From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #396 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, October 24 2003 Volume 12 : Number 396 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip [Capuchin ] RE: yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip [Catherine Simpson ] Re: Confessions of a feg monkey... [Capuchin ] Tears (of Rage) in Heaven ["Rex.Broome" ] athens 441 article [ein kleines kinnemuzak ] york daily record fletcher's concert preview [ein kleines kinnemuzak Subject: Re: yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip It's probably pointless for me to try to reason here. I think Jason reads my From: header and clicks into some other mode outside reason. On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Jason R. Thornton wrote: > People write and sell songs about the deaths of friends and relatives, > and much less extreme tragedies, in their lives all the time. And they > make money off them. And they advertise the availability of their art > for sale. But they don't use the death as PART of the advertisement. Do you really not see that distinction? > Had Clapton known the sort of reaction he'd get, the misinterpretations > of his actions that would arise, perhaps he would have acted slightly > differently. I think he could hardly have been aware of the interpretations at the time. And he didn't stop. > I would think a calculating bastard would be shrewd enough to not make > any conscious attempt to exploit obvious. ...or count on everybody's good taste and the extreme lenience granted to celebrities to be fatuously self-indulgent prevent it from ever coming up for debate. > Clapton's more popular, and his experiences are more likely to become > public knowledge. ...especially if he's sending out his story on label letterhead to every radio station in the country, whether they want to know or not. > Either way, both Clapton and Hitchcock are telling a group of consumers > the motivations behind their creation of a piece of art in some fashion > or another. Gads, do you really see yourself as a consumer of musical recordings? Me, I'm just the opposite. I try to make sure the recordings I get my hands on are duplicated rather than consumed. > >Clapton was already a star; he didn't really need to go out... > > That he was already a star, and needs more money like he needs a hole in > the head leads me to believe that the popularity of the song wasn't a > marketing gimmick, and wasn't an attempt to cash-in on his son's death. Right. Because we all know that rich people are usually very satisfied with what they have and don't try to use their wealth and power to make more money. That'd be crazy. > >It kind of makes my skin crawl to think of mobilizing the entire record > >industry to see whether people might feel sorry for me. > > Well, I'm not saying that's what he did. He did what he always does - > made music, released it and sold it. Is promotion invisible to you? > As a Hitchcock fan, and a member of a smaller audience, I was well > informed about what "The Yip Song" was written about. The machinery may > not have been in as high of a gear, but the motor was still running. Really? There was a sales organization actively telling people who didn't ask about the death of Raymond Hitchcock and the availability of a song about said death? No, there wasn't. Wholly different machinery. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:29:46 -0700 From: Catherine Simpson Subject: RE: yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip Ok, I don't post to the list very often at all, so I may have no right whatsoever to say this, but that's never stopped me before, so... am I the only person who at first found this debate interesting because both parties are clearly intelligent and eloquent and have put much thought into the opinions they're expressing, but who now, after a full day of incessant back-and-forth bickering, is sick to death of it? Boys, please, the deceased equine has been thorougly flagellated. If you insist on attempting to make each other see your respective sides of the issue, could you please stop clogging up our e-mailboxes with it? Of course, having said this, I realize that I am fully capable of utilizing my "delete" button and just ignoring the whole thing, but that would just be too easy... Catherine - -----Original Message----- From: Capuchin [mailto:capuchin@bitmine.net] Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 4:16 PM To: Nerdy Groovers Subject: Re: yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Jason R. Thornton wrote: > At 12:45 PM 10/24/2003 -0700, Capuchin wrote: > >He was using the death of his son to sell tickets to someone else's movie! > >OR > >He was using a movie about drug addicts to sell his song! > > That's your inane dichotomy, and hardly the only way to look at it. That's the purpose of sending out promo copies of a music video to hundreds of stations and networks. That's the purpose of putting clips from a movie into a video. Please, explain what the other way to look at it might be. > Sell, sell, sell, sell, fucking sell. Get off your stupid > anti-marketing kick. The marketting is exactly what makes this crass. The song was pitched with death. Profitting from the death is icky. Purposely spreading information about the death in order to increase profits is sick. > A song takes on a life of its own above and beyond its original intent > when it enters the public sphere. That the lyrics were vague enough to > work well in another piece of art, a film, and that the song was used in > it is hardly a condemnation at all. The song was put into the film before the song was released. There was no public sphere influence. > It's exactly the same as Robyn's approach. Hitchcock released his work > into the marketplace, and in doing such, sold a product to the general > public and profited from the death of his father. No fucking > difference. Robyn's as crass and money-grubbing as Clapton in that > regard. Robyn didn't use the death of his father to sell the song. Robyn used the death of his father to help him create the song, but not to sell it. It wasn't part of the packaging. > >Whereas Clapton's lyric isn't interesting to anyone. > > Except for the millions that purchased the fucking song and liked it. I don't remember anyone commenting on their interest in the lyrics. I remember things like, "I really like this song... did you know his son died?" and "I bought that song... the one about Eric Clapton's son." and even "That song really gets to me... I heard it's about his son falling out of a window." > Or are they not anyone to you, because you think of yourself as so much > more highly evolved than them? More of your harsh and totally false assumptions about me, Jason. No basis in fact at all. > >Have you HEARD The Yip Song? It's about a man fading between images of > >his own hospitalization and the image of Vera Lynn juxtaposed with Nine > >Inch Nails whilst a dog yips. I'd say that's a pretty unique > >experience. > > Did you not read what I wrote? Did I not say each individual's > experiences are unique? The death of a father is hardly unique. Nor > are hallucinations when under massive amounts of medication. But, the > specifics are. And so what Robyn wrote has a purpose because it is about the unique specifics of the experience. Clapton made no such effort and added absolutely zero to the public understanding of death and dying. > Who says he has to describe his experience in detail to the degree you > desire? Or that the song even work well? Just because he doesn't do it > in a manner you like or are moved by does not mean he was exploiting the > situation. It is no proof at all. It's not even evidence. But had he made even the tiniest effort to bring the specific experience into the work, it could be at least circumstantial evidence that he wasn't just shooting for mass appeal and the highest sales possible. > >Using the song to promote the movie? > > The use of a song in a movie is not necessarily for promotion. The song was put in the movie before the song was released. Someone had to shop the song to the producers/director in order to get it into the film. > >Using the death to promote the song? > He told people exactly why he wrote the song. And it was true. He sent promotional material about the death of his son along with the single to radio and television stations. > >First, this isn't an artwork. It does not evoke emotion through a > >display of mastery of a craft (except perhaps the craft of marketting, > >but I don't think anyone has used that craft to evoke anything other > >than mild nausea). It is, at best, a craftwork. > > It is artwork in the sense that it is an attempt to evoke emotion > through a display of craft. It may not be "good" art in your or my > eyes, but it's still art. I don't think anyone would agree that this work displays the mastery of ANY craft. Mastery is a prerequisite to merit art. > You focusing on marketing is simply silly. The marketting is exactly what makes it sick, sir. Simply writing about an event like that makes sense. Even publishing it is understandable. Using the death to promote sales is nauseating. > But quite telling, and not at all unexpected. You're really just pissed > off that corporations were involved, aren't you? You're not making any sense, Jason. Put aside your ridiculous preconceived notions and practice some reading comprehension. > If Robyn, in an interview, tells you what his song is about, in other > words advertises it to the general population in a publication designed > to promote and explore his industry, knowing that potential record > buyers are going to be reading it, is that not marketing as well? It is > as much as anything Clapton did. If you're asked what something means to you and you answer honestly, that's expected and, in some cases, even admirable. If you come out and tell people about the rough bits of your life when they don't ask, you're seeking attention. If you do that in conjunction with a publicity tour, you're exploiting those events. > >Did Robyn issue a press release about his father's death and the > >forthcoming single about it? I don't think so. > > Did he mention it to the press? I think so. Written or spoken, not a > huge degree of difference. It's not just degree, it's a different category. See above. > Guess what? The man you're deifying does just this. Actively. Who am I deifying? > Or so you'd like to believe, because you can't get past your > hero-worship and knee-jerk hatred of anything mainstream. Golly, I don't think anyone would mistake the appreciation I have for some of Robyn's stuff to be "hero-worship". In fact, I think I'm on record as saying that when he tries, he fails miserably. His attempts at straight-forward lyrics just plain suck. Do many people tell you that their hero sucks? You're trying to force this into sharper contrast than it is. And I certainly don't think I have any kind of knee-jerk hatred of anything mainstream. Hell, I bought the first Green Day album. I'm sure there are other fine examples, too. Probably a perusal of recent posts will turn up one or three. I don't think you know the difference between your own fantasies about who I am and the reality. In fact, I don't think any real people are the absurd caricature that you're describing. I suggest you rub elbows with a few more people outside your social sphere and see if you can't gain a better perspective. > >I think the prejudice in your statements is much more clear than any > >prejudice you're reading into mine. > > That you think you're better than me and everyone else hardly surprises > me. I have no idea where you got that. But we'll just leave it there. > >I'm not speculating about the press releases or the notes sent along > >with the video. Those things existed and were created for a reason. > > You just have an extremely limited, biased perception of what those > reasons might be. Uh huh. I have this crazy idea that promotional materials are created for promotional purposes. I must be fuckin' nuts. > Robyn's answers to questions that he know would be published in > publications designed to help sell records is just as telling. Actually, there's a secondary effect here. Robyn certainly has been the subject of interviews that were arranged in order to generate some press coverage that might sell his albums or get people into his shows. No doubt about that. Then the interviewer, who is usually being told to do the interview in these circumstances rather than seeking it himself, has to find some "angle" in order to create what they believe is a compelling read. So when, in the course of the obligatory questions about recent material, Robyn mentions his father dying, the interviewer latches onto this because of the obvious play on public sympathy. The information makes it to print. With Clapton, the fact of his son dying was part of the material sent to the interviewers beforehand. It's like showing up on The Tonight Show with a "Ask Me About My Dead Boy" pin on his lapel. > >You want to believe that I'm being ugly or mean, but you're denying > >very basic facts here in order to maintain that view. > > You mistake your opinions for "fact," as you so often do. Actually, I was referring to the fact that promotional material featured the death of his son. That's not my opinion, bub. But if it makes it easier for you to keep your existing worldview by believing it to be so, I'm sure that's exactly what you'll do. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:31:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Confessions of a feg monkey... On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Eb wrote: > >just that The Allman Brothers and Santana are stoner noodlers rather > >than serious musicians. > > Jesus. I wouldn't put getting stoned and noodling about past that guy, either. And as I recall, he didn't play any music at all. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 18:05:14 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Tears (of Rage) in Heaven Jeme: >>Whereas Clapton's lyric isn't interesting to anyone. ...and... >> Clapton made no such effort and added absolutely zero to the public >>understanding of death and dying. Well, we all agree that the song fuckin' sucks, right? As such, and considering that it's what, six years old, I really can't believe we're still talking about it. I also honestly don't think I know what any of the lyrics are except the first line of the first verse and the last line of the chorus. If it's a bland and lame as I assume it is, I dunno what ever made you guys pay as much attention to it as you did. What strikes me is that, if Clapton hadn't done that song, someone else would've. The fact that it doesn't add to the public understanding of death doesn't stop average people from wanting or needing this kind of maudlin crap to relate their own experiences to, this being pop music and not a mental health social service. And Joe Average doesn't want a challenging work that delves into what death means... he just wants a song that when he hears it, it reminds him of his own loss but somehow makes him feel less alone. Or something. I don't get the psychology of it, but it's kind if a social/communal thing. People just crave these shitty facile takes on difficult subjects. See also that godawful Mike & the Mechanics song about losing your dad. Or that damn "Butterfly Kisses" song. Or, like anything by Celine Dion, or those country songs about your kid's wedding that Glen and I were just bitchin' about, or the fucking Creed song "Wuhlleye juss herrrrrd thuhnooze tuhdayyy" about becomong a parent. There is a demand for that stuff, and I have a feeling that, as much as they're shit as art, these kinds of songs probably actually help people deal. So I can't get too chuffed at a hack artist for filling that need or marketing people for marketing it when they know people want it. And I'm nonplussed at why Clapton's being singled out for this drubbing. Goddamn I hate that Creed song. Anyway... Eb: >>The air outside looks unnaturally orange-ish and there's ash all over >>my car, yet I don't see any smoke clouds anywhere. Hm. So many fires >>lately.... I know... it's really ominous lately, innit? And it seems sort of appropriate. I'm a little lost in time anyway since I went back east and it was clearly, classically Autumn, and then I came back here and the temperatures shot up to boiling, midsummer levels. And the damn ants came back. All of them. In other LA news, Number One Daughter makes her screen-acting debut tomorrow. Mommy will be on the set with her... I get to stay home with the littler one, currently known as "Terrifying Fever Girl". Talked to my neighbor about that show he just played with Elliott Smith... he said ES had been clearly in really bad shape backstage, classic junkie stuff. Very sad. Neighbor says his friend was in a band with ES's girlfriend for some time, and describes her as the very definition of an enabler... three miles of bad road and all that. np. (speaking of musical heroin casualties and apocalyptic imagery) Judee Sill, Heart Food. This is some pretty fucked up shit... I swear this woman is singing backwards half the time. Possibly you've never felt the need for a missing link between Joni Mitchell and Kristin Hersh (or Liz Phair), but if you ever get the hankerin' for one, here's your lady. For my money this is a really good find... thank you, Rhino Handjob. Wait, I mean... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 21:22:22 -0400 From: ein kleines kinnemuzak Subject: athens 441 article a little article about athens 441, that radio show that robyn did a taping for earlier this month. so it looks like there will be a radio broadcast of this to look out for sometime... Radio show seeks national audience for Athens music The Associated Press - ATHENS, Ga. A new radio program hopes to feature the Athens music scene to listeners across the nation. The show, called Athens 441, premiered Thursday night. It will be distributed to public and college radio stations in the United States and Canada. Athens is obviously in the league of cities like Austin and Seattle for music presence, said Davin Welter, station manager at WUGA, which is sponsoring the concert series and radio program along with the Morton Theatre. Its natural to want to share our music scene with the nation. Named for the classic U.S. highway linking Miami and Canada, Athens 441 will be a live recording radio program that features both local and national musicians. Georgia Public Radio will air the program over its 15-station network, whose coverage extends into five surrounding states. The first show featured performances by Robyn Hitchcock, Dengue Fever and three Athens-based bands _ Green Lawns, Madeline Adams and Tenderness. Athens 441 is an ambitious plan to boost Athens into the ranks of the leading music cities in the South, said Jack Reeves, executive producer of the show. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 21:27:16 -0400 From: ein kleines kinnemuzak Subject: york daily record fletcher's concert preview Unknown icon Hitchcock flies it solo again Oddball rocker Robyn plays Tuesday at Fletchers in Baltimore By PETER BOTHUM Daily Record staff Friday, October 24, 2003 To most people, London-born singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is a relative unknown or, at best, a name that maybe youve heard but are not familiar with. To a small segment of music lovers, however, hes an undisputed genius worthy of hero worship. The members of this cult, who were somewhat satiated by filmmaker Jonathan Demmes 1998 concert film Storefront Hitchcock, will hold up records such as Fegmania! (1985), Globe of Frogs (1988) and Queen Elvis (1989) as some of the best ever made by anyone. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, hell bring songs from those albums and more to Fletchers, 701 S. Bond St., Baltimore. Hitchcock might also whip out some tunes that he penned while at the helm of the late 70s psychedelic-folk-rock melding Soft Boys, which is where it all got started. The band also featured bassist Matthew Seligman, drummer Morris Windsor and guitarist Kimberley Rew, who was the brains behind 80s hitmakers Katrina and the Waves. During that tenure, Hitchcock penned a cache of off-kilter, mind-blowing tunes, many of which can be found on the late-blooming 1980 classic Underwater Moonlight (The album was spruced up and re-released by Matador Records in 2001). The album went unnoticed for three or four years until American bands like R.E.M. started name-dropping the Soft Boys and college radio began spinning Underwater Moonlight. If it wasnt for America I dont think I would have had a career, Hitchcock said from a hotel near Tucson, Ariz., where hes recording and playing a small part in yet another Demme film, a remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Hitchcock re-emerged stateside in the mid-1980s and embarked on a solo career here that spawned numerous albums stuffed with catchy rock gems that gleam with quirky wordplay and innovative introspection. On the single Balloon Man, for example, Hitchcock sings that the subject spattered me with tomatoes, hummus, chickpeas and some strips of skin. His songbook is filled with that sort of abstract, stream-of-conscious imagery  the kind of stuff that sounds like it came out of a brainstorming session between John Lennon and Syd Barrett. I see myself as sort of a kind of ant thats just scuttling along the ground and picking up all sorts of matter and ferrying them up a hill somewhere and putting them all together in some way that will make a nest, make some kind of sense to somebody, Hitchcock said. The solo career went off fabulously, but when Matador decided to re-release Underwater Moonlight, a Soft Boys reunion and tour was inevitable. Unlike other recently reformed bands like the Buzzcocks, Sex Pistols or Fleetwood Mac, the Soft Boys had no problem getting back together because nothing really drove them apart in the first place. We didnt really have that much to say to each other, Hitchcock said. You get some bands where they argue and get in fights. Thats my pineapple, you bastard. Or, Get your hands off Yoko, or whatever it is. We were never pals, we were all musical associates. But in a way that was a good thing, because it meant we never fell out. But the Soft Boys tour  which followed the release of a new album, Nextdoorland  did come to an end, which leaves Hitchcock solo yet again on an East Coast swing that includes the Fletchers date. Tickets to the show are $15, and are available at http://www.930.com. And the crowd is sure to get its moneys worth  this time out Hitchcock is truly solo. Itll be just him with electric and acoustic guitars. Playing solo acoustic in a bar when everybodys drunk is a pretty thankless task. You might as well just sing Doobie Brothers songs, Hitchcock said. You need to know that the audience is into it. Its really directly from your third eye to theirs, gland to gland. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 19:48:15 -0700 From: Jason Robert Thornton Subject: Re: Tears (of Rage Against the Machine) in Heaven On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 06:05 PM, Rex.Broome wrote: > Well, we all agree that the song fuckin' sucks, right? Didn't Eb say he didn't think it was so bad? > I don't get the psychology of it, but it's kind if a social/communal > thing. > People just crave these shitty facile takes on difficult subjects. Thank you. That is somewhat my point. People crave them. People appreciate them. People actually think they're constructive and powerful. And, just as an audience craves them, some people feel the need to create them and share them, and their pain, with the world. It's "art" to some people. Songs and other forms of art aren't always there to provide some new enlightening take on a subject. Some are there simply to express what people already know, but in a new, different way. And, as lame as I might find Clapton's song or however silly another person might find Hitchcock's, the fact is both men attempted to do just that. Clapton's lyrics ended up sounding somewhat cliche to me and to a few others here, but enough people related to those lyrics and found them artful that they decided to go out and purchase the song. Reading the lyrics to the song online, it's absolutely obvious that Clapton is discussing specific, personal emotions. For that, I cannot fault him. I don't find his writing as touching as I find Robyn's, but "The Yip Song," in some ways, is just as distant and vague about the subject it is addressing. It dances around the emotional impact of the death of his father with a lot of weird imagery and somewhat diminishes the powerfulness of those feelings by making light of the entire situation. Robyn chose to focus on the bizarre effect the medical experience had on his father's mind, but at the same time, he shied away from directly addressing or even conveying any of the hurt he might have been faced with. I don't find either approach more commendable, but I do think Hitchcock's finished product was a bit more successful for me as a member of his audience than I personally found Clapton's. However, any thoughtful, open-minded person cannot really find anything wrong the fact that Clapton was up-front and straightforward about the song within the context of an industry that sells art. And, advertising that product is part of the process. Promoting the song honestly is no different than selling the song in the first place. They are two elements of the same system. Both men profited by selling a product about the death of a loved one. Had neither relative died, neither song would have existed, or become product. Clapton never "used his dead son" to promote a film, but a SONG ABOUT his dead son was used in another work of art, a movie, which was also a commercial product. That's an important distinction to make. As is the fact that Clapton never suggested that people should purchase his song because people should feel sorry for him. Although, I'm sure that's why a small portion of people did. Sure, some people will say "oh, that's the song about his son dying," but some people also say "oh, that's the song about his dad dying" in regards to "The Yip Song." The only relevant fact here is that Clapton wrote and recorded the song, and put it into circulation in the marketplace, and discussed it within the pre-established, existing forms of doing business in the song-selling industry. And Hitchcock did the same thing. As I've said before, Hitchcock promoted his song through a particular form of musical advertisement - the music magazine interview. A different medium than direct promotional materials, but it is a promotional activity nonetheless. And no one can deny that. I never would have known that Hithcock's song was about his own father, and not another invented character, had he not advertised the fact to some degree. A lesser degree than Clapton, yes, because his promotional activities are smaller and less effective than Clapton's, and, as he's said himself, he's not a very direct person. He was, as he is, more reserved than Clapton, but his behavior was the same. I don't see anything at all wrong with their actions at all. Had Hitchcock not marketed the fact that the song was about his father, or had not put the art up for sale and profited from something based on his father's death, I never would have had the chance to share in some those particular aspects of the song that do work for me. And a lot of people felt the same way about Clapton's tune. In any case, knowing what the songs are about does not diminish the power of the works, and the act of telling an audience about that though a variety of available media does not condemn the creator. Nor do I see how you can applaud one artist being more specific lyrically, but less specific in promotional activities, or vice versa. If you hear a song advertised (ie, played) on the radio and realize the lyrics are about the death of a relative, or read about it in another promotional forum, either way, the artist is conveying this fact to you, and at the same time letting you know - hey, you can buy this presentation of my suffering from me. To make the baseless assertion that Clapton had some single-minded money-making motivation in selling the song is to me worse than anything he did, even IF that was his intent (which I highly doubt). I prefer, when the accusation of someone doing something I think of as shitty or wrong is put on the table, to assume innocence. To me, that's the higher road. Oh, and everything else I said in previous mails is still 100% dead-on. Excuse the pun. I've read nothing that rationally counters what I've said at all. Wheeeeee! - --Jason ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #396 ********************************