From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #131 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, May 10 2004 Volume 13 : Number 131 Today's Subjects: ----------------- REAP ["Maximilian Lang" ] reap [Eb ] Reap [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Robynesque troubadors of relative obscurity [Jeff Dwarf Subject: REAP Chechnyan president Akhmad Kadyrov. _________________________________________________________________ Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers! http://youroffers.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 13:47:08 -0700 From: Eb Subject: reap Comedian Alan King, 76 Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 13:53:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Reap Legendary Reggae/Dub Producer Clement Dodd http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/04-05/07.shtml#story3 Producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd Dead at 72 Scott Plagenhoef reports: One of the most influential yet underappreciated figures in the history of popular music, legendary sound system pioneer, producer and Studio One founder Sir Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, has died from heart complications at the age of 72. In Dodd's more than 50 years in the music business, he helped create, shape, and finance Jamaica's unique sound, pioneered the sound system, and introduced the dub plate, riddim, and the "talking" DJ. Dodd was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1932, as the son of a building contractor. Coxsone (he earned his nickname because his cricket skills were similar to a Yorkshire star of the same name) started DJing for customers in his parent's liquor store, playing R&B, bebop, and swing records that his father-- who also served as a dock foreman-- would obtain from visiting sailors. By the mid-1950s, Dodd moved his operation into the streets and, along with other sound system pioneers Duke Reid and King Edwards (the aristocratic nicknames were a nod to the Big Band leaders who, in Jamaica, these sound system operators replaced) became known as the "Big Three." Sound systems had developed the previous decade as a reaction to changing social conditions in Jamaica, and as a cheaper alternative to hiring a band. As Jamaica became increasingly urbanized, the rural-based mento and Jamaican folk music that had been popular was largely supplanted by American R&B and jazz (particularly swing)-- little of which was played on staid Jamaican radio. Another problem was that, although Jamaicans loved music, few could afford to obtain their own records. To remedy this, sound systems began playing public outdoor dances-- a blueprint for both the hip-hop block party and clubbing. The rivalry between the Big Three was fierce, growing to the point that Dodd's Downbeat system had four sets spread throughout the city. The intensity of the competition resulted in the men going to extraordinary lengths to ensure each had the best sound and party, a practice that inspired their systems to grow to the point that they introduced the notions of "physicality" to the dancefloor-- where patrons could literally feel the music-- cratedigging and, thanks to Dodd, the "talking" DJ, a forerunner of the hip-hop MC. In some instances, the men would take part in sound clashes in which they'd set their systems up within earshot of one another and battle for the crowd's hearts and hips. Dodd's hunt for new sounds took him on regular visits to U.S. cities such as Miami, New Orleans, Chicago and New York-- specifically Brooklyn, where his record shop-cum-recording studio, Coxsone's Music City, sits at 3135 Fulton Street in the shadow of the J-M-Z subway line. The hunt for exclusivity resulted in Dodd starting the process of scratching the labels off of records in order to protect the identity of some of his rare finds. In some instances, he'd then rename the records altogether in order to confuse his competition, a practice later employed in the fiercely competitive worlds of Northern Soul and hip-hop DJing. Despite helping forge the public dance environment that would eventually lead competitive DJs to develop the cut and isolate the breakbeat, Dodd's most prescient gift to hip-hop is the rhyming DJ, the forerunner of today's MC. The introduction of live vocals to the sound systems-- which began innocently as just another way to top Dodd?s competition--started in 1956 when Downbeat's Winston "Count" Machuki stepped out from behind his turntable and cracked jokes, recited slang and American jive, and peppered the records with vocal tics (called "peps") that shared elements with beatboxing. Eventually Machuki and fellow Downbeat DJ King Stitt began to compose their own rhymes. Machuki claims his first was: "If you dig my jive/ You're cool and very much alive/ Everybody all around town/ Machuki's the reason why I shake it down/ When it comes to jive/ You can't whip him with no stick." When rare sounds from the States became increasingly difficult to find or acquire, Dodd and his contemporaries began pressing dub-plates-- soft wax acetates-- of local sounds in order to satisfy their customers. Not intended for commercial release, these exclusive, temporary, and mostly instrumental records provided ample opportunity for DJs to toast over the sounds and helped forge the unique bass-and-hi-hat sound often associated with Jamaican music. By 1959, Dodd, Reid, and other began pressing seven-inch records for public consumption, with Owen Gray's "On the Beach" and Theo Beckford's "Easy Snappin'" among Dodd's earliest hits. Dodd presided as president of upwards of a half dozen record labels, but he is most famous for Studio One, Jamaica's first and only completely self-sufficient record label. The legendary label-- now located on the former Brentford Road (only last Friday it was renamed Studio One Boulevard)-- was founded in 1963, although the studio itself was not constructed until two years later. Over its first few years, Studio One helped cement the popularity of ska,?Jamaica's first pop music sound-- and started the careers of Lee Perry, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis and Ken Boothe, as well as recording numerous others. At this time, Dodd's house band also employed many of the musicians who were to become known as the Skatalites. Dodd also became the first Jamaican producer to record on two-track machines, which allowed him to isolate the instrumental and vocals from one another and, as a cost-cutting measure, recycle the instrumental version for use with multiple frontmen. The process of recording a "version"-- a new cut of a riddim track is still integral to Jamaican music and is arguably the genesis of both the dub and the remix. Studio One lost some of its momentum by being slow to embrace the rocksteady sound of the mid- to late-1960s. But although Duke Reid's Treasure Isle epitomized that sound, Studio One still flourished thanks in large part to the contribution of organist Jackie Mittoo. Among Studio One's biggest rocksteady hits were both Ken Boothe?s "The Train Is Coming", Dawn Penn's "No No No", Delroy Wilson's "Dancing Mood", and Marcia Griffiths' "Feel Like Jumping", as well as a string of classics from the Heptones and the Gaylads. In the late 1960s, Dodd also released Bob Andy's extraordinary Song Book on the Coxsone label. After the development of reggae, the influence of the Big Three waned but Dodd remained a centerpiece of Jamaican music. Thanks to the contributions of session players such as Mittoo, bassist Leroy Sibbles, guitarist Ernest Ranglin, and saxophonist Roland Alphonso, among others-- and to Dodd's unparalleled collection of rhythms-- Studio One was quick to adopt to and assimilate emerging sounds, including dub. And in the late '60s and early 1970s, Dodd produced hits for the likes of Ellis, Horace Andy, John Holt, Dennis Brown, Lennie Hibbert, and Ernest Ranglin. Studio One has recently enjoyed a boost in popularity thanks to the Studio One and Dynamite series that have been released on the Soul Jazz label-- including the DVD documentary Studio One Story, a four-hour film that details the life of Dodd and his work at Studio One. The entire Studio One discography-- over which Dodd retained control for his entire life-- is lovingly detailed by Rob Chapman in his books Downbeat Special: Studio One Album Discography and Never Grow Old: Studio One Singles Listing & Rhythm Directory. Dodd is survived by his wife and six children. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin "I'm going to keep playing music until somebody shoots me." -- Scott McCaughey __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 14:35:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Robynesque troubadors of relative obscurity "Rex.Broome" wrote: > Miles: > >>I hope to God not, because FRANK BLACK and TEENAGER OF > THE YEAR rule as > >>much as any Pixies album. Which is to say, totally. > > Perhaps they do... those are the only two I have, FWIW, > and I think they just didn't grab me at the time due to > them, well, not being the Pixies, probably. I've had a > hard time sussing out when would be a good time to hop > back on the FB bandwagon because most of the adherents of > his latter day stuff tend to offer me wildly conflicting > opinions on which records or tours are "returns to form" > or "crap tossoffs"... same problem I have with latter day > Bowie, I suppose. FB and TOTY are definitely more "pop" than anything the Pixies did. Still nice albums. I am pretty much in the same boat from Charles's Catholics output though; I have Dog in the Sand (it was a present) and I like it a lot, but I also was really bored by both of the first two Catholics albums (and The Cult of Ray was even more boring). I supposed I'll check the rest of the Catholics stuff out eventually, though it doesn't seem to be available used much. Or I just check other people first and don't get around to checking for them while they are there. > Jeff then Jeff: > >>> Excellent stuff - and proves that you don't need to > play > >>> a bazillion notes to be a kickass lead guitar player. > > >>I can't think of a truly kickass lead guitarist that > >>does play a bazillion notes, actually. The jackoffs > >>who do that are just treating music like it's a track > >>meet. > > Just on principle I thought I might come up with a > counterexample, but the point holds up surprisingly well. > One could name any number of great lead guitar players > who can and occasionally do unleash the bazillions, but > I'm at a loss to name one who does so all the time out of > some weird sense of apparent obligation. The closest I can think of (since it was my smart-ass remark in the first place; just comparing the wankers to sprinters works better though, since a true track meet does include other events that involved some nuances) would maybe be Eddie Van Halen. But even he slows down with a great deal of frequency. I've always liked Steve Vai's work on PiL's _album,_ though that's probably the least Vai-like he's ever played. > Neil Young once > compared his playing to that of Satriani/Malmsteen/etc. > by saying his was "more of a giant sandworm thing", which > I thought was pretty cool, because, you know, how badass > are giant sandworms? The same thing, of course, holds for Neil et cetera as a singer, as opposed to the Mariahs of the world who are so busy showing off their range that it never occurs to them that fewer notes is almost always better. > Rock me, Joe! ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin "I'm going to keep playing music until somebody shoots me." -- Scott McCaughey __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 14:35:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Robynesque troubadors of relative obscurity "Rex.Broome" wrote: > Miles: > >>I hope to God not, because FRANK BLACK and TEENAGER OF > THE YEAR rule as > >>much as any Pixies album. Which is to say, totally. > > Perhaps they do... those are the only two I have, FWIW, > and I think they just didn't grab me at the time due to > them, well, not being the Pixies, probably. I've had a > hard time sussing out when would be a good time to hop > back on the FB bandwagon because most of the adherents of > his latter day stuff tend to offer me wildly conflicting > opinions on which records or tours are "returns to form" > or "crap tossoffs"... same problem I have with latter day > Bowie, I suppose. FB and TOTY are definitely more "pop" than anything the Pixies did. Still nice albums. I am pretty much in the same boat from Charles's Catholics output though; I have Dog in the Sand (it was a present) and I like it a lot, but I also was really bored by both of the first two Catholics albums (and The Cult of Ray was even more boring). I supposed I'll check the rest of the Catholics stuff out eventually, though it doesn't seem to be available used much. Or I just check other people first and don't get around to checking for them while they are there. > Jeff then Jeff: > >>> Excellent stuff - and proves that you don't need to > play > >>> a bazillion notes to be a kickass lead guitar player. > > >>I can't think of a truly kickass lead guitarist that > >>does play a bazillion notes, actually. The jackoffs > >>who do that are just treating music like it's a track > >>meet. > > Just on principle I thought I might come up with a > counterexample, but the point holds up surprisingly well. > One could name any number of great lead guitar players > who can and occasionally do unleash the bazillions, but > I'm at a loss to name one who does so all the time out of > some weird sense of apparent obligation. The closest I can think of (since it was my smart-ass remark in the first place; just comparing the wankers to sprinters works better though, since a true track meet does include other events that involved some nuances) would maybe be Eddie Van Halen. But even he slows down with a great deal of frequency. I've always liked Steve Vai's work on PiL's _album,_ though that's probably the least Vai-like he's ever played. > Neil Young once > compared his playing to that of Satriani/Malmsteen/etc. > by saying his was "more of a giant sandworm thing", which > I thought was pretty cool, because, you know, how badass > are giant sandworms? The same thing, of course, holds for Neil et cetera as a singer, as opposed to the Mariahs of the world who are so busy showing off their range that it never occurs to them that fewer notes is almost always better. > Rock me, Joe! ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin "I'm going to keep playing music until somebody shoots me." -- Scott McCaughey __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 22:34:31 -0400 From: fingerpuppets Subject: Robyn Hitchcock - Invisible History for download - ----- Forwarded message from John Cruz ----- To: RobynHitchcockClub@yahoogroups.com From: John Cruz Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 01:44:30 -0000 Subject: [RobynHitchcockClub] Robyn Hitchcock - Invisible History for download Download from Sharing the Groove at http://www.sharingthegroove.org/msgboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64363 Please bump if you enjoy the music :) If anybody has any Robyn stuff they're looking to share via bit torrent, let me know and i'll help you get it up there. - -John - ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 09:42:55 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Inadvertantly making fun of celebrities by inferring that they look like themselves Jeme: >>I noted a funny similarity and thought it was kind of hilarious and >>pathetic how all those hip types look and dress the same and I said, "Ooh, >>look! It's Grant Lee Phillips!" because, man, the guy did look like Grant >>Lee Phillips and that's funny. Doubtless the feg archives contain my similar story from around 1992 or so when my friend Mike and I amused ourselves during a Tonight Show taping by making fun of a guy behind his back because we thought he looked like Black Francis, only to find out later that he was, in fact, Black Francis (or more properly he was probably already Frank Black but hadn't yet released anything under that name). - -Rex ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V13 #131 ********************************