From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V15 #9 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, January 10 2006 Volume 15 : Number 009 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Somewhere deep inside the veins [Daniel Gackle ] Re: Fripp at Microsoft [The Great Quail ] Re: Fripp at Microsoft ["Matt Sewell" ] RE: Fripp at Microsoft [Dr John Halewood ] Smylonylon V1 (Attn: Nuppy) [Spotted Eagle Ray ] RE: Smylonylon V1/Duran Duran ["Brian Nupp" ] SMYLONYLON Volume 2 [Spotted Eagle Ray ] Weird. [Spotted Eagle Ray ] reap?? [Eb ] America is waiting... [2and2makes5@comcast.net] Reap arrest [Eb ] a reap with actual Robyn content?! [Eb ] Re: SMYLONYLON Volume 2 [Eb ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 01:30:09 -0800 From: Daniel Gackle Subject: Somewhere deep inside the veins I'll delurk just a little to say that a Robyensque foray into royal innards may be found at http://media.putfile.com/queenie83 . That being said, it's not a particularly Robynesque foray. I mean, the way it's done is really not in the RH style. What's Robynesque is simply doing it at all. This is a wider stylistic space than one might suppose. Daniel ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:28:04 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Fripp at Microsoft > Did you mean to say Eno, instead of Bowie? No -- does Brian Eno have anything to do with MS? I was referring to Bowie, my favorite musical whore, who let Microsoft use "Heroes" in their commercials. - --Q ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:42:08 +0000 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: Re: Fripp at Microsoft I believe the original Windows startup music (3.1 or 95 - can't remember which) was composed by him. Anyone seen his cameo in Father Ted? As, er... Father Brian Eno! Cheers Matt >From: The Great Quail does Brian Eno have anything to do with MS? > >--Q ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:57:44 -0000 From: Dr John Halewood Subject: RE: Fripp at Microsoft Matt Sewell muttered regarding Mr Eno > I believe the original Windows startup music (3.1 or 95 - > can't remember which) was composed by him. Windows 95. About 3 seconds worth (maybe a bit more with reverb) cheeers john ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 10:21:55 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: Smylonylon V1 (Attn: Nuppy) I submit the following, as Brian Nupp may find it interesting, and I copy fegs in general because the list seems to be suffering a shortage of, like, words, and this contains some. Brian, my memory of Enoch Light as one of the most interesting (and bizarre!) artists anthologized here was correct, as you will see. Hope this gives you some stuff to track down, and that you find some of it! I didn't cross-reference any of this with the AMG so maybe some of it is available on CD, even. SMYLONYLON: Un-Easy Listening Music Vol. 1 SIDE ONE: Piu Forte Ragazze!, "Samba". Bouncy, horn driven thing. Not too exciting. Bimbo Jet, "Buffalo's Band": Wah-wah guitar, one-finger organ melody, some insane howling thing that might be a treated horn or a Moog on the refrains. Anonymous Venetian, "Main Theme". Nice lush piece with harpsichord, pizzicatto strings, percolating percussion... sounds exactly like a '60's film theme. Enoch Light, "Scarborough Fair". Now THIS is the shit. Starts with a funky bass groove, and then this really fuzzed out death-knell guitar clangs a few times, Sonic Youth-style (no kidding), followed by a freaky organ drone, and then a profoundly messed-up Moog plays the melody, out of time with the groove. The drone modulates a whole step and a different screwy moog plays the melody in a more swinging style. Then it modulates *again* and an astonishingly cheesy male/female choral group sings a verse with horn accompaniment. That's when the flutes kick in. The crazed warbly Moog and fuzztone guitar take a few more leads. Wow. Ward Swindle, "Windmills of Our Mind". Mostly a capella and pretty astonishing... the voices hold down the chords with rapid-fire doo-doo-doo-doo-doo's. There's a little piano but the only other instrument of note is a fast-moving bassline that practically functions as another harmony voice in places. The overall effect is as frantic as this kind of percussion-free thing can be. Heino, "Bergvagabunden". Pretty much a polka-sounding thing, although I'm sure any given ethnomusicologist would kick my ass for saying that. The word "eidelweiss" surfaces at one point, as do handclaps just like the ones in John Fogerty's "Centerfield". Klaus Wunderlich, "Lotto Zahlen". Bouncy showpiece for really fast runs on every Moog sound this guy could dial up. Fun. Lots of weird squelching and farting noises thrown in for punctuation. Silvetti, "Steps In The Snow". Mellow thing with vocal doot-da-doo hook... melody sort of reminiscent of "Can't Smile Without You". Esquivel, "Sun Valley Ski Run". Most people know what to expect from Esquivel by now, and this is typical, a lot less crazed than some of the similar pieces here. Martin Denny, "Flamenco". The second relatively recognizeable "name artist" in a row. Percussion heavy, vibes, simulated birdcalls, piano that sounds occasionally Copland-esque to my ears. As with a lot of these recordings the weird stuff that kicks it off eventually gives way to some more "normal" chord sequences and conventional lite-jazz playing. Fabio Paramo, "Playa Corola". Latin percussion, moderately sick Moog-organ interplay on the melodies. Okay. Switched On Bacharach, "Do You Know The Way To Santa Fe". What you'd expect: various Moog sounds take the melody line on a fairly standard version of the Bacharach tune. The Moog Cookbook *really* nailed this style in the '90's: what seemed over the top on some of their covers was actually a very accurate recreation of what these records sounded like! Enoch Light, "Marrakesh Express". Pretty great: the melody on the verses are played on a coral sitar... sounds great... and the cheesy co-ed vocal group comes in again about halfway through, sounding really funny wrapping their smooth-'50's-harmony pipes around Crosby's high part on the "ahhh ah ah ahhh"'s. 10th Victim, "Main Theme". Demented clown music-- over the top organ in waltz time and an overwrought female scat vocal. I don't know if this is meant to sound as scary as it does. Ernst Mosch, "Dompfaff". More two-step oompah stuff, with horns. Not that interesting except for the three-part whistling harmony in the middle. Esquivel, "Bye Bye Blues". Latin waltz-time thing. Pretty standard until the violent intrusion of some slide-guitar and horn stabs with the voices going "Pow! Pow! Pow!" kinda like "Comic Strip" by Serge Gainsbourg. Switched On Bacharach, "Wives And Lovers". See above, except that I don't know the original version of this tune, so it sounds less wacky to me. Emanuelle, "Eternal Anguish". How can you go wrong? I hope the artist was actually-- or at least depicted on the cover art as-- a softcore porn actress, but anyway. Starts with a percolating sequenced (if that was possible at the time) synth bass riff reminiscent maybe of that Berlin song (was it called "Sex"?) or Soft Cell, and some dissonant horns... drums get funkier as it goes along. Good, good stuff. Enoch Light, "Past And I Call You". Starts off sounding like a knockoff of "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix. Some okay fuzztone guitar, and then Mr. Light uncorks his signature ill-sounding Moogs and dillweed vocal choir, this time even requiring them to tackle a few blue notes and "lordy lordy"'s. Is this a cover? The title is either misspelled or clever. Superbad. Lady Nelson And The Lords, "Call Me". More jaunty Moog melodies, but you gotta be curious, once again, about the artist's name and what the cover art looked like. Chuck Davis Orchestra. "Spirit Of The Sun". This is actual proto-disco. Not funky enough to be funk, but the nice scratchy guitar and shrill string runs are definitely halfway to discontent. SIDE TWO: Mason Williams, "Baroque A Nova": A Stereolab prototype for sure. Doesn't sound much like "Classical Gas", which is the only other thing I know about Mason Williams. The chord sequence and "ba-ba-ba's" would sound totally at home on "Dots And Loops". Bent Fabric, "The Dipsy Doodle": Spritely piano with some cheesy quoted melodies. Not nearly as cool as the artist name and song title would lead one to hope! Flutes and Percussion, "Mountain Greenery". Percussion (latin), yes, but the "flutes" are less prominent than chimes and vibes. Not greatly engaging. Martin Denny, "Bacao". Some weird dissonant piano chords accompanied by sax enliven this one. Harmonicats, "Mambo Jambo". Two step with some blazing fast harmonica that's kind of interesting. The existence of this type of music is a little puzzling. The instrumentation and bright melodies are inviting and the playing is good in a conventional sense, so there's nothing offensive going on except that it's so overcaffeinated and frantic-sounding that it really puts the listener on edge anyway. Weird. Latin Love Machine, "Hare Crishna" (sic). Again with the name that cannot possibly be lived up to by the music. Which seems to be the case at first: starts as an instrumental with skittering jazz drums and Moog melodies. And then it goes NUTS: booming drums, dissonant guitars and Moog lines that would be harsh as sounds in themselves, much less played to sound like UNIVAC melting down. Holy shit. And on top of all that, it can be related to the idea of Hare Krsnas in absolutely no way whatsoever. Paul Bley, "Parks". Pretty pedestrian Moog noodling over two repeating chords. Lackluster in this context... the guy only uses one sound, and doesn't even sound like like a nauseated walrus or anything. Claudine, "My Guy". The cover art must've been good. This is a pretty standard cover distinguished mainly by how bad the chick's voice is. I guess that's something. Vision of Eight, "Olympic Village". Pretty standard '60's travelogue music, orchestral with organ solo. Jerry Allen, "Fly Me To The Moon". Samba beat pushes this to the point where the melody is almost too fast to be recognizable. Nice fake flute organ sound comes in halfway through, but basically meh. Crown Heights Affair, "Dreaming A Dream". More early instrumental disco, with solo synth melody and horns. Kinda cool. Oh wait, there are some dit-dit-dit vocals at the end. What was the intended, erm, end-use for this kind of thing, I wonder? It's too frantic for either muzak porn, and too annoying to dance to... Dexter Wansel, "Life On Mars". Not a Bowie cover... more disco. Crazy active bassline. Less annoying than the previous track, but not incredible interesting, either. Latin Love Machine, "Peanut Vendor". Another great title from this artist, and sho' nuff they bring the musical fucked-up-ness again. Wacky synth intro gets passed through a bunch of filters and phasers until it can't go any further, which is the cue for the bizarre suicide-carnival music to kick in and start with the multiple Moog voices and arbitrary modulations and ever-increasingly-busy percusion. And again, before it's over, they deploy some calculated wrong notes...the melody line doubletracked in 4ths to itself on another queasy synth, I think. Scary, maybe brilliant. Brain Tickets, "Black Sand". Oh Christ! I think these guys actually believe they are sort of "hard rock". Low bass line, tom-heavy drums, "bluesy" fuzztone guitar and faux-badass organ stabs, with an occasional distorted/vibrato vocal intoning (I think) the song title. It's like a fruity "Smoke On The Water", kind of. Sadistic Mico Band, "Suki Suki Suki". I dunno what a "mico" is or what would make it sadistic, but this seems like it might be an actual Japanese band, and perhaps oddly, this track is genuinely funky. The vocals are, I suppose, a little kitschy, but basically it actually works. The bassline is fierce and the drums kick up a storm. Incredible Bongo Band, "Let There Be Drums". And let there be neanderthal Duane Eddie-style guitar along with them! Pretty damned cool. Very much like what Jon Spencer would come up when he invented the blues in the late '80's. Sandy Nelson, "Drums A Go Go". Similar vibe to the above with more of a Spaghetti Western feel to the guitar. Nice. Titanic, "Santa Fee" (sic). Propulsive drums and choral vocals with spoken word interjections from somebody British who sounds, surprisingly like Tricky, and some faux-soul wailing. That's it for Volume 1... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 10:37:58 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Fripp at Microsoft On Jan 9, 2006, at 7:42 AM, Matt Sewell wrote: > Anyone seen his [Eno's] cameo in Father Ted? As, er... Father Brian > Eno! Yes - great show & superior episode! feck! - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:22:05 -0500 From: "Brian Nupp" Subject: RE: Smylonylon V1/Duran Duran Rex: >I submit the following, as Brian Nupp may find it interesting, and I >copy >fegs in general because the list seems to be suffering a shortage of, >like, >words, and this contains some. > >Brian, my memory of Enoch Light as one of the most interesting (and >bizarre!) artists anthologized here was correct, as you will see. Rex, thanks for that very indepth review! geez, that must've been time consuming! I actually found an Enoch Light Orchestra record over the weekend. I can't remember the title, but it has a spanish theme and the credits boast about it being recorded on 35mm film(!). Tony Mottola plays on this one too. Tony's a great guitarist, but this album is just too over produced. Too many strings and horns. Hmm, it's probably not, but my mood is more keen to striped down stuff lately. Tony Motolla's album from 1959, "Mr Big," which is also produced by Enoch, sounds better to me. Raw. Hey! I also found the 1st Duran Duran record for $1 during the same shipping spree. This is very very good! I have Rio, but I think I'll like this one better. - -Nuppy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 13:39:40 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: SMYLONYLON Volume 2 SMYLONYLON Volume 2 "for those who dare... the exclusive sound extra" "smylonylon aims to prove that people interested in increasing their intellectuial and instinctive knowledge towards music and sound respond readily when confronted with new dimensions... smylonylon" SIDE ONE: John Barbarian & The Rock East Ensemble, "The Oud And The Fuzz". Oud as in the Arabic lute-like instrument, fuzz as in fuzztone guitar, taking turns soloing over a minor-key groove. Very nice. Bill Plummer & The Cosmic Brotherhood, "Journey To The East". If anything, even cheesier than you would imagine. Sitar groove, spoken word vocal about finding "the home of light"... incredibly hippy-dippy. Dreadful and entertaining; the instrumental playout is fairly intense. Oh wait, the guy actually tries to sing one chorus... that pretty much sinks it. Enoch Light, "Puppet Man". Faux funk with incredibly grating Moog sounds taking the melody... Light really knew how to torture those machines. Again the Shockingly Whitebread Vocal group tries to get soulful. I guess it was normal at the time but it seems odd to hear a group of both men and women sing "baby baby I'm all you need, satisfaction guaranteed" in harmony. "If you wanna see me do my thing, pull my string"... eeek! Moog Groove, "Living In The Grass". Some pretty freaky lead sounds... the arrangement would otherwise have made a fine game show theme song. Electric Evolutions, "Where's Prince Brilliant". Obvious answer to the title is "Minneapolis", I guess. Similar to the previous track, Moog-led fake funk instrumental, but I like the melody line better on this one. Unless I'm wrong, this must employ one of the earlies multiple voice synthesizers... I hear big fat chords in places. Lady Nelson & The Lords, "Up Up Away". As in "my beautiful balloon". The melody is mostly synth with a a dash of electric 12-string. Cute. Enoch Light, "Mas Que Nada". The Sergio Mendes version would fit on this compilation just fine, but this version goes so jazz-funk with its interpretation that I wouldn't even have recognized it. The vocalists don't sound as incongruous as usual, making this a little less of a mind-fuck than the other Enoch Light stuff thus far. Walter Wanderly Trio, "The Arrival". Noteworth for pre-rave use of an athletic whistle as a rhythmic device. Otherwise pretty standard unremarkable phony latin-jazz groove. The Zodiac Cosmic Sound, "Aquarius". Some spooky water-drop like synth noises at the start of this thing, which then shapes up into a surprisingly sophisticated, atmospheric thing with odd time signatures that would fit on an Air album comfortably. And then you get the voice that intones stuff like "Four, four hundred or four thousand dreams may decay into indigo dust that covers Aquarius, and still the voice will say: Love". Jeez, I dunno if that ruins it or makes it. The line about the "friendly opal light of Uranus" only furthers my confusion. Switched-On Bacharach, "This Guy Is In Love WIth You". More of the same. Bacharach's music fits this style pretty well, but do you think it was chosen because it "Switched-On Bacharach" was so alphabetically close to "Switched-On Bach"? Jerry Allen, "Wow". Latin beat meets 12-bar blues on what sounds more like an electric organ with mild wah-wah than a synth, which is way too high in the mix and buries what little groove there is by the end. Mistitled, even if it's meant as a reference to the wah sound. Sam Clayton Band, "Sweet Summer Love". Sounds at first like a limp cover of "Whiter Shade of Pale" and never really recovers until the fadeout which features some odd ambient guitar feedback and hardcore squelchy splats-- these are so unrelated to the main composition that I wonder if they might not be a fragment of an "unlisted track". Moog Groove, "Penny Lane". In the mold of the Bacharach covers, this arrangement features a few odd choices-- for one thing, there seem to be no drums at all on the verses, but then the chorus switches the entire feel for a funk groove with drums and rubbery bass runs. Innaresting! The Copperplated Integrated Circuit, "Relay Circuit". Another moog instrumental... wonder what the hell this record was all about with that title, though? Were all the tracks named after theoretical circuits, and if so, to what end? Lady Nelson & The Lords, "Sunny". This sounds like the music that would be playing at the "groovy party" on the teen-centric or beach-party episode of any given sitcom. Klaus Wunderlich, "Krimoogulus". Again with what sounds like sequencing... this sounds like chase music in a John Carpenter film, or bad Vangelis, until kicking over to a lazy workaday grove halfway through. SIDE TWO: Songs Of The Second Moon, "Orbit Aurora". Dune-Rock? The spiritual forefathers of The Orb? A lot of backwards tracking on this, and tape manipulation that is slightly Eno-esque, but not really. A crescendo of laserbeam/robo-seagull noises at the midpoint is the highlight. Brigitte Bardot, "Contact". This one is brilliant and should be heard by all. It was written by Gainsbourg, has a terrific groove that's been sampled many times, nifty space noises, and vocals that make Nico sound sweet and tender in comparison. A must. Big Band Moog, "Moog On My Soul". It's almost neither Big Band nor Moog, really... more games show music with space noises tossed in, and at one point a horn riff which sounds like a lift from "Alone Again Or". The Corporation, "ya ta TA-ya to TA" (sic). In the same idiom but featuring some wild distorto guitar and more balls (you know, for what it is). Budapest Dance Festival '68, "Sose faijon a fejed". Female vocal (in Hungarian, one assumes) over a groove that goes two-step from time to time to interesting effect. Michel Legrand, "Brul' pas tes doights". Don't burn your fingers, I think? Hyperactive organ, 12-bar blues, with ennervated male vocal in French. Comme ci, comme ca. (Unlisted track: moog instrumental version of "Venus"-- the one that Bananrama covered, not the Television song. Oh, well. Some odious lead guitar, interesting solar-wind noise throughout.) The Ventures, "Pipeline". The Ventures? WTF? I guess this is pretty mellow as surf tunes go and fits the instrumental vibe around here. It's pretty creepy, really. I was expecting some kind of alternate version with strings or something, but this sounds pretty normal. Bo Diddley, "Bo's Bounce". Bo Diddley-- double WTF??? Interestingly not sporting a "Bo Diddley" beat, this sports some occasional delay effects on the lead guitar, but definitely rocks too hard and too legitimately to really belong here. Sandy Nelson, "The Clapping Song". I guess we're just in a more "rock oriented" section of the mix at this point. This is pretty basic fake big-band rock with sax taking the lead. The T-Bones, "Sound of Beauty". Yeah, we're into rock-territory here. More 12-bar swing. I'm not into it. Raga Rock, "Hey Joe". Now this is cool. Sitar and fuzztone guitar duke it out on lead... the track itself is more like the versions of the song done by Love, The Byrds, and other garage acts before Hendrix retooled it as a ballad-like thing (which means this would sound weirder to people unfamiliar with the earlier versions). Tom Jones, "Good Boy". Hmmm. This doesn't seem like an atypical Tom Jones track. And while a typical Tom Jones arrangement fits the vibe, the lead vocal is, boy howdy, a lot stronger and more dominant than most of the material on this collection, so we're in a bit of a slump here. The Jackson 5, "Get It Together". Well, this is, frankly, really damned great, and funky, and thus, oddly, continues the streak of inappropriate choices! And this volume started out so very, very well. Rollerball, "Executive Party". Hey there! For the first time we get something that has only been hinted at up until now: porno music! Or at least a more than reasonable facsimile, wah wah guitar and that high-pitched blaxploitation synth that was in every Snoop Dogg song for a while. Esquivel, "Autumn Leaves". Back to more typical territory. The Hawaiian guitar seems to be the highlight of all the Esquivel tracks, although this one also boasts some nice stereo trickery. Edwardo Zurica, "Pajaro Amarillo". Latin organ again, with some synth. Some pretty out there playing. Max Gregor, "Fitness 1". This seems to be from an actual German workout record, complete with instructional voiceover. Funny in theory, but again, feels a little "off mission". Rubino Chor, "Frischer Wind, Weites Meer". A German kid's choir from the sound of it... evokes the music to any number of vintage, by-now-retired Disneyland attractions or Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. Unlisted Track. Something resembling the theme to "Love American Style", not especially remarkable. And that's Volume 2 for ya. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:22:55 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: Weird. So I spent all day listening to those weird late-60's organ/moog/guitar/cheese/big band/fake jazz instrumentals, and I just came across this link to a guest DJ shot that Tom Verlaine did over the weekend, so I decided to check that out. Almost everything Verlaine selected to play sounds *exactly* like the shit I was listening to all day: http://www.wfmu.org/recentarchives.php Go to SUNDAY - Gaylord Fields, 6PM - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:24:12 -0800 From: Eb Subject: reap?? http://www.slate.com/id/2133995/ Interesting article. I had no idea there was such an issue here. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 01:29:36 +0000 From: 2and2makes5@comcast.net Subject: America is waiting... http://movies.crooksandliars.com/bigscreenversion.mov Vague memories of Max Headroom... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 21:01:57 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Reap arrest http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/9130550 Rollingstone.com House of Freaks Killers Arrested Two men charged with brutal slaying of Bryan Harvey, family, three others Two men, 28, have been charged with the New Year's Day slayings of Bryan Harvey, singer/guitarist for the Eighties blues-based rock duo House of Freaks, as well as his wife and two young daughters. Ray J. Dandridge and Ricky Gray, who were arrested on Saturday in Philadelphia for the Richmond, Virginia, killings, are also charged with the January 9th murder of another area family. While Gray had until recently been a telemarketer for a Pittsburgh police association, Dandridge was released from a Richmond correctional facility in November after serving ten years for robbery. Police believe that robbery was the motive for last Friday's murders, and may have been the motive for the January 1st killings. The men may also have been involved in another nearby robbery, in the Chesterfield County suburb. Harvey, 49, and his family were discovered after Johnny Hott, formerly the drummer for the defunct band, arrived to attend a New Year's Day party and discovered the house was on fire. Firefighters called to the scene discovered the bodies in the basement. The victims had been bound and their throats cut. Harvey and Hott formed House of Freaks in 1984, with a minimalist sound and lineup that foreshadowed latter-era blues rock duos like the White Stripes and Black Keys. Beginning with 1987's Monkey on a Chain Gang, House of Freaks released five albums and scored a leftfield radio hit with 1992's "Rocking Chair" before disbanding in the mid-Nineties. Harvey also collaborated with Hott and former Dream Syndicate singer Steve Wynn in the early-Nineties band Gutterball. He performed with his most recent group, NrG Krysys, on New Year's Eve in Richmond. Gray and Dandridge were captured by local officers and a SWAT team. The suspects are scheduled to be extradited to Virginia as early as Monday. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 23:41:25 -0800 From: Eb Subject: a reap with actual Robyn content?! Sumi Jenner Rock manager for a musical revolution Jonathan Fenby Tuesday January 10, 2006 The Guardian When the singer Billy Bragg first toured Japan, he gave the music executives there quite a surprise. Not only was his manager a woman, Sumi Nishihata Jenner, but she spoke Japanese and preferred Dunkin' Donuts to breakfast in a Japanese restautant. Sumi, who has died aged 70, was born in Canada, the daughter of immigrants from Japan. During the second world war, she and her family were taken from their home in Vancouver and interned in the mountains of British Columbia. After the fighting ended, they tried farming beet in Alberta, before ending up in Montreal. From there, she travelled to Europe in the mid-1960s, telling her mother she was going for a holiday, but ending up in London in 1966, meeting an economics lecturer, Peter Jenner, at the home of Dr Sam Hutt (the country-and-western singer Hank Wangford) and marrying him that same year. Peter's father, an Anglican priest, was not best pleased when the wedding took place in a register office and the bride turned up in a snazzy black and white trouser suit. With their partner Andrew King and his wife Wendy, the Jenners took a core role in launching new bands playing fresh forms of music in the cultural revolution of the mid-1960s, including Pink Floyd and psychedelia at such establishments as the UFO Club in London's Tottenham Court Road. It could be a hand-to-mouth existence - the cash Sumi and Wendy took for the tea and coffee they served at gigs in Notting Hill Gate raised as much as the entrance money. The Floyd went on to other managers, as did Marc Bolan and T Rex. But a string of innovators followed, including Ian Dury, Roy Harper, the Broughtons, Wangford himself, Kevin Ayers and the Clash. The headquarters of their company, Blackhill Enterprises, could be chaotic, but Sumi was always a still, self-possessed centre, getting things done, witty and observant, her eyes twinkling as she reached into one of her collection of hand-embroidered bags to fish out morsels of home-made cake and other sustenance. A fine cook, she was keen on the Harrods food hall and a denizen of the London cab trade. After Blackhill Enterprises disintegrated in the early 1980s, Sumi and her husband set up Sincere Management - slogan, "The cheque's in the post." She was, Peter would say, the power behind the throne as they managed such artists as Bragg, Eddi Reader and Robyn Hitchcock. A no-nonsense administrator, she leavened her efficiency with quips and smiles. She was a great nurturer of others, though she could dismiss the few people she thought little of with an elegant stiletto. She was a treasured friend to many inside and outside the music business, and a devoted mother. Sumi had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987. She beat that, but then suffered a number of other cancers, which she handled with great bravery. While in hospital last month, she woke to find Prince William, who was doing work experience, sitting by her bed. He commiserated with her on having cancer. "Well, I've had 18 years' experience," she replied in characteristic vein. She is survived by Peter and their children, Kaya and Mushi. 7 Sumi Nishihata Jenner, rock manager, born September 25 1935; died December 15 2005 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 23:51:27 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: SMYLONYLON Volume 2 Spotted Eagle Ray wrote: > Switched-On Bacharach, "This Guy Is In Love WIth You". More of the > same. > Bacharach's music fits this style pretty well, but do you think it was > chosen because it "Switched-On Bacharach" was so alphabetically > close to > "Switched-On Bach"? I dunno...was there a "Switched-On Bachman Turner Overdrive"? Eb ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V15 #9 ******************************