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 #204 Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 204 Thursday October 10 1996 To post, send mail to fegmaniax@ecto.org To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@ecto.org with the words "unsubscribe fegmaniax-digest" in the message body. Send comments, etc. to the listowner at owner-fegmaniax@ecto.org FegMANIAX! Web Page: http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/fegmaniax/index.html Archives are available at ftp://www.ecto.org/pub/lists/fegmaniax/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: ------- ------- RE: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) The reviewer who liked RH (Rip It Up, NZ) Choral Colour; Lawfirm of Bend, Fold, Spindle and Mutilate Re: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 Re: Choral Colour; Lawfirm of Bend, Fold, Spindle and Mutilate Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 Re: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) Rock notes Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 RE: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep RE: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep Re: Only The Stones Remain Greatest Hits Curiosity Kills Tape tree info only the stones... Re: Tape tree info Goldmine article, part 1 alright,yeah Re: only the stones... Re: Dark "Gminor7" Energy Chord colours - experiment? Re: Goldmine Re: Goldmine Robyn in Hamburg Re: Greatest Hits Orpheum tickets? Re: The reviewer who liked RH (Rip It Up, NZ) Re: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) Re: Chord colours - experiment? Tab page Mtn Stage pre/post thing Re: Hee...Stuff Re: Robyn in Hamburg crablings tree ------------------------------ From: "Baker, David(PIN-C09)" Subject: RE: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 20:40:23 -0400 Excuse my ignorance but who is Jeane Moreau? I would probably be able to appreciate the humour in that line in Sinister a lot more if I knew. Dave. > ---------- >From: Russ Reynolds >To: fegmaniax@ecto.org >Subject: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep >Date: Thursday, 10 October 1996 1:14AM > >Anybody catch Jeane Moreau on Lettterman Monday night? Would have been >great if RH was the musical act. In fact, earlier in the show they used a >sort of blink-o-meter on some footage of Bob Dole from the debate (clocked >him at something like 41 blinks in 30 seconds)...Had Hitchcock been on the >show they could have had a blink off between he and Dole. > >To that end, has anyone heard anything about upcoming TV appearances by >RH? > > -russ > > ------------------------------ fegmaniax From: Hello Dali Subject: Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 19:48:41 -0700 At 11:55 08.10.96 +0200, James Isaacs wrote: >Electric- playing a black Fender Telecaster, looked older than me. Was it Robyn or the Telly that looked older than you? ;) ______________________________________________________________________ Glen E. Uber glen@metro.net http://metro.net/glen/ ______________________________________________________________________ "I spend all night with the dealer/Trying to get ahead/I spend all day at the Holiday Inn/Just trying to get out of bed." --Gram Parsons, 'Ooh, Las Vegas' ______________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:04:00 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) >Rex Stardust, Lead Electric Triangle, says: > >>Weirder still, snob that I was, I once told a 3rd grade classmate of mine (a >>true backwoodser with rudimentary language skills) that I really needed to >>teach him English. He responded, " Aw, Rex.... ahcantdoTHAHT!!!"... see, he >>thought that he spoke 'Merkin, not English, and that English was some >>hopelessly incomprehensible European language (cf. common joke "If English >>was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me...") As to Jesus speaking English, (is this an urban myth?) I've heard it attributed to a statement by a US congressperson on a TV or radio talk show. It's also the subject of the Muttonbirds song "The Queen's English" BTW - those of you who shorten "American" to "'Merkin" - do you know what a merkin is? >> For the record, "Dmaj" is dark blue,... >> > >this is impossible only because it has to be brighter than Amaj, which >is not black by any means. ...no, it's dark reddish brown. Dmaj is blue, the rich deep blue of blue glass, the sort you can drown in. (not to be confused with bluegrass, y'all!) James (now listening to "Rhapsody in Blue" ;) PS: Up next, a rave review of M.E.! James Dignan, Department of Psychology, University of Otago. Ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk St., St. Clair, Dunedin, New Zealand pixelphone james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz / steam megaphone NZ 03-455-7807 * You talk to me as if from a distance * and I reply with impressions chosen from another time, time, time, * from another time (Brian Eno) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:07:18 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: The reviewer who liked RH (Rip It Up, NZ) Review from Rip It Up magazine (New Zealand) October 1996, written by Martin Bell. Transcribed without permission. It uses the word eccentric once, but doesn't make comparisons to Barrett. Keywords: maverick, underrated, pristine, Melrose Place, sphincter. James --- Robyn Hitchcock - MOSS ELIXIR (Warners) Maverick English eccentric Robyn Hitchcock's last album, "Respect", was, by his own high standards, something of a creative cul-de-sac. With "Moss elixir", his first album for Warners, Hitchcock returns to the sparse sound of his landmark first solo LP "I often dream of trains" (without a doubt, one of *the* great undiscovered albums of the 1980s). Like that album (and its spiritual successor, "Eye"), the skeletal arrangements of "Moss elixir" help throw Hitchcock's songwriting into sharper relief, which is no bad thing, for his songs have rarely sounded better than they do here. Hitchcock's keen sense of melody remains intact, while his lyrics continue to be as absurd as a Melrose Place story line and twice as funny. On a number of tracks the violin of Deni Bonet provides a sympathetic foil to Hitchcock's own underrated guitar playing and fragile singing, but Hitchcock doesn't play it all low key. One listen to the pristine guitar pop of 'Alright, yeah' will leave you wondering how he hasn't sold albums by the million and isn't packing punters into stadiums worldwide. Then 'Filthy bird' arrives, and you realise why - imagine a medieval folk song played on an electric guitar, with Hitchcock intoning merrily in the chorus "Oooh, a happy bird is a filthy bird." You can almost hear the sphincter muscles of anally retentive radio programmers snapping shut. Which is not to say that 'Filthy bird' is a lesser song - far from it. It's just another example of Hitchcock'spenchant for the wilfully bizarre, further evidence of a desire to follow his own path, no matter how far off the beaten track it may be. And Hitchcock wanders far and wide on "Moss elixir". Indeed, the only occasion where the album is anything less than inspired is when Hitchcock is following the musical straight and narrow, as on the Robyn-by-numbers rocker 'Beautiful queen'. Elsewhere his arcane spirit runs rampant, showering the listener with utterly compelling music of rare brilliance, mixed with unblinking perversity. Essential. ------------------------------ From: RxBroome@aol.com Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 23:23:41 -0400 Subject: Choral Colour; Lawfirm of Bend, Fold, Spindle and Mutilate Ryan describes me as: "Rex Stardust, Lead Electric Triangle" Hmmmm...okay... I think... ________________ Mine own queen sayeth: "Scriabin spent his whole life searching for "the mystic chord" which would bring about world peace and other lovely things when found. My friend Will told me all about it, but alas I have forgotten what the chord actually was (the poor man did claim to have found it :)). I believe it was some sort of G chord, though." Don't we all (non-songwriter/musicians excepted) think we've found the perect chord from time to time, only later to abandon it, and then later hear it in some piece of music which suddenly evokes the period of our lives during which we were so enamored of it? This to me is like the shocking sense memory we associate with smell ("Hey, it's a youth hostel in Belgium, but somehow it's Grandma's house!")... And then James NZ (not James UK (Tim Booth's band) or James Brown (about whom more later)): "I think a lot of songwriters receive their lyrics in this way. Certainly I regard myself more of a "channeler of the words I receive" rather than as a writer of them. There are several occasions I look at songs I've written and thought "I couldn't have written lyrics like *that*!" I don't consider it like the chord-colour (Robyn's English. His colours have a "u" in them :) association though." So do his flavours. The association is that here we have aspects of musical composition whose origins can't be quantified ("channelled" lyrics, chords as "colours"-- I think of them more as seasons, but whatever) by their "authors"... it all leads us back to either postmodernism or mysticism (if there's any difference)... BTW, James, thanks for the Chills info... ________ Glenn says: "Actually, I thought of the James Brown tune of the same title. To those of you who think it odd that a feglister would like Prince or Primus (which I do), or Herb Alpert (which I don't), I must be a real curiosity in that I have a great affinity for and appreciation of James Brown." How about the fact that the Feglister who initially dissed both Primus and Zappa, that being me, once wrote during his journalistic career in a widely read publication that he was so disenchanted with modern music that he just might spend the rest of his days listening exclusively to James Brown and Throwing Muses? That was during the year (1993) when my New Year's Resolution was to not spend any money on music-- a resolution I broke only for Robyn, Kristin Hersh's solo album, and a pair of Neil Young records. I think all of us are "a real curiosity", actually. Rexy Stardust. ------------------------------ From: Hello Dali Subject: Re: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 21:33:20 -0700 At 16:04 10.10.96 +1300, James Dignan wrote: >BTW - those of you who shorten "American" to "'Merkin" - do you know what a >merkin is? I believe this was a topic of discussion about this time last year, wasn't it? Glen "Why would there be a need for a merkin, anyway?" Uber ______________________________________________________________________ Glen E. Uber glen@metro.net http://metro.net/glen/ ______________________________________________________________________ "I spend all night with the dealer/Trying to get ahead/I spend all day at the Holiday Inn/Just trying to get out of bed." --Gram Parsons, 'Ooh, Las Vegas' ______________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 01:21:49 -0500 From: Outdoor Miner Subject: Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 At 10:31 AM 10/9/96 +0100, Tom Clark wrote: >>> The next song was "Only the Stones Remain" >> >>Remember my asking whether this was his favourite song for performing, >>ever? Here it is again, still there after 12+ years. I rest my case. >> >>- Mike Godwin >> > >Perhaps it's his fave now, but during "the A&M years" I never heard him >perform it with the Egyptians. It was my favourite of his SB material at >the time but I don't think I ever heard him do it until last year in S.F. He did it at the solo show I saw in 1990 and with the Egyptians in 1992. Later, Miles ===================================================================== I shift the blame to the worm in the bottle I shift the blame to anyone standing before me -- Wire, "Silk Skin Paws" Miles Goosens goosenmk@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu ===================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 01:35:38 -0500 (CDT) From: Truman Peyote Subject: Re: Choral Colour; Lawfirm of Bend, Fold, Spindle and Mutilate On Wed, 9 Oct 1996 RxBroome@aol.com wrote: > Ryan describes me as: > "Rex Stardust, Lead Electric Triangle" > Hmmmm...okay... I think... I think it has a nice ring to it, my own sweet. > Don't we all (non-songwriter/musicians excepted) think we've found the perect > chord from time to time, only later to abandon it, and then later hear it in > some piece of music which suddenly evokes the period of our lives during > which we were so enamored of it? This to me is like the shocking sense > memory we associate with smell ("Hey, it's a youth hostel in Belgium, but > somehow it's Grandma's house!")... Yes, I see what you're getting at. Exactly. The same thing happens with images, as well........I am reminded now of certain events I associate with the famous image of "The Who- Maximum R&B" :). > And then James NZ (not James UK (Tim Booth's band) or James Brown (about whom > more later)): > "I think a lot of songwriters receive their lyrics in this way. Certainly I > regard myself more of a "channeler of the words I receive" rather than as a > writer of them. There are several occasions I look at songs I've written > and thought "I couldn't have written lyrics like *that*!" I don't consider > So do his flavours. The association is that here we have aspects of musical > composition whose origins can't be quantified ("channelled" lyrics, chords as > "colours"-- I think of them more as seasons, but whatever) by their > "authors"... it all leads us back to either postmodernism or mysticism (if > there's any difference)... Well, that last line's a can of worms (or a can of bees ;)) that I won't even open right now. I will venture the idea, however, that the "channelling" sort of feeling is incredibly common- I often get that feeling myself, when writing, and a corresponding feeling of being in a different place altogether from the one I'm physically inhabiting at the moment- time and space being in a way suspended. I know at least one person here knows exactly what I mean by this :). Ok, I know I said I wouldn't open that can, but I'd like to maybe peek inside a bit.Maybe I'm being a little simplistic, but I think that a true postmodernist would rather poo-poo the whole "Divine Inspiration" thing as recidivist and romantic and very severely dated (oooh, I am so well-edjumikated :)), since the whole idea of a unique creator or unique creation is anathema to these folks. Thoughts, dearest? > Glenn says: > "Actually, I thought of the James Brown tune of the same title. To those of > you who think it odd that a feglister would like Prince or Primus (which I > do), or Herb Alpert (which I don't), I must be a real curiosity in that I > have a great affinity for and appreciation of James Brown." Oh, Glen, you are being verrrrrry silly! I like James Brown a lot, though I wouldn't say I have an "affinity" for his music, exactly. And just so you know- the whole joke in the "Commitments" movie was based around the James Brown song and the fact that one guy refused to sing it because he was, well, white, and felt a little weird about it. It was then explained by another band member that "The Irish are the Blacks of Europe, and the Dubliners are the Blacks of Ireland", and therefore he should not feel at all strange playing R&B or singing the song, at which point he questioningly, hesitantly says "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud" in a thick Irish accent. Well, it was funny in the movie anyway. > How about the fact that the Feglister who initially dissed both Primus and > Zappa, that being me, once wrote during his journalistic career in a widely > read publication that he was so disenchanted with modern music that he just > might spend the rest of his days listening exclusively to James Brown and > Throwing Muses? That was during the year (1993) when my New Year's > Resolution was to not spend any money on music-- a resolution I broke only > for Robyn, Kristin Hersh's solo album, and a pair of Neil Young records. Heh. This reminds me of the time I told a high school English teacher who was sort of a confidante of mine that I was so disappointed with modern music that I would listen to nothing but Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Roxy Music for the rest of my life. Knowing me pretty well, he just laughed. > > I think all of us are "a real curiosity", actually. > True, true, mine own dear Rexy Stardust. Susan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:10:57 +0200 (METDST) From: James Isaacs Subject: Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 On Wed, 9 Oct 1996, Hello Dali wrote: > At 11:55 08.10.96 +0200, James Isaacs wrote: > > >Electric- playing a black Fender Telecaster, looked older than me. > > Was it Robyn or the Telly that looked older than you? ;) Well, both really. I am only 27. ------------------------------ From: Terrence M Marks Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 03:12:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) > >> For the record, "Dmaj" is dark blue,... > >> > > > >this is impossible only because it has to be brighter than Amaj, which > >is not black by any means. > > ...no, it's dark reddish brown. Dmaj is blue, the rich deep blue of blue > glass, the sort you can drown in. (not to be confused with bluegrass, > y'all!) I dunno. I always considered chords to be more tactile than visual. Dmaj7 is very rough, for a chord. Almost gravelly. And room temperature. Amaj7 is noticeably cooler, and has the viscosity of honey, but without the stickiness. Problem is, it's usually too thick to work with. If it helps, E7 (open) is a lot like glass, and G is a lot like cloth. Terrence "The Human Mellotron" Marks ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:13:52 +0200 (METDST) From: James Isaacs Subject: Rock notes Was Rex Stardust in Dead Donkeys? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 10:45:11 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: Re: Robyn at Nachtleben, Frankfurt, 7 Oct. 1996 On Wed, 9 Oct 1996, James Isaacs wrote: > > >> The next song was "Only the Stones Remain" > > > > I saw and heard Roban sing it in 1992 with the Egyptians. A lot of other > people did, too, as it is on the Thoth Boys tape. > James And on the GLTHO video, I think - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ From: M R Godwin Subject: RE: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 06:01:23 -0400 On Wed, 9 Oct 1996, Baker, David(PIN-C09) wrote: > Excuse my ignorance but who is Jeane Moreau? I would probably be able to > appreciate the humour in that line in Sinister a lot more if I knew. > Jeanne Moreau (2 "N"s) is a French film actress, who has appeared in 76 films including such classics as les et Jim (1961), Les Quatre Cents Coups and Les Liaisons Dangereuses (both 1959). Info from the Internet Movie database. In other words, she is the "cool French beauty" type. - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ From: M R Godwin Subject: RE: Sinister But She Was Full of Pep Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 06:55:08 -0400 Correction: "les et Jim" should read "Jules et Jim". My pine reply module is having one of its "Let's cut two letters off everything" days. - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:15:06 -0600 From: mbrage@surgery.bsd.uchicago.edu (Michael Brage) Subject: Re: Only The Stones Remain As discussed: >>Perhaps it's his fave now, but during "the A&M years" I never heard him >>perform it with the Egyptians. It was my favourite of his SB material at >>the time but I don't think I ever heard him do it until last year in S.F. > >He did it at the solo show I saw in 1990 and with the Egyptians in 1992. > Also, Robyn and the Egyptians perform it at the Ritz, New York, May 19, 1993. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:50:54 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: Greatest Hits I just listened to Greatest Hits for the first time yesterday and I thought I would report the results of the "Alright Yeah" test, having heard the ME version first. I was surprised to find the rhythm section much lighter and skifflier than the very big, spacy rhythm sound on ME; the slide guitar was much more obviously George Harrison 'All-things-must pass', and sounded a bit fussy in places. And I didn't care for it as much: I guess that most of us are bound to like the first version we hear, because it's the one that we make comparisons FROM. Still, at least it wasn't in Swedish. And, yes, it would have been a big improvement on Wafflehead. Other reactions to this album: * Madonna of the Wasps is the best track, but the Yip Song runs it very close. * That Hawkwind-style version of Globe of Frogs is repulsive. * Dunno why they left out 'Devil Mask', which must be one of the finest tracks RH has ever done. * No idea why they put that 'Radio Storm' thing on instead of 'Railway Shoes'. Oh, and the last track - which some people liked - sounded to me just like one of those "Led Zeppelin play Roy Harper" numbers! Not nice, precious, not crunchable at all... - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ From: Hello Dali Subject: Curiosity Kills Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 08:21:19 -0700 At 23:23 09.10.96 -0400, RxBroome@aol.com wrote: >I think all of us are "a real curiosity", actually. ...and that is why we are together on this list :) Best wishes, --g ______________________________________ Glen E. Uber glen@metro.net http://metro.net/glen/ ______________________________________ "If you like it, chances are it's been done before." --Cliff Malloy, 9 Oct. 1996 ------------------------------ From: firstcat@lsli.com Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 10:14:56 Subject: Tape tree info Hi guys, First, my branch with an AOL account, I can't send mail to you...I keep hitting the hole in their DNS and the mail bounces...so let me know if you have a fax or another e-mail address... Second, and of more interest to everyone...I posted the three trees I have on the web server at work, so look at http://www.lsli.com/trees.htm Cheers Jay ------------------------------------- Jay Lyall Channel Sales Director Livermore Software Laboratories, Intl. 2825 Wilcrest, Suite 160 Houston, Texas 77042-3358 1-713-974-3274 jay@lsli.com Date: 10/10/96 "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals; I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants." --A. Whitney Brown ------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 09:27:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: only the stones... >> > >> The next song was "Only the Stones Remain" >> > > >> I saw and heard Roban sing it in 1992 with the Egyptians. A lot of other >> people did, too, as it is on the Thoth Boys tape. >> James > >And on the GLTHO video, I think yes, but that was recorded way before the A&M years--the time period originally in question. BTW, I think I saw Roban fight Godzilla once. Russ. still in the changer from yesterday (Lennon's B-Day): BEATLES/WHITE ALBUM [disc 1] BEATLES/REVOLVER DEREK AND THE DOMINOES/LAYLA AND OTHER ASSORTED LOVE SONGS REM/NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI ROBYN HITCHCOCK/MOSS ELIXIR ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:22:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Eugene Subject: Re: Tape tree info I must have missed some stuff, is the tape tree for the tape with all those oddities all done? Or is there a second tape tree I'm not aware of? If there is some way to be placed on the tape tree, I would greatly aprreciate it. Thanks. -Eugene ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tipper Gore said to Lou Reed, "Lou Reed, how can we communicate better with our children?" Lou Reed responded, "We would probably have to sit down and talk about it over a bottle of scotch, and maybe, some crack." It's back! My lovely Humor Home page: http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ebmF92 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:38:45 -0400 (EDT) From: ExclamationPoint Subject: Goldmine article, part 1 Robyn Hitchcock The Invisible Hitmaker Revealed by Dave Thompson Goldmine #423 October 11, 1996 (Part 1 of Small N) He's never had a major hit, he's never scored a gold record and he'll probably never get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His best-known video is one which doesn't exist. Through the 1980s he sold almost as many records in America, where they were never even released, as he did in his UK homeland. Oh, and if there was any justice in this world, which of course there isn't [nah, there is, she's called "Elaine" -- dmw] he'd have been cast as Dr. Who the moment he outgrew his first pair of flares. He is, of course, Robyn Hitchcock, the only man in the world who can rhyme the word "love" with "periscope" and make it sound important, and whose latest album is coming out twice, once for the people who like it, and again for those who wish he'd done something else. It's been said before, but it still bears repeating. The man is a cult figure, one of the most individual songwriters of the age, and absolutely a law unto himself. Yet a career in the rock'n'rodeo was never in the cards for the infant Hitchcock. He was born in the sleepy English town of East Grinstead, Surrey, on March 3, 1953. "When I was young, I wanted to be Dr. Who," he says. "Then, when I was 13, I discovered Bob Dylan and I wanted to be him instead. If I hadn't ever heard Bob Dylan, though, I probably would just have gone on and become Dr. Who instead." Do we need some explanation here? Of course not. "I probably should have been the Doctor after Peter Davidson," he continues. "It was all over after that." Then he reconsiders. He saw one of the mid-1960's Dr. Who movies recently, and it was ludicrous. "Completely ludicrous. But maybe that's because it was in color. Dr. Who's heyday was in black and white," and he laughs because those are the colors of Bob Dylan's heyday too. Especially after he fell off his bike, retired to repair, and left the world an emptier place. The 13-year-old Hitchcock believed instinctively that he could fill that emptiness. Although 30 years later, he still hasn't come up with a "Like a Rolling Stone," it's wroth pointing out that Dylan has yet to come up with a "My Wife And My Dead Wife." So in truth, they're just about even. "Looking back on life, I see an awful lot in black and white. The Beatles didn't go into color until about 1965. Elvis was at his best in black and white. Kennedy was interesting because he lived in black and white, but he died in color." Hitchcock himself hit adolescence in color, leaving school at the dawn of the psychedelic era, then going to college in Cambridge just a trip or two after Pink Floyd left. A very long trip or two. "I didn't get there until the early 1970's, so I missed the whole Pink Floyd people era, and everything they represented. It had all gone." Mournfully, he confesses, "I've never even met an acid casualty," but even as he says it, he knows that's a peculiar admission from a man whose music has been compared with virtually every piece of frazzled gray matter from Syd Barrett to...actually, let's just leave it with Syd. Even more surprisingly, taking into consideration his public image, Hitchcock shatters further illusions when he confesses, "I'm a very drug-free person. I've only taken acid five times in my life and that was a long time ago." Neither does he want to repeat the experience. "My daughter took some, then spent the rest of the day cleaning. It's okay, so long as her mother doesn't decide to keep her on it permanently." Clean of body and un-addled of mind, then, Hitchcock's first musical ventures took place through the early-to-mid-1970's, as he worked with a variety of now-forgotten acts around Cambridge. Doubtless there are still other people who remember Maureen and the Meatpackers, the Worst Fears and the Beetles, and Hitchcock shudders as he realizes, several recordings from this period may still be "lying around." Apparently, they weren't very good. "I think i've lost them. There was some stuff with a guy who then became a lawyer, which is really frightening, crossword clues set to music by Noel Coward. Then there's some other stuff with Maureen and the Meatpackers, which was basically the household I lived with in Cambridge, my partner of the time, Rosalind, and a couple called Paul and Anst. "I don't think the songs are particularly good. They were fun at the time, but they're kind of hippy street-theater folk club songs for the mid-1970's, and some of them are mine, some of them are joint compositions. I think the first listenable stuff I did was with the Soft Boys." The Soft Boys -- Hitchcock, guitarist Alan Davis, bassist Andy Metcalfe and drummer Morris Windsor -- grew out of the earlier Dennis and the Experts during 1976, Punk's Year Zero. Uncompromising, unrehearsed and unrepentantly loud, the Soft Boys were still building a local reputation for themselves when the local Raw label added them to its own burgeoning catalog of eastern England's wilder talents. Why they ever thought the Soft Boys would fit is a question few people would ever dare answer. The Byrds, the Beatles and Barrett were the Soft Boys' most tangible influences, the first one for the guitar sound, the last for sheer inventiveness, and the Beatles because music critics are too often lazy -- anybody who actually put a tune to their lyrics sounded like the Beatles, and that included the Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock. By acknowledging the Fabs themselves, the Soft Boys saved a lot of journalistic brain cells. (to be continued) -- oh,no!! you've just read mail from doug -- dmayowel@access.digex.net a.k.a. dougmhyphw@aol.com -- get yr recently updated pathos at http://www.mwmw.com/pathetic/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 09:46:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: alright,yeah MG said: >thought I would report the results of the "Alright Yeah" test, having >heard the ME version first. > >I was surprised to find the rhythm section much lighter and skifflier than >the very big, spacy rhythm sound on ME; the slide guitar was much more >obviously George Harrison 'All-things-must pass', and sounded a bit fussy >in places. And I didn't care for it as much: I guess that most of us are well, I'd heard the A&M version first, and to me that one always sounded a bit country-ish with the slide guitar. It didn't sound much like George Harrison's work to me...I think George always had more of a bluesy sound. (well, unless you're talking about "behind that locked door" and "if not for you"...which I guess you probably are, seein' as how those are All Things Must Pass tracks). At any rate, I like the ME version better too. Russ ohnothimagain! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 17:54:07 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: Re: only the stones... On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, Russ Reynolds wrote: > >> I saw and heard Roban sing it in 1992 with the Egyptians. A lot of other > >> people did, too, as it is on the Thoth Boys tape. > >> James > > > >And on the GLTHO video, I think > > yes, but that was recorded way before the A&M years--the time period > originally in question. Well, there you are then. It goes back even further! > BTW, I think I saw Roban fight Godzilla once. It could easily have been the Smog Monster, though. Those Smog Monsters keep changing shape... - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 10:09:24 -0700 From: Nick Winkworth Subject: Re: Dark "Gminor7" Energy Not to dwell on this topic (though I'm fascinated by the similes and metaphors we use to describe music - almost as good as the seemingly bizarre descriptions people use to describe fine wines) and with thanks to Ross for those fascinating modes descriptions (it made me want to go right back to my music theory books!). My question is: Does anyone know why the "chromatic" scale is so called -- a clear endorsement for us color-chorders I'd say ;) ? -Nick ------------------------------ From: Ross Overbury Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 13:27:01 EDT Subject: Chord colours - experiment? I have a question for those who use colours, textures and other non-auditory terms to describe chords. Does this perception change with the position in which the chord is played? If you capo your guitar, do the comparisons still hold? Try it and tell me. I'm not inclined to experience chords this way, so I can't try it myself. I think that these interpretations are legitimate, but probably only on a very personal level. Some would hold out within a certain cultural group but not others. For instance, I don't think a Hungarian would hear a minor scale as sad or spooky. That's not the result of some deep mystery, but only of how the scale is commonly used in that culture. Major chords and scales were once considered satanic by the clergy, weren't they? -- Ross Overbury Montreal, Quebec, Canada email: rosso@cn.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:51:47 -0400 From: lj lindhurst Subject: Re: Goldmine [snip, snip] "The Soft Boys -- Hitchcock, guitarist Alan Davis, bassist Andy Metcalfe and drummer Morris Windsor -- grew out of the earlier Dennis and the Experts during 1976, Punk's Year Zero. " What about Kimberley???? Thanks for posting this, it's otherwise a pretty good article. Looking forward to the second half. BTW, have we seen a single *bad* piece of press lately? Is it me, or has everything been very complimentary? I don't think I've seen an unfavorable review of ME or ML at all, come to think of it. lj (who's been trying to call the Beacon theatre for two days!) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:26:27 -0400 (EDT) From: ExclamationPoint Subject: Re: Goldmine On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, lj lindhurst wrote: > [snip, snip] > "The Soft Boys -- Hitchcock, guitarist Alan Davis, bassist Andy Metcalfe > and drummer Morris Windsor -- grew out of the earlier Dennis and the > Experts during 1976, Punk's Year Zero. " > > What about Kimberley???? > > Thanks for posting this, it's otherwise a pretty good article. Looking > forward to the second half. we ain't got to Kimberley yet -- probably about 8 more (not 1 more) sections to go yet. -- ! -- oh,no!! you've just read mail from doug -- dmayowel@access.digex.net a.k.a. dougmhyphw@aol.com -- get yr recently updated pathos at http://www.mwmw.com/pathetic/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 20:53:26 +0200 (MET DST) From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Robyn in Hamburg Hi! As you can tell I'm not quite as fast in letting you know about my experience as some of my fellow fegs have been... :-) Well, I hope it's not too late. I *did* the interview with Robyn! He's really a very nice person, but wasn't too thrilled to hear that I'm on the mailing list... I don't know, I didn't get the chance to ask him further about his opinion. I'll transcribe the interview ASAP, but don't hold your breath! Tim is also very open and talkative. He even promised to send us the Homer single(s)! I asked him about the other two shows in Germany and he thought that Frankfurt was by far the worst of the three (sorry James!). There were maybe 40 or 50 people in Hamburg, but they seemed to enjoy the show very much. I'd guess that most of them *weren't* familiar with his material, so that's actually a very good result! So much for now, more to follow! Greetings, Sebastian -- Sebastian Hagedorn "I am unable, yonder beggar cries, To stand or move. If it be true, he lies!" Cologne University, Germany E-Mail: Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-koeln.de WWW: http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ ------------------------------ From: Ross Overbury Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 14:50:38 EDT Subject: Re: Greatest Hits > > I just listened to Greatest Hits for the first time yesterday and I > thought I would report the results of the "Alright Yeah" test, having > heard the ME version first. Compare with my reaction. I heard ME before GH, too. > > I was surprised to find the rhythm section much lighter and skifflier than > the very big, spacy rhythm sound on ME; the slide guitar was much more > obviously George Harrison 'All-things-must pass', and sounded a bit fussy I heard "All things must pass, too". I prefer it. I missed the tambourine from the ME version, though. If I had to choose, I'd choose the GH version, although it sounds less polished. Isn't it lovely not to have to choose? What I'd really like to see is a further development of the GH approach. I guess the existence of 3 released versions pretty much quashes that possibility. > in places. And I didn't care for it as much: I guess that most of us are > bound to like the first version we hear, because it's the one that we make > comparisons FROM. > I'd still agree that this is generally true. I might even have liked Clapton's new "Layla" (see Robyn, we do talk about Eric on this list!) if I hadn't heard the original (cry of unrequited love!) before the later version (fetch me a cuppa, would ya, luv?). I'd like to add that I heard Eric Clapton's version of "I Shot the Sherriff" first. Bob Marley's version, which I heard later, blows EC's out of the water. Maybe the theory holds true, except for anything done by Eric Clapton. > Still, at least it wasn't in Swedish. And, yes, it would have been a big > improvement on Wafflehead. > That was the first one I heard! It's my least favourite. > -- Ross Overbury "La mort avant la figure ASCII souriante" Montreal, Quebec, Canada email: rosso@cn.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:59:15 -0500 From: "John, Jacci, & Madison" Subject: Orpheum tickets? Are there any kind Boston souls who could pick me up some tickets for the Nov 16 Orpheum show? I called NEXT today--they want to charge us an extra $5 per ticket! We need 4 tickets, so that's alot of $$ to throw away to fees and such. I would imagine that buying them from the Orpheum box office would be cheaper. Please let me know if you can be of help. John ------------------------------ Subject: Re: The reviewer who liked RH (Rip It Up, NZ) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 11:25:42 +0100 From: Tom Clark "The Abandoned Brain" James graces us with the Rip It Up review, wherein it is written - on whatever it is they write on down there: >Elsewhere his arcane spirit runs >rampant, showering the listener with utterly compelling music of rare >brilliance, mixed with unblinking perversity. Essential. "Unblinking"? I hardly think so... -tc ************************************* * Tom Clark * Apple Computer, Inc. * tclark@apple.com * tclark@netgate.net * http://www.netgate.net/~tclark ************************************* "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Inglese sprach ici, and Colours (no, not the Donovan song) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 12:53:08 +0100 From: Tom Clark "James Dignan" , "The Lobster Gang" >At 16:04 10.10.96 +1300, James Dignan wrote: > >>BTW - those of you who shorten "American" to "'Merkin" - do you know what a >>merkin is? > >I believe this was a topic of discussion about this time last year, wasn't >it? > >Glen "Why would there be a need for a merkin, anyway?" Uber Because the winter's coming and it's getting cold! -tc ------------------------------ From: Terrence M Marks Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:09:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Chord colours - experiment? On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, Ross Overbury wrote: > > I have a question for those who use colours, textures and other > non-auditory terms to describe chords. Does this perception change with > the position in which the chord is played? If you capo your guitar, do the > comparisons still hold? Try it and tell me. I'm not inclined to > experience chords this way, so I can't try it myself. Well, E7 becomes more and more opaque if you play it further up the neck. But I think that that's because it involves less open strings, not because of the fact that it's further up the neck. Terrence Marks ------------------------------ From: firstcat@lsli.com Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 15:08:13 Subject: Tab page All the tabs I have are finally posted...if you have more that you want posted then send them to me... http://www.lsli.com/tabs.htm Cheers Jay ------------------------------------- Jay Lyall Channel Sales Director Livermore Software Laboratories, Intl. 2825 Wilcrest, Suite 160 Houston, Texas 77042-3358 1-713-974-3274 jay@lsli.com Date: 10/10/96 "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals; I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants." --A. Whitney Brown ------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 15:16:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Jordan M Anderson Subject: Mtn Stage pre/post thing Are any other fegs traveling to Morgantown, WV to see Mountain Stage this Sunday? Want to organize a little pre/post function? I've never been to Morgantown, but I'm sure it has lots to offer. Let me know soon so I can finalize my traveling arrangements. Jordan ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 96 08:51:31 EDT From: Doc <75602.2577@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Hee...Stuff James Isaacs wrote: >Well, I do not know who Tim was, but I would assume he is one of thse fellows in Homer. Yes, indeedy. Tim Keegan. Former Blue Aeroplanes guitarist, and now lead vocals and rhythm guitar for Homer. And, not to be left out, Nick Winkworth wrote: >>We're going to take Robyn's word that he hears chords in particular >>colors? >Does this seem odd to you? I've always thought of chords as colors - >seems very natural to me. >What struck me when I read that was not the fact that he imagined chords >as colors but that his chord/color relationships were quite like mine. >(not that I can remember what his were, now) >Anyone else have difficulty with this concept? Nope. My high school composition teacher, J.C. Nemecek, always said he heard colour. That wasn't restricted to music, either. Sounds had an associative colour for him. (That's why he always called himself J.C., not "James Curtis". He said he saw hospital pea green and matte black when he heard James Curtis, and hated the colour scheme. Can't say I blame him.) I've never seen colours when I hear music, though. When I hear music...well, I start at one place and I end up in another. Everything usually goes blank for me in between except the sound. This explains much about my seeming somnombulance thoughout the day. Look after yerselves... -Ed, Doc, listening to the FM talk show because I know you care P.S. I like Rush AND Zappa. Primus is merely music to annoy your parents. P.P.S. I found a copy of RH's Greatest Hits two weeks ago at Tower Records, Picadilly Circus for 15 pounds...several copies to be had there as well. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 22:48:36 +0200 (METDST) From: Hig Hirtenflurst Subject: Re: Robyn in Hamburg If the Frankfurt was the worst of the three, you probably could not wear=20 your pants home! We Deutschers sure are lucky, aren=B4 we? My guess is that Robyn (sic Roban) was pretty peeved at the train=20 situation that made him 2 hours late. I wished I knew he was a big Dr. Who fan. My good pal in the US just=20 purchased the Tom Baker adventure "Pirate Planet", penned by none other=20 than Douglas Adams. James, undergoing a personality crisis. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 18:07:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Bayard Subject: crablings tree On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, Eugene wrote: > > I must have missed some stuff, is the tape tree for the tape with > all those oddities all done? Or is there a second tape tree I'm not aware > of? If there is some way to be placed on the tape tree, I would greatly > aprreciate it. Thanks. i'm waiting on just a couple more delectable oysters for the seafood tree. people offered to send me choice morsels. i'll finally have it done asap. Terry is handling the logic for the oddities tree-- normal@grove.ufl.edu. ps. What, Robyn doesn't like the list? but we haven't had a worst songs thread for almost a year now. I guess we did have the flaming dylan and bathtub masturbation thing, though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest. *sob* .