From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #116 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, May 7 2000 Volume 09 : Number 116 Today's Subjects: ----------------- coupla notches above "god" all over the world ["Repent!, Inc." ] Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world ["J. Kathe] Re: portable minidisc recorder advice? (0 RH) [fartachu ] Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world ["Repent!,] Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world ["J. Kathe] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 12:50:56 PDT From: "Repent!, Inc." Subject: coupla notches above "god" all over the world just a few more exhortations, then i'll shut it up. as phenomenal as sleater-kinney were on thursday, last night's show fucking SMOKED thursday's. one example might help illustrate the point: while on thursday carrie performed no windmilling whatever, last night she was windmilling by the *third* song. the audience was quite a bit more raucous than thursday's had been, and i think the band really fed on it, and ended up producing one of those shows that is so perfect that you never want it to end. i personally haven't felt that vibe since the bayard's birthday/russ nekkid gig. (and, much like that gig, i was worried silly that i'd somehow fuck up the taping....) they varied the setlist quite a bit from thursday, which was a pleasant surprise. even played a song so old that janet had apparently never played it live before. speaking of gigs: though it's not listed in the auditorium, there has apparently been a show added for the sweetwater (in mill valley), on the 22nd (in other words, between the 'frisco and portland dates). ah, nostalgia. the sweetwater is where i met my very first feg -- mr. glen uber. i believe that ms. spiegel will be in my car from san fran. down to l.a., and then back on up through to seattle. that leaves two seats open, for any fegs itchin' to travel. also, i'm willing to purchase tix for the crocodile show, but i am NOT willing to mail them. while it's on a larger scale, it's really not so much different from a billboard. you know, worser even than that, to me, is that seemingly every single sports stadium in the country is now named after a corporation. i just don't get why people put up with it. do we really have so little imagination? make up a fucking "nickname", and USE it. nobody's paying you to call it "safeco field", or "pacbell park", or what have you. so DON'T DO IT. (i mean, even if you *were* being paid, you shouldn't do it. but *especially* if you're not.) never read the book, so can't say how well it compares or not; but i was *supremely* disappointed with how few music lists there were in the movie. couldn't have been more than three, could there have? i think, at the time i saw it, that i thought it was "pretty good". but thinking back on it, i'm not even sure i'd go that far. anyhow, who am i to complain? Lawrence Of Arabia just opened a one-week run here! "The fact of leaving in tournee with Kimberley which is of my generation and Tim which is ten years old less me makes it possible not to have the impression to be an old greybeard who monkey his master key like Rolling Stones." --Robyn Hitchcock ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 18:06:08 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: portable minidisc recorder advice? (0 RH) I've finally decided to make the leap into recording shows! I'm currently researching which MD recorder to get. The Sony MZ-R90 and the Aiwa AM-F80 are probably in the top of the running. Everything about the Sony sounds great except for not being able to adjust the recording level while recording (only in 'pause' mode). HUH?!?!? So, if I start recording, and I want to turn the volume down just a hair, I have to *stop* recording in order to do so?!?!? That seems so lame! The Aiwa sounds like a pretty good unit (although a little bigger -- a whole centimeter! ;-)). But I'm wondering about a very specific thing someone mentioned while reviewing the Sony. They said that it (the Sony) had no lapse time between the time you insert a minidisc and hit 'record' and the time the machine actually starts recording (whereas the Sharp MT831 has 7 seconds of warming up the machine before it starts recording). If you're changing MDs between songs, I'm thinking that 7 seconds would seem like a lifetime! My question then is this: Does anyone know how quickly the turnaround time would be on the Aiwa? Does it start right up, or is there a little warmup time? Thanks for anyone who knows this, or who has generla opinions on MD recorders and using them for live shows in particular. Oh, and mics? Any info would be great!!! :-) - ------Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 10:34:09 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V9 #115 >Wonder what could be considered Robyn's "heaviest" song....not angry or >dark subject matter necesarilly, but real "down" emotional >sadness...something from "Eye" maybe? Even though Cynthia Mask doesns't >seem real dark in it's lyrics...it's always struck me as a very meloncholy >song....don't know why... Agreed - the 'reach your lungs' verse always gets me that way. "Never Stops Bleeding "has the same effect, as does" I often dream of Trains". But they're all heavily wistful rather than melancholy. "Then you're dust" is melancholy, mind you. Perhaps "She doesn't exist anymore" would be the most melancholy, though. It's like he's trying to convince himself, unsuccessfully, that he doesn't care about her anymore. Earthly Paradise isn't melancholy. It's bitter. And that's a whole new category (It goes with tracks like Freeze, f'rinstance) James (time I updated my closed mouth) nf - Cymru! Y ddraig goch ar llawr hanner wen ac hanner gwyrdd! 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: Sat, 6 May 2000 16:50:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: portable minidisc recorder advice? (0 RH) On Sat, 6 May 2000 MARKEEFE@aol.com wrote: > My question then is this: Does anyone know how quickly the turnaround time > would be on the Aiwa? Does it start right up, or is there a little warmup > time? Thanks for anyone who knows this, or who has generla opinions on MD > recorders and using them for live shows in particular. Oh, and mics? Any > info would be great!!! :-) That's a very interesting question. I've never considered it. See, a minidisc actually has to be heated somewhat before you can record on it. It's the number one reason why recording takes so much more power than playing. Just so you know, most of the Sony units also have what is dubbed "time machine" recording. There's a little memory buffer inside that stores all sound coming into the inputs and can actually start recording two full seconds BEFORE you hit record. My deck does this, but not my portable. Just a question, Michael, have you read everything available at www.minidisc.org? They're usually VERY good about these things. The Equipment Browser at www.minidisc.org has this (among a whole lot of GOOD things) to say about the MZ-R90: Mis-features: Longish start from power-off state (ca. ~9 seconds) and track seek times (ca. ~2-5 seconds) due to slow [power saving] drive motor spin-up gives unit a sluggish feeling response to user input. So potentially this is a problem with all the modern, sleek mindisc recorders. I honestly can't say enough good things about my old MZ-R50. It's rugged and very high quality. It's harder on battery life than the new ones and almost three times the volume, but it's still about the size of a pack of playing cards (a bit thinner, actually). You can find a used MZ-R50 with no problems whatsoever for at most half the price of a new MZ-R90. Also, the Aiwa AM-F70 was quite a fantastic unit and still available from many vendors new. Anyway, the Equiopment Browser at www.minidisc.org is a VERY handy thing and many models have links to user reviews. www.minidisco.org usually has fairly reasonable prices for NEW stuff, but I'd also check clearance items at other stores because some really great models are beind discontinued for models that aren't necessarily better. I am now the proud owner of four mindisc units; a portable player, a portable recorder, a deck, and a bookshelf system. I love the first three to death and I can't wait to get the bookshelf system as it's in UPS right this minute. It's one of those great units with a PS/2 keyboard port for controlling the whole unit from a standard keyboard. Great for track titling, too. Fantastic. OK. Enough. J. - -- ______________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 20:13:22 -0400 From: "jbranscombe@compuserve.com" Subject: yo la mescaleros Just seen Joe Strummer at the Brixton Academy. Forget Sleater-Kinney's guitarist windmilling by the third song, Mr S did London Calling as the *first* song. Nice warm up for Monday at the RFH. jmbc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 21:59:28 -0500 From: "JH3" Subject: Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world >> . >This is, in fact, one of the worst things I've ever seen. >They expect people will ALLOW this sort of thing? Who's going to stop them? Still, you'd think the least they could do is give you the car itself, if you're really going to drive around in a moving billboard. So if you're the mercenary sort, I'd suggest you forget about these people and go straight to http://www.myfreecar.com and fill out an application! Of course, if you live in a rural area (like me) they probably won't be too interested in you. My prediction for the future is that the world will be divided between the people who drive "wrapped" advert-mobiles, and the people who drive beat-to-shit 20-year-old pickup trucks with reinforced 200-lb. steel bumpers who cruise the highways looking for wrapped cars to smash into. What fun we'll have! (Presumably I'll be in one of the pickup trucks. In fact, for me this won't represent much of a lifestyle change at all.) >I saw John and Joan Cusack's latest epic "High Fidelity" a coupla >weekends ago. It was a real hoot, and I thoroughly recommend >it. Personally, I thought it was awful. It had a couple of funny gags, I suppose, but overall I thought it was the most self-indulgently trite thing I've seen in years. Just my opinion of course... I also don't see very many movies, though I'm not sure that makes much diff. I guess I just don't like romantic comedies, no matter what the backdrop is. >by the way, is metallica the first band in history to sue their >fans? Not hardly! The band I was in in the mid-80's used to do it all the time. It helped somewhat that we only had about four fans, and that all of them were CEO's and board chairmen of chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, their teams of high-priced lawyers easily outmatched our pair of recent William & Mary graduates... In fact, our band would have operated at a net loss if we hadn't once managed to snag them on a slight technicality involving a so-called "misappropriated" bootleg videocassette. John "lacking a brain, gang" Hedges ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 20:37:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world On Sat, 6 May 2000, JH3 wrote: > >> . > >This is, in fact, one of the worst things I've ever seen. > >They expect people will ALLOW this sort of thing? > Who's going to stop them? People with integrity? Or do those not exist anymore? > Still, you'd think the least they could do is give you the car > itself, if you're really going to drive around in a moving > billboard. So if you're the mercenary sort, I'd suggest you forget > about these people and go straight to http://www.myfreecar.com and > fill out an application! Of course, if you live in a rural area > (like me) they probably won't be too interested in you. Man, this is probably worse. I can hardly believe it. It actually says "Help us democratize the outdoor advertising industry". How the fuck is a bribe "democratizing"? > My prediction for the future is that the world will be divided > between the people who drive "wrapped" advert-mobiles, and > the people who drive beat-to-shit 20-year-old pickup trucks with > reinforced 200-lb. steel bumpers who cruise the highways > looking for wrapped cars to smash into. What fun we'll have! > (Presumably I'll be in one of the pickup trucks. In fact, for me > this won't represent much of a lifestyle change at all.) Are the 20 year old pickup trucks electric? And can the electrodes shock the shit out of the drivers of the admobiles? > >I saw John and Joan Cusack's latest epic "High Fidelity" a coupla > >weekends ago. It was a real hoot, and I thoroughly recommend > >it. > Personally, I thought it was awful. It had a couple of funny gags, > I suppose, but overall I thought it was the most self-indulgently > trite thing I've seen in years. Just my opinion of course... I also > don't see very many movies, though I'm not sure that makes > much diff. I guess I just don't like romantic comedies, no matter > what the backdrop is. You know, the book did a very good job of showing how aware Rob was of his own ridiculous self-indulgence. This seemed to be lacking from the film. J. - -- ______________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 02:41:46 -0400 From: "twofangs..aka..randi " Subject: my first west coast email Wow! May I again say "WoW!" Getting on the plane Thursday night was a bit of a nightmare, as was the movie they showed on board, but I felt like *a Beatle* stepping out onto the tarmac at San Jose airport. Mr. Sharkboy, in full hair, was there to greet me...yay! He drove us to his abode on a route even scenic in the dark, then I arrived in Aptos. ............... May 5th ... Friday ... Mark and his lovely wife Donne and a friend of theirs took a walk around the neighbourhood, a wonderful cat petting route which included views of the ocean. Moi, who has never seen such fierceness & beauty entwined, was suitably enchanted. Oh - yee should all see mark & Donne's home & meet their kitties - a whole lotta peace and love surrounds the Glosters and their home. Oh, and the quilts Donne makes, and her homey touches everywhere make it a delightful place to rest. And rest I did most of Friday ... Oh - first Mexican food ever - the rice and guacamole were fabulous. ....................... On May 6th............ Mark & I departed {Donne's company was missed} for the San Fran Zoo. It is there I met my second feg, and his two feg-sprouts. Yes my friends, my unka nick & his utterly charming fegs-in-the-making Zoe and Adam met us...then 'lo and behold...Miles and Melissa visiting from Nashville arrived. We missed the white alligators {i may need to go back - nick - i'll take zoe & adam :} but had fun and had beautiful birds drink out of little cups of nectar we bought. Zoe and I saved some rainforest using Canadian coins...and alas we all parted. Happily, I'll see nick again...there is a VHS I've been promised :} On the way home I heard "A Star For Bram" for the first time. *I dig the 'antwoman' remix - can't call it a 'dub' - I could make such a wonderful short film with that as the audio I can tell tales with in pictures.* {please - no blasting the Randi for her opinion on 'antwoman' - truly a film score to die for} Sharkboy drove home along the coast and *I* was speechless. Overwhelmed by the beauty... More to come but sleep beckons... fading back into yesterday before tomorrow comes, Randi ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ *what scares you most will set you free* ~ robyn hitchcock *I feel the fear and I know I'm alive* ~ neil finn *acting steady always ready to defend your fears* ~ aimee mann *what I believe ain't always what I feel* ~ michael penn ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ get your free gURLmAIL at http://www.gURLmAIL.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 09:30:29 -0700 From: Inertia Overload Subject: Re: hey bay area types... On 06.05.00 12:33, Bayard wrote: > i have received word from a friend of robyn's that robyn and grant will be > playing the Sweetwater in Marin County on June 22. This date is not > listed in "the auditorium," but the source is very reliable! I work 1/2 mile from that place! I'll check it out and try to confirm it. - -- Cheers! - -g- "I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child. '' --Steven Wright +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Glen Uber uberg@sonic.net http://www.sonic.net/~uberg ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 12:50:55 -0400 From: "J. Katherine Rossner" Subject: Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world *sigh* Please note: None of what follows is intended as an endorsement of "wrapped" cars, re-named baseball parks, etc. Look, folks (especially Capuchin and eddie): Revolting as the various forms of advertising under discussion might be, it's not a question of integrity. For some people it might be a question of survival. At the very least, it's going to be about making life marginally more possible. Because, you know, most of those willing to be an outdoor billboard for some awful corporation for $400/month (and driving enough to make the corporations feel they're getting their money's worth) aren't college students looking for extra beer-and-music money; they're commuters who are trying to earn a living, maybe working several jobs because they've got families. Two years ago, I was driving 3-7 hours a day (3-5 commute, and often driving around San Jose during the work day) on Bay Area freeways, to earn my $1600/month. I was lucky; I'm single and had a relatively cheap (by Berkeley standards) apartment, no family to support (or to come home to, so that I could spend 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at work and on the road without inconveniencing anybody but myself), a fairly new car with no mechanical problems, etc. Given my driving schedule etc., maybe I'd have been one of the folks eligible to turn my car into a billboard--I was *lucky*, and probably wouldn't have been tempted. If I'd been a single mother, say, of two kids, working at that same job, and that $400 meant the difference between quality daycare while I was away and leaving the kids with a babysitter? Or if some deal like this "mycar" business meant I could drive a working vehicle that didn't break down and require expensive repairs? Yeah, I'd probably have done it. And anybody who sneers at that is engaging in some really sickening elitist bullshit. >Are the 20 year old pickup trucks electric? And can the electrodes >shock the shit out of the drivers of the admobiles? Great. So all the anticapitalist rhetoric leads to further victimizing the folks who can't afford to maintain *your* high-minded ideals? It's the corporations who are the enemy, not those poor drivers. Here I'd been thinking that the political rants meant actual concern. Oh well. Katherine, bitterly disappointed - -- Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so. - Chaucer, "Troilus and Criseyde" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 13:55:59 -0400 From: fartachu Subject: Re: portable minidisc recorder advice? (0 RH) when we last left our heroes, MARKEEFE@aol.com exclaimed: > I've finally decided to make the leap into recording shows! I'm >currently researching which MD recorder to get. The Sony MZ-R90 and the Aiwa >AM-F80 are probably in the top of the running. i'm with capuchin in the mz-r50 camp. until one of the cats knocked the deck off the dresser one day, it's been great. >Everything about the Sony >sounds great except for not being able to adjust the recording level while >recording (only in 'pause' mode). for some reason, all of the recent sony portable recorders are like that. it's a nuisance, but there are work-arounds. if you want to manually setting the record level, i would recommend just setting the level relatively low. that way, you have headroom during particularly loud periods of a show. the overall level may be a bit low, but you can boost it later on. (recovering from too hot of a recording, on the other hand, is difficult to impossible). lately though, i've been using the automatic level setting of the mz-r50 and have been pleased with it. it handles the range of volumes quite nicely, without a bit of tearing at the peaks. i'd recommend that over manually setting the levels (although i wonder if it would be able to handle something like a sleater-kinney show!). >But I'm wondering >about a very specific thing someone mentioned while reviewing the Sony. They >said that it (the Sony) had no lapse time between the time you insert a >minidisc and hit 'record' and the time the machine actually starts recording you know, the warm-up time has never been a real factor with me. it's the data save time that's the real bottleneck. i've found that it takes longer to write the table of contents of a disc than it does to insert the new disc and wait for the unit to be ready to start writing to it. not much you can do about the data save though.... >Thanks for anyone who knows this, or who has generla opinions on MD >recorders and using them for live shows in particular. because of the time it takes to switch discs, i've been toying with recording shows in mono instead of stereo. even with a point stereo mic, i do hear a big difference between a stereo and a mono recording... but the 2.5 hours of record time and not having to worry about switching discs is very enticing. then again, the main sets of most shows last 60-75 minutes and i usually have enough time to switch while everyone else is clamoring for an encore...so i haven't made the jump yet. >Oh, and mics? Any info would be great!!! :-) i've been using an aiwa stereo point mic -- the one that came with the aiwa cassette recorder i bought in 1990 -- and it works really well (ferris thinks it's "tinny", but i think they sound fine to me). i dunno if any mic comes with the aiwa deck, but if one does, it'll probably be good enough to get started. the core sound binaurals are the gold standard for tapers. i haven't sprung for them yet, but probably will get a set of their "value" omnidirectionals ($75) sometime soon. woj n.p. nothing! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 11:54:16 PDT From: "Repent!, Inc." Subject: Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world oh, give me a break. you know as well as i do that john and jeme were joking about the trucks. moreover, if you're saying that welfare "reform", regressive taxation, slapp suits, union-busting, military keynesianism, not prosecuting corporate crime, etc., etc., etc.; are fine and dandy, so long as one has the "freedom" to make a (very) few extra bucks a month wrapping oneself in ads (or, for example, the "freedom" to play the lottery); then *i'm* bitterly disappointed. if you're not saying that, then your sermon is really so much hot air. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 15:50:55 -0400 From: "J. Katherine Rossner" Subject: Re: freedom to think of wacky subject lines all over the world At 11:54 AM 5/7/00 -0700, Repent!, Inc. wrote: >you know as well as i do that john and jeme were joking about the trucks. Of course. But the nastiness in the jokes was directed at the drivers rather than the advertisers, which was my point. >moreover, if you're saying that welfare "reform", regressive taxation, >slapp suits, union-busting, military keynesianism, not prosecuting >corporate crime, etc., etc., etc.; are fine and dandy, so long as one has >the "freedom" to make a (very) few extra bucks a month wrapping oneself in >ads (or, for example, the "freedom" to play the lottery); then *i'm* >bitterly disappointed. if you're not saying that, then your sermon is >really so much hot air. Not only am I not saying that any of those are fine and dandy (nor have I ever said any of that, nor do I believe it--since you seem to need that spelled out), I don't see how you could possibly get that from reading what I wrote. What I said, very explicitly, was that the corporations are the enemies--not the people so desperate to make a few extra bucks that they're reduced to shilling via their cars. And that blaming the latter is bullshit that makes a mockery of your alleged concern. I will continue to say that. You want to regard it as hot air, that's your privilege. Anybody who's had to work for a living might feel differently. Katherine - -- Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so. - Chaucer, "Troilus and Criseyde" ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #116 *******************************