From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@ecto.org To: fegmaniax-digest@ecto.org Reply-To: fegmaniax@ecto.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@ecto.org Subject: Feg Digest V4 #169 Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 169 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: ------- ------- Moss Cocktail Re: Album Poll Results 12 Bar 3/9/96/Skellington Kaleidoscopic RH Feg Digest V4 #168 -Reply Mojo review RE: Hurrah for dykes! Hurrah for dykes! Re: Moss Cocktail Re: Remixing New album news Re: Hurrah for dykes! Review in SJ Metro Re: New album news two questions Beauty Queen BIGO ------------------------------ Date: 05 Sep 1996 00:21:00 EDT From: "PIN-C09" Subject: Moss Cocktail After having a couple of weeks to listen to the two new Robyn Hitchcock releases, I enjoying both very much and feel it is Robyn's best work for quite some time. Still, I find some of the choices of songs and versions a bit frustrating so I've decided to put together my own version of how the CD/cassette release should have been. I tried to narrow it down to twelve tracks but in the end I couldn't reduce below the thirteen tracks listed below without experiencing deep regret. So I've cheated a bit but hey, its the CD age! Sinister But Happy (ME version) Alright Yeah! The Speed of Things Beautiful Queen (ME version) Filthy Bird Devils Radio (ML version) As Lemons Chop Cool Bug Rumble Man with a Woman's Shadow I Am Not Me DeChirico Street (ME version) You and Oblivion Heliotrope (ML version) Comments: I didn't think much of Sinister But Happy on ML but I've grown to quite like the 'produced' version on ME. The added flourishes really add to the song and I like it as an introduction to the album. Plus, I think it would flow nicely into Alright Yeah! to really get the album going. I really like both versions of Beautiful Queen but I think the one on Moss Elixir is the one that should be there. It is interesting that both versions remind me of The Beatles on Revolver although they are quite different. I find the ME version of Devils Radio a bit subdued for my liking but there isn't really much between the two versions. This brings me to As Lemons Chop. I really haven't heard much comment about the song at all but I find it to be easily the most powerful, intense piece of music on the new albums. The lyrics don't seem to lead anywhere linear but the images portrayed are as paranoid and frightening as the music implies: 'As summer fades, as winter grins As you were eating pins...' I love the way the song concludes by getting to the core of the loneliness behind this paranoid imagery: 'I want you so bad, I could kill this moment just to be next to you.' However, it is, the guitar playing that expresses more than any of the lyrics could. I don't see this as a big hit single but surely it deserves a place on the CD. Does anyone else a agree? I would include Cool Bug Rumble because I think its a 'groovy' pseudo-sexual song which I think would balance out some of the more introspective material nicely. I am still a bit undecided about the ME version of DeChirico Street, (some of the trumpets (???) are a bit on the irritating side) but I like the insane carnival atmosphere of the ME version and think its probably better suited to the CD release. Finally, I think the CD has got to end with the ML version of Heliotrope. This is a beautiful song (particularly the ML version, as many people have commented on) and I think it is a perfect song for ending an album with. I also think that having it on the end of the CD allows the instrumental coda makes a nice conclusion. Anyway, they are some of my thoughts on the new releases. Does anyone agree on my track selection? Has anyone found that having the prototypes and out-takes companion piece makes them over analyse the recordings instead of simply taking the album as a complete whole? Dave. ------------------------------ From: HAMISH_SIMPSON@HP-UnitedKingdom-om4.om.hp.com Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 08:51:19 +0100 Subject: Re: Album Poll Results Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the questioner really wanted a track listing. Wasn't he posing the question "What is this doing in an album poll?". Hamish (the second guesser) >_____________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ >Subject: Re: Album Poll Results >Author: Non-HP-owner-fegmaniax (owner-fegmaniax@clairseach.ecto.org) at >HP-UnitedKingdom,shargw1 >Date: 04/09/96 14:13 > > >> > >> > 17. Eaten by her Own Dinner 15 >> >> Would someone please list the tracks on this? >> >> Thanks. > >Eaten by Her Own Dinner (DONG 2), a 12" Midnight Music 45 (1986): > >_SIDE ONE_ >Eaten by Her Own Dinner (4:25): Recorded November '81 on 8-track at >Alaska, Engineer: Iain O'Higgins > >Groovin' On A Inner Plane (4:11): Recorded February '81 at Music >Works; Remixed July '86 at Alaska > >_SIDE TWO_ >Messages of Dark (3:58): Recorded April '83 at The Plastic; Mixed >March '86 at the Plastic > >Abandoned Brain (2:51): Recorded and mixed July '86 at Alaska > >Happy the Golden Prince (6:39): Recorded November '80 at Alaska > >The cover is all black with "ROBYN HITCHCOCK Eaten By Her Own Dinner" >in the upper right corner, and a poorly lit RH eye (that looks like a >creature unto itself) looking up at it. The back cover features an >exceprt from "The Professor", and the inside sleeve has a cartoon by >RH called "Under the Sewer" or some such thing; wherein a man with a >pipe runs into mysterious creatures, and maybe even the king of the >sewer (I lost this long ago). > ------------------------------ From: jturner@rpms.ac.uk (Jonathan Turner) Subject: 12 Bar 3/9/96/Skellington Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 9:25:53 BST Another week, another show: 1st set, white shirt ac: storm lanterns lysander g ship ("I don't write them like that anymore" - looking relieved) 1974 q elvis ("This would sound great with Mike Mills siging on it") dc st i'm only you g hotel elec: america (with appalling whistling solo) driv aloud autumn is antwoman i am not me encore (blue shirt w/green diamonds): ac: guildford b girl elec: speed of things message pretty good show, not quite up to last week but excellent anyway. Robyn still happy, so happy that he's added at least one extra show (17th) with a possibility of another (24th). Note that as the weeks go by, the size of the bread accompanying the 12 Bar vege lasagne has been getting smaller. Robyn apparently played a mini-set at the Cyberia cybercafe in central London on Friday, to an audience composed almost exclusively of websurfers and coffee addicts. And some guy handing out Gauloises cigarettes as a sort of promotional thing. To bring together a couple of recent threads, the support at the 12 Bar was Sid Griffin (with a 'n') - just shows what can happen if you give Robyn a good review. And Sid's mate Billy Bragg was in the audience, too Julian Cope/Skellington chronicles: I believe that there are two versions of the CD: the first CD just contained "Skellington" (the vinyl album); then "The Skellington Chronicles" contained "Skellington" and "Skellington Two" (may have got the title wrong on the 2nd one) which was recorded a few years after. I think that "Chronicles" is still available mail order from KAK. I have the address somewhere if anyone needs it. Legend has it that when either "Skellington" or "Droolian" first came out, JC wandered around record shops slipping them into the racks. I don't know if this is true or not, though. Jonathan. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 08:00:42 +0100 From: Christian James Burnham Subject: Kaleidoscopic RH I taped the Kaleidoscope RH interview + music last night on BBC radio 4. He started off by playing 1974 (a long rambling song). It was then on into a short interview where he was asked inspired questions on his connections to REM and J. Demme. The programme ended with a PGV of Heliotrope though they only played half the song. PS: The story Moss Elixir seems influenced by the Philip K Dick story Ubik. Any thoughts? PPS: re my recent trip to America (I'm Englandish), in one of the first shops I visited (in Hanover) a pretty girl was playing Linctus House. I'm busy revising my opinion of you yanks. Christian Sn ear Burnham http://ice.physics.salford.ac.uk/christian.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 08:32:41 -0400 From: Victor Triola Subject: Feg Digest V4 #168 -Reply ** High Priority ** Three Cheers For Christine Du Bois! (a.k.a."Schlong-less In Seattle") I am that rare animal -- a straight male who realizes that 96% of the fuck-ups in the world are other straight males. There are those occasional exceptions of course -- Mr. Hitchcock; Homer Simpson; Ray Davies; Tim & Neil Finn -- but I live by the credo I once saw on a button worn by a rather butch gal on a Manhattan bus: "They sent a man to the moon; why can't they send all of them?" Loud and proud scissor sister -- you go on girl! Next time some wooly-scrotumed jerk-off cuts me off on the Long Island Expressway I'll be thinking of you! P.S.: Are you voting for Bob Dole? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 14:54:13 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: Mojo review Here's a good review from 'retro' magazine Mojo guaranteed to brighten up any gloomy fegs: Mojo review of Moss Elixir by David Cavanagh. Posted without permission for information purposes only. "Warners debut by Soft Boy turned - gratis REM - college fave. "Warners have lost TAFKAP and are currently negotiating with REM, but look who they've signed in the close season: Robyn Hitchcock. The chairman is particularly excited about Moss Elixir, one of those albums of 'almost literally solo' Robyn (I Often Dream Of Trains, You & Oblivion, Eye) that he makes once in a while. "The 12 songs here are consummately Hitchcockian: Cambridge vowel twangs, folk-rock guitars (electric and acoustic) laugh-aloud syntactical pyrotechnics, sincere love songs secreted behind the comedy. Too long in the tooth to worry about his influences - nor his own influence on others - he works to his own standards, which are high on ME. His writing can be wonderfully batty ('Darling / You don't need to call me starling / Or even Mao Tse Tung') ['Stalin' surely - MG] yet has a rare economy, as when he describes a woman as being 'like a spider, half-inclined to free you'. "The two obvious charmers here are Alright Yeah (with a rhythm section) and Speed of Things, so authentic a folk melody that Bert Jansch could have done it on Jack Orion. But hear those lyrics: 'You were allergic to bee stings / I threw some earth on your coffin / And thought about the speed of things'. A racing mind and a dark guitar; what's music about, if not the two together?" * * * * * * * * Incidentally, it is a fabulous September issue with a big Syd Barrett cover article including photos I have never seen before; interview with Peter Green; articles on an unreleased Brian Wilson album, on unusual time signatures and on Ptolemaic Terrascope; REM album review; short interviews with Sebadoh and with Andy Partridge. I have no commercial links with Mojo, I just thought it was interesting that they are covering so many of the topics that are floating in or around fegspace. - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ From: Ross Overbury Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 10:29:31 EDT Subject: RE: Hurrah for dykes! > > ** High Priority ** > > Three Cheers For Christine Du Bois! > > (a.k.a."Schlong-less In Seattle") I am that rare animal -- a straight male > who realizes that 96% of the fuck-ups in the world are other straight > males. There are those occasional exceptions of course -- Mr. > Hitchcock; Homer Simpson; Ray Davies; Tim & Neil Finn -- but I live by the > credo I once saw on a button worn by a rather butch gal on a Manhattan > bus: "They sent a man to the moon; why can't they send all of them?" > Loud and proud scissor sister -- you go on girl! Yes, hurrah for dykes! And for homos and for straights, too! Why the self-loathing? This polarization is good for nobody. In fact, I think that there's more of a continuous range of sexual orientation (NOT preferences, that's different). Are all gays 100% gay? Are all straights 100% straight? Does this make them good or bad? This sort of oversimplification is the sort of tactic that bigots use, and I don't think it's a valid tactic for anyone. Most of my friends could be labeled straight, and they're not jerks. I don't seek out the comany of jerks. I can't believe that 43% of the human population is comprised of jerks. Maybe the jerks seem to be more numerous because they're so damned loud and make life difficult for the rest of us. > Next time some > wooly-scrotumed jerk-off cuts me off on the Long Island Expressway I'll > be thinking of you! P.S.: Are you voting for Bob Dole? > I LIKE my scrotum. And I like it woolly. I had it shaven for a vasectomy this year, and when it was growing back in, I was in a foul mood! Anyway, I'd like to join Victor in welcoming you to the group, Christine. You certainly seem like an interesting person. Then again, you might be a 12 year old straight male computer geek with a pocket protector. Isn't the internet wonderful? PS: ML's still impossible to get here in Canada, as far as I have been able to find out. ME's at HMV only; Sam the Record Man doesn't have it. It's a rough life out here in the boonies. -- Ross Overbury Montreal, Quebec, Canada email: rosso@cn.ca ------------------------------ From: Ross Overbury Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 10:30:15 EDT Subject: Hurrah for dykes! TYPE "cc" ON THIS LINE TO INSERT TEXT, Esc TO STOP INSERTING, ":wq" TO QUIT -- Ross Overbury Senior Operations Officer, Software CN Rail Signals and Communications, Laurentian District 2nd floor, 1060 University St. Montreal, Quebec, Canada TEL: (514) 399-8070 FAX: (514) 399-6725 email: rosso@cn.ca EMC2: OVERBURY ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 09:55:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: Re: Moss Cocktail Dave writes: >so I've decided to put together my own version of how the CD/cassette release should have been. >Sinister But Happy (ME version) >Alright Yeah! >The Speed of Things >Beautiful Queen (ME version) >Filthy Bird >Devils Radio (ML version) >As Lemons Chop > >Cool Bug Rumble >Man with a Woman's Shadow >I Am Not Me >DeChirico Street (ME version) >You and Oblivion >Heliotrope (ML version) >Comments: I'd buy that. Think I'd probably find a way to include Trilobite, though. I could probably leave off Alright yeah or Woman's Shadow just because they're both older tunes. >This brings me to As Lemons Chop...[yadda yadda yadda]...the images >portrayed are as paranoid and frightening as the music >implies: > 'As summer fades, as winter grins > As you were eating pins...' > > I love the way the song concludes by getting to the core of the loneliness >behind this paranoid imagery: > 'I want you so bad, I could kill this moment just to be > next to you.' I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of these lyrics. I also enjoy they way the background vocal cycle at the end begins with "chop" rather than "as"...gives the words that trademark Hitchcockian twist. You can just picture some Norman Bates type using a hatchet on somebody to drive home the point of that last line. Because of that, I'd lump this tune right in there with "Strange", "St. Petersburg" and "My Wife and My Dead Wife". Don't know if you were reading the initial reviews of ML by other listmembers, but "As Lemons Chop" was seemingly universally regarded as the weakest cut on the record--generally considered an off-the-cuff throwaway. Glad to know I'm not the only person here who feels there's more to it than meets the ear. >Finally, I think the CD has got to end with the ML version of Heliotrope. I must say I love that tune as an ending for the record. But When I assembled my 90 minute tape of both versions (one side Moss, one side Mossy) I had to take the last song off ME and tack it on to the end of ML so all the songs would fit. Two things became apparent immediately...(1) that last song on ME does NOT make a very good coda...I can't even remember what it's called, ferchrissake...(2) You & Oblivion is an EXCELLENT last song. Leaves you hungering for more. -comments by russ, who's CD changer currently contains the following: Robyn Hitchcock/MOSS ELIXIR David Bowie/THE SINGLES Elvis Costello & The Attractions/THE BEST OF... Smashing Pumpkins/SIAMESE DREAM The Doors/MORRISON HOTEL (as if you give a crap) ------------------------------ From: TchdnJesus@aol.com Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 13:22:22 -0400 Subject: Re: Remixing In a message dated 96-08-30 19:53:19 EDT, gondola@deltanet.com writes: >>From: Long Duk Dong >>_Groovy Dec*y_ brings up another question: Has any other artist, >>dissatisfied with an earlier-released product, re-released a totally >>remixed, resequenced version of the album? Album sequels, such as Meatloaf's >>"Bat Out Of Hell II" and Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" don't count. >> >>I think Peter Gabriel did something along those lines with _Security_ and >>the soundtrack to _Birdy_, didn't he? > >I believe that Split Enz released Mental Notes, and then Phil Manzanera >remixed it and it was released again? Correct? there are the multiple mixes of the third velvet underground, with the closet mix currently in the boxset, and the other mix out as the singular album. and the re-de-editing of "sweet jane" and one other song of _loaded_, as opposed to the original butched versions that were put out. 10,000 maniacs had there version of "peace train" knocked off whatever album it was on because of cat stevens rather unpolite comments about salman rushdie. also brian eno & david byrne deleted and replaced one of the tracks on _my life with the bush of ghosts (or whatever)_ for some reason i can't recall. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 13:37:21 -0500 From: jojones@mailbox.syr.edu (John, Jacci, & Madison) Subject: New album news Thanks to all the UK fegs for posting setlists and info for all the appearances Robyn has made over the summer. If anyone has recordings of any of this stuff, especially the Kaleidoscope BBC broadcast and ANY of the 12 Bar gigs, please get in touch. I really want to hear this stuff. Evidently Robyn did a Radcliffe Session for the BBC as well. Broadcast date was 14 Aug 96, show is 20min long, and setlist is: De Chirico St., Heliotrope, 1974. Robyn prefaced the song "1974" by saying "This is off the new album which I'm going to record in October." (!!!!!) The song "1974" is about cultural references and memories some of his friends have about that time. Features a typical Robyn rhyme; he rhymes "1974" with "saxophones all over the floor." I got this in the mail today. I am simultaneously surprised and pleased about his going into the studio next month to begin work on the next album. Robyn the workaholic???? He'll be here in the states 2 weeks into October, soooo.... John ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Hurrah for dykes! From: guambat@juno.com (James & Holly Moore) Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 13:38:41 EDT >> Three Cheers For Christine Du Bois! ------------------------------------------------ >> (a.k.a."Schlong-less In Seattle") I am that rare animal -- a >straight male ------------------------------------------------ >> Loud and proud scissor sister -- you go on girl! ------------------------------------------------ >Yes, hurrah for dykes! And for homos and for straights, too! ------------------------------------------------ > Are all gays 100% gay? Are all straights 100% straight? ------------------------------------------------ >Most of my friends could be labeled straight, and they're not jerks. ------------------------------------------------ >I LIKE my scrotum. And I like it woolly. I had it shaven for a >vasectomy this year, and when it was growing back in, I was in a foul >mood! ------------------------------------------------ Where am I? I *thought* I was on a Robyn Hitchcock discussion list... but it seems instead that I've mistakenly subscribed to some sort of 'Announce Your Favorite Sexual Orientation and Talk About Your Genitalia' list... isn't that bizarre??? OK, flame away... Sincerely, Jim Moore guambat@juno.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 11:48:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: Review in SJ Metro positive review of ME in the Aug 29-Sep 4 issue of Metro (San Jose area publication). Unfortunately I don't have time to post it. If any other Bay Area fegs would like to do so, go ahead. If not, perhaps I'll have some time next week. BTW, the review was written by Gina Arnold, who had her name dragged through the mud here about a year ago for writing something negative (or at least it was perceived as such) about Mr. H. -rr ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 15:59:58 -0500 (CDT) From: sdodge@inforel.com (Truman Peyote) Subject: Re: New album news John's inquiring mind wants to know: >Evidently Robyn did a Radcliffe Session for the BBC as well. Broadcast >date was 14 Aug 96, show is 20min long, and setlist is: De Chirico St., >Heliotrope, 1974. Robyn prefaced the song "1974" by saying "This is off >the new album which I'm going to record in October." (!!!!!) > n the mail today. I am simultaneously surprised and pleased >about his going into the studio next month to begin work on the next album. >Robyn the workaholic???? He'll be here in the states 2 weeks into >October, soooo.... Perhaps it's a live record with some new songs to go with the Demme film? Just a theory. Susan P.S. How come I'm the only person who prefers the ML version of "beautiful queen"? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 08:04:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Griffith Davies Subject: two questions 1. Is the RH track on the Ptolemaic Terrascope compilation the same as either the Mossy Liquor or the Moss Elixir version? 2. I came across a cassette in a catalog entitled "Babysitting a New Generation". It has a track by RH, does anyone know what it is? Thanks in advance. griffith ______________________________________________________________ Griffith Davies hbrtv219@email.csun.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 18:03:09 -0500 From: Brandt Subject: Beauty Queen Truman Peyote wrote: > P.S. How come I'm the only person who prefers the ML version of "beautiful > queen"? Susan...you are not alone. I love the descending violin lines by Deni on the chorus of the ML version. As much as I like the psychedelic flourishes of the ME rendition, it loses something without that particular melodic inclusion. The aforementioned Deni version is how I heard the song for the first time (live in Chicago!) and now have a hard time hearing it the ME way. hal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 08:28:53 +0800 (SST) From: Kevin M Mathews Subject: BIGO To fellow Fegs who may be interested in a Moss Elixir review I submitted to local rock mag BigO - please contact me personally. Cheers, Kevin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest. *sob* .