From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #311 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, October 2 2002 Volume 11 : Number 311 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Funny Stuff (0% RH) [Mike Swedene ] Me too! me too! [barbara soutar ] Nextdoorland, two cents ["Russ Reynolds" ] Re: NDL Vinyl ["Marc Holden" ] Tolkien, Nixon, and Stipe [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Oh... Canada [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] re: Wembley [Michael R Godwin ] Re: Oh... Canada [Ken Weingold ] Lower Wolves [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Oh... Canada [Christopher Gross ] More on Nextdoorland [The Great Quail ] A dish of spicy orts ["Golden Hind" ] Re: More on Nextdoorland [Stewart Russell ] Orts of apologies ["Golden Hind" ] Re: A dish of spicy orts [Michael R Godwin ] paint it black, you devil ["ross taylor" ] RE: Oh... Canada ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: paint it black, you devil [Michael R Godwin ] Kids' records & cognitive dissonance ["Rex.Broome" ] NDL leerics ["Mike Wells" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 21:04:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Mike Swedene Subject: Funny Stuff (0% RH) My friend sent this to me. Funny stuff, especially if you like Led Zep & kittens together.... http://www.rathergood.com/vikings/ Herbie np -> "Venus as A Boy" BJORK ===== - --------------------------------------------- View my Websight & CDR Trade page at: http://midy.topcities.com/ _____________________________________________ New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 21:45:11 -0700 From: barbara soutar Subject: Me too! me too! Hi, I see that a fellow called Eb has the same birthday as me. Counting back nine months you arrive at New Year's Eve, which may or may not be relevant. This new album you're all talking about sounds good, I must travel downtown to see if they have it here yet. Birthday money to spend. Heading into the last year of my forties. Barbara Soutar Victoria, B.C. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 22:49:54 -0700 From: "Russ Reynolds" Subject: Nextdoorland, two cents Finally got my copy of Nextdoorland. Quick impressions upon 3 listens: 1. Not fond of the mix. Would like to hear more bass, bury the vocals a bit so they blend better with the music and some good old fashioned echo. That's what I'd do. That's what I was hoping Pat Colier would bring to the table. 2. Interesting that the two songs that seem to have the most Soft Boyish feel are the two that were words: Hitchcock, music: hitchcock seligman windsor rew. For me, that growling bass of Seligman's was the heart of Underwater Moonlight. I only hear it on I Love Lucy and Strings. 3. Strings is the closest thing to the original. 4. Not what I had hoped for from the Soft Boys but (4-a) this is probably where they would have progressed to had they remained together, and (4-b) this is a very fine Robyn Hitchcock album. I've always prefered his songs with a band and this is a damn good band. 5. Gimme a pod of Rock N Roll. Would love to see these guys make an appearance on SNL. Is Lorne Michaels on this list? He should be. I think someone needs to send Lorne a couple of CD's and a press kit. He's certainly a big enough Beatles fan to be a Soft Boys fan. Off to play Nextdoorland a bunch more times, - -rUss "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire "Harmony ruins a bloody good racket." -- Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 00:26:26 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: Re: NDL Vinyl Rex: >Marc on UM: >>11 copies--7 vinyl and 4 CD. >Okay... the 7 vinyl copies... all different pressings, or else... why? You pretty much answered your own question there, yes basically all different--the only duplication is open and a sealed copies of the 3-record re-release. I also have 8 different pressings of Dark Side of the Moon and 10 different Sgt. Pepper's. Part of this got accumulated when I was selling records at collectors' conventions in the Baltimore/Washington area. With only relatively few exceptions, I don't collect every different variant CD pressing by anyone. Robyn is the only exception there, and even then, I don't go much for the different compilations unless there is an actual difference in the recording, or if I get it VERY cheaply. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 01:43:53 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Tolkien, Nixon, and Stipe >> The new Two Towers trailer is out. >>http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/aolentertainment/movies/2002/lotr >>/132757_638498_dl.mov > >Am I the only one here who invariably has a moment of cognitive dissonance >with that title, initially thinking it refers to something about the WTC >and September 11? not quite, but I do keep wanting to use the word "Twin" rather than "Two". >And I think it's naive to just blithely dismiss the possibility of a >coordinated effort by Peter Jackson, Osama bin Laden... it's the beard... >And of course, its too late to cry over spilt blood, but without Sirhan >Sirhan, we might never had even had Nixon(now theres a history-boggeling >concept)... and without that new fangled beast, the televised debate, he might have got in in '60! Even more mind-boggling! Considering how close that election was, the debate may well have swayed the election (especially when you consider how well JFK did in it - TV was made for that man - and how Nixon looked. ISTR that Nixon was only a couple of days out of hospital, and still wasn't fully recovered). >My understanding, is that it has, the comma, in Britain, but not, in the US. >I am curious about this. I've also heard that Stipe chose the construction >"Wolves, Lower" because he wanted a song with a misplaced comma in the title >like "Paint It, Black". don't mind that, but the inexplicable lack of apostrophe in "Lifes rich pageant" always gets me. James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 01:43:51 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Oh... Canada >James, how could you!?! >>There is very little Canadian music that I know which I feel neutral >> >about. Either I love it or it's by that Dion woman. > >Joni Mitchell! Ian and Sylvia. The Rheostats. The Skydiggers. I think >theres a band Ive heard of on Feg called -- Rush, is it? I think you misread me. I mean I love pretty much all Canadian music that isn't by the Nose of the North. I love the music of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Robbie Robertson, Daniel Lanois, Michael Brook, Sam Phillips, Jane Siberry - hell, even Gordon Lightfoot, Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked Ladies, Leonard Cohen, and Captain Tractor. >Do Australians make New Zealand jokes the way Americans make Canadian jokes? yes - and vice versa: God was wandering around in Heaven one day talking to Gabriel, and He said "Gabey-babes - I've just made this beautiful land. Two gorgeous islands, the most beautiful mountains, deep clear lakes, endless sandy beaches, rivers filled with fish, and forests filled with birds. And I'm going to people it with a laid-back, friendly folk to care for it and enjoy it." Gabriel turned to God and said "With respect, your Omnipotence, but isn't that unfair on everywhere else? Why should this one place have everything in it's favour? Shouldn't you do something to even things up?" "Ah" said God. "Just wait 'til you see who they're getting as neighbours!" James, eh. James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 14:47:45 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: re: Wembley > On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, bayard wrote: > > The new Two Towers trailer is out. > > http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/aolentertainment/movies/2002/lotr/132757_638498_dl.mov On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > Am I the only one here who invariably has a moment of cognitive dissonance > with that title, initially thinking it refers to something about the WTC > and September 11? To a Wembley lad like me, twin towers means only one thing, the entrance to Wembley Stadium. And they're pulling it down! The only memorable structure left from the 1924-25 Empire Exhibition (indeed, the only memorable structure in the whole of Wembley) and it's being demolished. Last time I went there was the 1990 Stones show; the Velvet Underground only played the Empire Pool (whoops, I mean Wembley Arena). http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1512718 http://www.geocities.com/londondestruction/wemb.html - - Mike Godwin PS Did anyone ever decide whether the two towers were Orthanc and Barad-dur, or Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul? Or some other permutation of these? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 09:49:54 -0400 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Oh... Canada On Thu, Oct 3, 2002, James Dignan wrote: > I think you misread me. I mean I love pretty much all Canadian music that > isn't by the Nose of the North. I love the music of Joni Mitchell, Neil > Young, Robbie Robertson, Daniel Lanois, Michael Brook, Sam Phillips, Jane > Siberry - hell, even Gordon Lightfoot, Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked > Ladies, Leonard Cohen, and Captain Tractor. There are also The Tea Party, Rusty, and 13 Engines. Not sure of the latter two are still around, but cool bands. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 15:51:32 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Lower Wolves >I've also heard that Stipe chose the construction >"Wolves, Lower" because he wanted a song with a misplaced comma in the title >like "Paint It, Black". I always thought that the phrase was originally "Lower Wolves" (that's how it's sung in the song) and "Wolves, Lower" is like a lemma in an index of a book. You sort by noun and add modifiers separated by a comma. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156 50823 Kvln http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ Being just contaminates the void - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 10:39:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Oh... Canada On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Ken Weingold wrote: > On Thu, Oct 3, 2002, James Dignan wrote: > > I think you misread me. I mean I love pretty much all Canadian music that > > isn't by the Nose of the North. I love the music of Joni Mitchell, Neil > > Young, Robbie Robertson, Daniel Lanois, Michael Brook, Sam Phillips, Jane > > Siberry - hell, even Gordon Lightfoot, Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked > > Ladies, Leonard Cohen, and Captain Tractor. > > There are also The Tea Party, Rusty, and 13 Engines. Not sure of the > latter two are still around, but cool bands. And don't forget Rush and Skinny Puppy! What a great double bill that would be.... Nextdoorland: ten tentacles up. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 10:55:31 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: More on Nextdoorland I fucking love this album! I have listened to it about twice a day since it came out, and it keeps getting better. The slippery, interlocking guitars, the trading licks, the growling bass (as one Feg put it....) And I also like the lyrics, too -- just the right touches of surreal metaphor, bitterness, and hope. Some great lines, especially on "Strings." And my favorite: "You can tell what time it is by looking yourself in the eye" Which sort of reminds me of Dylan's "You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows" for some reason... I say, yeah, let the lyric analysis begin! - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 15:20:45 +0000 From: "Golden Hind" Subject: A dish of spicy orts Kathleen writes: >Tolkien began to write a novel about the destruction >of Atlantis; but his publisher told him that it would not be >appealing >enough >to justify publication, and he never finished it. I have not read -all- of Tolkein(or close to it.) Has this bit been published anywhere? Did he call it Atlantis or Numenor(correctly spelled, of course;-)? >Recently on NPR and elsewhere I've noticed an inordinate >proliferation of >the word "actually" as a filler-word -- among the >class of people who >don't mis use "like." I noticed awhile ago I was guilty of that. I also overuse "a bit," "somewhat," and "a tad" as ways of hedging my declaritive bets. A study of current slang among the overly-literate would be interesting(interesting, another word I overuse.) - --------------------------- Earnest: >For a different sort of accent, watch Emma Thompson's in a guest role on the old TV show "Ellen", wherein >Thompson (playing herself) admits her terrible hidden secret, and comes out of the closet to reveal that she's not really British-- >whereupon she affects a hilariously convincing Ohio accent and confesses that she got her British enunciation from watching Julie >Andrews movies.) I adored that episode. Thompson is a wonderful comedian. But I thought she was from Arc-ken-saw. - - In the language debate I can see the strengths and weaknesses to both the descriptivists and the prescriptivists. My standards are based on what I hope is a Lewisinian(-- what is the right adjective?) common sense. I like language that is strong, engaging, suggestive, accurate, fluid, nuanced, colorful and memorable. When the rules further this -- Im all for the rules. When innovations further this -- give me innovations. - - Also, I'll speak up for computer geeks. I'm active on the Fegnmaniax Listserve, which is a free-ranging discussion group very loosly based around the works of Robyn Hitchcock(fairly obscure but brilliant Brit singer/songwriter/musician.) Anyway, many the posters there are literate, articulate computer geeks. I guess it depends on the forum. Language discussions on Feg are usually quite lively and informative. - - >I've read a few of Katherine Kurtz's Dernyi novels. I found them curious >for their odd mixture of magic and quasi-Catholic ritual (how often are >you going to find Latin in a work of high fantasy?), I think she's got a scholarly background in Medieval history, and it makes for a more coherent and interesting fantasy world than the usual pseudo ye-olden-daze. >To me, "Occult" differs markedly from "New Age". When I think of Occult, >I think of the older generation of occultists like Aleister Crowley, >Regardie, and A. E. Waite, men who, whatever their faults, were at least >literate, and educated. Very much agreed. Also, they had interesting, well-developed prose styles. Hmmm, let me amend that slightly, they has styles, period. Whether Crowley's dash, bravado and vineger or Waite's neo-Coleridge interlace, they were personages of a highly distinctive quality. Much of the Llewllyn stuff is interchangable. >Of this list, I've only heard of Regardie. Is Dame Yeats >any relation to the poet Yeats, whom Lewis names as a writer who >dabbled >in the occult? Dame Frances Yates's(sorry, my mispelling) scholalry career overlapped Lewis's, I think. In fact, I half remember that there was a brief, not very interesting(there it is again!) exchange of letters between them. Can anyone co-oberate that? (SEE DEB--LEWIS CONTENT!;-) Her area of study seemed to spring right out of Lewis's. And did Lewis mention that Yeats was also one of the greatest poets to ever breathe life into the english language? (MORE LEWIS CONTENT!) >Somehow, all that stuff got dragged into the >light and mixed with numerous other elements--with feminism, with the >neverending white Anglo-American obsession with Native American culture >and with the mystic East, with bits and pieces culled from everywhere-- >and now we've got "New Age". I'm not sure what it's all about. No one is. Its a work in process. Most of its chaff, time will help winnow out the grain. >I'd love to take ten years out of my life, do some research, and write a >good scholarly book about it all, but it's probably for the best that won't happen. Have you looked at Wouter Hanegraaff's "Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times" ? It covers -some- of that ground. When I think of New Age books, I think of all >the stuff from the Llewellyn catalogue (http://www.llewellyn.com/ if you have the stomach for it), written by people who give themselves names like role- >playing game characters. :-p . But don't downplay the significence of role-playing in postmodern society. Like it or not, it has had definite ramifications, thou what they are is still being worked out. > I've been told that of these, >Starhawk is an intelligent writer. I like some of what she does, find some of it unhelplul. When I said I would forget the bloody obvious of the current crop, I realize I left out some very fave raves: Joselyn Godwin, John Michael Greer, Adam Mclain and Arthur Versluis, whose wonderful on-line journal "Esoterica" can be found at: http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/main.html. This is mostly scholarly stuff. - ----------------------- Lewis siting. The Oct issue of "Martha Stewart Living." I was flipping thru it in the supermarket check out line, so I can't give page number. Its was a piece on using old (sorry -- vintage;-) wallpaper in closets, and one of the blurbs likened it to entering another world thru a wardrobe. - ------------------------ Im 47, but Ive been an immature Grumpie since adolescence. - -------------------------- UTJATM Kay The babble that we think we mean CS Lewis _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 11:31:50 -0400 From: Stewart Russell Subject: Re: More on Nextdoorland The Great Quail wrote: > > I say, yeah, let the lyric analysis begin! okay, to what (or whom) does the Japanese Captain analogy refer? My possibles: * one of those Japanese soldiers who kept "fighting" on remote pacific islands long after WWII was done * a Japanese whale boat skipper working overtime to beat the moratorium * a Japanese salaryman (captain of industry) on the verge of karoshi, death through overwork? Hmm... Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 15:35:49 +0000 From: "Golden Hind" Subject: Orts of apologies Eek! I did it. I sent a message meant for another LS to Feg, in this case cause I mentioned Feg on it (defending the honor of computer geeks) so it was on my mind so ... Disregard. Discompute. Tres embarressing. Kay _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 16:40:24 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: A dish of spicy orts > Kathleen writes: > >Tolkien began to write a novel about the destruction > >of Atlantis; but his publisher told him that it would not be >appealing > >enough > >to justify publication, and he never finished it. > On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Golden Hind wrote: > I have not read -all- of Tolkein(or close to it.) Has this bit been > published anywhere? Did he call it Atlantis or Numenor(correctly spelled, of > course;-)? My guess is that The Notion Club Papers is the written fragment. It doesn't amount to much, there's a discussion of space travel and one of the characters (Arundel / Earendel) starts to dream in an old unknown language, and then it fizzles out. JRRT also mentions in a letter somewhere that he has a recurring dream of a country being overwhelmed by flood. I suspect he read "The story of the amulet" at an impressionable age. See: - - Mike "oricalchum" Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 11:42:58 -0400 From: "ross taylor" Subject: paint it black, you devil Arriving fashionably late to the topic-- I do remember some interview w/ Mick Jagger in the 70s where he acknowledged the comma in the title in a jokey way, "we thought maybe people could read something into it." But then US records listed a Stones song as "Congradulations" which was spelled correctly on the 45. Someone on another list pointed out that Eric Burden did a version of Paint it Black without the comma "and that made all the difference." [Thanks to Gene for putting me onto the Steve Hoffman forum.] PIB & "Why" both feature swooping bass drones. I don't think that's in Indian music -- maybe Arabic? Maybe just what else can the bass player do? Can anyone recommend some traditional Arabic music? Does it all feature flutes like the record Brian Jones was involved with? - --- Two F's-- >Not as if I'm an expert on Mexican music - only what gets played by little >trios in Mexican restaurants..but that sounding like a polka isn't an >accident, although it's more Tex-Mex. Rafts of Germans settled some >particular part of Texas (I forget where), and they brought their damned >accordions and two-steps with them, and the locals seemed to pick up on that sound. I love this list! That tells me a lot about the sound I used to hear pretty much on my apt. doorsteps every Latin Festival in Adams Morgan. Funny tho that "Spanish" guitar got so popular w/ West Coast rockers, "Sketches of Spain" as intro to White Rabbit, etc. Maybe it had already gotten pretty popular in the 50s w/ the folk movement etc.? Maybe because it was often minor key & A Minor goest well with psychobable. - --- I think "I Love Lucy" sounds a ton like the 1st McCartney album, "Hot as Sun" etc. Even the goofy nostalgia lyric fragements are totally Macca. Ross Taylor Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 11:59:04 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Oh... Canada - -----Original Message----- From: Ken Weingold [mailto:hazmat@hellrot.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 9:50 AM To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Subject: Re: Oh... Canada On Thu, Oct 3, 2002, James Dignan wrote: >> I think you misread me. I mean I love pretty much all Canadian music that >> isn't by the Nose of the North. I love the music of Joni Mitchell, Neil >>Young, Robbie Robertson, Daniel Lanois, Michael Brook, Sam Phillips, Jane >> Siberry - hell, even Gordon Lightfoot, Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked >> Ladies, Leonard Cohen, and Captain Tractor. Ken responded: >There are also The Tea Party, Rusty, and 13 Engines. Not sure of the >latter two are still around, but cool bands. I would add two that are no longer around, cub and Jale. Others that are still amongst us, Blue Rodeo, Diana Krall and Oscar Peterson. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 17:57:20 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: paint it black, you devil On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, ross taylor wrote: > PIB & "Why" both feature swooping bass drones. I don't think that's in > Indian music -- maybe Arabic? Maybe just what else can the bass > player do? Just one final remark on 'Why'. I always heard it as a rip-off of the Motown song 'Heatwave' by Martha and the Vandellas. Syllogism: 'Why' is raga rock 'Why' is a r-o o t M s 'H' b M & t V Ergo: Motown is raga rock > Can anyone recommend some traditional Arabic music? Does it all > feature flutes like the record Brian Jones was involved with? I once saw Les Musiciens du Nil at one of those WOMAD festivals. Very good and no flutes to speak of, more sort of mediaeval-looking instruments like lyres and shawms. http://www.chez.com/cafedeladanse/bndr/goodies/musiciens_du_nil.html http://www.letheatre-narbonne.com/saisons/02-03/lesmusiciensdunil.html - - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 10:07:50 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Kids' records & cognitive dissonance Kay: >>And hats off to Rex for buying -any- new records in the first few years after the >>birth of a child Well, it's been a LOT less, and they haven't gotten as much play as they would have in previous years. Even some records I was really excited about. I figure I'll catch up in the future... although with another daughter due in December, I bet a lot of stuff is headed right into the rock 'n' roll toilet. But I've had a very musical relationship with my first daughter in a lot of ways, so that helps. ___________ Jeffrey FF: >>Am I the only one here who invariably has a moment of cognitive dissonance >>with that title (Two Towers), initially thinking it refers to something about the >>WTC and September 11? The LA Times printed an article about LOTR last spring where they TWICE accidentally referred to the sequel as "The Twin Towers". I reread it to make sure. I never heard anyone else mention it and if they printed a correction I missed it. Pretty embarrassing, but very telling. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 10:59:06 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Nextdoorguitarland Okay... Nextdoorland, the Overview: First of all, with so many newer bands being celebrated for making records that sound like great older bands who they aren't, you've gotta give it to the Soft Boys for releasing a record that sounds like a great old band who they ARE. (If you can untangle my syntax, that is...) Here's the most exciting thing to me, in the context of Robyn's, not the Soft Boys', career: it's not just that it is, and sounds like, the Soft Boys (which is great), or even that it is and sounds like a band (which is also great)... it's that it's Robyn's most stylistically coherent record in, oh, forever. Since "Perspex Island", by my estimation. By definition of the nature of the project, the songs are all played by the same, er, musical configuration, so the real identity of the tunes comes not from the arrangements but from the songs themselves. The songwriting has been complained about around here, but I tell ya, the tunes are all quite distinctive... they don't blur together the way, for example, the Perspex songs did initially (still do?)... All of the records between Perspex and NDL have suffered a little bit, in my opinion, from stylistic diffusion. I like Respect, although I'm still nonplussed that it's an Egyptians record (as I am that, say, Sleeps with Angels is a Crazy Horse record). Moss Elixir is the last Robyn record that I absolutely loved; the great songwriting and thematic unity make the stylistic diversity hang together quite nicely, although the fact that better versions of some of the same songs appeared on Mossy counts as a major caveat. Sophia to me is wildly inconsistent in quality and style, and the fact that another inconsistent record of outtakes followed is no surprise; add to the fact that during this same period some new material made it onto a live record of mostly oldies in the meantime, and the 2-disc Dylan collection (which I love, but doesn't count in this sense) and... well, my hopes for another Robyn album with a cohesive sense of time and space was fading. But here it is. So now back to Perspex, the last "rock band album"... I like it way more than most do, but man, does it suffer in comparison to Nextdoorland. It's the guitars. It's not just the (re)addition of Kimberly, it's what that addition inspires in Robyn's playing. On the latter-day Egyptians records-- and later band-like one-offs like "Alright Yeah" or "Sally" etc., you can hear a definite formula Robyn had developed for guitar-pop songs: the jangly bit played throughout by Robyn or Pete Buck, the acoustic rhythm sunk into the mix, and the overdubbed solo, with little in the way of leads and fills throughout the rest of the song. Made sense for the college-rock sound of the time and, more pragmatically, for the way the Egyptians were gonna tour the stuff (with Robyn's guitar only). And that ethic (which frequently worked very well in a "pretty" way) has been torn apart spectacularly on Nextdoorland, and all kinds of tendrils and mandibles have come bursting out of the corpse, like in "The Thing". It's as if, when you slot Kimberly back in there and he starts with those snakey fills and galloping riffs, Robyn says, "Oh yeah, I gotta do me some of that too," and you go instantly from an REM/Smiths dynamic to the Television/Voidoids/um, Soft Boys dynamic of guitar interplay. We haven't heard Robyn play this kind of guitar for a long time. Some of the stuff he plays here we've *never* heard before. And Kimberly... well, Kimberly Rewls. The songwriting, to me, harkens back to that same late '80's/early '90's period, but... while it does back away from some of the recent "maturity" (or whatever) I feel a little more heft to this stuff. I'll blather on about the actual songs later... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 13:08:33 -0500 From: "Mike Wells" Subject: NDL leerics The Quail speaketh: > I say, yeah, let the lyric analysis begin! 'Pulse of My Heart' > "You can tell what time it is by looking yourself in the eye" This is definitely my favorite song on the album. I read it as the process of realizing you're finding the person you're meant to be with, but on a very basic, fundamental (heart pulse) level...and the headlong excitement and unease of feeling that process as you go through it. Sort of like when you find an underlying meaning to things you always knew was there, but could not really ever put your finger on. I also love how each of the verses comes from a slightly different POV. "But in the pulse of my heart, here's looking at you; You're the pulse of my heart, and you know that it's you Alright!" 'Sudden Town': "Cottages full of eternal men All seeking a dream in the old direction Yeah, it's just a sudden town" Robyn actually went to some lengths to offer an explanation for this song at the Chicago show on the '01 tour, for those without a copy I'll paraphrase it as going something like 'it's about the supreme triumph of the existential ego; the idea (is) that you're not moving through the world, the world is moving around you...you haven't gone anywhere, yet suddenly this town appears before you.' He also said that 'I don't know why I bother explaining things, I could be talking complete crap up here' so take that with some salt, but I think that little nutshell explanation fits pretty well with the lyric. I like the bit about the ghouls going "sha-la-la-la..." And tell me that he didn't shout 'in the old ERECTION' on tour... :-p Speaking of innuendo, there's 'Mind Is Connected...' "The butler emerges from the hole, Bzzup uhzzup uzzup uzzup bzzup uh-huh With a tray of diamonds" I recall the discussion we had about this when it came up on tour, and my initial take being: "The butler emerges from the hold (of a ship) With a tray of diamonds" And I was razzed good-naturedly for not seeing the obivious implication that "butler" was the Brit slang for you-know-what, "hole" was rather too obvious, and that it was a "trail" of diamonds (even more obviously cumming from you-know-what). I rest my case that I was somewhat right, at least on the tray bit, but that raises the problem that I'm still guessing as to meanings. I'll go back to my gut feeling, that "butler" is a mechanism that's bringing some images/thoughts/feelings - the "diamonds" - out from memory/dreamland (the "eleven carriages" of the brain, bravo to whoever got that one right). I've got some thought on 'Le Cherite' too, but I want to ruminate a bit more on that one. And what is LeShea? The stadium for the Mets French-Canadian farm team? Obviously this all should be taken for what it is, the diseased imaginings of a disordered mind. Having fun with it, though. Michael "who's a deconstructionist?" Wells ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #311 ********************************