From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #33 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, February 1 1999 Volume 08 : Number 033 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: "rug pee-ers did not do this." [cinders blue ] gig? [cinders blue ] Re: "rug pee-ers did not do this." [Eb ] Re: damn straight! [steve ] Re: Why is it "Greenman" and not "Green Man"? (NR) [Ross Overbury ] Re: damn straight! [fred is ted ] Yet more XTC blather [Natalie Jacobs ] Re: And another thing! (nonRH) [Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer <] Re: gig? [VIV LYON ] Zappa (long and RHless, as usual) ["Chaney, Dolph L" ] Re: heeee's baaaack [Jon Fetter ] Re: observations [Michael R Godwin ] Hallo, Goedendag! [The Great Quail ] news from spain ["Capitalism Blows" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 19:13:31 -0500 From: cinders blue Subject: Re: "rug pee-ers did not do this." MC 900 Ft Capitalism Blows rapped: >my rule of thumb has always been that the *second* song on side two is >the best song of the album. >do many others still think of cd's as having sidebreaks, even though >they don't literally, and try to speculate as to exactly which song >would be the last song of side one? i dunno. well, duh. count back two songs from the best song on the album. ><> >>who put the "[sic]" in there, and why? >i did because they neglected the single quotes in the title.> > >ah. wonderful! but watch out you get weeniebranded. if all those fucking tapes on my web page don't brand me a weenie, i don't know what does. woj, noting the gratuitous use of the word fuck ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 19:06:28 -0500 From: cinders blue Subject: gig? fegs, can anyone confirm or deny the following rumor of a show in chicago around last christmas? i'd find it hard to believe that this could have escaped the collective all-seeing eye of thoth, but hey! we missed the showing of storefront hitchcock at the hamptons film festival, so what the hell do i know? woj >From: "Jill Harris" >To: woj@smoe.org >Subject: gig? >Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 14:58:24 PST > >hi there- >as an avid reader of Fegmania!, i tend to think that you're pretty >currant...so, I thought i'd see if you knew if there was any truth to >the rumor that Robyn played a small gig at a bar in Chicago around the >22nd or 23rd of December. This is according to some friends of mine who >claimed to see it listed in the bar section of our little 'alternative' >paper up here. If he did, i will just cry, but i HAVE to find out. Any >leads you would know of, I would really appreciate. >Thanks, and keep up the great work, I love the site! > -Jill > >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 16:29:05 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: "rug pee-ers did not do this." eddie: >i just had a thought, eb. you're always talking about your "database." >don't know if you mean that literally. but if so, i think you should >put it online. Oh, gawwwwwd. There's NOTHING more pathetic/anal-retentive/weenie-esque than folks who post their record collections on the Web. In fact, there's even a webpage somewhere devoted to "Useless Websites" which has a whole list of links to online record collections (ha!). I would NEVER put my collection online. But yes, I do "literally" have a database for my own use, which I set up with FileMaker Pro. It basically stores title, artist, year, label and format, plus another tiny field which isn't worth explaining. ;) I don't store individual song titles, track times, band members, production credits or anything more detailed like that -- that would take far too much time and memory, and really wouldn't be of much use to me. Whereas I *do* use the existing information for writing reference, all the time. It also makes it *extremely* easy for me to cough up best/worst-type lists, chosen via a wide variety of parameters. ;) (Um...the database has 2567 entries right now, if you must know. Entered in order of acquisition, not alphabetically. Robyn entries at...let's see...#227 [Element of Light], #283, #296, #431, #432, #488, #593, #655, #659, #716, #812, #925, #1199, #1467, #1497, #1598, #1897, #2165, #2218 and #2555 [Storefront Hitchcock]. Isn't that THRILLING?? ;)) I also have two other far simpler datafiles on my low-tech Apple IIe -- one for EPs/CD5s/12-inches and that sort of thing (NOT 45s, however), and another for the concerts I've seen (I think it's around 475 now). I'm too lazy to retype that info into this computer, so it stays on the IIe. Hi Viv, Eveneb PS Are the Dolphins winning? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 18:47:20 -0600 From: steve Subject: Re: damn straight! >what the fuck, you fucking heretic? you can't call the senate chaplain >an "ass"! I was trying to be nice. - - Steve ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 20:20:23 -0500 (EST) From: Ross Overbury Subject: Re: Why is it "Greenman" and not "Green Man"? (NR) On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, steve wrote: > Ross Overbury: > >One additional note: Isn't the Last Balloon about anti-semiticism? > > Andy didn't enunciate well on the demos, it is in fact "you." It's a > general exhortation for people to give up their destructive habits. Then why "you should drop us all" ? The narrator clearly isn't going along for the ride. If you're right, I've got a good idea for a song. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 15:19:28 +1300 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: heeee's baaaack Phew! 3000km later.... I have seen the whales at Kaikoura, the thermal springs at Hanmer, the glaciers of Franz Josef and Fox, and the crystal lakes of Riwaka. I have taken a unit from Johnsonville and ridden on one of the rides at Te Papa. I have seen a water-bugffalo farm near Punakaiki, translated some Russian for a shopkeeper at Haast and watchedbungy jumpers (but not bungied myself) at the Kawarau. I have seen the mountains on the coast north of Westport and can now report that Jon was right - they do seem to just come out of the sky and stand there! James ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 01:06:51 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: gig? >can anyone confirm or deny the following rumor of a show in chicago around >last christmas? i'd find it hard to believe that this could have escaped I can't absolutely deny it- however, I tend to read show listings pretty carefully, as many of the people I might want to see aren't often listed in large type ;), and I think I would have remembered seeing this! Unless he was listed under some other name, which is possible, or it was in an ad for the bar in question rather than a listing. I don't know this woman's friends, but I think it's possible they could have made a mistake. People who aren't especially fans can sometimes get mixed up and try to send you to Robin Trowers gigs. >>as an avid reader of Fegmania!, i tend to think that you're pretty >>currant... er......ARE you a currant woj? >>22nd or 23rd of December. This is according to some friends of mine who >>claimed to see it listed in the bar section of our little 'alternative' >>paper up here. Our little alternative paper? There's more than one alternative paper and I'm not sure which is the little one! Probably she means New City. Do you remember seeing this anyone? Viv? Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 06:30:06 -0800 (PST) From: fred is ted Subject: Re: damn straight! - ---steve wrote: >> Capitalism Blows: > >"I never mind good kidding or creative criticism. But I do object to > >the trivializing of the role of prayer for the Senate and for the nation > >for the urgent need of God's help in this cricial time of our history." > > --Lloyd Oglivie, Senate Chaplain > > This guy is an ass. Hmmff, sounds like an elephant if you ask me. 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, 1 Feb 1999 10:04:02 -0500 From: Natalie Jacobs Subject: Yet more XTC blather >>OK, two notes: and Greenman seems to me to feature a nature god that is at >>once loveable and annoying paternal. > >There's generally nothing lovable about pagan (Pagan?) gods. Being >representatives of nature, they are there to be *served*. Well, no, actually. For one thing, making such a sweeping statement about "pagan gods" (covering maybe several hundred separate nature-based religions and traditions) is a massive over-generalization. For another thing, the relationship between people and their gods is a little more complex than that of a master-servant relationship, and varies considerably from tradition to tradition. The Green Man is not a god per se, but rather an iconographical figure of a wild man peering out of foliage; Partridge depicts him as a sort of orgiastic male fertility god like Dionysus or Pan - - both father and lover, beautiful and a little scary at the same time. It's maybe a little over-romanticized an image (Dionysus's followers would tear apart animals with their bare hands), but it seems about right to me. >What do you like so much about "River of Orchids"? Well, you must know my state of mind when I first listened to it. Having received the tape of demos in the mail, I popped it in my tape player with a deep sense of foreboding. I was convinced XTC had lost their touch, shot their wad, etc., and I was expecting yet another yawnsome slew of flaccid little tunes a la "Nonsuch." Instead, I heard these weird pizzicato strings and horns and interweaving melody lines, and this strange minimalist thing going on, and not a trace of Beatles/Beach Boys cutesyness to be found, and I was very, very impressed. That was when I knew the album was going to be good. >Well, "Greenman" is over six minutes long, so grab a wad of Kleenex. Woo-hoo! They must have kept that really long coda... >Well, gee, you're agreeing with me too much. No fair. ;) Gee, sorry. I'll try to be more ornery in the future. >>n., drooling slightly > >Over me, or XTC? XTC, dear. >Eb, shuddering, imagining the euphoric blathering on the Chalkhills list >which must be going on at this very moment... Heh! n., delighted to be able to criticize XTC without being told to "go back and listen to your New Kids on the Block albums instead" because I don't appreciate XTC's greatness (as one irate Chalkhillian informed me) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 15:10:05 +0000 (GMT) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: And another thing! (nonRH) >>>>> "Caroline" == Caroline Smith writes: Caroline> Speaking of Apple commercials... Caroline> It's rather awesome. Yeah, like Mac apps won't fail from Y2K problems... poor deluded users; sheesh. Stewart (wandering off making "I've been a programmer for quarter of a century" noises.) - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 08:22:41 -0800 (PST) From: VIV LYON Subject: Re: gig? > Do you remember seeing this anyone? Viv? Chicagoan though I be, and hawk-eyed for mentions of RH in the local press, I did not see any such announcement for any such gig. Either it's apocryphal or I should be sawing my own head off in an extravagant display of shame and humiliation. Vivien _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:28:35 -0500 From: "Chaney, Dolph L" Subject: Zappa (long and RHless, as usual) OK. As a former raving-lunatic-drool-spewing Zappanatic, who subscribed for years to alt.fan.frank-zappa and whose senior honors thesis was a set of poems and short stories that I wrote about individual FZ albums, I feel somehow qualified to speak on Zappaddiction. I first found Frank as a teenager by reading about him. I was a guitar student, and the 20th anniversary issue of Guitar Player magazine featured a flexidisc of Frank playing live, with Dweezil guesting. (This was when I was 13 and thought what was on the cover of Guitar Player magazine mattered.) So I listened to the flexidisc and I dug it. The song ("Sharleena") was silly, and there were several minutes of pretty wild guitaring all over it. That was more than enough for me at the time! So I started reading up on him, and since the 60s band kept being called "sloppy" in what I read (and since, again, this used to matter to me), I started with the '75 album One Size Fits All. Again, very silly stuff impeccably played. I wore that cassette out. Over the next few years, I bought around 40 Zappa recordings (2/3 of his oeuvre). Through high school and college, his music opened up possibilities in my head for me and mine, and his personality encouraged me to vent a little now and then. So, what happened? Well, I'm not a mean-spirited guy. And, after years and years of listening to him, I just sort of reached my tolerance level. I think where it really hit me was in his critiques of Christians. Now, for years I would shout right along with him as he'd talk about the hypocrisy, corruption, and general stupidity that pervades much of the church. Because, well, it's there. Any time people are involved with anything, it gets in there, and it can reach particularly toxic levels when people are involved in something that leads them to think that they're Right about things. So, fine. As a longstanding Christian and a preacher's kid, I knew full well that there is stupid stuff in the church and in the way many people practice Christianity, and that televangelists are particularly awful. Even Jethro Tull (notably named after an agricultural inventor, not a theologian) had already gone there 10-15 years before Frank started obsessing about it. What got to me is that FZ, in his lyrics and other interviews and writings, goes beyond this into a type of misanthropism and atheism that's just difficult for me to enjoy. The silly quality that initially attracted me to him only reigns supreme in a few works; most of them are dominated by a brutal mindset that just got to be too much for delicate little me. I will always respect the sheer mass of what he did, and there are great bits in there. It's just that you can only hang out with someone who loudly calls you an idiot, over and over again, for so long. Some of the really great bits (methinks): * the early period Mothers, back when they picked on themselves as much as anybody -- especially the work of the expanded band on Uncle Meat and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. * early 70s -- Hot Rats, The Grand Wazoo (which uses a 20-piece band quite well), and to a lesser degree Burnt Weeny Sandwich. The bulk of the tracks are instrumental, all focusing on interesting, textured arrangements and rich sound as well as good playing. (This would later get lost on FZ in the 80s, as all the band stuff sounded like it was emanating from some sort of digital Roach Motel -- rigor-mortis compression and general stink.) And unlike the other early 70s FZ records, these have no trace of Flo & Eddie. Yay! * '74-'75 -- One Size Fits All is STILL killer. Also see the other rekkids by the same band (back before aliens stole George Duke's brain) -- Roxy & Elsewhere and You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 2. * late '70s -- Sheik Yerbouti gets old, despite Adrian Belew (who's totally underutilized as a guitarist) and Terry Bozzio. Studio Tan is the best of the period, staying with the swinging, fun vibe of the Grand Wazoo era, but with a smaller band. * '80s -- OK, here's where it really starts to get antiseptic and mean. In fact, looking at it now, I don't like any full album he released in the '80s. A tune here and there, but that's it. And I love his guitar playing and have unconsciously nicked several little chunks of his phrasing in my own playing, but a 3LP box set of it in '81, followed by ANOTHER 2CD set of it in '88? Ack! Get an editor. * classical stuff -- The Yellow Shark, absolutely. Composer and musicians (LIVE, not Synclavier) perfectly matched, working together, playing to an audience, fantastic sound, and it's only ONE CD. The proximity of its release to his death -- he was very ill during its recording -- only adds to the sense that it's a definitive work. So out of 65 CDs or so, that's 8-10 that I'd call fantastic. Over a period of 25 years of activity, that's a good run but hardly unprecedented. Oh, by the way -- if you actually wanna see that project I did on Frank, it's at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/1031/projectz.html (at least I think I left it there -- our Web access is down right at the moment. if it's not there, tell me and I'll put it back). OK. All In My Homely Opinion, of course. wearing brown shoes even if they don't make it, Dolph np: Sunny Day Real Estate, Diary. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 17:42:46 +0000 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: old records On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, Eb wrote: > >>Rhinocerous > >I had two of their albums, but can't remember anything about them. > Actually, I believe that there were a couple of ex-Mothers of Invention in > that band! Right, Mike? Roy Estrada was one, I think??? Agreed. Roy Estrada got about a bit, as he was also in Little Feat (first album) and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band (where he played under the name 'Orejon'). I don't know of any tracks that he definitely recorded with Beefheart, however. Neither do I know any more about the personnel of Rhinoceros (sp.) but ex-Mothers who also played with Beefheart included Arthur Dyre Tripp III, Elliott Ingber and Jimmy Carl Black (as Ed Marimba, Winged Eel Fingerling and Indian Ink respectively). Mike Harrison was in Spooky Tooth along with Gary Wright - they were a 2-keyboard outfit. This other MH track sounds like some sort of Spooky spin-off band (at a guess). Rare Bird had a UK hit with 'Sympathy' - they were also fairly keyboard based, as (of course) were Procol. Talking of great Jeff Beck albums, don't forget Beck, Bogert and Appice, which has a thundering version of Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. As a matter of interest, what were the Peter Green / Fleetwood Mac tracks on this compilation? My guess is 'Black Magic Woman' and 'Need your love so bad', but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 'Albatross' and 'Oh well'. - - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 02:01:12 +0800 From: Jon Fetter Subject: Re: heeee's baaaack >the Kawarau. I have seen the mountains on the coast north of Westport and >can now report that Jon was right - they do seem to just come out of the >sky and stand there! No, that is not what I said to Dr. Curtis when I described my nightmares to him when I was last in Arkham. I said "mountains come out of the SEA, and IT stands there, munching on Norwegian sailors." (Strange things about dreams--I KNEW for certain they were Norwegian without any outward sign) I know Dr. Curtis published a transcript of our sessions in some psych journal (where you must have seen it James), but he often forgot to replace the tape as he sat there transfixed, and so had to rely on his somewhat frail memory once I disappeared to Taiwan. He probably spelled "Quumyagga" wrong, too. Anyone else notice Dlang has disappeared? Jon, who has never worn heart-decals on his face to lead a children's chorus for a video ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 20:25:48 +0000 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: observations On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Terrence M Marks wrote: > Explanation of first comment: "Apples and Oranges" was Pink Floyd's last > single until 1980 or so. Directly after its release, Syd was dismissed > and PF went into the stuff detailed above. Lucky Terry has forgotten the existence of 'Point me at the sky', which came out shortly after A&O and had no impact on the charts whatsover. Nevertheless, pictures from the photoshoot featuring Waters and co. in Biggles-style pilots' uniforms keep turning up all over the place ... - - Mike Godwin PS I finally caught up with that clip where Syd refuses to mime A&O and it's left to Roger to sing along to Syd's voice. Glad I didn't see that when I still had any emotions left ... PPS Re 'Can of Bees': No, I didn't buy any of the Soft Boys material when it came out - my first RH album was 'Fegmania'. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 99 15:57:57 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Hallo, Goedendag! Hello Feggies! I very brief word -- I am still alive, despite not having posted in three weeks. Things have been a bit hectic, as all my spare time is taken up designing a Web site devoted solely to explaining why I have not posted in almost three weeks. But other than that, the neato news is that LJ and I just got back from a long weekend in Amsterdam! We went to celebrate her birthday, which was January 28th. (She just turned 18, finally making us "legal!" Hurray!) Amsterdam was wonderful, terrific, amazing, fun, and filled with friendly Dutch people who wore the same kind of shoes I was wearing without a tulip or a windmill in sight. As a matter of fact they were almost *too* friendly to tourists -- I desperately wanted to speak the few phrases of Dutch I learned, but they just plowed on cheerfully in English anyway. And the city itself was wonderful -- like the town in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" crossed with some sort of Teutonic Venice: lovely rows of (dare I say?) quaint Euro-houses perched over shimmering canals, criss-crossed by those adorable little trolleys that the Dutch use for public transportation and to, presumably, visit Mr. Roger's Magic Kingdom. We had great -- but cold -- weather, and everywhere you turned was a museum, a monument, a perfect bridge, a cozy cafe. The museums were just as astonishing as the city, and I must confess that I came back with a new respect for Rembrandt. There's something about *seeing* his work up close -- for one, it's huge. I mean, I was expecting the dread "Nightwatch" to be about the same size it was in all my high school art books. Or at the very most, I thought maybe the size of the "Mona Lisa." (Who come to think of it, was about the same size in all my high school art books as was the "Nightwatch.") But it was big, I mean really big, a monster that just hung on the wall and absorbed all the light, focusing it on the central figures with a soft golden glow. It was breathtaking! Even Rembrandt's "The Syndics," that famous painting on the "Dutch Masters" cigar box, really floored me. I walked into the room and there they were, huge and above me, looking at me like I was some sort of insect that wandered into their conference room. . . . It was all quite humbling in a magnificent velvety European sort of way, where history seeps in from every corner and the air itself seems to carry an impossible gravity. You just sort of stand there in awe, transfixed by a history that is still unfolding, suddenly aware of your roots, your differences and your future, all at once. It is feeling that is paradoxically both unsettling and yet comforting, and I'm sure the Germans have one big unpronounceable word for it laying around somewhere. Oh, yes, and the cafes! The cafes, the restaurants, the -- ahem -- "coffeeshops;" all were likewise delightful and filled with cheerful people who didn't want me to speak Dutch, but did want to unman me with one cup of lethal coffee after another. The only problem was the Heineken, which is not just the national beer of Holland, it seemed to be the *only* beer in Holland. The coffeeshops were another highlight of the trip. At first, I was amazed and struck by the novelty of it all. But after a day or so, you start getting used to them, and by the time we had to come back to New York, I was depressed that my favorite coffeeshop was just and only that. Sigh. The best coffeeshop -- by far! -- was "the Rokkerij," a Middle-Eastern/Indian style affair quietly spilling incense and candle-light onto the cobblestones of an otherwise chaotic street by the Leidseplein. I really got to know how the Grail Knights must have felt, just trying to accomplish a noble mission (i.e. get to the thriving Leidseplein) while being waylayed and tempted by the Byzantine glamours of Morgana and all her evil ways. It was so evil and perfidious I was forced to buy a T-shirt, a lighter, a pipe case, and even steal a few coasters. Speaking of evil ways, while the seedy Red Light District was fun in a thrillingly sleazy nudge-nudge wink-wink sort of way, the chilly temperature didn't make me want to linger too long -- although I did have to pull a drunken LJ out of an empty booth; she climbed right in and was going to strip for 100 guilders, but the boothmeister couldn't find a copy of Oasis' "Supersonic." Maybe next time she'll be more prepared. All in all it was a wonderful trip, and after we've had time to process it more you will all be invited to the House of Pengie to read about "Pengie's Guide to Amsterdam." - --Quail PS: What *is* the House of Pengie, you say . . . ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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, 01 Feb 1999 14:36:42 PST From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: news from spain am i losing my mind? i hadn't already posted this, right? if so, humble apologies all 'round. this is a preview of the madrid show, which was sent to me by a very kind lurker. unfortunately, i don't know spanish from the hole in my ass, and altavista's babelfish isn't much help at all. anybody feels like translating, that would be bitchin'! as ever, hotmail can't reformat worth fuckall, so i'm going to do it manually. may miss a paragraph break here, there, or everywhere. FIETTA JARQUE, Madrid Robyn Hitchcock (Londres, 1953) lleva a gusto el ser considerado como un músico de culto. "Las mayorías generalmente se equivocan", dice. Los circuitos del rock mayoritario le asquean. Su ruta solitaria, sin embargo, le ha deparado fieles admiradores. Entre ellos, el director de cine Jonathan Demme, que acaba de estrenar un documental sobre sus actuaciones en vivo, en las que combina relatos y canciones. Hitchcock actúa hoy en Madrid. Robyn Hitchcock ha ido formando su estilo a lo largo de 20 años y ahora es cuando parece sentirse dueño de la escena. Mago de las pequeñas salas donde suele actuar y donde encandila a su público con fantásticos relatos improvisados entrecanción y canción. "Son historias que se me ocurren en el momento", afirma, aunque es algo difícil de creer. En el disco que acaba de lanzar con la música que interpreta en la película que Jonathan Demme ha realizado sobre él se puede sentir cómo el público se mete en la historia delirante de unos minotauros que secuestran a un hombre y lo llevan bajo tierra convertido en bomba, a punto de explotar en el centro de Londres. Lamentablemente, las limitaciones del idioma pueden cambiar el tono del espectáculo. "Es distinto en cada lugar. Si estoy en España, por ejemplo, procuro hablar en español, aunque mi vocabulario se reduzca a unas 75 palabras", explica. "Las historias van con las canciones. Son como fotografías que te dan distintos aspectos de una misma situación. La música es algo más emocional, en ella cabe cualquier sentimiento. Los relatos tienen que ver con pensamientos más que con los sentimientos. Las historias son mente, y las canciones, corazón". "Hay muchas maneras de llevar la gente a tu propio mundo", continúa. "Pienso que la mayoría de las personas se cuenta historias a sí misma de forma subconsciente, aunque en la vigilia no les presten atención. Sólo cuando están a punto de quedarse dormidos, o durante el sueño, las escuchan, las ven. A veces se empieza a soñar antes de quedarse dormido. Creo que lo que yo cultivo es esa línea afilada entre lo consciente y lo inconsciente. Que ambas realidades se invadan la una a laotra". En cierta forma, la oscuridad del escenario, los locales reducidos, ayudan a crear esa atmósfera ambigua, similar a la del cine. El filme que Demme ha hecho basado en una serie de actuaciones en vivo de Hitchcock aprovecha esa circunstancia. "Es justamente eso lo que ha captado la película", afirma Hitchcock. "Lo que yo hago es música cóctel. Se pueden tomar copas mientras la escuchas. No es música para bailar. Se acerca más a lo que es escuchar música por la radio, unas baladas que te acompañan. Antes, con el rock, la gente podía escuchar una historia contada en una canción de 15 minutos. El público era más paciente. Lo que hago yo es lo opuesto al rock. El rock es como un perro con la lengua fuera, que viene y te tira su hueso a los pies. Lo quieras o no. El rock es bastante desagradable. Yo soy más bien folkie". Empezó su carrera en los años setenta con un grupo pop llamado Soft Boys, pero hoy reniega totalmente de ese mundo. "La generación anterior y la actual han crecido con el rock. Yo pertenezco a la primera generación que creció con el rock. Pero rápidamente se convirtió en la forma de hacer mucho dinero para unas pocas personas. De eso se trata".Caducidad de cinco años El camino profesional que ha elegido Hitchcock es el menos transitado. Se ha mantenido en círculos más reducidos. "Me he mantenido bien así. Si eres precavido con el dinero puedes vivir bien. Yo no lo he sido, pero sigo adelante. El promedio de subsistencia profesional en el mundo del rock es de unos cinco años. Lo logras durante cinco años y pasas el resto de tu vida en recuperación, en una casa de reposo o algo parecido. Pero hay gente con proyectos a largo plazo, y yo me considero uno de ellos. Me gustaría ser como John Lee Hooker o Martin Carthy, el cantante folk inglés, que empezaron a los 20 años y seguirán cantando hasta el día de su muerte", afirma. Desde hace unos años Hitchcock presenta un espectáculo acústico, apenas acompañado por algún músico de apoyo. "Cuando llegué a los 40 me di cuenta de que no me apetecía ir más con una banda de músicos. Es un poco triste eso de ir con un grupo de hombres por ahí, a no ser que necesites el dinero". http://leb.net/iac/ "As we often see in US foreign policy, other nations' attempts to defend themselves from US attacks are defined as aggression." --Jake Sexton ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #33 ******************************