From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #186 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, May 12 1998 Volume 07 : Number 186 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Glen Baxter & 60s bands [Ethyl Ketone ] a couple o things... [Mark Gloster ] Robert Rankin ["BENJAMIN.BRETTENNY" ] The Cambridge Connection( pt 1) [dlang ] Fwd: Re: i remember eno ["Gene Hopstetter, Jr." ] Re: Robert Rankin [Rob Collingwood ] Yet another non RH subject [griffith ] Re: Yet another non RH subject [nicastr@idt.net (Ben)] Re: Yet another non RH subject [Terrence M Marks ] Music for Airports live at an airport... [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.] >Six steps of separation from eno! [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Ja] Re: Yet another non RH subject [nicastr@idt.net (Ben)] Re: Puddletown Tom was the underground [M R Godwin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 21:00:30 -0700 From: Ethyl Ketone Subject: Re: Glen Baxter & 60s bands At 19.45 -0700 5/10/98, James Dignan wrote: >:) I'm just a fraction too young for 60s concert reminiscences (I was seven >when the Beatles split up), but I am going on a big Donovan binge at the >moment, after buying three Donovan CDs for next to nothing (Barabajagal, >Hurdy Gurdy Man, and Sunshine Superman). Very datedly '60s, but great music >for all that! I admit, it helped to have the big brother thing going. I was the only 11 year old on my block in love with Jim Morrison (no accounting for taste). I still have some of those Donovan LPs. Fairy Tale and Sunshine Superman still stand out. Maybe I need to dust 'em off and give 'em a spin? > >PPS - do you have a cousin called Al Kane? Ah, not that I know of, but I didn't know my fathers family so who knows? Is this person in New Zealand? At least I could show up on their doorstep and claim to be a relative and get a week or so of a place to stay, right? ;-) - - carrie "Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself." **************************************************************************** M.E.Ketone/C.Galbraith meketone@ix.netcom.com cgalbraith@psygnosis.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 22:31:20 -0700 From: Mark Gloster Subject: a couple o things... 1. Thanks all for your recollections of Mayfegweek SF 1998. Jeme's did not cause me to fall asleep at all. I did want to mention that Robyn played what looked like a Martin dreadnaught guitar all night, and not his English Fylde guitfiddle. 2. Dan Bern Santa Cruz May 16th. I think as many people who can make it should meet first at El Palomar restaurant at 5-5:30 for some of the best cheese enchiladas, chips, and salsa before the show. I hope y'alls brains are working astonishingly well. The cats say "hi." - -shark holster (thanx nick) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 13:48:42 +0100 (BST) From: "BENJAMIN.BRETTENNY" Subject: Robert Rankin Has anyone read any Robert Rankin? If so has anyone noticed that in the very brilliant 'Suburban book of the dead' Robyn gets a mention by name in relation to 'Grooving on an inner plane' being one of his songs and not a strange sexual act. Beefheart and Zappa also get regulaur mentions in his books. Obviously a man of good taste. BEN ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 22:25:19 +2910 From: dlang Subject: The Cambridge Connection( pt 1) Fellow Fegs, I have been quiet of late, as affairs more pressing than the mostly mundane matters on this list have taken me to fabled Cambridge , to investigate connections between the aforesaid city, the members of this list ( and one participant in particular) , Robyn Hitchcock , primeval fauna such as the Quail sloth , the Giant Squid,The Beatles , the youth culture of the 1960's, Calvin and Hobbes,the Fegmononicon,The X files, Thothheads, Wisconsin,Cheese,surrealistic posse ramblings, Quailspew ,HP Lovecraft and Phillip K Dick , Rudi Vallie subliminal messages ,the Welsh ( and their infiltration of the entire Pacific Rim ) ,as well as 99% of the content that passes for harmless messages that end up on this list !. I believe we all owe a debt of gratitude to the estimable Professor Fane who has somehow commandeered the Great Quails e mail setup in order to alert us all to the perfidious, nay,diabolical !!! plots to subvert the very course of history. It is only through his timely intervention that we were given the slimmest of chances to avert this most deadly of fates,- to be held unknowingly and perversely in insipid thrall by the featureless and endlessly flailing pan galactic entities known to us only generically by the name "The Great Old ones" and their most likely humanoid representative on terra, "The Great Quail". Some have speculated that the "Old ones " representative is not The Quail, but Robyn Hitchcock himself. However , I believe I can convincingly debunk this piece of mythology, as I have concrete proof that the Quail , (or *P'Thoth * as his Quail coven members no doubt call him ,as they caper wildly in entropic ecstasy to chaotic and primitive jungle rythems which they beat out frenetically on hollow Wombat skull marimbas in the Quails honour whilst they couple spastically in ritual worship on the mirrored floor of his so called ,"laboratory". Thoth knows what debased and eldrich acts they perform for his perverted pleasure) --is in fact an alien entity that has put on human guise... Yes the Quail, that most innocuous of birds, but this is no ordinary Quail, he terms himself Great , but to his followers he has had a myriad of names down the centuries, he was known as the Grand Pnathathnallu to the Abbysinians, G'Nuthunc to the Babylonians. "Da Great Cone" to the Rastafarians and Nana Mouskouri to the modern Greeks and he is legion..... But I digress. Events over the past few months have led me to the unmasking of this fiend plot , but can I convince my fellow fegs ( Fegs,ah , how I shudder at the word, not for what is is, but for what it might become!) that action must be taken *now* not later, if we are avert alien mid control on a scale hitherto unknown in the annals of tabloid journalism. The following is but a portion of the journals of an unknown college member which I discovered within the library of Sedgewick college , is it true, or is it simply the ravings of a deranged mind ravaged by psychedelic concoctions ?, I leave it up to my fellow Fegs to judge...... Part the first..... The ancient University Town of Cambridge , nestled by the tranquil banks of the river Cam, is renowned as a repository of knowledge rather than as a breeding ground for fiendish , unprincipled and Machiavellian plots . In the fall of 1966 when the ancient cloisters of the well respected Sedgewick college echoed for the first time to the footsteps of a tall stooping and scholarly American student , newly arrived from the eastern states, there seemed no conceivable threat to the future of the college . The elderly porter, Scrub, nodded approvingly as the new occupant of the upper rooms moved in his belongings.Leather valises , expensive and subtle in their design, disgorged sober and restrained clothing , from exclusive and established tailors of international repute. Volumes of Proust, James, Shakespeare, Moliere and their ilk filled the voluminous bookshelves of the room, the most controversial inclusion being volume of the complete works of James Joyce’s. ” yes indeed “ Scrubb mused to himself, “a well set up and studious young gentlemen, with none of that long hair , velvet jackets and those disgusting surreal posters that they all seem to have nowadays” “And well mannered too”, he remarked to Toddy, the venerable housemaster who would be in charge of the new students welfare whilst he resided in Cambridge. ” I think he’ll be an asset to the college sir” “ Well he should be “ snorted Toddy , “he comes from good stock. The Quail’s of Arkham are an old established family. No new money there, they can trace their descendants back to the first settlers to sail to America and back again to the Domesday book and beyond”. ` Toddy spoke truly .In the weeks to come Septimus Agamemnon Quail ,scion of the old Arkham family , established himself as an abstemious and industrious member of the Sedgewick community.He had few friends , as he threw himself into his thesis, which was rumoured to be an investigation into the worldwide origins of Primitive cults and demon worshipping tribes, with particular emphasis on avian and extraterrestial links .He was to be seen labouring late into the night in the Demonology section of Sedgewick’s extensive and arcane library and when this august repository closed its doors at midnight, he would reluctantly stagger homeward under the weight of a dozen tomes which he would pour over into the small hours under the yellow light of his ornate Japanned anglepoise lamp, his stooped , bent ,silhouette often seen by Scrubb as he paused to pick up the boots to be cleaned as dawn rose over the gabled spires of the city. It was in the second term of the semester that some began to see a change in Quail, always pallid and bookish, he began to take on an almost unearthly hue and his few acquaintances were discarded in his headlong rush into acquiring knowledge of his select field. his eyes became bloodshot and heavily set, huge dark rings accentuating their feverish aspect.His researches took him into older and older texts,some unseen and neglected for centuries, their crumbling and yellowed pages containing god knows what devilish secrets.He began to eat nothing but fish, mostly tench and bream , with the occasional bass as a side dish, which he ascribed as a pre-requisite if he was to undertake his studies, as he needed the essential oils. When approached by the library staff he appeared secretive, often covering his books with papers or his body , although most of the tomes appeared to be in strange and obscure languages and alphabets ,indecipherable even by the scholars of the venerable hall.He would walk through the corridors with unseeing eyes, muttering in guttural and primeval tongues and his clothing and personal hygiene deteriorated beyond all imagination.Eventually Toddy felt obliged to investigate the matter himself and summoning the Quail to his office, demanded an explanation of what was afoot and voiced his and others concerns as to his students strange behaviour. None knew what passed between Toddy and the freshman but when the interview concluded and Quail had returned to his studies Toddy left a message that he was not to be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon. He seemed uncharacteristically distracted and his secretary Ms Anchovy declared in her statement to the police that she could have sworn she had heard strange buzzing noises in the background when Toddy spoke to her on the phone. It was only when the cleaning lady, Mrs Tench arrived the next day that the body was found. ”All orrible e wos”, she declaimed to her cronies over a pint of stout in the snug of the “ Dog and Bottle” after the inquest concluded, “ is air ad turned white and is eyes were all bulgin and the expression on is face, well,it made my stomach turn it did, I can’t sleep at nights for thinkin’ of it”. Needless to say the Quail was exonerated of any wrongdoing. No , Tody had seemed perfectly alright when he left him, he had merely expressed some minor concerns as to strain that his studies may have placed him under of late. He had agreed with Toddy to cut back on on his workload soon, as he was on the verge of a great discovery which was of much importance to the future of the college and they had left it at that. The presence of the small ceramic Quail effigy on Toddy’s deck was easily explained, it was a fetish from the Hichcoookian Islands, a fairly common artifact that Toddy had admired when viewing Quails collection of esoterica and which he had brought to the office as a gift to his tutor for his kindness to him since his arrival at the college. So things went on very much as before, the new tutor,Squib, was in his dotage and spent most of his time drinking the college port of an evening and was far too busy to be concerned with the strange lights and odd music that emanated from the Quails rooms in the small hours.There had been some alterations to the rooms themselves, heavy drapes were installed and mysterious heavy wooden crates bearing exotic labels that betrayed their port of origin were delivered to the Quails apartment , mostly late at night by stevedores of uncertain race , but whose swarthy and strangely depraved features led those who encountered them to turn aside in unknown dread. Often when the stevedores departed it was observed that there seemed to be fewer of them then when they arrived , but where they went to no one knew , as there was no evidence of their presence when the cleaning lady made her rounds .The only evidence that she could see of the nocturnal visits being a large statuette of a warped and repugnant bird which dominated the cramped rooms. “ I don’t like it , “ mused Mrs Cravat over her lime juice cordial at the temperance rooms of the “ Cambridgeshire Womens Open Vein Surgery Guild” monthly meeting “ it s not natural, I feel like its watching me, which is nonsense of course , but I ‘m glad to be out of the place and thats a fact .I asked Mr Quail where it came from and what it was and he laughed in that strange snorting way he has and said it was his namesake and it came from far , far away, much, much further than I could imagine and then he started to laugh and he couldn’t stop, all high pitched it was , somewhat like a bird . Well, I thought he was going to have a fit, but he waved me away and I left as quick as I could I can tell you, that place gives me the creeps “. It seemed that the cleaning lady was not the only one to feel that way,no doubt disturbed by the strange noises and nocturnal upheaval, the Quails neighbours moved out one by one and no other students from the house could be found to replace them. Quail requested that he take over their quarters ,as it was needed for his research and he proceeded to commandeer the whole top floor of the house, moving in his friends which he had met in the town itself, three long haired fellows in paisley shirts , carrying guitars and drums . This was unusual, but Squib squared things with the bursar ( it was rumoured that the Quail’s pater had made a handsome bequest to the college and his son was to be given as much leeway as possible in his studies ) and soon he was able to have almost complete privacy to continue his researches........ To be continued. coming up soon to this space, the Quailfire Club and the great Squid, tropical flesh mandala’s and more Cambridge capers...... Dave ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 10:21:00 -0400 From: "Gene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Fwd: Re: i remember eno Eb, referring to a list of things Eno has done, said: >>1989 Neville Brothers,Yellow Moon Keyboards, Sound Effects, Vocals > >Huh. Didn't know he had anything to do with those records. Well, Eno and Daniel Lanois work together quite a bit, and I'm sure the Nevilles have recorded in Lanois' mansion/studio in the French Quarter in New Orleans, so I imagine it's not too much of a stretch. I once hung out in Lanois' mansion/studio for a while. Absolutely gorgeous house, a beautiful all-digital (48-track?) studio in a living room, softly lit, and oozing with history. Just my luck the only people in the house were the Innocence Mission. Drat. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 19:35:45 +0000 From: Rob Collingwood Subject: Re: Robert Rankin > Has anyone read any Robert Rankin? If so has anyone noticed that in > the very brilliant 'Suburban book of the dead' Robyn gets a mention > by name in relation to 'Grooving on an inner plane' being one of his > songs and not a strange sexual act. > > Beefheart and Zappa also get regulaur mentions in his books. > Obviously a man of good taste. > > BEN I've read most of them, but I missed the Robyn reference. One of his latest books goes by the remarkably familiar sounding name of 'Sprout Mask Replica'. For the many who aren't aware of him, he is a very surreal writer, with sprouts (often talking ones) being a regular theme in his stories. And he went to Ealing Art college with Freddie Mercury. - -- Rob Collingwood Rob@nimbus.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:50:08 -0700 (PDT) From: griffith Subject: Yet another non RH subject Sorry to bother the list with this, but some wrote that Roger Waters is getting back together with Pink Floyd. Is this true? Also, can someone describe the advantages of getting the Pink Floyd "Crazy Diamond" box set? Thanks griffith np - Miles Davis "Highlights from The Plugged Nickel" = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Griffith Davies hbrtv219@csun.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 21:13:54 -0500 From: nicastr@idt.net (Ben) Subject: Re: Yet another non RH subject >Sorry to bother the list with this, but some wrote that Roger Waters is >getting back together with Pink Floyd. Is this true? > I haven't heard anything like this, but I seriously doubt it. From what I've read, Waters absolutly hates the other guys, esp. Gilmour. And besides, what would be the reason for reuniting *two* washed up rockers? Wouldn't you just double the mediocrity? >Also, can someone describe the advantages of getting the Pink Floyd >"Crazy Diamond" box set? I don't have it, but I believe the only things contained in it that might be of interest are a lavish book and a CD of early singles (some w/ Syd some without), but you can get those singles on other official releases and bootlegs without having spend your life savings. >np - Miles Davis "Highlights from The Plugged Nickel" Now there's a multi-disc box worth checking out! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 22:06:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Terrence M Marks Subject: Re: Yet another non RH subject > >Also, can someone describe the advantages of getting the Pink Floyd > >"Crazy Diamond" box set? > > I don't have it, but I believe the only things contained in it that might > be of interest are a lavish book and a CD of early singles (some w/ Syd > some without), but you can get those singles on other official releases and > bootlegs without having spend your life savings. No. That's "Shine On" that hsa PF discs plus early signles. "Crazy Diamond" has Syd's three albums with some bonus tracks. If you have one or no Syd albums, get the box set. np-Sopwith Camel "The miraculous Hump Returns From The moon" Terrence Marks normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 15:16:34 +1200 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Music for Airports live at an airport... The following from a recent Eno mailing digest (Nerve Net 349). With apologies to David Slater, who I've been unable to contact to clear this thing. And, I suppose, to Phil Johnson as well. James - --- >From: slater@lgu.ac.uk (David Slater) > >An article from the Independent on Sunday (26.4.98) covering the BOAC >performance of Music for Airports. For those of who don't know, the "old >upwardly-mobile associations" of BOAC allude to the British Overseas >Airways Corporation which was subsumed by British Airways a long time ago. > >Dave > >=========================================================================== > >Now that's what I call music for airports > >Ambient >Phil Johnson (Independent on Sunday, 26.4.98) > >The idea of music that you don't actually have to listen to is a >remarkably attractive one. But until Brian Eno's album Music for Airports >was released 20 years ago, it was an idea largely restricted to the >banalities of muzak. Eno's "ambient" music, originally released on the >aptly named Discreet label, created a wonderfully reassuring nursery-world >- a womb with a view, even - in which, inspired by the "furniture music" >of Erik Satie, the banality of muzak was transformed into luxe, calme >et voluptee, and the confines of the lift became the comfort of >Matisse's easy chair. > >What the music was about - inasmuch as music is ever about anything - >seemed to be the shifting patterns of light in space, and the shifting >focus of the subject who was perceiving them. This was the perfect >low-attention-span music: the sound of a piano heavily laden with >melancholy reverb echoing in an empty room, with synthesisers providing >delicate colour-wash effects over the top. > >Twenty years on, and Music for Airports just been recorded again, by the >New York new-music group Bang on a Can. The sounds originally produced - >at least partially - by synthesisers are duplicated by what the group >describes as "living people in real time". As no score existed, the music >was painstakingly transcribed from the record and then rearranged for the >six members of the group, plus additional musicians. > >On Friday afternoon, the egghead music press and guests were bussed out to >the cool, calm and collected architectural space of Sir Norman Foster's >Stansted Airport terminal to hear BOAC (the group are apparently unaware >of their acronym's old upwardly-mobile associations) perform live in the >departure lounge. "Cor, this is an ambient airport isn't it?" said Robert >Wyatt, who arrived with Brian Eno, and who was credited as a co-writer of >one of the Music for Airports four tracks. Eno also had time for a quick >word with me: "Do you mind moving?" he said. "I'm afraid these seats are >reserved." > >BOAC then performed the music from the album. Eno, via a record-company >spokesman, had encouraged us to walk about the airport, which was exactly >the kind of place the piece was composed for in the first place. Most >opted, however, to sit and watch the incredibly delicate movements of the >group as they performed on piano, keyboard, cello, double bass, guitar and >percussion. The quiet burble was occasionally overlaid by the ringing of >mobile phones and the rumble of passing flight announcements, along with >the ambient squeak of the odd luggage trolley. > >On the airport concourse, further away from the source of the music on the >airport concourse - deep, you could say, in the very belly of the ambient >beast - what remained of the sound was a lovely kind of aural >phosphorescence, a glass harmonica hum that added immeasurably to the >beauty of the building and the calm and order necessary to the airport >routine of waiting around. All your senses seemed keener. You watched with >wrapped [sic] attention as a blue-clad bevy of stewardesses glided across >the floor in strangely synchronised movements, and listened intently as a >Becky Furness-Cook was asked to please contact the airport information >desk. > >Even the hubbub of everyday conversation seemed to be transformed because >of the music's faint presence at the edge of consciousness; it was almost >like being in church. Only a school party of children en route to Belfast >seemed immune to the music's spell. But then, they seemed entirely >oblivious to the mood of the airport itself. > >The last of the four pieces was so moving, it almost ceased to be ambient >at all. The clarinet and mandolin textures summoned up a kind of Celtic >twilight, pushed ever eastwards by the Indian-sounding glissandi of the >cello and double bass. A photocall followed, with the musicians and Brian >Eno standing under the silent tick of the digital clock. Then came the >genuine surprise of an encore, "Everything Merges into Night" from Eno's >album Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy [sic]. [FTTDK, it's actually from >"Another green World" - JD] > >But the final verdict must come from the men who were filling the cash >machines by the smoking area. "There's some music over there and it's >actually very pleasant," said one. "I think they're using a synthesiser," >said his colleague. "No," said the first man with an air of authority. >"It's a xylophone, actually." > >=========================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 15:27:19 +1200 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: >Six steps of separation from eno! >Six steps of separation from eno! sigh. Robyn->Egyptians->Costello->Eno Robyn->Stipe->Zevon->Dylan->Lanois->Eno Robyn->Dolby(or am I dreaming this one?)->Partridge->Budd->Eno whichawayawannago? James ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 23:49:18 -0500 From: nicastr@idt.net (Ben) Subject: Re: Yet another non RH subject >> >Also, can someone describe the advantages of getting the Pink Floyd >> >"Crazy Diamond" box set? >> >> I don't have it, but I believe the only things contained in it that might >> be of interest are a lavish book and a CD of early singles (some w/ Syd >> some without), but you can get those singles on other official releases and >> bootlegs without having spend your life savings. > >No. That's "Shine On" that hsa PF discs plus early signles. >"Crazy Diamond" has Syd's three albums with some bonus tracks. >If you have one or no Syd albums, get the box set. > Right... so are we talking about Syd's box or Pink Floyd's? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 17:07:34 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: Re: Puddletown Tom was the underground On Mon, 11 May 1998, griffith wrote: > Also, can someone describe the advantages of getting the Pink Floyd > "Crazy Diamond" box set? There is a nice vertical booklet included which contains interesting biographical and recording details. The 3 CDs 'Madcap', 'Barrett' and 'Opal' are no different from the CDs available separately. However, they do contain outtakes which were not included in the original vinyl issues of those records. May I remind Syd fans that much of his best work was done with the Pink Floyd, and that 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' is more essential than 'Opal'. The current mini-CD containing the first 3 Floyd singles is also a good buy which includes 5 great Syd songs: 'Arnold Layne', 'Candy and a Currant Bun', 'See Emily Play', 'Scarecrow' and 'Apples and Oranges'. 'Scarecrow' is the only one of these which is on 'Piper'. - - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #186 *******************************