Fegmaniax Digest <==----------==> (Send posts to the list to fegmaniax@nsmx.rutgers.edu) (Send adminstrative commands to majordomo@nsmx.rutgers.edu) (Send comments, etc to the listowner at owner-fegmaniax@nsmx.rutgers.edu) <==----------==> Volume 3 Number 152 Today's Topics: ------- ------ Underwhelming Moonlight (was Re: (not) Julian Cope) Re: Trilobites: Grudging But Ungracious Climbdown Re: 1984-1985-1986 shows in existence Re: wondering.. Re: your mail Re: Eye, and helicopter doodles Re: Eye, and helicopter doodles Re: Underwater Moonlight Bonus Tracks Rude Unsubscription messages Welcome to fegmaniax (fwd) Cutting Room Floor Re: age of 9:30 club Re: deChiraco St. post-digested odds and ends Re: Eye, and helicopter doodles Dada and Greek Global Kermit okay, now i'm *really* leaving ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 17:27:02 -0500 (CDT) From: "Jeffrey with 2 f's Jeffrey" To: "Us...we wanna be some anglepoise lamps yeh!" Subject: Underwhelming Moonlight (was Re: (not) Julian Cope) On Tue, 3 Oct 1995, the godlike genius of David Librik wrote: > Jim Bower writes: > > If Robyn equates himself > >to a novelist who simply wants *all* his novels published, I think he's > >misguided - if I wrote War & Peace I wouldn't want it spoiled by publishing > >what I wrote on the back of a cigarette packet while drunk > Well, I don't mind reading a great novelists' drunken cig-pack scribblings--as long as I know they're drunken cig-pack scribblings and not finished, completed, intended-for-publication work. Thus-- > I think you've just summed up why the Rykodisc reissue of > _Underwater Moonlight_ managed to change it from one of the > greatest albums of all time into a pretty good compilation disc. > (It wouldn't have been so bad if they had indicated which tracks > were the bonus B side outtakes.) > I have the Glass Fish import, which someone said is more or less the same as the Ryko issue, but here's the tracks that were on the "original" issue of _UM_ (or at least on the LP record that a friend of mine lent me years back, which I taped): I Wanna Destroy You, Kingdom of Love, Positive Vibrations, I Got the Hots, Insanely Jealous, Tonight, You'll Have to Go Sideways, Old Pervert, Queen of Eyes, Underwater Moonlight Although I like several of the bonus tracks (and am less impressed by a few more of them), *this* is the real _UM_, the one everyone's got the hots for (sorry). The full version, yes, is less impressive *as a whole*--but I'd rather pay my $12 for the original *plus* the extras than pay $12 for the original only and another $12 for the extra tracks. If I want the original _Underwater Moonlight_ experience, I just program tracks 1-10 and be done w/it. --Jeff Jeffrey Norman "Let's just quit talking about it, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and start watching it on TV" Dept. of English & Comp. Lit. e-mail: jenor@csd.uwm.edu --Susan Lowry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 17:46:31 -0500 (CDT) From: "Jeffrey with 2 f's Jeffrey" To: "Us...we wanna be some anglepoise lamps yeh!" Subject: Re: Trilobites: Grudging But Ungracious Climbdown On Wed, 4 Oct 1995, the quite thoroughly evolved M R Godwin wrote: > In my day the Cambrian started 500 million years ago. Where have they > found that extra 100 million years since 1965? In an abandoned brain > somewhere? > Well, they subjected several people to tapes of an elderly economics lecturer reading the Manhattan telephone directory: by extracting the subjective sense of time from these poor folks, they were able to add several thousand million years to the accumulated total of all time. Apparently, this extra time is locked away in a heavily guarded safe somewhere in the black mining hills of South Dakota--since, god knows, most of us could certainly use it. Also stored there are all the "minutes" involved whenever anyone says, "just a minute" and puts you on hold, all the time waiting for cable-tv repair guys, and the rather unique sort of time that you get waiting for busses, among other moments. > > Did you know that the guys who are trying to date the universe have --yeah, but usually those are the kind of guys the universe turns down, claiming that it has to wash its hair, that it has a headache, you name it... > > Lucky I'm a social scientist --as opposed to an antisocial scientist? Thank you, goodnight, you've been a wonderful audience, drive safely. Jeffrey Norman "matches..." University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee "candles..." Dept. of English & Comp. Lit. "matches..." e-mail: jenor@csd.uwm.edu "candles..." "buns?" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:14:35 -0400 From: beach house tiki god To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: 1984-1985-1986 shows in existence Russ Reynolds sez: >Club 9:30 WAS around in march of '86. I believe a friend of mine also taped >that show. Had one of the best "Lady Waters" introductions ever. that show is the source for the _hooded one_ bootleg lp. >Anyone got tapes from the Globe Of Frogs or Queen Elvis tours? yeah. i've got a lot from the gof era and a couple from qe. rather than post a list of 1984-1986 shows that i know exist on tape, i'll just refer you all to my tape trading list on the web: http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/tapelist.html. the robyn/egyptians stuff is near the top of the list. i'm pretty sure i have some that have not been mentioned yet. note that the list is current as of this past january - i'm in the process of updating the list, but haven't finished doing so yet. woj ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:19:35 -0400 From: beach house tiki god To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: wondering.. bing@student.umass.edu sez: >What is Invisible Htichcock? a collection of material from 1981-1986 or so that did not make it onto an album during that time period. it's readily available since the re-releases on rhino/sequel. >Also, are any of the >recent T-Shirts available through Mrs. W or anything? They sound neat! mrs. wafflehead has promised a new merchandise list very soon now. i expect that the afterleaf shirt will become available. the current list is on the web at http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/fegmaniax/wafflehead.html. woj ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:38:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Gary Assa To: "John B. Jones" cc: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: your mail > So how was the New Jersey show? It was a really good show. nothing out of the ordinary. > > Did Robyn have the damn thing out, and meet the pope? No. I was going to yell out something about kissing the Popes neck. After all, he arrived soon after the Pope passed by on helicopter to NYC. > > And dedicate "If you were a Priest" to him? No mention of the Pope at all. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:56:03 -0400 From: beach house tiki god To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: Eye, and helicopter doodles Jim sez: >Before I explain why I don't like most of the solo >acoustic stuff on 'eye' and 'y.a.o' I want to say that the worst tracks on >these albums are still Robyn and Robyn's crap is better than most people's >best. (er...yeah.) it's funny how many times the "x's worse stuff is still better than 95% of everything else" statement comes up in posts like this. (not to get on your case or anything - i just find it amusing.... :) >This is, for me, what makes him special, >and this is missing from the two albums in question. On 'eye' and 'y.a.o' >we have Robyn-the-lyricist and Robyn-the-guitarist (in a limited way) but >not Robyn-the-constructor-of-unbelievably-great-pop-music. first, are you including invisible hitchcock in your equation? by this rule, it should come before eye in your estimation of robyn's work. second, the songs on all three albums are also "unbelievably great pop music." their form as (in general) solo acoustic pieces does not disqualify them from being pop music. >Sure, there are good moments, but *by >definition* not one track on either of these records matches anything on >'respect,' 'perspex island' or any of the egyptians records. oh, i disagree. "surgery" and "september cones" and "birdshead" are three tracks on you & oblivion that immediate come to mind as much better than some tracks on the albums, even on the basis of the songsmith as opposed to the lyricist or the guitarist. >For me, 'eye' and 'y.a.o' are not inspiring, they're *interesting*. i have difficulty being this impartial about robyn's work. some songs do less for me than others, but i have trouble making album-spanning descriptions like this. however, i think i can say that i don't love eye and i often dream of trains to the degree that most people here seem to. i can also say that fegmania! is my favorite album to listen to while element of light is my favorite album overall. that's about as general as i can get - beyond that, i can only deal with his work on a song-by-song basis. >There is something that makes >me uncomfortable about Robyn releasing 'doodles' (and Julian Cope >performing doodles). It kind of implies an inflated ego at work, a sort of >self-importance, kind of - "hey, I doodle helicopters, and I don't even >need to colour them in." I can't think up a better way to describe this, or >why it bothers me, but it does. the best example of this kind of artist is bill nelson. he's released *everything* he's ever done. to the point of bankruptcy. i don't find all of bill's released demos terribly endearing, so i think i understand how you feel. i can't explain what would drive someone to take this stance towards albums, but i think what you are getting at, from a listener's perspective, is that an artist who releases everything seems careless or sloppy. however, robyn has a way to go before reaching that point - the songs on you & oblivion and invisible hitchcock are more sketches than doodles. granted, they are not always as artfully arranged as the egyptians' material, but neither are they thoughtless first takes and incomplete fragments. woj ------------------------------ From: Ross Overbury To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu (The list that invented itself) Date: Thu, 5 Oct 95 20:48:32 EDT Subject: Re: Eye, and helicopter doodles > > Jim sez: > > [SNIP!!] > >There is something that makes > >me uncomfortable about Robyn releasing 'doodles' (and Julian Cope > >performing doodles). It kind of implies an inflated ego at work, a sort of > >self-importance, kind of - "hey, I doodle helicopters, and I don't even > >need to colour them in." I can't think up a better way to describe this, or > >why it bothers me, but it does. > > the best example of this kind of artist is bill nelson. he's released > *everything* he's ever done. to the point of bankruptcy. i don't find > all of bill's released demos terribly endearing, so i think i > understand how you feel. i can't explain what would drive someone to > take this stance towards albums, but i think what you are getting at, > from a listener's perspective, is that an artist who releases > everything seems careless or sloppy. > incomplete fragments. > > woj > Hmmm. I just bought "Eye" and "Groovy Decay" today. Listening to them on the train home, I noticed that on "Decay" Steve Hillage had managed to make Robyn sound like a lot like Bill Nelson. Heavily treated guitars, I guess -- Steve Hillage is a guitar synth doodler himself. I thought the production was a bit muddy, but it was interesting to hear Robyn sound like this. I do think Steve overused this one trick of having someone shout or sing in a melodramatic way along with the main lyric. I also liked "America" and "the Cars She Used to Drive" more on "Gotta Let This Hen Out", but I've had "Hen" for about 18 months, so I'll wait till the "new" stuff sinks in. But "Decay's" heavy-handed production does seem to get in the way more than a bit. "Eye", IMHO, lets some of the songs stand out BETTER because of its stripped down sound. By the way, it's not solo guitar pieces, for those of you who don't have it yet. It has piano, bass and if memory serves me um.. what was I saying? Oh yeah, more guitar. The way some of you were talking, I thought they'd dangled a mike in front of Robyn and locked him in a booth for 40 minutes. Anyway, what I think is interesting is just how different he can sound. I don't feel "Groovy Decay" works as well as some of the other stuff I've heard but it was worth my money, and I'll enjoy "Eye" in a different way than "Queen Elvis", "Hen", etc. Not that everything Robyn does is magic to me, but I can usually find enough going on in any given 40+ minutes of his stuff to keep it interesting. -- Orb's Surveyor ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 22:54:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Marks Subject: Re: Underwater Moonlight Bonus Tracks To: "d. ramsey" Cc: Fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, d. ramsey wrote: > Terry Marks says: > > >I think that, perhaps, the Soft Boys should've had a compilation CD of > >their unreleased material, or perhaps changed the Track order of > >Underwater Moonlight. > > Isn't this basically what Invisible Hits is? Well, I thought that IH was an album that just sort of didn't get released at the time. Terry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 23:03:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Marks Subject: Rude Unsubscription messages To: Pretty Girls and Anglepoise lamps On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, Sheridan Naomi wrote: > > > plese dont send me mail!!! :) > Hmm Exclamations and a smiley? At least we get people to shout happily in here. or Second in one day... Too bad woj can't delegate a separate list-owner for when he's gone...at this rate we'll need it.. Terry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 22:32:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Glen Uber To: Sheridan Nicole , Underwater Moon-list Subject: Welcome to fegmaniax (fwd) Perhaps this will be helpful to Sheridan Nicole!!! :) If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, send the following command in email to "fegmaniax-request@ns2.rutgers.edu": unsubscribe Or you can send mail to "Majordomo@ns2.rutgers.edu" with the following command in the body of your email message: unsubscribe fegmaniax snicole@hawaii.edu ------------------------------ From: BLATZMAN@aol.com Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 01:56:16 -0400 To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Cutting Room Floor Jim Bower recently wrote: "(Robyn) said he ended up with songs "on the cutting room floor" which became 'you & oblivion.' This means they weren't considered good enough for the albums in question. In his own terms... these are second-rate songs. " Sorry Jim, you are totally wrong. As an aspiring film editor and unknown musician, let me explain the concept of the cutting room floor. There are often VERY good reasons to leave above-average material out of a piece of art. The funniest scene in Dead Poets Society was cut out- because it was too funny. It didn't match the TONE of the overall piece. This applies perfectly to Robyn, and I'll bring up Perspex as an example. Watch Your Intelligence is my favorite Perspex era song, yet it isn't on the album. Is it substandard to the album tracks? Of course not. Robyn obviously thought it wasn't appropriate for the album. Should he have saved it for a future album? It certainly wouldn't work on Respect! So when? So we have a problem: A kick ass song that just doesn't fit with the rest of the material. Saving it for a future album isn't going to happen. Because you know that over the next year you're going to write 30 new songs, and they'll all have their own life. Remember, Dear God by XTC was a Bside. And the Electric Version of GLOBE OF FROGS (in my opinion...) blows tthe album track away. I think the album version sucks... The best songs are often left off albums just cause the don't work with the whole... Or a producer or record company doesn't like the song... Or the song doesn't fit the mood of the piece... So there are many many reasons why a song won't make it onto an album. Great performances are often lost. Characters are cut out. Story and tone are altered at the end. Scenes are trimmed to make the money-men happy... Ah yes, the cutting room floor is often the most exciting place to explore. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 23:32:43 -0700 To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu From: sherrett@teleport.com (Jason Sherrett) Subject: Re: age of 9:30 club > I am guessing that the 3/28/86 show was at 9:30 club. Anyone know if the > club existed back then? The 9:30 club dates back to the late 70's when it was called the Atlantis. In 1980 the name was changed to the 9:30. And even though it is housed in a building condemned for fire code violations it probably will be there forever. When I was last there (Spring '93) there was some talk of the owners relocating the club to a spot north of D.C., but that hasn't happened yet. As a matter of fact they now have a second stage for even smaller shows there. BTW, some of this info was taken from a book called Rock 'n' Roll Road Trip by Abigail Nolan. A must have for anyone interested in the rock landscape of America. -Jason ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 01:29:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Brooks Martin To: jimm@dbu.edu Cc: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: deChiraco St. Jimm sez: but no one around this stinking town has the new K Records vinyl that has "I Something You on it". Anyone out there from Dallas know where I can get this? K does mail order. Write to PO Box 7154; Olympia, WA 98507 USA and ask for a catalogue. They are very nice. They also have a homepage: http://www.wln.com/~kpunk/index.html have fun kids, Brooks Martin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Oct 95 05:26:41 EDT From: Daniel Ginsberg Subject: post-digested odds and ends To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu 1. RE: The cutting room floor-- Hrm. Talk to any film director and you'll find that some of their fav and best bits of work don't make it to the final print. Outtakes are not merely for subpar clips, they are also for odd bits that somehow don't work well with the rest. And so folx like Bobby and Lyle Lovett wind up with an album's worth of homeless songs. Y+O has, seems to me, some great songs on it. *shrug* 2: RE: Hurricanes music: Swirling Brenda's Iron Sledge (Gotta Let This Hen Out version) 3: Woj's bad month and worse day: Geez. I hope Maine Takes the edge of it all fer ya :) Best, Dan ps: to jo+, drop me a line and let me know how things are going :) ------------------------------ From: Mike Hardaker To: "'Fegmaniax!'" Subject: Re: Eye, and helicopter doodles Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:27:55 +-200 ostrander wrote: Well, a lot of stuff, which I'd just like to credit as one of the most coherent eMail posts I've read. There's something about this medium which tends to make language go pear-shaped of its own accord... Although I admire the elegance of the post, I actually disagree with it. I do this on grounds of taste, rather than logic. To continue the metaphor of RH-as-visual-artist, I'd compare the solo albums not to helicopter doodles but etchings or sculpture produced by someone who also paints on a large canvas. They can be egually good, but different. Or, if you want an authorial analogy, think of Graham Greene who wrote 'real' novels such as The Power and the Glory and also 'entertainments' such as Our Man in Havana'. I'm glad that both exist. However, I don't like all of Graham Greene's work, nor do I like oll of Robyn Hitchcock's (although I obviously like a hell of a lot of it, or what would I be doing on this list?). It happens, though, that the stuff I *d on't* really like is present on both the acoustic and electric albums. I guess I just don't like *that* painting or *that* etching, even though most are pretty good. Different strokes, I suppose... Mike ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:36:47 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin To: The Can Opener Subject: Dada and Greek Dada The Dada Mona Lisa I saw just had a cute little moustache - no husband. I think it was by Marcel Duchamp (of 'Fountain' fame). Does de Chirico count as Dada too, or is he a bit earlier? Greek The nearest I can get is APBO^^ ^AYBE, but that involves using the hat both for lambda (which should be an inverted V) and for delta (which should be a triangle). How the dickens do you do Greek in ASCII? Perhaps I should just take off to a cosy TABEPNA for a swift OUZO or two... - Mike (Color Out of Space) Godwin PS "On my tod" is probably "Todd Sloane" - own, but I don't know who TS is... ------------------------------ From: C.J.Burnham@physics.salford.ac.uk Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 12:43:01 +0100 To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Global Kermit I was watching a nature documentary last night and this frog was featured that lays these big water filled eggs in which their offspring tadpoles swim around in. The tadpoles grow to froghood inside these globes before they enter the outside world. Inspiration for gllobe of frogs? By the way is the theme music to that overrated film 'The Fly' the same melody as in that overrated song 'The Fly' or is that no secret? By the way you might have noticed tin-ear has a new email ad. I've moved up North here in England and am now doing a PhD in research into ice. Surreal eh? as the actress said to the four inch worm that was slowly rotating in a pale green mist that enveloped her eyelash. Christian 'tin-ear' Burnham ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 09:17:21 -0400 From: beach house tiki god To: fegmaniax@ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: okay, now i'm *really* leaving Terry Marks sez: >Too bad woj can't delegate a separate list-owner for when he's gone...at >this rate we'll need it.. you know, i thought of that in the shower this morning. if there is anyone out there in fegland who doesn't mind some responsibility, is willing to learn how to use majordomo and doesn't mind a mailbox stuffed with bounces and nasty messages, drop me a line - i think having a back-up would be an excellent thing. as for ms. naomi, i still don't know how she was getting mail from the list. she wasn't in the subscription list, so i assume that someone was forwarding mail to her automagically. it's happened before. the only reason i logged on this morning was to make sure that her mess was taken care of. unfortuantely, i don't really know if it was or not.... so, if she starts complaining again, please refrain from sending her nasty e-mail and such. if anyone sends her anything, send her a polite request to stop yelling at the list and tell her that i'm out of town and will try to work on her problem as soon as i get back. sherrett@teleport.com (Jason Sherrett) sez: >The 9:30 club dates back to the late 70's when it was called the Atlantis. didn't the 9:30 just open up a basement performing space called atlantis? what comes around, goes around. woj (outta here!) [][][][][][][][] End of this Fegmaniax Digest. Archives can be found at ftp://fegmania.wustl.edu/fegmaniax/archives/ For administrative questions, send mail to owner-fegmaniax@nsmx.rutgers.edu For subscription requests, send mail to majordomo@nsmx.rutgers.edu. Slipping you the midnight fish...