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 #205 Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 205 Saturday October 12 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: synaesthesia White Music? Re: Satan postscript Re: Rock Notes Re: Rock Notes Rexy Stardust speaks. High Llamas Re: Rexy Stardust speaks. Keswick tickets on sale NOW! Re: Goldmine Webworker! Checking in to the E7 Hotel Re: postscript Goldmine article, Part II Re: High Llamas Re: Goldmine article, Part II Homer Robyn in Madison, WI Dream Pool Re: Black Death Waltz Chord colors from the Man Himself Re: High Llamas Re: Black Death Waltz Goldmine Article Part III I wanna destroy you? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 13:23:52 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Re: synaesthesia Here's that book I was talking about to y'all. AUTHOR Cytowic, Richard E. TITLE The man who tasted shapes : a bizarre medical mystery offers revolutionary insights into emotions, reasoning and consciousness IMPRINT G. P. Putnam's,, c1993. ISBN 0874777380 James in NZ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 13:43:09 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: White Music? >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. yes, I think you're right. A good point. The "REM A-chord" (007650) is a much lighter colour to me, more like orange, than the standard (002220). Also, I think it depends on the instrument. I know that when I'm playing the piano and hit a minor sixth chord I get the distinct feeling of yellowish evening light slanting through lace curtains - that sort of syrupy light that illuminates all the dust particles in the air. And it doesn't really matter which basic key it is. Which begs the question: is it the CHORD, or the particular inversion or structure within that chord. Does DMaj sound "dark blue" because on the guitar it is dominant-tonic-dominant-tonic-mediant in ascending order? Is A brown because it is dominant-tonic-dominant-tonic-mediant-*dominant*? James (who once considered writing his masters thesis on why major chords sound more joyful than minor chords to westerners) Recent listening*: Billy Bragg - Don't try this at home Proclaimers - Sunshine on Leith Housemartins - Now that's what I call quite good * this choice possibly influenced by tomorrow's N.Z. General Election! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 17:43:50 -0700 (PDT) From: gondola@deltanet.com (E.B.) Subject: Re: Satan >From: Ross Overbury > >Major chords and scales were once considered satanic by the clergy, >weren't they? I don't think so. Here, I quote from an esteemed literary source: Jim "Foetus" Thirlwell, in his liner notes for the 1987 track "Diabolus In Musica." "Diabolus In Musica was a medieval term for the tritone (augmented fourth or diminished fifth). It divides the octave into two equal parts (in this case C and F#).... [clip] "The first mention of the word 'tritonus' seems to be in the 9th or 10th century organum treatise 'Musica Enchiriadis," though it was not explicitly prohibited until the development of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal system. >From then until the end of the Renaissance the tritone, nicknamed Diabolus in Musica, was regarded as a dangerous interval associated with evil and was banned by the church as being thought to summon Satan. "Those found using the chord were routinely subjected to slow tortuous death by genital mutilation and the administering of such implements as the skull crusher, the breast breaker and the wheel. Burnings at the stake were also favoured." Cute, eh? :) EB ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 13:47:45 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: postscript >Major chords and scales were once considered satanic by the clergy, weren't >they? oops - missed this line. Don't know about that, but the triad of notes that make up the augmented chord (tonic-mediant-sharpened dominant, eg, C-E-Ab) was called the Devil's triangle. It's used to good effect in the early work of King Crimson (who actually recorded a track called Devil's Triangle), who were following the lead of Bela Bartok's work. As to your other comment, yes, the tristesse of the minor chord is peculiarly a western phenomenon. It is regarded as joyful in a lot of Asian cultures, for instance, whereas traditional Polynesian music didn't use minor scales or keys at all. James ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 17:57:48 -0700 From: Ryan Godfrey Subject: Re: Rock Notes James DE asks: >Was Rex Stardust in Dead Donkeys? I think Dead Donkeys opened for Rex & Co. when they were Poached Salmon in a White Wine Sauce. >From Monty Python's "Contractual Obligations": Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad the Wet Sprocket, has had to have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour of Finland. Flamboyant, ambidextrous Rex apparently fell off the back of a motorcycle. "Fell off the back of a motorcyclist, most likely," quipped ace drummer Jumbo McClooney upon hearing of the accident. Plans are already afoot for a major tour of Iceland. Hence the not-really-appropriate name of that Santa Barbara band. --Ryan rgodfrey@swlink.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:17:51 -0500 (CDT) From: Truman Peyote Subject: Re: Rock Notes On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, Ryan Godfrey wrote: > James DE asks: > > >Was Rex Stardust in Dead Donkeys? > > I think Dead Donkeys opened for Rex & Co. when they were Poached Salmon > in a White Wine Sauce. Sure it wasn't the Jon Spencer Orange Explosion? > >From Monty Python's "Contractual Obligations": > > Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad the Wet Sprocket, has > had to > have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour > of Finland. Flamboyant, ambidextrous Rex Ambidextrous, eh? Well, that explains a lot! > apparently fell off the back of a > motorcycle. "Fell off the back of a motorcyclist, most likely," OH REALLY? Hmmmm.........I don't own a motorcycle. What does old Jumbo know that I don't know? > quipped ace drummer Jumbo McClooney upon hearing of the accident. Plans > are already afoot for a major tour of Iceland. Unless he and I get the motorcyclist thing straightened out, well, to paraphrase Robert Zimmerman, "he ain't goin' nowhere". > Hence the not-really-appropriate name of that Santa Barbara band. One of the great mysteries of the universe has now been solved. Ryan, you're a wonder! :) Susan ------------------------------ From: RxBroome@aol.com Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:51:46 -0400 Subject: Rexy Stardust speaks. James Dignan asks: "BTW - those of you who shorten "American" to "'Merkin" - do you know what a merkin is?" Yup. Therein lies the irony! James Isaacs writes: "Was Rex Stardust in Dead Donkeys?" His current incarnation has been in Montage Blue, the Sound (not the "real" '80's UK band, but a shit cover combo), The Complete Unknowns (so named because they sounded "like (the) rolling stone(s)), Lesterhouse, There Goes Bill, and the Carolinas. Dead Donkeys... no. But I did write their signature tune, "Give It to the Dead Donkeys"... it was criticised as "eccentric" and "Barrett-esque". Ross on the chord-colour debate: "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?" (also stuff about capos and voicings changing the color of chords)... Very astute on the cultural differences thing. Also, the capo/voicing thing is a great point. I will add to this that it seems like all of are discussing this primarily from a "guitar" point of view... these things must feel very different to keybaord players or strictly theoretical composers, who might hear a chord as a conceptual collision of single notes played on a violin, an oboe, a tuba and a banjo simultaneously. But I feel a big point must be made here: MUSIC IS ABSTRACT (lyrics less so). So personal interpretations, culturally informed though they may be, are the ONLY legitimate interpretations (ever leafed through snooty, turn-of-the-century music texts? Transfixingly single-minded stuff!) Terry on the same subject: "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." Lose the barre (thus preserving the open strings) and see what happens. Autumnal all the way. (Also allows you to figure out all early Lush songs.) Robyn: ""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." Yikes-- I've long entertained the idea of putting selected crossword clues to music. Noel Coward hadn't occurred to me, though, I must admit. Robyn would probably hate me, eh? Cheers, Rexy Stardust PS: Anyone still looking for "Queen Elvis"? Found a copy locally for $8US which I would buy for you at cost... PPS (probably of interest to exactly one of us): "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?" (yes, so well edjumikated that you'd probably be a nobel laureate by now, if only you could stop thinking about sex...) Well, when I ran with the postmodernist crowd (again around '93), we actually sort of equated "channelling" with "sampling", in a weird way. But we were sort of "modified postmodernists" (mod po-mods?) who were simultaneously horrified by and in love with the non-authored soup that art and culture were devolving into. That is to say that we were perhaps romantic about postmodernism. My friend Jim fell in love with nameless girls who had, in some nameless unknowable place, been recorded making some random statements which ended up as key samples on blank-label techno 12"'s. I think that's a nearly mystical experience on the order of "channelling"... certainly forging a bond with, and being profoundly affected by, a voice from "beyond". Combined with the fact that the beat of that self-same very post-modern techno would drive Jim into scary dancing frenzies on the order of a tribal celebration... well, that may explain why I don't see such a great gap between the two concepts. Me, I was the "soft boy" of the crowd, reluctant to leave behind his poetic or folk-pop roots despite the inevitability of the "death" of the "author". At least I acknowledged my own hypocrisy, seeing the last mission of modernists such as myself to be the preservation of "astute" observations of the collapse of "What Used to Be". My crowning achievement on this scene was an outwardly postmodern dissection of an outwardly New Age/mystical (and decidedly aqueous) videotape called "Telequarium". But my piece was so intimately and personally "authored" that it could only be classified as "romantic" (therein, again, lay the irony). You'll see it soon, Love. ------------------------------ From: Terrence M Marks Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 04:22:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: High Llamas I know that *someone* on this list reccomended the High Llamas to me... who was it? [Yes, I would like more info on the band] Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks normal@grove.ufl.edu In the changer.. The Kinks: Village Green Preservation Society High Llamas: Gideon Gaye Pink Floyd: Various bootlegs ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 16:40:17 -0500 (CDT) From: Truman Peyote Subject: Re: Rexy Stardust speaks. On Fri, 11 Oct 1996 RxBroome@aol.com wrote: > James Dignan asks: > > "BTW - those of you who shorten "American" to "'Merkin" - do you know what a > > merkin is?" > > Yup. Therein lies the irony! Excuse me, stewardess, could I be of some help? I speak Merkin. :) > Ross on the chord-colour debate: > "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. Oh? :) Ever heard of the "Black Death Waltz"? I'm not sure if that's the proper title, as I'm going purely on memory here, but I do remember reading something about this piece being all the rage in Hungary sometime in the 19teens and being blamed for some 21 suicides. Does anyone know anything more about this (I am ashamed somewhat to admit that I read about this in an issue of "Answer Me", which I can't find at this moment to check up on the exact title and death count). And you thought it all started with Ozzy Osbourne! :) > ONLY legitimate interpretations (ever leafed through snooty, > turn-of-the-century music texts? Transfixingly single-minded stuff!) Yep! When they weren't trying like blazes to prove that Chopin was not a homosexual and otherwise being completely irrelevant. :) > Robyn: ""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." > > Yikes-- I've long entertained the idea of putting selected crossword clues to > music. Noel Coward hadn't occurred to me, though, I must admit. Robyn would > probably hate me, eh? Me too, as I think that sounds like a great idea. I am reminded here of Cole Porter (from Noel Coward to Cole Porter, what an AMAZING jump, eh? :)), who practiced lyric writing by composing rhyming laundry lists. > PPS (probably of interest to exactly one of us): > > (yes, so well edjumikated that you'd probably be a nobel laureate by now, if > only you could stop thinking about sex...) ROTFL > > Well, when I ran with the postmodernist crowd (again around '93), we actually > sort of equated "channelling" with "sampling", in a weird way. But we were > sort of "modified postmodernists" (mod po-mods?) who were simultaneously > horrified by and in love with the non-authored soup that art and culture were > devolving into. Andy Warhol looks a scream, hang him on my wa-ha-ha-hall! > That is to say that we were perhaps romantic about postmodernism. My friend > Jim fell in love with nameless girls who had, in some nameless unknowable > place, been recorded making some random statements which ended up as key > samples on blank-label techno 12"'s. Oh Guy Debord, what big ears you have! :) > Me, I was the "soft boy" of the crowd, reluctant to leave behind his poetic > or folk-pop roots despite the inevitability of the "death" of the "author". Ha! I never could either. I relished those English courses with older professors who would let us just talk about the damn book. What a relief. If I wanted to take a course on Derrida I would SIGN UP FOR ONE for fuck's sake! I'm a little disgusted with academia. Does it show? :) > intimately and personally "authored" that it could only be classified as > "romantic" (therein, again, lay the irony). You'll see it soon, Love. Two comments: First- I hope so. Second- You a romantic (in any sense at all), Rex? Could this be possible? ;) Susan ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 96 9:58:09 EDT From: "mark allen" Subject: Keswick tickets on sale NOW! For those who want to order by phone, the number is (215) 572-7650. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 09:54:51 -0700 From: Nick Winkworth CC: Vyrna Knowl Subject: Re: Goldmine On Thu, 10 Oct 1996 the annoyingly young lj lindhurst crayoned: > > [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???? > As one of the oldest and most decrepit listmembers I feel obliged to answer this, since "I was there"... (though many others can - and probably will - respond) Alan Davis was indeed the original guitarist with the Soft Boys and plays on their first recordings. Kimberley had his own band at the time - "The Waves" (which was actually much more successful than the SBs at the time, being more mainstream). The SBs were propelled into the forefront by people who mistook Robyn's eccentric individuality for punk. Kimberley replaced the less than sparkling Davis and the rest is history! You can check out Robyn chronologies on the Fegmaniax web page (done by Bayard) and on Robyn's WB site. By the way, for anybody interested in ancient history, I finally received all the junk from the basement of my UK house (I'm now in California) including lots of old Soft Boys memorabilia from Cambridge. I'll try to scan the best stuff and hopefully persuade woj to put some of the pics up on the Fegmaniax web page. -Nick ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:38:15 -0700 From: Nick Winkworth CC: woj@remus.rutgers.edu Subject: Webworker! Just wanted to post a word of praise for all the work woj has done on the Fegmaniax web site recently. This is without doubt one of the most content-packed fan websites out there. It may not have the graphic pizzaz of some -- but it loads in seconds, not hours! All the reviews, tour schedule, news, gossip, archives, discographies, links ...you name it. If, like me, you haven't visited in a while, go check it out! (Now, if we could only add some concert photos from the upcoming tour...) Three chairs for our obergruppenlistmeister! -N ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:20:51 -0700 From: Nick Winkworth CC: rosso@sceast.cn.ca, normal@grove.ufl.edu, james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz Subject: Checking in to the E7 Hotel On Thu, 10 Oct 1996 James Dignan intoned: > >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. Absolutely!! I think your "dark reddish brown" is pretty close to my "orangey-red" wouldn't you say? I wish I could remember where Robyn talked about colo(u)rs in this way. I remember thinking that his combinations were quite like my own. Then the melodious Terrence M Marks continued: > 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. > Not sure if I get the texture resemblance but I can relate to the glass/cloth thing. Nice one, Terry! Soon after, Ross Overbury added: > 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? I'd say that the basic color is the same but the shade changes. Like changing from a primary to a pastel color. > I think that these interpretations are legitimate, but probably only on > a very personal level. I'm not surprised others experience these relationships between different senses - I would, however, expect my own experiences to be unique. So I *am* surprised that James, for example, also sees Dmaj as blue and Amaj as red-ish. > 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. I disagree. Music affects us all at a such a deep emotional level I believe it is a communication medium that transcends culture and language. Personally, I listen to music from all over the world, and though of course I can't claim to hear "with the same ears" as the original musicians, I am convinced that the underlying emotional message is universally understood. Nej nej nej nej nej, okej yeah! -Nick ------------------------------ From: Le Petomane Subject: Re: postscript Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:23:23 -0700 At 13:47 11.10.96 +1300, James Dignan wrote: >It's used to good effect in the early work >of King Crimson (who actually recorded a track called Devil's Triangle), >who were following the lead of Bela Bartok's work. King Crimson and Bela Bartok, not only in the same post, but in the same sentence! This list gets better all the time! --g ______________________________________ "If you like it, chances are it's been done before." --Cliff Malloy, 9 Oct. 1996 ______________________________________ Glen E. Uber glen@metro.net http://metro.net/glen/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 13:17:50 -0500 From: "John, Jacci, & Madison" Subject: Goldmine article, Part II Not that any of this was too apparent from the Soft Boys' first recordings. Eventually released (in 1984) as the three-track _Wading Through A Ventilator_ EP, the Soft Boys' performance is essentially a rough draft of the next couple of years worth of directionless semi-thrashing, led off by the maniacal damage of the title track. It is particularly telling that when the band was given the chance to re-record that track a few weeks later for their debut EP, they did not iron out an iota of its insanity. _Give It To The Soft Boys_, the band's first release, appeared in the spring of 1977. Featuring that new version of "Ventilator," alongside "Hear My Brane" and the monumental "Face of Death," it is most notable for its sheer exuberance, although Hitchcock still raves, "the Raw thing was beginners' luck, it was a really good session. The first Soft Boys recordings were among the best things I've ever been involved with, I think." _Give It To The Soft Boys_ has since been included on Rykodisc's acclaimed _1976-1981_ retrospective; at the time, however, it passed unnoticed out of the Raw offices, and close to a year of pub and club gigs followed before the band got another chance to record for former United Artists A&R man Andrew Lauder's newly formed Radar label. Radar remains one of the most eclectic but sadly undervalued labels of the entire British punk era. BEst known for housing Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe following their departure from Stiff, Radar also recruited pop gems the Yachts, ex-Damned guitarist Brian James and the Pop Group, a band which is now reckoned to have been so far ahead of their time that they still sound weird and dislocated. In company such as this, the Soft Boys--with guitarist Kimberley Rew having replaced Alan Davies--could not help but prosper. Could they? Hoping that the studio would at least hone the group's eccentricities down to something manageable, Radar packed the band off to work on its debut album, then pulled the plug the moment it became clear just how disastrously the sessions were going. "Radar spent a lot of money and time trying to get us to sound right," Hitchcock says. "We were very loud on stage , and for whatever reason it didn't really work in the studio. But it was a very unstable outfit. I think we thrived off each others' band vibes. I've got a theory that the best music is mad by people who can't really communicate through their instruments. So we co-existed by trying to drown each other out." "Unfortunately, it just didn't work on tape, so Radar put out one single (the now-legendary "(I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp"), then they decided to get rid of us because we didn't seem to be producing anything." Well-received critically, the single nevertheless sank without a trace, and the band was out on its own again. Radar's dissatisfaction is understandable. Gathered together under the only marginally misleading title _Invisible Hits_ in 1983, and a decade later on _1976-1981_, Radar-period tracks like "Let Me Put It Next To You" and "Blues In The Dark," are essentially the sound of a writer learning to write. His ultimate vision still not yet in place, Hitchcock himself alludes to these recordings as "awful," although it is a sign of how quickly he was coming to grips with his talent that by late 1979, the Soft Boys were confidently recording their live shows, even retaining one from a show in Cambridge for eventual release. _Live At The Portland Arms_ did not appear in public until 1983, when it was offered free to purchasers of the Invisible Hitchcock collection, and now that it was too late, the strides forward which Hitchcock made were plain for all to see. Recorded under what a modern audience might call "unplugged" conditions, this largely acoustic set features some of the Soft Boys' most idiosyncratic numbers. The epic "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out," "Give Me A Spanner, Ralph" (which ranks among the first songs Hitchcock ever wrote, back around 1973), and "I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones" are all included, alongside excerpts from the band's willfully obtuse repertoire of cover versions: "Book of Love," "All Shook Up" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin." But despite the improvements which it showcased, _Live At The Portland Arms_ is not, it should be stressed, a particularly representative sampling of the Soft Boys' live performance. It wasn't loud enough, for a start. But it does possess a charm and ambience which reflects considerably better on the band's memory than their studio work ever would, while it also captures the band at a time when their audiences were finally beginning to comprehend what the Soft Boys were doing. In the past, band and audience alike would turn up at venues wondering what they were letting themselves in for. By 1979, however, people knew what to expect from the Soft Boys, and the fact that they still went to see them speaks volumes for the group's versatility. The songs were pretty good as well. Another sign that the band's popularity was rising came when Raw reissued the _Give It To The Soft Boys_ EP in late 1979, then threatened an accompanying single of the unreleased "Where Are The Prawns." Thankfully, says Hitchcock, the latter release was cancelled before any damage could be done. "They had a version with no proper vocals--we were drunk." The next label to give the Soft Boys a chance was Aura, another company whose ambition (labelmates included NIco and Annette Peacock) greatly outweighed its life expectancy. Unfortunately, this relationship, too, was to come to naught. "We were going to do a deal with them, but we never did," Hitchcock recalls. "Nothing was signed, I never saw any money, and that's kind of what I expected." However, Aura did release a Soft Boys album, even if they didn't tell too many people about it. The Soft Boys had already recorded _A Can of Bees_ under their own steam, releasing it on Hitchcock's own Two Crabs label in 1979. It sold respectably at gigs and via mail order. The following year Aura picked it up, simultaneously presenting collectors with the first of the conundrums with which Hitchcock's subsequent career has become synonymous. He explains, "the Two Crabs label has a white back, Aura has a yellow back, and the one we reissued through the Midnight label in the 1980s has a pink back, and the last three tracks of each one all are slightly different; different songs, different takes, different musicians, whatever." Rykodisc's attempt to clarify this mess on the _1976-1981_ collection, however, sends Hitchcock off on another tangent. "The Rykodisc CD has everything that was ever out on any of them," he explains, "so from being slightly unlistenable, it is now a completely indigestible mass. It is indeed like being dropped into a basin full of scurrying claws, ripping away at your Armani suit. It is not a pleasant experience, but they weren't pleasant times." All of which is a willfully obscure way of admitting that _A Can of Bees_ remains one of the great lost opportunities of the age. The songs were familiar of course, and many would go on to become bona fide classics (like the earlier "Face of Death," "Leppo And The Jooves" was still in Hitchcock's set five years later). But dubious production and lackluster arrangements reduced much of the album to little more than an exercise in disjointed power-pop, over which some bloke (Hitchcock) recited lyrics which simply didn't sound inspiring when you couldn't see him singing them. Although he has never been what one would call an overtly visual performer, Hitchcock has nevertheless always been a captivating live presence, capable of imbibing the dumbest rhyme of unfathomable depth with a cracked grin or a knowing glare. In the studio, however, he could be as lifeless as the haddock which once spent three days lying in the gutter outside a London club after its bearer was forbidden to take it into a circa-1980 Soft Boys gig. Of course it was his inability to rise above that lifelessness which would ultimately curse the Soft Boys' entire studio output. The smooth course of _A Can of Bees_ was also hampered by another ripple in the Soft Boys' line-up, as Matthew Seligman (ex-SW9) moved in to replace Andy Metcalfe. The ensuing line-up, now regarded as the "classic" Soft Boys, made its vinyl debut just weeks later, with the _Near The Soft Boys_ EP. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:21:56 -0500 From: mlang@inch.com (Steven Matrick) Subject: Re: High Llamas >I know that *someone* on this list reccomended the High Llamas to me... >who was it? [Yes, I would like more info on the band] > >Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks >normal@grove.ufl.edu > >In the changer.. > >The Kinks: Village Green Preservation Society >High Llamas: Gideon Gaye >Pink Floyd: Various bootlegs It was me!!!! Steven Matrick The Favorite Color ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 17:15:49 -0700 From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik) Subject: Re: Goldmine article, Part II You'd think that Goldmine, of all magazines, would make an effort to get the details of record releases right. Did anyone else notice that the author of the Hitchcock article seems to think that there's only one Soft Boys CD out, _1975-1981_, and he keeps attributing every track on every Rykodisc S.B.'s album to this one CD? - David ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 96 12:54:20 EDT From: Tony Blackman <100531.3322@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Homer >Almost certainly Tim Keegan from Homer. He plays an acoustic and sings >good harmonies with Robyn. Has anyone who's seen them got any opinions on "Homer"? I've seen them a few times now as an act preceding Robyn and backing Robyn and I've not been that impressed at all. Robyn's solo gigs or recent gigs with just one other person (be that Morris Windsor or James Fletcher etc.) have been much more preferable in my opinion. Or is that just because the stage in the 12 Bar Club is SO small...not that I'm complaining about that, it's a great venue, I just don't think that it helps performances with more that one person on it! 20 GBP for Greatest Hits in London!!! I very nearly put off buying it when I was over in LA recently thinking that it would be easily available back in England..... I'm pleased now that I forked out the $10 for the promo copy in a second hand shop! Tony, off (against his better judgement) to mingle with youngsters at The Prodigy gig in Brixton. Somehow I guess it will make Beth Orton tomorrow night seem even better? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 09:41:37 -0500 (CDT) From: John Stevenson Subject: Robyn in Madison, WI A new date that I had not seen in the digest: Robyn & Billy October 31, 1996 Barrymore Theatre Madison, WI 53704 $23.00 Madison area fegs: I live about 150 yards from the Barrymore and am thinking about a pre-show party, if there is some interest. E-mail me if you are interested! john ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Stevenson (608) 265-4065 UW-Survey Center stevenson@ssc.wisc.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ From: "(The Rooneys)" Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:43:32 +0000 Subject: Dream Pool So Robyn was in my Father's ghost's basement playing eight-ball with Elvis; and the only ball ever on the table was the eight-ball (no cue ball in sight). I was so annoyed that the place wasn't cleaned (no, Mr. Hitchcock, we don't have a bridge; but let me get that shopping cart for you; you can shoot between the slats), and so busy bussing the table (more Popcorn Mr. Presley?) that I barely had time to notice that Robyn was annoying Elvis by fawning over him and trying to get him to put out a new album. "So the secret to success with the critics is to put out a disc, nobody puts out an album anymore, in dark green with gold writing. It's worked with three albums so far." At one point Elvis popped out the Midnight Oil "Syd Rails in the Sunset" tape and popped in Barry Manilow. "This guy is underrated," the King said. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 19:38:53 -0500 From: alexfw@mail.utexas.edu (Alex Wettreich) Subject: Re: Black Death Waltz >Ever heard of the "Black Death Waltz"? I'm not sure if that's the proper >title, as I'm going purely on memory here, but I do remember reading >something about this piece being all the rage in Hungary sometime in the >19teens and being blamed for some 21 suicides. Does anyone know anything >more about this (I am ashamed somewhat to admit that I read about this in >an issue of "Answer Me", which I can't find at this moment to check up on >the exact title and death count). I don't know the exact death count either, but the English title is "Gloomy Sunday" and it's a gorgeous song, although the English lyrics are perhaps a tad melodramatic; can't really vouch for the Magyar ones. Elvis Costello does a lovely version of it (on the Trust reissue) and Billie Holiday's version (not too shabby either) can be found on one of her Columbia reissues. I don't have the specific information at hand, but I thought the colloquial title was The Hungarian Suicide Song, or something equally prosaic. Alex n.p. Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:04:09 -0500 From: "Gene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Chord colors from the Man Himself Fellow Fegs: I've followed the synasthesia/chord color thread with much interest. I'm no guitarist or musician, but I do know painting, so I associate certain colors with certain chords, but what interests me the most is the *hues* created by certain chord sequences. I regard that in a sort of Piet Mondrian "stare at primary colors then look at the aftereffects on a white wall" sort of way (as opposed to, say, a Monet "mix the hues like crazy on the canvas" sort of way). The chords in "Autumn is Your Last Change" make me think of dark forest green and warm gold (which is one reason the cover of IODOT is so perfect and brilliant), but that progression in the bridge to the chorus makes me think of a Gustav Klimt-like (think of "The Beethoven Frieze") melange of gold leaf and triangles and repetitive shape motifs (alright, I think of sounds as shapes, too), then when the song fades out, that smooth "aaaaahhhh" just appears like an ever-brightening star in VanGogh's "Starry Night". Sheesh, stop me before I hurt someone. However, I'd like to add that I asked a similar question to Robyn himself during the RequestLine interview a while back. [The full interview transcript is available at woj's site at (http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/fegmaniax/reqline.txt)]. Here's how it went. GenevaGene H.writes: What color is the chord D? Do you think Don Van Vliet's paintings are as expressive as his music? Robyn writes: That's Captain Beefheart. I prefer Beefheart's music to his paintings. But I know that he's devoted more time in the last 15 years to painting than anything else. I'm not crazy about the way he paints. It's a bit fast for me, really. And probably a bit expressionist. I prefer stuff that's a bit more academic, formal. The color of D? Well... A is red. E is yellow. C is green. G is a kind of sausage-skin gray. D-minor is a sort of dark metallic blue, and D-major is...I'm not sure D-major has got any kind of color at all. It's got a kind of feeling. A poignant feeling. But I don't think it has a color for me. ObBeefheartTrivia: Regarding his music writing technique, related by drummer John "Drumbo" French. Beefheart once called Drumbo into an empty room and threw a pie plate into a window sill and let it fall to the ground. "That's your drum solo," Beefheart said to him. __________________________________________________ Gene Hopstetter, Jr. +++ Internet Publishing Specialist E-DOC +++ http://journals.at-home.com/ Voice: (410) 691-6265 +++ Fax: (410) 684-2788 ------------------------------ From: CKouzes@aol.com Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 09:11:46 -0400 Subject: Re: High Llamas If you're asking about the High Llamas, you've come to the right place. The High Llamas are a U.K. led by Sean O'Hagen (formerly of Microdisney and Stereolab). They only have one CD out in the states (Gideon Gaye, which is the only true heir to "Son of Pet Sounds" in the past 20 years) and have a follow up (Hawaii) coming out on Big Cat in January. In addition, they also have two other releases (besides a few singles) that are U.K. only (High Llamas and Apricots). If you are a fan of the orchestral Brian Wilson, you must track down anything by the High Llamas. Brian himself is quite taken by O'Hagen's music and has contacted him about future collaborations. The band just recently played it's U.S. live debut at the CMJ festival last month in NYC and it was quite amazing. There were a guitarist, keyboard player, bassist, drummer, and a 4 piece string section. O'Hagen himself played guitar, banjo, and keyboards. After the show, O'Hagen said he was bummed that he wasn't able to bring over his 4 piece horn section. Any other questions regarding the High Llamas, please let me know. Chris CKouzes@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 19:30:01 -0700 (PDT) From: "Dot, the Itchy God." Subject: Re: Black Death Waltz On Fri, 11 Oct 1996, Alex Wettreich wrote: > Elvis Costello > does a lovely version of it (on the Trust reissue) just a complete aside here, but does anyone besides me think that nick lowe and elvis (costello, mind you) get mentioned far less by fegs than you'd think they might? in fact, there is only one time that i can remember nick lowe being mentioned; a couple years ago at that, too. elvis comes up a bit more, though. complete aside here, again. i *do* think nick lowe is one of this planet's few pop geniuses. ending aside mode and stepping aside, .chris ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 22:33:04 -0400 (EDT) From: "`!'" Subject: Goldmine Article Part III (for the observant: yes, John and I have been tackling this tag-team style. a big THANK YOU from my damaged wrists to his damaged wrists -- we got a lotta text goin' here...) Featuring two Hitchcock originals, "Kingdom Of Love" and "Strange," _Near the Soft Boys_ is most notable for its version of Syd Barrett's "Vegetable Man," one of several Pink Floyd songs which resided within the Soft Boys' repertoire ("Astronomy Domine" was another). Indeed, it was with "Vegetable Man" that the Soft Boy's own rise to acid-inflected immortality began, as the band became the focus for what the trend-hungry UK music press was hoping would become the Next Big Thing -- a psychedelic revival. It would be another year or so before anybody else joined that particular bandwagon, and maybe three before the thing had gathered enough speed to actually get rolling with the newly solo Julian Cope, a newly-painted Robert Smith [Smith!? Psychedelic!? -- dmw] and the newly studio-bound XTC joining Hitchcock in the stroboscopic bubblelight. At the time, however, the mere lure of such a revival was sufficient to mark the Soft Boys as something special, even if no one was quite certain what that was. The Soft Boys themselves seemed to share that uncertainty. Their second album, _Underwater Moonlight_ was released (on latter-day Henry Rollins/Richard Butler manager Richard Bishop's Armageddon label) indecently soon after their first, and it surely suffered as a result. Critics who had been stung once by _Can of Bees_ were in no mood to repeat the punishment, and approached _Underwater Moonlight_ with understandable caution, to the point where it would be several years more before some people even admitted to having like it. Now, of course _Underwater Moonlight_ is widely and justly acclaimed as being among the finest albums of the new wave -- the _Trouser Press Record Guide_ assigns it a spot in the top half dozen releases of the period. The album has its fair share of future favorites: "Kingdom of Love," reprised from the _Near the Soft Boys_ EP; "Queen of Eyes," which Hitchcock would re-record with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and _Bucketful of Brains_ publisher Nigel Cross for the Nigel & the Crosses project; the vehement "Insanely Jealous;" and the two tracks destined to be the Soft Boys' next single, "I Wanna Destroy You" and "I'm An Old Pervert." (Several demos and alternate versions from this album were included on _1976-81_.) Posthumous praise buttered very few parsnips in 1981, however, and _Underwater Moonlight_ was to prove the final "new" Soft Boys release. Over the next year, the band essentially disintegrated, even if the musicians themselves did not exactly part company. With Hitchcock now eyeing a solo career, Matthew Seligman was retained as co-producer for what would become his first album, while both Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor would be recruited to lend their talents to the record, although not to the same songs. Hitchcock aside, no more than two fellow Soft Boys would appear simultaneously on any of the tracks recorded after this point. It just seemed easier that way. [Huh??? -- dmw] Hitchcock remembers the ensuing sessions as some of the happiest times he has ever spent in a studio. "It was the first time I'd ever got to make a record by myself, it was the first time I'd got to pick who I was going to have on individual songs." Other guests at the sessions include studio owner and producer Pat Collier, Psychedelic Furs drummer Vince Ely, guitarist Knox (Collier's old sidekick from punk heroes the Vibrators), saxophonist and future Soft Cell collaborator Gary Barnacle and a then-unknown Thomas Dolby. Commencing in November, 1980, the sessions took place at Alaska Studios, the tiny and notoriously malodorous rehearsal space built into an old storage area beneath a railway bridge at London's Waterloo Station. The first track to be recorded, by Hitchcock and Morris Windsor alone, was "Acid Bird;" shortly after, "I Watch the Cars" was laid down while Hitchcock and company recovered from the breaking news that John Lennon was dead. Another song with vaguely iconoclastic connotations was "The Man Who Invented Himself," a song which some sources maintain was written for, or about, Syd Barrett (a vague similarity to Kevin Ayers' similarly themed "Oh Wot a Dream" probably helped them reach that conclusion). Hitchcock himself claims Monty Python's _Life of Brian_ movie as a more appropriate inspiration. Some 20 songs were completed altogether and work began now on compiling an album from them and on coming up with a suitable title for it. _The Perfumed Corpse_ was an early, and distinctly Edward Gore-esque, working title, while Hitchcock also toyed with _Zinc Pear_ for a while. Indeed, test pressings of _Zinc Pear_ do exist; largely identical to what would finally be remixed as _Black Snake Diamond Role_, _Zinc Pear_ is most notable for featuring "Happy the Golden Price" and the old Soft Boys favorite, "Give Me a Spanner, Ralph," in place of the eventual "Brenda's Iron Sledge." Neither of these tracks would be lost forever, of course, even if one does need to pay attention if one wants to track them all down. "Give Me a Spanner, Ralph" turned up on the _Invisible Hitchcock_ compilation of odds and ends, alongside three more session refugees: "All I Wanna Do is Fall in Love," the bizarrely title "A Skull, A Suitcase and a Long Red Bottle of Wine," and "My Favourite Buildings," a song which would be re-recorded during the _I Often Dream of Trains_ sessions. The spoken-word "Happy the Golden Prince," meanwhile, would later be released as a free flexi-disc by the London fanzine, _Bucketful of Brains_, itself one of the magazines which had done the most to support Hitchcock. (A Soft Boys flexi, coupling the unreleased "Love Poisoning"/"When I Was a Kid," also appeared with an issue of the magazine, in 1982). Yet another out-take, "Dancing On God's Thumb," would appear as the b-side to Hitchcock's next single, "The Man Who Invented Himself;" while "It's a Mystic Trip" and "Grooving On an Inner Plane" would be included on a flexi-disc issued free with that single. Finally, "It Was the Night" would be demoed again for Hitchcock's next album before the original version, alongside an unreleased version of "I Watch the Cars," and the _Zinc Pear_ mix of "The Man Who Invented Himself," would later be appended to Rhino's 1995 reissue of _Black Snake Diamond Role_. The completed album was released in May, 1981, to a largely mystified audience. In an age when gothic rock was struggling to wrap itself in the shroud it still wears today, and the new romantic/synthipop generation was flaunting its frilly shirts and annoying keyboard sounds to the pop-picking masses, Hitchcock's cracked vocals and crackerjack imagery could not have been further from contemporary expectations if he'd but on a baggy checkered suit and implored people not to call him Reg -- which, of course, he promptly proceeded to do. Matters were not clarified by the continued outpouring of Soft Boys material, as the band proved that in death, it was at least as prolific as it had been in life. A single of "Only the Stones Remain" appeared in October 1981, followed by the pleasantly bewildering _Two Halves for the Price of One_ budget-priced album, which promised a song called "Black Snake Diamond Role" alongside versions of "Astronomy Domine," the Byrds' "Bells of Rhymney," and a new, apparently sober, version of "Where are the Prawns." The album's title made more sense once the record was placed on the turntable. Half live, half studio, _Two Halves_ really could be viewed as two separate albums, condensed down to one side each. Bearing their own individual artwork, the two sides were individually titled, too; _Lope at the Hive_ (which translates as _Live at the Hoe and Anchor_) was the concert side; _Only the Stones Remain_ served up a handful of studio takes. (Presumably to avoid spreading the confusion even further, when the album became the Soft Boys' first ever American release, it was retitled _Only the Stones Remain_ Unreleased tracks from the Hope show, incidentally, were featured on _1976-81_.) _Two Halves for the Price of One_ was well-received, reinforcing the Soft Boy's psychedelic reputation, and Hitchcock lost little time in exacerbating this linkage when he entered the studio with former Gong guitarist Steve Hillage to begin work on his second solo album. Hillage had garnered an interesting pedigree in the years since he departed Gong's land of flying teapots, first through a stream of increasingly individual solo albums (which can today be held almost single-handedly responsible for kickstarting the age of mystic new-age music), but also through his gradual departure form the guitar playing which had made his name. His production of Simple Minds, on their epochal _Empire and Dance_ album the previous year was especially impressive, and Hillage is, as Hitchcock puts it, "a nice guy." Unfortunately, the recording sessions were less agreeable, even though Hitchcock was now ensconced within the majestic 24-track AdVision studio. He was blessed with a budget of 12,000 pounds and armed with what, in retrospect, seems a most impressive battery of session musicians: bassist Sara Lee would later join the B52s [and play with the Indigo Girls; and had already played with seminal leftist punkers Gang of Four -- dmw], saxophonist Anthony Thistlewaite eventually became a Waterboy and occasional Psychedelic Fur Rod Johnson (who "wanted to be a machine," says Hitchcock). It wasn't the company that was wrong, then. It was the attitude which pervaded the sessions." -- 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: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 00:50:35 -0700 From: Ryan Godfrey Subject: I wanna destroy you? I just saw a video clip on Beavis and Butthead that was a bit interesting--The Circle Jerks doing what sounded very much like "I Wanna Destroy You." The boys were vigorously dissing the ten-second clip the whole time ("this song sucks! yeah! i could write a better song than that! do it! uh, i wanna... hit you." etc.), and I'm kinda half-asleep, so admittedly my perception of the song might be kind of muddled (basically a pink-orange with little green pinstripes). I'm not the world's biggest Circle Jerks fan, so I don't know: Is this a certified Soft Boys cover or is it just a remarkably similar-sounding coincidence? BTW, has Robyn qua Robyn ever been similarly featured on Beavis & Butthead? --Ryan rgodfrey@swlink.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest. *sob* .