From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #294 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, August 2 1998 Volume 07 : Number 294 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: I've got my shoes on and I'm gazing away... [Eb ] 0% RH, but pity me. [Milli Vanilli ] RH's (a different one) letter to JG [hal brandt ] anthropology now! ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: anthropology now! [Eb ] another Annoyance theorist? [Eb ] I did warn you... [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] from randi - Robyn Quickies :} [Tim Fuller ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 18:06:03 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: I've got my shoes on and I'm gazing away... JH3: >Y'know, I finally heard some Rufus Wainwright tunes the other day and they >weren't bad. His voice sort of sounds like Paul Buchanan after a few >vocal-delivery lessons from Leon Redbone, only a bit happier I suppose. Y'know, after several listenings to the album, I've finally decided that the best Wainwright vocal comparison I can make is to a less "creamy" Emitt Rhodes. For whatever that's worth. I don't think Wainwright's voice is nearly as hoarse and clench-throated as Buchanan's, nor as affected and "gargly" as Redbone's. Oh, and I didn't even know the Frank Black/Catholics album was finally out. I'll be real interested to hear that one. Spin-Art, right? In touch with reality, determined to hold on tight. Eb np: Last Exit/same "I don't think it's as good as everyone says it is" -- a dissenting Virgin Records publicist, talking about the Wainwright disc ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 04:02:48 EDT From: KarmaFuzzz@aol.com Subject: Re: I've got my shoes on and I'm gazing away... In a message dated 98-08-01 21:07:06 EDT, gondola@deltanet.com writes: > Oh, and I didn't even know the Frank Black/Catholics album was finally out. > I'll be real interested to hear that one. Spin-Art, right? the eMpTVee news said it was out in the US in early september...i've seen the import in a few shops, so presumably someone bought the import.... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 10:42:33 -1850 From: dlang Subject: Re: Give him back! ted quipped >Of course, the best way to sneak an unwilling Robyn past customs would >be to disguise him as a largish wheel of unpasteurized brie. The >Cheese Police will cheer your every step. No way will you get anyone into Australia disguised as a cheese, OUR cheese police would scoop them up faster than you can say-"she'll be apples mate" However, I do think it is our turn to have Robyn Hitchcock for a while.I propose we smuggle him into the country disguised as a small piece of fluff wedged in Kerry Packer's ( Australia's richest bod ) navel, which is capacious enough to fit at least a dozen Robyn's and probably even one or two Roseannes ( although if you try to send *her *over there may be serious repercussions for US OZ relationships). Packer is currently in the states having various parts of his body patched up or replaced , so if he survives, Robyn could be easily secreted into either the aforementioned body cavity or could function as Kerries new kidney. Of course whether he could tour whilst in the Packer body would be another matter. But we could get Kerry onstsge, wedge his mouth open -its somewhat froglike, so acoustically it would probably act as a primitive amplifier - and then listen to the Hitchcockian sounds emanating from within. Another scenario. We could utilise those miniature cameras they use to see within the body and watch Robyn perform on a videoscreen.Yes , I realise that this would probably not be a very pleasant sight, but then its probably no worse than those disgusting placenta threads that we had recently . Anything would be better than this current Hitchvoid that we Antipodeans find ourselves suspended in. A serious suggestion- Robyn comes to Australia as part of WOMAD , has the chance to re-establish his presence to sympathetic audiences as Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright have done recently . As a consequence he achieves world domination and gets a chance to have one over Reg Dwight at long last .Are you listening Robyn- if so, get weaving! dave ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 09:55:23 -0700 From: Milli Vanilli Subject: 0% RH, but pity me. Hiya, all. First: Eric, your tapes are almost done ("Believe it, or not!") Second: Michael, your tapes aren't quite as done as Eric's, but showing signs completion. Third: I just needed a forum to vent. If you're not terribly interested in the funny-in-a-pathetic-sort-of-way turn of events that happened this weekend, then don't read on. If you tend to feel sympathy, then, by all means, indulge. Let me preface this by saying it's an exerpt of a letter to a friend of mine. A month or so ago I bought an 88 VW convertible, and he's supposed to take a look at it as it has some suspicious problems. He's a cop working overtime on the weekends on "bar duty" at the club I work at on Friday nights. - --- Sorry I didn't show at the Tavern last night, but there were mitigating circumstances that kept me from my debut. I would like you to have a look at the car and tell me if it's a keeper or not, but I think the answer to that question is becoming more and more apparent. I don't know if it was three weeks ago, but it was a while back, that I took the Cabrio in for a tune up. However long ago it was, I had also told the mechanic to check the driver's side front tire because it was making a kind of disquieting noise. Anyway, he looks at it and told me one of the lugs on the hub had been stripped, but while I should get it fixed, the car is ok to drive. On Friday, after picking up a friend of mine on the way to work the driver's side tire CAME OFF the car as I was driving across the intersection with Main St and Rte 4 in Torrington. The tire, deciding it didn't want to travel with me any longer, zings off, crosses the yellow line, smacks into the bumper of a (thankfully) high-up Blazer, and proceeds to ricochet off the other side of the road to come to a rest in the parking lot of the Torrington Police Station. The car, no longer able to continue under it's own power, grinds to a hault on the shoulder, and the officer who was just coming on duty (this being 8.00 sharp), leisurely pulls out of the station and over to my now resting automobile. This all in the pissing rain, and me without a jacket. After all was said and done I collected my renegade tire and awaited the tow truck to arrive to drag the car back to Bennett's in Litchfield. It's not quite over. I had called him about this. "Do you remember my car?" I asked him. "Yes," was the simple reply. "The driver's side front tire?" "Yes." "It came off today on my way to work." "Oh, boy." "Hit a truck." "Oh, boy." "Can I have this thing towed to you?" "Yes. But I'm going on vacation today at noon, so it had better be soon." (????!!!!???) The tow truck arrives, and $83 dollars later (after all, it was almost 6 miles to the garage) my car is safely (?) at the garage, with the mechanic, hastily awaiting his vacation, assures me it will be ready by high noon. I get a ride off to work (my wife telling me that "maybe it's a good idea to sell the car...") and call the mechanic later. "Is the car done?" "Yes." Good. On my way to work at the bar on Friday night I stopped in to check out the car. It's there. All appears right in the world. Not interested in conducting any nocturnal driving trials in the car, I get the keys from under the visor (this is Litchfield, remember), and grab the receipt that's on the dash and head off the work. $286 and change. Two hundred and eighty-six dollars and change. A new hub (to replace the one with the stripped-but-safe-to-drive lug, and wheel bearing that was left, piece by piece, down a stetch of about 75 feet of scenic 202. Later that evening, on my way to see you, Sarah and I get a ride out the shop to pick up the car. The repair shop has a trusting "slip-the-check-through-the-door" policy. My friends head out of the driveway. I start the car. Or should I say, try to. Nothing. It doesn't turn over. I try it again. Still. Nada. I wag the highbeams at my departing ride as it just about goes down the other side of the hill heading back up 202. The red lights fade into oblivion. Shit. I can hear the conversation in the other car. "He's flashing his highbeams." "That means everything's alright." "Are you sure?" Thankfully in the one thing that went right with this whole thing, he listened to his wife and turned their car around and we all shared a solemn ride home. Anyway, do you want to buy a nice white 1988 Volkswagen Cabriolet? It's got a pretty new top on it? - --- That's that. Opinion? He's on vacation for a week. In his defense, yes, he did work on the car, but a lot of work that, dare I say, wouldn't have needed to be done had it been fixed right in the first place. A wheel bearing? The bearing was fine until it was ground flat against the asphalt. I'm just lucky it hadn't happened the day before when I was going down Rte 8. Had that happened it would of been a decision as to how much my estate was going to sue the autobody shop for, not if he was going to get his $286. - -f. - -- Ferris! http://pages.cthome.net/hellhollow ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 09:29:03 -0600 From: hal brandt Subject: RH's (a different one) letter to JG On Jerry Garcia's birthday, I wanted to post a URL that points to a real interesting letter that Robert Hunter penned back on the one year anniversary of Garcia's death. Read it and weep, /hal http://www.dead.net/RobertHunterArchive.html/files/mailpages/lettertoJG.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 14:16:26 PDT From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: anthropology now! and, well, there *is* the sara lee connection... <>it's called, Being Just Contaminates The Void. Uh oh! You just made the same mistake I did a couple of weeks ago. Prepare to be ROASTED, buddy....> um, i think i was giving you the needle a little bit, eb. actually, i had originally added: "at least that's what it says on eb's fansite." but thought it would be a little to cruel. you really think there's a robyn song i don't know the name of, eb? i'm a weenie, dammit! ah, so you're yella, huh? can't say as i blame you. any feg who has met me will testify that i am probably the finest kickboxer in all of robyndom. i was just thinking yesterday, you know how there're gonna be 500 cable channels in the immediate future? we oughta have a feg network. oh, it would be glorious! lots of bootleg videos. um, Storefront Hitchcock shown several times a day. lessee, a nightly talk show hosted by woj, with live call-in and shit. ok, maybe every night at midnight, The Great Quail Presents: FegFest '98, The Untold Story. some sort of robyn game show, co-hosted by eb and ben. the possibilites are endless. the test pattern would have to be the cover of GOTTA LET THIS HEN OUT!, for sure. anyhow, here's the anthropology part. some song explanations: - --The Face Of Death: "it's just about somebody who literally looks like the face of death. i thought, christ, i'd hate to be like him, and i wrote the song with the idea that you've got to associate with whatever you're most frightened of or whatever you most despise. it's like touching lepers or something, almost masochistic. you could take it down to baden powell talk and say you must face challenges." - --Where Are The Prawns?: "...somebody being made love to by sea food." - --Pigworker: "there're two guys who run a holiday camp for dismembered basketball players and they're tyring to prise open this girl who is made of bubble-bath liquid. "they're trying to open this girl called heather because she hasn't complied with the basketball regulations and in the end they get her opened up by a pterodactyl. you know how much they look like bottle openers." - --Anglepoise Lamp: "an anglepoise lamp is a lamp that you can bend -- it goes on the desks of businessmen and people who stub their cigarettes out and people who have sheaves of paper. the whole itnention of the song, i suppose, is the idea of people sort of changing sexual roles. the first verse is that the man is gonna be a woman. "a lot of people i know wear dungarees and cut thier hair short and sort of want to dispense with their vaginas. or at least dig so far into them they could put a flashlight in there and have that poking out instead. "the last verse is the guy with absloute disgust --you know, the viewer/songwriter-- who decided he might as well be an office appliance. because all he sees around him is unpleasant prospects like a bunch of weedy people wishing to change sex. if you like, it's basically a protest song, so you can have the blurb, 'anglepoise a protest' hitchcock says!" - --Brenda's Iron Sledge: "the idea is that it's a huge great cast-iron sled going down a slushy hill in the middle of winter with some really nasty trees poking out, and there's no shock absorbers, there's just a mass of people at the bottom. and it's a sort of pyramid, and at the top sit brenda and her cronies, y'know, munching legs of chicken and dill pickles out of hampers, and sort of cracking the whip. "and the ruling class is protected from what is happening by this wedge of people underneath them. and if they really wanna do something with a riot they should do them in knightsbridge and south kensington and hampstead, you know. as long as they can keep things at a distance, then that's how it works. "so i suppose world communism is the logical answer." - --America: "America is about a doomed noel coward figure standing on the rooftops of manhattan wondering why it's not raining and looking at what america's doing to us." - --Listening to the Higsons: "it was one night in november, i was listening to john peel, and he was playing the higsons, and i thought they were singing, 'extra, extra, gotta let this hen out' -- i was surprised that guys like this even have hens, i'd hate to be a hen in east anglia. i've never met the higsons and i'm not planning to give them any royalties." - --Vyrna Knowl: "they're the same backing track, i just changed the words to avoid bieng sued by vyrna knowl, but that's not her real name either. "she was a horrible old lady over the road who used to complain when we made too much noise. although looking back on it, she might have had a right to complain. we did make a lot of noise. that's sort of the way we did it in the soft boys. we had no right to make all that noise and disturb the neighbors, but all the other neighbors were sort of mature hippies who felt it was unfair to object, who thought it was cool to be near a band that was rehearsing. she looked a little like margaret thatcher and her husband looked like jim hallahan, who was the prime minister at the time. i thought they were really full of meat." and here's a cool review of Only The Stones, which i'm almost positive must've been written by mark gloster: "it's a shame robyn htichcock is unhip, for if fate had merely bent an inch to the left he'd be celebrated by cover stories here, there and everywhere. but he can't wash the stink of cambridge outta his hair...neverlesslass, that can't change the fact that the soft boys tucked away some groovy tape in their time, 'stones' being the one i nominate for the big psychodelic compilation in the psky-kiatry ward. brutal druid geetars and lyrics 'bout sex 'n' blood 'n' rocks and rolling. real pagan." ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 14:36:27 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: anthropology now! >um, i think i was giving you the needle a little bit, eb. actually, i >had originally added: "at least that's what it says on eb's fansite." I haven't figured out a link between Robyn Hitchcock and Claudine Longet yet, beyond the fact that both were on A&M Records for a time. But I'll let you know if something more substantial strikes me. Maybe both of them are Peter Sellers fans? > >ah, so you're yella, huh? can't say as i blame you. any feg who has >met me will testify that i am probably the finest kickboxer in all of >robyndom. Yeah, yeah, I know...kickboxing is the sport of the future. Or at least, that's what Lloyd Dobson told me. >some sort of >robyn game show, co-hosted by eb and ben. "Win Eb's Promos"? The Happenings. Eb, still all hot 'n' bothered about discovering Schoenberg np: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci/Bwyd Time ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 16:04:09 -0700 From: Eb Subject: another Annoyance theorist? I'm reading this really interesting (and LONNNNNG!) Frank Zappa interview, at http://www.cs.hut.fi/~pno/Music/Zappa/Interview.html. The below quote seems to align with what I was saying a week or so ago about "annoyance." In particular, Zappa uses the same metaphor of "scratching an itch".... I find it very interesting what he says at the end, about "resolving" the dissonance. Hmm...perhaps this is the difference between good-annoying and bad-annoying? Quite possibly. "There are certain basic natural rhythms. How often does the moon become full? Once a month, O.K. That's a rhythm. When does the tide come in? When does it go out? That's a rhythm. What is your heartbeat rate? That's a rhythm. Call those natural rhythms. You don't think about them but they're there. There is also an average tempo at which people conduct their lives. That is a rhythm. If that average didn't exist, then people wouldn't know whether or not they were going fast or going slow because those are terms which are used to compare to an average. "I'm having a slow day". That means that you're behaving less than your imaginary average rhythm. "I'm really getting a lot done today". You're going faster than your imaginary average. Now, music, the way in which it connects with human behaviour, takes into account the implications of these universal natural rhythms. Certain types of music reinforce them. Disco music, for example, is banging you over the head and reinforcing your factory rhythm. Anything that deviates from that reinforcement of your factory rhythm could be perceived as rhythmically dissonant. So, if you understand the whole idea of dissonance, dissonance when resolved is like having an itch and getting to scratch it. Dissonance when it's unresolved is like having a headache for life. So, the most interesting music as far as I'm concerned is music in which dissonance is created, sustained for the proper amount of time, and resolved and got your scratch and next case. So, the concept of dissonance in my work works on a lot of different levels. You can have rhythmic dissonance. Any rhythm which goes against the grain of a natural rhythm is going to be disturbing for the period at which the dissonance exists. But once you get back to that downbeat, you can then look back and say, "Hey, that was quite fascinating what happened there. I didn't know that you could squeeze all those beats into that one factory cycle". O.K. Same thing with harmony. Certain chords, when you hear them, it's like, "Ah, we're now relaxed because all the harmonics have lined up from here to there and it's all complete, and it's like a nice big C major chord". Like the drone that they give you in the New Age music that just makes your brain sit still. That's the reason it makes your brain sit still. It's like, it's all there, there's nothing else to do. It's done. Now, how long can you listen to that. A long time if you're closely related to a jellyfish. But if you, in that harmonic environment, include some irritating notes, notes which are not part of the harmonic structure, so long as the note then moves to one of the partials in that static chord - like certain notes want to move upward, some want to move downward, some can actually live in there at a lower volume and just be like a pollutant in the chord, giving texture to the chord. All that stuff is part of the skill of writing music. But unless you understand why you're doing it, and how long it lasts is very important too because it's only interesting for a certain period of time, then after that it's obnoxious. That's what I do when I put stuff together. Same thing with words. You have to understand the overall concepts of natural rhythms, things which exist that people take for granted, and the idea that one can create an artificial irritation for a certain period of time to give a pleasurable sensation when it stops. It's like the kid banging himself with the hammer: "Why are you doing that" - "Because it feels good when I stop". And in medicine it's like people who want to be young again, they go in and get their face sand-blasted. That probably doesn't feel very good, but when it's all over, they look like Mick Jagger. Ebola ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 13:00:53 +1200 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: I did warn you... ...and here it is. Due to popular request, here is the parody (or "filksong", if you prefer): 2001 to the tune of "You can call me Al". With apologies to Paul, Arthur, and Stanley... You can call me HAL (by James Dignan) Mankind finds a big rock and says, why is regularly shaped and why is it big and black and what's it doing on the moon? We need keep it a secret, don't want people to know yet Don't want to start a panic, by letting the world know too soon, Maybe soon, maybe... off in the moonlight Far away, out to Jupiter it called Dr Floyd, brief Dave Bowman, gotta get out to there You know it's time to start knocking on that alien door And if you'll be my astronaut, I can be your silicon pal, I can call you Davey, and Davey, when you call me You can call me HAL... A ship flies into space, It's got all the world's attention But I've got no intention, of letting the humans go all wrong They long for their homes and families, They wonder if they'll die here, I'll answer that for them This job'd be easier with them gone, gone Frozen, lost in space or in some roly-poly little bat-faced pod All along, all along there were Incidents and accidents, There were hints and allegations... And if you'll be my astronaut, I can be your plastic pal, I could sing you Daisy, and Davey, when you call me You can call me HAL... A man flies into space, it's the space round a strange world Maybe it's the new world, maybe it's his next time around He doesn't understand it, he doesn't know what's happening He is an Earth man, he is surrounded by the stars and sound Psychedelic images, and unearthly landscapes He looks around, around, he sees himself in the architecture Spinning in infinity, he says Amen! Hallelujah! And if you'll be my astronaut, I can be your silicon pal, I could sing you Daisy, and Davie, when you call me You can call me HAL... James James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 21:50:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Fuller Subject: from randi - Robyn Quickies :} I'm on digest - so I hope no one has gotten this one yet :} * * * * "The Yip Song" An older man rushed to a hospital for surgery gets septicemia, slips into a coma and dreams of WWII singer Vera Lynn, before he dies. * * * * And btw Nat - I think Marcy's great-great-great-great grandfather beat up *both* our great-great-great-great grandfathers way back in shtetl times :} fading back into yesterday, Randi who's 5th bout with septicemia is almost over - I feel guilty when I tell this to Robyn - but I do *always* remind him - "I'm a young woman - your dad - an older man..." *what scares you most will set you free* - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #294 *******************************