From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #288 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, October 12 2004 Volume 13 : Number 288 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: reap ["Matt Sewell" ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #287 [John Irvine ] Re: Rolling Stones [Michael R Godwin ] Lies or Lice? ["Charlotte Tupman" ] Re: Lies or Lice? [FSThomas ] Re: Lies or Lice? [John Barrington Jones ] RE: Lies or Lice? ["Matt Sewell" ] Waffling [BLATZMAN@aol.com] Re: Waffling, Sticking ["Rex Broome" ] Re: Waffling, Sticking [Bret ] Re: Waffling, Sticking [2fs ] Re: Bowie Reality [The Great Quail ] Re: Waffling, Sticking ["Brian" ] RE: Waffling [Eb ] Jennifers Oh Jenny; more free shit for fegs ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: Best birthday death? [Bret ] Re: Waffling, Sticking [Bret ] Re: Alright, Yeah BabY!!!!! [Vendren ] Re: Waffling, Sticking ["Brian" ] RE: Best birthday death? ["Bachman, Michael" ] RE: Best birthday death? [Eb ] Badly Drawn Boy on KCRW [Tom Clark ] Re: Best birthday death? [Jon Lewis ] Re: Latest Chills news... [James Dignan ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:48:41 +0100 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: RE: reap Not to mention the late Freddie Mercury... Cheers Matt >From: Eb > >And wasn't INXS signed to Mercury Records at the time Michael Hutchence >died? Golly, deaths DO come in threes. ;) > >Eb > >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On >Behalf Of Bachman, Michael >Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 10:10 AM >To: Nerdy Groovers >Subject: RE: reap > >Jeme wrote: > > >Maxime Faget, Mercury spacecraft designer. 83 > > With Gordon Cooper dying a couple of weeks ago, it's a bad time for the >Mercury guys. > >Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:31:07 -0400 From: John Irvine Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #287 Groovy Decay - I love it because it IS so dated. It works for me the way a lot of music from that period works - "like what the hell was Captain Sensible thinking making a dance record? " But It totally works on it's own merit, wot? And Blake Snake is cool because he really wanted to BE the Psychedelic Furs, and who could blame him. Talk Talk Talk still knocks me out. It's kind of like saying the Chocolate Watchband sounds dated - because it sounds so '66. '66 f*ckin' rocked. And in my record collection, '82 is pretty well represented and holds it's own quite well - English Settlement anyone? - -john ps. and if anyone actually liked the Jennifers CD we mailed out last week, we could really use a review or two at Amazon. Thanks for everyone's interest. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:43:35 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Rolling Stones > Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 00:24:40 +0200 > From: Sebastian Hagedorn > Subject: RE: Sad Day - Rolling Stones > > - -- Eb is rumored to have mumbled on Freitag, 8. > Oktober 2004 16:09 Uhr -0700 regarding RE: Sad Day - Rolling Stones: > > LOVE "Child of the Moon." > > In only know the Yung Wu cover version. Is there a good CD that has it on > it? This collection appears to have all the tracks mentioned in the last few e-mails('Sad days' is a misprint for 'Sad day'): I'm very tempted to buy it myself: now, should I choose the new copy at #18.47, or the used copy at #28.99? - - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:06:47 +0100 From: "Charlotte Tupman" Subject: Lies or Lice? I was looking up the lyrics to Queen of Eyes the other day on the Asking Tree site and was surprised to see that all he ever got from her was 'lies'... Since I first heard the song, I've always thought (rather horribly) that it was 'lice'! Has anyone else mishead the lyric in a similarly embarrassing way? Charlotte PS I can't stand 'Wafflehead'. Or 'Superman', for that matter. ;-) _________________________________________________________________ Want to block unwanted pop-ups? Download the free MSN Toolbar now! http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:31:47 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Lies or Lice? Charlotte Tupman wrote: > PS I can't stand 'Wafflehead'. Or 'Superman', for that matter. ;-) Wafflehead cracks me up--though I can see where the relatively common disdain for it comes from. My biggest fear is, though, that there will be a temptation to play Superman at the upcoming Halloween gig here in Atlanta, what with Chris Reeves recently having shed his mortal coil. - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 07:52:17 -0700 (PDT) From: John Barrington Jones Subject: Re: Lies or Lice? On Tue, 12 Oct 2004, FSThomas wrote: > My biggest fear is, though, that there will be a temptation to play > Superman at the upcoming Halloween gig here in Atlanta, what with Chris > Reeves recently having shed his mortal coil. With a line like "touched the parts you couldn't reach", I highly doubt that "Superman" will be played. =jbj= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:02:07 +0100 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: RE: Lies or Lice? "All I ever got from her was lice"? Eewww! As for Wafflehead, if there's a better song about oral sex I've yet to hear it... (is this a thread request?) and for Superman - in practice I'm not keen, but in theory I like the battling time sigs... Cheers Matt Oh, and btw, Saturday's show was unbelievable - if I'd been any closer to the stage I would have been sat on the end of Robyn's rather great but utterly worn-out shoes. One of the best shows I've seen and a first in terms of himself on the piano and Morris being upstanding... there was a real warmth onstage (Robyn hugged Morris when he came on bearing a glass of wine and napkin, butler-stylee) and the stuff they played was almost as unbelievable as the way they played it... I'd been a little sceptical about the new album and wondering whether to get it - on the strength of the new songs I think it's now a definite... Can't wait for the gig in Glastonbury Town Hall - gig in the town variously known as "the holiest erthe in Englande" and "heart chakra of the solar system", eh? Marvellous... >From: "Charlotte Tupman" >Reply-To: "Charlotte Tupman" >To: fegmaniax@smoe.org >Subject: Lies or Lice? >Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:06:47 +0100 > >I was looking up the lyrics to Queen of Eyes the other day on the >Asking Tree site >and was surprised to see that all he ever got from her was 'lies'... >Since I first heard the song, I've always thought (rather horribly) >that it was 'lice'! Has anyone else mishead the lyric in a >similarly embarrassing way? > >Charlotte > >PS I can't stand 'Wafflehead'. Or 'Superman', for that matter. ;-) > >_________________________________________________________________ >Want to block unwanted pop-ups? Download the free MSN Toolbar now! >http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:27:35 EDT From: BLATZMAN@aol.com Subject: Waffling In a message dated 10/12/2004 3:48:58 AM US Mountain Standard Time, owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org writes: > Strangely enough, the same thing happened to me with Wafflehead. Dudes! I am totally going home tonight and putting on that song!!!! Ah come on Nuppy, let's open up the box of Waffle mix... it's fun!!!! The reason why it doesn't belong on Respect is that it doesn't fit the mood. It's a horrible closer to a thoughtful CD. (somewhere someone is screaming "please Dave... stop yourself!!!! Don't bring this up HERE!!!!") BUT I CAN'T HELP MYSELF!!!!! So Jeme says that Robyn admits Alright Yeah is "blandly unobjectionable"??? Dude, explain to me why he bothered re-recording it TWICE then for a CD that was put out 4 years later (don't hold me to the timing!!!!), and going so far as to release it as a SINGLE???? IF he didn't like the song, why would he re-record it and present it a second and third time? That's one more time than Modern English did with Melt With You! or the Psych Furs with Pretty In Pink. His actions would suggest that he couldn't get enough of Alright Yeah, if you ask me!!!! Perhaps we'll never know what really went through his head, but I suspect he ultimately regretted putting it out as a Bside where it would hardly be heard. I don't put a lot of stake in what artists think about their own material. Sorry Robyn. You have a written a work of staggering genius and you are just plain wrong in your assessment of it. Hey Jeme, just curious... Do you really think the Live In Years is total trash? Really really? Did you like Respect, or does that song just do nothing for you???? Also, on a very rare serious note, do you think Robyn said Blandly Unobjectionable to the Moss version or the Respect version? They are so very different, and I would actually agree with that statement about the Moss version. I'd do him one better and say I think the Moss version is just doo-doo. Blatzy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:56:06 -0800 From: "Rex Broome" Subject: Re: Waffling, Sticking Blatzy: > Also, on a very rare serious note, do you think Robyn said Blandly > Unobjectionable to the Moss version or the Respect version? They are so very > different, and I would actually agree with that statement about the Moss > version. > > I'd do him one better and say I think the Moss version is just doo-doo. Are they really that different, and if so can you quantify the differences in any specific way? I've heard the Moss version (and the Swedish one) far more often, and I don't have easy access to Greatest Hits to listen to the older one... does it lack the slide guitar? Because I like the slide guitar... and I don't remember any other major differences. Just the vibe? I need to step away from the waffles/sex association because my parents got my daughter hooked on something called "waffle sticks", and she keeps asking for them, so I'm afraid I'll have to actually hunt down and purchase these things for her. Seriously. Waffle. Sticks. - -Rex - -- _______________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:06:00 -0500 From: Bret Subject: Re: Waffling, Sticking My wife is addicted to waffle sticks. Perhaps I should heat some up tonight and throw on a few different versions of wafflehead. - -b On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:56:06 -0800, Rex Broome wrote: > Blatzy: > > Also, on a very rare serious note, do you think Robyn said Blandly > > Unobjectionable to the Moss version or the Respect version? They are so very > > different, and I would actually agree with that statement about the Moss > > version. > > > > I'd do him one better and say I think the Moss version is just doo-doo. > > Are they really that different, and if so can you quantify the differences in any specific way? I've heard the Moss version (and the Swedish one) far more often, and I don't have easy access to Greatest Hits to listen to the older one... does it lack the slide guitar? Because I like the slide guitar... and I don't remember any other major differences. Just the vibe? > > I need to step away from the waffles/sex association because my parents got my daughter hooked on something called "waffle sticks", and she keeps asking for them, so I'm afraid I'll have to actually hunt down and purchase these things for her. Seriously. Waffle. Sticks. > > -Rex > -- > _______________________________________________ > Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages > http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 > - -- - --Bret Bolton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:14:15 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Waffling, Sticking On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:56:06 -0800, Rex Broome wrote: > I need to step away from the waffles/sex association because my parents got my daughter hooked on something called "waffle sticks", and she keeps asking for them, so I'm afraid I'll have to actually hunt down and purchase these things for her. Seriously. Waffle. Sticks. Yeesh. Couldn't you just take yr generic toaster waffles, cut 'em into slices, and serve 'em up? Oh wait - I have nieces and nephews, I already know the answer to that. Never mind. - -- ++Jeff++ The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:17:18 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Bowie Reality Eb flows, > I heard David Bowie's album Reality for the first time today. It's no > masterpiece, but it's surprisingly good. Probably my favorite DB album > since Tin Machine#1...*possibly* my favorite DB album since Scary > Monsters! Quail, I believe you're a big supporter of this one? Yeah, definitely. Although I think that "Heathen" has a few better *songs,* as a cohesive album, "Reality" is better overall. Though I think that the last "great" Bowie album was "1. Outside." Was it as good as "Scary Monsters?" Well, no -- but then again, "Scary Monsters" ranks up there in my Top Five Albums of All Time, so it's not really a fair comparison...! Also, it was on the "Reality" tour that I saw Bowie at the Chance, a 500-person club in Poughkeepsie for Bowie.net subscribers. Seeing Bowie as close as I normally see, say, Robyn was a highlight of my concert-going life....! Ooh, watch me gush like a schoolgirl.... - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:39:14 -0400 From: "Brian" Subject: Re: Waffling, Sticking "Bret" said: > My wife is addicted to waffle sticks. Perhaps I should heat some up > tonight and throw on a few different versions of wafflehead. Bret, are you holding out? Do you really have different versions of Wafflehead? There is supposed to be a few out there, one being an inspector Kluso (sp) version with a fake french accent. Do share! - -Nuppy - -- Brian nightshadecat@mailbolt.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 09:37:20 -0700 From: Eb Subject: RE: Waffling Seems like you deftly negated your first argument with your second one. Eb, squarely in the "blandly unobjectionable" camp - -----Original Message----- Blatzman: So Jeme says that Robyn admits Alright Yeah is "blandly unobjectionable"??? Dude, explain to me why he bothered re-recording it TWICE then for a CD that was put out 4 years later (don't hold me to the timing!!!!), and going so far as to release it as a SINGLE???? IF he didn't like the song, why would he re-record it and present it a second and third time? That's one more time than Modern English did with Melt With You! or the Psych Furs with Pretty In Pink. His actions would suggest that he couldn't get enough of Alright Yeah, if you ask me!!!! I don't put a lot of stake in what artists think about their own material. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:59:37 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Jennifers Oh Jenny; more free shit for fegs I did indeed receive my copy of the Jennifers' "Book of Bad Advice" EP from Mr. John Irvine, and can also indeed say (A) it's quite good, and (B) where was this when I was soliciting tracks for Tinfoil Thoths?* In addition to the previously mentioned Bunnymen, there's a strong Feelies vibe here... bit of Superchunk, perhaps? Driving, melodic, occasionally jangly but generally more "garage-y" than that term indicates. Should definitely be of interest to some around here, and the guy was nice enough to send 'em out for free! Noting the 1996 release date, I guess I might as well throw out that, since I have a whole bunch of them lying around, if anyone's interested in something only slightly older, and not quite as good in my estimation... free copies of There Goes Bill's 1994 masturpiece "The Weather Inside" to any interested parties. Advantages: - -Hear Rex play guitar! - -Hear Blatzman sing! - -Note how Blatz sings like Ian McNabb and Rex plays guitar like Ian McNabb, and then wonder why it takes five guys to sound like the Icicle Works when there were only three guys in the Icicle Works! - -Opportunity to listen to the beginning of every track and decide you don't like it, and then then tell Blatzman you didn't need to listen to the whole thing before you decided you didn't like it! - -Some songs actually kind of good! - -Free! - -Tiny, blurry photo of Rex with absurdly long hair! - -Ummm... shrinkwrapped, just like a real record! Disadvantages: - -Rex's guitar playing barely audible! - -Indicates little to nothing about Rex's or Blatzman's current musical direction! - -Dated! Not just eight measly years, but a whole decade old! - -Some really bad songs! - -Even most of the good ones sound pretty bad! - -Packaging very, very ugly! Do the math and figure out if you want to risk it. You know where to find me. - -Rex *not to be taken as an indication that I plan on soliciting for Tinfoil Thoths Vol. 2 any time soon... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:34:03 -0400 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Best birthday death? I just found out that Adolf Eichmann was hanged on my birthday, exactly ten years before. June 1, 1962. Incidentally, Marilyn Monroe shares the same birthday as me, as well as Dante Alighieri, or so I've read, since his it seems has never been confirmed. Oh, and in 1494, Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of scotch whisky. I guess I should have Bruichladdich on my birthday now. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:48:38 -0500 From: Bret Subject: Re: Best birthday death? I have always found the following death note from my birthday quite amusing (in a way that death can be amusing). August 24, 79 Mt Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum, 15,000 die. On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:34:03 -0400, Ken Weingold wrote: > I just found out that Adolf Eichmann was hanged on my birthday, > exactly ten years before. June 1, 1962. Incidentally, Marilyn Monroe > shares the same birthday as me, as well as Dante Alighieri, or so I've > read, since his it seems has never been confirmed. > > Oh, and in 1494, Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of > scotch whisky. I guess I should have Bruichladdich on my birthday > now. > > > -Ken > - -- - --Bret Bolton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:51:22 -0500 From: Bret Subject: Re: Waffling, Sticking Now that you mention it, I will have to check for different versions. It certainly *seems* as if I have a few, but that may just be that I have a few of so many Robyn songs. I could also point to the song and say 'it is so terrible, that is why it seems like there are several versions' still better than 'Superman" though. On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:39:14 -0400, Brian wrote: > "Bret" said: > > My wife is addicted to waffle sticks. Perhaps I should heat some up > > tonight and throw on a few different versions of wafflehead. > > Bret, are you holding out? Do you really have different versions of > Wafflehead? There is supposed to be a few out there, one being an > inspector Kluso (sp) version with a fake french accent. Do share! > > -Nuppy > -- > Brian > nightshadecat@mailbolt.com > - -- - --Bret Bolton ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:30:31 -0700 From: Vendren Subject: Re: Alright, Yeah BabY!!!!! > > Dated: > > Respect > > PI > > Queen Elvis > > Groovy Decay > > Fegmania > > GLTHO! > I pretty much agree with that list, especially PI and Queen Elvis. The problem with heavely produced albums is they tend to date. You can hear those two albums and pinpoint the year they were made, within a year. I wish the A&M discs had been a bit more lo-fi -tone with a less polished sound that might have brought out more of the Byrds sound implied by the guitar work. As it is, they sound much like every other jangle album from that era, with only Robyn's voice to make them distinct. > > Not so dated: > > IODOT > > Underwater Moonlight > > Moss Elixer > > Element of Light > > Eye > > Jewels for Sophia IODOT and Eye date a bit, I think. But only because they've never had a proper digital remastering to bring out some of the dynamics of the sound. I really notice it when I play them next to acoustic-guitar driven albums more recently recorded. Certainly the arrangements don't give the years of recording away. > Jewels For Sophia was dated the day it came out. It screams "Late ninties > catch-up album". I think it suffers horribly for the production. Hmm. I think I disagree here. Most 90s discs push the acoustic guitar high through the treble, and boost the lowest of the bass, turning down the middle, for a rather artificial sound. The acoustic guitar throughout Sophia is very mid-rangey and loud, which sounds more 70s to me. Also, the drums are rather low in the mix in the rockers, again more of a 70s sound, where 90s rock songs usually really push the drums over the guitars, especially the snare. I love the production on Sophia. Simple and clean and very natural sounding. The instruments sound real - nothing is artificially prettied up. Turned up loud, I find the album has huge presence - the sound of a band being in the room with you. Sophia also tends to having all its instruments mixed loud, to equal levels, which is a sound that I love. Late 90s discs tend to have forefront instruments mixed louder over quieter background instruments, for a more layered sound. Palle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:21:36 -0400 From: "Brian" Subject: Re: Waffling, Sticking "Bret" said: > Now that you mention it, I will have to check for different versions. > It certainly *seems* as if I have a few, but that may just be that I > have a few of so many Robyn songs. Ok great, look around for that. I'll wait... [foot tapping] ;) Hmm Superman- Annoyed me when I 1st heard it, but it's so crazy I like it...especially when it comes together in the chorus. Still I'm confused as to why one of my favorite songs "Surfer Ghost" failed to get a proper release. I don't see what dates Moss Elixer. I'll have to listen to it again. There are no keyboards on it, no synths...seems all pretty straight forward. - -Nuppy - -- Brian nightshadecat@mailbolt.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:32:41 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Best birthday death? Bret wrote: >I have always found the following death note from my birthday quite >amusing (in a way that death can be amusing). >August 24, 79 >Mt Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum, 15,000 die. That has to be the largest non-war death day ever I would think. Michael B. PS I have Barb Cowsill, Jackie Wilson, bluesman Champion Jack Dupree and Colonel Tom Parker to manage them in heaven on my January 21st b-day. NP Neu! Neu! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:52:37 -0500 From: Subject: RE: Best birthday death? [demime could not interpret encoding binary - treating as plain text] On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:32 , Bachman, Michael Michael.Bachman@fanucrobotics.com> sent: >>August 24, 79 >>Mt Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum, 15,000 die. I think the death toll from that eruption was closer to about 3500. > That has to be the largest non-war death day ever I would think. The four most costly natural disasters in terms of lives lost have all been in China and they have all been the result of earthquakes. The single largest was 1556 - Shansi, China 830,000 dead, I believe. And as far as volcanoes go, Vesuvius was but a pittance compared to Tambora, Pelee, Krakatoa and Nevado del Ruiz. And didn't four or five times more people people die when Vesuvius erupted in 1631 than did in 79? gSs - ---- Msg sent via WebMail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:47:44 -0700 From: Eb Subject: RE: Best birthday death? Jack the Ripper killed TWO ho's on my birthday. Beat that. Also died on my birthday: James Dean. Eb - -----Original Message----- Subject: Best birthday death? I just found out that Adolf Eichmann was hanged on my birthday, exactly ten years before. June 1, 1962. Incidentally, Marilyn Monroe shares the same birthday as me, as well as Dante Alighieri, or so I've read, since his it seems has never been confirmed. Oh, and in 1494, Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of scotch whisky. I guess I should have Bruichladdich on my birthday now. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:44:01 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Badly Drawn Boy on KCRW I snarfed the webcast from this morning's Morning Becomes Eclectic with BDB. The mp3 can be downloaded here (~34MB): http://www.denisvengeance.com/music/ - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 17:16:45 -0400 From: Jon Lewis Subject: Re: Best birthday death? > Michael.Bachman@fanucrobotics.com> > > >>> August 24, 79 >>> Mt Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum, 15,000 die. > > >> That has to be the largest non-war death day ever I would think. > > I wonder what the worst single day of the 1918 flu pandemic did, though? Jon Lewis ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:21:04 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: Latest Chills news... Hi all - I've had a couple of requests for the text of that Chills article (there is some trick to getting the print larger via the neus at the left of the page, but it doesn't seem to work on all browsers). Hopefully no-one minds too much if I send the whole thing to the list (hell, we had a Paul Westerburg interview here recently, so why not send this here too?). Anyway, without further ado but with some copyright violation, here is the article from Saturday (9/10/04)'s Otago Daily Times: Facing the oncoming day HE SMILED occasionally, spoke quickly, barely stopped for breath. He used words like confident, exciting, amazing. He wanted no doubt he was strong enough to face the oncoming day. Martin Phillipps, sitting stone-still on the edge of his black-covered chair, knew he had about a decade's worth of talking to do, but said he will soon be sick of dredging up a past of addiction, of illness, of depression. "It feels inevitable - it is inevitable - that what happened before is going to come up. I suppose I almost expect it, even though I want to talk about all the exciting things in the future. But at the moment, right now, I accept I've got a lot of explaining to do. A lot of people have a lot of questions." Phillipps (41) was in the front room of his Duke St flat, a warm space of polished floors and shelf-lined walls that looked through a bay window to Dunedin's botanic gardens. Cacti and rocks lined the window; books, compact disks, and DVDs lined his shelves; and a clothes drying rack held limp T-shirts in front of an unused open fire. And the air was filled with new sounds that sound, well, familiar. The Chill's new eight-track EP Stand By - another recording with the "affected eccentricity" of the initials SB - clicked quietly to a close as Phillipps slid closer to the edge of his seat, ready for the inevitable question. "Yeah, I know from the outside looking in that nine years seems like a long time between new material, but there are many reasons why, including that for me the gap hasn't seemed that big. I guess for me I was always coming up with music anyway, so I was always producing, and was probably aware of a lot of other stuff that was getting in the way of getting things out there." Those other "things" - depression, drug addiction, hepatitis C - have been well documented because, for a long time, they were the only things Phillipps could share with the outside world. The depression came in a wave when his four-track recorder died when he was on a songwriting sabbatical at Lake Hawea in the mid-1990s. The Chills had peaked and disbanded, battle after battle had lost him friends, and he had nowhere to go but into himself. He sought medical advice, but Prozac and Aropax did not work as well as the opiates that eventually consumed him. He lost his girlfriend; he wrapped his 1964 Rover coupe around a lamppost and, well before the hepatitis C he felt could have killed him, he was stuck in a world vastly different to the one that had made him a star. By the time he was accepted into a methadone programme in 1999, he had lost a lot of friends - he once estimated 30 or 40 had little to do with him after The Chills' demise - and felt he had lost credibility in the music industry. While he accepted he had been "inappropriate" many times during the mid-1990s, he said he still made damn sure people knew he was "still a working unit". He said he asked for management help from "quite high up in the industry", but was virtually ignored. "Looking back now, and this might sound a wee bit snipey, it's more that people respond to you as someone that they can no longer trust as someone they can throw money at or whatever, or just get behind and support. "That can be discouraging and equally depressing so you find yourself back in unwanted and stuff. It was like I was seen as kind of past it, and it didn't matter what I came up with, it wasn't being taken as seriously." Again, Phillipps said he had never stopped producing music, even if no one was ready to help him record it. He said he had enough riffs and intros on tapes and his new(ish) computer system for hundreds of songs and dozens of albums - not to mention the fruit of almost weekly practices with The Chills. He said almost the same thing in an Otago Daily Times interview in 1999, when he claimed The Chills long-awaited new album Silver Bullets was due in 2000. It never came. "It always seemed just out of reach. I mean, there was no way I would have believed 10 years ago that it would take this long to release anything because it always seemed that things were just about to fall into place . . . so I tried to keep the interest up, and say things are moving forward, that an album is imminent. "And it always was, always imminent, but not quite there." Then things changed. Phillipps, who said he was hurt by bad reviews and jokes about his non-recording, "toughened [his] hide, and accepted that people are like that, and that they will never know the situation you are in as much as you do". He threw himself into practising - remember, he was already writing - with what is the current Chills line-up of Todd Knudson, Rodney Haworth, and James Dickson, firm in the belief it was one of the best Chills ever assembled. About four years ago Phillipps started jamming with what became known as the Tuesday Band, a group that included David Kilgour, and finally let his structured, list-making mind roam free. Because even after more than 20 years in music, he had never jammed like that with anyone. "And now I'm feeling comfortable. Sometimes we'll just go for it, do what we feel like, and it's that fun that some days in practice I just absolutely go, I fly and fly. And other times it's terrible and I'd hate to hit one of those terrible things in front of an audience but I guess that's the excitement of it." Meanwhile, treatment helped clear hepatitis C from his body and, while he was still often tired, he learned to structure his time around it. His liver was damaged, but he was alive. He bought a new computer system with the proceeds of the three-CD Secret Box, released in 2000, and started to record the material he had stored away on tapes and dictaphones, to get ready to "open the floodgates" and take the band in a new direction. Taking on Dunedin manager Scott Muir, whose stated aim "is to take things off my shoulder so I can concentrate on being creative", gave Phillipps the confidence and the time to "keep a semblance of a career going, to give me the time and the energy to get that space, to work in a nice logical way". "Now, I'm lot more self-assured in terms of what I want things to be, I think. I'm starting to believe that I actually am an OK musician, which I never have been really. I've always just been adequate enough to realise the song or the atmosphere I'm trying to create but I've never been what I would call a musician. "A musician can actually play music beautifully and spontaneously, and I'm starting to get there, so that's exciting for now and for the future. The future always looks better." Recorded in two sessions in 2002 and early this year, the EP released this week on the Martin Phillipps Music label (distributed by In Music) was not the future, but a snapshot of the recent past that will help Phillipps, a songwriter who is four or five albums behind, "clear the decks and make up lost ground". Sales of Secret Box proved there is still a market for The Chills' work, and there are plans for a new, full-length album by the end of next year. Silver Bullet - yes, Silver Bullet - was likely to be finished after the band returned from a two month tour of Europe and the United States that was likely to be made on the strength of The Chills' back-catalogue in the middle of next year. It would be The Chills' 25th anniversary year, and there were plans to re-release back-catalogue work, produce DVDs, develop merchandise, and sell Phillipps' music on song sheets. Even the riffs and intros Phillipps could not use - "I think I have got more riffs than I can seriously complete in my lifetime" - might find their way on to a web site, to be given to musicians in return for a cut of the royalties. There might even be an album of Christmas songs. "There is so much that I want to do, and that we can do. I'd say I've found the direction. It's in my head. I know what I'm trying to achieve, and it's definitely not being done by anyone else. "Luckily, by hanging in there, it has got to the point where there is a new audience: the children of the people who bought the music before. "Now we are more like the godfathers of the Dunedin scene, the elder, more respected statesmen of rock, and people are much more interested in what we are doing now. "So in some ways I think it has been quite healthy to have had this break, and get people wanting more rather than throwing out stuff all the way and have it disappear into this kind of cynical hole somewhere." - -- 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 V13 #288 ********************************