From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V14 #72 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, March 20 2005 Volume 14 : Number 072 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Incidental to "24" fans [Steve Talkowski ] Re: The all-American Rapture, Ann Coulter [Jeff ] RE: The all-American Rapture, Ann Coulter ["Brian Huddell" ] RE: ohmygosh a music thread ["Marc Alberts" ] Reap [2and2makes5@comcast.net] Re: some politics, then music [Barbara Soutar ] RE: Barbara's question [Aaron Mandel ] Re: Obscurities and Jim Kerr vs. Bono [Vendren ] RE: Barbara's question ["Marc Alberts" ] Re: some politics, then music! [Vendren ] Re: Obscurities [Vendren ] ...and music music music... [James Dignan ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:45:42 -0500 From: Steve Talkowski Subject: Re: Incidental to "24" fans Eb, You're not trolling the Costello list, are ya? It seems like both lists cover the exact same topics almost simultaneously - it's scary! - -Steve On Mar 19, 2005, at 5:55 PM, Eb wrote: > I noticed a quite surprising allusion in recent weeks of "24" -- I > wondered how many others had spotted it, but then I websearched and > found some other mentions. > > Here's a paste from a webpage, which saves me the trouble of explaining > what I'm talking about.... > ----- > 24 is the kind of TV show that begs endless questions, but those > familiar with the Go-Betweens -- a semi-obscure '80s Australian pop > band -- are fixated on one in particular. Did the Fox drama name a > shady company McLennan-Forster as a wink to the group's co-frontmen, > Grant McLennan and Robert Forster? "Frankly, it has a great ring," says > 24 exec producer Evan Katz. "It seemed like a good opporunity to pay > homage to a very talented cult band." > ----- > Strange, huh? > > Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:14:47 -0600 From: Jeff Subject: Re: The all-American Rapture, Ann Coulter Let's see...Bush, Falwell, the Moral Majority, the Council for National Policy, Paul Weyrich, the Institute for Creation Research, the Moonies and the _Washington Times_, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, Oliver North, Pat Robertson, the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist, Nelson Bunker Hunt, Amway, Coors, Concerned Women for America, the American Coalition for Traditional Values... There's no such thing as a "vast right-wing conspiracy"! Oh - and LaHaye is considered credible amongst this crowd - despite batshit crazy notions about the usual laundry list: the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, and any organization to the left of the John Birch Society, in an overarching conspiracy to take over the world into a "one-world state". In other words, he's insane. I'm trying to think of a left-wing equivalent of these monster wackjob conspiracies...and I suppose the only thing that comes to mind are people who think, I dunno, Bush intentionally sponsored the 9/11 attacks as an "excuse" to attack Iraq, or that a secret cabal of wingnuts have Hitler's and Nixon's brains in cryogenic suspension, or that...I dunno. What I do know is no one on that nutbar left gets to meet with the president. Hard to believe these folks still believe in left-wing dominance of media and culture... - -- ...Jeff The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:58:18 -0600 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: The all-American Rapture, Ann Coulter > Thought I'd compress some of my controversial views into one > great lump. I'm sorry, but you simply do not have any controversial views, at least none I've heard. I doubt there are more than a handful, if any, Americans on the list who don't know all about the End Times thread running through our right wing, all the way up to the president. This was old news before he was elected, and it just adds to the list of reasons that more than half of the country didn't vote for him in 2000. Your insistence that Canadians are somehow immune to the wackier aspects of Christianity or conservatism isn't controversial either. It's just funny. OK, I guess it's also annoying. It's like you can't get interested in an idea unless it presents you with an opportunity for chauvinism. That's what people are responding to. +brian in New Orleans ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:52:45 -0800 From: "michael wells" Subject: ohmygosh a music thread I think it tells a lot about someone which of the opinions of an artist they tend to follow: how the artist perceives himself, the collective impression of that artist based on frequency of radio play / who's the most popular in school hallways, or their own take on him (which can certainly be infused by the former two). Personally I tend to like fans that are in the third bracket, where I suspect most of this list would fall. Thus the people I know all have distinct, often varying opinions on the same artist - which in turn *becomes* my collective impression of that artist. I simply don't steep in popular culture enough to know the difference, or realize there's a consensus opinion on someone until years after the fact. That being said, if I had to pick a representative Dylan song it would probably be "Tangled up in Blue," and REM's could be "Exhuming McCarthy." (as a side note, my collective impression of Dylan is almost as much based on his impact on other people and their covers of his music than it is by his music itself). Marc: > Robyn is a hard one for me to peg on this. I, too, can see him waiting in the buffet car, but I can see him in the buffet car with the sort of yearning he expresses in "Satellite," for example. On other occasions, he may be sitting there dreaming of a balloon man, or trying to exorcise the demons expressed in "She Doesn't Exist". Then there are the songs where he is singing about something external to him, which while perhaps they are defining of a period of his songwriting really don't fit this definition of defining, such as "Wax Doll". That's an excellent point; Robyn is a prime example of how an artist can convey the emotion of experiencing both internal and external stimuli (pleasant or not, or just ennui). I think one of the reasons why I like SPOOKED so much is that I sense both being dealt with. Certainly another is that "Sometimes a Blonde" is for me the quintessential Robyn song, and I've found over the years that he consistently produces a 'new' quintessential song on every album. How many artists can I say that about? That their current material always seems to describe them in a way that represents the fullest expression of what they're going through at the time? Bowie certainly, but precious few others. Michael "a nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:01:57 -0800 From: "Marc Alberts" Subject: RE: ohmygosh a music thread Michael Wells wrote: > That being said, if I had to pick a representative Dylan song it would > probably be "Tangled up in Blue," and REM's could be "Exhuming McCarthy." TUIB is my favorite Dylan song, but most representative? Hmmmm.... That's a tough one. I can see it, but I'm really not sure it would be more representative than, say, "Like a Rolling Stone" or a few other choices. The more great individual songs an artist has and the more stylistic changes they go through, the harder it is to pick just one. > That's an excellent point; Robyn is a prime example of how an artist can > convey the emotion of experiencing both internal and external stimuli > (pleasant or not, or just ennui). I think one of the reasons why I like > SPOOKED so much is that I sense both being dealt with. I would agree with you that both are being expressed. For me, anyway, the jury is still out (even after dozens of listens) on whether they are being expressed as well as they should have been. > Certainly another > is > that "Sometimes a Blonde" is for me the quintessential Robyn song, and > I've > found over the years that he consistently produces a 'new' quintessential > song on every album. I find this to be the case as well, although I often find two or three songs that really seem to be quintessential instead of just one. On I OFTEN DREAM OF TRAINS, there are half a dozen that really seem defining, and it's hard to say whether "Bones in the Ground" or "My Favorite Buildings" or "I Used to Say I Loved You" or any of the others really are "the" song of the album. Maybe this just comes from my perception from the first Robyn album I ever heard (GLOBE OF FROGS, for those who are wondering) and really liking it primarily because none of the songs really sounded at all like the others to me. > How many artists can I say that about? That their > current material always seems to describe them in a way that represents > the > fullest expression of what they're going through at the time? Bowie > certainly, but precious few others. Bowie is a good choice for me, too, as is Tom Waits, The Pixies, The Pogues, and Husker Du/Sugar/Bob Mould. I can't think of any others at the moment, though. Maybe there aren't any for me. Marc ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:01:39 +0000 From: 2and2makes5@comcast.net Subject: Reap John Z. DeLorean, 80. Did anyone reap Hans Bethe last week? Jon ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:04:39 -0500 From: Barbara Soutar Subject: Re: some politics, then music First I must comment on Marc's admission about Ann Coulter: "Perhaps, then, she is motivated by some sort of bloodlust that I wasn't aware of." I'm impressed that you are willing to publicly state that you might have been wrong in a debate. A rare quality in these days and one that takes more guts than one would think. Next, music: James Dignan dived deeply into the question I posed about "defining songs". An interesting analysis. Really I'm not sure what Bob Dylan meant by it, all I know is, he posed a logical statement that Bob Dylan is to "The Man in the Long Black Coat" as Johnny Cash is to "I Walk the Line" : Here are direct quotes from his Chronicles, about the Daniel Lanois recording sessions in New Orleans, page 215-16: "We recorded "Man in the Long Black Coat" and a peculiar change crept over the appearance of things. I had a feeling about it and so did he. The chord progression, the dominant chords and key changes give it the hypnotic effect right away - signal what the lyrics are about to do. The dread intro gives you the impression of a chronic rush. The production sounds deserted, like the intervals of the city have disappeared. It's cut out of the abyss of blackness - visions of a maddened brain, a feeling of unreality - the heavy price of gold upon someone's head. Nothing standing, even corruption is corrupt." "After we had completed the song, Danny looked over to me as if to say, This is it. It was." "In some kind of weird way, I thought of it as my "I Walk the Line," a song I'd always considered to be up there at the top, one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time, a song that makes an attack on your most vulnerable spots, sharp words from a master." The fact is, not everyone understands what he's talking about. It's his own personal internal vision. Artists tend to like their most recent work best. This gives them less ability to judge their work objectively. Meanwhile their fans have favourite tunes which ring different chords in them, including the first song they ever heard done by the artist, a song that contains a message directly relating to their life, a song that was playing while they kissed their first true love, etc. I listened to the Dylan song in question, and noticed that the way he phrased the words made into a kind of country dance tune and I could picture a couple doing turns around a dance floor to it. So that is my take on it, it combines the country gentleman persona of Dylan combined with the dark vision of the poetic Dylan. Barbara Soutar Victoria, BC ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:13:40 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: RE: Barbara's question On Fri, 18 Mar 2005, Marc Alberts wrote: > I'm really not all that familiar with her, other than I know she has a > radio show or tv show or something like that which someone has mentioned > to me. Perhaps, then, she is motivated by some sort of bloodlust that I > wasn't aware of. Some people might say that if you have never read anything written by a person, and your knowledge about them is limited to the fact that they are are somehow associated with the media, then your opinion on whether or not they are motivated by bloodlust-- or, actually, anything else about them-- is not particularly reliable. Stop me if I'm going out on a limb here. a ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:38:01 -0800 From: Vendren Subject: Re: Obscurities and Jim Kerr vs. Bono From: "Devin Lee Ens" > Their 78-83 canon contains six of the most innovative pop records > of the era, and you can find pretty much anything U2's done in their > entire > career somewhere on those discs. I must agree. > I guess Kerr's about > as much a goof as Bono, tho. Worse lyrics, better voice. I wouldn't say his lyrics are worse, at least not when talking about their pre-Once Upon a Time stuff. Kerr's lyrics on the early Simple Minds albums are very impressionistic, and willfully obtuse. They don't read well on paper, but fit the recordings in their musicality, and leave a great deal to listener interpretation. Bono's lyrics, on the other hand, are incredibly direct, in my mind almost artlessly so. And while I prefer Kerr's voice to Bono's for its warmth and resonence, Bono does have a much greater range, even if he's been prone to overuse his falsetto. Palle NP: Lambchop - Thriller ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:44:06 -0800 From: "Marc Alberts" Subject: RE: Barbara's question Aaron Mandel wrote: > Some people might say that if you have never read anything written by a > person, and your knowledge about them is limited to the fact that they are > are somehow associated with the media, then your opinion on whether or not > they are motivated by bloodlust-- or, actually, anything else about them-- > is not particularly reliable. Perhaps. However, when you do have an entertainer who is being paid based on how outrageous she can be, as it would seem, then the use of the term "bloodlust" would seem to be an extreme term that would require some sort of extraordinary proof that I haven't seen offered yet. It's easy to use histrionics to describe a political opponent, but the usefulness of such terms as accurate descriptors is something else again. > Stop me if I'm going out on a limb here. You're not, exactly. I am perfectly willing to admit that she could have a true bloodlust. I just believe that when terms such as bloodlust are used that the burden of proof falls on the user. Marc ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:47:22 -0800 From: Vendren Subject: Re: some politics, then music! > James Dignan wrote: >> Dylan to me is "Jokerman", for instance. > > I never understood why this song isn't more famous. It has the same > anthemic grandeur as "Like a Rolling Stone," and should be one of the > Dylan's best known post-'60s songs. Great, great song. "Jokerman" was the first Dylan tune I really noticed, partially because of the video, which used images from Hieronymus Bosch, caught my eye. I found the lyrics fascinating then. I still think the song has great lyrical passages, though I find it a bit wordy now. Anyway, as for the lack of that song's fame - I think if you replaced the lyrics of "Like A Rolling Stone" with something more pedestrian, or no lyrics at all, it's still a good tune, and played with a lot of enthusiasm. Take the lyrics away from "Jokerman" and you're left with a fairly pedestrian soft-rock tune. For me that is the biggest problem with most of Dylan's 70s and 80s work - without the lyrics it would not be worth listening to. Palle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:21:36 -0800 From: Vendren Subject: Re: Obscurities Some random comments: > 8. Dixie Chicken - Little Feat Never understood the fascination with this band. OK southern rock. I can hear bands just like them any Friday night in any blues bar for $5. > 10. Chicken Skin Music - Ry Cooder Love his playing on other people's records. Find his own albums very dull. > 20. The Captain and Me - The Doobie Brothers Awful record. > 28. El Rayo-X - David Lindley Worth getting for "Mercury Blues." Lots of filler. Always in print so it can't be that forgotten. > 33. Bring The Family - John Hiatt This sold lots of copies. Still in print, so not really forgotten. > 36. Seconds of Pleasure - Rockpile Great little pop album. I've never found a CD copy. > 44. Balaklava - Pearls Before Swine One of the best psychaedelic albums ever. And, yeah, pretty much forgotten these days. > 54. Dancing in The Dragon's Jaws - Bruce Cockburn Not forgotten in Canada. But I try to forget it all the same. > 63. Steven Stills - Steven Stills Only first heard it recently. Much better album than I was expecting. > 64. Once Upon a Time - Simple Minds This album was huge. Is this guy on glue? If anything, their previous six albums, each a singular fascinating statement of progressive post-punk and experimental rock are forgotten. The problem with "Once Upon A Time" is that it's what people DO remember about this band. > 65. Songs of Love & Hate - Leonard Cohen Everyone I know has this album. I can't see this as forgotten. Maybe in Texas. > 79. Pickin' Up The Pieces - Poco Musak. > 115. What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits - Doobie Brothers Awful, awful record. > 123. American Gothic - David Ackles Good album. Probably meets the definition. A less cheery-Nick Drake. > 159. Gris Gris - Dr John Wierd record. I like it. I like all his early discs, any one of which could be on this list. I have to drink while listening to this album - it would be negligent not to. > 191. Blue Jays - Justin Hayward & John Lodge Omigawd. This album is so, so very bad. > 194. Infinite Rider on The Big Dogma - Michael Nesmith Since Nesmith is the "smart" Monkee, and the one that "actually played instruments" there seems to be a feeling that anything he did must somehow be a forgotten classic. But he pretty much did generic country-pop that sounded like a million other boring artists of the early seventies. > 198. Pictures For Pleasure - Charlie Sexton Wow. When I last heard this album, about 10 years ago, it sounded like a relic from the worst part of the eighties. Bad drum machines, cheesy keyboards, horribly dated a couple of years after it came out. Palle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:40:39 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: ...and music music music... > > In the first case, there are surely many examples, even if you > > exclude one hit wonders. But often persona experience will vary > > depending on favourite songs, songs that first introduced you to an > > artist, and the like. U2 will always be "Pride (in the name of love)" > > to me, irrespective of what they've done since. Nick Drake will > > always be "Black-eyed dog". Abba is "The name of the game". And > > Michael Jackson is bad. > >Do you mean the song "Bad," or that he is just plain awful? ;-) read into it what you will ;) (if I had to name a song that to me was Jackson, it would probably be "Don't stop till you get enough" - remember when he was a black kid enjoying himself with music, rather than a globalised freak?) >You got me thinking there on REM, in part because "Lifes Rich Pageant" is my >favorite album of theirs. However, "Cuyahoga," while being a very good >song, to me is too linear in a lot of ways to be a representation of the >distilled essence of REM. My vote on that would probably go to something >like "Seven Chinese Brothers" for the opacity of the lyrics, or "I Believe" >for the sense of humor. ("Fall on Me" would also be up there for their more >serious nature--so many of their songs of that period nailed the formula so >well, it's hard to limit it to just one). Fall on me would have been my second choice. As for being "serious nature", the backing vocals blow that out of the water with their "I wouldn't keep it up there...keep it warm" weirdness. >Other artists are much easier. Lou Reed for me is always waiting for his >man, and Nico is always wearing a hand-me-down dress. Tom Waits is always >always walking Spanish down the hall, David Bowie is the man who sold the >world and Shane MacGowan is forever celebrating his winning bet on a horse >called "Bottle of Smoke". Gotcha on most of those, but with Tom Waits I often wonder "What's he building in there?" - --- >Here's a paste from a webpage, which saves me the trouble of explaining >what I'm talking about.... >- ----- >24 is the kind of TV show that begs endless questions, but those >familiar with the Go-Betweens -- a semi-obscure '80s Australian pop >band -- are fixated on one in particular. Did the Fox drama name a >shady company McLennan-Forster as a wink to the group's co-frontmen, >Grant McLennan and Robert Forster? "Frankly, it has a great ring," says >24 exec producer Evan Katz. "It seemed like a good opporunity to pay >homage to a very talented cult band." >- ----- >Strange, huh? I still wonder why "Homnicide:Life on the streets" named a murderer in one episode "Christopher Novoselich" - always struck me as a little close to a real name. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V14 #72 *******************************