From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V12 #89 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Thursday, April 6 2006 Volume 12 : Number 089 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Today's your birthday, friend... [Mike Matthews ] rock journalism cliches [adamk@zoom.co.uk] Kumbh Mela soundtrack [Rolf Peukert ] YouTube [adamk@zoom.co.uk] casey stratton touring ["Jeffrey Burka" ] Sandi Thom, was Re: YouTube [andrew fries ] Re: YouTube [Ed Cole ] Re: Sandi Thom, was Re: YouTube [DanS <2005.carnivore99@verizon.net>] Charlotte Martin ["Southpaw" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 03:00:04 -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********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ******************** Michael E. Bravo (mbravo@acm.org) ******************** *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Michael E. Bravo Mon April 05 1971 Dandelion Wine Brion McIntosh Sun April 06 1958 Aries Marcel Kshensky Thu April 06 1950 Aries Bill Mazur Mon April 06 1953 Aries Sun/Cancer Rising David Dixon Tue April 07 1970 Aries Heidi Heller Mon April 08 1974 Aries Jill Hughes Sat April 09 1955 Aries Klaus Kluge Sun April 10 1960 Unicorn Steve VanDevender Sun April 10 1966 Racer Art Liestman Fri April 10 1953 Repeat Stephen Golden Sat April 10 1971 Jokey Michael Bowman Wed April 11 1962 Aries Wolfgang Ullwer Fri April 11 1969 Widder Janet Kirsch Thu April 11 1974 Aries Jerry Tue April 13 1971 Aries Stuart Myerburg Mon April 14 1969 Aries T-Bone Wed April 15 1992 happy cat Jeff Hanson Sat April 16 1966 Aries Michael Klouda Mon April 17 1967 Aries Noe Venable Tue April 20 1976 Aries Harry Foster Sat April 21 1956 NiceGuy Kjetil Torgrim Homme Thu April 23 1970 Taurus Jeff Burka Thu April 24 1969 GoFlyAKite Christine Waite Tue April 25 1972 Taurus 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 - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 09:32:46 +0100 From: adamk@zoom.co.uk Subject: rock journalism cliches This was posted on the gentle giant list, and it made me laugh. I've cut and pasted it, so apologies for any stray code or formatting problems. The Dallas Observer December 15, 2005 BSIDES Seminal Syntax By Rob Harvilla Before our year-end best-of lists, we confess our worst-of writing crimes Let us now discuss the labyrinthine, in-your-face, introspective, esoteric, head-bobbing, fist-pumping, booty-shaking, genre-defying melange of the Rock Critic Clichi milieu. Like any other, this profession suffers from ridiculous, impenetrable jargon. I am certainly not immune to this disease, but perhaps I can diagnose specific viruses and prescribe medicine for lousy metaphors. (Gotta knock it off with the lousy metaphors too.) As we behold 2005's shimmering, hypnotic, melodic close, I pledge to you: Every ... word [cited] in this article, I will never use again after this week. Angular: Frequently describes guitars that sound, well, pointy. Sharp, unpleasant, as opposed to "circular." Coruscating: Really, really angular. Listenable: "I didn't like it." Unlistenable: "I didn't listen to it." Seminal: "I sold it back for $5 without listening to it, but then everyone else wrote about it, so I had to buy it back for $12 and pretend I liked it." Minimalist: Describes any song that does not employ a full string orchestra. "Hall & Oates' 'I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)' is a seminal, coruscating slab of minimalist pop." Slab: Indeed. Danceable: "I couldn't dance competently if my pants were on fire." Radio-ready: "This is the only song I remember." Anthemic: Really, really radio-ready. Drops (e.g., "Tone Loc's new album drops January 25"): Knock it off, whitey. Wheels of steel (as opposed to "turntables"): White, white, white. Lush: Boring. Soundscapes: Pretentious. Swirling: Conjures lush soundscapes of boring pretentiousness. Cinematic: What--like Meatballs? Eclectic: "From polka to bluegrass to baile funk to death metal! It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!" Wanton Hyphen Overuse: An ordinarily calm friend of mine flies into a rage whenever this technique is employed. He refers to it as "I-can't-think-of- what-to-write-so-it's-time-to-say-'fuck-it'-and- hyphenate-a-mess-of-words-that-might-come-close-to- an-accurate-description-of-something-that-I-might- be-able-to-work-out-myself-if-I-read-real-books- instead-of-Spin-while-I-go-poo-poo." (He'll be fine, honest.) Wanton: Not yet. I still really like wanton. ____ Yet ____: Increasingly common. Angry Hyphen Guy particularly chafes at the "Retro Yet Futuristic" tag: "What--like Barbarella?" Wanton Capitalization Overuse: Such as, oh, say, Angry Hyphen Guy. I still love this one too. Let's save it for '06. - ----------------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://webmail.zoom.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:07:39 +0200 From: Rolf Peukert Subject: Kumbh Mela soundtrack Hi, looks like the movie "Short Cut to Nirvana" opens in Germany in April. Has anybody heard the soundtrack CD of it yet? Did Happy contribute any vocals? Rolf p.s. sorry if you received this twice, my first post apparently never appeared on the list. p.p.s. look in the small print: http://www.shortcut-to-nirvana.de/files/poster_ger.jpg ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 08:47:04 +0100 From: adamk@zoom.co.uk Subject: YouTube Thanks, Karen, for pointing out that there's quite a bit of Kate Bush on YourTube. Not having ever been a fan (umm, sorry about that) I had yet to explore either her or Tori. For Buffy fans, though, there is also -- somewhere amongst the dross -- the unaired half-hour pilot, which I've heard about but never seen, with a different actress playing Willow. Mind you, you have to plow through a LOT of fans' contributions, lots of scenes or themes edited together to the soundtrack of the their favourite rock song. I should have also mentioned that the quality of the clips is often shockingly bad. Some look like they've been transferred from very worn out video tapes and some are so digitally blocky that they're barely watchable. And I'm talking about more recent things: I had to abandon a video of REM's Imitation of Life because it was so pixillated it hurt my eyes. Great news on Sandi Thom -- I'd heard about the webcasts, but had never seen them. The net is certainly having an interesting affect on the music companies and the music-buying public. (hell, I actually wrote "record" instead of music at first. Old habits die hard, eh?) adam k. - ----------------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://webmail.zoom.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:13:24 -0500 From: "Jeffrey Burka" Subject: casey stratton touring So Marc and I went to see Casey Stratton at Jammin' Java last night. He seems to be about half way through a small tour right now. He puts on a fabulous show and our biggest complaint was that he was the first of three acts (though still played a respectable 50 minutes!). Much of the crowd was clearly there to see him, and the second act, Jann Klose, seemed a bit put off that when he took the stage most of the (small) audience was still at the back of the venue, swarming around Casey. Heh. He played a couple of songs off the oft-mentioned-on-ecto _Standing at the Edge_ and the recent release _Divide_, as well as some older stuff and a folk song from an upcoming release. I thought the live performances of the material from _Divide_ was far stronger live, with just his own keyboard accompaniment. His voice is incredibly powerful live, and he has an engaging and amusing stage presence (though Marc and I were both a bit (pleasantly) surprised at what we individually perceived as a strong queeniness; we independently reached a comparison to Rufus Wainwright). Best moment was when he played "Harvest" from _Standing at the Edge_ and I started thinking, toward the end, "Gee, with just a straight piano arrangement, this sounds surprisingly derivative of _Little Earthquakes_ era Tori." At which point he completed a segue into "Tear in Your Hand." Afterward, he said, "I have no idea why I did that; I've never done it before. I was just thinking 'Gee, this sounds like Tori. Hmmm, yup, it works' and went right into it'" jeff ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 06:18:06 +1000 From: andrew fries Subject: Sandi Thom, was Re: YouTube On Wednesday 05 April 2006 17:47, adamk@zoom.co.uk wrote: > Great news on Sandi Thom -- I'd heard about the webcasts, but had never > seen them. The net is certainly having an interesting affect on the music > companies and the music-buying public. (hell, I actually wrote "record" > instead of music at first. Old habits die hard, eh?) Great news for Sony, perhaps. I am a bit puzzled why anyone would want to put in all the work, create publicity - in short, do everything that record company is supposed to do for their artist... and then sign away 99% of the profit? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:11:07 -0700 From: Ed Cole Subject: Re: YouTube What! How'd that guy get on the list? :-D Just teasing Adam, I've been in ecto lurker mode for a long time and had to write something silly just to justify reading everyone's post's and not contributing. Been exploring some other facets of my existence. Have a good evening. Ed At 12:47 AM 4/5/2006, adamk@zoom.co.uk wrote: >Thanks, Karen, for pointing out that there's quite a bit of Kate Bush on >YourTube. Not having ever been a fan (umm, sorry about that) I had yet to >explore either her or Tori. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 19:54:29 -0400 From: DanS <2005.carnivore99@verizon.net> Subject: Re: Sandi Thom, was Re: YouTube >Andrew Fries wrote: > >Great news for Sony, perhaps. I am a bit puzzled why anyone would want to put >in all the work, create publicity - in short, do everything that record >company is supposed to do for their artist... and then sign away 99% of the >profit? This brings up an interesting question about the role of major labels any more. It seems that they have far less to offer an artist now than they used to. Their role is to finance, distribute and promote, all for a hefty cut of the profits, right? Let's consider those three things. 1.) It wasn't all that long ago that studio time and equipment were so expensive that artists needed to get record labels to give them cash advances so they could afford to record their albums. But within the past few years the price and quality of home recording gear and editing software has become affordable enough to let anyone record an album. High budget may get you more, but low budget is no longer a barrier to making a good sounding CD. 2.) Until very recently, an artist had to get his or her music into CD stores across the country if they really wanted reach fans. A distribution deal was essential. Now between Amazon, CD Baby, iTunes and direct distribution from the artist's own web site, who cares if you get your CD into the Virgin Megastore? It barely seems to matter any more. 3.) The major labels still have deep pockets when it comes to promotion, but the impact of the Internet -- especially MySpace -- can't be underestimated in leveling the playing field. That, combined with the fact that the RIAA and big labels keep doing everything they can to piss off their customers has really helped give indie music more of a "cool" factor than ever. Of course the majors are still in bed with big radio and big chain stores, but eventually the people calling the shots in those industries will be succeeded by the next generation of managers who aren't stuck on the old corporate marketing models. Still, the labels are going to do everything they can to keep funneling enough money to radio, TV and retail to monopolize the commercial charts. After all, that seems to be about all they've got left to offer their artists now. But can all that money really prevent music fans from hearing all the unsigned competition out there now? (Funny, just as I was typing this I saw a blurb on TV about Tila Tequila, the top indie artist on Myspace with over 30 million hits, 900,000 "friends" and the cover of this month's Stuff magazine. Not my kind of artist, but case in point.) So why do artists sign away 90%+ of their profits for a record deal? I suppose it must be the prospect of getting a top-ten hit, and all the accompanying fame and fortune. The chances of that happening are slightly better than winning the lottery, and who doesn't like a good gamble? But for any artist not interested in those stakes, the D.I.Y. approach must be looking more attractive all the time. Dan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 23:41:48 -0500 From: "Southpaw" Subject: Charlotte Martin I just got home from seeing Charlotte Martin at a smaller club here in St. Louis. All I've got to say is WOW! What a great show! So much life, depth and passion! I know she has been talked about extensively on the list, but this was my first chance to see her, and I just had to share my post-concert high with someone! Wade ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V12 #89 **************************