchell and a slew of others mixing jazz and rock, peter gabriel experimenting with african rhythms, led zeppelin playing integrating indian music into their songs (check out "physical grafitti" for some really interesting stuff that won't get onto 21st century radio), claude bolling mixing jazz and classical, and steeleye span, jethro tull and fairport convention doing interesting things with traditional celtic folk songs. and while 70s radio gets poo-pooed frequently, we are forgetting that the concept of playlists and formatted radio is a more recent invention. DJs had a lot more leeway in what they played, and while, yes, there was a godawful lot of bee gees played, it was not unheard of to hear the full version of "Thick as a Brick" or "Supper's Ready," and "Kashmir" was a hit that got played a whole lot (all 10 minutes of it). lastly (though not leastly), music in the 70s had a significant impact on queer issues, liberating in the way that the 60s were for minorities and women. bands like queen and people like david bowie played serious head-games with people, putting gender issues in front of people in a way that they couldn't really ignore with music that was just too damn good to dislike, even if it was sung by "fags." being "out" was pretty much unheard of before that. and really, whatever i think of the music, i think one of the most brilliantly subversive things ever was the Village People, who managed to somehow produce a song that caused a half dozen teachers in my middle school to dress up as cops, indians, and etc and sing song a song about illicit teenage gay sex at the YMCA. in front of people. hrmm. it's after 3:30am. i should shut up and go to sleep already. tho i'm sure i've only barely scratched the surface... - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. www.livejournal.com/~brni ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:26:12 -0400 From: Runly Subject: Tori Article Of all the strange places, Tori and her home landed a six-page spread in the May issue of InStyle magazine... Sharon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 06:40:33 -0700 From: Bowen Simmons Subject: Re: 70s music On Apr 26, 2005, at 12:55 AM, Bernie Mojzes wrote: > i guess i shouldn't be surprised, considering the bad rap that 70s > music > gets, and in particular what gets put on display as "70s music." but i > have to say that i was a little taken aback that >1 (>0, actually) > people > on this list professed an utter disdain for music from that decade. Well, the >0 people in question seems just like an oblique reference to me, although you can correct me if I'm wrong. Actually, I made no blanket denunciation of "70's" music; I made some highly negative remarks about the general state of music between 1971 and 1975, and indicated that it began a recover between 1976 and 1980. Much of the music you list (and almost all of it that I like) is actually music from 1976 to 1980, not 1971 to 1975. Without a year-by-year analysis of your list, it isn't even possible to say whether you are arguing with me or agreeing with me. Suffice it to say that in my case, the list of albums that I own from the first half of the decade is much shorter than the list from the second half of the decade. I have no way of knowing whether the same would be true for you or not. With regard to the bulk of your post, a blow by blow debate over the merits (or lack thereof) of such long list of artists and albums is completely unmanageable and I won't attempt it. Suffice it to say that I'm familiar with them all and my opinion of the decade (both halves) takes them into account. I did find your inclusion of gender issues as being a positive for 70's music as being interesting. That's part of a theory of art that goes back to Plato, and has had many adherents since: the view that art can and should be judged according to its social consequences. (The Christian right tends to subscribe to this theory, for example, although their ideas of what are desirable social consequences are of course different than your own.) Since I don't subscribe to this theory of art, your raising of this subject has no effect on my views one way or the other. Yours, Bowen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 09:40:50 -0400 From: "Bill Adler" Subject: RE: Years of music A lot of the time, our hosts put on the CD we bring right away. A bottle of wine...well, that gets put away in the pantry and possibly opened years later. (I never twist arms to play the CD; I always leave it up to our friends.) If the people we're visiting do put on the music that gives me a chance to talk about the musician and music in general. Living in Washington, DC, the conversation will eventually move on to politics, but at least for a while we chat about music. The only problem I really have is that I need to keep track of which CDs I bring to particular friends. We tend to see the same people over and over again (maybe this means they like Ecto music!), and I learned from experience that if I don't make a note about what CD I've brought, I'm likely to bring that CD again. I buy a bunch of CDs at a time, usually directly from the musician's website. Sometimes indie musicians autograph their CDs, which makes the dinner gift even more fun to give and receive. Lately I've been bringing Vienna Teng's "Warm Strangers," Marina V's, "Something of My Own," and The Alice Project's "Traveling With Lady Berlin." - --Bill n.p. Equation, Hazy Daze - -----Original Message----- To: That warm and fuzzy [place] Subject: Re: Years of music On 25 Apr 2005, at 18:17, Bill Adler wrote: > With that in mind, I've substituted the traditional bottle of wine > with a CD as a dinner gift when we visit friends. It's a good way to > introduce friends to new (Ectoish) music. That's an interesting idea. I really like it. Have you had any particular problems in implementing it? /nm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 06:48:23 -0700 From: Russ Van Rooy Subject: Re: 70s music Don't leave out Television, especially if you are going to include Pere Ubu and Patti Smith oh, also The Ramones.... Bernie Mojzes wrote: >i guess i shouldn't be surprised, considering the bad rap that 70s music >gets, and in particular what gets put on display as "70s music." but i >have to say that i was a little taken aback that >1 (>0, actually) people >on this list professed an utter disdain for music from that decade. >actually, my reaction was more like "gak! *choke splutter*" > >'cause lets take a quick look at what was happening in the 70s. > >kate bush: the kick inside > >that in itself redeems the whole decade. :) > >we have the whole prog movement: yes, genesis, king crimson, gentle giant, >peter gabriel, kate, van der graff generator, and so on. probably known >better on the other side of the pond we've got hawkwind, can and (of >course) gong. > >we've got david bowie's best albums. pink floyd. randy newman (one of >the most subversive songwriters out there, btw - listen to the album "good >old boys" sometime). > >patti smith. (one of the most brilliant lyricists ever) >tom waits. >frank zappa. >captain beefheart. >rickie lee jones (my math teacher in middle school interrupted his lesson >one day to tell us how amazingly brilliant her debut album was - i just >remembered that. :) >warren zevon. (recommends "excitable boy" >heart ("mistral wind" on "dog and butterfly" is still one of my favoritest >songs ever) >alice cooper. >velvet underground. >new york dolls. >roxy music. >iggy pop. >fleetwood mac. ("what?!" you exclaim. listen to "rumours" - it's one of >the best albums ever) >pere ubu > >we have the birth of what we think of as "80s music": >talking heads >blondie >the cars (whose first album is really quite good) >xtc >gary numan >bauhaus >adam ant >b-52s >elvis costello >joe jackson >the cure > >of course, punk in general, without which there'd have been none of the >"80s music" above, nor would there have been throwing muses, siouxie, the >cure, etc. > >we have brian eno, robert fripp, kraftwerk, tangerine dream, and mannheim >steamroller paving the way for a whole style of "ambient" music which i >know have informed some people on this list... > >we've got a whole lotta funk - parliament, james brown (whom i am not fond >of), stevie wonder, edwin starr > >there's the whole "fusion" phenomenon, where people starting using >elements of different types of music and mixing them together. some of >this stuff was, well, unfortunate (hooked on classics comes to mind). >but there was emerson lake and palmer, rick wakeman, and genesis mixing >rock and classical, chick corea and return to forever, mahavishnu >orchestra, miles davis, steely dan, jeff beck, joni mitchell and a slew of >others mixing jazz and rock, peter gabriel experimenting with african >rhythms, led zeppelin playing integrating indian music into their songs >(check out "physical grafitti" for some really interesting stuff that >won't get onto 21st century radio), claude bolling mixing jazz and >classical, and steeleye span, jethro tull and fairport convention doing >interesting things with traditional celtic folk songs. > >and while 70s radio gets poo-pooed frequently, we are forgetting that the >concept of playlists and formatted radio is a more recent invention. DJs >had a lot more leeway in what they played, and while, yes, there was a >godawful lot of bee gees played, it was not unheard of to hear the full >version of "Thick as a Brick" or "Supper's Ready," and "Kashmir" was a hit >that got played a whole lot (all 10 minutes of it). > >lastly (though not leastly), music in the 70s had a significant impact on >queer issues, liberating in the way that the 60s were for minorities and >women. bands like queen and people like david bowie played serious >head-games with people, putting gender issues in front of people in a way >that they couldn't really ignore with music that was just too damn good to >dislike, even if it was sung by "fags." being "out" was pretty much >unheard of before that. and really, whatever i think of the music, i >think one of the most brilliantly subversive things ever was the Village >People, who managed to somehow produce a song that caused a half dozen >teachers in my middle school to dress up as cops, indians, and etc and >sing song a song about illicit teenage gay sex at the YMCA. in front of >people. > >hrmm. it's after 3:30am. i should shut up and go to sleep already. > >tho i'm sure i've only barely scratched the surface... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 11:44:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: Re: 70s music > Well, the >0 people in question seems just like an oblique reference to > me, although you can correct me if I'm wrong. Actually, I made no Hi Bowen, I'm going to break my response into two separate posts, mainly because this has gotten really long, and because you introduced something that is, to me, interesting in its own right, regardless of what anyone thinks of 70s music. I hadn't meant to single you out, particularly as you only dismissed half the decade... :) But a couple other people also indicated that there wasn't much interest in music from the seventies. On a list where there are a bunch of lurkers, it's not entirely out of bounds to take the position that each poster represents some unknown number of lurkers. > blanket denunciation of "70's" music; I made some highly negative > remarks about the general state of music between 1971 and 1975, and > indicated that it began a recover between 1976 and 1980. Much of the If by "general state of music" you mean "general state of the music industry," then we're in full agreement. But I think what we find in the early 70s is two contradictory movements. The first is a codification and commodification of "60s" music into something more easily controllable and digestable, molding 60s music into the "acceptably bland," which I think is what you were railing against. The second is a push against the boundaries of what was acceptable for music, continuing the experimentation that allowed us to move beyond doowop and "she loves you yeah yeah yeah." That's the stuff I find most interesting. > music you list (and almost all of it that I like) is actually music > from 1976 to 1980, not 1971 to 1975. Without a year-by-year analysis of > your list, it isn't even possible to say whether you are arguing with > me or agreeing with me. Suffice it to say that in my case, the list of > albums that I own from the first half of the decade is much shorter > than the list from the second half of the decade. I have no way of > knowing whether the same would be true for you or not. I would never dream of arguing with you about what you like (and again, my original post was not a directed specifically toward you). I will say that the set of music you like (or that I, or anyone else, likes) is different from the set of good music. To take myself as an example, I can't stand country music. Now, I can listen to Willie Nelson, to Emmy Lou Harris, to K.D. Lang and a bunch of other artists in the genre, and recognize that they are really good musicians who write really good songs and perform them really well. But they still grate on my nerves. > With regard to the bulk of your post, a blow by blow debate over the > merits (or lack thereof) of such long list of artists and albums is > completely unmanageable and I won't attempt it. Suffice it to say that > I'm familiar with them all and my opinion of the decade (both halves) > takes them into account. I think a blow by blow debate would be both unmanageable and uninteresting, because that would end up just having us figure out that our tastes are not identical. And that's a good thing. brni > Yours, > > Bowen > - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. www.livejournal.com/~brni ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:06:42 -0400 From: robert bristow-johnson Subject: Re: 70s music i never liked top-40 pop since the Beatles era, but i really liked the alternate music of the 70s. on 04/26/2005 03:55, Bernie Mojzes at brni@kappamaki.com wrote: > pink floyd. > patti smith. (one of the most brilliant lyricists ever) > tom waits. > frank zappa. > captain beefheart. i preferred "Captain Beyond" and was always disappointed when i asked for it, they would dig up Beefhart. kinda like ordering Pinot Noir and getting Pinot Griggio instead. > rickie lee jones (my math teacher in middle school interrupted his lesson > one day to tell us how amazingly brilliant her debut album was - i just > remembered that. :) > warren zevon. (recommends "excitable boy" > heart ("mistral wind" on "dog and butterfly" is still one of my favoritest > songs ever) mistral wind is simply ultra kick-ass. one of the heaviest pieces of "heavy-rock" i have ever heard. > alice cooper. > velvet underground. > new york dolls. > roxy music. the early Brian Eno. > iggy pop. > fleetwood mac. ("what?!" you exclaim. listen to "rumours" - it's one of > the best albums ever) i really liked the Buckingham and Nicks album where they were both nakie on the cover (with strategically placed hair, etc.). > pere ubu you didn't mention Camel, a great prog rock british band. Google them and/or Andrew Latimer and find out. a great album called Moonmadness among many others. never got to see them play live and now (2001) the keyboard player died. Wishbone Ash (the New England album has my two favorite Ash songs). Ten Years After and what about Happy's fav (or near fav, i'm not sure): YES! fusion such as Jean-Luc Ponty Genesis, Steve Hackett (Voyage of the Acolyte) Brand X (soon to be Phil Collins) German band: Finch Dutch band: Kayak > we have the birth of what we think of as "80s music": > talking heads > blondie ... i was already into Windham Hill and Narada labels and listening to the likes of Shadowfax (whom i got to see live at the Bottom Line ca. 1995), Michael Hedges, etc. both Hedges and Greenberg of Shadowfax have died. - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:09:32 -0400 From: robert bristow-johnson Subject: Re: 70s music on 04/26/2005 09:48, Russ Van Rooy at russvr@pop.nwnexus.com wrote: >> but there was emerson lake and palmer, rick wakeman, and genesis mixing >> rock and classical, chick corea and return to forever, mahavishnu >> orchestra, miles davis, steely dan, jeff beck, joni mitchell of course. i forgot to plug these folks. also Roger Powell: "Cosmic Furnace" another cool 70s band: Gentle Giant - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:13:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: Re: 70s music You know, somehow I completely missed Television until the early 90s, when I was listening to my roommate's vinyl albums. I never saw a CD by them around that time, so I don't have any. I like what I've heard, but I don't know what I've heard... Can you recommend one their albums? brni On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, Russ Van Rooy wrote: > Don't leave out Television, especially if you are going to include Pere > Ubu and Patti Smith > oh, also The Ramones.... > > Bernie Mojzes wrote: > > >i guess i shouldn't be surprised, considering the bad rap that 70s music > >gets, and in particular what gets put on display as "70s music." but i > >have to say that i was a little taken aback that >1 (>0, actually) people > >on this list professed an utter disdain for music from that decade. > >actually, my reaction was more like "gak! *choke splutter*" > > > >'cause lets take a quick look at what was happening in the 70s. > > > >kate bush: the kick inside > > > >that in itself redeems the whole decade. :) > > > >we have the whole prog movement: yes, genesis, king crimson, gentle giant, > >peter gabriel, kate, van der graff generator, and so on. probably known > >better on the other side of the pond we've got hawkwind, can and (of > >course) gong. > > > >we've got david bowie's best albums. pink floyd. randy newman (one of > >the most subversive songwriters out there, btw - listen to the album "good > >old boys" sometime). > > > >patti smith. (one of the most brilliant lyricists ever) > >tom waits. > >frank zappa. > >captain beefheart. > >rickie lee jones (my math teacher in middle school interrupted his lesson > >one day to tell us how amazingly brilliant her debut album was - i just > >remembered that. :) > >warren zevon. (recommends "excitable boy" > >heart ("mistral wind" on "dog and butterfly" is still one of my favoritest > >songs ever) > >alice cooper. > >velvet underground. > >new york dolls. > >roxy music. > >iggy pop. > >fleetwood mac. ("what?!" you exclaim. listen to "rumours" - it's one of > >the best albums ever) > >pere ubu > > > >we have the birth of what we think of as "80s music": > >talking heads > >blondie > >the cars (whose first album is really quite good) > >xtc > >gary numan > >bauhaus > >adam ant > >b-52s > >elvis costello > >joe jackson > >the cure > > > >of course, punk in general, without which there'd have been none of the > >"80s music" above, nor would there have been throwing muses, siouxie, the > >cure, etc. > > > >we have brian eno, robert fripp, kraftwerk, tangerine dream, and mannheim > >steamroller paving the way for a whole style of "ambient" music which i > >know have informed some people on this list... > > > >we've got a whole lotta funk - parliament, james brown (whom i am not fond > >of), stevie wonder, edwin starr > > > >there's the whole "fusion" phenomenon, where people starting using > >elements of different types of music and mixing them together. some of > >this stuff was, well, unfortunate (hooked on classics comes to mind). > >but there was emerson lake and palmer, rick wakeman, and genesis mixing > >rock and classical, chick corea and return to forever, mahavishnu > >orchestra, miles davis, steely dan, jeff beck, joni mitchell and a slew of > >others mixing jazz and rock, peter gabriel experimenting with african > >rhythms, led zeppelin playing integrating indian music into their songs > >(check out "physical grafitti" for some really interesting stuff that > >won't get onto 21st century radio), claude bolling mixing jazz and > >classical, and steeleye span, jethro tull and fairport convention doing > >interesting things with traditional celtic folk songs. > > > >and while 70s radio gets poo-pooed frequently, we are forgetting that the > >concept of playlists and formatted radio is a more recent invention. DJs > >had a lot more leeway in what they played, and while, yes, there was a > >godawful lot of bee gees played, it was not unheard of to hear the full > >version of "Thick as a Brick" or "Supper's Ready," and "Kashmir" was a hit > >that got played a whole lot (all 10 minutes of it). > > > >lastly (though not leastly), music in the 70s had a significant impact on > >queer issues, liberating in the way that the 60s were for minorities and > >women. bands like queen and people like david bowie played serious > >head-games with people, putting gender issues in front of people in a way > >that they couldn't really ignore with music that was just too damn good to > >dislike, even if it was sung by "fags." being "out" was pretty much > >unheard of before that. and really, whatever i think of the music, i > >think one of the most brilliantly subversive things ever was the Village > >People, who managed to somehow produce a song that caused a half dozen > >teachers in my middle school to dress up as cops, indians, and etc and > >sing song a song about illicit teenage gay sex at the YMCA. in front of > >people. > > > >hrmm. it's after 3:30am. i should shut up and go to sleep already. > > > >tho i'm sure i've only barely scratched the surface... > - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. www.livejournal.com/~brni ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 09:22:12 PDT From: Subject: Re: 70s music Television's "Marquee Moon" from 1977 is usually makes somewhere in top 100 on most critics lists as one of the great rock albums ever. It's number one with me ;-) . Not exactly ecto perhaps though there is a certain ethereal quality and moodiness about their music. Their second album "Adventure" from 1978 is quite good too, usually underated. Lastly, their eponymous album from 1992 is again quite ethereal and could fit easily in a record collection that contains Kate Bush and the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star , even though they really do not sound anything like those bands... Bernie Mojzes wrote : > You know, somehow I completely missed Television until the early 90s, when > I was listening to my roommate's vinyl albums. I never saw a CD by them > around that time, so I don't have any. I like what I've heard, but I > don't know what I've heard... > > Can you recommend one their albums? > > brni _______________________________________________________________ NW Nexus WebMail - powered by NOCC, http://nocc.sourceforge.net ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:27:58 -0400 From: robert bristow-johnson Subject: Re: 70s music on 04/26/2005 09:40, Bowen Simmons at bowen@mac.com wrote: > I made some highly negative > remarks about the general state of music between 1971 and 1975, Todd Rundgren Yes Led Zepplin Blue Oyster Cult (before they went commercial with the Reaper song) Wishbone Ash Cream (White Room) Ten Years After com'on! there was a lot of really good music in that period of time. problem is that very little made it to the radio and other media. you could say the same for the 80s and 90s. and then there were the sorta unknown specialty bands like (my fav): Camel. check out http://www.camelproductions.com/ and hit "timeline" to read about these guys. as Happy is evidence, sometimes the absolute best talent is not well known to the masses. it's just the way it is (and was, even in past decades). - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 13:03:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: Re: 70s music On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, robert bristow-johnson wrote: > i never liked top-40 pop since the Beatles era, but i really liked the > alternate music of the 70s. it's weird how much top-40 sucks so godawfully much, no matter what era you're talking about, but how certain brilliant songs mysteriously show up and inexplicably become hits. suzanne vega's "luca" is a prime example. *lots of list deletia, as there gets to be a point where the list overwhelms the content, and i think i surpassed that point in my first post...* > Genesis, Steve Hackett (Voyage of the Acolyte) in that vein, give Anthony Phillips (first Genesis guitarist, pre-Hackett) a listen. > i was already into Windham Hill and Narada labels and listening to the likes > of Shadowfax (whom i got to see live at the Bottom Line ca. 1995), Michael > Hedges, etc. both Hedges and Greenberg of Shadowfax have died. Windham Hill music, as a whole, bores me (almost as much as enya). Michael Hedges and Shadowfax, though, were brilliant. I was very sad when I heard about Hedges accident. I hadn't heard about Greenberg. :( - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. www.livejournal.com/~brni ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:21:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Neile Graham Subject: Re: 70s music There really isn't much 1970s music I personally like. At the time I was a big Elton John and Jethro Tull fan. But Joni Mitchell was doing her best music in the 70s. _Blue_ was 1971 and _Court and Spark_ 1974 (I won it for being student of the day at my junior high and didn't like it for about 12 years, stupid me, but at least I eventually caught on). _Hejira_ has to be one of the most brilliant albums of all time, and really her whole jazz phase from 1975 through 1980 was incredible. - --Neile - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- neile@drizzle.com / neile@sff.net .... http://www.sff.net/people/neile Editor, The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music . http://www.ectoguide.org Workshop Administrator, Clarion West ...... http://www.clarionwest.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:32:13 -0700 From: Bowen Simmons Subject: Re: 70s music On Apr 26, 2005, at 8:44 AM, Bernie Mojzes wrote: > But I think what we find in the > early 70s is two contradictory movements. The first is a codification > and > commodification of "60s" music into something more easily controllable > and > digestable, molding 60s music into the "acceptably bland," which I > think > is what you were railing against. The second is a push against the > boundaries of what was acceptable for music This is true of the 70's, but I think it is generally true of music in the modern era; it could be said of the 50's, 60's, 80's and 90's as well. The tension between art and commerce neither began nor ended in the 70's. The fact that experimentation exists however does not automatically mean that it was successful: some experiments fail. > to take myself as an example, I > can't stand country music. I would not argue with your point about different genres. I am an incompetent critic of rap music because I have a strong negative reaction to all of it, which leaves me unable to distinguish between good rap and bad rap (I believe it goes back to having to endure Rex Harrison talking his way through songs in 60's musicals; an experience that left permanently unable to endure anyone talking to music)*. However, this does not apply to the matter of the music of that decade. My problems with the first pentade are not genre problems as such. > I think a blow by blow debate would be both unmanageable and > uninteresting, because that would end up just having us figure out that > our tastes are not identical. Actually we haven't yet even figured out if you de facto agreed with my assessment of the decade: whether your collection of music from 1971 to 1975 is substantially smaller than your collection of music from 1976 to 1980 (this comparison does of course assume roughly equal familiarity on your part with both halves of the decade). If your collection is not in a database it would of course be tedious and time consuming to figure it out and I wouldn't blame you a bit for not trying; I only did it because once my music was in iTunes it was trivially easy to do. The difference between the pentades in my collection is quite real. It is not caused by differences in familiarity; I know both halves of the decade about equally well. Nor is it caused by prejudice - I did not decide in advance to buy less music from 1971 to 1975 than from 1976 to 1980 out of an a prior judgment regarding their merits. It may of course just be a peculiarity of taste on my part, but I don't think so. Yours, Bowen * That is of course a joke. As lamentable as Rex Harrison's musical performances were, I don't believe that they actually are responsible for my inability to appreciate rap music; the cause is obscure but is probably related to my inability to tolerate talk radio. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 13:40:24 -0400 From: robert bristow-johnson Subject: Re: 70s music on 04/26/2005 13:03, Bernie Mojzes at brni@kappamaki.com wrote: >> i was already into Windham Hill and Narada labels and listening to the likes >> of Shadowfax (whom i got to see live at the Bottom Line ca. 1995), Michael >> Hedges, etc. both Hedges and Greenberg of Shadowfax have died. > > Windham Hill music, as a whole, bores me (almost as much as enya). i hear you. like George Winston (yawn). some others, too. i liked some from Narada (Freidman and David Lanz & Paul Speer, some of this music NPR used as filler on All Things Considered) and from the Global Pacific labels (Teja Bell). BTW, Happy has recorded with Windham Hill founder Will Ackerman (who is currently a Vermonter, but on the other corner of the state than me). > Michael Hedges and Shadowfax, though, were brilliant. I was very sad when > I heard about Hedges accident. it took them about 3 days to even find him. his car went over some near-cliff and no one had any idea what happened for about 3 days. > I hadn't heard about Greenberg. :( yeah, about the same time (3 or 4 or 5 years ago). - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:44:06 -0700 From: Bowen Simmons Subject: Re: 70s music On Apr 26, 2005, at 9:27 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: > on 04/26/2005 09:40, Bowen Simmons at bowen@mac.com wrote: > >> I made some highly negative >> remarks about the general state of music between 1971 and 1975, > > Todd Rundgren > Yes > Led Zepplin > Blue Oyster Cult (before they went commercial with the Reaper song) > Wishbone Ash > Cream (White Room) > Ten Years After > > com'on! With that best-of-the-pentade list I'm not at all sure which side of the argument you're on. Seriously, though, how does your own music collection stack up? Do you have more albums from that pentade than earlier or later ones? The same? Fewer? You tell me. Yours, Bowen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:50:22 -0700 From: Bowen Simmons Subject: Re: 70s music On Apr 26, 2005, at 10:21 AM, Neile Graham wrote: > There really isn't much 1970s music I personally like. At the time I > was > a big Elton John and Jethro Tull fan. But Joni Mitchell was doing her > best music in the 70s. _Blue_ was 1971 and _Court and Spark_ 1974 (I > won > it for being student of the day at my junior high and didn't like it > for > about 12 years, stupid me, but at least I eventually caught on). > _Hejira_ > has to be one of the most brilliant albums of all time, and really her > whole jazz phase from 1975 through 1980 was incredible. Quite true. Joni Mitchell was definitely an artist I didn't fully appreciated at the time (my Ecto-ish tastes did not emerge until much later). I never disliked her, but only bought her albums years later. When you have her whole body of work, it is really stunning how much of it there is and how really good it is, and the 70's were her best period. Yours, Bowen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:09:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: judging art Bowen sed: > I did find your inclusion of gender issues as being a positive for 70's > music as being interesting. That's part of a theory of art that goes > back to Plato, and has had many adherents since: the view that art can > and should be judged according to its social consequences. (The > Christian right tends to subscribe to this theory, for example, > although their ideas of what are desirable social consequences are of > course different than your own.) Since I don't subscribe to this theory > of art, your raising of this subject has no effect on my views one way > or the other. It's my position that art should be judged by a confluence of criteria that, some of it brought to the table by the artist, some by the genre and scene within which they operate, some by the individual viewer or listener, and some by the wider social sphere. So I'd say that its a mistake to use the same criteria to judge Gang of Four's "Entertainment" and and Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra's performance of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." I once read a review of a Chick Corea album where the reviewer criticised the artist for failing to play with the precision and tonal clarity that even a mediocre classical pianist manages, and proceeded to condemn the whole of jazz for this failure. Umm. Right. Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," in which he postulates a man trying to write "Don Quixote," writes the following: ========= It is a revelation to compare Menard's Don Quixote with Cervantes'. The latter, for example, wrote (part one, chapter nine): . . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. Written in the seventeeth century, written by the "lay genius" Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes: . . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. History, the mother of truth: the idea is astounding. Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry into reality but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what has happened; it is what we judge to have happened. The final phrases -- exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor -- are brazenly pragmatic. ========= The meaning and value of every work of art is determined (and constantly redetermined) by many things, both within the work of art itself and external to it. The Ectoguide itself is a prime example of this; even though she didn't write it, it was spawned by a group of people who, drawn together by something special and unique in Happy Rhodes' music (and, notably, NOT Kate Bush's or anyone else's music, else the ectophiles list would have already existed, and be called something else) and searching for new and interesting music, started compiling a list. I view it as part of Happy's legacy, and an extention of her body of work. I also hold that every work of art is a political statement, regardless of the intention of the artist. The political statement can be explicit, implicit, or subversive, or it can simply be an endorsement of the status quo. I believe that art can be judged by this criteria. I believe that it *should* be judged by that criteria by people who for whom that criteria is important. If they want. but that's just the relativist in me... :) - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. www.livejournal.com/~brni ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V11 #115 ***************************