From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #136 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, April 9 2003 Volume 12 : Number 136 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye [Miles Goosens ] Re: More than you ever needed to know about songs about West Virginia [Mi] non states and freak states ["melissa" ] Never was a mollusc like the Tennessee Squid ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: non states and freak states [Miles Goosens ] Re: RIAA top 100 [Miles Goosens ] RE: RIAA top 100 ["Jason Brown \(Echo Services Inc\)" ] RE: RIAA top 100 [Miles Goosens ] where is that confounded bridge ["ross taylor" ] my heart is with you eb ["* randi / twofangs.productions *" ] Pizza, Uncles, Gear changes - and Charleston, not Richmond [grutness@surf] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:11:42 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye At 05:32 PM 4/7/2003 -0700, Rex.Broome wrote: >Miles: >>>The CD I saw in our yard ("Wonder why someone dropped a Def Leppard CD >>>in our yard...") that was my first tipoff that our CDs had been stolen in >'95. > >A) That sucks. >B) Did they discard anything else? I just can't contain my curiosity... I don't think it was "discarded" -- I think it fell out of the pillowcases crammed full of CDs as the thief made his dash to his vehicle. I really wish LOLITA NATION had been "discarded" -- my first thought when I realized what was happening was "oh sh*t, they got the CDs," and the second one was "oh sh*t, they got LOLITA NATION." There are a handful of albums I like better, but they were all in print, and in these pre-eBay days, I thought I might never see a LOLITA NATION CD again. (As it worked out, a person on another mailing list read a message where I mentioned losing it, and she sold me her copy, since she didn't care for it. So I was LOLITA NATION-less for only a month. Were I not Internet-connected, my fears were well-founded -- I didn't see another LN in the wild until 2002.) >hopefully enough time has elapsed that you've dealt with the theft... The problem is that I know what CDs I've owned at one point or another, but after losing half my collection in this theft, it seems to have permanently disrupted my knowledge of what I actually still have in my possession. I mean, I instantly came up with a good list (which helped nab the thief, though only 95 of my CDs came back to me), but I've never systematically worked through it. So, for example, when I'm in a store, I'm never sure which fIREHOSE CDs I rebought and which ones are still eluding me. >As to your list of RIAA Top 100 stuff you have, I'm gonna plead age >difference on the "arena-rock" stuff. Couldn't stand it then so I have no >nostalgic "in" to it now. I'll leave it up to more objective third parties to make a definitive judgment, but I certainly don't see me liking Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, AC/DC, et al, as a consequence of nostalgia. I don't listen to it because I remember it being played on 8-track in the Junior High boy's room; I listen to it because I like it. >Zepplin I was just overexposed to as a teenager. The machismo never clicked >with me the way it did with most of my puberty-age friends-- something about >Zepplin and the Doors had a way of making zitty, scrawny teenagers feel like >sex gods; never understood that m'self. Yeah, but that "machismo" teenager worship was pretty much limited to II and parts of IV, and the rest of the Zep catalog offers more. A lot more. I'll bet your band was playing "Whole Lotta Love" and "Black Dog," not "Kashmir" and "Fool in the Rain." >"Nevermind" I only neverlistento because it has too many songs that have >never dropped out of the modern-rock/soundtrack/pop culture playlist... >constant involuntary exposure is grating in anything. It's a good record, >though. Since I moved here in '88, I'm not constantly exposed to any music I don't choose myself, so I don't have this factor to deal with. "Ten", on the other hand... I've grown to accept Pearl Jam, but >that first record bugged the hell out of me at the time (whutziss, an AC/DC >cover band with guys wearing rasta-hats and making stinky-guitar-faces, and >it's supposed to be "alternative" and "grungey"?) OK, I don't get AC/DC *at all* in this equation -- TEN's not massive blues-based riffs played loud and hard. If you had mentioned Sabbath, Neil Young, northwestern contemporaries like Mudhoney and Soundgarden, or any other number of things, I'd at least agree about the comparisons, but AC/DC seems way off base to me. >Yes, we Northern West Virginians are pretty fake, >and yeah, that Valleyspeak was fairly prevalent in my day. And we were >often wont to be eager to distinguish ourselves from the South >(snake-handlin'-church territory as we saw it). I think I mentioned this when Eddie was following around Robyn and Kimberley when they played my alma mater, Concord College, but the southern part of the state, at least when I was growing up, was marked by *irreligion.* Sure, every roadside had fourteen church signs and five churches, but about ten people went to each of those churches, most of which had resulted from a schism between the Church of the Living Breathing Fire-Eating Apostolic Faith and the True Church of the Living Breathing Fire-Eating Apostolic Faith. Most of us regarded the overly zealous as ridiculous, and they were clearly the exception rather than the rule. The first time the daughter of one of the few churchy families came to our school with a "backwards masking" tape, it didn't lead to PTA bans on Led Zep, but to widespread hilarity. >Adamant about being both >West Virginians and Northerners, but in effect more Midwestern than either, >that's the general vibe. Kind of strange. Since I moved to Nashville, I can see where WV was more of a border state than I thought it was, but the vibe was most definitely southern where I grew up. I can see I was right to dismiss the northern half of the state. ;-) >But I never ever had >a home address in Maryland, and something about the scorn constantly heaped >upon West-By-God has made me more defiant than embarrassed about being from >there. Which is maybe typical of the state after all? Dunno. Rex, you're a crazy mixed-up kid, identifying with the inbred underdog yahoos when you could have just as easily have been a bona fide sophisticated northerner. Have you brought this state identity thing up with your analyst? :-) later, Miles "Native of the 'Free State of McDowell'" Goosens ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:27:00 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: important stuff (pizza) >yeah, but calamari is, IIRC, raw, no? Calamari is generically used for squid in the US, raw, cooked, breaded, plain, stewed in ink, etc. > no tomato. Not even in the sauce or base. We have the option of a "white pizza" at a lot of places around here. The sauce is a ricotta base with various amounts of garlic (or roasted garlic), olive oil, oregano, basil, onion, etc. It's one of my favorite alternatives, but I do like a good tomato sauce, but no tomato chunks in the sauce or as toppings. The perfect pizza is onion, two kinds of olives, and minced or thinly sliced habanero peppers, medium thick crust with extra sauce. Okay, some fresh broccoli and almond slices can be added to that, but that's it. Except maybe some goat cheese and gorganzola. But just that. And some fresh basil and roasted garlic. Oh, and extra romano cheese added after it is baked... Even less on topic--while I was driving this morning, I got behind a car with the personalized plate "UNCLE A". I was wondering if the were a Screaming Trees fan (okay, the coffee hadn't kicked in and I was probably slightly buzzed from last night still). Then, I realized instead of Uncle Anesthesia, it could have been Uncle Alverez (Liz Phair) or even Uncle Albert (Paul McCartney). Okay, it's probably not even music related, but it just seemed weird how even though "uncles" aren't a huge topic for songs, there were a lot of Uncle A's out there. Okay, I'll shut up and drink more coffee. Eb, awfully sorry about the loss of your dad. It's really something to deal with the loss or decline of your parents. My parents were in a major car accident early last year (rear-ended at high speed by a driver who fell asleep), and my father still is unable to walk unassisted. My mother recovered well, but my dad went from golfing three or four times a week to needing to brace himself just to stand upright in one spot. Best of luck in dealing with everything. Chatter at you later, marc I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex. Jack Handey ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:33:28 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: More than you ever needed to know about songs about West Virginia At 10:13 AM 4/8/2003 -0700, Rex.Broome wrote: >James, then Miles: >>>>>No, they're in west Virginia, not West Virginia. Majuscule, minuscule, >>>>>inaudible. > >>>Except no one from there would say "west Virginia." It's always "western >>>Virginia." At least in my experience. But if people glide past the >"-ern," >>>confusion could reign, sure. > >Yes, that's all correct. I didn't even mention how in my neck of the woods, you had to distinguish between "southern West Virginia" and "southwestern Virginia." Which you did by carefully phrasing them exactly as I've just written them. >Even when you say "West Virginia", a great deal of >Americans hear it as "the West of Virginia" and try to relate to you by >asking if you're from Richmond. And good friends who have known me for >years still slip up and ask me if I'm going "home to Virginia this summer". Same here, same here! I think it's worse to be from WV than from any other state in the Union, because no matter how little people think of states like Mississippi and Arkansas, they at least know they're states. You might not convince people that the Mississippi and Arkansas stereotypes aren't true, but you at least don't have to convince them that Mississippi and Arkansas are actual states. later, Miles "and if they have heard of the state, they think you must be from Huntington, Charleston, or Parkersburg" Goosens ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:15:53 -0000 From: "melissa" Subject: non states and freak states Miles, It's interesting to hear you and Rex talk about WV. Recently i've spent more time in the state and around people from there. They tend to be simultaneously defensive & proud of being from WV. Perhaps it is different if you have more than one generation of family from there. As best as I can tell all of these folks are the children of hippies who moved there either for the university or to get to a small town. So feg-list former West Virginians is Morgantown representative of your home state? Should I be requesting side trip t o see other parts of WV? Um some people still don't seem to get that Hawaii is a state. I remember questions when i got back from a vacation about asking how difficult it was to reenter the US. And if it makes you feel any better friends from New Mexico have had problems too. If you want to talk about stereotypes think about pizza with pineapples. Yuk! Melissa, who will be off in Morgantown this weekend ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 10:27:51 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Never was a mollusc like the Tennessee Squid Ross T on modulation: >>I do think it's mostly a country phenom, to spice up songs w/ few chords & >>not much groove. [ducking] I don't think you need to duck on that one. I brought it up myself and I'm one of the most zealous boosters of "non-alt" country around here. We all know there ain't too many chords in them thar hills; that's not the appeal. >>I think some techno did this too. There are a couple of tracks by Fluke and, >>appropriately, 18 Wheeler, where the thing grooves along in one key, note, >>whatever, then, as if to prevent bedsores, shifts up a step. This has much to do with the key of the original material being sampled, at least some of the time. There are ways around it these days, but for techno where you want the sample to be recognized, you don't wanna mess with it too deeply. I got a really cool one once by building a bridge out of "It's Alright Ma I'm Only Bleeding" in approximate D, then dropping it to a sampled Serge Gainsbourg groove in E an octave lower (synth pulse-bass following along). But I don't have a *lot* of experience with this stuff. _________ Glen: >>One of my songs -- "Thursday" -- is in F# minor during the verses, F# major >>during the chorus and E during the solo and coda. That going right from minor to major on the same chord is a ballsy thing. Occurs in a few Bunnymen songs. I should be able to think of others but I can't right now... __________ Jason: >>Which, admittedly, is better than a term like "pre-chorus," which I hate. Damn, I hate that term, too. "Bridge" doesn't really cut it, though, either, especially if there is also a more bridge-like section later on. I prefer Robyn's term "middle bit" (cf. "I Something You") to the more specific and rarely accurate "middle eight", but that's just me. _______ James: >>yeah, but calamari is, IIRC, raw, no? Calamari rings are usually breaded and described as "fried calamari". Non-breaded calamari as described by Miles (Southern Style?) is usually in my experience served as a marinated steak, or diced up (Teppanyaki style, for example). I've never heard of raw squid being consumed (although I'm sure it is). Odd thing about your molluscs. Raw oysters are eaten routinely, but even in sushi, the octopus, mussels, scallops and clams are usually cooked. I don't think there's a real term for this, but the difference seems to be between the totally goopy bivalve oysters and your more "structurally coherent" bivalves like mussels, clams, etc. whose texture (cooked at least) seems more like the cephalopods than oysters. In sushi the crustaceans are generally cooked, too, although I have had a kind of shrimp (referred to as "sweet shrimp" and interestingly red-tinged in its raw state) which is served uncooked. Very flavorful but with a mildly chalky after-texture. Mmmmmm. Raw crustacean. - -Rex np. mental recording of James Mason as Captain Nemo telling Kirk Douglas that his pudding is actually "sautee of unborn octopus" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 10:50:22 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: The Feggy Gourmet, cont'd Also, to merge two recent food-threads, I'm pretty sure the first time I ever had squid was on a pizza in Paris, without knowing it. Although I would later order various pizzas & pastas "fruit de mer" with full knowledge of what was involved, I initially was just buying small pizzas of various types from street vendors in the Latin Quarter without really knowing what the tasty-yet-rubbery little 8-pointed star-looking toppings were (they were indiscriminately mixed in with various non-aquatic toppings). Note that I had just gone from West Virginia to LA to Paris in less than two years and hadn't even sampled such the exotic cuisines of Mexico (burritos) or China (beef brocolli) before then. Those were different times. Now, what I don't get is when they serve you that standard-issue cocktail sauce with your fried calamari. It is supposed to be marinara sauce, dammit. Just like you get with fried mozarella sticks. No, wait, pretend I didn't say that. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 13:32:35 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: non states and freak states At 05:15 PM 4/9/2003 +0000, melissa wrote: >Miles, > >It's interesting to hear you and Rex talk about WV. Recently i've spent more >time in the state and around people from there. They tend to be >simultaneously defensive & proud of being from WV. Perhaps it is different >if you have more than one generation of family from there. As best as I can >tell all of these folks are the children of hippies who moved there either >for the university or to get to a small town. We never got quite so many of them in my part of the state -- one of the few nice side effects of high unemployment! My maternal grandfather's folks moved to McDowell County in the 1890s and my grandfather was born there in 1908; my maternal grandmother's brothers moved there in the 1930s. My wife has people in her family who have lived in the state almost from the beginning of European settlement in the Alleghenies. I can't imagine thinking of myself as anything but a West Virginian, really, and I've spent nearly 15 years in Tennessee. >So feg-list former West >Virginians is Morgantown representative of your home state? Should I be >requesting side trip t o see other parts of WV? I'll submit Bluefield, Logan, Williamson, and the remains of flood-ravaged Welch and Pineville as much, much, much more representative than Morgantown, but by nature and upbringing, I think of the bituminous coalfields as "real" West Virginia. Heck, I'd even say Huntington and Charleston are far more West Virginia-ish than Morgantown. Morgantown IMO is skewed by the presence of the University of Southern Pennsyl... um, West Virginia University. Oddly, the chancellor of WVU when they were recruiting me when I was a senior in high school, Gordon Gee, is now here in Nashville presiding over Vanderbilt. Since I haven't seen his bowtie in the shrubbery outside my apartment, I don't think it has to do with me. >Um some people still don't seem to get that Hawaii is a state. I remember >questions when i got back from a vacation about asking how difficult it was >to reenter the US. And if it makes you feel any better friends from New >Mexico have had problems too. = But it'd be much cooler to be mistaken for another country! "Do they make you show your passport when you go to the Dairy Queen in Bluefield, Virginia?" later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 13:35:13 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: crustacean nation At 10:27 AM 4/9/2003 -0700, Rex.Broome wrote: >Calamari rings are usually breaded and described as "fried calamari". >Non-breaded calamari as described by Miles (Southern Style?) is usually in >my experience served as a marinated steak, or diced up (Teppanyaki style, >for example). The only calamari I've had was north of the Mason-Dixon line, and were tiny lil' whole octopi rather than steak or diced. They were part of Italian dishes. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 13:39:57 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: RIAA top 100 At 03:04 PM 4/7/2003 -0700, John Barrington Jones wrote: >Wow, I'm surprised that REM's "Out of Time" isn't in there. I'll bet AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE sold more than OOT. But I'm not surprised that no R.E.M. records were on the list. No FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE, though... weird, as TC noted. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 11:57:39 -0700 From: "Jason Brown \(Echo Services Inc\)" Subject: RE: RIAA top 100 Miles wrote: > At 03:04 PM 4/7/2003 -0700, John Barrington Jones wrote: > >Wow, I'm surprised that REM's "Out of Time" isn't in there. > > I'll bet AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE sold more than OOT. But I'm not > surprised that no R.E.M. records were on the list. No FRAMPTON COMES > ALIVE, though... weird, as TC noted. According to the gold/platinum search on www.riaa.org Out of Time, Automatic for the People and Monster all went Platimun 4 times which means they sold at least 4 million albums each. Green went double Platinum. Document and New Adventures in Hi-Fi went platinum. Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant, Up, and Reveal went Gold (at least half a million). All of which amounts to a bell curve for R.E.M.'s mainstream popularity. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 11:59:48 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: RIAA top 100 >At 03:04 PM 4/7/2003 -0700, John Barrington Jones wrote: >>Wow, I'm surprised that REM's "Out of Time" isn't in there. > >I'll bet AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE sold more than OOT. But I'm not >surprised that no R.E.M. records were on the list. No FRAMPTON >COMES ALIVE, though... weird, as TC noted. http://www.riaa.com/Gold-Intro-2.cfm That site has a search engine to find the sales of any Gold-or-better selling album, you know. According to the site, no REM album has sold more than four million copies in the States. Eb, going urn-shopping shortly (whee) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 14:24:25 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: RE: RIAA top 100 At 11:57 AM 4/9/2003 -0700, Jason Brown \(Echo Services Inc\) wrote: >According to the gold/platinum search on www.riaa.org Out of Time, >Automatic for the People and Monster all went Platimun 4 times which >means they sold at least 4 million albums each. Green went double >Platinum. Document and New Adventures in Hi-Fi went platinum. Murmur, >Reckoning, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant, Up, and Reveal went Gold (at >least half a million). All of which amounts to a bell curve for >R.E.M.'s mainstream popularity. I didn't expect OOT, AUTOMATIC, and MONSTER to be so close, wow! On the other hand, I found it unsurprising that the first three albums only went gold in '91, carried along by the band's surge in popularity. I remember thinking when LRP went gold, that this was the absolute most a band could sell based almost only on the support of college radio, the music press, and word of mouth.* DOCUMENT of course went platinum in its initial run, but it had a genuine Top 20 single to drive sales. Thanks to you and Eb, I now know the answer to this one: FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE was certified as a 6-million seller in 1984. Again, I would have guessed twice that. Could I have world sales in mind instead of U.S. sales? I guess it's no DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, since it hasn't racked up another million over the last eighteen-plus years, even with CD reissues to create an artificial sales bump. later, Miles *Yes, I know "Superman" got some FM airplay, and "Fall on Me" got into light rotation on MTV. But no LRP song passes the "would the majorettes do a fire baton routine to it?" test. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 15:37:53 -0400 From: "ross taylor" Subject: where is that confounded bridge Glen Uber carried on without a comma -- >A really cool modulation occurs in the Beatles' Sometimes I think they got famous because of their middle parts. The closest I can think of them to just moving a song up a step is "Octopus's Garden," (again, kinda country) where the middle is pretty much an instrumental regular verse, but in a different key. I remember high school jams where we'd launch into an easy one like "Back in the USSR" & then at the middle 8 we'd suddenly sound proto-Glen Branca cause no one remembered it or could figure it out on the fly. Even "I Saw Her Standing There" sounds like a straight boogie, but people would always go to wrong chords for "hand in mi-i-ine." After them, a straight pop song like "Good Girls Don't" by the Knack can sound Beatlish by having a complicated middle. And then all those cool transitional chords, Cm++, etc. Jason-- >In other words, the C-section in songs with a ABABCAB type structure, or some variation thereof. That's the sort of stuff I love about opera. At least w/ Mozart & Verdi, it's pretty much all just songs w/ sections like Squeeze songs, only often w/ a bunch more subsections thrown together to make giant sections etc. Particularly w/ Mozart it's fun to see him stack up a big sectional house of cards which contains a minature house of song-section-cards within it, often for comic effect. - --- Donovan-- I think by the late 60s, freaks dumped on him for being too "plastic" or pop (same way they dumped on the Byrds), but along w/ some treacle & showbiz he had a real sense of melody. I think some of the reaction to him early on was homophobia (he was one of the 1st pop singers I heard being seriously discussed as gay -- as opposed to people just sort of insulting Jagger). I also like that he wanted to rock bad enough that he would hire the hardest rock money could buy. Favorite songs: "The Trip" "Trudi" "Sunny South Kensington" "Rikki Tikki Tavi" - --- Eb-- >one or both of the "body baggers" actually *stole* my father's money clip off his bedroom dresser This reminds me of all sorts of other shit I've seen or heard of happening in US hospitals. With my father there were health-care issues we talked to lawyers about, but there were also many pointless indignities. On the other hand, w/ him & my sister, I quickly got to the point where I had zero patience for normal human stupidity. I'd be going around the day or two after, filling in all sorts of death paperwork & say to people behind counters "Here's Death Form 1043-B" & they'd say "So sorry," "Terribly sorry, just sign here," "All my sympathy" "So sorry, so sorry" etc. & at one point I unthinkingly snipped "No problem." Or the hotel clerk who asked "Is your visit work- related or for pleasure?" "I'm here due to my sister's death." I saw him check one box, but I don't know which. It's also a great time for "legit" people to try to rip you off. But good strangers will come forward too. Ah, well, people do try. Ross Taylor "everybody will help you some people can be very kind" -- Bob Dylan Need a new email address that people can remember Check out the new EudoraMail at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 17:49:16 -0400 From: "* randi / twofangs.productions *" Subject: my heart is with you eb Eb, I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking about you ... sending you healing vibes ... giving you virtual hugs ... and holding your hand. Randi toronto, ontario, canada *what scares you most will set you free* ~ robyn hitchcock *by endurance we conquer* ~ sir ernest shackleton *obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal* ~ henry ford ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 18:06:16 -0400 From: "Maximilian Lang" Subject: Re: crustacean nation >From: Miles Goosens >To: fegmaniax@smoe.org >Subject: crustacean nation >Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 13:35:13 -0500 >The only calamari I've had was north of the Mason-Dixon line, and were tiny >lil' whole octopi rather than steak or diced. They were part of Italian >dishes. Those are squid, just the tentacles though, mmmmmmm tentacles. Max _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 11:22:19 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Pizza, Uncles, Gear changes - and Charleston, not Richmond >> no tomato. Not even in the sauce or base. > >We have the option of a "white pizza" at a lot of places around here. The >sauce is a ricotta base with various amounts of garlic (or roasted garlic), >olive oil, oregano, basil, onion, etc. It's one of my favorite alternatives, >but I do like a good tomato sauce, but no tomato chunks in the sauce or as >toppings. The perfect pizza is onion, two kinds of olives, and minced or >thinly sliced habanero peppers, medium thick crust with extra sauce. Okay, >some fresh broccoli and almond slices can be added to that, but that's it. >Except maybe some goat cheese and gorganzola. But just that. And some fresh >basil and roasted garlic. Oh, and extra romano cheese added after it is >baked... A friend of mine who used to own a pizzeria used to make me great pizzas where the sauce and base were both cheese based. Sadly though tomato is a major major allergy for me, so even the smell of most pizzerias is enough to make me nauseous. >just seemed weird how even though "uncles" aren't a huge topic for songs, >there were a lot of Uncle A's out there. Okay, I'll shut up and drink more >coffee. Other uncles to feature in song titles or lyrics that I know of: Big-jaw (Verlaines) Bill (My Friend the Chocolate Cake) Ernie (The Who) John (Grateful Dead) Pat (Ash) Remus (Frank Zappa) Tom (Chris Knox) Third Uncle (Brian Eno) Uncle Ernie is also mentioned in Paul McCartney in the song "Let 'em in" along with, IIRC, Uncle Ian. The Tall Dwarfs also had a song called "Bob's your uncle", but, well... - --- >"The inspiration had come while they'd been driving to a family reunion of >Taffy's relatives in Maryland. To pass the time en route, Bill had made up a >ballad about the little winding roads they were taking. Later, he changed >the story to fit that of an artist friend, who used to write to Bill about >the splendors of the West Virginia countryside." > >And they'd never been to the state, apparently, so there you go. I had been >told that the word "West" was just wedged in next to "Virginia" to make the >verse flow better, but apparently not. Again, too much of my childhood was >tied up in the song and Dad not wanting to have to play it, etc. reminds me of Billy Connolly's comments about old Scottish folk songs like "The blue hills of Tyree", written by someone who didn't know that Tyree is like a billiard table. And I recall reading somewhere how the writers of the 20s classic Swannee were very disappointed when they finally saw what the Suwannee river looked like, years after writing the song. - --- >A really cool modulation occurs in the Beatles' "Here, There and >Everywhere". Starts in G and stays there for the verses and then goes to Bb >for the "I wander everywhere and if she's beside me I know I need never >care" part (what is that, a bridge? A middle 8?) before returning to G in >the subsequent verses. an impressive variant on that by the Beatles is "Things we said today", which is in A minor except for the bridge, which is in A major. A real truck gear-change though can be found at the end of Simon and Garfunkel's "Baby driver", once the singing is over it ramps it up a half tone and speeds up. Then, for something completely over the top, The Goodies "Charles Azenovoice" which starts in a low D, ramping it up by a tone and a half (IIRC) every eight bars until the singer is squeaking. Whoever it was said it is right though - these are damnedly difficult to draw to mind. 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") ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #136 ********************************