From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #392 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, November 22 2002 Volume 11 : Number 392 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: those fabulous eighties [Michael R Godwin ] Black Album(s) [crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com] Re: the miller's tale [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: Jesus, there were a lot of posts to plow through today -- The Singles [Ken Weingold ] Man, you fuckin' people, lay the fuck offa-- [The Great Quail ] One more cup of coffee for the road.... [The Great Quail ] Re: the miller's tale [Michael R Godwin ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #391 ["Eclipse Tuliphead" ] RE: Love & Rockets [hamish_simpson@agilent.com] Re: Pitchfork '90s list [Ken Weingold ] Re: those fabulous eighties [Miles Goosens ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:52:58 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: those fabulous eighties WRT the 1980s, I think Bath University must have been in a different universe from the people whose lists I've been reading. All that my postgrad pals played was (1) FGTH (incessantly, to the point of screaming monotony (2) New Order (non-stop, to the point of driving one completely batty) (3=) Prefab Sprout and Aztec Camera (5) REM (6) Orange Juice [and when my girlfriend got into Wham! in a big way, I realised it was time for a change...] I had assumed that this was a completely normal student playlist for the time. Perhaps things were different in the US of A. Meanwhile Michael was desperately seeking out gigs by Rain Parade, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello & the Attractions / the Confederates, James Brown, Carlene Carter, Gary Moore, Bert Jansch, the Pink Fairies, King Crimson, les Negresses Vertes etc. Oh, and getting dragged to TFF gigs because I knew their original drummer quite well (saw him only last week). It was certainly in the 80s that I discovered the Egyptians. And I think it was in the 80s that I saw Dolly Parton - very good concert. Meanwhile: On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, Brian Hoare wrote: > brian - in the town where Eddie Cochran died. We have a possible difference of opinion here, Brian. I know the car crash was in Chippenham, but my understanding was that he was taken to St Martins Hospital in Bath and died there. Possibly we need the medical records ... - - Mike Godwin n.p. Jump Sturdy, Dr John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 11:11:33 +0000 (GMT) From: crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com Subject: Black Album(s) >I'm not going to say (as someone else said) "better get some >black music on here." I was parodying the p'fork list compilers, not suggesting affirmative action. The p'fork nods to black music seem pretty token to me. (Also see Eb's e-mail about 'sleazy retorts' ;-)) Joe ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 08:37:57 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: the miller's tale Whoa! Seven-day waiting period, anyone? First, Eb's post is much funnier if it's read in the voice of Ren Hoek, the dyspeptic chihuahua from _Ren & Stimpy_. Anyway: Quoting Eb : > >Jeffrey: > >I'm not sure what Eb meant by "short melodic attention span" > > You know exactly what I meant. Burt Bacharach, he ain't. Would you > prefer that I used a phrase like "riddled with spiraling, recursive > series of left turns"? I'm sorry, I forgot you were psychic and know exactly what I do and don't know. Actually, I didn't know what you meant, which is why I hazarded a guess and asked for clarification. "Riddled with spiraling, recursive series of left turns" is actually a lot clearer, to me. But then, you already know that. > >since I can think of > >several Miller melodies that are archetypally well constructed in > >terms of theme > >and variation of melodic shape over the course of a phrase. > > You mean his 20 years of songwriting have produced several melodies > which *don't* bump and sputter around like a toy motorboat in a > bathtub? Glad to hear it! ;) > > (I'd be curious to see your list anyway, though.) I guess I look at this less formally than my description might suggest - but to me, loads of Miller's melodies do what catchy melodies are supposed to: be catchy, instantly and lastingly memorable. Off the top of my head: "Erica's Word," "Way Too Helpful," "Like a Girl Jesus," "Marcia and Etrusca"...actually, with a few exceptions (generally, the second sides of _Big Shot Chronicles_ and _The Tape of Only Linda_), whenever I think of a song title, the melody instantly comes to me (except, of course, for the short experimental bits). > >Of course, those > >phrases (in classic style derived from early Beatles) are often a > >bit off-kilter > >to fit lyrics... > > Of course, indeed. One of the chief reasons why so many of his songs > are painfully awkward and "off-kilter." And that strained attempt to > drag the Beatles into the debate won't wash. To claim this is a > characteristic trait of the Beatles is pure hooey, regardless of "She > Said She Said," "All You Need is Love" or whatever other scant > examples of knotty-meter-which-fits-lyrics examples you can dig out. Again, "painfully" is a matter of preference: evidently, I like and find compelling that off-centerness; you don't, in the case of Scott Miller. "Dragging" the Beatles in was hardly strained: I'm suggesting that Miller's work is part of a tradition in which conventional, symmetrical phrase lengths (4 bars of this, 4 bars of that, 4 more of the other thing) are dispensed with in favor of a more organically flowing melodic and phrasal structure. "Scant examples" of such in the Beatles' catalog? Not hardly: there's barely a handful of Beatles tracks that *do* fit the rigidly symmetrical model of pop-song phrasing and structure. For a painfully detailed study of the structure of Beatles songs, from an actual musicologist, you might check out Alan W. Pollack's series at . But don't take his word for it: that's something I noticed about Beatles songs ever since I was a little kid trying to plunk them out on the piano. But then, as that might suggest, I've always been intrigued by such off-center structures - so again, matter of taste. But matters of taste are always more interesting if they're elaborated, instead of just being shot forth like paintballs. > >I forget the other criticism...I think it had something to do with > >"he can't be as > >good as you people say, since lots of people haven't heard of him, even > people > >who'd be expected to have done so." > > This is a deliberately obtuse, muddled statement designed to depict > my views as the same. Also won't wash. Especially since I never said > anything about people who haven't heard of him. What I said was that > people *don't have interest* in him. As I said, I forgot exactly what you said. Sorry for being too lazy to look it up. I'm not sure, then, why you say "deliberately." Anyway, surely if people haven't heard of him, they *can't* "have interest" in him. I mean, your context was - I deliberately distort - the frequency of Miller's mentions on the Audities list. Even there, I suspect familiarity with his work is less than it is for, oh, the Shoes. > >Oh yeah: what's with a (presumably) white guy, on a list that > >(judging from every > >picture I've ever seen) is 90% (at least) white, complaining about > "white-boy > >indie rockers" or whatever the phrase was? What, one is supposed to listen > to > >music *solely because* it's done by folks of ethnicities other than our own? > > This is a pretty sleazy retort. The Pitchfork list is glaringly > narrow in scope, and that's apparent to almost anyone. Twisting my > previous description into a strident call for "Affirmative Action" is > just a ruse, and you know it. Once again, I bow to your psychic powers. But hey - when I wrote the retort, I was wearing thigh-high fishnet stockings, a skimpy halter top, and very short cutoff jeans with the waistband removed over a leopard-print thong. So I guess "sleazy" was just in the air. (Note to Greg Shell: not really, so don't get excited.) Yes, I knew the Pitchfork list was narrow in scope - almost any such list that attempts to do anything but cherry-pick the top-selling albums in a bunch of genres is going to be so, esp. if it attempts to have any depth. My point is, that's okay: it's rather a given (or should be). I wouldn't expect _London Calling_ to show up on _Vibe_'s list of the best '80s albums. There's some history here: I've gotten very tired of certain hipsters (who probably aren't you) whose record collection is exactly as white and indie-rock as mine suddenly declaring their undying love for Fela Anikulapo Kuti in crowds where that's more hip to do - I went through college w/a zillion of those. (I should probably note the presence of large numbers of jazz records and CDs in my collection, almost entirely by black artists. But in terms of most of the styles of music primarily practiced by African-Americans over the last thirty years or so, I'm just less interested.) And, symptomatic of a whole bunch of unproductive ways of dealing with actual racial issues, it seems white people are more guilty about their tastes if they mostly happen to like music made by white people. But really, it wasn't a personal attack. I should have distanced it more from a response to your remark. Now if I unlock that door and let you out, will you play nice? ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: This album is dedicated to anyone who started out as an animal and :: winds up as a processing unit. :: --Soft Boys, note, _Can of Bees_ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:45:24 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Jesus, there were a lot of posts to plow through today -- The Singles On Thu, Nov 21, 2002, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > Ken Weingold wrote: > > Believe it or not, my first Banshees album was The Scream. Hell of > > an intro, too! > > One of the top 5 debut albums of all time. Join Hands was truly awful, > though they rebounded pretty nicely with Kaleidoscope, Juju, and > finally AKITD. About the only band to go that bad on a second album > after a great debut to recover. I remember Siouxsie saying about Join Hands something to the effect of giving birth to a monster you still have to love it. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:52:12 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: singin on the brain On Fri, Nov 22, 2002, drew wrote: > > Ummm, I lost the thread here, but anyone into New Order who doesn't > > have it, pick up Movement. Dreams Never End is worth it alone. > > No kidding. That reminds me, I really need to get that on CD... > I only have it on cassette. My favorite New Order stuff (besides > "True Faith") is that early "are we going to still be Joy Division > or not?" phase. I'm glad they developed into their own band, > but the overlap in sensibilities was really exciting. Absolutely. I love that really early New Order. I absolutely love their remake of Ceremony. Too bad Joy Division never did a real studio recording of it. I too need Movement on CD to get to MP3. I only have it on vinyl, as with all my mother New Order besides Substance. Incidentally, I have a really good New Order bootleg from 1985 on vinyl that I tranferred to CD and then to MP3. IMO it sounds fantastic. If anyone wants, I can put it somewhere. Great setlist, too: Atmosphere Dreams Never End Procession Sunrise Lonesome Tonight Weirdo 586 The Perfect Kiss She's Lost Control Most noteable quote from Bernie on Lonesome Tonight: "You reached out in your sleep and you felt my big fat cock." - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:52:38 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Man, you fuckin' people, lay the fuck offa-- - --Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins! Jesus. Well, they were one of my favorite bands of the 90s, anyway. Took art rock, prog, space rock, psychedelia, classic rock and grunge, melted it into one stream of music both beautifully delicate and howlingly crazed, took themselves seriously enough to care, but not seriously enough to lose all sense of humor, and put out a few albums complex enough that I still feel I have yet to fully explore them. Yeah, yeah, so Billy Corgan in an asshole, and his voice sounds like it was broken and set incorrectly a few times; but he had some real stage presence going on, and he's the only lead singer in a long time who kind of scared me a little, like some weird, albino drow elf who hovers over your bed at 3am and sucks your dreams clean of all adolescent angst. - --Quail Ah, what the hell: My favorite albums of the 90s, off the top of my head: 1. Achtung Baby (U2) 2. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel) 3. In Utero (Nirvana) 4. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins) 5. OK Computer (Radiohead) 6. Downward Spiral (NIN) 7. Homogenic (Bjork) 8. Boys for Pele (Tori Amos) 9. Monster (REM) 10. Pearl Jam's "10" (Pearl Jam) Extra credit to Phish's "Rift," Rufus Wainright's debut, King Crimson's "Thrak," Nirvana's "Nevermind," and U2's "Pop." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:54:42 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Drewflowers Drew writes, > Interestingly, I'm not sure there is a canonical > judgement on the Cure, except that I hope everyone hated Wild Mood > Swings as much as I did. I hate Bloodflowers almost as much I rescind my previous comment about agreeing with you musically. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:14:41 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: One more cup of coffee for the road.... Oh, yeah -- another post! Three in a row. I just want to tip my hat to Eb and Jeffrey! It9s about bloody time there was another heated musical debate between two egotistical, knowledgeable, passionate music nuts around here! Well done, lads, and keep the snide remarks and sharp observations flowing. I am being utterly sincere, by the way -- I haven't enjoyed the List so much in quite a while! I'm glad that Eb's back on full-time. - --Quail PS to James: I happen to like "A Passion Play" very much, and I may be one of the only living Tin Machine fans.... And as far as Pearl Jam goes, I think they're pretty damn good, sort of the Who of the 90s. (This is a very loose comparison, no flames, please.) I also think that more people around here would like them more if they had been less popular. But knowing your tastes as I think I do, I'd say that their straight albums are probably too "classic rocky" for you, whereas their collaborations add more interesting notions to the mix. If you want a Pearl Jam album for you to audition, I'd suggest "Vitalogy." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:19:45 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: more 80s stuff I just glanced at wired.com and noticed this sign of MTV's immense influence on our culture: Seeing Eye Horse Blind 19-year-old Tabitha Darling gets around her town of Nampa, Idaho, by horse. But after receiving complaints that Darling was riding dangerously through traffic, Nampa council members invoked a city prohibition on horse riding. "We don't want to see a tragic accident," a Nampa spokesman said. "She can't even get her feet in the stirrups." Darling denies that she and her horse Trixie have careened through traffic, and is considering a lawsuit against the city under the ADA. "I started riding in the sidewalk until the police told me to ride in the street, and now they say I can not ride at all," Soren complains. Who knew that Tabitha Soren was blind? - --Chris np: Soft Cell, "Sex Dwarf" ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:45:33 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: the miller's tale On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > "Scant examples" of such in the Beatles' catalog? Not hardly: there's barely a > handful of Beatles tracks that *do* fit the rigidly symmetrical model of pop-song > phrasing and structure. For a painfully detailed study of the structure of Beatles > songs, from an actual musicologist, you might check out Alan W. Pollack's series > at . Interesting site, FF. At random, I found this comment: "This is the first time in this series that we come upon a Beatles song that bears the signature of an unforgettable guitar riff used to both open and unify the whole production. Like most other musical devices we'll come upon in our studies, this kind of branding-by-riff may not be something the Beatles necessarily "invented," but there's no denying that it is one of several techniques by which they would be known". The radio was playing 'Pretty Woman' this morning, and it occurred to me that this Beatles riff was a funkier version of that. But who did invent branding by riff? I'll start with Little Richard and 'Lucille'. Louis Jordan's "Choo-choo-ch'boogie" is almost a riff, but swings too much to be a real rock riff. - - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:50:00 -0000 From: "Eclipse Tuliphead" Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #391 ugh .. back at work ~8 hours after i left. time to distract myself! > From: Jeff Dwarf > > Carnelian Buddha wrote: > > as i mentioned before, i'd probably choose _The Head on the Door_ as > > the standout Cure for me, but _Kiss Me_ is notable too. > > I know this is heresy, but other than "Inbetween Days," "Kyoto Song," > and "A Night Like This," I've never really cared for THOTD. Even "Close > to Me" sounds flat without the horns. ahh, to each eir own. for me, THOTD just stands together as a whole, more than the sum of its parts. when i listen to the whole thing, it really moves me. > > as much as i used to dance to Ebb's "Join In The Chant" at the goth > > clubs when i was a teenager, i can't see their work being influential > > enough to put on a top 100 list. i like your list overall, though. > :) > > Well, "JITC" was on That Total Age, not Belief. :P As for influence, > Nine Inch Nails has always sounds more like Nitzer Ebb than Ministry or > Skinny Puppy etc. At least, to my ears. i wasn't so much trying to argue your album choice as i was questioning Ebb overall .. but what's telling to me is that i no longer listen to/own either TTA or Belief, while i still own and listen to Ministry and SP. imo, Reznor owes a lot to both those bands. that's not to say Ebb wasn't good .. but to me they almost fall flat in comparison with SP and Ministry. Ebb always brings to mind things more like Front 242 or Meat Beat Manifesto - and i'll admit i've always had a soft spot for Front 242. - --- > From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) > And a lot of the songs are so damned catchy. You should catch Alice > and I doing a two part harmony version of "What am I doing Hangin' Round?" > on car journeys. Well, maybe not. Nesmith songs are always the ones i belt out in the car, too :) > Everyone picks on the Monkees for not playing instruments and not writing > the songs either. Yet the same can be said of many 60s artists - from Tom > Jones to the Supremes. And by the end of the band's career a sizable amount > of the instrumentation and a large number of the songs were written by the > Monkees themselves. The main difference with the Monkees was that they were > hand-picked by someone outside the music industry, rather than being a > group of neighbourhood friends, or picked by interview by other band > members. Hardly a big enough crime to write them off for that reason alone. hear hear! seriously, though, i agree with the above. to it, i would add the fact that both Nesmith and Tork were musicians before the Monkees happened upon them (or was it the other way around? :) ), and fought for musical control early on. also, despite their not having written a great many of their songs, they had great songwriters for them - Diamond, King, Boyce & Hart (ok, maybe not always so great) - and it's telling that a lot of their songs are still classics. hardly a band to write off! - --- > From: drew > Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that Weezer easily make my > list of annoying bands. Lordy, I hate that crew. Drew, i could kiss you for this. agreed, wholeheartedly. > You know...I liked "The Real Slim Shady" more than I probably > should have, but to be honest with you every time I hear someone > say this about Eminem I mentally add "for a white guy." I heard > one of his album tracks the other day and he just sounded like > a mediocre talent to me, even before I recognized his voice. I > can't help feeling that everyone is just relieved he's not Vanilla > Ice II, and I'm sorry, but I can only overlook his seriously > fucked-up themes and lyrics for so long. I feel CERTAIN there > are plenty of other rappers who have better "mic skills," I > really do. i certainly don't disagree with the assertment that there are other rappers with better "mic skills" .. and i guess that would lead me to agree somewhat with the " .. for a white guy" sentiment. Eminem is just an emcee, no more - he's not a musician, or even a singer. but he's good at what he does. but really, i only brought this up in the context of what someone (i forget who now) said about everything Dre touching turning to gold. i seriously doubt, mic skills aside, that Eminem would be as big as he is today sans Dre. that said, though, i do think he's better than mediocre - he's got the flow, and knows how to weave complex lyrics and rhyme. i'm also definitely relieved he's not Vanilla Ice II. but his subject matter completely turns me off, so you'll never see me buying his albums. ok .. time to find something else to keep me awake .. Eclipse - -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eclipse eclipse@tuliphead.com Kindness towards all things is the true religion. - Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:18:08 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: One more cup of coffee for the road.... At 10:14 AM 11/22/2002 -0500, The Great Quail wrote: >I happen to like "A Passion Play" very much, and I may be one of the only >living Tin Machine fans.... I think the first Tin Machine album is mostly superb, exactly the sort of thing everyone said Bowie should make after spending a couple of albums too long on the dancefloor and the career low of NEVER LET ME DOWN. I remember seeing the long-form video "medley" of the entire album on TBS' NIGHT TRACKS and being thunderstruck -- it was like Bowie had gotten my complaint list and addressed every point. Tough guitars, massive riffs, singing that felt very connected to the material (and only disconnected where appropriate for tone, like the verses of "I Can't Read")... I'm still floored by the whole thing (with "Heaven's in Here," "Crack City," "I Can't Read," and "Baby Can Dance" as the highlights). But everyone else hated it. I liked large portions of TIN MACHINE II as well, though the live album sorta drags. Best thing about it is its U2-parodic title: OY VEY, BABY! Speaking of U2, what I perceive as a common thread in Quail's taste in music and film is a strong desire for *connectedness* and *belonging.* Not that there's anything wrong with that. :-) But it really strikes me like a *major* thing Quail is after in these entertainments (and it really comes across in his reviews of things like U2 live shows) is feeling like part of a bigger thing, and I think it helps explain some of his populist leanings in music and film. There's a part of me that would like to be sneery about this -- esp. his troubling affection for SpielBorg products -- but it's totally legit. (Obviously this is a huge generalization on my part, and Quail's affection for the universally panned Tin Machine -- albeit it being a project of a Famous Person -- not to mention our Mr. Hitchcock shows that there's not a simple popular = good thing going on his head. But I think this is a promising line of Quail Analysis, and I plan on expanding this hypothesis in a paper at the next Quail Studies conference.) Me, I hate people. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:36:26 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Pitchfork '90s list http://pitchforkmedia.com/top/90s/ I hadn't even noticed that they had this list until someone brought it up. Shame on 'em for not waiting until at least 2000 to do it. I have owned at one time 47 on the '90s list. I deliberately got rid of 12 of them, so I guess the real number is 35. I'm really surprised that I have this many on this list, even given the congruence between my collection and their '80s list. There was a point in the mid-'90s where People Who Previously Listened To the Same Stuff As Me started buying GbV, Stereolab, Elliott Smith, Pavement, and Built To Spill. This was exactly the same point where I began feeling very, very old because I did not like, and still do not like, any of these artists. Even if we subtract the dozen CDs that I've once owned and sold because I didn't like them (which includes several by the above suspects), it's still far more records than I expected to have in common with this particular peer group. Or maybe going from 77 in common from the '80s to 35 in the '90s feels just right -- losing more than half of what I previously had in common musically with previously like-minded folks does pretty much fit the experience. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:47:38 -0700 From: hamish_simpson@agilent.com Subject: RE: Love & Rockets Well I for one was hugely disappointed with 'em. I was a huge Bauhaus fan but I'm afraid they became another example of a good band who split and neither half really achieved much. Tones on Tail had some good moments but L&R just suck all kinds of ass. Other examples of bands who went the same way Icicle Works (although the last album is already the first "solo" really) Stranglers (they did suck before Hugh left though) Stiff Little Fingers (learned the lesson though) Fatima Mansions (Coughlin's solo stuff is good but not a patch) Take That (erm, that's quite enough of that!) (H) n.p. - Napalm Death "Utopia Banished" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 11:49:37 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Pitchfork '90s list Ack. Not bad, but not good either. :) Sugar should be higher up. Nice to see Jawbreaker there, but I think Dear You is a much better album than 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. And one album that is think is in the top 10 of the 90s is Jets To Brazil's Orange Rhyming Dictionary. How that album never seems to get old for me is simply amazing. And not one throw-way on the whole album. Now that is a feat in and of itself. And then there's Bob Mould's Black Sheets of Rain.... - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 11:02:32 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: those fabulous eighties At 10:52 AM 11/22/2002 +0000, Michael R Godwin wrote: >WRT the 1980s, I think Bath University must have been in a different >universe from the people whose lists I've been reading. All that my >postgrad pals played was (1) FGTH (incessantly, to the point of screaming >monotony (2) New Order (non-stop, to the point of driving one completely >batty) (3=) Prefab Sprout and Aztec Camera (5) REM (6) Orange Juice [and >when my girlfriend got into Wham! in a big way, I realised it was time for >a change...] > >I had assumed that this was a completely normal student playlist for the >time. Perhaps things were different in the US of A. Probably not. My own college experience was different, but since I went to a public college in southern West Virginia, I just went from being the only one out of 300 people at my high school who liked "underground" (or "modern rock" or whatever the hell it was called then) to one of five or six out of 2000 who liked it. I can't tell you how much I would have liked the chance to become sick of New Order, Prefab Sprout, Aztec Camera, and R.E.M.! In fact, me hearing RECKONING echoing down the stairwell, blaring from another student's stereo just before the 1985 Thanksgiving break, was probably the first time in my life that I had heard R.E.M. without being the one to drop the needle on the turntable myself, and an incident notable for being a welcome exception rather than part of a tiring uniformity. The college didn't have a radio station, either, a factor that might have spread the cause of R.E.M. et al. In fact, I didn't get cool college radio until... ...1988, Vanderbilt, grad school. If I had gone to a larger/more urbane place for my undergrad years, chances are that a lot more of the OPP (other people's playlists!) would have been the same as Mr. Godwin's (sans Orange Juice, which never really broke here. Did they even have a U.S. record contract? I remember getting their stuff through an importer who were huge OJ fans, Texas Records, I think -- name coming not directly from the state but from TEXAS FEVER). Even then, with what was IMO a fabulous college station for our listening pleasure, I wouldn't want to overestimate the average VandyKid's musical coolness, as it's the more music-obsessed folks who are going to gravitate toward volunteering to DJ at the station (especially since Vandy doesn't have a communications/journalism program). In fact, there was an enormous dust-up where some of the frats and sororities bitched hard enough about how the station "doesn't play anybody we're heard of" that the administration forced mainstream dance, metal (not obscure underground stuff, either), and pop shows upon the station for a number of years. It was all stuff these students could have gotten on the other stations in town, so it wasn't like a radio source for this music was lacking. My guess is that the station's program director bitch-slapped the Greek Council head at a party or something, and this was an especially painful form of frat-boy revenge. later, Miles ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #392 ********************************