Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 44 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: ------- ------- WooHoo March 14! Why the World Is Against Me RE: Why the World Is Against Me Robyn and the REsidents ROLLO (long-ish) Arthur Lee; RE:Queen Elvis discograpgy question: Robyn and the REsidents fwd: Arthur Lee; RE:Queen Elvis Feg parties _Glass Flesh_ CD Re: Reds? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 07:43:26 -0600 (CST) From: VERMIN-IN-TRAINING Subject: WooHoo March 14! So the big mans playing in Houston on March 14 at Rockafellers...right around the corner from my house! Does this mean a SXSW gig in Austin as well? jay %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Jay Lyall "All my friends do the model girl thing hist1a@jetson.uh.edu So I found me one University of Houston Now she wears my nose ring" --Lloyd Cole "Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip" "There's liquor on my breath --Robyn Hitchcock And you on my mind" --Replacements %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 9:49:27 CST From: Truman Peyote Subject: Why the World Is Against Me Hmm.....I was hoping maybe you all could tell me :). My boyfriend had an affair with a bimbo. A really close friend of mine is apparently not speaking to me anymore, for reasons I can't fathom. I owe money all over the place. Every time I get on the bus someone tries to convert me to this week's fundamentalist religion. And now I find out that Robyn is playing in Texas, wehre I no longer live. OK, so I've been in Chicago for six years, it's not like I just moved here :). But life's still unfair, dammit! Maybe I should have asked the Jehovah's witness who tried to convert me last night. I might have if I hadn't gotten wrapped up in explaining the basic tenets of Buddhism to him (well, he ASKED, and yes I know, it's not really explicable :)). I consider it rather ironic that I was explaining Buddhism to someone of Asian descent, but anyways......... So, to wrap it all up here.......(yes, I do have a point, just be patient) I did see a wonderful film last night called "Angels and Insects" which I would heartily recommend to all fegs. Sex, death, Victoriana, wit, closeup shots of moths emerging from cocoons, Victorian women attacked by ants......all wonderfully Hitchcockian. Talk about groovy decay :). It was quite brilliant. I'm still not convinced, however, that the world doesn't have it in for me :). Susan "oh come on Stanley, stick it in Jane Russell and win a goldfish!"- Peter Cook in "Bedazzled" ------------------------------ From: gene@cadmus.com Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 12:22:42 PST Subject: RE: Why the World Is Against Me Truman Peyote lamented: >I'm still not convinced, however, that the world doesn't have it in for me >:). Well, as Robyn so eloquently put it, "All of us are doomed. Some of us are just more doomed than others." Works for me. When I feel that way, I put on the headphones, forget the world, and listen to "Heartful of Leaves" and "Autumn Is Your Last Chance." Then things get much, much better. "...the leaves on the trees have never looked so good, as now, they're going to die..." +++++++++++++++++++++++ Internet Publishing Specialist Gene Hopstetter, Jr. + Cadmus Digital Solutions +++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.cadmus.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 13:10:51 -0500 From: jojones@mailbox.syr.edu (John, Jacci, and Madison) Subject: Robyn and the REsidents The biography Bayard has been working on mentions that Robyn worked undercover in a record store in SF at some point ('91) I think. I started thinking about this as I was listening to the Residents at work last week. Does Ralph Records (their label) have a storefront. I know that the Residents and Ralph Records are centered in San Fran. I heard somewhere that Captain Beefheart was rumored at some point in time to have been a member of the residents. Robyn is a fan of Beefheart. Also, the title EYE could be a reference to the Residents, who I always see with Eyeball Heads and Top Hats. They are shrouded with secrecy. :) I am grasping at straws. But what the hell, it was a fun thought. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% john b. jones e-mail: jojones@mailbox.syr.edu http://web.syr.edu/~jojones QUOTE OF THE MONTH: When explaining themselves, most people take you from point A to B. Tori's method is to stand on point B, waving her arms, saying, "Hey! Can you guess how I got here?" -Gavin Edwards, on Tori Amos. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 13:15:47 -0500 From: jojones@mailbox.syr.edu (John, Jacci, and Madison) Subject: ROLLO (long-ish) I typed up & posted this last summer, but there are alot of newcomers here, so I thought I would repost this. It is the most recent short story I have seen around. ROLLO Story by Robyn Hitchcock Originally appeared in Raygun magazine, October 1993 Reprinted without permission. Sorry. Had to do it. In a very overgrown garden on the south coast of England, I found a rusty breastplate. It was wedged under a collapsed chimney, half ensnared by the ivy, bust as I tugged it away, I knew that it was sound. A doomed nettle straggled through the corner where the left arm went, and as I pulled that nettle up, I could see the crest of arms on the breastplate. A wolf peered through a portcullis. It looked as though it was thirsty. I held the piece of armor over my chest long enough for a snail to attach itself to my shirt. Through curling brambles I lumbered to a window frame that lay on some dank bricks. The frame was open and from it gushed a spray of bramble roots. Gazing down the line of thorns that jagged up from the bramble, I saw a metal finger beckoning from the heart of the roots. The finger turned out to be one of five all belonging to a tarnished metal glove. I tugged at the finger, but couldn't free the glove from the brambles. But I did feel my feet wobbling on a sheet of corrugated iron. On impulse, I bent down and grasped the rusty flaky edges. Something fluttered in the bushes. With an effort, I raised the sheet of corrugated iron a foot or two above the rich, damp earth, but it was so latticed with pale creepers that I could not fully upend it. I had to coax the corrugated iron up from its resting place by flapping it up and down like a slow, metal wing. Eventually, I had it pushed up next to my chin and could almost breathe the worm-riddled soil beneath. I flung the troublesome metal wing back, but instead of a satisfying crash, the thing nearly sagged against the brambles. "A boxer on the ropes," I thought. "Would it counter attack?" Before my boots lay a tender square of soil, chocolate black. Colorless tendrils twined through its almost edible surface. I saw a marble eye peer sightlessly up through the earth and a thousand wood lice, that's roly-poly bugs over here, scuttle along their branch lines bewildered and jolted by their sudden exposure. A wood louse the size of a railway carriage would mean business. And there it was- an upside down foot. "Over here!" It was a woman's voice. "No, here." Whatever it was lay in the bush behind the ruined chimney. "You must be able to see now." "What should I be looking for?" I inquired. "I'm the head!" "Head of what?" The voice snorted with muffled contempt but said nothing. I had, by that time, slid as far as possible into the thicket that billowed out behind the chimney. Rods of elder fanned out from a miniature clearing. In that clearing sat the helmet and visor of the suit of armor, resting atop a rusty, enamel bowl. A surprisingly vivid purple feather jotted from the helmet's top. "Hello," said the helmet. In person it seemed more friendly. "How do you do?" I replied. "I'd do a lot better with the rest of me attached," replied the helmet, frankly. The incongruous thing was not that the helmet spoke, but that it spoke with a female voice. The voice sounded no more than 30, but the armor could have been there for a century. "I can get your foot for you, if you like?" I replied helpfully. "And I think I saw your hand in the brambles." There was no reply from the helmet. The sky had a bruised look, but the air was still. I found a wild strawberry at my feet, remains of the abandoned back garden from Queen Victoria's day. I rolled the strawberry around on my tongue and swallowed it. The helmet belched. "Sorry." I approached the helmet for the first time and squatted over the lilies that blossomed around it. Nothing inside was visible. I moved behind it and casually brushed the purple feather. What happened next was so fast and so unlikely that I can barely describe it. An electrical quiver shot from the purple plume through my fingers, propelling me backwards and upright. As I fell to my feet, a shriek of a thousand female voice-some appearing to yell "no!" and some others "yes!"- blared in constant all around me. It was louder than a football crowd, reverberate and shrill, but dying away without an echo. As it did so, the visor snapped upright and a raw tongue of flesh, the dimensions of a skinned rabbit, shot briefly out into the gentle evening air and retracted. I had only time to glimpse it crawling with ants. The visor slapped down after it. "Bloody hell!" said I. "What did you do that for? I had only brushed the feather by accident." There was no further sound from the helmet. I turned and blundered out into the open air. A flock of dark birds wheeled out to sea and then headed inland. Without thinking, I began to collect the armor. My arms were laden with breast plate, shin guards, elbow joints and feet. As I passed the remains of the chimney, a small iron door half way up opened, revealing a violin. It seemed in surprisingly good condition, but my arms were too full to investigate. "Hang on!" The women's voice came again, urgently echoing through the area. "Don't look yet." "I'm not," I yelled back, "but I've got most of you with me." "You have? Bring it here, then. What are you waiting for?" Suddenly, the setting sun shone through the trees, and as I made my way to the clearing, I glimpsed a huge black guinea fowl hopping around the helmet. But no sooner had I stepped into the clearing that the bird disappeared. "Have you got all of me?" "Um, there's no right hand, actually." "Ah, where did you leave it?" "I don't know," I protested. "It's your body. What was all that business about anyway?" The helmet suddenly went lifeless again. It was as if it had been disconnected. Cautiously, I laid the pieces of armor out before the helmet, in the range of its vision, as it were. "I remember...I left it in the chimney." The voice reactivated itself. "Could you look?" "Um, there's a violin there. It looks quite new." "Oh, that belongs to Rollo." "Rollo?" The helmet went dead again. She clearly had a problem with questions. A black pointed bird rocked on its heels among the lilies as the sun disappeared into the sea. I was about to prod the breast plate with my foot when I felt the terrible electricity beginning again. I stopped before the shriek that I knew would have come. "Turn around. Don't look." "I'm not staying. I've got to make a phone call. I hope you enjoy your body, though." "It's all right. It won't take a minute." I sighed and turned to face the chimney. "How many people were in that helmet?" I wondered. From the top of the desolate column of bricks, a solitary frond hung in the still twilight. Without a sound, something hard and cold shoved me in the back between my shoulder blades. I stumbled and whirled to face her, if indeed it was a her. The armor had soundlessly reassembled itself and stood before me. It seemed shinier in its re-integrated form. The visor was down, and it pointed aggressively towards me like a beak. The whole thing was about my height, and its right arm was in a black sling concealing a missing hand. "Um, could you open me please?" came a sort of little-girl voice. Evidently, it was still female. I was angry. "Sure, where's a can opener? I don't know who you think you are, but I bet you're full of tomatoes." Despite myself, I took a step close to the armor. At least we hadn't had the electricity when she slapped me on the back. Again, she seemed to ignore the personal remarks. "I just can't see you properly with this," she gestured to her mask. "I was wondering what you look like." "Probably the same as you, give or take a few molecules." I growled and picked up a stick. It was about three feet long and with it I cautiously began to push up her visor. The hopping black pointed bird was doing its mechanical stomp in the lilies and momentarily distracted me. When I looked again, I dropped the stick in shock. I had been expecting, maybe, a loud speaker behind the visor or ball bearings or a clear plastic bag full of jelly. In reality, I got hair. Great long tresses of dark red hair fell, tumbled with blessed release over the harsh metal breast plate. When the torrents of locks could fall no further, I was left looking at a thick curtain of hair two feet long and who knows how deep. She was obviously back to front. "It's the hair," I said by way of explanation. "Blast it," came a muffled voice from the back of the helmet. "I'm the wrong way around. I'll have to dismantle myself. Don't look." This time I stood well out of the way. I spun around just as the figure began to sneak up on me. She offered me her left hand. "Pleased to meet you," she said. Her visor was up. "I'm Katherine." Katherine was as pale as a blade of grass that had grown all of its life under a stone. Her face was round, but her nose was long. She had a greenish hue with purple eyes that vibrated against golden irises. Her parents must have been very unalike. "There's going to be a storm. Where's Rollo?" "Where is he usually?" "Well, that depends on where he is." "So, where is that, usually?" Katherine tried to brush away a strand of chestnut hair from her brow with her right hand. Realizing that it was missing, she sighed and used her left. "Ah, this time of day I'm not sure." The hopping black bird was drinking from the enamel bowl that had but lately contained her head. Risking another silence, I asked, "How long were you dismantled?" She paused. She obviously heard the question. She looked at the blackbird. A clump of elder flower brushed its white delta against the purple feather on her helmet that matched her eyes. Then she looked at me. "It's not my hand that's missing. It's Rollo's." "You mean you leant him yours?" "Exactly." "But didn't you just ask me to look for it?" "I thought you might find Rollo." "If I found the hand, you mean I might find Rollo with your hand." She looked puzzled. "If I found your hand, the hand that belonged originally to you, it would be attached to him, and so finding the hand would then constitute finding him?" I inquired. "It's my hand," she said. "He's got it." "So," I asked, "what happened to his hand?" "Em, he never really had one." For the first time, she asked me a question. "Can you imagine a one-handed violinist?" "I can imagine one." Then she asked me a second question. "What are you called?" "Rollo," I said. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% john b. jones e-mail: jojones@mailbox.syr.edu http://web.syr.edu/~jojones QUOTE OF THE MONTH: When explaining themselves, most people take you from point A to B. Tori's method is to stand on point B, waving her arms, saying, "Hey! Can you guess how I got here?" -Gavin Edwards, on Tori Amos. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 15:04:01 -0500 From: jlg@198.4.75.52 (JasonGrohoski) Subject: Arthur Lee; RE:Queen Elvis I was wondering if it was common knowledge that Arthur Lee was the frontman of the band Love (hence: "believe in love, believe in love.") And also that one of the members of the band went on to become a minister (hence: "Jesus is Lord they cried.") I was listening to Respect in the record store in which I work when a non-Robyn-fan friend pointed these facts out to me. Does everyone know this, or am I quite empty-headed? Also, if anyone is looking for Queen Elvis on vinyl, I have a used copy in my record store in fair shape for, I think, $4.00. E-mail me if your'e interested. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 13:06:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: discograpgy question: I'm hoping someone can supply me with the track listing, track times, producer and aproximate release dates for the following: CD single: Ultra Unbelievable Love (390-688-2) CD single: Ultra Unbelievable Love (75021 7273 2) -russ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 13:39:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: Robyn and the REsidents > Also, the title EYE could be a reference to the Residents, who I always > see with Eyeball Heads and Top Hats. They are shrouded with secrecy. :) I'll assume the smiley indicates you are joking, but since you brought it up, I've always thought "EYE" was one o them double meaning titles--"I" refering to the fact that it's just him on the record. -Russ, who would've prefered it if Robyn had shared the experience with his fellow Egyptians ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 13:47:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: fwd: Arthur Lee; RE:Queen Elvis ======== Original Message ======== I was wondering if it was common knowledge that Arthur Lee was the frontman of the band Love (hence: "believe in love, believe in love.") And also that one of the members of the band went on to become a minister (hence: "Jesus is Lord they cried.") I was listening to Respect in the record store in which I work when a non-Robyn-fan friend pointed these facts out to me. Does everyone know this, or am I quite empty-headed? Also, if anyone is looking for Queen Elvis on vinyl, I have a used copy in my record store in fair shape for, I think, $4.00. E-mail me if your'e interested. ======== Fwd by: Russ Reynolds ======== Is he not also a bit of a wreck these days? That's wot I heard. I don't remeber if the word "Love" is capatalized in the lyrics sheet, but that would certainly make sense. -russ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 15:39:38 CST From: The Goddess Subject: Feg parties All the talk about parties in Illinois and California makes me wonder if there are any TX fegs interested in having a party. I know of only one fellow TX feg on the list (I'm sure we're a rare breed), but if there are any others I'd like to know. I'd really like to meet some serious RH fans, instead of the people who I've met who know only one or two of his songs or saw him with the Egyptians when they opened for REM (not that there's anything wrong with these people, but I haven't found any real fans among them). I'd be interested in organizing a party if only I knew a cool place to have it. Please get it contact with me if you're interested. BTW, on totally unrelated news, someone mentioned the Eddie Vedder walk- on on Letterman. It loved it, except I hated Letterman making fun of him. I have this love-hate thing with Letterman; sometimes I think he's really funny, other times intensely annoying. I wish Eddie had sang the whole song also. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 17:46:35 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: _Glass Flesh_ CD it was damned hard to choose, but here are the songs i have selected for the tribute CD. Not necessarily in this order. prelude brenda's iron sledge kevin slick listening to the higsons mark gloster another bubble catch23 she doesn't exist vic chestnutt one long pair of eyes dave brown queen of eyes bradley skaught underwater moonlight the transparencies serpent at the gates of wisdom the beaker people airscape happy cactus & other rotting flesh old pervert yammer-jooks i something you modest mr brown insanely jealous other days love meat ruiner flavour of night nismo s. rebrot I chose songs based on what people did with them. Most of these are very different from the originals. I did not select any song I had anything to do with. I did not try to please everyone. There may be room for one more song. Which should it be? (hey, no voting for your own!) Comments and righteous indignation to walden@universe.digex.net. The CD's will be $15; this covers costs and Robyn's royalties only. They will be burned in a limited number, probably about 40, and will be made available to contributors first (anyone who has sent me a song for inclusion on _glass flesh_, at any time.) If there are leftovers, I will make them available to others on a first-email, first-served basis. Starting..... now! If everyone on the list donated $5 to me I would be able to get a cd burner and burn cd's forever, but i'm not about to suggest anything as unlikely as that. Let me know what you think. bayard ps. many thanks to all those who have contributed songs, artwork and time spent in making copies of these tapes, and thanks in advance to the two gentlemen who have offered their time to burn the cd's. psst. if the world (or worse, the internet) really is ending, please don't let me know via the feglist. IMO it's the wrong place for such boring realities, and besides, i'm not sure i want to know anyway. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 15:18:59 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Re: Reds? >Also, the Reds signed Joe Oliver yesterday. >James ooo! will he be playing for them against the Highlanders this weekend? confusion from the Super-12, another James ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest.