From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #234 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, June 23 1998 Volume 07 : Number 234 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Hitchcock and Demme [amadain ] Re: *That*... [KarmaFuzzz@aol.com] Re: *that* spam [dlang ] Re: Hitchcock and Demme [tanter ] Pink lasers [Natalie Jacobs ] spam guy [tanter ] is the internet killing the music business? [tanter ] seeking trade [Peter Bernard ] Re: nmh at Black Cat, correction [dmw ] Re: Thoths, the thoths are calling me [MARKEEFE@aol.com] Re: Truman Show [MARKEEFE@aol.com] disgust-o-fic and Poppy Z. Brite (sub-zero RH content) [Christopher Gross] The Vast Conspiracy, Pt. XXIV ["JH3" ] Neat Neat Neat [Eb ] The Quail in the News ["Gee...You?" ] Re: *That*... [amadain ] Re: Hitchcock and Demme [amadain ] Fwd: Neat Neat Neat ["Gene Hopstetter, Jr." ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 03:24:53 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: Hitchcock and Demme > Lastly, it would be really nice to see a little more real content in >the Fegmaniax digest. Some of the non-Hitchcock content is cool--Syd >Barrett discographies, etc., but some of the recent topics have been >lacking--100 top American movies of all time, celebrity deaths, NMH, Eb >and his musical knowledge (Gosh!, we're all impressed down here!), >etc.--you know, real chat room type material, but totally void of >anything I want to use my time for. Maybe I'm missing the point, but >this is a Hitchcock page, right? Thanks, Marc You're new here, aren't you? :) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 04:25:46 EDT From: KarmaFuzzz@aol.com Subject: Re: *That*... sdodge@midway.uchicago.edu writes: > You're right. I just looked at the full headers on that puppy and it did > NOT come through the list per se, even tho the TO: line says > "fegmaniax@smoe.org". It looks as if it came direct to midway.uchicago > from arbornet. I think he probably did the cut and paste thing, rather than > the individual address harvesting. I think if he had done that some of the > digest people would have gotten it as well. Are there any lucky regular > (non-digest) people who didn't see this? was this the geek who couldn't spell Figaro or Siouxsie? if not, then i didn't receive it. i sense that i shouldn't be upset about this..... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 22:05:00 -1850 From: dlang Subject: Re: *that* spam Chris opined: However I *don't* recall her ever favourably depicting rape, torture, mutilation and murder, like "Beavis" did. There is a difference. Sorry chris, the book I read was bout a pair of jeffrey Dahmer types , both gay, who grossly mutilated and tortured another guy whilst possibly having sex with him ( i may be wrong on that point ,I stopped reading the book as it was so gross ,I forgot the title promptly , but not the nasty bits). I'm not weak stomached, but over the top, full on depiction's of the worst sexual mutilation and torture is just not my cup of tea and as far as I'm concerned Poppy is a sicko, I'll return to Storm Constantine as she is a much more imaginative writer than Poppy any day. dave ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:44:14 -0400 From: tanter Subject: Re: Hitchcock and Demme At 12:39 AM 6/23/1998 -0700, Marc Holden wrote: >anything I want to use my time for. Maybe I'm missing the point, but >this is a Hitchcock page, right? well, if Mr. Hitchcock decided that there was more to the world that the west coast of the U.S., some of us might be more inclined to discuss him! Marcy (in Massachusetts, no where near Seattle) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 09:04:29 -0400 From: Natalie Jacobs Subject: Pink lasers >or Valis by P. K. Dick which has so many laughable moments (in that not funny >but true laughable way) about what you spoke of.....you would enjoy the >character Kevin... Ah, yes, Kevin - perpetually demanding that God tell him why his cat died. (He eventually gets his answer, but it's not what he's expecting.) Sorry, but I could go on and on about how brilliant "Valis" is - one of the funniest, saddest books I've ever read. Go buy it, you won't be sorry. (Vague Robyn-relevance: "Valis" contains a character named Brent Mini who was partly based on Brian Eno.) the Empire never ended, n. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:34:50 -0400 From: tanter Subject: spam guy folks--it may be that we're closer to catching this guy. I'm working on something and will let you know if it pans out. seems we're not his only target. Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:37:53 -0400 From: tanter Subject: is the internet killing the music business? Is the Internet killing the music industry? Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 Scripps Howard LONDON (June 23, 1998 07:39 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Laptop computers are now more culturally significant than any rock band and Britain's record companies are dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. The man making this extravagant claim is not some ignorant crank who doesn't know his A&Rs (that's Artist and Repertoire) from his elbow. It's Alan McGee, who signed Oasis and is now the music industry representative on the British government's Creative Industries Task Force. McGee's claim that collapsing music sales and the potential for downloading music from the Internet will lead to the demise of the $5 billion record industry has ignited a fierce debate. Rob Dickins, head of Warner Music, one of the five "major" record companies, and chairman of the British Phonographic Institute, dismisses McGee's views as irrelevant and uninformed. Other big players publicly damn McGee's analysis but privately admit he has hit a nerve. "People in the record industry know what's going on but they are too scared to talk about it," McGee said in an interview at the London office of his label, Creation. "Great music, like Elvis or the Stones, is created when there is a generation gap and there is no generation gap anymore. You can be 37 and go with your 64-year-old dad and your 14-year-old cousin to see the same band. Rock music no longer stands for anything. People are losing interest in it."' McGee, 37, reels off statistics to illustrate his case. Most telling is that a No. 1 album need sell only 30,000 copies to achieve this once-proud status. Slumping sales have hit McGee, too. He laid off five of 35 employees last month. Dickins retorts that worldwide music sales are buoyant and that Britain is only in a lull: "cutting-edge" bands like those on Creation may be in trouble, but the mainstream consumer has not lost interest. He concedes, however, that few new bands are breaking through. McGee believes rock has lost its attitude. "With no ideological point of view, ultimately music has no soul. There is now more of an ideology going on when kids buy their Nike trainers than when they buy the latest indie or dance release. The Spice Girls had a viewpoint -- but only for five-year-old girls." Whether the industry can weather periodic sales slumps or not, McGee predicts that technology, particularly the Internet, will render record companies obsolete. "There will be no record companies in five or 10 years' time. It will be sexier for bands to sell their records by downloading them to the Internet -- cut out the record company and deliver straight to the fans." The figures make sense: "If you are an indie band and you sell 5,000 records through a record label, that will make you nothing in England. But if you sell them through the Internet at 10 pounds ($16) a time, it will cost you a pound ($1.60) to cut the CD, and you've made 45,000 pounds ($72,000) in one fell swoop."' And there's a far greater threat than direct distribution through the Internet. Twin/Tone Records, a Minneapolis-based record label whose artists include the Jayhawks and Soul Asylum, has decided to stop releasing CDs in order to concentrate on selling sound files over the Internet. Some companies already allow fans to download music into their computers and "burn" them on to their own CDs at home. Specialist shops are springing up to provide a downloading service. And in a few years' time we may all have access via the Net on a pay-per-play basis to any music ever recorded. We won't buy copies, says McGee, we'll just rent a track whenever we want to hear it. The major record companies are sleepwalking into oblivion, he claims, run by forty- and fiftysomethings who don't realize the young have dropped out of rock and tuned into technology. "There is no rebellion in rock, but if you are 15 years old and you buy a laptop, your mum doesn't even know how to turn it on, man. That's rock 'n' roll." Another maverick, Malcolm McLaren, midwife at the birth of punk, says McGee is right but "the industry won't admit it. We no longer need record companies pressing CDs. Musicians can go direct to the fans. Record companies will exist only for back catalogue sales. New music will bypass them." New technology, says McLaren, could save music, conveying the independent spirit of punk via modems and phone lines, freeing bands from the grip of record companies. Ed Bicknell, manager of Dire Straits, calls this argument, "nonsensical, simplistic and alarmist. The very young may access music by the Internet, but most of us will go to record shops. It's inconceivable that Sony Music ... would see the Internet coming along and decide to go and sell bananas instead." He concedes that forms of distribution will change and that copyright law is the crux of the debate. While most copyright is held by record companies, they will continue to control the means of distribution. Downloading music will be a marginal business, though possibly a "hip" one. "In my youth I would have bought any Beatles album but I would have taped Herman's Hermits off a friend. Today I'd download it." McGee even predicts that once Oasis have completed the three more albums in their contract with Creation, they may go direct to fans and retain ownership of their own songs. He's investing heavily in his own company's Internet capability. Jeremy Silver, vice-president of Interactive Media at EMI Virgin, says that far from ignoring the new technology, most major companies are already exploiting it. And consumers do not merely buy music, he points out -- they also buy an associated attitude and image, the packaging that comes with it. Here the Internet cannot compete. Paul McGuinness, manager of U2, concedes that the industry is unprepared for the new era but says McGee fails to recognize the part record companies play in promoting artists. A band may be able to record an album cheaply and place it online, but if nobody knows they are the new Beck or Primal Scream, no one will want it. But McGee is convinced the revolution is unstoppable. And he is optimistic it will put the attitude back in rock 'n' roll. "I'm not a pessimist. This time we're going to get rid of the whole bloated record industry, and bands will be able to concentrate on making great music again." By MARTIN WROE, London Observer Service, Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 11:15:01 -0400 From: "Chaney, Dolph L" Subject: Internet killed the record exec... It's funny you should mention it because I've just been reading this great big book on how to put your budgie down, and it says to shoot them. Just there. Oh, wait. sorry, wrong mailing list. I've just been reading Jana Stanfield's _The Musician's Guide To Outrageous Success Making And Selling Your Own CDs and Cassettes_. Her viewpoint has been very helpful and motivational for me in my own CD-releasing process, and basically, it points out that it just doesn't make a lot of sense for most musicians to feel that they must wait for "the big deal" to release a record. Record companies, especially bigger ones, are concerned with moving product, not with creating product that moves people. This is their role, to deliver mass product for mass consumption. Their machinery is all geared that way. Those of us that make music and don't want to be the Spice Girls (or even necessarily to do it fulltime!) have no need for record companies. Sitting around getting rejection letters can be terrible on one's character -- there are only a few "big contracts" available per year, and these go to artists that are easily marketable, easily manipulated, have obvious mass appeal, and/or are willing to obtain said obvious appeal through various combinations of surgeries, stunts, and sagaciousness. Bottom line: why play the lottery when you can open a lemonade stand? When you open a lemonade stand, you have total control and say in what your customers receive, you get to meet them personally, and you receive all of their appreciation (verbal, emotional, and financial) without having to share it with people that might not deserve it. The customer gets a handmade, personally delivered product, delivered more-or-less on demand, attentively crafted. Perhaps, you might find out a customer likes your lemonade but has a stomach problem, and you might be able to custom-make them a glass that's a little weaker. You might be able to throw in the occasional freebie (say, cookies!) from your profits. Your costs stay low, and so do your customer's costs. And you get to meet nice people that appreciate what you do. This is how I'm trying to work this process, anyway. Time/Warner has no need of my music, and my music has no need of Time/Warner. Let's keep it that way. Dolph (yay! a topic change, and to my favorite topic of the moment!!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:53:18 -0700 From: Marc Holden Subject: Hitchcock in Musician magazine >From - Tue Jun 23 08:45:21 1998 Received: from mailexcite.com (excite-www.whowhere.com [209.1.236.11]) by belize.it.earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA25650 for ; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:43:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Unknown/Local ([?.?.?.?]) by mailexcite.com; Tue Jun 23 08:42:42 1998 To: "robert doerschuk" Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:42:42 -0700 From: "marc w. holden" Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sent-Mail: off X-Expiredinmiddle: true X-Mailer: MailCity Service Subject: Re: Hitchcock & Renewals X-Sender-Ip: 38.29.61.1 Organization: MailExcite (http://www.mailexcite.com:80) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-UIDL: 7db1ff4eb32033dbf546803fd3526edc X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 890 Dear Bob, Thank you for your prompt response. I will Forward this information to the Hitchcock on-line digest so that other Hitchcock fans will be aware of the article. I am really looking forward to this and other upcoming issues. Musician is the only magazine that I read cover to cover. Marc > >Dear Marc: > >The Robyn Hitchcock story came in and, frankly, it wasn't good enough for >me. I sent it back to the writer, who improved it to the point that we ran >it in our September issue, which will be out shortly. > >I have forwarded you comments about renewal notices to both my publisher >and the head of our circulation department. Sorry about the overkill; I do >appreciate that you've become a subscriber. Thanks for your interest. > >Bob Doerschuk >Editor > > > Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere! http://www.mailexcite.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 12:47:01 -0700 From: Peter Bernard Subject: seeking trade Greetings fellow fegs. I lurk more than anything, my last post 2-3 years ago re: Robyn's South Beach(Miami) run-in with a TV newscaster. A swell pal of mine gave me the Gotta Let This Hen Out video, but I already have it, so I seek a trade. I want some analog cassette copies of recent Robyn shows(having none, I am not particularly choosy) Am also hoping to get a copy of Live Death. If you want the video, e-mail me with what you have, and we'll chat. Thanks. Peter Bernard plate@bellsouth.net ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:07:42 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: nmh at Black Cat, correction On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Bayard wrote: > > like the nmh show is now Wed., July 22nd, not July 18th > > so who else is going to this besides mary, clean gene, the big raw goon > and myself? maybe we should have a gathering beforehand (though mary will me me me! (that is, if i'm still alive...) i'd also recommend to y'all the loud family at the metro cafe on tuesday the 21st. should be a good show, and there's a ghost of a chance that i might open it... i'm back from washington dc aids ride 3, for any interested -- it was an incredible experience and i'm eager to do it again. one of the first things i did upon arriving home was to break a toe, which i reall y really wish i hadn't done. - -- d. n.p. the new drugstore record - - oh,no!! you've just read mail from doug = dmayowel@access.digex.net - - and dmw@mwmw.com ... get yr pathos at http://www.pathetic-caverns.com/ - - new reviews! tunes, books, flicks, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:08:35 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: Thoths, the thoths are calling me In a message dated 98-06-22 14:18:44 EDT, you write: << PS. Was Charlton Heston actually saying "You blew it up, you MANIAX" in Planet of the Apes? >> Hmmm. . . I thought that was Homer Simpson, on the episode where he takes the ride on the space shuttle. But, as I understand it, both Charlton Heston *and* Homer Simpson are huge Robyn Hitchcock fans, so one can't be sure. - -----Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:20:03 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: Truman Show In a message dated 98-06-22 15:10:40 EDT, you write: << ok, is it just me, or is The Truman Show way, way WAY overrated? >> It was "way" overrated, but I don't know about "way, way WAY." I think it's biggest problem was presenting too many other avenues that could have been explored (like, what about all the actors on the TV show? what's their *real* story?). I don't know. It was a good movie, but it was far from being anywhere near one of the great movies of the decade. On the other hand, I just saw "Dr. Strangelove" for the first time last night (and on a big screen, to boot!), which probably worsens my feelings towards "Truman." Man, what an amazing film! Now I can say that I have truly lived. - ------Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:28:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: disgust-o-fic and Poppy Z. Brite (sub-zero RH content) On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, dlang wrote: > Chris opined: > However I *don't* > recall her ever favourably depicting rape, torture, mutilation and > murder, > like "Beavis" did. There is a difference. > Sorry chris, the book I read was bout a pair of jeffrey Dahmer types , > both gay, who grossly mutilated and tortured another guy whilst possibly > having sex with him ( i may be wrong on that point ,I stopped reading > the book as it was so gross ,I forgot the title promptly , but not the > nasty bits). I'm not weak stomached, but over the top, full on > depiction's of the worst sexual mutilation and torture is just not my > cup of tea and as far as I'm concerned Poppy is a sicko, That sounds like _Exquisite Corpse_; I haven't read the book myself, but your description matches what I've heard about it. I can easily understand how you wouldn't like reading this stuff, and I certainly won't try to say that you *should* like it. BUT, I can't agree with automatically labeling anything like that "sick." I think it's possible to write about anything, no matter how horrible, in a valid literary way. (Whether or not PZB succeeded at this is another question, of course.) Now if Brite wrote as though she got her sexual thrills, or expected her audience to get theirs, from graphic descriptions of torture and mutilation, then I would agree with the "sick" label. On the other hand, if she writes to evoke the horror of murder and make us understand and sympathize with the victims' plight, I wouldn't find that sick at all. > I'll return to > Storm Constantine as she is a much more imaginative writer than Poppy > any day. Of course reading Poppy never meant you had to leave Storm Constantine in the first place.... - --Chris np: Garbage, _Garbage_ (well, actually it's on pause) ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:33:23 -0500 From: "JH3" Subject: The Vast Conspiracy, Pt. XXIV Michael K. (MARKEEFE@aol.com) writes: >Hmmm. . . I thought that was Homer Simpson, on the episode where he >takes the ride on the space shuttle. But, as I understand it, both Charlton >Heston *and* Homer Simpson are huge Robyn Hitchcock fans, so one can't be >sure. Now you KNOW this isn't true. Homer's favorite song is "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band, which has to totally preclude him from Robyn-fandom, and newly-installed NRA Director Heston would probably piss in his pants with hammy Shatneresque rage if he were to hear "Legalized Murder" even *once*! However, we *do* know that the guy who came to rescue Charlton after "Planet of the Apes" was James Franciscus in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" - the VERY SAME James Franciscus who appeared around the same time in "Marooned" with - yes that's right, Gene Hackman! And while Gene didn't wear a towel in that movie, there are clear shots of him playing both Asus2 *and* Bsus4 on the guitar - WITH HIS THUMB! And where was Carl Palmer during all this? Well, this was the early 70's, so he was a HUGE ROCK STAR, not the bloated old Internet-wacko-stalkee that he is today! SCHOOL MARMS: They're not just for breakfast anymore... John H. Hedges ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 12:33:32 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Neat Neat Neat I keep reading this hype about downloading music and burning your own CDs, and how the Internet is killing the record industry and the record store as we know them. I dunno...the Net certainly could take a *bite* out of the record industry, yes, but I think there's just too much of a fetish of "ownership" to make record stores/labels entirely obsolete. Folks like having their neat little record collection, reading their neat little CD booklets, filing their neat little CDs and showing their neat little collections to their neat little friends. You just don't get that physical sense of "it's mine!" from storing a file on your computer, or having a generic home-burned CD with a downloaded computer-printout cover. It doesn't feel like the real thing, somehow. Then again, I'm not real enthusiastic about homemade cassettes either for the same reason, and I know that others devote hours and hours to such things. As for Internet CD retailers, just the *cost* and *time* seem to be obstacles. If I can go to Tower and buy a CD for $12, why should I buy a CD on the Internet that will cost $13 or $14 plus $3 postage, that will also take two weeks to arrive? Not too enticing for me. I suppose the Net is good for ordering rarely-stocked independent releases, however. And it's neat that you can download sound samples from the retail sites to "test drive" an album, but you can just take that information and drive to the record store instead.... Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 11:33:01 -0700 From: "Gee...You?" Subject: The Quail in the News fegs, Yesterday, I picked up a copy of the PC Novice Guide to the Web: The 2500 Best Sites. Under the Arts section, on a page called "Where To Find Famous Authors", I found the following: The Libyrinth of Allexamina This imaginitive combination between a library and a labyrinth focuses on 20th century authors known for their experimental styles, such as Jorge Luis Borges, William S. Burroughs, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and others. Described as a "quadrant of Quailspace," the Web site sets aside normal syntax and reality as the "shifts and bouts of your naval farce" and uses "unwinding electric lifetwine" to explore the crannies of its maze of literary works. Got that? http://rpg.net/quail/libyrinth Thought you all would like to know. Congrats, O Great One! Cheers, - -g- - ----------==========**********O**********==========--------- Glen Uber Email: uberg@sonic.net ICQ UIN: 13311304 Web: http://www.sonic.net/~uberg "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." --Frank Zappa - ----------==========**********O**********==========--------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:48:07 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: *That*... >> the individual address harvesting. I think if he had done that some of the >> digest people would have gotten it as well. Are there any lucky regular >> (non-digest) people who didn't see this? > >was this the geek who couldn't spell Figaro or Siouxsie? if not, then i didn't >receive it. i sense that i shouldn't be upset about this..... And you're a single post subscriber rather than a digester and didn't see it (lucky duck!)? Ah, ok. That means probably the guy just harvested names at random. A puzzle piece falls definitively into place. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:04:58 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: Hitchcock and Demme Ok, another pet peeve to comment on. Damn I am peevish lately! :) I would have done this last night when I saw it, but I was too tired. And by the way, this is much more in the nature of advice than a flame. Incidentally and for the record, this is not at all meant as discouragement, since I appreciated hearing what had happened with the Musician article. I'd been wondering what was going on with that. > Lastly, it would be really nice to see a little more real content in >the Fegmaniax digest. Some of the non-Hitchcock content is cool--Syd >Barrett discographies, etc., but some of the recent topics have been >lacking--100 top American movies of all time, celebrity deaths, NMH, Eb >and his musical knowledge (Gosh!, we're all impressed down here!), >etc.--you know, real chat room type material, but totally void of >anything I want to use my time for. Maybe I'm missing the point, but >this is a Hitchcock page, right? Thanks, Marc Here's the deal. Why is it that when people switch their modem on they switch their manners off? Perhaps you don't really think of this as a group of flesh and blood people. This is not a group of random disembodied computer-generated voices, you know- we're all people with feelings and ideas and interests of our own, behind our keyboards. Would you, in real life, attend a gathering of people you don't really know, listen to various conversations and then stand up on a table and announce "Hey, I know you guys don't know me but I feel compelled to tell you that your conversations are for the most part terminally stupid and they do not interest ME at all. I would appreciate it very much if everyone would only talk about what interests ME, since those are the only things of substance in the world, and everything else is chat-room fodder". I surely would hope not. It's not a good way to make friends and influence people, and it's a -real- good way to tick people off. Yet it is in effect what you've just done. I see this approach a lot on Usenet and I often wonder what it is meant to achieve. All I can see that it achieves is making everyone think someone's a big dork. If you don't like the conversation, write some posts of your own about topics you think are worth discussing, and see where that leads. But you can't -make- a group of people do your will, just by making such a declaration. A group which has been in progress for years, as this one has, isn't just going to drop everything and go "oh yeah! what a deep motherfucker he is! how BLIND we have been! We must post on topics that are of interest to Mark Holden!" :). When joining a netgroup it is sometimes best to be on for a very long time and observe the customs of the natives before making comments on what you do and don't like. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:53:12 -0400 From: "Gene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Fwd: Neat Neat Neat Eb said, >I dunno...the Net certainly could take a *bite* out of the >record industry, yes, but I think there's just too much of a fetish of >"ownership" to make record stores/labels entirely obsolete. There's nothing like going to the local record store, sure, but there's also nothing like getting what you want. A good 90% of the times I visit record stores I don't get what I'm looking for. I have at any time a rotating list of 50 or so CDs I'd like to have. I drive to the local store hoping to get one of them, or I go to cdnow.com and know that I'll get them. And that's worth a week's wait. >Folks like having their neat little record collection... That's me, totally. OK, I'll admit it. >You just don't get that physical >sense of "it's mine!" from storing a file on your computer, or having a >generic home-burned CD with a downloaded computer-printout cover. Well, I have John Oswald's (in)famous "Plunderphonics" CD on a Jaz disk right now, and I think that's pretty damned neat. Why? Because the Record Industry said "You can't have that CD!" and some folks, enpowered by the Internet, said "Fuck yes we can!" And when I burn that data on to CD, it'll be even neater. Granted, this is an unusual recording to use as an example, but the home-burned CD does have its advantages. Or what about all of those albums which have never made it to CD (because the Record Industry didn't think they were worth their time and money)? Like the Donner Party's two albums, f'rinstance, or whatever. As soon as I have CD-making capabilities, I'm gonna put those very albums on CD. Wow, neat. Take that, Record Industry. Granted, I am into the "real thing" thing, but I'm *also* into the music. All questions of legality aside, I wonder how many people would rather pay me $10 for a CD dupe of my "Beautiful Queen" CD instead of plunking down $50 for it? Or if I made a CD compilation of all of Robyn's b-sides and such? I'd only be filling in the spaces the Record Industry left blank, right? I'm fortunate to have the original, but I wouldn't pay $50 for it, but I would gladly pay $10 for a wholly reasonable facsimile. >If I can go to Tower and buy a CD for $12, why should I buy a CD >on the Internet that will cost $13 or $14 plus $3 postage, that will also >take two weeks to arrive? Not too enticing for me. Can't argue with that. However, I can either go to Tower and *hope* they have the CDs I want in stock, or order them on-line, *knowing* I'll receive them eventually. I'd rather wait a week after shopping in front of my computer than waste a trip to the record store. *That* is the convenience I want. I want instant gratification, sure, but a guarantee that I'll get the CDs I want means a little more. Not that I ever pass any opportunity to graze through any record store whatsoever. Dammit, man, I just love records! Can't we all just get along! =8-) ++++++++ Gene Hopstetter, Jr. + Online Design Specialist E-Doc + gene@edoc.com + http://www.edoc.com Voice: 410-691-6265 + Fax: 410-691-6265 ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #234 *******************************