From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #316 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, August 22 2003 Volume 12 : Number 316 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: The peanut gallery speaks [Capuchin ] Re: The peanut gallery speaks ["Glen Uber" ] Eyerolls, Ehhs, and Also-Rans [Capuchin ] Brian Dewan, etc. [Capuchin ] Re: The peanut gallery speaks [Sebastian Hagedorn ] reap [ein kleines kinnemuzik ] New Adventures in Legacy-Tarnishing ["Rex.Broome" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:15:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: The peanut gallery speaks On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > In other contexts, I could point out that "popular music" as the name of > a genre says nothing about sales, and that "pop" as a genre - > particularly "power pop" - currently pretty much guarantees the music > will have *low* sales (otherwise, hey, the Rooks would be ruling the > charts...). So the term "popular" isn't quite as clear, in reference to > music, as it might be. Personally, I take "pop music" to be the localized variant of "pop art" in the neighborhood of, well, music. Pop art is any fine art (including music) that adheres to the principles and esthetics of commercial art (including commercial music, i.e. advertising jingles). So where pop art in the field of visual art yields iconic, easily mechanically reproducible, bold designs, pop art in the field of music yields catchy, hooky, rhythmic tunes. Even if the terms have ostensibly different origins (which very well could be apocryphal), they mean exactly the same thing to me. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:16:22 -0700 From: "Glen Uber" Subject: Re: The peanut gallery speaks Capuchin earnestly scribbled: >2) They said that they would break up on New Year's Eve 2000 at the very >latest because they were a 20th century band and couldn't stand the idea >of becoming rock dinosaurs. Yeah, the worst part of it is, their show here in the Bay Area is being billed as a Greatest Hits concert. Ugh! Is it REM or Chicago? - -- Cheers! - -g- "Soylens Viridis Homines Est" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:18:57 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Now coming to a VH-1 perversion near you On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > The Cure/Disintegration > The Smiths/Strangeways, Here We Come These two probably surprise me most for anyone's list... it's personal and I can't articulate it in a way that makes perfect sense to me at the moment, but these would probably go at the dead bottom of these two band's respectively ranked 80s album lists were I to rank them. Ahem. I think that made sense. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:20:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: The peanut gallery speaks On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Glen Uber wrote: > Capuchin earnestly scribbled: > > >2) They said that they would break up on New Year's Eve 2000 at the very > >latest because they were a 20th century band and couldn't stand the idea > >of becoming rock dinosaurs. > > Yeah, the worst part of it is, their show here in the Bay Area is being > billed as a Greatest Hits concert. > > Ugh! > > Is it REM or Chicago? Agreed. However, I kinda want to go because I didn't see R.E.M. in 1988 when I should have. I won't, of course. I just kinda want to go. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:40:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Eyerolls, Ehhs, and Also-Rans OK, I think I've got this down. This is my first list of this sort ever. Weird. Let me know if I'm cheating. I'm embarrassingly curious to see the comments. Bangles -- Different Light Beastie Boys -- Paul's Boutique Belinda Carlisle -- Heaven On Earth Brian Wilson Bruce Springsteen -- Nebraska Cherry Poppin' Daddies -- Ferociously Stoned DEVO -- Shout Dead Kennedys -- Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables Depeche Mode -- Black Celebration Jane Wiedlin -- Fur Madness Men Without Hats -- Pop Goes The World Minor Threat -- Complete Discography Oingo Boingo -- Nothing To Fear Pet Shop Boys -- actually. Peter Gabriel -- So Peter Schilling -- Error In The System (Fehler Im System) R.E.M. -- Life's Rich Pagaent Robyn Hitchcock 'n' The Egyptians -- Queen Elvis Shonen Knife -- Pretty Little Baka Guy Siouxsie And The Banshees -- Through The Looking Glass Squeeze -- Babylon And On Stray Cats -- Built For Speed Talking Heads -- Speaking In Tongues The Creatures -- Boomerang The Cure -- Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me The Dead Milkmen -- Bucky Fellini The Go-Gos -- Beauty & The Beat The Higsons -- The Curse Of The Higsons The Pogues -- Peace And Love The Psychedelic Furs -- Forever Now The Smiths -- The Queen Is Dead The Soft Boys -- Underwater Moonlight The Stranglers -- Dreamtime The The -- Mind Bomb They Might Be Giants -- the pink album Too Much Joy -- Son Of Sam I Am Violent Femmes -- Hallowed Ground "Weird Al" Yankovic -- In 3-D Yello -- Flag Where I have artists that others can actually stand (which is rare), I have albums they cannot. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:41:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Brian Dewan, etc. So, I was just reminded (while looking through my records for that list) of the great cover art created by the great Brian Dewan. But now that I looked through my collection, all I saw was David Byrne's Uh-Oh and Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. What else is out there? J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 10:01:45 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: The peanut gallery speaks - --On Donnerstag, 21. August 2003 20:46 Uhr -0700 Eb wrote: > Damn those R.E.M. boys. Why didn't they quit when they were ahead? > They're tarnishing their legacy, at this point. I don't get this sentiment, which seems to be prevalent in the US. They are still critically acclaimed in Europe, at least in Germany. The recent albums haven't sold as well as Out Of Time or Automatic, but not as badly as in the US AFAIK. I *really* like Reveal and I think Up is not as bad as some people make it out to be. I feel a lot of nostalgia for the earlier albums, because music in general and R.E.M. in special were much more important to me at that time. However, I don't think that they have become a Greatest Hits band in the slightest! The audience at the show in Berlin was very mixed, old fans and new ones. There may not have been many 13-year olds, but it wasn't like some other shows I've been to where there was hardly anyone younger than 30! To sum it up, I still await each new R.E.M. album with anticipation, I think they are still developing and I wouldn't put it beyond them to have a Neil Young-type renaissance at some point in the future. Right now it just seems to be fashionable to bash them ... - -- Sebastian Hagedorn PGP key ID: 0x4D105B45 Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156 50823 Kvln http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 04:18:47 -0500 From: Daryl Burtzos Subject: Prolonging the top 40 of the 80's thread (roughly 5% RH content) What, delurking time again already? Presented in sequential groups of 10 for no good reason. Starting with another damn 80's top ten, alphabetically: Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band -- Doc at the Radar Station King Crimson -- Discipline Mekons -- Mekons Rock 'n' Roll Pretenders -- Pretenders (was this *not* released in '80?) Prince -- Sign 'O' The Times Soft Boys -- Underwater Moonlight Squeeze -- East Side Story Talking Heads -- Remain in Light Richard & Linda Thompson -- Shoot Out The Lights Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble -- In Step the next tier, semi-predictably: Bangles -- All Over The Place Bats -- Daddy's Highway (thanks for the reminder - was it James?) Elvis Costello -- Imperial Bedroom Robyn Hitchcock -- I Often Dream of Trains Psychedelic Furs -- Talk Talk Talk REM -- Document Paul Simon -- Graceland Velvet Underground -- VU Lucinda Williams -- Lucinda Williams Frank Zappa -- You Are What You Is some more: Camper Van Beethoven -- Telephone Free Landslide Victory Marshall Crenshaw -- Marshall Crenshaw dB's -- Like This Bob Dylan -- Oh Mercy Pere Ubu -- The Tenement Year Pixies -- Doolittle Replacements -- Pleased To Meet Me Roxy Music -- Avalon Sonic Youth -- Daydream Nation XTC -- English Settlement and finally: English Beat -- I Just Can't Stop It Michael Hedges -- Live on the Double Planet Joe Jackson -- Big World Madness -- Keep Moving Monks of Doom -- Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company Neville Brothers -- Yellow Moon Lou Reed -- Live in Italy Split Enz -- True Colours X -- Los Angeles Neil Young -- Freedom So what were the rules again? Anyway, a lotta repeats above with other lists plus a few choices that will no doubt puzzle. Oh well, at least we seem to like most of the same bands. Back to the shadows... Daryl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:27:00 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: In defense of R.E.M. (was: The peanut gallery speaks) Quoting Capuchin : > I recall clearly (though the sources are totally vague in my mind) > R.E.M. making two statements about their inevitable dissolution as a > band. > > 1) They were always a completely consentual affair with unanimous > decision-making and agreed that if any one of them stopped > participating, > it couldn't continue to be R.E.M. > > 2) They said that they would break up on New Year's Eve 2000 at the > very > latest because they were a 20th century band and couldn't stand the idea > of becoming rock dinosaurs. I don't know why (except, of course, if you just don't like their recent music) anyone would hold an act to statements made in its youth. The second one, I thought, was more or less a joke, even at the time. As for the first: it would seem to me that, noble as such a sentiment might have seemed, once Bill Berry actually left, the rest of the band realized that it meant that, for no good reason, the other three of them were supposed to stop playing together? Why? I suppose you could argue, oh, then change the name...but at that point in their career, a namechange would be all but ignored ("formerly R.E.M." plastered all over their every recording, press release, and news coverage) and therefore pointless. I should think the radical stylistic shift evident on _Up_ was testament enough to Berry's influence on the band. I'm pretty much with Sebastian on latterday R.E.M. (defined how? I mean, for some people anything after _Chronic Town_ is (as I read somewhere recently) a long downhill slide). I think _Reveal_ suffers from a surfeit of slow songs (review at my site blah-blah-blah), while (again contrary to Miles) I like _Up_ just fine and think it's a brave move to reinvent one's sound that late in one's career. Interesting how the folks who decry "selling out" of bands who change their style to something vaguely commercial piss and moan that a band should stick to what it does best when it explores a less commercially popular style... It's not as if I'm some sort of worshipper of the band: I criticized _Hi-Fi_ the other day (and _Reveal_ in this message), and parts of _Green_ and _Monster_ don't work that well for me. And if anything, they're a bit *too* wary of playing to their own strengths - of course, the move away from the arpeggiated style of their early records (I refuse to use the awful j-word), and on recent albums, their reluctance to use Mike Mills' intertwining vocal lines - presumably to avoid stagnation, but strengths are strengths, even if they become overfamiliar through influence (eighties, j-word...). But I just don't get those who think they've "sold out": sure, they succeeded to an enormous degree - but they did so very gradually, and w/o chasing after fashions (joke: someone claiming that tracks like "Wrong Child" and "You Are the Everything" on _Green_ were somehow sell-outs...uh, right, the charts were just full of mandolin-led hits at that moment...). A "sellout" band (I'm dubious of the term in the first place) would, after the huge success of _Out of Time_*, have reduplicated that album's sound for record after record. R.E.M. didn't do it even once - _Hi-Fi_ may have been a failure for me, but it was very different from _Monster_, which was very different from _Automatic_... (One problem with _Reveal_, though, is it seems like outtakes from _Up_ to me, except for a couple of tracks.) ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: it's not your meat :: --Mr. Toad ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 09:08:38 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: In defense of R.E.M. (was: The peanut gallery speaks) On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > huge success of _Out of Time_* Okay, I should stop doing that: I meant to append from that asterisk a parenthetical comment that I almost typed the title _Man Out of Time_, going along with our recent trend of confusing titles (Dreamtime/The Dreaming, and whatever Sting title someone accidentally used...). But I forgot, because I was running late for work. (Hmm...maybe I should also defend the later work of Elvis Costello...some other time.) - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::I can bellow like a clown school drill instructor:: __Brian Block__ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:17:08 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Prolonging the top 40 of the 80's thread (roughly 5% RH content) Well, this took a lot of effort as I was mostly listening to singles in the eighties. As a result I couldn't avoid including 'World destruction', which I probably played more often than all the other tracks put together. Some of the other things I've listed are also albums from which I've only heard the singles. However, I didn't have the nerve to pretend I'd ever listened to a Cyndi Lauper album all the way through, so "True Colours", my other most-played eighties single, doesn't get a mention, nor do PiL's "Flowers of Romance" (sheer bliss!) or the Ramones' "You don't come close". I had a lot of trouble choosing a Rain Parade album and I probably should have opted for the live one. And 'Spike' only just nosed out 'Blood and Chocolate' on the basis that 'Veronica' is better than 'Down in the blue chair'. I'm surprised to see how many other people rate 'Rattlesnakes'. I'm afraid it has been a steady downward progression for Lloyd since that first-rate debut. On the other hadn, I thought there might be some more Paisley Underground fans about. ABC Lexicon of Love Time Zone (Afrika Bambaata/John Lydon) World Destruction Beat Farmers Tales of the new west The Blasters The Blasters Blue Oyster Cult Cultosaurus Erectus Bob Marley Legend Bonnie Tyler Faster than the speed of night Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band Doc at the Radar Station Carlene Carter Musical Shapes Clive Gregson + Christine Collister Home and away Dave Edmunds Twangin' David Byrne True Stories Elvis Costello and the Attractions Spike Fabulous Thunderbirds Tuff Enuff French Frith Kaiser Thompson Live love larf and loaf Graham Parker and the Rumour The Up Escalator Joe Jackson Night and day John Cougar Mellencamp Scarecrow King Crimson Discipline Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Rattlesnakes Long Ryders Native Sons Lou Reed New York Matt Piucci + Tim Lee Gone fishin' Michael Jackson Thriller Nick Lowe and his Cowboy Outfit Cowboy Outfit Only Ones Baby's got a gun Paul Simon Graceland Paul Young No parlez Police Zenyatta mondatta Rain Parade Crashing Dream Richard Thompson Band Across a crowded room Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians Element of Light Rockpile Seconds of Pleasure Rolling Stones Undercover Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight Squeeze East Side Story Steve Winwood Arc of a diver Traveling Wilburys Volume 1 Undertones Positive Touch Velvet Underground VU - - Mike Godwin n.p. Jimi Hendrix "Earth Blues" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:10:28 -0500 From: "Iosso, Ken" Subject: RE: In defense of R.E.M. (was: The peanut gallery speaks) I'm reaching for a thought here but when are most bands' peaks? Does anyone think there's any pattern. Using the questionable assertion that REM's peak is gone - never to be revisited - as a departure point. I wonder if there's any way to predict an artist's arc. Big Star's only three albums were great. Most Replacements fans (and I know some contrarian will rise up on behalf of "All Shook Down" or "Stink") see the holy trinity as "Let It Be," "Tim," and "Pleased to Meet Me" albums 3-5. Dylan has made maybe ten or twelve truly great albums but "Bringing It All Back Home," "Highway 61 Revisited," and "Blonde on Blonde" (albums 5-7) are almost certainly his peak. The Rolling Stones "Beggar's Banquet," "Let It Bleed," "Exile" and "Sticky Fingers" (albums 11-15?) are I think their peak. A side-note: Dylan (Self Portrait, Planet Waves), Neil Young (the 80s), and Lou Reed (more or less between the Velvets and Blues Mask) all went through extended periods where their fans and critics in general said "oh this stuff totally blows - stop already" only to have the almost inevitable come back/return to relevance. So stay tuned for REM's critical comeback cos it's just around the corner. Ken Iosso - -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey [mailto:jenor@uwm.edu] Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 8:27 AM To: something Shakespeare never said Subject: In defense of R.E.M. (was: The peanut gallery speaks) Quoting Capuchin : > I recall clearly (though the sources are totally vague in my mind) > R.E.M. making two statements about their inevitable dissolution as a > band. > > 1) They were always a completely consentual affair with unanimous > decision-making and agreed that if any one of them stopped > participating, > it couldn't continue to be R.E.M. > > 2) They said that they would break up on New Year's Eve 2000 at the > very > latest because they were a 20th century band and couldn't stand the idea > of becoming rock dinosaurs. I don't know why (except, of course, if you just don't like their recent music) anyone would hold an act to statements made in its youth. The second one, I thought, was more or less a joke, even at the time. As for the first: it would seem to me that, noble as such a sentiment might have seemed, once Bill Berry actually left, the rest of the band realized that it meant that, for no good reason, the other three of them were supposed to stop playing together? Why? I suppose you could argue, oh, then change the name...but at that point in their career, a namechange would be all but ignored ("formerly R.E.M." plastered all over their every recording, press release, and news coverage) and therefore pointless. I should think the radical stylistic shift evident on _Up_ was testament enough to Berry's influence on the band. I'm pretty much with Sebastian on latterday R.E.M. (defined how? I mean, for some people anything after _Chronic Town_ is (as I read somewhere recently) a long downhill slide). I think _Reveal_ suffers from a surfeit of slow songs (review at my site blah-blah-blah), while (again contrary to Miles) I like _Up_ just fine and think it's a brave move to reinvent one's sound that late in one's career. Interesting how the folks who decry "selling out" of bands who change their style to something vaguely commercial piss and moan that a band should stick to what it does best when it explores a less commercially popular style... It's not as if I'm some sort of worshipper of the band: I criticized _Hi-Fi_ the other day (and _Reveal_ in this message), and parts of _Green_ and _Monster_ don't work that well for me. And if anything, they're a bit *too* wary of playing to their own strengths - of course, the move away from the arpeggiated style of their early records (I refuse to use the awful j-word), and on recent albums, their reluctance to use Mike Mills' intertwining vocal lines - presumably to avoid stagnation, but strengths are strengths, even if they become overfamiliar through influence (eighties, j-word...). But I just don't get those who think they've "sold out": sure, they succeeded to an enormous degree - but they did so very gradually, and w/o chasing after fashions (joke: someone claiming that tracks like "Wrong Child" and "You Are the Everything" on _Green_ were somehow sell-outs...uh, right, the charts were just full of mandolin-led hits at that moment...). A "sellout" band (I'm dubious of the term in the first place) would, after the huge success of _Out of Time_*, have reduplicated that album's sound for record after record. R.E.M. didn't do it even once - _Hi-Fi_ may have been a failure for me, but it was very different from _Monster_, which was very different from _Automatic_... (One problem with _Reveal_, though, is it seems like outtakes from _Up_ to me, except for a couple of tracks.) ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: it's not your meat :: --Mr. Toad ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 18:23:35 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: RE: In defense of R.E.M. (was: The peanut gallery speaks) On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Iosso, Ken wrote: > The Rolling Stones "Beggar's Banquet," "Let It Bleed," "Exile" and > "Sticky Fingers" (albums 11-15?) are I think their peak. #1; #2; 3. Out of our heads; 4 Aftermath; 5 Between the Buttons; 6 Satanic Majesties; 7 Beggar's Banquet; 8 Let it bleed; 9 Ya Yas 10 Sticky Fingers 11 Exile. But claims at least 2 albums not released in the UK ('December's Children' and 'Flowers', not to mention 'Got live if you want it', which was only an EP in the UK). So anything between 7-11 and 10-14. > A side-note: Dylan (Self Portrait, Planet Waves), Neil Young (the 80s), > and Lou Reed (more or less between the Velvets and Blues Mask) all went > through extended periods where their fans and critics in general said > "oh this stuff totally blows - stop already" only to have the almost > inevitable come back/return to relevance. So stay tuned for REM's > critical comeback cos it's just around the corner. I read a very good article by Sean French in which he claimed that you can tell from the audience reaction which songs the crowd has really come to hear, and it's usually from a very narrow 2-years-or-so period. The exceptions (if any) must be people like Dylan and Reed who have had immensely long careers. And even there I bet that the "Desolation Row"/"SELotL" era provides RZ's biggest crowd-pleasers. - - Mike Godwin PS Just found this useful resource: http://www.therolling-stones.com/Discography/discog1.html and discog2.html I wonder what 'The promotional album, UK 1969' is? IIRC, 'Stone Age' and 'Milestones' were spoilers put out by Decca after the Stones set up their own label. I assume 'Around and around' falls into the same category, but I've never heard of it before. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:08:36 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Hey, remember the '80's? >>Magazine-The Correct Use of Soap So many votes for Magazine albums other than the only one I have (which is actually a '70's album)... I guess I'll need to listen to the later stuff. I really don't even know any of their later songs. _______ Eb notes: >>>Costello, Elvis-Imperial Bedroom >>>Eno & Byrne-My Life in the Bush of Ghosts >>>Pixies-Doolittle >>Seems like these have been on practically every list, so far..... At least two so far have actually gone for Surfer Rosa... me and JeFFrey. We had damned similar lists overall, actually (props to him for Key Lime Pie; on further reflection that's probably my CVB choice, too... and he also sided with me on my unorthodox Bunnymen pick). I didn't even pick an EC record, which indicates (A) what a half-ass job I did on my list, and (B) a few years of EC burnout on my part, due to records which sound good and exciting at first until I just forget I even have them. >>Rex loves Live Skull...who da thunk it? Hmmm... I'm surprised that's surprising, m'self. ______ JeFFrey: >>Am I wrong, or has _Underwater Moonlight_ been conspicuously missing >>from a few lists? I believe so. I'm also surprised that IODOT is by far the consensus RH pick. I went with EOL but I think BSDR would've been my #2 pick, and IODOT #3. Not really sure, though. _____ dolph: >>King's X - Gretchen Goes To Nebraska >>The Choir - Wide-Eyed Wonder Oooh! Christian-Rock alert! I like the other, older Choir... the one that did "It's Cold Outside". That's good eatin'. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:00:41 -0400 From: ein kleines kinnemuzik Subject: reap wesley willis, 40 http://alternativetentacles.com/news.php?sd=mvULHZZSZE9cqM4u-ng#165 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:15:53 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: New Adventures in Legacy-Tarnishing Now, we always do this damn REM-assessment thing whenever they come up, so to review: I am pro Hi-Fi as well. And pro-Up. But not so much on Reveal (my beefs against it being the same as Jeffrey's against Hi-Fi, mo' less). So that makes me one of the bigger supporters of latter-day REM in these parts (although note that I break with Miles in that I rate Monster as their career nadir). I can see thinking they've gone downhill, but embarrassing? That I just don't understand. That opinion to me indicates too much having been invested in the band to begin with. But the Lifes Rich Pageant thing is always kind of interesting. I remember it being labeled (even by the band) as a sort of failed sell-out. I liked it okay at the time but thought Document blew it out of the water when it came out, and I've long considered LRP the weakest or at least least consistent of the IRS records, and I thought that was more or less consensus among REM fans. In recent years I've probably played Dead Letters more than LRP. But when I do play LRP I'm always surprised at how much I like it. So who knows. - -R.E.X. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:08:45 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: The peanut gallery speaks (30% Baywatch content) on 8/22/03 1:01 AM, Sebastian Hagedorn at Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-koeln.de wrote: > --On Donnerstag, 21. August 2003 20:46 Uhr -0700 Eb > wrote: > >> Damn those R.E.M. boys. Why didn't they quit when they were ahead? >> They're tarnishing their legacy, at this point. > > I don't get this sentiment, which seems to be prevalent in the US. They are > still critically acclaimed in Europe, at least in Germany. So is David Hasselhoff! - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 19:39:44 +0100 (BST) From: crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com Subject: Resonance I've got a show on Resonance FM. Indeed, I was in the studio 3 hours before Robyn. Why didn't I look at the schedule?! Anyway, I'm working on it... Crowbar Joe ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:56:38 -0400 From: "ross taylor" Subject: from Greendale to Luxor Damn, I tried to send this email yesterday, but it's not on the digest. If this is a second version, sorry. I finally picked up Luxor. I feel lame about not buying it direct from his web site, but good about buying it from an independant bricks and mortar store. I bought Greendale at the same time, so I'll talk about that 1st. I really like the sound of the record -- in the 1st few words he sings there's some issue of him not being dead in front of the mic for a couple of syllables, & that's a good sign. Ralph Molina's steady boom-crash, boom-crash starts sounding like the background noise of the universe over the course of the record, and that's cool, but not very danceable. I also hate that two of the main characters are always called "grandpa" and "grandma." Very cutesy, & seems like he's afraid if he used their names we'd forget they were old. Over all, it seems not so much like a rock record (tho there are some great one-guitar jams) as a very interesting performance which *feels* like rock, sort of like "Songs for Drella" (but not that good--that was very good). The charactors aren't super deep, but the story is pretty believeable & engaging. ?Spoilers? I like the fact that some of the most exciting songs don't deal w/ major action, i.e. the service for a dead cop is more gripping than the scene where he's shot. There's a song about a rebellious daughter (grand-daughter? I've only listened all the way thru once ...) that comes close to working like an exciting rock song, but like the others goes on too long for that. It involves an unbelieveable but fun scene of an FBI agent shooting her cat, which allows for some Louis Jordan/Cab Calloway-style mid song spoken hokum, cat yeowls etc. At one point (these are long songs) she stages a protest (not about the cat) using a megaphone, which allows Neil to sing some lines thru a megaphone effect which is reminiscent of the Trans vocoder. Because he's telling a story, Neil's lines tend to be more flat, straightforward, less of the great, quirky phrasing in his older stuff, but that's all right. I haven't followed Neil closely in the 90s, only own "Raging Glory" & "Mirror Ball," plus our public library has "Harvest Moon," so I've listened to that some. It's good to get back with him & this is an entertaining & substantial dip into his world view. I was nicely prepared for it by the fact that I've just been re-reading a bunch of Robinson Jeffers, another rebellious Western crank who doesn't toe anybody's party line. - --- Luxor-- I think this may be Robyn's prettiest album, & that's not a criticism. IMO it starts weak but ramps up as it goes on. "The Sound of Sound" has a nice elegaic sound (it's not all silly love songs) but musically doesn't grab me. "One L" is melodic in a bouncy way. "Penelope's Angles" seems stereotypically "wacky Robyn" but he does put some emotion into saying "I'm not a yam." It has fine guitar. "The Idea of You" seems like home turf for Robyn, an elegy, someone dead or missing or something missing. Really great song. From there on, it's up hill. "Maria Lyn" does the thing a lot of his acousting numbers do, suggesting rock by getting a lot of sound & energy out of a guitar or two, but it also suggests old folk blues thru its looseness. I think one reason the "blues" numbers work better here is the continuing influence of "Time Out of Mind" and "Love and Theft." I see that influence elsewhere, particularly in "Idomenea," & agree w/ others here that it's really top flight. So, perhaps, is "Round Song" & "The Idea of You." Sort of like his "Take This In Remembrance" from "Middle Class Hero," but more imaginative, maybe a bit less sappy (if that was sappy). It's also a wondeful guitar album, the instrumentals are really great, it comes off as a cross between Incredible String Band & Leo Kottke/John Fahey. Even "Ant Corridor" manages to be both really funny & quite musical. On "I Often Dream of Trains" he sometimes comes close to screeching like one of the Monty Python crew, & there's none of that here. His guitar playing just keeps getting better. I look forward to listening to this more. I don't suppose the lyrics are on line anywhere? Ross Taylor Need a new email address that people can remember Check out the new EudoraMail at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #316 ********************************