From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #403 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, November 28 2002 Volume 11 : Number 403 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Hot Rox Avec Recommendations for Eb ["Rex.Broome" ] 50% Blur, 50% holiday [Mike Swedene ] Acronyms & time signatures ["Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" ] Re: snark pretty [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] watch who you're calling space garbage meteor mouth [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Je] Re: snark pretty [Aaron Mandel ] Black Snake DR, first Flash soundtrack appearance? ["Jonathan Fetter" Subject: Hot Rox Avec Recommendations for Eb Michael B. (I think): >>>For those who haven't checked out The Go-Betweens, Before Hollywood is a >great place to start. I'd say the best place to start is the out-of-print compilation '78-'89 (approx), a rare best-of that hangs together on its own and which I still listen to after amassing all of their excellent full-lengths. It's been superceded by a comp called "Bella Vista Terrace" which is probably okay, but the earlier one has lots of non-album classics. Otherwise I'd recommend a starting album depending on the tastes of the person asking... do they mostly like lo-fi stuff, '60's rock, '80's pop, or folksy singer-songwriter stuff? There's an album or two for each of those bents. New GB's album... good news... Janet Weiss again? Yes, please! I would've been suspicious of the GB's for replacing Lindsay with *another* female drummer if it wasn't for the fact that Janet is not only one of the best drummers around, but also perfect for that they were doing on that album. ___ Eb, fretting over his top 10: Moby/18: disappointing, samey, dull, good single Pere Ubu/St. Arkansas: let me know if you hear it Sleater-Kinney/One Beat: excellent; my opinion is possibly elevated by personal concerns, but it's a real return to form Frank Black/Black Letter Days *and* Devil's Workshop: carnt be arsed anymore >>Also, has anyone heard the band Liars? A friend saw them live... he said they were in equal measures transfixing and awful. The descriptions here sound intriguing. _______ James: >>I also noticed that the same 'bell' sound is used on Glass as on Airscape. Yeah, and I hate it on both of them! Love the songs, though. Similar sound on "Chinese Bones" that sounds much better when Kimberley plays it as guitar harmonics. Anyone care to elaborate on what Kim played on "Airscape" live? They didn't play it in LA and I haven't heard any tapes (though I'd love to). _________ Miles: >> Of course, I didn't live in a "town" but up on a hillside, so we kept pretty >>much to ourselves, and people left us pretty much the hell alone too, so I >>had a lot of freedom within this context. Actually, me too, although I went to school in something resembling a "town" and that's where all social functions and shopping occurred, so I was referring to that framework. Now when I go home I'm less likely to get drawn into town than before, but I really enjoy the woodsy isolation now. I mention this since you describe the feeling as "confining" , and it's fairly liberating to me. Nice, if bleak sketch of the modern state of the state. I've heard that WV has outstripped Florida as the state with the most senior citizens per capita, for the opposite reason: FL is flooded with new seniors while WV hemhorrages young folks. Funny, though, I was one of the very few from my high school class to move out of the state after graduation. Things have changed. I should add that my region of the state was/is a little less economically depressed than most areas-- we weren't dependant on mining and our economy was for all practical purposes a subset of Maryland's. >>who knew that Eddie Vedder's once-distinctive and apparently idiosyncratic >>vocal stylings would be so easy to imitate? Henry Rollins likens it to a cow imitation. Listen to some of those guys and you can hear it. It's really funny, actually. The most hilarious example is the isolated "yeahhllp!" in "Shine" by Collective Soul. Rollins... you gotta hate his current music, and you gotta ignore most of his bitchin', but he still occasionally lets fly with some mots that are pretty bon. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:01:06 -0800 From: "Jason Brown (Echo Services Inc)" Subject: RE: Anyone wanna offer opinions on these? > Moby/18 I only listened to a co-workers copy few times at work but its seemed like a boring re-hash of play. Nothing memorable. > Sleater-Kinney/One Beat I love this album! The tunes stick in my head all the time and it has some of their strongest lyrics yet. I have listened to this at least a couple times a week since it first came out. > Frank Black/Black Letter Days *and* Devil's Workshop I like both enough. Nothing on Par with say Teenager of the Year let alone a Pixies album. Devil's work shop is the better album. But neither album offers up anything for the non-die hard Frank Black fan. > Guided by Voices/Universal Truths & Cycles A definite improvement over their last two uber-slick albums. I find my self listening to it a lot. Some really catchy shit here. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 18:15:31 +0000 From: "Maurer Rose, Inverse Nome" Subject: Re: Savaged by a wonky-faced dwarf (my Radiohead story) RossO: >Who was that woman who thought Pink Floyd was sending her messages >in their songs? You mean they weren't? Jeez, live and learn. Kay _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:54:31 -0800 (PST) From: drew Subject: death of a party On the subject of voice recognition: I was working on natural language AI stuff in college until my interest in the technological problems (which I was at best adequate to solve anyway) waned and my interest in the ergonomic problems waxed. So perhaps it's predictable for a usability guy to say this, but I think the big obstacles to good voice recognition applications are not the actual technology (which has been shown to perform reasonably well in limited domain contexts) but the design of the applications themselves. What most of you say about them bears this out; the idea of a system that hums to itself while you're using it is appalling (that would be rude even if a human did it). And most phone voice recognition systems still ask for the kind of stilted input you might as well give with a keypad (such as "yes/no" or numerals), which for whatever reason is infuriating to give. It's as if we feel only humans "deserve" vocal communication. > From: "Rex.Broome" > [Blur] > I guess my real beef is that they > always seem to be disguising themselves as another band... Well, you could see it that way, or you could see it as influence. I like them better than the Happy Mondays, the Kinks, and Pavement, so they must be doing something right and distinguishing themselves enough. > I should probably try "Modern Life"... I don't recall ever > having heard any of the songs from it, so I haven't picked it up yet. When I first heard it I was kind of nonplussed, but it's kept calling me back and now I love it. It's spikier-edged than most of the other albums, and has three of my favorite Blur songs on it ("Blue Jeans," "Villa Rosie," and "Resigned"). - -- drew at stormgreen dot com http://www.stormgreen.com/~drew/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:58:17 -0800 (PST) From: Mike Swedene Subject: 50% Blur, 50% holiday My fav BLUR album is parklife and that is tied with leisure. I was watching their videos last night and thinking I need to pick up modern life is rubbish. that is my 2 pesos. go here for a funny holiday type thingie.... there is sound... http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~baj2/burgerking.swf Herbie ===== - --------------------------------------------- View my Websight & CDR Trade page at: http://midy.topcities.com/ _____________________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:34:28 -0800 From: "Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" Subject: Acronyms & time signatures At 7:47 PM +1300 11/26/02, James Dignan propounded thusly: >"MEK, WAPH" said: > >>IQTOMPA. > >I quake timidly over my personal attorney? I've Quietly Taken Off My Pants Again. QED. At 1:32 PM +1300 11/27/02, James Dignan propounded thusly: >Believe it >or not, most of Strawberry Fields Forever is a fairly common 3/4 (it's the >tempo that is varied), As Jeffrey also pointed out, beg to differ, I'm not talking about the stitching together of the two different tempo takes, I'm talking about the points where it slips between different time signatures several times in a few measures. I can't think of which parts are in straight 3, but huge chunks of it are in 4... "...cause I'm going to/strawberry fields/nothing is real..." "Living is easy with eyes closed/misunderstanding all you see". Plus it's got little half-measures of 2/4 stuck into it - the last measure of the instrumental intro, and the phrase "Nothing to get.." (...hung about) immediately preceding the "strawberry fields forever" refrain. Then the refrain itself starts with starts with that single, isolated measure in 6/8 all by itself before jumping right back in 4/4 on "ever"... brilliant. (Which, if my mental tape player is working right, makes the measures from "Nothing to get" up to and including the refrain follow this sequence of time signatures: 2/4 4/4 4/4 6/8 4/4 4/4) How did he think of this stuff? It just doesn't seem natural. (Check out for a neat listing of many time signature tricks in Beatles songs.) Mike - -- ======== We need love, expression, and truth. We must not allow ourselves to believe that we can fill the round hole of our spirit with the square peg of objective rationale. - Paul Eppinger At non effugies meos iambos - Gaius Valerius Catallus ("...but you won't get away from my poems.") ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 10:37:46 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: reunion albums and year's best >(Anyone wanna come up with an example to counter his "first time in >history" claim? I thought at least one of the reunited Buzzcocks >albums, All Set, was about as good as the original stuff, but I guess >most others didn't agree....) hmm... harder than I thought. I can think of a couple of examples where a soloist came back with a vengeance (Marianne Faithfull, f'rinstance), but a band... The Clean - Vehicle? >Moby/18 >Pere Ubu/St. Arkansas >Of Montreal/Aldhil's Arboretum >Sleater-Kinney/One Beat >Frank Black/Black Letter Days *and* Devil's Workshop >Guided by Voices/Universal Truths & Cycles >Great Lakes/The Distance Between > >Thoughts? I'd definitely agree with the GbV and Sleater Kinney. Amazingly, most of the 2002 albums I've bought so far have been NZ releases (normally about 1/6 of my purchases are NZ albums). At the risk of returning the holy "Ehh" to the list, (or the "who?", for that matter) how about the following albums? Set upon a Curve - Demarnia Lloyd The Alphabetchadupa - Betchadupa A rush of blood to the head - Coldplay and - I know it's a best of, but that's all you need from this band, rally: Intergalactic sonic 7"s - Ash oh, and: Soft Boys - Nextdoorland! 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, 28 Nov 2002 10:40:04 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Slimecows 2, gigglespiders 0 >PS: "Strawberry Fields" is mostly in 4/4, actually. But there are weird >triplets >on top of that (background of "no one I think is in my tree," for example), and >the main doohickey in the chorus (the title phrase) is 6/8. doh! Am I tired. You're right. Amazingly, I wrote "SFF" and thought "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" (which is 3/4). Strawberry Fields Forever is 4/4, but would be what's known (I think) as 'rubato' - the vocalist doesn't keep strictly on the rhythm, allowing it to flow a little into the other beats. >Who was that woman who thought Pink Floyd was sending her messages >in their songs? I'd almost forgotten about that. Dee Sharp, I think. IIRC, there were comments about the musical similarity between D# and Eb. James 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, 28 Nov 2002 10:44:33 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: snark pretty > >As a non-musician Im really ignorant of this stuff. I dont know why -- but > >my prejuidice is to think of weird timings as just show-off stuff, "look > >what we can do." But perhaps thats not the case. Do different timings do > >alot to determine the mood and power of a song? Im not trying to be stupid, > >just to understand as best a punter can. I know syncopation changes the > >mood-- but what else? And how? And most of all, why? > >James has sort of pooh-pooh'd Kay's notion, but as a fellow non-musician, I >think she might be touching on something that those of us who don't or >can't determine the time signatures might not be noticing. I think that >even if an unusual-by-pop-standards time signature isn't always sufficient >to cause the sense of oddness that Kay's talking about, it could certainly >one of many contributing factors. erm... that's exactly what I said. I said odd time signatures weren't the major component to the oddness, but were a reason, and gave an explanation why 4/4 might sound less edgy. I wasn't pooh-poohing the idea. Let's face it, I'd already said that I love songs in 5/4 - if there was nothing in time signatures emotionally, why should I? >I'm a sports *fan,* and I can't stand sports talk radio. One major problem with the format - there's no such thing as sports talk radio. It's always sports SHOUT radio. >You can tell that Kurt has listened to Sabbath and Zep, but Nirvana's >melodic smarts, riffery, and overall sensibility has far more to do with >the '80s "underground" (R.E.M., Replacements, et al) than with hard rock, >or their more identifiably "grunge" peers. heh! I sometimes refer to the track "About a girl" as "Grunge no. 1 (Beatle Kurt)". Melodically, it would fit into Help! era Beatles (with, amazingly, a Paul lead vocal - think "The night before"). Certainly Nirvana weren't just (or even mainly) grunge, but they got labelled that way, and were followed by many of the same fans, in much the same way (for example) that the Clash were never really punk. James (listening to - and being surprisingly impressed by - Moby's cover of "New dawn fades") 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, 27 Nov 2002 19:12:46 -0800 From: "Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" Subject: Re: Slimecows 2, gigglespiders 0 At 10:40 AM +1300 11/28/02, James Dignan propounded thusly: >>Who was that woman who thought Pink Floyd was sending her messages >>in their songs? I'd almost forgotten about that. > >Dee Sharp, I think. IIRC, there were comments about the musical similarity >between D# and Eb. Why do I have a feeling you somehow set that one up? - -- ======== We need love, expression, and truth. We must not allow ourselves to believe that we can fill the round hole of our spirit with the square peg of objective rationale. - Paul Eppinger At non effugies meos iambos - Gaius Valerius Catallus ("...but you won't get away from my poems.") ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 18:24:16 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: another ecosong Another ecosong, and this one from the 'believe it or not' category. Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, C.W.McCall's second single (after the horrible, horrible, trucking song "Convoy"), was another C&W drawl entitled "There won't be no country music, there won't be no rock'n'roll" which, startlingly enough, I seem to recall as being a very powerful pro-conservation song. Anyone else recall this? James 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, 28 Nov 2002 08:29:58 +0000 From: "Brian Hoare" Subject: Disposal of a record collection Last night I was scanning my living room looking for somewhere to house the soon needed new cd shelf/rack or whatever. The most tempting place is the 2 ft x 4 ft gap under the existing shelves on the left of the fire place. But that is where my records live. My first thought was to box up the records and stick them in the loft but I seriously doubt that they would be brought down again. I thought about how often I actually play these things and realised that very few get played these days. Thinking through my collection I noticed that with the exception of a few of bands (Tull,Damned,Blondie) everything has either been a: duplicated on cd. b: distilled to essentials on cd: I have consciously considered which albums by artist I need and have got those on cd. c: Unplayed for a decade. So although all this vinyl has great sentimental value, it is using valuable space and I have decided to get rid of it. I suppose there must be record shops that will give me nominal sum for it, there's a couple of coloured vinyls but the bulk are mundane releases. Anyway if there are any vinyl collectors in the uk (I don't trust posting overseas) with gaps in their RH vinyl collection drop me a line and I'll see if I've got what you need. Brian _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 10:37:56 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: snark pretty Quoting Miles Goosens : > > Kay: > >Miles. Thank you. That Momus site was a fun way to start the day. I > expected > >him to be a Goth dripping noir but instead I got an auburn-haired, balding, > >purblind Scot with a brain working overtime. > > Oh, he's not goth in any way. Susan Dodge (still lurking here?) was Feg's > early adapter of Momus, but actual exposure to him made me just as big of a > fan. However, I think that even the non-fan would get a kick out of Momus' > essays. I like Momus's music pretty well - but I must admit, I like his essays and his ideas more than the actual music. (Note: if Eb were to chime in about now re wit vs. some deeper enjoyment, in this case I might agree.) ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: sex, drugs, revolt, Eskimos, atheism ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 11:13:36 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: watch who you're calling space garbage meteor mouth Quoting James Dignan : > [Miles] > >You can tell that Kurt has listened to Sabbath and Zep, but Nirvana's > >melodic smarts, riffery, and overall sensibility has far more to do with > >the '80s "underground" (R.E.M., Replacements, et al) than with hard rock, > >or their more identifiably "grunge" peers. > > heh! I sometimes refer to the track "About a girl" as "Grunge no. 1 (Beatle > Kurt)". Melodically, it would fit into Help! era Beatles (with, amazingly, > a Paul lead vocal - think "The night before"). Certainly Nirvana weren't > just (or even mainly) grunge, but they got labelled that way, and were > followed by many of the same fans, in much the same way (for example) that > the Clash were never really punk. Yes! I'm glad someone else hears this song that way. I remember the first time I heard it, thinking, "hmm...this coulda been a Beatles track..." ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb :: --Batman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 12:48:04 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: snark pretty On Thu, 28 Nov 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > I like Momus's music pretty well - but I must admit, I like his essays > and his ideas more than the actual music. (Note: if Eb were to chime in > about now re wit vs. some deeper enjoyment, in this case I might agree.) Hoo yes. I still like the occasional Momus song (much more now than when listening to the early-90s albums) but its total fakeness sheds unpleasant light on the Monsters Of Love stuff. I'm not sure, in his case, that the interesting ideas on his website are really expressed in the music. *He* clearly thinks so, but it seems like some of the ideas depend on being able to be instantiated in a good pop song as proof, and he's not supplying the proof. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:02:04 -0500 (EST) From: "Jonathan Fetter" Subject: Black Snake DR, first Flash soundtrack appearance? Also a little Def Lep. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/laidoff.html ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #403 ********************************