From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #11 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, January 10 1998 Volume 07 : Number 011 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Soul-less [Eb ] Re: Ants & New computers [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan] Robyn orgy (WHRB, Boston area) [Stefan Cooke ] ISO "Jas" [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] Broken Green Quail Eggs and Spam [Mark Gloster ] [none] [squeaky watson ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 18:04:05 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: Soul-less >>And the Chemical Brothers don't suck, but they aren't doing anything >>worthwhile either. Very clinical -- no soul. > >Hmmm. This seems a criticism leveled at a lot of electronic music for some >reason. The Chem. Bros. have always struck me as being on the more >"soulful" side of electronica - a lot of energy, and a great groove (which >is the best definition of "soul" I can think of, besides perhaps the >"immortal spirit of the inner human"). There's a lot of electronic music which I think has soul, depending on how strictly you define "electronic." Like: Bjork, Laika, Portishead, Photek, Seefeel, Eno, Stereolab, Morton Subotnick, NIN, Plug, Flowchart, Mouse on Mars, (some) Moby, Wire (where applicable), Bruce Gilbert, Tricky/Nearly God, Jean-Michel Jarre, Cibo Matto, the Lovin' Spoonful, Laurie Anderson, the Art of Noise, Mark Mothersbaugh, Steve Reich, Daniel Lentz, David Bowie (where applicable), Tipsy, Beth Orton, Komeda, Walter Carlos (not so much Wendy), Land of the Loops, the Residents and yeah, even certain Philip Glass. Maybe even scattered Depeche Mode tracks. And I don't pretend to know anywhere near all the electronic groups in the world, either. But many of today's major acts leave me utterly cold, such as FSOL, Aphex Twin, the Prodigy, the Crystal Method, Underworld, Orbital, the Orb and almost anything on Wax Trax. Not to mention Morrissey. ;) As for the Chemical Brothers, I have tried hard to be a fan. Damn hard. But I have the same problem with both albums: not enough development. The song starts. Neat groove. Neat for about a minute. Some sort of modulation. Back to the original groove. The same original groove. The same thing. No added layers. No variation. Repetition. The same thing. The same thing. Numbness. Stasis. Inertia. I've never heard a Chemical Brothers track which held my interest beyond two minutes. Perhaps if they did an album of short instrumental sketches, I would like it. But there just isn't enough content in their songs for the existing track lengths. I didn't even like "Setting Sun." Boffo-zappo-pow for a minute or two, then you just sit back and think, "Umm, OK -- is this song going to do anything else?" Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 16:16:28 -0600 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Re: Ants & New computers Thanks Mark - keep posts like that one a-rollin' Oh, and Minerva sez: "Relax Jasper, Michael was kidding. He's probably just a bunch of water and carbon atoms anyway. Nothing to worry your circuits over." James (happy in his Gates-free computer environment :) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 22:36:16 -0500 (EST) From: Stefan Cooke Subject: Robyn orgy (WHRB, Boston area) Since a couple of fegs missed it the first time ... this excerpt from the newly-minted Harvard College WHRB (95.3 fm) Program Guide: Tuesday January 27 10 pm THE ROBYN HITCHCOCK/SOFT BOYS/EGYPTIANS ORGY In 1976, Cambridge scenester Rob Lamb "loaned" his band, Dennis And The Experts, to a young folk musician named Robyn Hitchcock. Within months, Hitchcock was playing a different sort of music, Lamb had given up the idea of ever recouping his guitarists, and the band was called the Soft Boys. Hitchcock would later explain the name, an impromptu alteration: "I'd had this concept of this thing called the Soft Boys, like a William Burroughs amalgam, Soft Machine and the Wild Boys. The implications were kind of homo-erotic and seedy, kind of crawling, bloodless, colorless things that crawled around like filleted jellyfish around the corridors of power. Soft Boys controlled things, but they had no spine. Basically insidious people and basically that's what we were." This career retrospective will take a thematic approach, with each section -- Love, Dangerous Food, People Who Preside Over Animals, Irritating Visitors -- treated chronologically. Scattered throughout: live recordings, rarities and other accumulated relics of Hitchcock's 20-year musicianhood. [ends Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 3 p.m., immediately followed by a 45-hour, yes 45-hour Throbbing Gristle orgy. So stock up on those blank tapes.] Stefan ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 16:47:23 -0600 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: ISO "Jas" Jas sent me an email message yesterday - "Best all NZ music of '97" - but my disk ate it before I had a chance to read it - if you're out there Jas - can you send it again please? James James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 19:44:45 -0800 From: Mark Gloster Subject: Broken Green Quail Eggs and Spam >>Again, just my personal views! (Although Mark Gloster completely >>agrees with me. Don't you Mark? Mark? "Yes . . >>Great . . . Quail . . . .") Sadly, I don't know why The Great Quail does this to me. While making me quite dense, he also made me somewhat busy and averse to "artistic movies." This causes me to embrace the zany and madcap brilliance of those "feelgood hit of the summer" movies that have rememberable titles like, _Hey, It's Feelgood Summer_, and _Look Out for that Wacky, Zany Summer Hyjinx_. The ball of spittle never ceases to form on the low side of my mouth as I guffaw and chortle at the splendor of the wacky, zany madcapness of the summer hyjinxes. Sometimes the spittle dangles down off of my chin and to my chest. If I move around much I get this "Suicide Chain of Slobber," (which is the title of a horror movie script on which I'm working) which never ceases to frighten even my dates for whose admission I pay. This is not too terribly far from true. The Poet of Extreme Weirdness (TGQ) has made it very difficult for me to enjoy those rave artflyx (tm) in which so many of you can extatically bathe. Case in point: I had to take several expensive trips to the lobby during _Howard's End_ which ultimately served as ammo for my critical glottal vomit crescendo upon the show's terminus. I know I'm _supposed_ to like artflyx (tm), but it's really hard for me to enjoy most that I've seen. Please don't think less of me. I'm just pathetically shallow and have a small brain. I don't feel worthy of those of higher brows than mine. It scarcely seems as though I have a forehead. My knuckles must seem to drag so low that I must type on a keyboard that rests on the floor. >In THAT case, if Mark agrees with you, I change my mind completely. >Please remove "Lost Highway" from Top 10 list, and replace it with >the Pillow Book. ;) You are probably off the hook here JT. I don't think I can make the call on this one, but I didn't go to see it because I thought I'd hate it. Robyn Hitchcock rules. High fives for everybody. - -Mark Gloster, who, though shallow and dense, while not typing or working too much, makes happy music for troubled times and has a mind like Chernobyl when it works at all. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 22:58:42 -0500 From: squeaky watson Subject: [none] ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #11 ******************************