From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V12 #251 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Thursday, September 21 2006 Volume 12 : Number 251 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- "a perfect marriage" [Steve VanDevender ] Today's your birthday, friend... [Mike Matthews ] KY & Cake [Kristeen Young ] interesting... widest vocal range for a male [Cheri Villines Subject: "a perfect marriage" Last weekend was musically rich and thorougly enjoyable for me. On Friday evening I got to see The Ditty Bops. A local friend loaned me their most recent CD, "Moon Over the Freeway", a few months ago, and I was charmed. While they have a distinctly old-timey sound, reminiscent of the popular music of the 1920s and 30s, they also combine it with a contemporary touch, and are reputed to have famously clever live shows. They've been doing a bike tour across the US this summer, and Eugene was their last stop (although it appears they flew back from New York to Seattle to finish the last leg of the tour down through Portland and Eugene). Unfortunately, fall is coming early to the Northwest and by the time they reached Eugene they were a bit under the weather, but nevertheless managed to put on a fine show. Abby (I think) said she'd always remember Eugene because she had the worst singing voice she'd ever had, not that I could tell. And Amanda (also, I think) hilariously said, at one point, "Never use rain as an excuse to an Oregonian". Then, on Sunday, was a performance by Kristin Hersh's current band, 50 Foot Wave (featuring bassist Bernard Georges from the last incarnation of Throwing Muses and Rob Ahlers as a spectacularly athletic drummer) and Mission of Burma. 50 Foot Wave is out on the edge of Ecto territory; Kristin Hersh is operating well into punk rock territory, beyond even the tinfoil-=crunchy sound of the last, truly eponymous Throwing Muses album. Fortunately my tastes are capable of embracing the sound of 50 Foot Wave as easily as Kristin's distinctly folky solo albums. Last year I happened to check throwingmusic.com literally the day before 50 Foot Wave had arranged a last-minute appearance at a local independent record store, and so was able to attend a quite small and personal appearance. So personal that Kristin's husband Billy said "we ought to have beer and chips!", ran across the street to buy them, and came back to pass out cans of Tecate and serve a Tupperware container of chips to the handful of us who had shown up. It was also personal enough that got a copy of _Golden Ocean_ signed by all the band members, and spent some time chatting with Kritin, Bernie, Rob, and Billy. I mention this because, after a characteristically blistering 50 Foot Wave set on Sunday, I found Kristin waving and grinning at me from the stage, and then when she was done helping break down, jumped off the stage and ran over to chat with me. Now, I'm not inclined to be starstruck by anyone, even if I really do admire them deeply, and while I am willing to chat with any performer after a show and express my appreciation, I really try not to gush and not to demand their time. It's always seemed to me that performers get a bit weary of clingy fans and I've never wanted to look that way to them. If I could be starstruck by anyone, Kristin Hersh is one of the few who could actually do it to me; over time I've become a deep fan of everything she's ever been involved with, through all of Throwing Muses, her solo albums, and now 50 Foot Wave. So I was really kind of floored that somehow I had made enough of an impression that she would would, on her own, come talk to _me_. (Of course, those of you have met me in person know that I'm also really easy to pick out of a crowd. I think it explains a certain number of my social encounters.) And it was quite a pleasant conversation, even if she started it with "You didn't come to the in-store, so fuck you!" I said that I really thought seeing them at the WOW Hall would be a better show (and I also had plans during the afternoon when they did the in-store appearance). She said that not many people were there, and some didn't appear to be prepared for the intensity of 50 Foot Wave (I don't know if my friend, who has only heard _Strange Angels_ and _Limbo_, was there and if he was, I imagine he easily could have been overwhelmed). We also chatted about the idiosyncracies of navigating Eugene and Portland (where Kristin, Billy, and their children recently moved), and Kristin also spent some time recommending Mission of Burma to me. I admitted that I had really never heard of them before this. She talked about how she had been in high school during their initial period of fame in the Northeast and had always wanted to see them but hadn't, and how recently 50 Foot Wave had done a tour where they had followed Mission of Burma through the same venues about a day after. She said that their mere three members made an amazing amount of sound, "like the wind", and that she could be starstruck by their songs. So I said that although my initial motivation was originally to see 50 Foot Wave, I would definitely stay to check out Mission of Burma. And, it turns out, the part of me that can appreciate the punk sound can indeed appreciate Mission of Burma. When I do appreciate a punk band, it's when their hard-eged sound also manages to be complex and melodic, and that is very much what they do. They also had some really nice things to say about 50 Foot Wave, like "they make us sound like the New Christy Minstrels" and that their combined tour was "a perfect marriage". I might also mention that there was an unannounced opening act, a trio of teenagers who called themselves "The Tunnel Kings" and were actually not too horrible. Yet later I hoped that they had stayed around to see a bunch of middle-aged performers show them how to _really_ rock out. I ended up picking up a CD copy of the 50 Foot Wave EP "Free Music" (also freely downloadable as MP3s from throwingmusic.com, which these days also features Kristin's unsurprisingly quirky blog) and, somewhat by luck, the original Mission of Burma album "Vs." and their most recent reunion release "The Obliterati". I also noticed the latest entry in Kristin's blog at throwingmusic.com says many of the things about Mission of Burma that she said to me. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 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********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ********************* Joe Zitt (jzitt@josephzitt.com) ********************* *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joe Zitt Sat September 20 1958 Will Hack for CDs Ani DiFranco Wed September 23 1970 Virgo Lord Tyr Mon September 24 1979 Libran Paul Kim Sat October 01 1977 fetal position JoAnn Whetsell Fri October 01 1976 Pendulum William Gill Wed October 05 1960 A wide-eyed wanderer Dan Riley Sun October 08 1961 Libra Neile Graham Wed October 08 1958 pen Quenby M. Chunco Tue October 08 1968 Crunchy Frog Mike Garland Wed October 08 1952 Creature_of_the_Night Irvin Lin Tue October 09 1973 Libra Michael C. Berch Wed October 10 1956 No parking Chris Gagnon Sat October 10 1970 Libra Wolfgang Drotschmann Thu October 13 1966 Waage Gracescape Fri October 13 1967 unbalanced Brian Bloom Tue October 14 1969 spam Erik N. Johnson Tue October 16 1962 Handle with Care Kim Klouda Tue October 17 1967 Libra Anthony Amato Sat October 20 1973 Libra - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:29:38 -0400 From: Kristeen Young Subject: KY & Cake IT'S EXCITING. IT'S LAST MINUTE. IT'S A SECRET, LAST MINUTE KRISTEENYOUNG SHOW...DON'T TELL ANYBODY......AND YES>>>>>IT'S...... ALL AGES!!!!! YES....ALL AGES!!!!! KRISTEENYOUNG SUNDAY, September 24 @ 5:30 pm (ALL AGES MATINEE, they call it) @ DEATH DISCO @ CAKE SHOP (death and cake....living in perfect harmony...just like ebony and ivory on my piano keyboard) 152 Ludlow (betwixt Stanton & Rivington), Soho, NYC (some people say it's the Lower East Side....but some people argue this....it doesn't really matter to me...but it seems to be a touchy point) It's 5 dollars at the door.....save some money for cupcakes and coca- cola....or cupcakes and whiskey for the old folks. Here's the line-up (and almost every person playing has a vagina......refreshing): 4pm .....Suspicious (from Berlin, Germany) 4:45.......ModRocket 5:30......KRISTEENYOUNG 6:15.....L.E.G.S. WWW.KRISTEENYOUNG.COM www.myspace.com/kristeenyoung ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:43:09 -0500 From: Cheri Villines Subject: interesting... widest vocal range for a male His name is Tim Storms and he was voted Branson, MO's Bass Singer of the Year a few times and is in the Bransons Entertainers Hall of Fame. At some point, he set a Guinness World Record for the lowest note produced by an unaided human voice. A poster says it was a B two octaves below the low B on a piano, and is below human hearing range, so obviously that wasn't the note we heard here. I have no ear, so don't know what was the lowest note he sang on this vidwo. He also evidently set a Guinness World Record for the widest vocal range for a male. Cheri "The measure of a man is in how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson "To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves." - Will Durant "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Castaneda "Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternative." - Barry Goldwater Return-path: Received: from mx2.uark.edu (mx2.uark.edu [130.184.5.67]) by mailhost.uark.edu (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-6.01 (built Apr 3 2006)) with ESMTPS id <0J5T006XFGZXRRS0@mailhost.uark.edu> for cvilline@uark.edu; Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:47:57 -0500 (CDT) Received: from centrmmtao05.cox.net (centrmmtao05.cox.net [70.168.83.79]) by mx2.uark.edu (8.13.6.20060614/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k8J1glLm002878 for ; Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:42:48 -0500 (CDT envelope-from intjtim@cox.net) Received: from centrmwml08.mgt.cox.net ([172.18.53.115]) by centrmmtao05.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.06.01 201-2131-130-101-20060113) with ESMTP id <20060919014747.ZURK8328.centrmmtao05.cox.net@centrmwml08.mgt.cox.net> for ; Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:47:47 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:47:46 -0500 From: Tim McCormick Subject: Guinness Book Records, Lowest Singing Note by Human To: cvilline@uark.edu Reply-to: intjtim@cox.net Message-id: <30074617.1158630467416.JavaMail.root@centrmwml08.mgt.cox.ne t> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Sensitivity: Normal X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.266434, Antispam-Engine: 2.4.0.264935, Antispam-Data: 2006.9.18.182942 Original-recipient: rfc822;cvilline@uark.edu X-Perlmx-Spam: Gauge=X, Probability=10%, Report='PRIORITY_NO_NAME 0.716, __CP_URI_IN_BODY 0, __CT 0, __CTE 0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __HAS_X_PRIORITY 0, __MIME_TEXT_ONLY 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, __SANE_MSGID 0, __cbl.abuseat.org_TIMEOUT , __dnsbl.njabl.org_TIMEOUT , __dynablock.njabl.org_TIMEOUT , __query.bondedsender.org_TIMEOUT ' http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=11549&where=index ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V12 #251 ***************************