From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V12 #66 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Sunday, March 12 2006 Volume 12 : Number 066 Today's Subjects: ----------------- MySpace find: Katie Herzig (and Charlotte) ["Xenu's Sister" ] Devics, "Push The Heart" [Craig Gidney ] Lilac Wine Composer [Michael HH ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:57:33 -0800 (PST) From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: MySpace find: Katie Herzig (and Charlotte) http://www.myspace.com/katieherzig Charlotte was great last night, as usual. I do love her so, and she's so damned sweet! I met her after the show and she came up to me saying "Vickie Vickie Vickie Vickie Vickie" and gave me a hold-on tight hug that seemed to last forever! I was somewhat shocked. Even that she remembered my name (beyond "that weird chick who gave me the Happy Rhodes CDs)! They were rushing people out of the club and she said "Is this it? Is this all the time we have? Come to Detroit!" Oh man, I wish! But with no car, and a $128.00 Amtrak fare (I actually checked), it wasn't to be. :( She didn't cover Happy, but that's ok. I can deal. Charlotte's now the 4th artist (along with Feist, Imogen Heap, and KT Tunstall) I've seen in the last couple of months who are touring with a stripped-down just-them-and-one-or-two-others-and-sound-effects-electronics outfit. Who needs a full band anymore? Not them. If only Happy and Bob and one or two well-programmed machines could go out on the road...sigh. - -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Music, all I hear is music, guaranteed to please... Happy's MySpace profile: http://www.myspace.com/happyrhodes Happy Rhodes song samples and rarities: http://wretchawry.com - -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 10:16:41 -0500 From: wojizzle forizzle Subject: 2006-03-11 scotsman article "imagine no possessions" http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=365252006 Imagine no possessions ANDREW EATON A FEW WEEKS AGO, JANE Siberry held what you could call an extreme yard sale. Opening her Toronto home to friends, family, neighbours and fans, the 50-year-old singer-songwriter sold virtually everything she owned - her furniture, car, clothes, photos, art, records, letters - until the house was empty. She also sold the house. What she didn't sell, she threw in the bin. Now, one of Canada's most admired musicians, a woman who has worked with KD Lang, Peter Gabriel, Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, is homeless. "I guess I feel like things were weighing me down," she explains, insofar as she can explain it. "I don't know," she sighs. "It's still under investigation. I was impatient with feeling weighed down. I want to focus on being a musician, so anything that gets in my way ..." As if that wasn't enough, Siberry is playing fast and loose with her one source of income, her music. Since 1996 she has run her own label, Sheeba. No more. The master tapes of all her 14 albums have been thrown in the bin; all that remains are MP3s, which she is selling on her website. Except she's not exactly selling them; the site now has a policy of "self-determined pricing", an honour system where you pay what you think is appropriate. If you want to download her entire back catalogue for free, then you can. "Maybe I'll just stop copyrighting my songs," she tells me, clearly on a roll. "What am I saying when I do that? I'm sort of pissing on something like a dog. Maybe people can take them if they want and if they don't treat them right that's their problem, not mine." She believes in trusting people, she says. "I hate locking my door and I often don't." If Siberry's behaviour strikes you as eccentric, you wouldn't be alone. In many ways, she's Canada's answer to Kate Bush, a breathtakingly imaginative, fiercely individual songwriter who plays by her own rules and is frequently labelled "quirky" or plain bonkers for her troubles. If the name is new to you (she's better known across the Atlantic than here), delve into her back catalogue - while you still can, for who knows what she'll do next - and you'll find all kinds of treasures, from a 25-minute odyssey about dragons and lost innocence to a funny song about her dog. Arguably, Siberry outdoes Bush for sheer range and invention. Her 1981 debut album was a more playful cousin to Joni Mitchell's Blue. By 1983 she was making something resembling synth pop. Then the songs got longer, more multi-layered and theatrical, with Siberry often playing several characters. In one of her most ambitious, The Bird in the Gravel, she plays a heartbroken maid, a truck driver, a servant and a kitchen full of noisy cooks. Then, just as fans were getting used to this, she started making country music. Then a jazz album. You get the idea. All this won Siberry acclaim and a cult audience. Increasingly, though, her record label had no idea what to do with her, and suggested they choose the producer of her next album. Siberry said no, left, and set up Sheeba. "I'm such a different person now I can't really remember what all those things meant to me," she says when asked about this time. "I thought Sheeba would be a springboard for freedom, and it was to a certain extent." But Siberry soon became frustrated with the limitations of running her own business. "I had the freedom but I didn't have the cash to have other people on my label and have a great artwork team. I wasn't really proud of the company." If she couldn't do it properly, she decided, she just wouldn't do it. I ask if she's an all or nothing kind of person. "Probably to my chagrin, sometimes," she responds. The decision to rid herself of all her possessions was, she says, "an organic, slow-building thing". "I have very few clothes, my diet's very simple. My lifestyle means I've removed all debt from my life, my bills are down to almost zero. I don't need that much to live well; I'm often on tour with just a suitcase. I'd go home and think, 'oh my gosh I feel like ate too much dessert, looking at all this'." Since the yard sale, she says, "sometimes I feel pretty shaky. A lot of people say, oh gosh, I'd be terrified to do what you did, and that makes me nervous." But, she adds, "there's a recognition that it's brewing somewhere in their consciousness. I feel like a barometer of what's in the air." She believes people have too much "material baggage", and know it. At first, she says, "I kept one letter from each person I love, and one or two photos, then I thought maybe I should let go of that too. I threw out thousands of photos. It's odd with photos, you think, here's 20 of this little girl I adore, let's reduce it to two, and then one, and then I think, well, why do I need any? I can just go to her mother's house and look at them." So where is Siberry living now? Hotels, mostly, since she's on tour (solo with backing track, another bill-saving device). When I called her she was in a laundromat, playing with a dog. Next week she plays in the UK for the first time since 1999. Catch her if you can, since it could be your last chance. After the tour she's just going to "follow the natural lines of energy flow" wherever they take her. "Maybe I'll meet this great musician, rent a room for a few weeks and record and see what happens. I'm just trying to find a new way of doing things."  Jane Siberry plays the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, on 29 March. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 07:36:03 -0800 (PST) From: Craig Gidney Subject: Trespassers William, Having Having evokes a desert landscape in its sound. Open spaces, arid guitar-lines, the heatwaves of effects/pedals/delays and Anna-Lynne Williams' hazy, just-below the horizon vocals. Though often lumped in with the "dreampop" movement, their melancholic sound reminds one more of the slo-core merchants Low wedded to the desultory countrified pyschedelia of Mazzy Star. Williams' voice sounds like Aimee Mann's; but her delivery recalls the whispery way Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies sings. Her singing is like a tumbleweed across the illusory, dry landscapes of the music --Craig Blog: http://ethereal-lad.livejournal.com Music Blog: http://www.last.fm/user/ethereal_lad/ - --------------------------------- Brings words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 07:38:02 -0800 (PST) From: Craig Gidney Subject: Devics, "Push The Heart" World-weary lyrics and voices steeped in loss and loneliness. Echoing music full of accordians, musical saws, piano and upright bass. Sara Lov's wounded voice and Dustin Halloran's cinematic, noir-tinged songcraft would be perfect in David Lynch movie. Imagine a lounge of faded red velvet, with vinyl booth seats torn and bleeding foam, a voice of infinite sadness reaches to you from a dimily-lit stage.... --Craig Blog: http://ethereal-lad.livejournal.com Music Blog: http://www.last.fm/user/ethereal_lad/ - --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail makes sharing a breeze. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 08:27:02 -0800 From: Michael HH Subject: Lilac Wine Composer Hi all This is a bit off track but I was looking for info on one of my fav. songs - Lilac Wine (as sung by Buckley, Simone, Melua). Tried to google about the composer (James Shelton) but could find no info. Does anyone know anything about him? cheers Mike. ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V12 #66 **************************