Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 12 Send posts to fegmaniax@nsmx.rutgers.edu Send subscribe/unsubscribe commands to majordomo@nsmx.rutgers.edu Send comments, etc. to the listowner at owner-fegmaniax@nsmx.rutgers.edu FegMANIAX! Web Page: http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/fegmaniax/ Archives are available at http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/music/lists/fegmaniax/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: ------- ------- a&m stuff Re: Following in ones own footsteps. Re: Following in ones own footsteps. Re: luminous rose, etc. Six Of One Duels cd stuff+corrections CRD: More than This Re: funny stuff a-goin on eye don't think so Aaargh! I'm all alone! Re: merkins et al Re: funny stuff a-goin on Eye Re: r&b crap One Long Pair of Flaming Eyes Re: funny stuff a-goin on Re: Eye new robyn CD & a few other things ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 12:48:06 -0500 From: 32 flavors and then some Subject: a&m stuff Russ Reynolds sez: >I have a "Madonna of the Wasps" promo cassette single with a great tune on i'm pretty sure that the "madonna" cassingle was a regular release, though i imagine that a promo cassette was not out of the question either. >the B-side called "The Ruling Class", mbrage@surgery.bsd.uchicago.edu (Michael Brage) sez: >Yes, I have the 7 inch vinyl. I found it in Seattle when I lived there. 7" single? now this i did not know about...details? >Since then, I found a similar version on the Queen Elvis Demo tape. "similar"? how different are the mixes? i have a dub of "the ruling class" from the cassingle, but the quality isn't that great and it is hard to tell if the released version is different from the demo version. Miss Teen Reclamation USA sez: >i cannot vouch for its accuracy, but i can vouch for the existance of the >following cd3... >Hitchcock, Robyn & the Egyptia A&M CC31005 (1988) yup. i hold one in my hands. the only thing to add to this is a complete catalog number: cc 31005 cds52. pearceja@mailgw.wl.wpafb.af.mil sez: >Does this mean that Rhino is reissuing the A&M albums as well??? i haven't heard this either - russ? do you know something we don't know? woj ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 13:02:09 -0500 From: 32 flavors and then some Subject: Re: Following in ones own footsteps. LORDK@FLP.LIB.PA.US sez: >I think that Hitchcocks non soft Boys work can be seen as a pattern >which gets retraced: i can see stylistic and/or thematic similarities between groovy dec[ao]y/queen elvis, iodot/eye and fegmania/perspex, but i'm not sure about where you are coming from with bsdr/globe of frogs and element of light/respect. >Which means Shadowcat(or whatever) will be on the same vibe as BSDR and >GoF. the new songs that we have heard at his recent shows seems to belie this. >Yeah I know Invisable Hitchcock and You and Oblivion dont exactly fit, >but--dont they sorta have the same feel? collections of odds and sods, yes. >Anyway, for you acoustic buffs, that means another pure acoustic >Cd in about 2 years. or maybe sooner based on recent history (or later if his albums start coming fewer and farther between). woj ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 16:46:15 -0500 (EST) From: Terry Marks Subject: Re: Following in ones own footsteps. > > I think that Hitchcocks non soft Boys work can be seen as a pattern > which gets retraced: > > Black Snake Diamond Role=Globe of Frogs > Groovy D(whatever)=Queen Elvis > IODOT=Eye > Fegmania=Perspect Island > Element of Light=Respect Here's how I see it: BSDR=Queen Elvis Groovy=Perspex Island IODOT=Eye Fegmania=Respect Invisible Hitch=You&Oblivion Element of Light= Globe of Frogs= I think that mine makes more sense, even though you have to juggle Eye and Perspex Terry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 16:54:34 -0500 (EST) From: Terry Marks Subject: Re: luminous rose, etc. Reminds me... A while ago, I wrote that I thought that "Legalized Murder" was about Mumia Abu-Jafar (sp?), [Black journalist. Won Pulitzer. COnvicted of killing white policeman. Given death penalty]....then I listened again and heard "The warden said 'we'll get through this together, Jim'". Guess I was wrong.. Reminds me...The Hedgehog Song... I was thinkign about Terry Pratchett's books the other day and there's this song "The hedgehog can never be buggered at all" mentioned repeatedly. You don't think that that's what was requested, do you? On Thu, 18 Jan 1996 jpartridge@accel.com wrote: > > I don't particularly dislike the song but I thought the One Flew Over > the Cuckoo's Nest reference was great. I might dislike it more if I > weren't preoccupied with disliking Knife, Veins of the Queen, and > Legalized Murder. Actually the list is longer than that but I've run > out of water coolers. (Nice one, Jay.) > > JP > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 13:31:06 -0900 (AKST) From: Brett Cooper Subject: Six Of One I've noticed that there are lot of folks who have made allusions to "The Prisoner", and who seem to be interested in the series. Indeed Robyn Hitchcock appears to be closely connected to "The Prisoner" in his work, and especially with "Balloon Man". If anyone would like additional information on Six Of One, "The Prisoner" Appreciation Society, and how to get in touch with them, e-mail me at any time, an I'll hook you up. This mean you, Renee! Be seeing you- Brett (Cooper) ********************************************************* * "A wise man once said that a person trying to know * * something about everything will eventually know * * everything about nothing; and that a person trying to * * know everything about one thing will eventually know * * nothing about everything." * * -Harrison Blackwood, * * "War Of The Worlds" * *The official address of: * *BC Radio, Inc. * *cooperb@chs.mat-su.k12.ak.us * ********************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 96 16:41:53 CST From: Truman Peyote Subject: Duels GoF better than Eye? The hell you say! I know we're all entitled to our own opinions and all that, but YOU ARE JUST WRONG :). I really can't say I like any of the A&M albums (referring to that as a style rather than a technical description- that poppy, overproduced, "please God, make this guy give us a novelty hit" type sound that characterizes most of "Queen Elvis" and "GoF"). Please do not get me wrong. I have nothing whatsoever against pop :). After all, I originally became a Hitchcock fan after hearing "Anglepoise Lamp" which is as poppy and silly and full of pretty harmonies as anything else. My problem isn't with pop, it's with overproduction and belabored whimsey. And so, now that I have made my case, choose your second, my friend. That is provided that dueling with umbrellas once owned by John Steed suits your fancy. Winner not only gets to win the argument (yay!) but also a silver tea set and a night out on the town with Alfred Hitchcock. Susan your very own effervescing elephant ------------------------------ Subject: cd stuff+corrections Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 18:18:29 -0500 From: "Thomas Narten" Balloon Man/GOF/Ghost Ship were issued in both CD3 and CD5 format. The CD3 was issued way back when GOF was released and CD3s were still being made. The CD5 didn't get issued until a year or two or three later. It was after QE, though it may have been before Eye. I remember finding in a store one day wondering why it was for sale, since the album was old at that point. One theory was that it was a way of making balloon man available to folks (and radio stations?), as it was more famous than anything on QE had been. Thomas ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 18:55:48 -0500 (EST) From: Terry Marks Subject: CRD: More than This All the chords are played Barre-E, with the e and B strings open. (I think...) E A F# B E A F# B It was fun for a while I had no way of knowing B E A F# B E A F# B More than this Nothing More than this It's not an original RH song, but a Roxy Music one, but I figured I'd post it.. Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks a013645t@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 14:06:12 +0000 From: Jim Bower Subject: Re: funny stuff a-goin on >Respect is a quantum leap BACKWARD from Eye, No no no no no. Impossible to understand this viewpoint I'm afraid, Robyn's best album is Respect and his worst is Eye. >Could it possibly be the battle of the acoustic RH fans (ME! ME!) vs. the >electric RH fanciers rearing its ugly, asparagus flavored head once again? Yes its a boring old argument as far as the Feglist is concerned but personally its one I don't tire of! Its not that Eye is bad, though it includes some of our hero's most whining and tedious moments...it's mainly that Respect is so utterly superb. If you skip wafflehead. This talk of 'Eye' being a classic among 'hard to listen to' albums leaves me cold. If eye-fans get something transcendent out of listening to it, fair enough, but for me it's hard to listen to because a lot of it is shoddy, substandard and dull. It has its good moments...just not enough. Damien Hirst saws cattle in half, puts the corpses in glass cases in galleries and some see 'art.' It could be described as 'hard to look at,' the assumption being that if only you looked at it long enough it would cease to be a collection of dead cows and sheep. I agree that some of the best albums ever made are inaccesible at first and then grow on you, but that's usually because they are groundbreaking and thus unfamiliar. 'Eye' isn't, it's largely formulaic Robyn stuff, not particularly experimental, many of the songs sound like demos in dire need of an Andy & Morris overhaul if only to give it some variety. Electric Warrior, Jim Bower ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:38:23 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: eye don't think so i don't find _eye_ hard to listen to at all. in fact no matter how sick, depressed, or whatever negative i am, it always makes me feel better.. i think it's the purity of the emotions therein, and the clear and honest expression thereof. _respect_ is the one i find i don't want to play ever. the urgency of the songs combined with the incredible overproduction bring to mind an animal drowning in formaldehyde. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 11:18:34 -0600 From: tcain1@midwest.net (Timothy G Cain) Subject: Aaargh! I'm all alone! I've only been part of this group for a week, and I already feel like the great unwashed because: 1) I like EYE. 2) I detest RESPECT. 3) Apart from IODOT, QUEEN ELVIS is my favorite RH album. To me, EYE has always been a powerhouse, an RH tour de force, kinda like having Robyn sit down in your living room and pour his heart out for an hour. Maybe it came along at the right time in my life -- a friend had a religious experience (in a good way) upon listening to IODOT, and his wife curses me for it to this day. So that came along at the right time for HIM. I just don't get RESPECT at all. It forced me to scramble back to the earlier albums to remember why I liked the guy in the first place. It was simply far too sedate an album for me. Now that doesn't mean I think the people who like RESPECT should reinact "Underwater Moonlight," just that I don't see what they see in it. But I do have a question: What of RH's earlier stuff do the RESPECT fans like? Just trying to find a thread. And finally, my life would be a little bit emptier without QUEEN ELVIS. In order to avoid going on a track-by-track defense, I'll mention two tracks, one of which has drawn the special wrath of the group: "Freeze" sums up the story of my adolescent love life (hard to believe I've been married now for 15 years, I'll bet), and "One Long Pair of Eyes" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Ducking in expectation of the oncoming flame onslaught ... --TC tcain1@midwest.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 11:51:54 -0600 (CST) From: "Jeffrey with 2 f's Jeffrey" Subject: Re: merkins et al On Sat, 20 Jan 1996, an infinite number of monkeys typing at an infinite number of terminals, collectively known as "!," wrote: > Since my dictionary moves from "meritorious" to "merle" with nary a > mournful whimper for all those wonderful "merj" and "merk" words hanging > in the void, wouldst care to englighten moi? Well, according to the Random House Unabridged, "merkin" is defined as "false hair for the female pudenda [1610-1620; orig. uncertain]." You'll recall President Merkin Muffley, in _Dr. Strangelove_? One of the more peculiar words in the language, in terms of "why the hell would anyone ever come up with a *word* for such a thing?" Although "merkin" is probably not as strange as "spanghew"--which you'll have to go to the OED to find: that word means (I'm paraphrasing) "to jerk or toss violently, esp. a frog or toad." You read correctly: the English language has word meaning, primarily, to violently toss toads. I'm waiting for Robyn to find out about this one. BTW, I am *not* making any of this up. --Jeff "The biggest wagon Jeffrey Norman is the empty wagon University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is the noisiest... Dept. of English & Comp. Lit. Jefferson, I think we're lost." e-mail: jenor@csd.uwm.edu --R.E.M., "Little America" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 13:26:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: funny stuff a-goin on On Sun, 21 Jan 1996, Jim Bower wrote: > Yes its a boring old argument as far as the Feglist is concerned but > personally its one I don't tire of! Its not that Eye is bad, though it > includes some of our hero's most whining and tedious moments... I agree. IODOT was a change in Robyn's style and saw him tackling the art of spare arrangements all at once, which I think is what it feel so... complete. Eye, on the other hand, has far too many small *songs* instead of small arrangements. I too kept hearing Morris and Andy in my head as I tried to enjoy the murkier depths of the album's middle segment. Respect (minus Wafflehead) was a little overproduced, but I think the only song this really ruined was "Arms Of Love". Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Do not displease me, because all the madmen are on my side. I have them in the palm of my hand like a fistful of pepper. Take care that I do not throw them in your face." - Benjamin Peret, "Death To The Pigs" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 12:52:23 -0500 (EST) From: Terry Marks Subject: Eye I'd just like to say that I think that Underwater Moonlight is a better album than Eye. [Same goes for Fegmania, Black Snake Diamond Role, and Invisibly Hitchcock] Anyone feel like disputing a different question this time? Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks a013645t@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 17:16:15 -0500 (EST) From: freckle baby Subject: Re: r&b crap > freckle baby, so sorry to offend you Oh dear, I am afraid I have somehow implied here that Iiiiiiyeeeeeeyiiiiiyeeeeyiiiii will always love Whitneyeeeyeee...my sarcasm is sometimes interpreted as "offendedness." No offense taken. Beth ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 96 16:25:51 CST From: Truman Peyote Subject: One Long Pair of Flaming Eyes Ha! I am enjoying this very much. Roseann asks why we have these debates.....well, here's the reason, and it's the same reason we are on this mailing list. Because we care passionately about Robyn Hitchcock and the rest of the world does not. Who else are we going to have it out with? Who else is all that interested in whether or not Eye is a masterpiece of raw emotion or underproduced sludge (and I'm sure there are people on this list who aren't that interested either :))? Think about what this list would be without nasty fegs sphangewing warty amphibians at each other (see earlier post by Jeff :)). It would just be people asking "do you have this tab?" or "do you have a tape of this performance?" and dry as dust. Not that these are not important functions, of course, and I like tabs as much as the next wanker. But it would be really boring if the entire list consisted only of this type of conversation. It would also be really boring if old debates went on and on and on....so in that spirit, if anyone wants to fight some more, let's take it outside the list :) and save the small crumbs of sanity left to our fellow fegs. I'm not at all bored with defending "Eye" and there may be detractors who get tremendous kicks out of knocking it, but I have a feeling that the majority of readers might just want to get on with life and the list. Susan I always found "Transparent Lovers" exquisite. And snubs to you! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 17:23:12 -0500 (EST) From: freckle baby Subject: Re: funny stuff a-goin on I'm not a hardcore acoustic or electric fan--I appreciate both aspects of RH, but I would like to add that everytime I hear "The Executioner," I cringe at his attempts to hit the high notes without mutilating the tune, which, in my mind is hackneyed and unimaginative. But give me most of the rest of Eye any day and I'll be happy. Beth ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 15:08:19 -0500 (EST) From: Roseann Cappella Subject: Re: Eye OK I'm going to jump into the mix here...bear with me I'm totaly new at this. Why all this talk about which album is better than another. Can't we just like the guy's music and let it go at that? Everybody's got their own tastes and we could go on forever about which song or album is ?best? On Sun, 21 Jan 1996, Terry Marks wrote: > I'd just like to say that I think that Underwater Moonlight is a better > album than Eye. [Same goes for Fegmania, Black Snake Diamond Role, and > Invisibly Hitchcock] > > Anyone feel like disputing a different question this time? > > > Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks > a013645t@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us > > > ------------------------------ From: V4vendetta@aol.com Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 15:32:08 -0500 Subject: new robyn CD & a few other things Quoth the Raven: <<>> Actually, as part of the renovation of Times Square, the world's largest Virgin Megastore is supposed to open this fall, but these things take time... the HMV on 34th & B'way opened four months late, and now that it's open, it sucks... full of annoying tourists visiting macy's or the empire state building. soon, we will all be forced to wear mouse ears and thank the losers reading subway maps in the street for coming to our fair city..... Also, on an unrelated note, i was wondering why people are so damn in love with eye... i am holding a copy... and i know Cynthia Mask, Flesh Cartoons, Twilight Coast, Clean Steve and Glass Hotel are great.. two or three others are okay... the rest, as far as i am concerned, are like, throwaways.... i think the reason people like it so much is because of the simple structure and stripped-down production & of course the fact that it is acoustic... but i hate Executioner, Ghost of Light, Transparent lover, agony of pleasure (DUH!) and i can't even remember satellite or aquarium off the top of my head.. i just end the CD at Glass Hotel... and even THAT sounds much better on Live Death or ANY other live performance. that is my 22c. Oh, and one other thing..... on "Eye" it says, "Robyn Hitchcock exists courtesy of A&M records" which led me to believe that he was miserable with the label.... anyone else get that feeling? yours in christ, josh P.S. <<>>>> That is terribly sweet of you to offer, but i am not fond of needles and would be due for a swift tetanus shot shortly thereafter. If i step on a can and must get the shot anyway, i will put you on the top of the list, okay? P.P.S. I don't like luminous rose very much, but i do like respect and especially Wafflehead... . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest.