From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #437 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, November 23 1998 Volume 07 : Number 437 Today's Subjects: ----------------- mercury lounge/storefront [desmond in a tutu ] mom [desmond in a tutu ] Re: Albums which one *ought* to like more (0% JLH breasts) [Danielle ] last call [tanter ] Robyn A-I;K-Z [S Dwarf ] Re: STOREFRONT ROLLING STONE [tanter ] Data and ddates... ["Chris!" ] Lemmy??!? [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] Lazy New Yorkers: mercury lounge/storefront [Christopher Donnell ] Re: STOREFRONT ROLLING STONE [amadain ] Re: Data and ddates... [Capuchin ] Re: Lemmy and Robyn [HAMISH_SIMPSON@HP-UnitedKingdom-om4.om.hp.com] More market penetration for Rufus? [Eb ] Re: mom [fred is ted ] Re: Hitchcock & Hegley (50% RH) [Michael R Godwin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 19:23:41 -0500 From: desmond in a tutu Subject: mercury lounge/storefront also sprach Ultaltwavr@aol.com: > I was putting my ticket in my pocket for the midnight show at the Mercury >Lounge, looked at it, and it said "Fri 20 Nov 98 12:15 AM". I ignored it at >first, finally telling it to be quiet since I was giving it away at midnight >and didn't want to start a relationship. ... sorry, anyway, wouldn't the show >have been last night with that date and time? What if Robyn gave a concert and >all the literal people showed up 24 hours early? ... or perhaps he is much >more literal than we all imagined and played a concert to bemused clubgoers >last night... wouldn't have mattered to me as i was at the mercury lounge thursday night as well as friday. speaking of which, i'm surprised that i am the first person to be posting about the show. then again, perhaps i shouldn't be since most everyone else who was there (that i know of) are either still trapped in the evil clutches of the quail and lj (or vice versa, if you prefer) or are lazy noo yawkers. ;) anyways, after veda hille wrapped up her set in my living room early friday night, ferris, doug!, and i jumped in ferris' car and drove like jehu to get to the mercury lounge in time. despite the rainy weather and a parking shortage, we made it in time to 1) get a beer before hand and 2) run into the dat tapers. after chatting with bayard, we followed him through the crowd up to the front on the right side. i'll leave the setlist to someone who remembers (or recorded) it. newer songs comprised a fair portion of the set. i was glad to hear "nasa clapping" for the first time live -- if i remember correctly, he introduced it with, "the title is michele's, not mine." deni bonet came up for a large handful of songs, including "let's go thundering" and "sinister but happy". after a few more solo songs, terry edwards from the higsons appeared and played ghastly mellow saxophone for a smaller handful of tunes including "america". the first encore was an allegedly impromptu rendition of r.e.m.'s "electolyte" assisted by a reluctant mike mills on 12-string and a chipper michael stipe as music stand and director, pointing robyn through the lyrics which were haphazardly handwritten on a folded up sheet of paper. there was a second encore with two songs, the latter of which was a violin and saxophone-assisted "listening to the higsons". overall, i think it was an adequate and solid gig. two-thirds of r.e.m. provided amusing novelty (though the before-show gossip that r.e.m. would be the backing band turned out to be some wishful rumormongering), but the cover wasn't that great -- more entertaining than satisfying. saturday night, the posse returned to new york for one of the showings of "storefront hitchcock" at film forum. not being particularly fond of concert films, i had no expectations, but thought it was pretty good. though the songs played were the usual suspects, the performance was good and the visuals not as boring as you'd think. my only complaint is that robyn was hyper-aware of the cameras. he didn't seem nervous about them, but acknowledged their presence with facial gestures and eye contact. i would have preferred none of that, but oh well. also, not a single audience shot. interesting. woj n.p. saha habas mustapha -- jalan kopo ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 19:29:47 -0500 From: desmond in a tutu Subject: mom also sprach Bayard: >Lal is the older of Robyn's two sisters. I think Robyn is the eldest >child, but Lal may be older. Fleur is the baby of the family. out of curiosity, does anyone know what robyn's mother's name is? during "the yip! song" on friday (or was it saturday?) night, the line, "and in his mind, he lay with molly" jumped out at me. is molly mommy dearest? woj ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 16:53:19 -0800 (PST) From: Danielle Subject: Re: Albums which one *ought* to like more (0% JLH breasts) Oh dear, how late am I? Ebby says: > PS James, I think part of the reason Froom's production of the first two > Crowded House albums is so "natural" is that Froom simply hadn't developed > his style yet. In fact, I think Crowded House's debut is badly > *underproduced*. It sounds surprisingly crummy, on a purely sonic level. > Especially on CD. That's as may be, and yeah, Froom may not have developed his style yet, but I think there were a few other contributing factors to the way Crowded House/Crowded House ended up being produced. I think Neil was consciously trying to do something very different - the Enz's swirly synth/keyboard-driven early eighties sound (mainly due to Eddie) is a *far* cry from that *almost* pubrock vibe ('Now We're Getting Somewhere', 'Mean to Me', and so on) Neil and Paul and Nick cultivated (with some early pre-group formation help from the grandaddy of NZ pubrock, Dave Dobbyn, if I recall correctly?). There was an initial 'artsiness' to Enz records which never truly disappeared, despite their metamorphosis from progpop to synthpop, and I think the tension between Neil's songs and that kind of production became increasingly evident by See Ya 'Round or even Conflicting Emotions. Thus, we end up with what became Crowded House and their 'underproduced' first record. I had no idea that I even held these opinions in such detail until just now. :) PERSONAL DATA: Favourite Smiths Album: Louder Than Bombs (yes, I'm cheating with a compo, and Hatful of Hollow gets honourable mention for containing 'How Soon is Now?') Last Time I Listened to Louder Than Bombs: last week Do I Really Think Bombs are, in fact, Loud: yes Do I Listen to Bombs Anyway: sometimes Do I Feel Bad About It: not only bad, but dirty Number of Indian Restaurants within 100 miles of My House: two mediocre ones, though one is about to close Number of Fantastic Indian Restaurants within 100 miles of My House back in Auckland: countless (Kashmir, I yearn for you!) Number of Bands I Have Mentioned in this Post that Eb has Teased Me Mercilessly for Adoring: three Danielle, who thinks that Eddie's post office antics may just be the funniest thing I've heard this week NP Crowded House, for research purposes _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 18:50:36 -0500 From: tanter Subject: Re: mom At 07:29 PM 11/22/1998 -0500, desmond in a tutu wrote: >also sprach Bayard: > >>Lal is the older of Robyn's two sisters. I think Robyn is the eldest >>child, but Lal may be older. Fleur is the baby of the family. > >out of curiosity, does anyone know what robyn's mother's name is? during >"the yip! song" on friday (or was it saturday?) night, the line, "and in >his mind, he lay with molly" jumped out at me. is molly mommy dearest? Her name is Joyce but I think it's actually her second name. My father-in-law knows her and he knows her as Joyce. Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 18:52:56 -0500 From: tanter Subject: last call If you are planning to send me something will you please let me know? I've received donations of various sorts from 5 people so far. If that's all there will be, that's fine, but I want to be sure that everyone who contributes will have their name on the card so please let me know by Tuesday at the latest. I'm going to the post office on Weds. Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 17:14:24 -0800 (PST) From: S Dwarf Subject: Robyn A-I;K-Z Nigel uttered: >P.S. Now I have my Z song 'Zipper in My Spine' all I >need is a J song to complete my A-Z. what, pray tell is the "x"? _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 19:09:01 -0500 From: tanter Subject: Re: STOREFRONT ROLLING STONE At 10:53 AM 11/19/1998 -0500, Ken Ostrander wrote: >"STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK," Jonathan Demme's fifteen-song, eighty-two-minute >film that documents a December 1996 street performance by English cult fave >Robyn Hitchcock, is finally seeing limited release in conjunction with a >soundtrack album of the same name. Arriving on the heels of Demme's >much-celebrated movie BELOVED yeah--so celebrated that everyone's already stopped talking about it and, so I've heard, it's not expected to make much money. and staged more sedately than his >well-received 1984 Talking Heads concert film, STOP MAKING SENSE, >STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK was slated to premiere at Manhattan's Film Forum >November 18th. and, one can assume, this film won't make much money either. Are we supposed to be thinking that Demme is some kind of a genius or something? Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 17:17:02 -0800 From: "Chris!" Subject: Data and ddates... PERSONAL DATA: Favorite Smiths Album: I have never owned a Smith album, much less heardd one all the way through. Sorry. Last Time I Listened to a Smiths album: See above. Although, I was driving through the desert here and heard "Girlfriend in a Coma." Here of all places, Sheesh!! Do I Really Think Bombs are, in fact, Loud: Yes. Do I Listen to Bombs Anyway: There are significant problems with them that limits my affection towards them in any way. Do I Feel Bad About It: Just bombs, not the above answer. Number of Indian Reservations 100 miles of My House: At least six. Number of Indian Reservations within 100 miles of My House that, indeed, are bombed: Only one on a regular basis. This does not include the "sonic overflys" nor the fact that for years a religious site was bombed to one-half of its former size. Also, it seems that I will be in Portland for a few days during the T-day festivities. I may not be able to get away at all. But, is there a chance we can plan a last minute get-together just in case? I hate to bring it up, but last time I was in Portland I thought I would never get away, but did have some free time. Wishy-washy to the max, dude! .chris (who is now glad to be looking at Berkeley-ish as the next homeward stop, sorry Chris) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 14:56:11 +1300 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Lemmy??!? >Who can get from Lemmy to Robyn ? >I can only manage Lemmy->Hawkwind .... Here's another possibility: Lemmy->Hawkwind->Michael Moorcock->BOC->Patti Smith->REM->Robyn 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, 22 Nov 1998 18:13:06 -0800 (PST) From: Christopher Donnell Subject: Lazy New Yorkers: mercury lounge/storefront > speaking of which, i'm surprised that i am the first person to be posting > about the show. then again, perhaps i shouldn't be since most everyone else > who was there (that i know of) are either still trapped in the evil > clutches of the quail and lj (or vice versa, if you prefer) or are lazy > noo yawkers. ;) Guilty! My review of the show is that it was a 'pretty good' show. The show was on the side of 'I'm trying out my newer songs and other things' rather than 'I'm putting on a good show tonight' which is always entertaining but sometimes he forgets the lyrics, makes up weird lyrics or just plays a song not quite right and this was one of those shows. It was kinda of disappointing that he got REM up on stage but Stipey didn't do anything but hold a piece of paper. (And count 1,2,3,4) - They could have done a song together or something. Although I didn't go there to see REM so it wasn't the biggest deal. I liked to movie a lot. I thought it was going to suck (I don't know why, I just did).. but it ruled. Rock on, America. n.p. my fiance is in the other room watching e.t. - so that's on. == Christopher Donnell Hmmm.. you might as well check out my homepage at http://www.bigfoot.com/~qrys _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 22:42:53 -0500 From: desmond in a tutu Subject: sandy denny tribute also sprach Ben: >I also read on the RT list that this show will be broadcast on the radio. I >wonder which Sandy Denny song RH will do? i believe the only feg who went was viv. she told us what song he played when we got back to the flat of lj last night, but i've forgotten what song it was (does anyone remember?) and she neglected to save her program (some feg, huh?). viv's on a 20 hour train ride back to chicago so i doubt we'll hear from her before monday night. woj ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 22:34:59 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: STOREFRONT ROLLING STONE >yeah--so celebrated that everyone's already stopped talking about it and, >so I've heard, it's not expected to make much money. Which means it's a bad film? I've seen loads of quality films that a)people hardly talked about at all and b)made a pittance at the box office. Frankly, the fact that Demme's name is so well-known and esteemed is the reason this didn't go direct to cable or something. If you're venting ire about "Storefront" meeting a bad fate, he probably isn't the one you should be griping at or about. >and, one can assume, this film won't make much money either. Are we >supposed to be thinking that Demme is some kind of a genius or something? To tell the truth, -I- think he's a pretty talented filmmaker, and I know I'm not the only one. You didn't like "Stop Making Sense", nor "Swimming to Cambodia", nor "Silence of The Lambs", nor "Married to The Mob", nor "Melvin and Howard", nor "Something Wild"? You're awfully hard to please! Love on ya, Susan P.S. Thanks for the heads-up on the package date? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 23:23:30 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Data and ddates... On Mon, 23 Nov 1998, Chris! wrote: > Favorite Smiths Album: I have never owned a Smith album, much less > heardd one all the way through. Sorry. Don't you mean this the other way around? > Last Time I Listened to a Smiths album: See above. Although, I was > driving through the desert here and heard "Girlfriend in a Coma." Here > of all places, Sheesh!! I like the Douglas Coupland novel better... and it takes about as long to read as it takes to listen to the song! > Number of Indian Reservations within 100 miles of My House that, > indeed, are bombed: Only one on a regular basis. This does not include > the "sonic overflys" nor the fact that for years a religious site was > bombed to one-half of its former size. Um... how do you bomb a site to half its former size? Did they actually create some kind of rift that closed up and decreased the land area? > Also, it seems that I will be in Portland for a few days during the > T-day festivities. I may not be able to get away at all. But, is there > a chance we can plan a last minute get-together just in case? I hate > to bring it up, but last time I was in Portland I thought I would > never get away, but did have some free time. Wishy-washy to the max, > dude! I'm sure some of us can make some time. If you can be downtown, you can meet a couple of us. It could be a dot-gathering for dotchris. I'd appreciate it, for one. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 08:52:38 +0000 From: HAMISH_SIMPSON@HP-UnitedKingdom-om4.om.hp.com Subject: Re: Lemmy and Robyn There is a two step version depending on which rules we're playing. Lemmy -> Capt. Sensible (MotorDamned) Capt. Sensible -> RH (Cowriting on "Women and Captains First") (H) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 02:47:57 -0800 From: Eb Subject: More market penetration for Rufus? Someone told me last night that there's a new Gap commercial, with Rufus Wainwright singing "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve"! True?? Has anyone here seen this? Speaking of piano geniuses, NBC's late-night SNL rerun over the weekend showed a 1976 episode (host: a teenaged Jodie Foster) with musical guest Brian Wilson! Wow! I missed most of the first song, but the second (a completely ravaged solo-piano version of "Good Vibrations") was fascinatingly screwy. Wish I had taped it! Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 05:19:34 -0800 (PST) From: fred is ted Subject: Re: mom - ---tanter wrote: > > At 07:29 PM 11/22/1998 -0500, desmond in a tutu wrote: > >out of curiosity, does anyone know what robyn's mother's name is? during> >"the yip! song" on friday (or was it saturday?) night, the line, "and in > >his mind, he lay with molly" jumped out at me. is molly mommy dearest? > > > Her name is Joyce but I think it's actually her second name. My> father-in-law knows her and he knows her as Joyce. > > Marcy "Sleeping with Your Devil Mask" provides confirmation? "It's all compulsion, there's no choice, My mother's second name is Joyce" Sure would be great if some heaps of free-time having, database adept Feg put together a Robyn concordance. Just enter "Joyce, and out pops "...Devil Mask" (any other songs with Joyce?). Yep. Sure would be great, alright. Actually, the tools are at hand. Woj's lyrics page would serve as the database--just needs to be made searchable. I wonder what nouns, verbs, etc. would show up most often. "Trout?" Of course, if we head down this path, we can simply reduce Robyn to a software model. Or better yet, download the program into an animatronic, guitar strumming robot ala Disneyworld. Have him at home, put some quarters in him, and lo, Wurlitzer Hitchcock. I know, I know. Some crackpot *cough dlang* will claim that what this all has already come to pass, and that the charming figure recently seen busking in NYC was something less than human, something unspeakable, yes, worse than Quailspew,... it's... QuailSpawn! Eeek! I just scared myself and soiled my pants. Phew. Where's my lithium? Ted "Yeah, we get high on music" Kim Deal _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 15:40:44 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Hitchcock & Hegley (50% RH) On Mon, 23 Nov 1998, tanter wrote: > Does it seem to you that Robyn is doing an awful lot of US-UK-US travel > lately? Has he permanently moved to the US? Not according to this long-promised item, dated August '98: How we met: Robyn Hitchcock and John Hegley Interviews by Shannon Turner, Independent on Sunday Colour Magazine, 9 August 1998. The reputation of British rock musician RH was founded in America, where he was lead singer for the Soft Boys in the seventies and the Egyptians in the eighties. Now 44, he feels he has never fitted into the UK music scene, which he abandoned 10 years ago. Now he commutes to the US to work, but remains based in London where he lives with his partner Michele Noach. John Hegley, also 44, is a performing comic poet. He appears regularly on television, is currently recording a second series of 'Hearing with Hegley' on Radio 4, and is always a sell-out at the Edinburgh Festival. A recovering Catholic, he lives in Islington with photographer Jackie Di Stefano and their small daughter, Isabella. Robyn Hitchcock: I first saw John on stage in 1983. He was working with the Popticians and I thought they were just incredible. I went along to about 20 of their shows. I was going through a couple of years when I was inert, not producing anything, and going to see them was a bit like looking at a more active version of myself. John had a sort of manic energy in those days. He's calmed down now, he's doing less and less of the demented terrier bit - the face waggling from side to side and coming to a dead halt, craning forwards at you. He got me up from the audience one time to climb into a brown paper bag or something, and he said something that made me realise he'd seen me before. Some while later he discovered I was a musician, and we got talking, and he quite quickly seemed to become part of the social horizon. Whenever I read John's stuff I always hear his voice in my head - the way he emphasises things. Mr McNaughty's running the launderette and some lads come in with a poodle and they put the poodle in the spin drier, and Mr McNaughty says "Bad boys! The drier's for customers only". It's the way it speeds up. I find myself doing "Hegleyisms" on stage - not intentionally, it just happens. It's a bit worrying really. I definitely identify with him. John once said he thought he and I were like ying and yang - each of us contains quite a big element of the other. He's a comedian but music's a very important part of what he does, and I'm a musician, but if you haven't got a sense of humour you're not going to like my stuff. We're both small world guys. I think he was a trainspotter as a kid and I was a bus spotter. We're interested in the details of things - he's into cups of tea, sugar, biscuits, trains, dogs - it's all English provincial sort of stuff. It's not heroic, and my stuff is similarly local, it's little. I'm not carved in the Bowie mould, it's not great big swooping plains and glaciers and bridges and people hollering over the desert and beating their chests. My world is the courtyard, and people skulking round and doing things to each other in the shadows, and tomatoes... John's comfortable to be with. Some people are so _un_comfortable, you see their legs jiggling, or they've got a fixed grin and you've got to leave. But John ... he's all right. His clothes have changed a bit over the years, I sometimes see him wandering around with a beret on so you know he's a poet. That's just another element that's slowly surfacing about him. He has this working class background in Luton, but his father was French in origin. So he's having French lessons. I say to him "Are you taking it in?" "Not really," he says, "but I like the sound of it". I was looking at a book of his poems the other day and, in shock, noticed a load of French words. There's the trains, dogs, glasses, tea and now the French element. "Les meubles, non merci" - "Eddie don't like furniture" - lovely piece. We're usually sitting round drinking so I can't really remember that clearly what we talk about, but I do know he managed to persuade me to watch some football once, which is quite incredible. I admire him for that. Mind you, it was about 2.30 in the morning and I was unable to move. John likes to feel he's a normal bloke. He likes to watch Luton play football, he likes the idea of going into a pub and having what he calls a glass of beer - he says "Are you going out for a glass of beer?". John likes to feel that there's this world with the flowers and dogs and they don't put dogs into the washing machine ... Hegleyland, where there are no double yellow lines and everybody has short hair and people smile at each other. But reality is constantly demolishing and bedevilling it, and that's where the humour comes in. If John hadn't been a comedian I think he would have found life very difficult. People wouldn't understand him - they'd wonder what he was for. Similarly, if I hadn't been a musician I'd go mad - I'd burst - my whole life would have been like some horrible abscess. But because I can produce the stuff the whole time - like music and tomatoes - I'm all right. I consider myself very sane. And I think the same goes for John. With good comedy you know you're in touch with a sane mind. It makes you realise there's a truth somewhere. John's quite sweet-natured really, but he understands cruelty. He's quite gentle, he doesn't seem to get angry with people. He's not particularly confrontational, he's happy to observe. He's quite reflective - he says things as they're occurring to him from the back of his mind, like reading them off an old timetable or something. I think I understand him - I always have fun with him. Most of the time we just sit there and think. Actually that's what we do, we think together. We think at each other. John Hegley: I met Robyn in an area of time, rather than one actual moment. He used to come along to our shows in 1983 and just stand at the back and watch. Our audiences were pretty small and you'd notice anyone who came regularly. We'd exchange a few words in the breaks: "Nice guitar you've got there". "Oh yes, thank you". I once asked him for a roll-up in the Hemingford Arms ... And then I got him inside The Big Brown Paper Bag for one of my acts. I escape from my glasses inside a brown paper bag and get someone to come in and take a Polaroid photograph of me. Robyn was the audience member chosen, and he was very shaky. I wanted to say "Relax, you're OK, don't worry about being on stage". Sometime later I saw his photograph in the NME, and thought, that's Robyn who comes to our shows, then read that he was a well-known performer. I suppose I was enamoured of the fact that he hadn't come over all heavy - "Oh, I'm in the business as well, you know," but I didn't have a need to go and see him perform. Our friendship started to develop more ... he'd offer me two roll-ups ... and then I think he probably said: "Let's go for a drink." Pretty early on in the relationship I remember some guy making a comment about a song that I had done with the Popticians, saying it's all about glasses, and Robyn leapt to my defence saying that it wasn't just about glasses, that there was some profound undertone in this work. I thought, gosh, he really takes this very seriously, which at the time I was surprised at. I'm not surprised now we know each other better. In the eighties the Popticians were losing their way a bit, and Robyn got us together to produce a record, and we went on tour with him. We had a really lovely time; we watched 'Spinal Tap' on the bus and it felt like real rock'n'roll. We used to kick this little ball around in carparks while we were waiting for the van - that was nice. But I still know nothing about the private world where he creates his songs, he just does that somewhere on his own. I love his work. Sometimes I put one of his records on and just have a little dance around. I think we've identified each other as fellow travellers. Robyn sort of speaks of his Englishness; when I ask him if he chats to people around where he lives he says: "Oh no, I wouldn't do that, it's not English". We are in fact two early-middle-aged English men. I suppose when we meet it's a popping out of the uptightness - we can relax - we can go, "Yeah, we're on this point on our travels ... let's just have a little relax and then get back to them". He's gently critical of what I do and has a good eye on my stuff, but it's wider than that. Robyn's not a lad - he's a bit of a woman, really. It's a sort of impression you get - but he's quite a big bloke. He has this song called "Man with a woman's shadow" - it's a beautiful concept, beautifully sung. And I can relate to that. I'm a bit of a lad, but I'm also a bit of a lass. I feel that we're "beings" rather than just men or women and he throws that back, and it helps my "beingness" to be with somebody else like that. It would have helped enormously to have had a mate like Robyn around when I was growing up. I was an outsider - although "outsider" sounds too grand, too "Camus" - but my impression is that Robyn was also an outsider. I have this image of a middle, with both of us running round the outside, and bumping into each other and just saying "Oh, hello." It's almost as if we just bump into each other now, and there's a bit of pain, but there's a bit of laughter. I'm not one to discuss my problems but I might just say I'm troubled, and he'll make me feel okay. He just offers reassurance. There was one time I was feeling a bit troubled and he gave me his coat to wear ... that was nice. It wasn't the best coat in the world, mind. I like drinking with Robyn. We can get very intense. We don't get drunk, the drink oils the conversation rather than swamps it. But I'm always really glad when there's just the two of us and a couple of pints of beer - and to know there's a few more pints of beer, some good conversation, a few laughs and a bit of enlightenment ahead. * * * * * * * * Used without per. - - Mike G. "It's tough working with two geniuses, like ice and fire. I see myself sort of like lukewarm water" - Derek Smalls ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #437 *******************************