From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #246 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, September 3 2000 Volume 09 : Number 246 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... [digja611@student.o] RE: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... ["Brian Huddell" ] Re: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... (100% weenieism) [J] FW: MTV2 Create your hour ["Thomas, Ferris" ] Re: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... (100% weenieism) [M] quote of the day ["Consumer 666" ] once madder, blue rose & kristin hersh ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] Re: Since the list is moribund [Eb ] Re: moribund [Eb ] Re: Since the list is moribund [Jeff Dwarf ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 12:28:03 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz Subject: Re: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... >As far as I know, these are the only Eb-endorsed acts from the alternative >boom, which are still on major labels: Chris Cornell, Spiritualized, Sinead >O'Connor, Elastica, Meat Puppets, Mazzy Star, Liz Phair, Vic Chesnutt, >Beulah, Midnight Oil (?) haven't heard anything from them since the mostly-godawful Breathe album. Are they still around? > there are another dozen favored artists on >major labels whom I'd basically call "alternative" -- however, they're >established veterans who substantially preceded the '90s explosion. >Specifically, I'm talking about David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Peter >Gabriel which reminds me - any reviews/comments on PG's latest? Is it back up to standard, or does it follow the route of his other most recent work? >Here in Oxford, UK, venues are closing at a rate of knots - from between 5 >and 10 venues where new and unsigned bands could play a few years ago to >about 2 at present. the same is true here in the southernmost outpost of alternative, Dunedin, NZ. Ten years ago, you could go to the Cook, the Oriental, the Empire, Sammy's, the Provincial, the Wharf, two different venues at the university, Foxy's and the Crown (that's ten from memory - there may have been more...) Now it's basically Arc, Ruby in the Dust, the Gresham and the Crown. No wonder there are so few new acts coming through... 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: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 21:18:11 -0500 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... > > Midnight Oil (?) > > haven't heard anything from them since the mostly-godawful Breathe album. > Are they still around? Since Breathe there's been Redneck Wonderland (something of a return to form: noisy, aggressive) and the Australia-only (so far) The Real Thing, which is 4 new songs and a bunch of unplugged live tracks. Their major-label days should have ended long ago, when Sony decided not to promote them overseas anymore. Shame. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 22:03:11 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: Since the list is moribund... MARKEEFE@aol.com: >So does Hanson! The Hanson guys might someday make a butt-kickin' album. Maybe they'll be able to get Rick Ocasek back. - ---------- Just saw a cool sport drink ad on Cartoon Network - some NBA guy going one-on-one with what looked like a Velociraptor. The dinosaur won. Would have been even better without the NBA guy. - - Steve __________ "He's probably the least qualified person ever to be nominated by a major party ... What is his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk? - Ron Reagan on George W. Bush ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 21:05:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... (100% weenieism) i'll get to my main thought, just a couple peripheral things first... Eb wrote: > As far as I know, these are the only Eb-endorsed acts from the > alternative boom, which are still on major labels: Chris Cornell, > ... Sinead O'Connor, ... Meat Puppets, ... Midnight Oil (?), Teenage > Fanclub, ... Billy Bragg, Bjork, the Breeders (if they even exist?), > Sonic Youth (simultaneously active as an indie act), the Sundays, > Beck, Primus, ... , Cracker, Smashing Pumpkins/Billy Corgan, Blur, > ... Ministry, ... of course, they were signed BEFORE the alt-boom...though i think i read in one of the articles about their current tour Cracker wre dropped. > John Lydon, also no longer on a major i think... > On the other hand, here's a gruesome list of active, Eb-endorsed > names who have left major labels, been dropped or lost major-label > distribution: Nick Cave, Einsturzende Neubauten, wasn't it Mute Recrods that lost their distribution deal, and Cave & EN were just along for the ride? > Hole, did courtney get out, or is she just blowing smoke still at this point? > The Beastie Boys certainly deserve a nod, as long as you > don't mind labeling them "alternative" rather than "rap." why you have to choose one or the other is another issue, but... same with Beck i s'poze.. anyways, it is kinda depressing, but on the other hand, look at how Aimee Mann is doing right now. granted, not every cult-ish artist is going to be able to get a prominant-ish filmmaker friend of his/hers/theirs to turn his next movie's soundtrack album into a sampler album for them. but it does at least show that, if you can find another outlet (and as irritating as it is just from it being ads, the nick drake semi-revival driven by those VW ads could apply as well), you CAN find an audience. it's just that now, more than ever before (basically a lot of previous success stories were in spite of record companies rather than because of anyways). and say, doesn't Robyn have a prominant-ish filmmaker friend....guy who did silence of the lambs...... ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 09:39:18 -0400 From: "Thomas, Ferris" Subject: FW: MTV2 Create your hour All right...a bit of background is necessary: A while back I had gone to the MTV2 web site (http://www.mtv2.co.uk) and poked around. Pretty neat site entirely done in Flash. Very interactive. Anyway...they have a section of the site where you can go through their catalog and program an hour's worth of videos and submit it to them. I did it and the long and short of it is they're going to air mine in September. The downside? It's a UK-only station. You can go to the site and (once you figure out how it works) find the hour I've programmed. It's a really disparate group of videos; I wasn't being too sincere when I did it, just dropping in things that I liked. Guess it's good enough for them (either that or they're not getting much response from the website). - -----Original Message----- From: scheduling@mtv2.co.uk [mailto:scheduling@mtv2.co.uk] Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 9:01 AM To: ferris_thomas@mcgraw-hill.com Subject: MTV2 Create your hour I am pleased to let you know that the hour you created via the MTV2 website (www.mtv2.co.uk) has been selected for forthcoming transmission. It will be shown on Saturday, September 16, 2000, at 10:00 (UK local time). Thanks very much for sending it in and we hope you enjoy watching it. Cheers MTV2 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 04:34:28 -0400 From: *twofangs/randi* & ~tjf/tim~ Subject: you're kidding! is it ken or my bro' eddie who posted about all the SB dates in feg-dig 243: minneapolis madison chicago cleveland detroit toronto montreal boston new york hoboken philadelphia baltimore pittsburgh cincinnati charleston carrboro atlanta gainesville new orleans austin denver salt lake city las vegas los angeles (AKA "the city of angels") san francisco mill valley portland seattle vancouver (followed by an all acoustical, portland-arms-type deal at the two bells) in any case, i can put up people in toronto ... i will be going to cleveland, detroit, montreal, boston, and new york if i can ... ... well definitely ... T.O. and Montreal so if people are coming with sleeping bags, I will have space ... hope it's you eddie, tho' accommodation for ken .... and anyone else will be made. What dates are we talking about? (sorry for the cluelessness) ( hi eb ;-) ) ( write me something about what's up with you! ) (also: marcy, susan, carole, karen, *sharkboy,* eddie, cynthia, drew, vivien, michael wolfe, njaz, chris, nat, mary, lj, quail, katherine, bayard, trent, miles, tom, and james) eddie, maybe we can road trip a bit again! I could see east coast fegs! Must get on this .... oh! yay! love rand *what scares you will set you free* ~ robyn hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 10:41:47 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: Since the list is moribund and it's a slow day... (100% weenieism) In a message dated 9/1/00 9:11:05 PM, munki1972@yahoo.com writes: << and say, doesn't Robyn have a prominant-ish filmmaker friend....guy who did silence of the lambs...... >> Yeah, if only there'd been a Robyn song over the end credits for "Beloved" . . . maybe there'd be three more Robyn Hitchcock fans out there today!! ;-) - -----Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 11:06:55 PDT From: "Consumer 666" Subject: quote of the day from . The band talked about life on the road, the South, mullets (which they like to call "615s" - the Nashville area code) and playing with Rick Springfield. "He played 'Jesse's Girl' and he was breaking his guitar like Jimi Hendrix," Miller said. "You just wanted to say, 'Man, stop breaking your guitar. You were on 'General Hospital'." _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 12:00:03 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: once madder, blue rose & kristin hersh [dmw] > wasn't trying to be coy, but the names haven't stuck in my head. there > was one deadly dull lilith fair lite thing which i had the misfortune to > see and somehow got mailing listed by. when they were crowing about the > deal six months or so i remember thinking, good god, they're utterly > insane. can't remember their damn name right now to save my life. > something blue? blue something? Sounds like Once Blue to me. That's too bad...they were a cute act with a couple of catchy songs, but too old-fashioned in so many ways to get anywhere commercially. I didn't see them as "deadly dull lilith fair lite"... more kind of sweet modest folky/jazzy pop (there is a difference, though I concede it's very slight)...but maybe they changed direction a bit in pursuit of some Lilith $$. > what struck me about saint low was that the melodies were much more > memorable than those on the last couple madder rose records. then i > noticed how consistently tasteful the playing was throughout. What's the lineup? I interviewed Mary Lorson once myself, back in Trumansburg, NY, as it happens (bit of a Once Blue / Madder Rose link, Trumansburg), in a bar where Mary works or worked or something. She seemed pretty philosophical about being dropped by Atlantic at the time, and I do remember that the band played a great set whose three-dimensionality seemed to be flattened out on the records. I still haven't bought _Hello June Fool_. Maybe I'll have to check out Saint Low. The best thing about living near San Francisco now is that I can hear about a Kristin Hersh show during the week and just show up on Friday. In Rochester, if she played there at all (ha!) I'd have to know months in advance. Maybe this has been covered already on the list -- I've been skimming a bit lately -- but she was playing almost all new stuff from the forthcoming record. It was *great* -- still the same irregularly-shaped stuff she's been doing for the past two records (for all of her records?) but this time there's a new groundedness and a focus that might make this next record what the Hips & Makers fans are looking for. This time the bitterness and bile seem very directed and specific -- has she just been through a breakup/divorce? It was the quietest show I've been to here -- everyone was really hypnotized. I gather she sings everything with that strange snakelike weaving and staring? I've never seen her live before. She broke a string and spent some time tuning, and thus also some time talking. She's got that funny Ani DiFranco angry/coy thing going, doesn't she? Or Ani DiFranco has Kristin's thing going, I'm not sure which. Anyway, the patter (or "banter," as Aimee Mann and Michael Penn called it) was entertaining. Oh, and she did at least four "older" songs: "Me and My Charms," "A Loon," "Teeth" (I think...I always forget the title), and the Muses song "Bea." Great show -- see it if you can. Drew ===== Andrew D. Simchik: drew at stormgreen dot com http://www.stormgreen.com/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 12:59:32 PDT From: "Consumer 666" Subject: Re: MongoMusic indeed! . _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 13:53:47 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: Since the list is moribund >though i think i read >in one of the articles about their current tour Cracker wre dropped. No, I specifically asked someone at Virgin about this. Cracker's still with Virgin. >> On the other hand, here's a gruesome list of active, Eb-endorsed >> names who have left major labels, been dropped or lost major-label >> distribution: Nick Cave, Einsturzende Neubauten, > >wasn't it Mute Recrods that lost their distribution deal, and Cave & EN >were just along for the ride? No. Cave was with Reprise and EN were with Nothing/Interscope, and I believe both those deals were "unique." Previously, Mute had a distribution deal with Elektra, but that ended awhile ago. >> Hole, > >did courtney get out, or is she just blowing smoke still at this point? I'm pretty sure she's off Geffen now. >> The Beastie Boys certainly deserve a nod, as long as you >> don't mind labeling them "alternative" rather than "rap." > >why you have to choose one or the other is another issue, but... same >with Beck i s'poze.. If you would call Beck a simple "rap" act, you can't have heard his whole catalog. >anyways, it is kinda depressing, but on the other hand, look at how >Aimee Mann is doing right now. Well, I don't consider Mann "alternative," myself. (Nor her husband.) There are proggies in La Mirada! Eeeeeek! Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 13:56:44 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: moribund >> Well, OK. But actually, the opposite seems to be happening in certain >> arenas. For instance, there's endless talk about how the UniGram merger has >> drained the promotional wallop behind the Geffen/Interscope/A&M acts, who >> are now all worked in tandem by *one department*. You wonder why the Chris >> Cornell album didn't do nearly as well as Soundgarden, or why the new No >> Doubt isn't the juggernaut the last album was...? > >could it be that the no doubt gang, chris cornell etc. want more >money than the kids who've just been signed? Maybe you missed my point. My point is that some proven, popular artists aren't selling up to snuff anymore, because the radio/publicity departments are so overloaded with projects that they can't allot enough bloodsweatandtears to any one act. There's a big difference between calling up a radio station/magazine and pitching one or two new releases, and pitching seven or eight. There's only so much info which can be processed in one phone call, and so much advertising/promotional budget spent during a month. The major labels have been trying to fight this problem by assigning a strict subset of the roster to each individual promoperson, but even that gets troublesome, because it's not enough to know an artist's label now -- now you often have to know which *person* at the label to call, too. It can be aggravating. And if that person happens to be someone who's difficult to deal with or hard to reach, oops, you're out of luck. You can't go around him/her anymore to a co-worker. "Sorry, you have to call Cindy about that band...." Eb, barefoot and repugnant ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 23:30:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Since the list is moribund Eb wrote: > >wasn't it Mute Recrods that lost their distribution deal, and Cave & > >EN were just along for the ride? > > No. Cave was with Reprise and EN were with Nothing/Interscope, and I > believe both those deals were "unique." Previously, Mute had a > distribution deal with Elektra, but that ended awhile ago. and then with the fake WEA, AMA thing but i don't know if that's still the case or not. i had assumed the presence of reprise with nick was related to that, and hadn't bought any neubauten since tabula rasa until the new one so i guess i missed their time with nothing. is there a bigger kiss of death for any veteran act than signing with nothing. does everything old trent reznor touches turn to twinkie filling? i mean, the the, EN, PWEI, ... can trent sell anything except himself and marilyn? > >> The Beastie Boys certainly deserve a nod, as long as you > >> don't mind labeling them "alternative" rather than "rap." > > > >why you have to choose one or the other is another issue, but... > >same with Beck i s'poze.. > > If you would call Beck a simple "rap" act, you can't have heard his > whole catalog. i wouldn't, but he has his moments. especially on the hits. my point on "who gives a shit" whether it's "alternative" or "rap" or whatever stands. but you are right...i haven't heard _Stereopathic Soul Manure._ > >anyways, it is kinda depressing, but on the other hand, look at how > >Aimee Mann is doing right now. > > Well, I don't consider Mann "alternative," myself. (Nor her husband.) well, her general appeal is cult oriented enough. really though, other than Til Tuesday having sold lots of copies of their first record and the lack of songs about prawns, what makes robyn "alternative" and mann not. it seems to me they are both just singer-songwriters who share a lot of the same influences (Lennon, Dylan, the usual ones), are just normal enough to occasionally gurgle into the mainstream radar almost but not quite (mann definitely moreso), but still weird enough to irritate the masses. i wouldn't say mann is as good as robyn is (and her husband sure as hell ain't), but i can't really see that big a difference in what they do so that one would be "alternative" and one wouldn't. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #246 *******************************