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 V5 #173 Fegmaniax Digest Volume 5 Number 173 Tuesday July 22 1997 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: Music Music Re: a very small introduction "RobynH At Sea" Flyer Re: police come with a laser gun Re: Music (no Robyn) Re: Fegstats and Dunwich Re: Music Re: police come with a laser gun Re: Trio Music (no Robyn) Re: Pulp Re: Fegstats and Dunwich Re: Music (no Robyn) music (and a lot of bull) Re: Music music (and a lot of bull) Re: police come with a laser gun (maybe 8% Robyn) music (and a lot of bull) part II ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:00:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Bayard Subject: Re: Music > > It's you and your aging, stagnating mind. > > There's heaps of new music that's fantastic and good and fun and poignant > and wonderful and ridiculous and bad and everything else. > > Music hasn't become essentially better or worse. There are trends and > there are ages. Unfortunately, it seems like lately the trend is to be hopelessly derivative. And not derivative in interesting ways like RH, either... just "retro". There are only so many ways to do music, and we may run out of the good ones... here's hoping things turn around again soon! on a positive note, the best cd's i've heard in the past year were made by people on this list... _monday's lunch_, _seven deadly songs_, _color out of space_, _aunt canada_... all excellent. aging even as we speak, =b ------------------------------ From: Terrence M Marks Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:44:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Music What I'm trying to say is that "Greatest Hits of the 90's" isn't going to sound nearly as good as "The Big 80's" or "70s Biggest Songs". >Does popularity make a big difference? Why do you make such a >distinction between the music other people like and the music >they don't? >You couldn't possibly listen to all the music produced today, >let alone form an intelligent opinion about it. Hmm..... 1) I can't listen to all the music produced in this decade. 1a) Therefore I will have to limit the scale. 2) I am limiting the scale to popular music because it's popular and has a bigger impact on things and is what this decade's music will be remembered by. When you think "Music of the 90s", do you think Alanis Morissette or do you think The High Llamas? (Yeah, I bet you think neither, but you get my point.) >So what it comes down to is that you think your tastes have >swayed from those of the mass market. No. I didn't leave the mass market. The mass market left me.. >Separate is inherently unequal. ?? (Is mainstream 60s music better than Brown v Board of Education?) >Um... only if 'changing the scale' means calling the whole of >contemporary music a particular song. "If you don't like modern music, it's because you're too inflexible to change." Music is made up of songs. You can't like music without liking songs. Terrence Marks Remember-Jesus is your friend. normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:43:06 +0200 From: jlaw@mem.unibe.ch (Jeff Lawrence) Subject: Re: a very small introduction **From: dsaunder@islandNet.com (Daniel Saunders) **Subject: Re: a very small introduction **Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:21:45 -0800 [SNIP] **Aha, here's my chance to advance my Robyn Hitchcock imprinting theory: **in my experience, the first few RH albums a person listens to becomes **special favourites regardless of quality. Ah, I hate to break your theory apart but in my case it doesn't apply (but maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule ;-)). First RH album I heard (after the SB box set) was Eye which I loved at the time but in retrospect, is pretty mediocre at best IMHO (some great stuff mixed with some really filler). I wasn't till my 5th RH album (Element of Light) that I finally struck pay dirt - and that was over 2 years later :-) So..... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:17:28 -0500 From: hal brandt CC: fegmaniax@ecto.org Subject: "RobynH At Sea" Flyer Julie Burton wrote: > He also mentioned that they would be handing out information after the show > regarding the upcoming Antwoman Boat Trip! Sure enough, on my way out I was > handed a nice orange hand-drawn flyer for "Robyn Hitchcock at Sea" I'm sure everyone on the list would love to see this, Julie! Do you have access to a scanner, or could you xerox it and send it to someone who does and who'll post it? hal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:19:12 -0400 From: kenster@MIT.EDU (Ken Ostrander) Subject: Re: police come with a laser gun >>I've often thought that it was some way to save money if the track was a >>cover. Could someone verify if this is a ridiculous idea? > >That's probably true. If the track isn't listed, the band probably doesn't >have to pay royalties. I THINK. i seem to remember reading that when guns 'n' roses' _the spagetti incident_ (an album of covers) came out there was a hidden track written by charles manson and that he was getting some serious royalties for it. KEN ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:49:24 -0500 (CDT) From: Mississippi Malcolm McDowell Subject: Re: Music (no Robyn) On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Runion, Michael R. wrote: > Without giving it too much thought, I'd tend to yes to Terry's original > question of whether 90s music has been "notably less impressive" than > 80s or 70s or 60s music, especially when he clarified it by adding > "mainstream". "Mainstream" music is almost always notable for not being impressive. The majority of people don't like impressive. They prefer comfortable. Occasionally there are notable exceptions (the Beatles being a key example, and I would argue that Nirvana is a good example too) but I think for the most part this holds true. And speaking of Nirvana....."Come As You Are" was not a fine single? If it was not I'm sort of at a loss to think what would be. I think the 90s have produced a lot of fine singles, come to think of it. That would be one, along with "Loser", and I would argue "Losing My Religion". In the past year or and a half or so alone there have been quite a few standout singles, including "Common People", "Sour Times" (though I have to admit I didn't really care for the album as a whole), "Your Woman", "Natural One", "Where It's At"......... > I think one sign of a depressed musical period is the number of bands > that make an awesome splash with their first record, first single but > then disappear completely after their second album. I think people tend to forget that this was happening in 1967 as much as it happens in 1997. It's just that time and tide have revealed the gems, whereas with contemporary music one has to sort the gems from the the driftwood. The one-hit wonder has been with us forever. If you don't believe me listen to an oldies station for a couple hours and think about how many of those artists went on to spectacular careers and how many of them went on to become Trivial Pursuit questions. > is the state of things today. Nothing wrong with it at all, it's just > the evolutionary cycle of popular recorded music, a cycle that's been > rolling now for decades. Exactly! > By the way, I like ATF's Der Kommissar and am proud to say I have the 45. I like Falco's "Der Komissar" and don't own it, but if I did I certainly wouldn't be ashamed. More interesting to me is the recent resurgence of Trio's "da da da". I consider THAT one of the 80s finer singles, much more so than "Stray Cat Strut" actually. Love on ya, Susan ******************************************************************************* "The worship of the beautiful always ends in an orgy"- Benjamin Disraeli, "Lothair", lxxvii ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 18:02:43 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: Re: Fegstats and Dunwich Daniel Saunders opines: > **in my experience, the first few RH albums a person listens to becomes > **special favourites regardless of quality. This is easy. We have everyone's votes from the 'best RH album' mouldering in a vault somewhere. All we have to do is run a Pearson correlation on the dates of issue, against Randi's new "when I first saw RH" dates. Null hypothesis is that there is no correlation, alternative hypothesis is that there is a positive correlation (so I would say it was one-tailed). On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Jeff Lawrence wrote: > First RH album > I heard (after the SB box set) was Eye which I loved at the time but > in retrospect, is pretty mediocre at best IMHO (some great stuff mixed with some > really filler). I wasn't till my 5th RH album (Element of Light) that I finally > struck pay dirt - and that was over 2 years later :-) You bought EoL _after_ Eye? How am I supposed to do statistics if people won't buy the records strictly in issue date order? Oh well, another foolproof system hits the dust. - hssmrg PS News for all you Arkham and Innsmouth residents: Apparently there is a real town of Dunwich in Suffolk which is fast slipping into the sea (photos in today's Guardian). I wonder if they realise that buried deep in the slime, but scrabbling squelchily ever nearer to the surface as the cliff-face crumbles, there may be lurking a horror which can only be described as "The Unnameable" . . . Mike "Gambrel" Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:11:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Mississippi Malcolm McDowell Subject: Re: Music Nota bene: These sorts of discussions push my buttons in a BIG way. I could not resist chiming in. On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Terrence M Marks wrote: > What I'm trying to say is that "Greatest Hits of the 90's" isn't going to > sound nearly as good as "The Big 80's" or "70s Biggest Songs". I have to say I have several 80s compilations. They're about 50/50 gems vs. clunkers. I wouldn't even dare to buy a 70s comp. I'm pretty sure it would be all eagles and led zep and stuff, whereas the 70s to me is pretty much Roxy Music and Bowie......think you're going to see "Virginia Plain" on a 70s biggest tunes comp? Not effin' likely :). > Hmm..... > 1) I can't listen to all the music produced in this decade. > 1a) Therefore I will have to limit the scale. Terry, I hate to say this but your Virgo is showing. Please tuck it in :). > 2) I am limiting the scale to popular music because it's > popular and has a bigger impact on things Ahem. So Bread and Captain and Tenille, because more popular than Roxy Music, had a bigger impact than Roxy Music? How's that? Does not compute. The fact that more people listen to something does not mean that in the long run it's going to be more influential. Remember Brian Eno's famous quote about the Velvet Underground? > and is what this > decade's music will be remembered by. By cultural historians, perhaps. There's absolutely NO way of knowing what's going to be remembered, rediscovered, buried, or forgotten. Not ONE. It's all guesswork and speculation. You think anyone in 1969 thought that the Velvet Underground were going to be the influence they are today? A lot of people thought they were a freaky underground thing, in fact I suspect the majority of people who had even heard of them were of this opinion. A lot more people bought copies of "Macarthur Park" than any VU album. > When you think "Music > of the 90s", do you think Alanis Morissette or do you think > The High Llamas? (Yeah, I bet you think neither, but you get > my point.) Actually I think Nirvana and Beck, but that's me. > No. I didn't leave the mass market. The mass market left me.. The mass market was never there. The mass market isn't -designed- for serious listeners. It is designed to sell CDs the same way it sells soap, athletic shoes, or any other thing. > >Separate is inherently unequal. > > ?? (Is mainstream 60s music better than Brown v Board of > Education?) I don't know? What were Gerry Rafferty's views on segregation? (snicker) (snort) > "If you don't like modern music, it's because you're too > inflexible to change." > Music is made up of songs. You can't like music without > liking songs. I think Capuchin's point was actually that.....er.......YER AN OLD FOGEY! (grin) As you can see I'm inclined to come down on his side of the argument. Love on ya, Susan whose views on this topic were admittedly bolstered by watching Beck doing "one foot in the grave" at the glastonbury festival not too long ago ******************************************************************************* "The worship of the beautiful always ends in an orgy"- Benjamin Disraeli, "Lothair", lxxvii ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 10:01:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: Re: police come with a laser gun ======== Original Message ======== >>I've often thought that it was some way to save money if the track was a >>cover. Could someone verify if this is a ridiculous idea? > >That's probably true. If the track isn't listed, the band probably doesn't >have to pay royalties. I THINK. i seem to remember reading that when guns 'n' roses' _the spagetti incident_ (an album of covers) came out there was a hidden track written by charles manson and that he was getting some serious royalties for it. KEN ======== Fwd by: Russ Reynolds ======== This is what I heard as well. Seems to me that not listing the track to avoid paying royalties is a lot like not listing your income to avoid paying taxes. I have trouble believing that's an actual legal loophole. a couple of thoughts: *Did the Clash lose royalties on "Train in Vain" because it wasn't listed on the album? hmmm. **Can anybody think of an earlier "hidden track" than "Her Majesty"? HM is out of the closet now, of course, but original copies of the Abbey Road didn't list it on the cover, and it followed a good :50 seconds of silence. [there's an interesting story behind that, by the way: HM was originally part of the "Mustard/Pam/Bathroom Window" medley, right between "Pam" & "Window". They decided it didn't really work with the other tunes, so George Martin snipped out the song, but he put it at the end of the tape (after the album), just in case. If I remember the story correctly, the engineer left it on, thinking it was supposed to be part of the album. So that's why there's such a long space before HM starts. And the reason starts with such a big chord is because it's actually the last note of "Polythene Pam". And the reason there's no final note is because the final note is still in the medley, burried beneath the first note of "Bathroom Window"] -russ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:22:30 -0400 From: "Gene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Re: Trio Music (no Robyn) Mississippi Malcolm McDowell sed: >More interesting to me is the recent resurgence of >Trio's "da da da". I consider THAT one of the 80s finer singles, much more >so than "Stray Cat Strut" actually. Agreed! However, being a full-time, unabashed, and drooling Trio Fan and Collector (I waited 13 goddamned years for their "Trio & Error" album to be reissued on CD), I have to put this in: its resurgence is attributable solely to the PR people at Volkswagen who chose the song solely on its Generation X appeal (whatever the heck that is). People saw the commercial, started talking about the song, and Mercury/Polydor decided to capitalize on the newfound popularity and reissued the CD (which was first available in a very, very small run in 1989 or so but was very quickly deleted). Needless to say, the irony that it took a Volkswagen commercial to get the album reissued is not lost on me. Especially after I bugged Mercury/Polydor and several labels which specialize in reissuing 80s music (Oglio, f'rinstance) to do the very same but only to be told "Erm, we'll never sell more than ten copies of it, so there's no point in doing it." Feh. And "Da Da Da" has been available on three, count 'em, three, CDs, albeit in its German form, for years. Wonders never cease. Trio were a fine and underappreciated band. Sure, "Da Da Da" is goofy, but their first album is one of the finest examples of pure electric angst I've ever heard. You just can't go wrong with those nuts. Heck, even the Jesus Lizard covered one of their songs on a b-side (the brutal "Sunday You Need Love (Monday Be Alone")). I consider "Da Da Da" their own "Balloon Man" (ooh, look! Robyn content!). Maybe I should get into advertising just to get my favorite and long-lost, unreissued records reissued on CD. __________________________________________________ Gene Hopstetter, Jr. +++ Internet Publishing Specialist E-DOC +++ http://www.edoc.com/ Voice: (410) 691-6265 +++ Fax: (410) 691-6235 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:32:54 -0700 From: mrrunion@tng.net (Runion, Michael R.) Subject: Re: Pulp Mississippi Malcolm McDowell wrote: > In the past > year or and a half or so alone there have been quite a few standout > singles, including "Common People",... I wholeheartedly agree. If you haven't seen it already, there's a cool little comic interpretation of "Common People" up at: http://www.island.co.uk/artists/pulp/ Mike Runion ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:42:43 -0700 From: mrrunion@tng.net (Runion, Michael R.) Subject: Re: Fegstats and Dunwich M R Godwin wrote: > > Daniel Saunders opines: > > > **in my experience, the first few RH albums a person listens to becomes > > **special favourites regardless of quality. > > This is easy. We have everyone's votes from the 'best RH album' mouldering > in a vault somewhere. All we have to do is run a Pearson correlation on > the dates of issue, against Randi's new "when I first saw RH" dates. Null > hypothesis is that there is no correlation, alternative hypothesis is that > there is a positive correlation (so I would say it was one-tailed). Ah! But there COULD be a negative correlation, which would be rather interesting to see, so you'd better make that a two-tailed hypothesis test just in case. What alpha might you be using? :) Mike psuedo-statistician-and-often-misspeller-of-"pseudo" Runion ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:18:58 -0500 (CDT) From: John Littlejohn Subject: Re: Music (no Robyn) On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Runion, Michael R. wrote: > Eh, I rambling and I don't know where I'm going with this. I think I > agree with both of you. "Great minds disagree with themselves" to paraphrase Emerson. No, I don't think it was. JL -* "Si vous m'obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai" - Churchill -* ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:51:14 -0400 From: kenster@MIT.EDU (Ken Ostrander) Subject: music (and a lot of bull) >Is it just me, or has 90s music been notably les s impressive than 80s and >70s and 60s music? i guess that depends on what impresses you. are you looking for music that speaks to and for a generation? are you looking for funky ass grooves and wild clothes? are you looking for anti-establishment rebel rock? are you looking for music that expands your awareness? or music that just breaks boundries? these are all stupid questions, but i hope you get the point. you can find music in the nineties that addresses all of these ideas. there has always been vapid popular music and a wealth of exciting music from unconventional underground pioneers. not to say that all mainstream music isn't worth hearing or all independent music is. if you listen to music from the sixties you might hear psychedelic, mind-bending, peace-loving groovyness. but in all of that there is some crap too. a lot of crap actually. record companies would go through haight-ashbury and sign up anyone. they wouldn't even promote the stuff, just put the record out there and see what happens. experimentation was the operating word and that's what typifies the sixties ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:52:04 -0500 (CDT) From: donald andrew snyder Subject: Re: Music On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Bayard wrote: > Unfortunately, it seems like lately the trend is to be hopelessly > derivative. And not derivative in interesting ways like RH, either... > just "retro". There are only so many ways to do music, and we may run out > of the good ones... In defense of the 90s, at least people are imitating with good taste. Granted this is rather subjective, but I happen to like the recent revival of psychadelic pop (maybe it's every 30 yrs). Would you rather hear a bunch of Guns n' Roses (thanks for the reminder Ken) and Motley Crue rip-offs? I think that there has always been good and bad music, but certain generations support what I think is good and others what I think is bad. Other than a few artists (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Beach Boys, Van Morrison), most of what I appreciate is never commercially successful. When I was growing up, it was either glam metal or dance pop on the radio, but there was also very exciting stuff being done by the Replacements, REM, Pixies, etc. Television, The Clash, and Elvis Costello were in a similar position in the late 70s. The point is that there has been and hopefully always will be good music being created. I think that the 90s show promise because I actually enjoy listening to the radio (yeah, it could also be the move to Chicago). Maybe there aren't any supergroups anymore--though REM and U2 come close--but there is a lot of good music today that is given commercial support. One of these days I'll have more of a perspective, Andy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:02:39 -0400 From: kenster@MIT.EDU (Ken Ostrander) Subject: music (and a lot of bull) >Is it just me, or has 90s music been notably les s impressive than 80s and >70s and 60s music? i guess that depends on what impresses you. are you looking for music that speaks to and for a generation? are you looking for funky ass grooves and wild clothes? are you looking for anti-establishment rebel rock? are you looking for music that expands your awareness? or music that just breaks boundries? these are all stupid questions, but i hope you get the point. you can find music in the nineties that addresses all of these ideas. there has always been vapid popular music and a wealth of exciting music from unconventional underground pioneers. not to say that all mainstream music isn't worth hearing or all independent music is. if you listen to music from the sixties you might hear psychedelic, mind-bending, peace-loving groovyness. but in all of that there is some crap too. a lot of crap actually. record companies would go through haight-ashbury and sign up anyone. they wouldn't even promote the stuff, just put the record out there and see what happens. experimentation was the operating word and that's what typifies the sixties ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:21:35 -0500 (CDT) From: Mississippi Malcolm McDowell Subject: Re: police come with a laser gun (maybe 8% Robyn) On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, Capuchin wrote: > Anyway, this method is far prefered over the method of putting material > thirty minutes into the last track as it is more friendly to the RANDOM or > SHUFFLE mode and those of us with changers so that we don't have to wait > half an hour between disc 1 and disc 2. (I won't even begin to tell you > how much the 300,8,n,1 data on track 12 of Information Society's Peace & > Love, Inc. bothers me and ruins any hope of pleasant listening.) Ok, minority opinion time. I LIKE these little buggers. Now granted there are times when this is annoying. But I think the little noise effect at the way way end of "Odelay" really kicks. That to me is just a really good example of Beck's rather puckish sense of humor and I appreciate it for that reason. It may be because my CD player only plays one CD at a time, but I'm really not at all bothered. Get up off your butt and skip the track if you don't like it, ya lazy bums! :) > I happen to like Groovy Decay quite a bit... but I like Groovy Decoy even > better. I'd put it in my top five. Me! Me! Me too! I've gone and fallen in love with it after a long period of not even wanting to own it, having disliked it on first listen. Which I guess says something about first impressions (namely that they're sometimes wrong :)). > It's darker, I think. Agreed wholeheartedly 100 percent. > I'd also > say both of these records (or this one record of many incarnations) are > dark and kind of mean. Agreed again. I'm inclined to think this (these) is/are Robyn's darkest work. I find the psycho-sexual overtones of GD extraordinarily fascinating, in particular "St. Petersburg" and "Fifty-Two Stations". > The silliness of How Do You Work This Thing and > Young People Scream are far more vicious and unpleasant in sentiment than > other light-hearted bits Robyn's done. Yes, indeed. Same for "Nightride to Trinidad". There really is a viciousness and something paranoid and very disturbing about the whole work. It explores some of the darkest corners of the man's soul, and even the missteps are fascinating for what they reveal (I'll spare you all my thoughts on "Midnight Fish" and Freud for the time being). Love on ya, Susan ******************************************************************************* "The worship of the beautiful always ends in an orgy"- Benjamin Disraeli, "Lothair", lxxvii ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:46:52 -0400 From: kenster@MIT.EDU (Ken Ostrander) Subject: music (and a lot of bull) part II but then folks got back to their roots too. now that's derivitive, but not a bad thing. then came the forked road of disco and punk. looking back, it almost seems that each was a reaction to the other. one tried to layer sweet sounding production while the other went for the more stripped down do-it-yourself approach. all of these elements made up seventies music and there's good and bad in all of them. in the eighties we had everything from new wave to rap to indie rock with all of the permutations and amalgamations from decades before. there were so many one-hit-wonders it boggles the mind, but just as many overlooked gems. now the nineties rears its ugly head. there are so many sounds of the cities: seattle, manchester, athens, minneapolis, chapel hill,...isle of wight; but these many movements are indicative of so many different perspectives. self agrandizment seems the primary motivation beyond getting rich; but that's nothing new. hip-hop and rap recycle not only styles but actual songs. many formulaic hit machines and derivative sounds; but are alanis morissette and the spice girls any worse than stevie nicks or the village people? alternative is a major label answer to the indie label question: "there's got to be something else?!" whatever. the fact is that there are plenty of "impressive" bands in the present. to deny this is to close oneself off from reality. i'm sure that everyone on this list could come up with at least ten such bands. bands that could only be considered nineties bands. KEN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest. *sob* .