From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #377 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, November 18 2002 Volume 11 : Number 377 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Concerts, with retsin [Eb ] All to Much ["Montauk Daisy" ] Re: All to Much [Michael R Godwin ] Re: All to Much [Ken Weingold ] Re: All to Much [Ken Weingold ] RE: All to Much ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: Compilations, Harrison, Hokey Pokey [Michael R Godwin ] multiple concert viewings [drew ] more on XLRs ["Mike Wells" ] Best live bands [Ken Weingold ] Who made Morris's drums? ["Eugene Hopstetter, Jr." ] the family and the fishing net [Ken Ostrander ] Brian Eno at Hogwarts ["Eugene Hopstetter, Jr." ] Re: Know this: it will end in arthropods. ["Stewart C. Russell" ] memphis and chattanooga [Miles Goosens ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 04:53:21 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Concerts, with retsin >From: Steve Talkowski > >Incidentally, this year has been my "Year of Costello", seeing him 8 >times in NYC alone! Whew! Even though I'm nuts about the guy, I've only seen Costello three times (uh, I believe the corresponding albums were Spike, Brutal Youth and Painted From Memory). >From: Sebastian Hagedorn > > > Robyn Hitchcock (nine times...and *not* counting twice w/Soft Boys) > >That's TOP?? I've seen the Feelies at least 30 times and Yo La Tengo somewhere between 15 and 20. The Feelies performed in Germany 30 times? That amazes me. I only saw them *once*, and I don't recall passing up a bunch of Feelies shows either. I don't think they even toured my area to promote the final album.... It is somewhat surprising that I haven't seen bands more times, but as I said in my initial post, "...I guess my concert experiences are spread out pretty thinly." I've seen close to 600 concerts, but I like a lot of music so the shows are distributed across a variety of artists. Admittedly, this is a pretty geeky statistic, but I happen to know that I've seen 320something out of the 750something artists whom I own albums by. That's a good percentage, considering how many split-up/dead/non-touring acts I collect. But if I was just concentrating on seeing eight or nine acts above all others, that sort of coverage wouldn't be possible. I've seen a slew of bands just *once*, including prominent names like Nirvana, Oasis, Neil Young, Bowie, Blur, the Ramones, Smashing Pumpkins, Primus, Public Enemy, Liz Phair, Einsturzende Neubauten, Moby, Midnight Oil, the Jayhawks, Randy Newman, Squeeze, 10000 Maniacs, Sleater-Kinney, NIN...well, the list goes on. What's more, there are 50 or 60 bands which I still haven't seen live, which I'd really *like* to see. So, those names will be a priority over seeing Sonic Youth or whoever again. Three of them (solo Bryan Ferry, Marianne Faithfull, solo Glenn Tilbrook) are coming here shortly, in fact. Some veterans whom I've never seen in concert, surprisingly: Springsteen, the Dickies, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Cheap Trick, Yes, L7 (well, I saw a few songs once), Sarah McLachlan, Van Morrison, Graham Parker, solo Natalie Merchant, solo Pete Townshend.... There's a lot of music, out there. And you can see it live, in addition to *filing it*. ;) Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:02:19 +0000 From: "Montauk Daisy" Subject: All to Much >CDNow's proposed list of the worst #1 songs ever: I find myself agreeing with Eb's critique of the list. My pet peeve's are songs the qualify as "Beyond Stupid"("Ding a Ling" ) and "Beyond Maudlin"("Honey" and "Having My Baby") Merely stupid may be bad but in enough of a good way to be bearable. And Eb, thanks for the link. Now if only it worked(or am I better off -not- hearing it;-? I can attest that the SBs doing "All Too Much" is excellent. Ive been hearing it in my head since Marc's comment. But then its always been one of my favorite songs. Kay _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 17:12:38 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: All to Much On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Montauk Daisy wrote: > >CDNow's proposed list of the worst #1 songs ever: > I find myself agreeing with Eb's critique of the list. My pet peeve's are > songs the qualify as "Beyond Stupid"("Ding a Ling" ) and "Beyond > Maudlin"("Honey" and "Having My Baby") Merely stupid may be bad but in > enough of a good way to be bearable. Did anyone catch that list of the UK's all-time best-selling singles on TV the other day? It was quite unwatchable, with these moronic so-called youth comedians linking the items, and only snatches of your favourite songs. No Stones, no Bowie, and you will never guess the only act to have two top 10 entries. - - MRG PS Since you ask, number 1 was 'Candle in the Wind' (Lady Di version) and number 2 was the Geldof Band Aid record. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:07:10 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: All to Much On Mon, Nov 18, 2002, Montauk Daisy wrote: > >CDNow's proposed list of the worst #1 songs ever: > > I find myself agreeing with Eb's critique of the list. My pet peeve's are > songs the qualify as "Beyond Stupid"("Ding a Ling" ) and "Beyond > Maudlin"("Honey" and "Having My Baby") Merely stupid may be bad but in > enough of a good way to be bearable. Honestly, I don't see what's so bad about Eve of Destruction. I actually always thought it was a funny little diddy, in an apocalyptic sort of way. :) - -Ken np: Jets To Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary - -- on my new 20 gig iPod :-D ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:09:11 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: All to Much On Mon, Nov 18, 2002, I wrote: > Honestly, I don't see what's so bad about Eve of Destruction. I > actually always thought it was a funny little diddy, in an apocalyptic > sort of way. :) Woops, I meant FUN, not funny. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:15:18 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: All to Much >CDNow's proposed list of the worst #1 songs ever: I have to put "We Built This City" as my number 1 worse song of all time. Grace Slick really sold out big time on that turd. I think the disappointment of the sell out by Grace vaults Starship over the competition. Maybe that's why the Airplane had to regroup and tour in the late 80's so Grace could try to recover from the mid 1980's Starship fiasco and end her career on a high note. Michael NP Bill Evans Portrait in Jazz ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 18:27:30 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Compilations, Harrison, Hokey Pokey On Sun, 17 Nov 2002, James Dignan wrote: > According to one site which I forgot to grab the URL of: > "Hokey Pokey is a traditional name for ice cream and originated from early > ice cream vendors who peddled their wares shouting "Ecco un poco" - try a > sample". > Re Hokey Pokey, a websearch found the following: > toryID=583900> The NZ Herald site asservates: "One theory on how the name came about is that Italian ice cream vendors would yell "Ecce pocce", which sort of means "Get it here, it's cold", and the name evolved to hokey pokey". I like that explanation best. - - MRG Harrison PS. Robyn, Kim, Jake, Tim and Patch did a hot version of "Old Brown Shoe" in Bristol a couple of years ago. Morris joined in for a few numbers, using his extremely small drum kit, and I said at the time "Almost the whole of the Soft Boys were on stage at one point"... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 10:52:08 -0800 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Know this: it will end in arthropods. Kay: >>Anyway ... what Harrison tribute? And what other group, I ask you, could >>reproduce live Beatles harmonies on Harrison songs better than ... ? I still hold out for "If I Needed Someone" or "I Want to Tell You", both ideal Soft Boys-ready collisions of jangle, haromony and weird discordant bridgery. Then she describes a wonderful in-home library ending with this: >> In my fantesies there is always a really big globe on one >>of the tables. Mine too. The oceans on the globe are parchment-colored. It looks ancient but the country names are completely up-to-date. There are also many genuine, outdated maps framed on the walls. My wife is obsessed with those TLC shows like "Trading Spaces" and "While You Were Out"-- chalk it up to pregnancy nesting instincts but she's dragging me along with her-- and I recently saw one where the designers created a faux-library in a bedroom with fake books spines, very 1860-looking... the execution was crap but it was a move in the right direction. >>Is anyone else of the opinion that pears are an unjustly neglected >>fruit? Yeah, I became mildly obsessed with pears about a year ago. Pear is also the very best ever flavor of Jelly Belly. Even the texture of a pear is lovingly rendered in tiny jelly bean form. Also had a surprisingly wonderful pear wine at a B&B in Maine on my honeymoon. Been looking for it ever since. ____________ Drew: >> In fact, the stereotypical fans of a lot of the music I like are skinny. Me too, although the fans, along with the musicians, and frankly myself, are getting progressively less skinny over the years. I still kind of see all of us that way, though. I sort of see those concerts as if I'm watching a scope film projected without the anamorphic lens unsqueezing the picture: everything's squashed horizontally and stretched out vertically, and it looks just like it did thirteen years ago, except that oddly all of the musicians are playing electric six-string ukuleles and oval-shaped drums. >>Is it just me, or do a lot of the Nextdoorland reviews sound pretty much exactly alike? Yes, and they all sound like REM and Yo La Tengo, apparently! __________ Ken O: >>maybe greta can tell us her version of the story. maybe rex will. or maybe we'll read about it... Just to clarify, that whole thing about me & "Greta" was indeed a *joke*; I had no offlist (or any other kind of) contact with this person at all. I was, you know, playin' around with my own "rep", as it were. I feel bizarre even bothering to mention it, but I almost feel I must. I wish, you know, that I was just paranoid... _______________ Worst #1's ever: >>2. Bobby Goldsboro/Honey Wowsers... the only version of this I've ever hears is by my dad! Last summer he and I searched through a few dozen reels of old 1/4" tapes of his bands dating back to the early '60's, and the best, clearest recordings we found were a pair of rehearsals from 1968 or so: "Honey" and "San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers etc.)", neither of which I'd ever heard him perform. Made a nice digitization of them. "Honey" is sorta cheesy but I was so thrilled to have that "lost" performance that I rather like it now. _____________ Jeff Dwarf: >>Does this mean Mick Jones will sue Mick Jones? Will Dave Stewart the former pitcher battle Dave Stewart the former eurythmic for name supremacy? Then there's this: http://www.therag.com/Issue9/TTM/beck.htm Satire written by an acquaintance of mine... seems vaguely plausible until you get to the Smells Like Records bit, which is actually pretty funny... _________ Russ: >>when someone asks you how many CD's you have you can give them an > exact number. I have my stuff on a fairly normal Excel document that allows this... the key is that you need a separate column to indicate the number of discs in each multi-disc title, so you can quote the number or titles OR actual physical discs. I actually once made an attempt to start a database listing the tracks on each of my discs. Really beyond my time and abilities, though, even when ripping the information of of AMG or other sources... got about halfway through Costello before abandoning hope. Would like to be able to easily cross-reference writing credits and guest musicians within my collection, but life's just really too short. __________ Gig tallies: Can't exactly quantify this, but various incarnations of Robyn and Kristin Hersh are probably in a dead heat for top honors, both in double digits. Kristin probably with a slight edge right now. Next up is definitely Sonic Youth, although I've probably seen Mike Watt performing as a member of various projects almost as often as I've seen RH & KH... he's been a complete sideman on too many of those occasions to really contend for the throne, though. So many of my favorite artist are dead/retired/barely active that the rest of the love tends to get spread around. I profoundly dislike "big" shows (arena-size and up), a preference which has resulted in my having seen REM and Neil Young only twice apiece, despite their dominant positions in my collection and listening regimen. ___________ Stewart: >>I think we're talking Mole Crabs: >>They're benthic too. THOSE things! My family always called them "sandcrabs", but I thought they were most commonly called "sand fleas". Didn't know they were benthic, though. Since we're trolling for modern trilobites, though, can I get a shout out for the horseshoe crab? I hear it's essentially a sea-arachnid, but that's kind of cool in and of itsef, isn't it? __________________ Ed: >> I've never seen a neon blue lobster in the wild before... Blue lobsters, although as rare as similarly colored moons, do exist, as I discovered on that same honeymoon in Maine. I've never seen one in the wild either, although admittedly I've probably only actually seen three lobsters "in the wild" at all. One of them tried to pinch my wife's ass, which I didn't appreciate. Rex, who for years thought "Oceanside" contained the line "and the Giant Lobster on the Good Side"... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:31:13 +0000 From: "Montauk Daisy" Subject: Nasty and Uptight Rex on library globes: > The oceans on the globe are parchment-colored. It looks ancient but the >country names are completely up-to-date. Oh my God -- your globe dreams are connected to my library fantasy. >Pear is also the very best ever flavor of Jelly Belly. In fact, I think youve set up residence in my consiousness. Have you ever had home-made pear sorbet? Mmmmm BTW--you have to hear Bobby Goldsbourough version of "Honey," or of anything. Truely dreadful. - ------------ Godwin -- I see the Brits have as much a taste for Beyond Maudlin as us Yanks. Thats discouraging, we like to fantasize you're nastier and more uptight than we are;-) One would assume that the Brit group with 2 top-10s would be the Beatles -- so the fact that you think this group is worthy of comment means it must be some other band of truely shudderable awefullness. - ------------ Kay, who, while growing up and listening to the AM car radio much perfered "Eve of Destruction" to "Honey" _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:40:10 -0800 From: drew Subject: multiple concert viewings Robyn's at the top of my list, too, but I have a lower bar. I've seen him only five times, and the Soft Boys three times (if you count in-stores). Next on the list would be Tori Amos; I'll be seeing her a fourth time this December. After that, I suppose it would be the Autumns, but I think we're only talking two shows there. I'm sure there must be some other band or artist I've seen more than once, but I can't think of one offhand, aside from Grant-Lee Phillips, and that was only because of Robyn. Well, I've heard the B-52s twice, but I couldn't really see them the second time (they played SF Pride 2001 and our view was completely blocked). It's funny, it feels like I go to a lot of concerts, but I guess I don't. In movie news: liked Real Women Have Curves, endured Harry Potter and the Chamber of Boredom. - - Drew ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:51:37 -0600 From: "Mike Wells" Subject: more on XLRs While taping a show last night I had the chance to ask the friendly soundman about XLR's...and he replied that the board he was using there had XLRs for the record out and that most that he had seen were the same way. The upshot for going to MD is that a XLR "Y" connector (L/R) that necks to a single 1/4" stereo plug is an off-the-shelf item, about $8. Then it's just a matter of a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter and you're down to the input size of your Minidisc. Sorry if this had been answered already and I'm duplicating. =========== Gig totals: I stopped counting Rush shows at 20 or so, which since I don't follow them around means this goes back quite a number of years. Was fortunate to catch Stevie Ray Vaughan 5 or 6 times (including 'The Night Before' at Alpine Valley), Robyn dunno but probably not too much more than that, and about a thirty groups tied with two each. Michael "gang a bong" Wells Ps if anyone else likes seafaring shanties sung in Polish, email me offlist - I got three hours of 'em last night :) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:51:06 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Best live bands So what are some of the bands that live completely blew you away? The bands that have left you speechless, thinking "What the fuck did I just experience?" I'll start. 1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- heavyweight champions of the world And in no particular order: Love and Rockets Sebadoh Sugar Iron Maiden I'm sure there are more, but these come to mind right now. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:52:45 -0800 (PST) From: "Eugene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Who made Morris's drums? Has anybody caught the manufacturer of the maroon drumkit Morris is playing on the current tour? It's an awfully cool, compact kit and I'd like to get more info about it. Judging by the Fegfotos of the Amoeba gig (thanks Nick!) he's playing Paiste cymbals, but I can't see a manufacturer name. And that long slender kick drum with the snare attached to it is great. Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site http://webhosting.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:55:55 -0600 From: "Bret" Subject: RE: Best live bands I've seen well over my limit of shows (I'm guessing in the 2k+ area) and when I finally got a chance to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, everyone told me, "It will be the best show you've ever seen" and the like. I took this to mean it would probably be a good show, but probably not the best show I've ever seen. The best show I've ever seen? Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Austin, TX And everything else starts well below that. 1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- heavyweight champions of the world And in no particular order: Love and Rockets Sebadoh Sugar Iron Maiden I'm sure there are more, but these come to mind right now. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:55:48 -0500 From: Ken Ostrander Subject: the family and the fishing net >Robyn Hitchcock (nine times...and *not* counting twice w/Soft Boys) these are all the robyn gigs that i can remember. thirteen in all! i think that's the most for me. queen elvis eye perspex pre moss trifecta plus instore w/ bragg pre jewels double-shot mabd storefront premiere soft boys 01 other artists that i've seen many times: mekons, throwing muses, pixies, rem, elvis costello, lou reed, tom waits, david byrne, billy bragg, pj harvey, u2, smashing pumpkins, sonic youth, janes addiction, sleater-kinney, stereolab, yo la tengo, and squeeze these days, i've been trying to see artists that i haven't seen before; though that doesn't always work out. > http://launch.yahoo.com/read/news.asp?contentID=211328 > > Does this mean Mick Jones will sue Mick Jones? Will Dave Stewart the > former pitcher battle Dave Stewart the former eurythmic for name supremacy? this is such silly bullshit. how many will smith's are there? reminds me of the attempts to copyright words. i recall that ralph lauren sued polo magazine when they tried to do a fashion spread because it might confuse people. well sniffle sniff sniff. http://www.law.duke.edu/copyright/face/softint/basics.htm "Significantly, the Copyright Office has made it clear that words and short phrases such as names and titles and slogans, variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring are not subject to copyright." > I don't do sorted. All mixed in all everywhere, although > there are small clumps of order that appear in places. i've got clumps all over. here at work i have a whole drawer full of cd's. the robyn, egyptians, and softies are all together. at home most of my cd's are sorted by letter. robyn with and without egyptians are together; but the softies are on their own. i keep the soundtracks and various artist thingies at the end. there are unsorted sub-clusters in the kitchen and bedroom and in the various cd wallets. my vinyl is sorted alphabetically. various artists and soundtracks are in a separate box from the shelf and all of my beatles related vinyl is kept in my cubbyhole cabinet with the stereo along with all of the cd's that have non-plastic packaging and all of my 45's. >>Chronologically by date of purchase. > >a la "High Fidelity" when i first started buying records i kept a list of my purchases in order. when i got a job at record town i began doing a lot of buying and trading records; so i would have arrows connecting the old purchase with it's subsequent replacement. this list disappeared some time ago and there's no way of piecing this information together again. apart from the seseme street and (comic) book and record thingies i used to play on my winnie the pooh turntable (which had a 78rpm setting) that are lost forever, i can recall that the first two albums i bought toward my present collection (1000plus records 1000plus cds) were james bond's greatest hits and olivia newton john's greatest hits volume two. what can i say? i was thirteen. >CDNow's proposed list of the worst #1 songs ever: hmmm...i've always sort of liked 'eve of destruction'. it still speaks to our troubled times. there's the questionable use of "coagulatin'"; though it rhymes very well. i'd venture to say it's the only song that pulls that one out. what!? no muskrat love? >I think the lesson we can all draw from this is, no matter what, always >pay your Halliburton bill on time, because Cheney has the biggest, most >bad ass collection agency of all time at his disposal, and has no >qualms about abusing his authority in using it. which is hysterical considering that our administration has been racking up quite a bill for itself. who's going to collect for that? i've heard it suggested that most of our energy "crisis" can be attributed to keeping cheney's heart beating. ;^) oh yeah, is anyone else freaked out that orwell was right? the homeland security bill will make sure that every magazine subscription, every medical prescription, every email, every cookie, every bank deposit, every grade, every trip will all be loaded into a spiffy database which also houses your social security, taxes, drivers license, passport, court records, and probably even complaints from your neighbors. grrr...call your senators. there are riders on this bill including protections for companies that move their corporate addresses offshore to avoid taxes. security indeed. i'm thinking peter gabriel. ken "enemy of the state" the kenster np http://www.lpbn.org:8000/playlist.pls?mount=/file/Sun-13.mp3&file=dummy.pls ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:57:47 -0800 (PST) From: "Eugene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Brian Eno at Hogwarts I caught the latest Harry Potter movie this weekend. It was a good romp, though it dragged a bit. It was surprisingly violent and loud at times, too. And those mandrake roots were disgusting. I kept thinking that the actor who played Lucius Malfoy is a dead ringer for Roxy Music-era Brian Eno. The long straight white hair and long overcoats had a lot to do with that. . Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site http://webhosting.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:11:09 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Know this: it will end in arthropods. Rex "Mmm ... Pears" Broome wrote: > > Yeah, I became mildly obsessed with pears > about a year ago. you want to try perry, then -- brewed pear cider. It can knock the legs from under you. I'm sure MRG is will have local perry knowledge. > can I get a shout out for the horseshoe crab? a smooth shout. They remind me of a medireview (sorry, medieval) cooking implement that could also be pressed into ad-hoc torture service, should the need arise. But they don't have a glabella, so they don't count. > Blue lobsters, although as rare as > similarly colored moons it's not the colour, it's the frequency. ISTR 2001 (or was it 1999?) had two blue moons, all to do with the moon phase on 1st Feb in a non-leap year. Or do I mean leap year, and 2000? Either way, I'm pretty sure of it. Or something ;-) Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:10:43 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Brian Eno at Hogwarts Eugene Hopstetter, Jr wrote: > > I caught the latest Harry Potter movie this weekend. can I just say that when Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) was growing up in Burnside and was known as Anthony, he wasn't allowed to play with the 'rough boy' who lived next door? Forty-some years later, that rough boy is my uncle... Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:51:53 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: memphis and chattanooga At 03:24 PM 11/15/2002 -0500, ross taylor wrote: >Funny you mentioned Chattenooga, it's a pretty >town w/ nothing happening & a time zone border >running down the middle. I'm really saying all >this to try to scare up real Volunteer State >folks. You must be -- I'd think Ross Taylor of all people would know how to spell "Beale Street" and "Chattanooga" correctly. :-) I live in Nashville, but have visited Memphis many times (though not since April 2000, for the Springsteen show at the Pyramid). I'd definitely go to Sun Studios and the Peabody Hotel, being sure to take in the March of the Ducks. You can also go to the roof and walk around the Duck Palace. Faulkner said that the real South begins in the lobby of the Peabody, and I can't argue with that. Stay someplace else, though -- $200+ per night isn't worth it. If you're a vegetarian, I don't have any Memphis food recommendations, but two essentials are across various streets from the Peabody: Le Rendezvous, for Memphis-style "dry" barbeque ribs, and Huey's, for cheeseburgers (best eaten with the three HUGE onion rings that they'll serve 'em with). There's another Huey's further out (midtown? I'm not familiar enough with Memphis neighborhood names)on Madison, close to primo music store Shangri-La Records and to 1588 Madison, where the Antenna Club used to be. You'll also want to check to see if anything cool is going on at the Brooks Museum of Art or at the exhibition space of the Pyramid -- Memphis does seem to get great arts stuff that never comes to Nashville, even with our recent addition of the Frist (gag!) Center for the Arts. I also think Graceland is a must, if for no other reason to say you've been there. The first time I went, I was expecting to be horrified by the decor, but I decided that the real problem isn't what Elvis had in the house, it's that time stopped there in August 1977 -- plenty of American homes in 1977 had shag carpeting or jungle furniture or a basement bar/pool room or mirrors on the ceiling or avocado and gold appliances, but Elvis had more money and could take those themes to a higher level. Elvis' decorating sins were just ours writ large. Beale Street has been Oprylandized, just as Ross indicates, but it's more than worth a stroll, making stops at the Center for Southern Folklore and at the amazing 5-and-dime A. Schwab's -- lotsa junk in that store, but it's fun junk! If you're there on a Sunday, find out if Al Green is going to be preaching/singing at his church. I've never managed to see him there, but I sure want to before I exit this here planet. Chattanooga does not have a time zone running down the middle of town -- it's pretty firmly in eastern time, so if you want your Central Time jollies, you'll either have to go a few miles southwest to Alabama, or a few miles northwest to Middle Tennessee. Chattanooga sports a nifty focused-on-freshwater aquarium downtown, as well as the Lookout Mountain attractions (Ruby Falls, Rock City, the Incline Railway, and the Civil War battlefield). And if you like Civil War stuff, the well-preserved Chickamauga battlefield is just a little ways south into Georgia. Chattanooga used to have the oldest minor-league ballpark still in service, but they might have replaced it in the last couple of years. The southern Appalachian scenery is nice, too. later, Miles ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #377 ********************************