From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #442 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, November 30 1998 Volume 07 : Number 442 Today's Subjects: ----------------- merc lounge review [dmw ] Wight [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] Re: Wight Trilobite Dwight Lite-Bite [Jon Fetter ] Re: Wight Trilobite Dwight Lite-Bite [Terrence M Marks ] Evening Standard article [Gary Sedgwick ] Re: Wimble and wight [Michael R Godwin ] EW review ["Scott (Ferris) Thomas" ] Storefront New Yorker [fred is ted ] unleash your lust! ["Capitalism Blows" ] Sean Lyons [Russ Reynolds ] update! ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: Sean Lyons ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: unleash your lust! [Bayard ] St. Petersburg [was 'unleash your lust!'] [Miles Goosens ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 22:16:37 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: merc lounge review there's probably no actual new information that wasn't in one of the other summaries, but i finally found the floppy disk with the review of last fri->saturday's show, so it's on the web in the usual place, if any o' you fine folks want to take a gander at it. http://www.pathetic-caverns.com/music/l_h.html is the link that should work for all time, and it's currently a featured live review. - -- d. - - oh no!! you've just read mail from doug = dmw@radix.net dmw@mwmw.com - - get yr pathos:www.pathetic-caverns.com -- books, flicks, tunes, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 16:21:12 +1300 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Wight >Wight : I've heard 'wight' is an ancient English word meaning 'man'. Can >any linguists on the lists confirm this ? quite possible, although I don't know of it. I do know that a barrow-wight is a ghost thought to haunt ancient burial mounds (barrows), so it's possible that wight means ghost, guardian, or inhabitant. Anyone else? >Robyn's Storefront comments about the crumbling the Isle of Wight are not >exaggerated. The sea is gobbling up the English south coast at a ferocious >pace. The beach where Julius Ceasar landed to conquer England in 55 BC is >now half a mile out to sea under hundreds of feet of water. Similarly, the >beach where William/Guillaume the conqueror landed in 1066 is now >underwater. As recently as 6000 years ago, when Stonehenge and the >pyramids were being built, there was no sea and you could walk across a >land bridge from Kent in England to Flanders in Belgium. true, but some of England'ssouth east coast is, in places, rising. The coast of Sussex, Kent and Norfolk have rised dramatically that the place where William the Conqueror landed in 1066 is now half a mile inland, and the part of the Kentish mainland called the Isle of Thanet was just that until Roman times! James PS - a small island off the Dunedin coast is called White Island (no, NOT the volcanic one...). It was originally called "Isle of Wight", but the name got slowly altered over the last 150 years... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:24:55 +0800 From: Jon Fetter Subject: Re: Wight Trilobite Dwight Lite-Bite >>Wight : I've heard 'wight' is an ancient English word meaning 'man'. Can >>any linguists on the lists confirm this ? So can the Isle of Man also be called the Isle of Wight? J ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 01:01:59 -0500 (EST) From: Terrence M Marks Subject: Re: Wight Trilobite Dwight Lite-Bite On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Jon Fetter wrote: > >>Wight : I've heard 'wight' is an ancient English word meaning 'man'. Can > >>any linguists on the lists confirm this ? > So can the Isle of Man also be called the Isle of Wight? We swam out all this way for nothing....there is no Isle of Wight. Just the Isle of Man. Terrence Marks normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 19:47:29 +0930 From: dlang Subject: Re: Gotta Get This Hen! (out) Gotta Let This Hen Out reminder for those fegs without the video of Hen ,if you want to see what some of its like , theres a heap of stills from the vid at my website, including a few from Higsons and Man with the lightbulb head.. here - -http://210.8.25.3/sharkfiles. go to the Robyn section in the live music emporium and its in the Robyn photo gallery dave who still hasn't got the promised video stills from the whistle test online yet.....but soon, soon..... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 10:19:40 -0000 From: Gary Sedgwick Subject: Evening Standard article From the Arts section of the Evening Standard, Friday 27th November. Gary - ---------- The best guitar in Hollywood The director of Silence of the Lambs has been filming with Britain's most underrated musician. PETE CLARK met them both. - ---------------------------------------------------- At first glance, Robyn Hitchcock is not the kind of subject matter you would associate with Jonathan Demme. The former is this country's best-kept musical secret while the latter makes films like Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and Something Wild which are the talk of every town. But the fact is that Demme's latest piece of work is called Storefront Hitchcock and is essentially a record of the musician playing a gig in the front of a shop on 23rd Street in Manhattan with only a small audience, a guitar, a couple of friends and the occasional passing bum for company. It is a riveting film, beautifully shot in an artfully artless manner. Hitchcock is that type of English eccentric whose baby milk was cheered up by the addition of mild psychedelics. He peddles first-class flights of fancy. Demme is the nicest big-time Hollywood director one could hope to meet, and a huge music fan, as evidenced by his wonderful Talking Heads concert movie Stop Making Sense. When the two of them have finished working out who is tallest - it's clearly Robyn, by a head - they sit down and explain themselves. "I was playing this gig in upstate New York, and someone came backstage and announced that Jonathan Demme was in the audience," recalls Robyn. "I remember thinking, 'I doubt that,' and then some trap door flew back and Jonathan and his wife materialised in the room." Jonathan the explains his mysterious presence: "I had a tremendous admiration based on difficult-to-come-by records which sporadically appeared in LA in the Eighties. Then I got married and had kids and lost touch with music for a while, and my life revolved around the Mickey Mouse club. Then Robyn's name turns up on the bill at a tiny, very hip club a couple of miles from where I live. I said, 'Joanne, let's go!'" Thus a film was born. Hitchcock's performance is mesmeric, and big fan Demme captures every tic and nuance. It comes as no surprise that Robyn has a theory about his celluloid fame. "It is the Picture of Dorian Gray in reverse - as I get older and more decrepit, the me in the film will look younger and smoother and more competent. In 20 years' time, I will be looking absolutely angelic!" Demme is quick to add his two cents: "I shot the film over two days because I didn't want Robyn to age significantly." For some reason, this spot of banter prompts a heated discussion on the future of the former's first novel, freshly completed. "My agent in New York has gone mysteriously quiet," Hitchcock confides. "I heard she recently closed her office and split for Tahiti," offers Jonathan in a spirit of friendship. "At least she didn't split for tahini," comes back Robyn in a flash. With a great deal of effort, I reroute the conversation along more conventional paths. There is a man with a guitar in a shop window singing songs and talking. Why would anyone take the trouble to visit the cinema to see it? "When I first saw Robyn on stage, I was unprepared for how enormously moved and entertained I was going to be. Usually, at a gig, there's a horn section, or a light show, or a DJ at the back. But here there's one guy on his own sweating, and my God we are riveted!" Oddly enough, Robyn has another theory: "I suspect the film will end up like the Blues Brothers, a cult thing that is shown at midnight in colleges - 'Hey, man, let's get some booze and go see Storefront!'" Even as a student, you could do a lot worse. Robyn Hitchcock plays Queen Elizabeth Hall on Monday. Storefront Hitchcock is on selected release now. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 17:21:30 +0000 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Wimble and wight On Sat, 28 Nov 1998, Matthew Knights wrote: > A couple of language questions ... > > Wight : I've heard 'wight' is an ancient English word meaning 'man'. Can > any linguists on the lists confirm this ? Yes, that's right. But I was surprised to learn that it also has an obsolete meaning of 'supernatural being', which is obviously the sense in which Tolkien used it. Though come to think of it, I would describe the 'ordinary' sense as obsolete, too, as the "now used" example below comes from Chaucer. As for 'chine', it means a cleft or ravine, but seems to be local to the IoW. More generally, it means a cut of beef - presumably the 'cut' meaning was transferred to a geographical cleft. Anyway, I lifted this from Hypertext Webster: From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913) Wight \Wight\, n. [OE. wight, wiht, a wight, a whit, AS. wiht, wuht, a creature, a thing; skin to D. wicht a child, OS. & OHG. wiht a creature, thing, G. wicht a creature, Icel. v[ae]tt? a wight, v[ae]tt? a whit, Goth. wa['i]hts, wa['i]ht, thing; cf. Russ. veshche a thing. ?. Cf. {Whit}.] 1. A whit; a bit; a jot. [Obs.] She was fallen asleep a little wight. --Chaucer. 2. A supernatural being. [Obs.] --Chaucer. 3. A human being; a person, either male or female; -- now used chiefly in irony or burlesque, or in humorous language. ``Worst of all wightes.'' --Chaucer. Every wight that hath discretion. --Chaucer. Oh, say me true if thou wert mortal wight. --Milton. Wight \Wight\, a. [OE. wight, wiht, probably of Scand. origin; cf. Icel. v[=i]gr in fighting condition, neut. v[=i]gh ??? v[=i]g war, akin to AS. w[=i]g See {Vanquish}.] Swift; nimble; agile; strong and active. [Obs. or Poetic] 'T is full wight, God wot, as is a roe. --Chaucer. He was so wimble and so wight. --Spenser. They were Night and Day, and Day and Night, Pilgrims wight with steps forthright. --Emerson. From WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn) wight n : a human being; `wight' is an archaic term [syn: {creature}] > Chine : is this the local word for a steep gap in the rock leading down to > the sea - much like a Norwegian Fjord ? Chine \Chine\, n. [Cf. {Chink}.] A chink or cleft; a narrow and deep ravine; as, Shanklin Chine in the Isle of Wight, a quarter of a mile long and 230 feet deep. [Prov. Eng.] ``The cottage in a chine.'' --J. Ingelow. Chine \Chine\, n.[OF. eschine, F. ['e]chine, fr. OHG. skina needle, prickle, shin, G. schiene splint, schienbein shin. For the meaning cf. L. spina thorn, prickle, or spine, the backbone. Cf. {Shin}.] 1. The backbone or spine of an animal; the back. ``And chine with rising bristles roughly spread.'' --Dryden. 2. A piece of the backbone of an animal, with the adjoining parts, cut for cooking. Note: [See Illust. of {Beef}.] 3. The edge or rim of a cask, etc., formed by the projecting ends of the staves; the chamfered end of a stave. Chine \Chine\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Chined.] 1. To cut through the backbone of; to cut into chine pieces. 2. Too chamfer the ends of a stave and form the chine.. From WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn) chine n 1: cut of meat or fish including at least part of the backbone 2: backbone of an animal v : cut through the backbone of an animal > As recently as 6000 years ago, when Stonehenge and the > pyramids were being built, there was no sea and you could walk across a > land bridge from Kent in England to Flanders in Belgium. On the rocks programme a couple of weeks ago they showed that the land bridge must have been swept away in one gigantic flood, not (as previously thought) eroded over centuries. - - Mike G. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 13:03:22 -0500 From: "Scott (Ferris) Thomas" Subject: EW review Been out of the loop lately, so I don't know if anyone's put it out yet. This is the SF review from the Nov 27 issue of Entertainment Weekly. Enjoy. - -f. np: Tigermilk (Belle & Sebastian) - --- ROBYN HITCHCOCK Storefront Hitchcock (Warner Bros.) Looks like Brit-rock veteran Hitchcock might be primed for a renaissance, what with a classy solo concert film directed by Jonathan Demme and this tie-in soundtrack album. But if that comes to pass, it's gonna be on Hitchcock's terms; he's a merry cynic with an unparalleled knack for making dark folly out of other people's misfortune and misery--sorta like that other, more famous Hitchcock. A- __________________ F. S. Thomas programmer FUNNYBONE Interactive fthomas@cendantsoft.com For decades we always heard that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and let them bang away on the keyboard that they would ultimately type the complete works of Shakespeare. The Internet has proved that this is not so. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 10:48:35 -0800 (PST) From: fred is ted Subject: Storefront New Yorker Storefront Hitchcock--Johnathan Demme's almost ascetically simple concert film shows Englishman Robyn Hitchcock performing alone, in a storefront on Fourteenth Street. Under Demme's pared-down scrutiny, the aging cult-rocker emerges as a far better poet than a crafter of tunes; he sings like a teen idol from the British Invasion era, but his witty gloom is closer to Hieronymous Bosch. At his best he's a brave, solemn comedian, musing between songs about cancer and the fact that Julius Caesar was a very short man.--S.K. (Sarah Kerr). (Film Forum, starting Nov. 18) This review struck me because just last week I was trying to think what visual artist I would compare RH to (thread alert), and I had settled for Bosch on Prozac. Belated Happy Fegsgiving to one and all, espc. you wonderful lyric listers. 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, 30 Nov 1998 12:06:05 PST From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: unleash your lust! i'm sure it's been discussed whether david byrne has commented on Freeze or not. but, i wonder if he's seen Storefront yet? so i just discovered the other day that sean lyons, the chap who so ably replaced kimberley on the reunion tour, also toured with the lads for two weeks in november of '93. if *anyone* has *any* tapes from this tour (of the uk) PUH-LEEZE get in touch! the gap between robyn's two bells gig on june 28 and his street gig on november 18 appears to be his second-longest since the retirement. if he did indeed play in the hamptons in october, that would decrease the gap some, but wouldn't affect its standing as #2. here are the longest, with number of days in parens: 1. 02/13/87 to 07/17/87 (154) 2. 06/28/98 to 11/18/98 (143) 3. 10/28/89 to 02/19/90 (114) 4. 06/30/86 to 10/03/86 (95) 5. 07/15/92 to 10/17/92 (94) 6. 05/25/96 to 08/10/96 (87) 7. 12/10/94 to 03/02/95 (82) 8. 08/31/97 to 11/14/97 (75) also, if he plays no more than two gigs the rest of the year, it will have been his least active gigging year since 1987: 1. 1995 (60) 2. 1992 (59) 3. 1989 (58) 4. 1990 (55) 1993 (55) 6. 1979 (48) 7. 1997 (46) 8. 1988 (41) 9. 1986 (40) 10. 1985 (38) 11. 1996 (37) 12. 1994 (35) 13. 1980 (34) 14. 1991 (25) 15. 1998 (22) 16. 1978 (16) 17. 1987 (13) 18. 1981 (6) 19. 1984 (5) 20. 1982 (3) 21. 1983 (0) um, i've beaten it into the ground that i'd really love to hear robyn do Autumn Sea, As Lemons Chop, Jukebox Hero, and Rock Lobster live. but something else struck me the other day: Luminous Rose, with deni! yow! would that be a knockout, or what? some other songs i think would fit the current (drummerless) phase of his career quite well: Underwater Moonlight, Rock 'n' Roll Toilet, Take Your Knife Out Of My Back (with tim), Trams Of Old London, Don't You, Some Body, Mr. Deadly, St. Petersburg (with deni. or hedges. either one.), It's A Mystic Trip. and here are all the egyptians songs which to my knowledge have never been performed live: Black Crow Knows, Autumn Sea, Then You're Dust. as above, if anyone's got any tapes with any of these songs on them, i'd love for you to contact me. Obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy publications or writings, or mail containing information on where, how, or from whom such matter may be obtained, and matter that is otherwise mailable but that has on its wrapper or envelope any indecent, lewd, lascivious, or obscene writing or prinitng, and any mail containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing is nonmailable (18 USC 1461, 1463). ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 98 12:32:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: Sean Lyons >so i just discovered the other day that sean lyons, the chap who so ably >replaced kimberley on the reunion tour, also toured with the lads for >two weeks in november of '93. if *anyone* has *any* tapes from this >tour (of the uk) PUH-LEEZE get in touch! I believe Sean Lyons is the guitarist on the Wafflehead Soft Boys "reunion" cassette (how it can be called a soft boys reunion w/o kimberley is beyond me). I forget what this tape is called ("Where Are The Prawns?" maybe) but I'm suresomeone will chime in. - -rUss ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:27:53 PST From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: update! < 6. 1979 (48) 7. 1997 (46)> bayard via woj just found three more gigs from 1997, so you can flip-flop these two. oh, the drama! ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 12:36:59 PST From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: Re: Sean Lyons yes, this is correct. kimberley was, "in the bath." although kimberley did play at at least one of the gigs. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 15:57:17 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: Re: unleash your lust! On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Capitalism Blows wrote: > Some Body, Mr. Deadly, St. Petersburg (with deni. or hedges. either > one.) OUR Hedges? or did you mean Hegley? > and here are all the egyptians songs which to my knowledge have never > been performed live: Black Crow Knows, Autumn Sea, Then You're Dust. > as above, if anyone's got any tapes with any of these songs on them, i'd > love for you to contact me. They played The Black Crow Knows on 3/24/86 at the Town Pump, Vancouver. I think i have the tape - there's another tape w/soundcheck where they go off into a crazy prog-rock/psychedlic keyboard jam, but that would take some looking to find that one; I got it from Rob Zarzecki (you out there, Rob?) - -Mr. Biguini ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 18:10:13 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: St. Petersburg [was 'unleash your lust!'] At 12:06 PM 11/30/98 -0800, Capitalism Blows wrote: >some other songs i think would fit the current (drummerless) phase of >his career quite well: Underwater Moonlight, Rock 'n' Roll Toilet, Take >Your Knife Out Of My Back (with tim), Trams Of Old London, Don't You, >Some Body, Mr. Deadly, St. Petersburg (with deni. or hedges. either >one.), It's A Mystic Trip. When I spoke to Robyn after the Feb. '97 Bluebird gig, I asked him about "St. Petersburg." As Gary Parker is my witness, the conversation went something like this: Me: "Robyn, you should play 'St. Petersburg' sometime." RH: "ummm, I played Florida in..." Me: "No, not the city, the song. I remember reading on the Rhino reissue of GROOVY DECAY that you envisioned those songs with violin instead of sax, and since you're playing with Deni nowadays [though not this particular gig]..." RH: "Well, I've done the violin thing with this album [MOSS ELIXIR], and that should do it, shouldn't it? Time to move on." Robyn's tone was pretty abrupt. This is all armchair psychoanalysis, but I think it had less to do with my overenthusiastic fanboy raving than it did with his continued reluctance to revisit the horrors of 1982-83, and who can blame him? Bayard and I may be the only two people who actually think DECAY is a pretty fine album overall, but I'd think that "Fifty-Two Stations," "St. Petersburg," "The Cars She Used to Drive," "The Rain," and "America" make up a pretty strong core contingent of songs, regardless of carping over the production. [And most of these are exactly the same takes on DECAY and DECOY, heh heh.] Anyway, my point is that a song as emotionally harrowing as "St. Petersburg" probably threatens to summon the demons of depression and drink from the hell to which Robyn has managed, more or less, to confine them. I'd sure love to hear it live, Deni or no Deni (though piano and violin would be the sweetest way), but I don't think Robyn's interested. At least not yet. later, Miles ================================================== Miles Goosens R. Stevie Moore website, now with sound! http://www.rsteviemoore.com My personal page, all silent all the time: http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles Join the Wire Mailing List: http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/wire ================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 20:04:53 EST From: Insomnboy@aol.com Subject: Can any of you musicians help? A buddy of mine recently got a Roland TR-505 drum machine to use with his four-track. Of course since I'm the drummer in the group, he decided it's my job to figure out how to work the bloody thing. I would prefer to just play real drums but that is not an option at this point. Problem is, the machine didn't come with a manual and I can't figure out how to manually program rhythms on it. Does anyone have a manual that they could scan/xerox and send to me? I really don't want to send 15 bucks to Roland for a photocopy of the fucking thing. Or maybe it's on the web somewhere? (I've had no luck with web searches on it). Any help would be appreciated. Russell in Los Angeles ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 22:13:22 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: Re: St. Petersburg [was 'unleash your lust!'] On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Miles Goosens wrote: > Me: "Robyn, you should play 'St. Petersburg' sometime." > RH: "ummm, I played Florida in..." I just happen to be going thru the archives, and found this additional data point re. last year's show in Eugene, OR: <<>> Anyway, he played Arms of Love with Deni at the Mercury lounge, and he's played Victorian Squid and Nightride to Trinidad recently, so there is small hope... I know he played St. P at a show in germany in '85 (Onkel Po's) and before it, he said something like "This is a song about a couple of people who go off and die somewhere together. You probably love that kind of thing over here." > can blame him? Bayard and I may be the only two people who actually think > DECAY is a pretty fine album overall IIRC, there is also Dave Librik, and Eddie. But that's it. =b ps. St. P is the first Robyn song I really listened to, and was what had me "Instant Hooked". ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 22:08:48 -0500 From: tanter Subject: Re: Evening Standard article At 10:19 AM 11/30/1998 +0000, you wrote: >With a great deal of effort, I reroute the conversation along more >conventional paths. There is a man with a guitar in a shop window >singing songs and talking. Why would anyone take the trouble to visit >the cinema to see it? >"When I first saw Robyn on stage, I was unprepared for how enormously >moved and entertained I was going to be. Usually, at a gig, there's a >horn section, or a light show, or a DJ at the back. But here there's >one guy on his own sweating, and my God we are riveted!" >Oddly enough, Robyn has another theory: "I suspect the film will end up >like the Blues Brothers, a cult thing that is shown at midnight in >colleges - 'Hey, man, let's get some booze and go see Storefront!'" >Even as a student, you could do a lot worse. These articles are interesting but will they really effect anyone who's not already some kind of RH fan? I would love to think that Robyn will gain a bunch more popularity because of this, but does anyone know what the crowds have been like at the showings of the film? Are people going to see a film about a guy they've never heard of??? I suspect it will end up a cult film among fegs!! ;) Marcy ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #442 *******************************