From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V16 #3364 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, February 7 2023 Volume 16 : Number 3364 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Happy Rhodes show [Seneca Spurling ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2023 14:35:50 -0800 From: Seneca Spurling Subject: Re: Happy Rhodes show Thank you, Jeff! I heard the news late Friday and had a super packed weekend and knew I wouldn't have a chance to email ecto until today. I'm glad you were able to get the word out sooner. I'd like to share a little more information about this show, and some history about why ecto wasn't the first place it was announced... First, I want to give a little more info about this show as I think that's the most important thing. After that, I'll go into the history just in case there are folks here who joined later in the course of history of the mailing list and might not know Vickie. But the important thing to know about this show - as much as we other Happy fans are super excited at this rare opportunity to get to see Happy perform an intimate, live, solo show - this show is FOR VICKIE. Vickie has been a huge fan and promoter of Happy since the '80s, and Happy and Vickie have been friends all throughout. Late last year, Vickie got the terrible news that she has cancer and isn't likely to live another year. Her one wish is to see Happy play live again before she dies, and Happy is going to Kansas City to make that happen. We are invited to join the show! I feel incredibly fortunate and can't wait. But I will be keeping in mind, and I hope all of us will do so, too, that this show is really all about Vickie. Vickie wants to have other Happy fans there, but let us remember, this show is for Vickie, and she's in treatment for cancer so she doesn't have much time or energy to organize, arrange, help, etc. I haven't booked flights yet but I'm planning to arrive a few days early so that I can be settled in and available to help with whatever I can help with, and also to make sure I have some extra time to meet up with all of you who also make it to the show. So now on to the history for anyone who joined the list later in time: I first learned about Happy Rhodes' music from Vickie Mapes (now Vickie Williams), in the rec.music.gaffa newsgroup in.. well I'm sure I don't have the dates exactly right, but let's say late 80s very early 1990ish. Vickie was a DJ in Kansas City who played a lot of Kate Bush and Happy Rhodes. I and many other Kate Bush fans learned about Happy's music from Vickie on rec.music.gaffa, and started discussing Happy's music quite a bit. Many other Kate fans who weren't interested in Happy's music didn't like the amount of chatter about someone other than Kate on the Kate newsgroup. It was 1990 and I was a unix sysadmin at Rutgers University. I'd recently started using mailing list software to set up mailing lists for my work, and thought "Hey, I could start a mailing list for Happy Rhodes fans". I specifically wanted it to be a mailing list and not a public newsgroup, and I wanted it to have a very different culture and community that the public newsgroups had. I had very few rules for the group, but I was pretty adamant about them. They were something like this: 1. You had to be a fan of Happy's music. 2. Your conversation should be primarily about music/musicians you want to share or discuss with other fans of Happy's music. 3. No flame wars: be civil, be polite, be caring, be understanding, be patient. Although there is also good sense in having a mailing list or other forum dedicated only to talk about Happy and her music, after my experiences on rec.music.gaffa, and given how much other really wonderful music I knew we could discover and share with one another, I really wanted the list to be a place where we could talk about any music we thought other fans of Happy's music would like. This led to us really considering 'ecto' its own genre. And after seeing how harsh and unpleasant the flame wars could get in an unmoderated public online community, I felt it would be best to run a moderated space with an email list. It worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Although the list is pretty quiet these days, I still treasure that it exists. In 1994, I went through a personal crisis, and transitioned management of the list to Meredith and Woj who have managed it to this day. (thank you, thank you, dear friends!) I don't remember exactly when it was, nor do I remember the details of what happened - partly because of how long ago it was and partly because I suspect it was happening when I was going through a lot myself and not as engaged with the list as I wish I'd have been able to be - but at some point Vickie and at least one other person on the list had some serious disagreements that left Vickie feeling that the solution she preferred was for her to NOT be a member of this list. I've regretted that it came to that, but it has been her choice. I've kept in touch with Vickie over the years and got to see her in person recently when she and Chris came through San Francisco on a vacation by train between chemo treatments. I got to take them out to a classic SF seafood restaurant and on a ferry to Sausalito for ice cream. What a delight! I look forward to seeing everyone who can make it to Kansas City for the show! If you want to go and you DO NOT/WILL NOT use Facebook, please let me know. Otherwise, the best way to get information about the show and know how to RSVP - which is absolutely necessary! - is to go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/happyrhodesfans on Facebook. You MUST RSVP and the sooner the better. This will be a private show, no public announcements, nowhere to buy tickets. - -seneca On Fri, Feb 3, 2023 at 5:13 PM Jeff Hanson wrote: > By the way, if anyone hasnb t heard here Hapoy Rhodes will be doing a solo > show April 10th in Kansas City. Details are in the Facebook b Happy Rhodes > fan Groupb . So excited! > > Jeff Hanson > > (Seems odd that ecto wasnb t the first place this was announced) ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V16 #3364 ****************************