From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #392 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, October 19 1998 Volume 07 : Number 392 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Elliot Smith on SNL [MARKEEFE@aol.com] Re: The 'Oo [Michael R Godwin ] Re: Me, of course. [Michael R Godwin ] Robyn banter revives old fart [dlang ] Acid, Culture, Seals and Croft [John Irvine ] RE: Silly Love Songs [LONG and little RH] ["Chaney, Dolph L" ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V7 #389 [edoxtato@ssax.com] Power Ballads et al [Rich Plumb ] Robyn (for once) ["Chaney, Dolph L" ] Silly Love Songs on Dope..... [Stephen Buckalew ] Re: The 'Oo [hal brandt ] Re: The 'Oo [Michael R Godwin ] Re: Me, of course. [The Great Quail ] Hmmm. . . . notes on an aging thread [The Great Quail ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 02:23:35 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: Elliot Smith on SNL In a message dated 10/18/98 5:39:37 PM, you wrote: <> I liked the crunchier guitar sound on Waltz #2 (which is the only song I heard him do before getting tired of the show and going to bed), but I thought the overall feel was a bit clunky. << Really made me mad though, because his voice sounded so REAL and emotionally "there" on SNL, whereas on his records, he always employs that GODAWFUL double-tracking and filtering that drains all the humanity out of his vocal performance. Grrr! Get a clue, Elliott! :( >> Yeah, I'd have to echo this sentiment. His vocals were both more emotive and more intelligible on SNL than on record. I'd give the performance a thumb's up, in general. And Lucy Lawless', too! She was more versatile and funny than I'd imagined she would be. Great Stevie Nicks imitation! - -----Michael K. PS However, I still maintain that washing his hair regularly wouldn't constitute "selling out"....>> ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 12:09:02 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: The 'Oo On Sun, 18 Oct 1998, amadain wrote: > Well, anyway, if you've ever heard "Love Reign O'er Me" you have some idea > what I'm talking about, or, I can't remember the exact title but I think > it's "The Bargain" (there's an original love song approach actually, since > we're on that topic), or "Behind Blue Eyes", or "I Can See For Miles" or > "Teenage Wasteland". I always thought it was 'Love rain over me', but the pun is clear so it doesn't make much difference. 'Bargain' has no definite article IIRC (like 'Circles' and 'Disguises'). I thought 'Behind Blue Eyes' was the last decent song that Townshend wrote - can't stand things like 'Teenage Wasteland' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again' (sorry James) for precisely the reason that they sound to me like phoney power ballads. ICSFM is an excellent pop song, good lyric, nice arrangement, but not what I would call a power ballad (test: does it sound like 'I who have nothing', 'The power of love' or 'I wanna know what love is', and can you dance to it? No and yes respectively). > Actually maybe what we all need is a "book of cliches", that way, > you can check the song or poem against it and then throw it out and start > over if you've used too many. You need the 'Myles na Gopaleen catechism of cliche'. Orwell has a good article on cliches, too. Signing off at this moment in time - - Mike Godwin PS '5.15' is good, but that whole album sounds patronising to me, written from above looking down - not like 'Legal matter' and 'My generation' which are authentically angry (if a bit petulant)... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 12:42:30 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Me, of course. Greetings and salutations for your birthday! Some astounding coincidences on Oct 17 - have you told the Fortean Times? On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Capuchin wrote: > > 1962 - Though the Fab Four would appear on both radio and television, on > > what they would call "Auntie Beeb" (the BBC), The Beatles appeared first > > -- this day -- on Great Britain's Grenada TV Network. *Granada*. I saw them on the 'Tuesday Rendezvous' TV show in 1962, but I don't know whether it was that first TV appearance. They mimed to 'Love me do' IIRC, and they looked incredibly sloppy and long-haired. I haven't seen the clip again (does it still exist?) but they would probably look totally straight by 1998 standards. However, I'm sure that at that time they had not adopted the sharp collarless suits and moptop haircuts which gave them such a strong group image. Epstein must have picked up on that and tidied them up... - - Mike G. PS "Auntie" for the BBC goes back quite a long way, but I am fairly certain that "Beeb" was invented by the late much-lamented Kenny Everett when he joined the BBC from the pirates in 1967. Definitely not earlier. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 21:44:52 +0930 From: dlang Subject: Robyn banter revives old fart Hey, anyone noticed how uplifting Robyn banter is when you're feeling low? Eddie sent me a batch of Robyn tapes and they really restored my flagging spirits. I 've been going through a low spot here in sunny adelaide, my wife's mother died, my mother has been in hospital for 5 weeks, nearly died once or twice, my wife's had a really bad hip and foot and my bad foot has taken two months to recover and still isn't 100%. Then my daughter got an ear infection and my father in law is getting incapacitated with arthritis. All in all, we've had better times. So when the tapes arrived I needed something to buck me up. I just found the stream of crazy logic that Robyn was coming out with during the 98 Largo shows and GAMH did the trick, my depression lifted and I was able to laugh out loud at the absurdity of our existance. The music of course capped it all off. I must admit that I usually find the Egyptians to be more restorative than acoustic Robyn, but not necessarily so, some of his acoustic music is melancholy, but its usually counterpointed by uplifting stuff such as Clean Steve,De Chirico St,Balloon Man , etc. Whatever, it usually makes me feel good in the long run. BTW , the posse page has been down since Tuesday, fault with the provider as the site works internally, I'll let you know when its back online. When it returns I may have some more stills from Robyn video online , this time from BBC -Whistle test sometime in the 90's I think. Its an Egyptians show , the most recent four piece in think . Anyone got an exact date for this show? DAVE ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:34:26 -0400 From: John Irvine Subject: Acid, Culture, Seals and Croft I've had about enough of this acid bashing on this list. LSD is actually an old friend of mine, though we haven't really kept in touch. I've dropped three times, and though I probably wouldn't do it again, it was an enlightening experience. Opened up some real doors to perception in exactly the way those hippies went on and on about. Anyone who would make it a part of their daily lives or attempt to use it as a muse is a fool, but I can honestly say it fundamentally changed my sense of myself in the universe. And no I'm not a Ted Kazinsky type - I'm a responsible happily married government employee with a clean driving record and a Kraftwerk haircut. If your interested, give it a whirl. Speaking of nothing I'd like to comment on this group as a newcomer. I am always intrigued by the different social norms associated with different band-oriented news groups, often possibly reflecting the nature of the artist: The Stereolab board has a bit of the elitist "I've got more rare german pressings on clear vinyl than you do" tone to it, but there is often fierce debate as to the bands political stance. Posts are invariably on-topic and there is very little chummy conversation. Posters are intelligent and opinionated. The XTC list is very convivial, and always a bit depressed. The band has always gotten the short end of the stick (If they could just get airplay . . .my god the world would change!!), and it's fans have the commiserative air of beleaguered ship wreck survivors. Off topic submissions are more common, but as it is an older list and many have obviously been members for years, this is tolerated, but brash newcomers are often mercilessly but eloquently put in their place. In my short Feg association, I've noticed far more indulgence of far ranging topics and a lot of back and forth. Fegs are proud of their quirks, and tolerant of the quirks of others. Someone should assemble a Baedecker's (sp?) guide to musical cultures on the net. Native customs and all that. How to be accepted and avoid flames. Here's my two cents on the crappy-sappy love song bit. These songs are wrenching to our ears because, a) they are dripping with sincerity, b) the sincerity is simpleminded and completely un-ironic, c) we heard them incessantly when we were in sixth grade and we cannot get them out of our heads - they are burned into our being, though we have matured into knowing and ironic adults with very specific tastes. When we cringe we are cringing at a previous version of ourselves who did not change the station back in 1975. John Irvine My life's as good as an ABBA song, my life's as good as Dancing Queen... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 10:07:37 -0400 From: "Chaney, Dolph L" Subject: RE: Silly Love Songs [LONG and little RH] WARNING: songwriter's rant to follow... I totally agree with the points re: power ballads made by Susan. In fact, I was recently at a local concert, part of Atlanta's Queerstock festival, and the soundman (in KISS t-shirt) must've had the GREATEST HIT CD by Europe in the player. (If you don't remember that band, they were Swedish -- think "the Ace Of Base of hair-metal" -- remember "The Final Countdown"???) The non-macho context of the concert to come only heightened the... um... ooginess of the song(s). I'd like to be able to credit the sound dolt with a heightened sense of irony; he didn't even know how to get a kick drum to not sound like a ping-pong ball, so I'm not giving him that. Um, where was I? Oh yeah. Love songs. The whole "you can't say anything new so why say anything?" argument. I fight this in my own work a lot, and try to filter out things that are too recycled. And I really like records that take you into a completely different world musically and/or lyrically, whether it's Our Man Robyn, Zimmy, Eno, or even Shonen Knife. The problem is that, if you want to argue that love songs are played out, you'd have to basically negate everything past Petrarch (or earlier). Nature, in minutia? It's all been done by Basho. Religious songs? David nailed it in the Psalms, and maybe somebody nailed it even earlier. And, of course, this doesn't even touch just how played out rock is musically -- not just one beat but one EXACT DRUM PATTERN in most pop songs released since 1955. If somebody wanted to pick on any aspect of rock in this manner, it's easy to do -- kind of a straw man really. My viewpoint is that the only way to write uniquely is to try and write truly Your Way. Don't filter out odd personal details that you think no one will get (unless they're just written poorly). The most unique thing we have as people is ourselves, our experiences, our way of seeing the world. And, yeah, there are HUGE overlaps between people's experiences -- this is what enables people to appreciate each other and their viewpoints. This doesn't always mean dredging up a bunch of trauma-inducing melodrama from the depths of the soul and EMOTING and all that sort of thing. If you're a clipped, ironic sort of person, then you should make that kind of art. That's the way you see the world, and nobody else can do that any better than you can. This is also why people who aren't musical shouldn't be making records. And by "musical" I don't mean "possessing a straightforward, easily appreciable top-40 polished vocal/instrumental ability," I mean "obviously appreciating the world in a musical sense." This is why I take issue with people that say Lou Reed, Neil Young, and Dylan are bad singers. They're great singers when they bother to be engaged with their material. At their best, each of them has great timing, personality, and sense of musical tension/release. I guess by "people who aren't musical," I mean people who treat music ONLY as a vehicle for expressing a value (most political or religious rock music, sadly) or a musical system (a lot of prog and indie, or serial music -- go program a computer, guys, it's better money) or a sense of fashion. It's gotta be about the music, ultimately. I have less of a problem with Meatloaf, for example, than Cher (not that I'm gonna buy records by either). I just get the sense that Meatloaf actually believes what he's singing and is all into it, that he's actually THAT CHEESY of a guy. And again, while I'm not buying, I can just say "well, that's just him." Cher genuinely enjoys wearing the kind of outfits that she gets to wear when she sings those songs, but that's about it as far as I can tell. (Danielle, I'm a pretentious tosser too! Will you marry me?) Writing Your Way isn't a recipe for "success" or anything, but it's the only way to make a record you won't resent 5 years later. Even the New Kids On The Block know that. For me, listening to an artist for the first time is meeting someone new, and each new song is a new letter or conversation from that person. All I care about when listening to someone (in conversation or on record) is finding out how they really see the world, what they're honestly thinking about, and finding the points where my experience and viewpoint does and doesn't line up with that. I don't care very much about the new joke they just heard, or what they're wearing, or how many cliches they can say to me with a straight face. Even if they're the 50th person in a day to tell me that they feel a certain way, it's new because THEY said it. Ack. Sorry. This concludes the latest episode of _Boring A Hole In You: Dolph Shows YOU How To Get Into Feg Killfiles Without Flaming!_ Next week's episode: "Anagrams Of The Titles Of My 10 Favorite CDs!" see you around, Dolph who is 4 weeks from having his CDs back from the plant hee hee ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:11:54 -0500 (CDT) From: Gregory Stuart Shell Subject: Re: Acid, Hippies, fire water On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, John Irvine wrote: > I've dropped three times, and though I probably wouldn't do it again, it About the same for me, though I would have to add the four or SO times I gathered mushrooms and the one time in Big Bend that I ate peyote. And I guess the time my girl friend brough back a bottle of something from Spain and I drank about half in one continuous gulp. Boy, did I regret that. Next to that stuff from Spain, the peyote was the roughest. I am sure it was the alochol in the bottle from Spain that really caused me the problems. Someone on a previous note included alcohol and caffeine on the same list, and it made me chuckle. LSD, psylicibin, THC etc.. are like water compared to alcohol. I have seen alcohol do more damage than anything else, including cocaine and heroine. Sure none of them are good in excess, but I would much rather someone be addicted to pot, than hooked on phonics, I mean alcohol. > In my short Feg association, I've noticed far more indulgence of far > ranging topics and a lot of back and forth. Fegs are proud of their > quirks, and tolerant of the quirks of others. Some, quite a bit less than some others. > > Here's my two cents on the crappy-sappy love song bit. These songs are Every song is an island. Some are just irritatingly small sandy lomes, which do not deserve visitation and especially not habitation, but they are all islands. Regards, Gregory S. Shell Subversive Capitalist ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:25:23 -0500 From: edoxtato@ssax.com Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V7 #389 >rumor has it that robyn will be appearing on the "loose ends" on bbc radio >4 on november 7th. since the bbc website only has schedule details for the >coming week, i haven't been able to confirm this yet. the program airs at >10am and is hosted by ned sherrin. Oh, MAN... you gotta be jokin'! Fer them what's never hear Ned Sherrin... hearing him with Robyn should be a friggin' larf riot. Sherrin's an old theatre hand, who's got more "wreck on tour" of the theatre than Robyn's got wheels of cheese. I've seen Sherrin live, telling stories of the theatre... he was so crisp and British... and at the same time completely pissed (my friend what worked at the theatre said she'd been serving him triple vodkas before the show and a bottle of red wine at the interval). The "Loose Ends" program is loads of fun as well-- usually there are four or five guests from the entertainment/pubishing/music industries, and people sit around and jabber for a couple of hours and have a good laugh. If anyone is taping this please e-mail me privately. I'm gonna hafta hear this show. Look after yerselves... - -Doc P.S. Um... someone here on the list very kindly sent me a copy of a tape he'd made of Robyn at the Jazz Cafe (I was living in Newbury at the time). I have lost all your info (including your name, dammit). Could you please e-mail me privately? Thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 10:43:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Rich Plumb Subject: Power Ballads et al I think the expression Power Ballad only came into being during the big hair heyday of the late 80's when groups like Poison sang things like Every Rose Has a Thorn. It required a certain kind of real sappy metal-guitar solo. What people like Whitney and Celine and Ethel Merman and millions of others do should just be called ballads. I once saw NRBQ do a hilarious version of the Pina Colada song. Live At The Cambridge Folk Festival is now available through CDNOW for 20.99 as an import. I assume it's available through other avenues. rich ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 10:59:39 -0400 From: "Chaney, Dolph L" Subject: Robyn (for once) I'm listening to I Often Dream Of Trains, and I just noticed a line that I hadn't noticed before. "and if I ever look into your open eyes again" WOW. Brilliant. Is it "your open, much-seeing, wide eyes"? Is it "and if I ever look into your eyes while you're alive again?" Poetry, folks. 8-) I love Robyn and I love Fegmaniax, because they keep bringing me back to each other. Happies, Dolph ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 11:10:24 -0400 From: Stephen Buckalew Subject: Silly Love Songs on Dope..... Hi fegland folks.... I'm delurking to throw my "two cents" in about song topics/cliches. Capuchin points out that Love is the most over done song type and that <> I think this is the point right here...that love is a Grand and Vague experience. *Anyone* from the most inarticulate, "unoriginal" person to an articulate and innovative artist is going to have their own personal take on what love means to them. Maybe love's the same for everyone...but it doesn't "feel" that way to each person. Each relationship, whether romantic or not has different dynamics. And it's tough to put a finger on just what is different about them. It's the feelings/events etc. that are the most difficult to describe that are the most tempting to write about (at least for me). Which is probably why people go back to this well so many times. I'm not saying everyone does a good job...far from it. But that is the challenge. I'm guilty of writing a couple of these songs, but I'm a silly romantic who get's drunk on what I'm feeling in the moment, I write what I'm honestly feeling at the time, and then I wake up the next morning/week/month/year(s)...and (often) feel vaguely embarrassed about what I wrote back when I was feeling that way. But sometimes the songs express something special about that particular feeling at that time...something that feels real. I envy those who can write with postmodern strategy and cleverness...but I'm not one of those types of artists. Ya gotta play the cards your dealt in life. Art is subjective, Case in point---one of my friends who is also a musician (and doesn't write many love songs) has gone (at my prompting) to see a few of Robyn's shows with me. He thinks R.H. is interesting enough and not that bad....but in his opinion, Robyn's song forms "lack structure" and his lyrics are "emotionally flat". He likes Van Morrison (bleh...IMHO). Both viewpoints are legit. Different strokes and all that. My favorite love song is by a local acoustic folk/pop band in my town called Del Gattos. They have a song called "Claude Loves Isabel" that perfectly captures that illusionary state of those first days of falling in love....when all the events taking place in the whole world seem good and everything seems perfect---all's right with the world. It's really a song about selfish self-centeredness. Just like when that first rush of dope washes over you! Speaking of....maybe this is a dead thread. But brain-fry beat aside, but in my past dissolute youth, I used to spend the majority of my waking hours indulging. Because all the synaptic receptors were being massaged, it always felt like creative insights were just pouring in....there was no grasping after the creative straw....no struggle. As a result, I used to sit around all day thinking about how creative I was. These days, without the booze and dope, I don't think about being creative....I just am. The struggle...the grasping...was the key to creativity. No pain no gain (arrrrgh....cliche!!!) S.B. ***************************************************************************** "...everythings all on...it's rosy...it's a beautiful day!"--Syd Barrett **************************************************************************** * ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:22:01 -0600 From: hal brandt Subject: Re: The 'Oo amadain wrote: > > "Teenage Wasteland". Michael R Godwin wrote: > can't stand things like 'Teenage > Wasteland' Baba O'Reilly is the bleedin' title! /hal np- Dylan's "Everybody Must Get Stoned" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 17:05:55 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: The 'Oo On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, hal brandt wrote: > Baba O'Reilly is the bleedin' title! That's the one! I saw them try to play it live once, and they couldn't get the sequencer(?) to work in synch with the band. Townshend got really annoyed and kicked over a lot of the equipment... - - Mike G. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 98 12:50:47 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Me, of course. Happy (belated) Birthday, Jeme! >Quail claimed that he LOVED Elton John and wanted to be >just like Bernie Taupin some day. Hmmm . . . how do you know I am *not* Bernie Taupin, in fact? Have you ever seen me and Bernie at the same place at the same time? Was I not in England most mysteriously a guest of the royal family a wee bit over a year ago? Haven't you ever wondered why the word "quail" appears in almost every Elton John song? How else do you think Elton keeps abreast of his rival Robyn, making sure that all the good gigs go to him -- the Diana gig, the Citibank sponsorship, Chef Aid. . . . ? >Brilliant. I know I'm about seventieth on lj's list, so in the meantime >Susan, will you marry me? Don't worry, Capuchin, I don't even know *my* numbering on her List, but I am told I am far below Eddie Tews, Dean Wareham, and all the guys in Wilco; but I may be slightly above Eric Cartman and all the cast of Voyager, so there's still hope. - --Quail PS: I have been very very busy this last week, so I am far behind on Fegmail and Fegnews -- but I must add that so far my top three CDs of the year are FRIGHTENINGLY the same as Eb's! (NMH, Rufus, and Bob "Judas" Dylan. . . . ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth: http://www.rpg.net/quail/libyrinth "Countlessness of livestories have netherfallen by this plage, flick as flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds. Now are all tombed to the mound, isges to isges, erde from erde . . . (Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curious of signs (please stoop) in this allaphbed! Can you rede (since We and Thou had it out already) its world? . . . Speak to us of Emailia!" --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 98 12:50:44 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Hmmm. . . . notes on an aging thread Heh heh, now that the acidheads have come out of the electric closet. . . . I like chemicals -- at least all the THC derived ones and the tryptophan imitators like Essence du Ergot, Mexicali Flesh of God, and the ever-popular Happy Cactus Buttons. I am sure this comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever read any of my sig files. Do I think they make a non-creative person creative? Usually not. But they can certainly make *anyone* look at the world in a very different way, and that may be a jolt to the imagination in of itself. Do they "open doors of perception?" Well, sure they do. I personally have made many, many revelations while in an altered state. The trick is to remember which ones are nonsense and which ones may have been actual insights. Do you need drugs for this? No -- but to deny that any creativity or insight can stem from a psychedelic experience is just an untenable position. Meditation, religious vigil, fasting, scarification, high fever, sitting through an Spice Girls interview -- all these can also lead the mind to altered states of consciousness that open the Doors of Perception. So can drugs; and denying that they have the power to postively enhance one's creative output is just as unrealistic as denying that they have the power to also *negatively* enhance one's creative output. Some artists whose *work* I feel has been enhanced by their experience with drugs: Jefferson Airplane, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Santanna, Samuel Coleridge, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Thomas Pynchon, and Grant Morrison; just to name a few. Of course, in a few cases, drugs were also responsible for a lot of badness in their lives, too. I will add, however, that I also dislike when people *assume* someone is on drugs. For instance, Robyn, Peter Gabriel, Ian Anderson and Frank Zappa have all been labeled as such, but in truth none of them were really fond of drugs at all. For some essentially reasonable examinations of this topic, I suggest John C. Lily, Robert Anton Wilson, Terrence MacKenna, Carlos Castaneda, and Tim Leary. Sorry if some of this was a bit pedantic; but I just wanted to be clear without sounding like a raving acidhead. . . . I'll leave that to Eddie. - --Quail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth: http://www.rpg.net/quail/libyrinth "Countlessness of livestories have netherfallen by this plage, flick as flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds. Now are all tombed to the mound, isges to isges, erde from erde . . . (Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curious of signs (please stoop) in this allaphbed! Can you rede (since We and Thou had it out already) its world? . . . Speak to us of Emailia!" --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 13:14:12 -0400 From: "Caroline Smith" Subject: Re: Hmmm. . . . notes on an aging thread speaking of drug use/creativity, it seems like a good time to bring up jerry stahl. sometimes "creative types" end up relying heavily on the state of mind brought around from drug use. ( i can't even -read- email, much less write it without a cup of coffee in hand) in stahl's case, he believed he couldn't write unless he was smacked out (absolutely no self confidence), and then the stuff he ended up write was embarrassing. i just saw _permanent midnight_ (Jerry Stahl's biography) after spending the past week reading the autobiography upon which it is based... anyone else see it? cfs ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 01:23:06 +0800 From: Jon Fetter Subject: Re: Hmmm. . . . notes on an aging thread >I will add, however, that I also dislike when people *assume* someone is >on drugs. For instance, Robyn, Peter Gabriel, Ian Anderson and Frank >Zappa have all been labeled as such, but in truth none of them were >really fond of drugs at all. According to FZ, whenever a thermometer would break in the Zappa home, Mr. Zappa would give the mercury to the young Frank to play with. He considered that to be the only chemical influence in his life. Jon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 18:41:45 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: More Power Did you cats see the TV adaptation of David Lodge's "Nice Work"? Or read the book? In the TV show, it was 'Power of Love' that the businessman (Warren Clarke) was always playing, but in the book I think it was something different. Very moving and funny attempt to get inside the personality of someone who actually likes that stuff. - - Mike G. PS I always associate Meatloaf with Rocky Horror rather than Hair, but maybe he was in both; can't have been a pretty sight... ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #392 *******************************