From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #71 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, February 25 1998 Volume 07 : Number 071 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Oasis....god not again! [tanter ] Oasis, schmoasis [Natalie Jacobs ] No-way-sis [TROYD1@Westat.com (TROYD1)] Intergalactic garage [tanter ] Re: Jon Brion [Rich Plumb ] IGG again [tanter ] Storefront Bootleg? ["Runion-1, Michael" ] Re: No-way-sis [sdodge@midway.uchicago.edu (amadain)] Re: french stew dents [Tom Clark ] Re: Pop Stars. . . some RH content [MARKEEFE@aol.com] IRC & ICQ [John Barrington Jones ] Re: IRC & ICQ [Jeff Halvarson ] Re: IRC & ICQ [jeffery vaska ] Re: oasis ["Maxey L. Mullins" ] Re: oasis, ya stOOdents ["Maxey L. Mullins" ] Re: Pop Stars. . . some RH content [Eb ] Re: IRC & ICQ [hal brandt ] Re: IRC & ICQ [Eb ] instrumentatino (was: Pop Stars. . . some RH content) [Bayard ] Re: french stew dents [sdodge@midway.uchicago.edu (amadain)] Re: instrumentation [Eb ] Re: oasis [Miles Goosens ] Don't start [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] like water in the desert [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan] Re: oasis, ya stOOdents [KarmaFuzzz@aol.com] Re: oasis [Eb ] wire list [Miles Goosens ] covered in wire [Bayard ] Re: instrumentation [Bayard ] Re: covered in wire [Miles Goosens ] Re: Pop Stars. . . some RH content ["Maxey L. Mullins" ] Re: instrumentation [Eb ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 09:04:01 -0500 From: tanter Subject: Oasis....god not again! Every time an Oasis song plays on the radio, I wonder why they fired Pete Best so readily. I mean their current drummer doesn't quite have that authentic 60s beat. But Paul's bass sounds really good. Marcy ;) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 09:09:41 -0500 From: Natalie Jacobs Subject: Oasis, schmoasis > i agree. i borrowed the new album to make a tape of all the songs >i like from the three albums and noticed, not just similarities, but the >same god damned guitar licks; note for note! try listening to 'don't look >back in anger' and 'don't go away' together. hell, you could mix them >seamlessly. really irritating. My sister and I were in the car listening to the radio one time, and an Oasis song came on - I can't remember which one - and I started up the argument that all of their songs sound the same. "They do not!" my sister insisted. So I proceeded to sing "Wonderwall" over the chord changes of this other song, and by god they fit together perfectly. It was scary. >Possibly my biggest gripe about Oasis, though, is that the guy needs either >some taller shoes or a shorter mic stand. I think he's just being perverse. Apparently he's getting terrible throat problems from doing that - tilting your head back to sing is really tough on the vocal cords. With luck, maybe he'll blow out his larynx entirely and we'll never have to hear him sing again... n., walking slowly down the hall, faster than a cannonball soon to be playing: "Eye" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 09:22:23 -0500 From: TROYD1@Westat.com (TROYD1) Subject: No-way-sis * I have "Morning Glory" and haven't listened to it in months. I hear *lots of Beatles in there, esp. "She's Electric" and "Don't Look Back *In Anger", but I'd say Eb's right that the predominant influence is *glam. What they really remind me of are early 70s arena bands like Slade - who took Beatley riffs, made them louder and added a gang chorus. I thought Morning Glory was pretty catchy, but the lyrics really are awful. MOST rock lyrics are bad, but they seem to do nothing but string together cliches and hope they rhyme. It seems that half of their songs don't have subjects. Even Motley Crue manages that - I think. *Also, at the risk of becoming a provocateur, I think that *Oasis is more guilty of being marketed *as* the Beatles *than actually really copying the real Beatles. Well, Oasis certainly invites the comparison. "She's Electric" copies the ending of "With a Little Help From My Friends", and they use Beatle phrases all the time - some Eb and others has already mentioned. Noel certainly cultivates a Lennonesque appearance while Liam's singing style sounds a little like the Lennon of "She Said, She Said" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" (another phrase that appears in D'you Know What I Mean). LJ, I saw them live a year and a half ago and they just stood there motionless on stage and played the songs exactly as you hear them on record. Pretty boring. I started to lose interest after I saw them that night (Screaming Trees opened and played a great set - there's a band I really like - too bad they broke up). By the way, Oasis covered "I am the Walrus" - perhaps the one Beatles song that makes less sense than their own. On a different note, does anyone know anything about Momus? He opened for Magnetic Fields a couple of weeks ago and was quite good. I picked up a cd called 20 Vodka Jellies and have been listening happily for the last week. Sounds kind of like an English Gainsbourg backed by Magnetic Fields. Pretty neat. Dan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 09:23:28 -0500 From: tanter Subject: Intergalactic garage For those who have ordered from IGG, would you please share your experience? They took $23 from our bank account 30 days ago, we have not received "Invisible history." I emailed and received no message in reply. I telephoned and was told that Maura would get back to me....I'm still waiting and it's been 5 days since I called. I am NOT impressed with these people.... Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:01:08 -0500 (EST) From: Rich Plumb Subject: Re: Jon Brion : on Mon, 23 Feb 98 17:18:12 -0800 Tom Clark wrote: : : My useless post of the day: : I finally saw "Boogie Nights" this weekend and I noticed a lot of Jon : Brion's name during the credits. Apparently he wrote some of the : soundtrack with Michael Penn (who did the score), and was a bandmember : in one of the scenes. : This reminds me of my favorite band in a movie scene, The Feelies playing the band at Melanie Griffith's 10th reunion in SOMETHING WILD. ORC: Jonathan Demme directed that movie. rich ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:04:43 -0500 From: tanter Subject: IGG again I just spoke to Maura and she said that Invisible History hasn't come in yet, in case anyone else ordered it. Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:15:37 -0500 From: "Runion-1, Michael" Subject: Storefront Bootleg? Hey all, Looks as if someone's jumping the gun. I found a listing for a "Store Front Hitchcock" Japanese Import (apparently) in GEMM this morning. Interesting. Anyone seen this or know anything about it? Mike Mike Runion EG&G S&MA Data & Analyses; ADoCS Office 867-3619 BOC-251 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 98 11:26:02 From: firstcat@lsli.com Subject: RE: Oasis....god not again! Lets face it OASIS is just another Rutles rip-off Cheese and onions Jay - --- On Tue, 24 Feb 1998 09:04:01 -0500 tanter wrote: >Every time an Oasis song plays on the radio, I wonder why they fired Pete >Best so readily. I mean their current drummer doesn't quite have that >authentic 60s beat. But Paul's bass sounds really good. > >Marcy ;) - -----------------End of Original Message----------------- - ------------------------------------- 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: 2/24/98 - ------------------------------------- Two-Hour Luxury Goods Commercial Also A Spy Film ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:37:02 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: momus On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, TROYD1 wrote: > On a different note, does anyone know anything about Momus? He opened > for Magnetic Fields a couple of weeks ago and was quite good. I > picked up a cd called 20 Vodka Jellies and have been listening happily > for the last week. Sounds kind of like an English Gainsbourg backed > by Magnetic Fields. Pretty neat. i hate the emerging habit of saying "sounds like the magnetic fields" for anyone who uses occasional washes of synthesizer... stephin merritt's approach to technology is much, much more inventive than most of the people who superficially resemble him. BUT i like Momus too. his web page (http://demon.co.ac.uk/momus) is really great and will fill in discography information better than i could. the new album, Momus Plays Ping Pong, edges into weightlessness but nothing a staunch gainsbourg fan couldn't stomach. if you can find the early singles collection Monsters Of Love, snap it up. he used to play acoustic guitar, to wonderful effect. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:51:33 -0600 (CST) From: sdodge@midway.uchicago.edu (amadain) Subject: Re: No-way-sis > MOST rock lyrics are bad, but they seem to do nothing but > string together cliches and hope they rhyme. It seems that half of > their songs don't have subjects. Even Motley Crue manages that - I > think. Well, yeah, I think part of it is the "rock anthem" thang (Noel said in an interview I saw once that he consciously tries to write "anthem-style" and "as generally as possible"). But I was trying to figure out yesterday just exactly what it was that bothered me about their lyrics so much, and I think that that was basically it. That the songs didn't seem to have any reason for being. Even the lamest top 40 alternabands seem to have some - -reason- for writing, or -something- distinctive about the lyric, some personal quality, but Oasis lyrics remind me of the song-composing machine in "1984". > Well, Oasis certainly invites the comparison. INVITE it? They themselves make it, constantly. > Said" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" (another phrase that appears in D'you > Know What I Mean). And the title track of "What's The Story?". > On a different note, does anyone know anything about Momus? He opened > for Magnetic Fields a couple of weeks ago and was quite good. I > picked up a cd called 20 Vodka Jellies and have been listening happily Momus is a strange one :). The charge of lacking idiosyncracy cannot be applied to -him- :). His stuff was only available as imports for a very long time and the US releases are pretty recent. I'm not sure if it's due to the music or the fact that he openly talked about "sex for children" (at the time he was involved with a 14 year old girl, to whom he is now married), which is to say the very least, um, well, controversial. His pop sense can't be faulted though, and he knows how to write a hook (a cosmetics jingle he wrote for a Japanese "girl singer" went to number one there- there's a version of it on "Vodka Jellies"). Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 98 10:18:03 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: french stew dents This talk of French pop music reminds me... A couple of years ago I was browsing through the Virgin Megastore in Paris and I kept seeing albums by this aging Neil Diamond/Elvis-type guy named - I think - Johnny Holliday. I can't seem to find any reference to this guy on CDNow or through a Yahoo search. Anybody know anything about him? - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:07:48 EST From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: Pop Stars. . . some RH content In a message dated 98-02-23 17:18:10 EST, James wrote: << Actually Robyn seems to me to do this a lot--he disguises them with little variations, but sometimes it seems like a full half of his songs (the new ones especially) begin on that same goofy E chord he likes so much. No complaints here--it's a beautiful chord (the one which begins "Daisy Bomb," "Gene Hackman," and many others). A great many follow a pretty standard E / A / B, with the occasional F#m. I think it'd be hard not to do that, though, after you've written so many songs--some are going to repeat. >> Plus, if you didn't do this at least a little bit, it would be hard to have "a sound". I think there's something great about the fact that a Robyn Hitchcock song *sounds like* a Robyn Hitchcock song -- it's a pleasing ring of familiarity, even for songs you may not have heard before. Of course, some bands/artists (like Oasis) do this to a fault, while others (like Hank Williams, Sr.) get away with it beautifully (IMO). One thing Robyn does to add variety to his songs is use a lot of different kinds of vocal melodies over a fairly wide range (some are sung high, some low, some up & down the register); he's also varied the instrumentation enough on his different albums that he could probably get away with using the same chord progression for a song on "You & Oblivion" as on "Globe of Frogs" and not too many of us would be the wiser (I have no idea, BTW, if the above example might happen to be true). But bands like Oasis and the Wallflowers (as someone else pointed out re: Oasis) use the same chord progressions (at least relatively), the same tempos, the same phrasings, the same beats, etc. Now, I think "What's th Story" was a pretty good album, but it seems to me that Oasis have now used up their limited pool of good melodic ideas ("Be Here Now" is such a bore). And they have never had anything to say lyrically. So, hopefully, they'll soon be forgotten about, at least here in the U.S. - ------Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:20:36 -0800 From: John Barrington Jones Subject: IRC & ICQ On the new bulletin board, there is talk of chatting on IRC with the channel #glasshotel. This sounds like a great idea to me. I don't know about having a permanent #glasshotel channel somewhere, cuz I don't know how that is done. But having a place to at least LOOK for other fegs on IRC would be nice. Could we get a consensus on which IRC server to use? I don't know much about any of them, I've been on Undernet and Dalnet. The other thing is that new-fangled ICQ. Could the Fegnomicon include ICQ numbers, so we could do some chatting that way? Truth be told, I'm not much of a chatter anymore. I was a daily MUSHer when I first found the internet, but years later, I've kinda dropped off. Still, its nice to do it once a week or so. - -jbj - -*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-# John B. Jones Email: lobstie@e-z.net ICQ: 8301543 AOL IM: Lobstie House of Figgy-- http://web.syr.edu/~jojones/hitchcock.html "Well, we went to the punk bar, then we went to the heroin bar, we had pasta at Fellini, and then we went to the pretty bar." -overheard at work - -*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-# ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 13:51:52 -0600 From: Jeff Halvarson Subject: Re: IRC & ICQ Dalnet seems easier to get on, and there is no currently registered channel #glasshotel, so it'd be open. I could reserve it, but presumbly it'd be preferable to put it in the hands of someone who's been on the mailing list at least a full day.. It's best if people mostly are on the same Dalnet server. I had it explained to me that spider.ca.us.dal.net is the one that the nickname, channel, and memo services hang off of, so folks might want to try that first. I figure if there's going to be a net split, I like to stay on the side that still knows about services. :) Anyway, I'm new to the list here, but I've been around IRC for quite some time. If it'd be helpful for me to set a channel up, or to answer any irc questions, I'd be happy to help. Otherwise, I'll sit back down and follow along. :) Jeff John Barrington Jones wrote: > > On the new bulletin board, there is talk of chatting on IRC with the > channel #glasshotel. > > This sounds like a great idea to me. I don't know about having a permanent > #glasshotel channel somewhere, cuz I don't know how that is done. But > having a place to at least LOOK for other fegs on IRC would be nice. Could > we get a consensus on which IRC server to use? I don't know much about any > of them, I've been on Undernet and Dalnet. > > The other thing is that new-fangled ICQ. Could the Fegnomicon include ICQ > numbers, so we could do some chatting that way? > > Truth be told, I'm not much of a chatter anymore. I was a daily MUSHer > when I first found the internet, but years later, I've kinda dropped off. > Still, its nice to do it once a week or so. > > -jbj > > -*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-# > John B. Jones Email: lobstie@e-z.net > ICQ: 8301543 AOL IM: Lobstie > > House of Figgy-- http://web.syr.edu/~jojones/hitchcock.html > > "Well, we went to the punk bar, then we went to the heroin bar, > we had pasta at Fellini, and then we went to the pretty bar." > -overheard at work > -*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-#-*-# ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:56:29 -0800 From: jeffery vaska Subject: Re: IRC & ICQ John Barrington Jones wrote: > > On the new bulletin board, there is talk of chatting on IRC with the > channel #glasshotel. halo all... recently, i've become involved with this chat stuff... last night i may have even recruited a few new fegs possibly...but... for some reason i have thought about this.... I LOVE THIS NEWSGROUP even when i'm not saying much. the sheer brilliance of it, the complete lunacy, and the overt intelligence lurking here is Amazing and Fun... would the chat thing dull the sword of this newsgroup? - you know, too much of a good thing... i would really hate to see it get blunted. this is my thought....still in development...ideas...? AND anybody can set up a chatroom at any time in the irc. if somebody was interested they could just set one up and see if somebody pops up - really simple. we wouldn't need something permanent actually. i'll try it tonight...#glasshotel...or #fegmania...why not...go see...it will be on undernet...around 6:30pm pst... see somebody, somewhere...ciao...jv ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:37:16 -0600 From: "Maxey L. Mullins" Subject: Re: oasis Ben wrote: > > >lj quoth: > > > >>My new band obsession is OASIS. Feel free to make fun of me, ya punters! > >>(that IS a good word, Quail) I can't stop listening to _Definitely > >>Maybe_-- It truly is a fine piece of rock&roll, I don't care what anyone > >>says. I have had that album, _Be Here Now_, and the Verve's _Urban Hymns_ > >>loaded into my CD player on "all discs/repeat" for a good week now. > > > >Ack! Lord knows why, but I bought "Be Here Now" over the holidays, and I > >can't even BEGIN to explain how disappointed I was (and am). I admit that > >Oasis has a few good tunes--which is why I bought the darned thing. But if > >you > >listen closely to the "hits"--you'll notice that they are all the SAME SONG > >in > >disguise. > > Yeah, but the same can be said about T-Rex, The Buzzcocks, and even the > beloved Smiths. > > I'm not an Oasis fan, just an observer. well, if we're gonna make a list. i think that green day should be on the very top of it. they've been reincarnating the same damn song for years. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:59:28 -0600 From: "Maxey L. Mullins" Subject: Re: oasis, ya stOOdents Ben wrote: > > >lj lindhurst wrote: > > > >> We were talking about > >> Oasis, and he started saying what EVERYONE ELSE says about them, which is: > >> "Oh, they're just ripping off the Beatles!" > >> > >> Now I've heard this a MILLION TIMES, but I have never heard anything to > >> substantiate it. It's not that I don't believe it, it's just that > >> I've never seen any EVIDENCE. > > > >Just look at the latest Oasis video for undeniable evidence. > >If it isn't a rip-off of the Beatles "Yellow Submarine" > >movie, then I'm Jeremy Hilary Boob, PhD. > > > >/hal > > I've only heard the first Oasis album, and some of their popular songs > since then, but none of them remind me of the Beatles. Oasis for example > have a loud mushy guitar sound, and their singer dosen't sound remotely > like any of the Beatles. I haven't heard any Oasis song that sounds as > Beatlesque (or rather Lennonesque) as RH's own "Somewhere Apart" , a tune > that bears more than a resemblence to "Remember". Don't get me wrong, it's > a great tune and I am not calling Robyn a rip-off at all. Certainly, on > their first album, Oasis took "Band A Gong" and "I'd Like To Teach The > World To Sing" for their own, and from what I hear they've done it since. I > just don't hear much of the Fab Four in their music. i agree. i don't find a lot of similarity in oasis and the beatles. first of all, the beatles were incredibly talented and extremely versatile. they had songs like "blackbird" and "helter skelter" on the same album. whereas everything oasis done sounds the same. they only know how to do one style of song. i also see similarity in robyn and the beatles. but i don't think robyn is trying to rip them off. it's just that he's a fan and can't help but be influenced by their music, just as he is influenced by syd barrett. as far as oasis goes, i can't see how anyone can listen to them. although i do admit that they have potential to be a good band. they need to get rid of the lead singer, learn to write different styles of music, and maybe start listening to something other than the standard english mainstream pop that basically sucks. a steady diet of our man sir robyn would probably do them a great deal of good. they could see what creativity really is. joel ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:53:01 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: Pop Stars. . . some RH content >[Robyn] has also varied the instrumentation enough on his different albums >that he could probably get away with using the same chord progression for a >song on "You & Oblivion" as on "Globe of Frogs" and not too many of us would >be the wiser. Robyn, varying his instrumentation? Huh? Just adding a sax to Groovy and a violin to ME isn't enough for me.... Eb np Posies: Success ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 16:13:09 -0700 From: hal brandt Subject: Re: IRC & ICQ John Barrington Jones wrote: > Could > we get a consensus on which IRC server to use? I like mercury.dead.net This is the IRC server provided by the Grateful Dead folks. It's easy to get on and friendly. /hal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 15:28:16 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: IRC & ICQ >I like mercury.dead.net > >This is the IRC server provided by the Grateful Dead >folks. It's easy to get on and friendly. Well, I couldn't get on it. And what makes an IRC server "friendly," anyway? An upbeat MOTD? ;P Gomez, hanging on EfNet with Morticia ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 18:24:32 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: instrumentatino (was: Pop Stars. . . some RH content) On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Eb wrote: > Robyn, varying his instrumentation? Huh? Just adding a sax to Groovy and a > violin to ME isn't enough for me.... _invisible hitch_ has various folks playing paper bag, wok, owls, congas, radio, fisher-price activity centre... it impressed *me* anyway... that's real creativity. maybe you think those additions are just stupid. adding just the right touch to a song takes a certain precision-- knowing when to stop adding instruments is obviously important too. don't forget the instrumental variations of "higsons"... andy on drums, etc. =b ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 15:47:57 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: instrumentatino (was: Pop Stars. . . some RH content) >On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Eb wrote: > >> Robyn, varying his instrumentation? Huh? Just adding a sax to Groovy and a >> violin to ME isn't enough for me.... > >_invisible hitch_ has various folks playing paper bag, wok, owls, congas, >radio, fisher-price activity centre... it impressed *me* anyway... >that's real creativity. maybe you think those additions are just >stupid. That's just extra percussion, basically...not really central to the conception of the song. Eb, longing for Hitchcock to make a new album that isn't "jangly" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 19:22:20 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: Re: instrumentation > >On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Eb wrote: > > > >> Robyn, varying his instrumentation? Huh? Just adding a sax to Groovy and a > >> violin to ME isn't enough for me.... > > > >_invisible hitch_ has various folks playing paper bag, wok, owls, congas, > >radio, fisher-price activity centre... it impressed *me* anyway... > >that's real creativity. maybe you think those additions are just > >stupid. > > That's just extra percussion, basically...not really central to the > conception of the song. Depends on your conception of "conception," i suppose. Certainly they strongly affect the sound/mood. There are so many other examples-- the organlike wineglasses on the _respect_ version of "arms of love," the icy pings of piano on "driving aloud", the spidery autoharp of "if you go away", the underwater reverb of "queen elvis II", the awesome guitar of "st. petersburg" and "winter love" (is that a 12-string)? > Eb, longing for Hitchcock to make a new album that isn't "jangly" i guess we've been through this once or twice. an observation: any artist's "sound" will sound "samey" when compared with *everything else*. No? I think RH is plenty diverse. =b ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 18:23:19 -0600 (CST) From: sdodge@midway.uchicago.edu (amadain) Subject: Re: french stew dents I can't seem to find any reference to >this guy on CDNow or through a Yahoo search. Anybody know anything about >him? That's most likely because his name is Johnny Hallyday, not Holliday :). Cheesy factor 9, Mr. Sulu, though he -is- admittedly quite popular with 40 and up members of the French populace. The Neil Diamond/Elvis description hit it pretty much on the head. When I was doing a homestay in France, a very icky sleazoid guy I met (or rather, who met me, since I was quite happily minding my own business at the time) insisted I take his copy of a volume 1 of a live album called "Dans La Chaleur de Bercy", which he insisted was absolutely a must have and a perfect souvenir of my travels in La Belle France. I asked a younger guy who was in the same carriage if this was really the case, and he turned to me and said in English, "I don't like it, it is terrible, what is the English word for this? Crap, I think?". After hearing it, I'd say I don't think, I know. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 17:20:06 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: instrumentation >> That's just extra percussion, basically...not really central to the >> conception of the song. > >Depends on your conception of "conception," i suppose. Certainly they >strongly affect the sound/mood. There are so many other examples-- the >organlike wineglasses on the _respect_ version of "arms of love," the icy >pings of piano on "driving aloud", the spidery autoharp of "if you go >away", the underwater reverb of "queen elvis II", the awesome guitar of >"st. petersburg" and "winter love" (is that a 12-string)? Window-dressing. It's still the same jangly popsong-with-heavy-folk-undercurrent thing. Hitchcock writes his songs alone on his acoustic guitar, then gets into the studio and he & producer think, "Well, what little touches can we add to this?" It's post-conception fiddling. When he does try to deviate from this chosen sound, he can't get past pastiche ("Ye Sleeping Knights") and novelty ("Wafflehead"). Unconvincing. >> Eb, longing for Hitchcock to make a new album that isn't "jangly" > >i guess we've been through this once or twice. an observation: any >artist's "sound" will sound "samey" when compared with *everything else*. I don't buy that argument. >I think RH is plenty diverse. Like you said, we've been through this before. Incidentally, for those of you who think I'm so negative about Hitchcock, let me say that as much as I rave about the new Neutral Milk Hotel disc, I think RH has made four (maybe five) albums better than that. So yay for Robyn! Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 19:47:24 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: oasis At 02:37 PM 2/24/98 -0600, Maxey L. Mullins wrote: >well, if we're gonna make a list. i think that green day should be on >the very top of it. they've been reincarnating the same damn song for >years. And it was the Buzzcocks' song to begin with... later, Miles ============================================================== JASON WILKINS (of Neilson Hubbard): Victor's was just starting to happen, then it burned down. BILL LLOYD: That's a pretty good metaphor for the Nashville rock scene. -- NASHVILLE SCENE, Jan. 15, 1998 Miles Goosens outdoorminer@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles ============================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 15:04:25 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Don't start >>My new band obsession is OASIS. Feel free to make fun of me, ya punters! >>(that IS a good word, Quail) but rarely used as a form of address. It is almost always used in the third person to refer to other people, not to the person being addressed! >wally -as in "fuck me hes a total wally" >cheesed off, right pasting, bunch of fives, me duck , champion ( ee, >that were champion -ie: that was very good), whittling -to complain, >brass monkey weather-eg; its cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass >monkey squire, give it some stick, get stuck into it, daft lummox, nesh, >bleeding idiot, a dose of salts. leave it out. If you start wittering on like this you'll sound like a total wazzock. The whole list will go pearshaped and everyone will be sick as a parrot. And if that happens you'll get a right bollocking. James ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:58:11 +1300 (NZDT) From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: like water in the desert >Evidence? >We don't need no evidence. >This is THE BEATLES we're talking about! >I mean, they were SO IMPORTANT that EVERYTHING rips them off. >I mean, without them, pop music would be DEAD! >They started the British Invation, they started psychedelic music, >don't tell me you don't hear that in Oasis (and any other band you listen >to) >And of course he can't point out where it rips off the beatles. >That's because EVERYTHIGN rips off the Beatles. >The similarities are EVERYWHERE > >(sorry...just doing that to save the Beatles Anti-Defamation League >the trouble. And if you question the Beatles influencing anything, >you're bound to get a letter like this, you're just asking for it.) or, to quote Chuck Berry, circa 1958: "Here come old flat top, he come groovin' up slowly". Oasis don't so much rip the Beatles off as wear their huge Beatles influences out in the open for all to see. There is one track on Be Here Now, for instance (title not recalled) that ends with a long long fade out which is for all the world to see influenced by Hey Jude. What gets me is not the influence, though, as the fact that you would think from what Gallagher & Gallagher say about their music that the Beatles should thank Oasis for making their music popular. As if the Beatles were unknowns until Oasis came along. N&L have what, for want of a better phrase, could be called an attitude problem. James (sticking his oar in) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 21:13:50 EST From: KarmaFuzzz@aol.com Subject: Re: oasis, ya stOOdents DChaney@facstaff.oglethorpe.edu writes: > However, I'd say that the Gallaghers are more MUSICALLY influenced by > the Stones, though they clearly love the Beatles (or at least their > trappings) else they'd leave 'em alone. My theory du jour is that Noel > found out that Jagger went to art school and went ballistic, erasing all > the semi-subtle Stones references from his songs and replacing them with > Beatle ones. (these theories, they keep me going...) actually, since Lennon went to art school that wouldn't hold, though isn't jagger's degree in Economics? personally, i've always thought they were more influenced by The BeeGees and Peter Frampton (or at least the stageshow Beatlemania) than The Beatles themselves......and by quiet riot than slade for that matter.... as for direct beatle rip-offs, "Don't Look Back in Anger," in addition to trying to lyrically dispute a far superior David Bowie song, completely rips off "Imagine" in the intro. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 19:48:23 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: oasis >as for direct beatle rip-offs, "Don't Look Back in Anger," in addition to >trying to lyrically dispute a far superior David Bowie song, completely rips >off "Imagine" in the intro. Well, both songs also probably refer to the famous play/film "Look Back in Anger".... Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 19:02:17 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: wire list I know that this list harbors some admirers of Gilbert / Lewis / Newman / Gotobed, so maybe this is of interest: thanks to some help from Woj and other friends at smoe, I am now the proud owner of a Wire mailing list, "Idealcopy." If you wanna join, send the words "subscribe idealcopy" in the body of a message to majordomo@smoe.org. For the digest version, send the words "subscribe idealcopy-digest" instead. ObRobyn: umm, has Robyn ever covered a Wire song? Bayard? I'd really like to hear him try my nom de internet... everybody loves a history, Miles ============================================================== JASON WILKINS (of Neilson Hubbard): Victor's was just starting to happen, then it burned down. BILL LLOYD: That's a pretty good metaphor for the Nashville rock scene. -- NASHVILLE SCENE, Jan. 15, 1998 Miles Goosens outdoorminer@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles ============================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 23:52:30 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: covered in wire outdoor miner wrote: > ObRobyn: umm, has Robyn ever covered a Wire song? Bayard? I'd really like > to hear him try my nom de internet... no wire songs in the robynbase. (yet). hey, did anything ever come of the idea of compiling a tape of originals RH has covered? i was watching my copy of the awesome RH show from mcCabes 25 apr 1989, last night and "Charlotte Anne" reminded me. Sure would like to hear Cope's original. What album is it on? =b ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 23:47:40 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: Re: instrumentation papa Gomez sez: > Window-dressing. It's still the same jangly > popsong-with-heavy-folk-undercurrent thing. Hitchcock writes his songs > alone on his acoustic guitar, then gets into the studio and he & producer > think, "Well, what little touches can we add to this?" It's post-conception > fiddling. > > When he does try to deviate from this chosen sound, he can't get past > pastiche ("Ye Sleeping Knights") and novelty ("Wafflehead"). Unconvincing. oh, i dunno... first of all, i don't think it's a "chosen sound" as much as his true sound-- that which resonates from his core. And I don't think being true to that is such a crime. Secondly, he's explored many more styles than you and I have mentioned, and I feel he's been more successful at many of them than simply "fiddling" or "pastiching". _Invisible Hitchcock_, which I've already brought up, is very stylistically diverse. I readily admit "Blues in A" is not your model blues piece, but c'mon eb, there are lots of styles here! 'most every song has a dramatically different sound/atmosphere. I really enjoy these efforts, as well as the limbs he goes out on on the _Groovy_ twins. And to me, "Filthy Bird" leans precariously towards opera. If _IH_ is not to your liking, what about _kershaw sessions_? or _hen out_? what about the entire soft boys catalog? surely this doesn't all sound blandly similar to you? if so I'm damn glad I'm not a music critic who knows a lot about music! ;) > > >> Eb, longing for Hitchcock to make a new album that isn't "jangly" > > > >i guess we've been through this once or twice. an observation: any > >artist's "sound" will sound "samey" when compared with *everything else*. > > I don't buy that argument. I don't mean any offense, btw... being a music critic obviously requires critical distance. And if you are jaded (or whatever) by hearing almost all music that comes out, at least you have the pleasure of finding (whatever you consider to be) the very best! Your good fortune. > > >I think RH is plenty diverse. > > Like you said, we've been through this before. Yep. and I don't really expect to convince you of anything. I just like talking about robyn. :) > Incidentally, for those of you who think I'm so negative about Hitchcock, > let me say that as much as I rave about the new Neutral Milk Hotel disc, I > think RH has made four (maybe five) albums better than that. So yay for > Robyn! Why Eb. You've gone all warm and fuzzy on us! ;) =b ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 23:01:26 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: covered in wire At 11:52 PM 2/24/98 -0500, Bayard wrote: > >outdoor miner wrote: > >> ObRobyn: umm, has Robyn ever covered a Wire song? Bayard? I'd really like >> to hear him try my nom de internet... > >no wire songs in the robynbase. (yet). Damn. "Outdoor Miner" would have sounded great, and a Soft Boys version of "40 Versions" would have been a natural... >my copy of the awesome RH show from mcCabes 25 apr 1989, last night and >"Charlotte Anne" reminded me. Sure would like to hear Cope's original. >What album is it on? Can I possibly beat Mike Runion to the answer? ;-) It's on MY NATION UNDERGROUND, from 1988. While we're on the subject, the years 1987 and 1988 saw a helluva lot of albums released with "nation" in the title -- off the top of my head, MY NATION UNDERGROUND (Cope), RHYTHM NATION (Janet Jackson), LOLITA NATION (Game Theory), and DAYDREAM NATION (Sonic Youth). Any theories as to why? Quail? later, Miles ============================================================== JASON WILKINS (of Neilson Hubbard): Victor's was just starting to happen, then it burned down. BILL LLOYD: That's a pretty good metaphor for the Nashville rock scene. -- NASHVILLE SCENE, Jan. 15, 1998 Miles Goosens outdoorminer@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles ============================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 23:33:34 -0600 From: "Maxey L. Mullins" Subject: Re: Pop Stars. . . some RH content Eb wrote: > > >[Robyn] has also varied the instrumentation enough on his different albums > >that he could probably get away with using the same chord progression for a > >song on "You & Oblivion" as on "Globe of Frogs" and not too many of us would > >be the wiser. > > Robyn, varying his instrumentation? Huh? Just adding a sax to Groovy and a > violin to ME isn't enough for me.... > > Eb > > np Posies: Success eb, you can't possibly listen to albums like black snake diamond role and then listen to i often dream of trains and then tell me that he doesn't change up his instrumentation. each album has a different sound because of these changes. joel ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 22:13:42 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: covered in wire >While we're on the subject, the years 1987 and 1988 saw a helluva lot of >albums released with "nation" in the title -- off the top of my head, MY >NATION UNDERGROUND (Cope), RHYTHM NATION (Janet Jackson), LOLITA NATION >(Game Theory), and DAYDREAM NATION (Sonic Youth). Any theories as to why? Nope. And I also don't know why Sonic Youth released Bad Moon Rising and Husker Du released New Day Rising in the same year, nor do I know why Sugar released Copper Blue, the Jazz Butcher released Condition Blue and Michael Brook released Cobalt Blue in the same year. ;) Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 22:40:44 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: instrumentation >If _IH_ is not to your liking, what about _kershaw sessions_? or _hen >out_? what about the entire soft boys catalog? surely this doesn't all >sound blandly similar to you? I haven't heard the Kershaw sessions, so I can't comment. And who says I don't like Invisible Hitchcock? It's just that *musical* diversity/innovation is not much of a factor in my affection for Hitchcock. As for stuff sounding similar, I'm talking about the conceptual songwriting level, everyone else is talking about surface arrangements and production touches. The songs don't have breaks in rhythm -- they flow. Very little jagged rhythms or dissonance past Can of Bees/Invisible Hits, easygoing 4/4 almost all the time. No power chords -- just picked arpeggios and the like. The electric songs just sound like acoustic songs plugged-in. Chord progressions all descended from the British Invasion and folk. All pop, no rock 'n' roll. No country either, even though you'd think that wouldn't be much of a stretch. You could find isolated examples to the contrary of the above, but they just don't make much of a dent when matched with his entire oeuvre. Look, RH would rank among my 30 favorite artists ever. He's great and neato and nifty. But the reason he doesn't rank higher than 30ish is the sameyness of his catalog. Is there ANY chartable development in his songwriting since the early days? Beyond a bit more willingness to write something sweet and intimate, I really don't think so. The lack of diversity gets tedious for me, and so does the emotional flatness. Robyn is incapable of communicating a smile in his vocals (or true aggression/anger, for that matter). That gets to be a drag for me. I don't look forward much to his albums anymore, because I know exactly what I'm going to get. Sure, they'll be good, but it's going to be the same thing. I know he'll never do something new which I like as well as my favorite RH albums -- his growth curve is over. This isn't true of, say, Elvis Costello. Costello can still surprise me. Eb ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #71 ******************************