Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 71 Send posts to fegmaniax@ecto.org Send subscribe/unsubscribe commands to majordomo@ecto.org Send comments, etc. to the listowner at owner-fegmaniax@ecto.org FegMANIAX! Web Page: http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/fegmaniax/ Archives are available at http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/music/lists/fegmaniax/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: ------- ------- help me catchup! Re: Robyn as Who? REQ: Queen of Eyes oops! Time Lords Dr. Who in bones in the ground Wot? Ptolemy etc. Re: Literature references On Green Day, Punk, and Influences (including Robyn) Allright Bguess On Rancid and Operation Ivy Re: Wot? Shakespearian Fish Re: Wot? (Octopus) old threads, rewoven Re: old threads, rewoven Re: Wot? (Octopus) Re: old threads, rewoven Re: Ptolemy etc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 06:26:12 GMT From: Brandt Subject: help me catchup! I've been away from the list for awhile, but Terry was kind enough to update and inform me about a couple of items I missed: >From: Terry Marks >To: Brandt >"Garden of Light" is on "Uncarved Pumpkins", a truly spectacular >compilation of rarities organized my John B. Jones >The second video is out. I suggest getting it. Talk to Micheal Brage >about it. So...John and Michael...Please let me know how I can aquire both items. Yes, I'm grovelling. Blanks and postage/small amounts of cash are no problem. Thanks in advance for the help. Hal winston@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 23:28:47 -0400 From: greybeard loon Subject: Re: Robyn as Who? Also sprach "Mark Gloster" : >I think we need to get Woj in here somewhere too. well, i helped create a dr. who spin-off called "dr. whom" back in ye olde colelge daze.... i wonder if still have a copy of the tape. i think i made a brief appearance in the tardis. i know i did the lights for the tardis set. and most of the other lights and the sound too. dr. woj ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 23:46:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Marks Subject: REQ: Queen of Eyes If anyone has the Queen of Eyes, PLEASE send me a copy..... [Bradley...you did a version on GF...could you send them...] Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks a013645t@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 16:02:21 +1100 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: oops! Gleep! "chiefs" ... not "warriors". Not just the wrong team, the wrong sport! Waikato Warriors just sounds better. I am so embarrassed. So, how did the LA Lakers do against the Green Bay Packers last weekend anyway? :) James ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 96 07:10:50 PDT From: "Screamin' Jay" Subject: Time Lords Actually I heard that Robyn is going to be cast as Obi Wan Kenobi in the new Star Wars prequels... ------------------------------------- Jay Lyall "The All Amerikan Cid" E-mail: rasputin@onramp.net Date: 4/16/96 ------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 00:01:46 -0400 (EDT) From: James Isaacs Subject: Dr. Who I vote Clean Steve as the Master, and Bryan Ferry as Adric. And hey, I loved Peri. Did anyone ever see "The Two Doctors"? Hubba hubba James Isaacs, still trying to dig out from the ruins of Lexington, KY ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 12:11:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Rory Patric Connell Subject: in bones in the ground While giving the reissue of IODOT a listen through headphones, I noticed something unusual in the demo version of "Bones In The Ground". At the end of the song, during the fade out, a simple guitar strumming is heard along with Robyn singing something like "over and under..." Does anyone know where this bit could belong to, it doesn't sound like it would fit into "Bones In the Ground" at all. I'm figurin' that it may be a snippet from the cassette's previous music coming through onto the new recording. Or it could be simply an intended new direction for the song (a possible bridge). Either way its pretty interesting. One of my favorite things about Robyn's released demos is the odd extra bits (like all the children talking in between the You & Oblivion tracks). Rory Connell. ------------------------------ From: RxBroome@aol.com Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 00:22:09 -0400 Subject: Wot? Good God... I'm gone for a few days and all hell breaks loose! (Hell for me, too... my car self destructed on the drive back down to LA. Dave Santos saved my life by driving to Buttonwillow and back to retrieve me, and then in to work the next day, thus saving my job and hence my income and thus my ability to afford a new car and thus my job and thus my income and thus my life. So don't nobody ever flame the guy. He is, as appropos to his name, a saint.) Random observations: 1) Susan: What've you done to deserve this? Nothing. Rock on. 2) Green Day. Any resemblance between these guys and the Clash pales before the astonishing derivation perpetuated by Rancid, who ARE the Clash in every possible sonic sense (although, by definition, with none of the ferocious originality). And go figure, they are a much better band than Green Day. Whomever mentioned the Buzzcocks got a lot closer to what Green Day is ripping off. But I'll tell you what Green Day REALLY reminds me of. If you went to college/undergraduate in the US (esp. the West Coast), you saw ten million bands play on your campus who were basically doing a cross between the Replacements and the Buzzcocks, and at some point you probably bought their demo tape because it was cool to have actually seen an "up and coming" band. And if someone found said tape in your collection now, and asked, "Who's this?", you would now say, "Oh, I dunno, some band I saw in college". And if you were actually to play this tape, featuring people who are probably now lawyers or accountants, it would sound exactly like Green Day. 3) Lukather. Please. I again mention Tom Verlaine as a paragon of proficiency that doesn't dictate boredom and blandness. Sorry. But, hey-- it's all a matter of taste, which I suppose to be the only possible conclusion to be gleaned from this whole "argument". An argument compounded by the fact that almost all of today's "pop" "music" is so derivative of pop's "former" "glory" (see above) that a person's attachment to any given band could hinge on any given aspect of a "new" "band"'s resemblance to their faves ( a Clash fan, f'rinstance, might either love OR resent Rancid)... which brings me to... 4) Robyn (YES! Great save!)... who might be considered every bit as deriviative as any of the aforementioned bands, when Lennon, Barret, Dylan et. al. are considered. But he is at LEAST eclectically derivative, and usually BRILLIANTLY derivative, to the point where he can't instantly be equated with any of his direct influences, and never pales next to them. And, unlike most of today's copycats, he actually brings something new to his chosen milieu... something that none of us can actually define, or else we'd have no need to talk to each other about it, an would instead sit by ourselves, listening to him and nodding to ourselves, and saying, "Ah, yes, I understand, what he's added to the mix; what a clever lad!" The mystery of how he does it is why we bother-- I can't see the "RancidList" featuring such a diverse group in terms of outside tastes. If anyone CAN define the "extra something" that makes Robyn's music particularly galvanizing (to us), then I invite you to synopsize it, post it, and subsequently leave the rest of us mere mortals alone. I think people come back to ART (no, not a bad word) for reasons that they can't possibly understand. If we totally "got" it, we wouldn't really need it anymore, would we? Rex ------------------------------ From: DARAMSEY@vassar.edu Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 00:39:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Ptolemy etc. I have an opportunity to buy the Ptolemaic Terrascope issue which has got the 7" with Robyn and Tiny Tim. Are the Robyn tracks on this 7" good? Are they exciting? WHat are they called? Thanks for any info. daveR. ---there's only one way of life, and that's your own--- Levellers. ------------------------------ From: Hedblade@aol.com Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 01:48:22 -0400 Subject: Re: Literature references Mike Godwin wrote: > I definitely saw an old forties movie the >other day of a Noel Coward play called Blithe Spirit, in which >the hero >(played by a young Rex Harrison) has trouble choosing between >his Wife >and His Dead Wife. A strong influence there, I would have >thought. Just saw stage version of this show a couple of months back and at intermission, guess what song they played? YOU GOT IT!!! I was blown away, and went to talk to the sound designer after the show. He was really pleased somebody in the crowd actually knew Robyn and song. Thought I'd pass it along. Jay ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 00:20:12 -0700 From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik) Subject: On Green Day, Punk, and Influences (including Robyn) Rex (RxBroome@aol.com) wrote a long and intelligent post about Green Day and Rancid -- I won't quote it here, but I'll refer to it below. This is a lot more detailed article than I really like writing, but enough has been said about these bands here and elsewhere that misunderstands where they're coming from. I'm not trying to defend them -- I don't really like either band very much -- but I want to disagree with the idea that they're corporate creations or pathetic Clash-clones. Berkeley, California, is the home of the longest-lasting and most authentic of Punk communities. Kids from all over the West Coast, from Seattle down to San Diego -- high-school dropouts and aimless HS grads, mostly -- converge on the scene here to live a life which attempts to emobody a coherent alternative to mainstream capitalist culture: there is a real community here which is self-sustaining, politically radical and largely anarchist, probably familiar as a realization of the ideals in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and a thousand 'zines. It's not really linked with the University here (though there's an exception I'll mention later), and has more connections to the left-wing/radical homeless activism centered around People's Park. Telegraph Avenue is best characterized as hip students stepping over the gutter punks and the eccentric homeless people; the gutter punks are panhandling in a sarcastic way, wearing mohawks and lots of piercings, and generally being incredibly filthy. They're *not* students (though the presence of this separate community probably accounts for the higher-than-normal incidence of dyed hair and piercings than in other college towns). The center of all this is the punk collective at 924 Gilman Street, where there are concerts nightly by bands you've never heard of; basically it's members of the whole West Coast punk scene playing for each other. There are networks of punk houses where people can live (in squalor) and sleep (on the floor) and hear bands (in the living room). There are lotsnlots of bands, who seem to form and merge and split from month-to-month -- the point is not to aim for popular success, but to take part in the culture of the community, and so all the bands are basically playing the same simple, loud stuff. It's all very 1978 politically. And the music is all very late-70s as well. Ska seems to have lived on here forever -- it's now making a comeback in the rest of the country, but there have been bands like Operation Ivy and Let's Go Bowling here for a while, judging by the age of the flaking white lettering on the back of the gutter punks' filthy black jackets. And the punk is either hardcore or classic 1979. In a sense, the music is secondary -- this is Berkeley, the social ideals come first -- but the fact that every little gone-tomorrow band is playing late-70s-early-80s "punk/funk/thrash/ska" (as the local photocopied underground show list has it) probably reflects a deliberate identification with the do-it-yourself musical ethic of that time. My only connection with this scene comes from the place where it connects with the University: the student-run co-ops, which form an anarchic/ communitarian alternative to the dorms. Cloyne Court co-op, the largest and dirtiest, is always having shows by local bands, and the place always seems to have a lot of non-student punkers living illegally in it; it functions as another punk house. (Cloyne residents seem to eventually either leave in disgust and turn into real students; or drift out of college altogether, become part of the above-described scene, and end up living in warehouses in East Oakland.) Several of my friends used to live at Cloyne, and that's where I first heard of Green Day and Rancid, two of the many local bands. Now you have to understand, given all this I've mentioned, that we always thought Green Day and Rancid SUCKED. People I know used to go out for the evening in order to avoid hearing them play. My friend Karen, who spent last year in Barcelona, told about how horrified and stunned she was when she saw a poster in a Spanish record shop for "Rancid," and realized that it wasn't just another band with the same name as that bunch of dirty punk rock boys she had to kick out of her room on a regular basis. Somehow the musical marketing establishment has discovered the Berkeley scene and is pushing its early Punk sound to the far corners of the world. Green Day is a bit sneered at nowadays in the Berkeley scene because of this, but Rancid have been around here forever (they used to be Op. Ivy), and are putting their money back into the punk community. So how can I get Robyn into all of this? Indirectly ... through something else Rex mentioned, about Robyn's "eclectic influences" vs. Rancid's "copycat" sound. The whole San Francisco Bay Area music scene is characterized by a dangerously high incidence of putting Concept before Music, as evinced by the way Punk here isn't about originality of music, but about living an alternative to mainstream capitalist culture. The same is true of a lot of other SF bands: I mean, I think the Residents are cool, but there's a world of difference between them and a sweaty bar band in Michigan, and the bar band's more concerned with just making music. San Francisco (and New York) seems to be the world center of bands best described as "that *sounds* like a really cool idea!" (Klezmer Blues, All-Gay Ramones Sound- alikes, etc.) In Seattle, a great band called The Posies put out "Dear 23," an album heavily steeped in the bands of the late 60s but imitative of none of them -- it sounds like an unknown, excitingly innovative record lost since 1969. In the Bay Area, guys like Chris Von Sneidern turn out albums like "Big White Lies" -- note-for-note homages to the Sixties Sound, chock-a-block with "musical references" and big on Retro Concept. For an English parallel, you might consider the difference between The Soft Boys and The Dukes Of Stratosphear. And since I finally got Robyn in there, I'll stop now. Comments more than welcome. - David Librik librik@cs.Berkeley.edu librik@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: BLATZMAN@aol.com Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 10:20:45 -0400 Subject: Allright Bguess I just found the Driving Aloud promo in the used bin of my local CD store! What fool would part with it???? I just wanted to say that Allright Yeah is a Grrrreat song, and it's a shame it was left off of Respect. I assume we've all found the MW&MDW cd single promo by now, but if not, my local CD store has an extra. Contact me if you need it. Dave, happily well versed in observing the blatantly obvious, and equally happy to spread good vibes over the net. Don't be a bad vibe merchant. ------------------------------ From: DARAMSEY@vassar.edu Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 12:13:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: On Rancid and Operation Ivy First of all, Operation Ivy aren't quite as old as Dave Librik posits in his for the most part well written post. They only really existed from 1987 through 1989, putting out two eps and a full length album, all of which are great and which I recommend to anybody who likes punk rock. Secondly, Rancid didn't exactly use to be Operation Ivy. One member of Rancid was in Operation Ivy...the other members of Op Ivy have gone on to engage in a side-project the name of which I can't remember right now. I'm only pointing this out because I don't want people who hate Rancid and who don't know Op Ivy to read Dave Librik's post and then think: "Man, if Rancid suck so hard, then Operation Ivy must have REALLY sucked, since it's the same band just under a different name", and then never go out and buy any Op Ivy. Operation Ivy and Rancid are really very different in terms of musical style and lyrical content. In my opinion Operation Ivy are much better than Rancid and have much more interesting and important and worthwhile things to say. Just my two cents, and I will shut up now. Tying this in to Robyn, does anybody know what Robyn's thoughts on Green Day are? Or does he have any thoughts on Green Day? Does he even know who they are? Wouldn't it be frightening if Robyn covered Green Day? daveR. ---there's only one way of life, and that's your own--- Levellers. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 10:30:50 -0600 (MDT) From: Horse Badorties and the Love Chorus Subject: Re: Wot? On Wed, 17 Apr 1996 RxBroome@aol.com wrote: > 2) Green Day. Any resemblance between these guys and the Clash pales before > the astonishing derivation perpetuated by Rancid, who ARE the Clash in every it might be worth mentioning that Rancid includes two members of that one band Operation Ivy....and that what's really going on there is Rancid providing a pale imitation of OpIvy/themselves pale-ly imitating the clash. now *that's* post-modern. Robyn Question: on the new video compilation is part of a song called Octopus--does it appear (officially or un-) anywhere else? final off-off-topic: could anybody who taped last friday's x-files eMail me? i really need to own a copy. thanks, zach ************************ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= She stared at them, not saying anything for a while. How quiet and beautiful they looked and then she said, "Daddy, take off the deer's head and put it on my head. Take off the deer's feet, put them on my feet. And I'll be the deer." -Richard Brautigan, "A Short History Of Religion In California" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ************************ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 09:59:59 -0700 From: Nick Winkworth Subject: Shakespearian Fish Hi all, To paraphrase a certain Mr. Schwarzeneger "I'm back". (new employer /PC/location/mailsystem/etc..) And to celebrate, let me share with you a quote from the Penguin books guide to Shakespearean sexual slang which may have a tangential (if tenuous) connection with our hero. After mentioning that "cod" is a common pun for the male sexual organ, it goes on to say of Elizabethan audiences that; "Anything to do with fish--of any species--was automatically suggestive and could start the audience laughing merely by association." Puts all those Robynesque references to marine life in a whole new light.. Anyway, it's good to be back. -Nick ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 13:33:44 -0500 From: all139@email.psu.edu (alisa lowden) Subject: Re: Wot? (Octopus) >Robyn Question: on the new video compilation is part of a song called >Octopus--does it appear (officially or un-) anywhere else? I don't know the answer, but merely have another question: I wondered if it was a version of the Syd Barrett song "Octopus"? (Forgive me, I haven't seen the new video compilation!) ------------------------------ From: LORDK@FLP.LIB.PA.US Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 14:32:25 -0400 (EDT) CC: LORDK@FLP.LIB.PA.US Subject: old threads, rewoven Hello--sorry for the peaceful lull I subjected all you to, but I have been struggling with The Evil One, in the form of pernisious anemia, and when I havent been carrying my radioactive urine around in a gallon jug(very inconspicious -that), Ive been praticing laying all wan and pale on a pink satin day-bed. Now, however, shot full of legal energy juice, I am back to my obnoxious self. 1-The reason they wouldnt cast Robyn as the good docteur, is because he -is- the good docteur. Yes, Robyn himself is the inspiration of the series, and it would just bloody hell give the game away having him play himself. What! Tou thought he lived in , well-- Washington, or the isle of Wight, or Basingstoke? Get a grip. Right now, he is hurtling thru the galaxys, sleeping, and yes, dreaming, in his tardis. Why do you think he gets so confused about identity anyway--and if it were youre 365th incarnation as a time-lord--you would be confused too. And see that coll long tall blonde with him, in riding clothes? If you as me, it all adds up. Elementry, my dear Romona. And Woj(as in the arcana woz?) while I love the idea of a Dr Whom, Serious attention to the idea soon gives me the willies. Because it sounds like Dr Hume, and that the thought of David inflicted on thousands of universes yet unimagined, is brutal ,short and allthe other such as well. The good Dr(even when kicking over a chamber pot, -must have a good sense of humor. 2-Yes, Im still ambitious to be a party miester, but my plans have been abit agley lately. Im thinking May or June, when one of our list mates plays in a band playing in a tavern about 3 blocks from my house. And promises to do robyn covers. Kay, the glow in the dark Cap ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 11:13:50 -0800 (AKDT) From: Brett Cooper Subject: Re: old threads, rewoven On Wed, 17 Apr 1996 LORDK@FLP.LIB.PA.US wrote: > struggling with The Evil One, in the form of pernisious anemia, and > when I havent been carrying my radioactive urine around in a gallon > jug(very inconspicious -that), Ive been praticing laying all wan RADIOACTIVE URINE?! Did we really need to know that? I know that my day would have been fine without knowing that. Brett _______________________________________________ "...And I laughed to myself at the men and the ladies, who never conceived of us Billion Dollar Babies..." -Alice Cooper, "Generation Landslide" _______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 96 13:36:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: Re: Wot? (Octopus) ======== Original Message ======== >Robyn Question: on the new video compilation is part of a song called >Octopus--does it appear (officially or un-) anywhere else? I don't know the answer, but merely have another question: I wondered if it was a version of the Syd Barrett song "Octopus"? (Forgive me, I haven't seen the new video compilation!) ======== Fwd by: Russ Reynolds ======== yes it is ------------------------------ From: "Brian Huddell" Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 15:33:14 +0000 Subject: Re: old threads, rewoven Brett Cooper writ: > On Wed, 17 Apr 1996 LORDK@FLP.LIB.PA.US wrote: > > struggling with The Evil One, in the form of pernisious anemia, and > > when I havent been carrying my radioactive urine around in a gallon > > jug(very inconspicious -that), Ive been praticing laying all wan > > RADIOACTIVE URINE?! Did we really need to know that? I know that my day > would have been fine without knowing that. No, radioactive's ok; that part just slid right past me. It's the gallon jug that's messing with me. Gallon. O' pee. Golly. Besides, Radioactive Urine's new single blows Rancid's "Ruby Soho" out of the...erm...water. --brian ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 19:08:59 -0400 From: greybeard loon Subject: Re: Ptolemy etc. Also sprach DARAMSEY@vassar.edu: > I have an opportunity to buy the Ptolemaic Terrascope issue which >has got the 7" with Robyn and Tiny Tim. Are the Robyn tracks on this 7" >good? Are they exciting? WHat are they called? Thanks for any info. the two tracks are "as lemons drop" and "creatures of light". one is an instrumental and the other not. i don't recall either of them as terribly brilliant, but i haven't listened to it in a while. woj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest.