From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #229 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, August 13 2000 Volume 09 : Number 229 Today's Subjects: ----------------- AMG ratings ["Russ Reynolds" ] Re: This is what while ostensibly working at the bookstore ["Ken Kenster"] Re: This is what while ostensibly working at the bookstore ["Noe Shalev" ] Re: AMG ratings [MARKEEFE@aol.com] Re: Spoken Word Page? [John Barrington-Jones ] Jon Brion article [steve ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 17:53:28 -0700 From: "Russ Reynolds" Subject: AMG ratings Let me start by saying that I've been burned by the All Music Guide's star ratings before, so I tend to take these ratings with a grain of salt. And a dash of cumin for good measure. But I see that they have Jewlels for Sophia rated three stars, and A Star For Bram--the album comprised of stuff that wasn't considered good enough for Jewels--rated 4 1/2 stars. Does anyone else find this odd? I don't even recall anyone on THIS list saying they liked Bram more than Jewels. I also see that they have ASFB listed under "compilations, boxes" (??). Moss Elixer--which gets a glowing review--rates only three stars as well, by the way. I'm not sure where they get the people who review and rate music at allmusic.com, but I have a sneaking suspiscion it's either record reps, fan club presidents or defense lawyers. Click around and you'll see very few negative bios. Okay, that's all. I'm going out for tacos now. Go Giants. - -rUss ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 23:07:51 PDT From: "Ken Kenster" Subject: Re: This is what while ostensibly working at the bookstore most interesting indeed! thanks for the tip! yes, that really is the obvious first choice, isn't it? otis "horns" fletcher. and of course, that must be roger in the background. who the hell is *this* guy, by the way: . ah, now here's the ticket: . ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 09:26:04 +0200 From: "Noe Shalev" Subject: Re: This is what while ostensibly working at the bookstore > >pictures showed up.> > >yes, that really is the obvious first choice, isn't it? DOn't know y, but when I first *discovered* this feature, few months ago, my firstchoice was Zappa All the best Noe ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 11:59:12 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: AMG ratings In a message dated 8/12/00 5:57:01 PM, rcreation@earthlink.net writes: << But I see that they have Jewlels for Sophia rated three stars, and A Star For Bram--the album comprised of stuff that wasn't considered good enough for Jewels--rated 4 1/2 stars. Does anyone else find this odd? I don't even recall anyone on THIS list saying they liked Bram more than Jewels. >> Actually, lots of people did. I wasn't one of 'em (although I like it quite a bit), but I remember there being a good handful of people championing "Bram" upon its release. << I also see that they have ASFB listed under "compilations, boxes" (??). >> I can kind of see how that makes sense. I've always regarded it as a sort of "compilation" of tracks laying around that were fused together to make an album, even if all of these tracks were recorded at around the same time. << Moss Elixer--which gets a glowing review--rates only three stars as well, by the way. >> They're very inconsistent that way, yeah. << I'm not sure where they get the people who review and rate music at allmusic.com, but I have a sneaking suspiscion it's either record reps, fan club presidents or defense lawyers. Click around and you'll see very few negative bios. >> I've never been a big fan of their criticism for rock stuff, but I do mostly agree with their assessment of jazz albums. The rock ratings always seem careless to me, though. Like nearly every Beatles album gets five stars! Sure, they made some of the greatest albums ever, but "Beatles for Sale" is no five star album. And I think they rate albums without even listening to them. If a group put out a really good, famous first album, they'll give that five stars. But if that same group sort of dropped off the map, every successive album gets either 2 or 3 stars, even in cases where these bands might have been making some really good stuff that has gone largely unnoticed. Shouldn't a review guide be the exactly right forum for making people aware of some of these albums? I think so. Instead, they prefer to be lazy. I don't think they have an online component (maybe they do?), but I would highly recommend the Music Hound series of review guides. Their rock and world books are excellent. I don't have any of the others, but, darnit, they look good, too! - -----Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 10:17:02 -0700 (PDT) From: John Barrington-Jones Subject: Re: Spoken Word Page? Hello! Some of you might remember that this was _my_ pet project in the summer of 1997 or 1998, can't remember which. I came up with the idea of the spoken word tape, and Mike Runion was most helpful in creating a WWW page for it. The tape made some good progress, trading hands with some 7 or 8 fegs before spending some good quality time at Randi Spiegel's home (for obvious reasons). Randi, to my knowledge, still has the tape. Before Bayard comes in and trompe le monde's my whole vision and project, I'd really like to see the original through to completion. I don't know how realistic this is, but this is a wish. Bayard is correct about tapes no longer being so cool in today's digital age; I'm all for this ending up on a cd. It is likely that many people who signed up for the project are no longer on the list---so a 74 minute document sounds better than a 90 minute one. I think it would be nice to have a spoken word page. Robyn's genius goes way beyond just his singing/songwriting and painting skills. Back when I had enough time, my House of Figgy page used to have a spoken word segment of the month. I guess I would just like to finish what I started before things change. So, Randi, can you email me if you see this? And we can get the tape rolling across the globe again. - --- Bayard wrote: > > Hello! > > some of you will remember the "spoken word tape" > project. With the advent > of mp3, there really is no need to confine this to a > cassette tape, eh? > I was thinking we could change it to a "spoken word > page" on the web. i > have plenty of space for this and i think it would > be really supercool. > > also, almost all the people listed on the spoken > word page have left the > list (or at least changed email addresses.) > > Those who trade on md, cdr or mp3 could send sound > clips direct to me. > > what do you think? > > for those going "huh?", read here: > http://www5.palmnet.net/~mrrunion/wordtape.htm > > =b > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 21:25:51 -0500 From: steve Subject: Jon Brion article http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/8-13/featurestory1.shtml - - Steve ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #229 *******************************