From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V15 #10 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 010 Today's Subjects: ----------------- NEW on DIME: Robyn Hitchcock 1991-05-21 Kennel Club, San Francisco FM broadcast [wojizzle forizzle ] Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads [2fs ] Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads [Dolph Chaney ] Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads [Eb ] Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads [Tom Clark ] Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads [Spotted Eagle Ray ] Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads [Jeff Dwarf ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 10:56:59 -0500 From: wojizzle forizzle Subject: NEW on DIME: Robyn Hitchcock 1991-05-21 Kennel Club, San Francisco FM broadcast http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=77241&hit=1 - ----- Forwarded message from DIME ----- A new torrent has been uploaded to DIME. Torrent: 77241 Title: Robyn Hitchcock 1991-05-21 Kennel Club, San Francisco FM broadcast Size: 506.20 MB Category: Alternate Uploaded by: rh60 Description - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a reseed of a fine show first torrented some 18 months ago. The original FM recording was made by Andy Ruppenstein who was at Berkeley at the time. Sadly, I lost touch with him a number of years ago. If you're out there Andy, please get in touch! Or if anyone else knows his whereabouts, please let me know. Many thanks to Andy for making this great show available to us! Robyn Hitchcock (solo) May 21, 1991 Kennel Club San Francisco, California Lineage: FM->Cassette Master (no dolby)->DAT (32kHz)-> PC (via Lynx One digital I/O) -> SHN (560MB) -> FLAC (518MB) Resampling, normalization to 0 dB, Fade in/outs via Sound Forge cdwave used for track splits. Sound Forge info: Sound Forge Studio 6.0d (build 219) CDWave info: version 1.71, build 0000.0A28 Originally a KALX FM "Cabinet Tapes" program. When they aired this show, they apparently had found a poorly-labeled tape that didn't have a date on this, but they (thankfully!) aired it anyway. AR (who taped the cassette master) recognized the show, as he had been there. Set List Disc 1: (Running Time: 44:20) 1. Mr. Rock 'N' Roll 2. The Vomiting Cross 3. So You Think You're in Love 4. [banter....] 5. Birds in Perspex 6. [banter...] 7. Devil's Coachman 8. ["It's Not My Birthday!" banter...] 9. Glass Hotel 10. Lobsterman 11. Arms of Love 12. Watch Your Intelligence Disc 2: (Running Time: 46:37) 1. Ride 2. Raymond Chandler Evening 3. Clean Steve 4. Oceanside 5. Leopard 6. Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis)-> More Than This 7. Day in the Life [Beatles] 8. Vegetation & Dimes 9. Bones in the Ground 10. Nightfall [Incredible String Band] Note: I (TN) transferred AR's cassette to DAT sometime in the early 90s, I know I have have had it since at least 1993. AR was kind enough to mail me his master. Sadly, the master itself could have been better. My recollection is that the tape recorder was not the highest quality. There was also some guesswork as to setting the proper recording levels when the show started. The beginning was recorded too low, and then the two channels were adjusted independently once the first song was started. I've "fixed" this up as best I can (with the tools I have), but more work is needed. Don't be mislead by the high hiss level at the start of the show, quality gets better once the song starts. The original (unmodified) .wav for track one can be found in the "rh1991-05-21d1t01-orig.flacf" directory for those that want to try doing a better job of fixing up the first track. Note: Originally torrented July, 2004 in SHN format. Original SHN MD5s: eb9c69abf63752b4e71e2b0d7531ac53 *rh1991-05-21d1t01.shn cfe43dbec4a933c9eb3762880832bc44 *rh1991-05-21d1t02.shn d7c24251d99e1189f2fd991456ccc0df *rh1991-05-21d1t03.shn 1e921009db650749a2f1418fb8b0a2f5 *rh1991-05-21d1t04.shn acb60f6e85ac169da8d06e35128ec565 *rh1991-05-21d1t05.shn b3d7f6ed6ece8a5ee0f3cdf677dcea35 *rh1991-05-21d1t06.shn 0691ce2f5e7dab554917589e88a6443f *rh1991-05-21d1t07.shn 318180992a746595cd6d5d04315d59c5 *rh1991-05-21d1t08.shn d3983d9b1583dbe6813a2e3d5a8ac9ea *rh1991-05-21d1t09.shn 0bdfffd445a6855c448c31fdeb6ee62e *rh1991-05-21d1t10.shn 669fafae2445f029dbafcacadbbb5df1 *rh1991-05-21d1t11.shn 2662e05fe72b3237ee39ab314081ae2a *rh1991-05-21d1t12.shn 24078d19c78d5f82343eb044f1a816a5 *rh1991-05-21d2t01.shn 48ffabed8393420ce96cc63a9fa15d32 *rh1991-05-21d2t02.shn 0b0ad1f6f693c2e9376cb66202f6c005 *rh1991-05-21d2t03.shn cc1c7c7736fd8579a6c3264baa393e87 *rh1991-05-21d2t04.shn 93337e7d7b8a0193b684781fc2d7add5 *rh1991-05-21d2t05.shn 0c67edf848a79651b605904710742145 *rh1991-05-21d2t06.shn be666f44d14356065e126a437935581b *rh1991-05-21d2t07.shn 8c15b3067d1ac357c284308674e2d4f4 *rh1991-05-21d2t08.shn 0ec43da344bf856bffdfaaef18d9f197 *rh1991-05-21d2t09.shn 7a06737ae421d6bc754235895c3b6233 *rh1991-05-21d2t10.shn - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:52:18 +0000 From: hssmrg@bath.ac.uk Subject: Alex Snouffer obit Moving obituary of Alex "St Clair " Snouffer by Steve Froy at: http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/albums/mbmembers/snouffer_obit.htm Apparently Alex was the original Captain Beefheart before Don Van Vliet got the title. Alex was a huge influence on my slide guitar playing from 1968 onwards, if that is a recommendation... - - Mike "Devastated" Godwin n.p. Kandy Korn, Mirror Man sessions version ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 09:47:12 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: SMYLONYLON: The Final Chapter (I promise) SMYLONYLON Vol. 3 SIDE ONE: Aqui Radeio Rebelde, "Che Guevara". Well, this had better be subversive! Hey, it starts of with a static-y radio voice speaking Spanish and some atonal noodling before getting a little more typical of the Latin groove thing. Some odd time signatures, cymbal splashes and odd diggity-diggity scat singing... pretty strong. Lalo Schifrin, "Wheat Germ Landscape". Seriously-- "Wheat Germ Landscape"! Fast two step beat, bongos, shrill-ass organ in bursts of barely-on-tempo exclamations... sounds like the group is barely holding it together, creating the effect of an unsettlingly cheery "Sister Ray". Perry & Kingsley, "UFO". This is fairly well known and I even have it on CD... early moog and tape-manipulations with unbearably peppy results. I remember this song and a few others like it being used in the mid-70's on PBS kids's shows whenever something frantic was going on. Really pretty inventive even if it tends to induce headaches... lots of super-fast playing over a bed of cartoon boink-and-sproing noises. Les & Larry Elgart, "Thunder Shake". Kissing cousins with the Quincy Jones track which became the Austin Powers theme, even featuring a little spy-theme like guitar in the middle. On Her Majesty's Secret Service, "Theme". Of course this is pretty well-known, and the Propellerheads' remix of it was the best of the rash of technofied Bond themes in the '90's. I think this was only Bond theme without a vocal. Larry Wilcox, "Little Red Rod". Shut up, Beavis. Actually, there's something kind of sea-shantyish about the beginning of this one. Lotsa flute. Troupe Bresilienne De Leme, "Capoiecas De Recife". More flute. More PBS flashbacks! Peppy. Probably reflects the sugar-powered metabolism of a 6-year-old in in the mid-70's fairly accurately, and I can almost taste the Charleston Chews... Edmundo Ros, "Hare Krishna". Here we go again... except that this time the vocalist does sing the words "Hare Krisna". The backing track is of course badly dated Latin-Big Band fusion. All right, then. Herbert Leonard, "Laisser Entrer Le Soleil". Oddly, despite the title and the fact that all the verses are in French, this guy actually sings "Let the sun shine in" a million times at the end. The vocal is a little overpowering again (as with the Tom Jones track), but since it's largely in French, no big deal, I guess. The Four Cousins, "Good Day Sunshine". Thematic connection with preceding track is completely lost when this thing starts, because, man, I guess all four cousins are 11 year old girls and this really puts one's teeth on edge. The arrangement is pretty faithful otherwise. Unlisted Track, Female vocals in French. Well, partly in French, and partly in, like, the form of mosquito buzz impressions and hisses. Very odd. The part that's actual lyrics is so mantra-like and repetitive that, once again, you know Stereolab studied this shit, whatever it is. There's some pretty wild "ostrich guitar" in the mix, too... almost sounds overchorused in a Keith Levene-like way. Giorgio Moroder, "Tears". Minor-key organ thing with wordless female vocal and surprisingly modern-sounding drums. Sergent Cracker Band (sic), "Safari". Maybe the theme for this segment is "the birth of modern drum separation", because these drums sound pretty last-quarter-of-the-last-century, too. Something about the arrangement here sounds a little more directly linked to "Pet Sounds" than a lot of the other tracks, although many of them clearly owe a lot to that record. Orchester Les Reed (sic), "Man Of Action". Vary much in the same mold as the above... Dave Clark Five, "Dum Dee Dee Dum". Instrumental with twangy lead guitar and some vocal yelps and stuff like that. Action packed. Adam & Eve, "Hey Hey In Tampico". Oompah with some snarly fuzztone lead guitar to go with its incredibly cloying vocal (co-ed, in German I think). Stranger still, some of the other lead guitar parts sound somewhat like the muted picking you hear in old reggae songs. Peter & Lee, "The Sound Of Peace". Lee is apparently a chick. White funk with some hippy-dippy lyrics. The drums are probably loop-worthy... Dick Hyman, "Me and My Moog". Hee, Dick Hyman. Anyway. The whistled intro to this is sampled on Beck's "Odelay" album... forget which song. Other than the whistle this is the most machine-generated track I've yet heard. The drum machine sound is very nice, as is the synth bass... more Star Trek computer noises. Gold star, Mr. Hyman. The Ray Martin Orchestra, "Crescent City Blues". Overwrought horn chart that could come from no other era. Is it the charts, or the way they were recorded, that make those sounds so era-specific? Perry & Kingsley, "Spooks In Space". Starts with, and returns to, some profoundly crazy noises assembled into something resembling a precussion track... squeaks, duck and donkey noises, pops and blurts. The minor key tune, propulsive acoustic guitar, and ghost noises make me think of the music to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. Awesome. SIDE TWO: Bell Laboratories, "Synthesized Computer Speech". A computerized voice sings "Daisy", from a demo record of some kind. Moog Groove, "Aquarius". In this case, the song from "Hair", done on multiple moogs. This seems totally appropriate and little more need be said. Brazilian Beat '67, "Brazilian Beat". Ah, we're definitely back to the bread and butter of the whole concept, whatever that is. Female vocals seem to be saying "tree, tree" or "tweet tweet" over music that would have felt at home in front of just about any contemporaneous sitcom. Canatara, "Barato Total". More twee female vocals, over a beat that is pretty close to funky. This is a little more akin to Saint Etienne than Stereolab. Incredible Bongo Band, "Whip Out". This is actually "WIPE Out", slowed down over a funk beat, played with surprising heaviosity on a fuzzed-out guitar with some fairly raucous organ breaks. Larry Wilcox, "Organ Grinders Swing". What's with this guy and the suggestive titles? This I guess goes under the heading of "the era's relatively cheesy reworking of the big band concept". Eddie Harris, "Chicago Calypso". Light funk that puts me in the mind of the "Barney Miller" theme. There's a sorta Stevie Wonder-sounding punchy synth bass in addition to a bass guitar and some weird voices repeating the title with alternately "Chicago" and "Calypso" accents. Do you work hard? The Jackson Five, "Mirrors Of Your Mind". Again, not sure these guys belong here, although the arrangement of this song fits a little better. Jumbo, "Loco Loco". Back to disco. There are some incomprehensible vocals on this one which might be in a language other than English. Sergent Cracker Band, "Machucho". Two-steppy moog instrumental. Walter Wanderly, "Os Grillos". Nice organ instrumental. Discotheque, "I'm Henry The VIII, I Am". Despite the artist's name this is one of the less disco-sounding numbers in this stretch... a hyper horn and organ arrangement with a little guitar here and there. (Artist Either Unlisted Or As Above), "St. Louis Blues". Whitebread but kinda charming big band "blues" with leads on sax, organ, and electric 12-string. Bluesy runs on electric 12-strings always remind me of the ill-advised Byrds b-side "Captain Soul". Larry Wilcox, "Tunga". Spritely Latin jazz with some insufferably cheery flutes, par for the course in these parts. Doringo's Latin Doodle Band. "Mr. Knickerbocker". As with Discotheque, who are less disco that you'd guess, the Latin Doodle Band is not as Latin-sounding as a lot of their contemporaries. They still have happy happy fucking flutes, though, and that's what counts. Ferrante & Teicher, "Man From Mars". Hey, my mom used to have records by these guys... dueling pianists, right? Except this shit is good, and kinda scary! Choppy piano bass notes and bongos with slapback delay and reverb, and minor key "the monster is coming" runs over the top. Lots of chaotic lurching dischordant stuff at the end. Cool, very cool. Christel Dauber, "Du Lebst In Deiner Welt". Female vocals in German, groovy backing track with super fuzzed-out guitar leads throughout... kinda reminiscent of "I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In". Nice. Nancy & Lee, "Some Velvet Morning". The compilers cheekily leave the "Sinatra" and "Hazelwood" off of the artist listing. This remains one of the screwiest achievements of humans, or maybe two of them, since it's basically two vaguely thematically related songs, both bizarre, spliced together. There's simply no accounting for this song. Moog Groove, "Oh Happy Day". A really thick bassy synth takes the lead on this one, to odd effect. Not bad. And we out. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:46:20 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: SMYLONYLON: The Final Chapter (I promise) Spotted Eagle Ray wrote: > > SIDE TWO: > Bell Laboratories, "Synthesized Computer Speech". A computerized voice > sings "Daisy", from a demo record of some kind. This was on 365 Days: > Nancy & Lee, "Some Velvet Morning". I'll wager that Eedie & Eddie And The Reggaebots' version (also on 365 Days) is better: cheers, Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:02:31 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: SMYLONYLON: The Final Chapter (I promise) On 1/10/06, Spotted Eagle Ray wrote: > SMYLONYLON Vol. 3 > Nancy & Lee, "Some Velvet Morning". The compilers cheekily leave the > "Sinatra" and "Hazelwood" off of the artist listing. This remains one of > the screwiest achievements of humans, or maybe two of them, since it's > basically two vaguely thematically related songs, both bizarre, spliced > together. There's simply no accounting for this song. What's even more fun is that the "splicing" (not tape-splicing, just composition-splicing) occurs in the middle of measures. And one "song" is in 4/4 and the other's in 3/4. So you have all kinds of initially random-seeming dropped beats - which in fact are quite artfully done (I don't have the song on hand at work but basically, the last beat of the 3/4 bar and the last 2 beats of the 4/4 bar work as "breathing" beats and lead in to the first bars of phrases, so that's where the cuts went - not, as you might guess, at the ends of bars. It actually flows fairly well, considering. Something like that. And that doesn't even mention the very florid (but very cool) opening string figure - which, oddly, sounds very very like the opening of a Mahavishnu Orchestra song from several years later. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 11:14:04 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: Re: Riddim Warfare/SMYLONYLON: The Final Chapter (I promise) > > Nancy & Lee, "Some Velvet Morning". > > I'll wager that Eedie & Eddie And The Reggaebots' version (also on 365 > Days) is better: > > http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/365/365-Days-Project-06-18 - -langston-peter-s-some-velvet-morning-1990.mp3 Lordy. The ending of that version is even more confusing than the original! One thing to try to straighten out those whiplash time signature changes, but to do it to a reggae beat... Thanks! Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 11:22:34 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: Re: SMYLONYLON: Some Velvet Mahavishnu On 1/10/06, 2fs wrote: > What's even more fun is that the "splicing" (not tape-splicing, just > composition-splicing) occurs in the middle of measures. And one "song" > is in 4/4 and the other's in 3/4. So you have all kinds of initially > random-seeming dropped beats - which in fact are quite artfully done > (I don't have the song on hand at work but basically, the last beat of > the 3/4 bar and the last 2 beats of the 4/4 bar work as "breathing" > beats and lead in to the first bars of phrases, so that's where the > cuts went - not, as you might guess, at the ends of bars. It actually > flows fairly well, considering. I've never decided whether there was tape-splicing involve, which is probably a sign that, if there was, it was done well. > And that doesn't even mention the very florid (but very cool) opening > string figure - which, oddly, sounds very very like the opening of a > Mahavishnu Orchestra song from several years later. > It also puts me in the mind of "Expecting to Fly" by Buffalo Springfield, but then I am that-way-inclined. I wish I had a nickel, or in fact a fifty-dollar bill, for every time someone's pointed out to me that I have a Nancy Sinatra album but no Frank. I actually have a lot of records by a lot of artists whose parents' recorded output remains unexplored by me. - -Rx "absolutely no one admitted without a parent" Broome ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:33:35 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Riddim Warfare/SMYLONYLON: The Final Chapter (I promise) On 1/10/06, Spotted Eagle Ray wrote: > > > Nancy & Lee, "Some Velvet Morning". > > > > I'll wager that Eedie & Eddie And The Reggaebots' version (also on 365 > > Days) is better: > > > > > http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/365/365-Days-Project-06-18 > -langston-peter-s-some-velvet-morning-1990.mp3 > > > Lordy. The ending of that version is even more confusing than the > original! One thing to try to straighten out those whiplash time signature > changes, but to do it to a reggae beat... I suppose it might be time to mention that the Grateful Dead did a reggae song entirely in 7/4 time..."Estimated Prophet" (hurk!)? (My, uh, brother told me that. Really. I didn't just *know* that or anything...) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 11:39:52 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: Re: SMYLONYLON: Some Velvet Mahavishnu On 1/10/06, 2fs wrote: > > On 1/10/06, Spotted Eagle Ray wrote: > > > It also puts me in the mind of "Expecting to Fly" by Buffalo > Springfield, > > but then I am that-way-inclined. > > Not only that, but *that* song also does the > switching-from-3/4-to-4/4-in-the-middle-of-measures thing... Sure does. Between the later Springfield and his first solo album, Neil Young (mostly thanks to Jack Nietsche, I guess) did that lush, complex pop thing really really well, considering that most of his reputation rests on doing the absolute opposite kind of thing. I love Neil's self-titled record myself. - -Rx ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 18:47:53 -0800 (PST) From: "carole reichstein" Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V15 #5 Here here! Go Quail. I'm a closet Durannie, but only up to 1986. My heart wasn't into the band anymore after Roger and Andy Taylor left--and "Ordinary World" is a HORRIBLE song. The first 2 Duran albums *have* aged really well, and I have to admit that I learned how to dance by watching Simon in the "Planet Earth" video. Hey, I was 13. That's why I don't dance in public anymore. My guilty pleasure of 2005? SEEING Duran live in Amsterdam. Woot! xo, Carole > I agree -- I still love the Femmes. But man -- those first two Duran > Duran > albums were great. Seriously -- especially the second. Listed to the > entire > "Rio" album and tell me that hasn't aged very well! Killer bass, maddening > hooks, indecipherable lyrics... And Simon's thin, white tie and powder > blue > shirt.... > > - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:08:07 +0000 From: "Charlotte Tupman" Subject: David Byrne/Talking Heads A friend played me the Stop Making Sense film the other day, followed by excerpts from David Byrne's concert at the Union Chapel in London. Although I'm familiar with one or two Talking Heads songs, I don't have any of their music and was wondering if anyfeg could recommend a particular TH album that I ought to begin with? I'd also be interested to hear what people think about Byrne's solo work. Charlotte ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:23:31 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads On 1/10/06, Charlotte Tupman wrote: > A friend played me the Stop Making Sense film the other day, followed by > excerpts from David Byrne's concert at the Union Chapel in London. Although > I'm familiar with one or two Talking Heads songs, I don't have any of their > music and was wondering if anyfeg could recommend a particular TH album that > I ought to begin with? I'd also be interested to hear what people think > about Byrne's solo work. You can't go wrong with the first four Heads albums (77, More Songs..., Fear of Music, Remain in Light). Speaking in Tongues is pretty strong; after that, diminishing returns although still worth checking out. My favorite Byrne "solo" work is his stuff with Eno (My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Catherine Wheel sdtk.), and I'm less persuaded by his work the more "non-Western" it gets. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:28:13 -0600 From: Dolph Chaney Subject: Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads At 04:08 PM 1/10/2006, Charlotte Tupman wrote: >A friend played me the Stop Making Sense film the other day, followed by >excerpts from David Byrne's concert at the Union Chapel in >London. Although I'm familiar with one or two Talking Heads songs, I >don't have any of their music and was wondering if anyfeg could recommend >a particular TH album that I ought to begin with? I'd also be interested >to hear what people think about Byrne's solo work. Now there's a band who's difficult to summarize in one album. In STOP MAKING SENSE you heard a lot of material from the SPEAKING IN TONGUES album, plus a few older songs. To catch the rest of the repertoire, there are two approaches I'd consider. 1) Get the live 2CD THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TALKING HEADS. If you like that, disc 1 represents their first 3 albums, and disc 2 represents REMAIN IN LIGHT. 2) Get their 3rd album, FEAR OF MUSIC -- it's a great record and marks a transition between their early and middle periods. If your favorite song on it is "I Zimbra," get REMAIN IN LIGHT next. If it is "Life During Wartime," get SPEAKING IN TONGUES next. If you prefer the other songs, get MORE SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD next, followed by 77. You would be underwhelmed probably if you start with their last 3 albums (LITTLE CREATURES, TRUE STORIES, or NAKED) though each has its own charms. There are a couple of compilations, but TH is an album band. I don't have a lot of solo Byrne, so I'll defer. - -- Dolph ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:36:18 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads Charlotte Tupman wrote: > A friend played me the Stop Making Sense film the other day, > followed by excerpts from David Byrne's concert at the Union Chapel > in London. Although I'm familiar with one or two Talking Heads > songs, I don't have any of their music and was wondering if anyfeg > could recommend a particular TH album that I ought to begin with? > I'd also be interested to hear what people think about Byrne's solo > work. Funny you say this, because I was just listening to Byrne's recent "Grown Backwards" yesterday and thinking what a damn good album it is. There's so much attention paid to Byrne's quirky persona/voice that he's probably underrated as a serious songwriter who has produced a quite large volume of interesting, quality songs. I wouldn't know what Talking Heads album to recommend to you. They're all good except maybe True Stories, but they span a lot of different styles (pop, dance, R&B, African, New Wave, etc.) so it's a question of not knowing what "entry point" would work best for your own tastes. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:33:53 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads On Jan 10, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Charlotte Tupman wrote: > A friend played me the Stop Making Sense film the other day, > followed by excerpts from David Byrne's concert at the Union Chapel > in London. Although I'm familiar with one or two Talking Heads > songs, I don't have any of their music and was wondering if anyfeg > could recommend a particular TH album that I ought to begin with? > I'd also be interested to hear what people think about Byrne's solo > work. > If you really really liked Stop Making Sense then you'll definitely like the mid-career albums (Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures, etc...), which lean a lot more towards the world-funk groove. The earlier stuff starts to explore that territory with More Songs About Buildings and Food, but their debut, Talking Heads '77 is unique in its art-school nerdy punk. I think they got a little cartoonish at the end with the whole True Stories thing, so avoid that album. That era in particular kinda soured me on pursuing Byrne's solo stuff, so no thoughts on that. - -tc, still trying to decide if the Talking Heads Brick is worth exploring... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:53:55 -0800 From: Spotted Eagle Ray Subject: Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads On 1/10/06, Eb wrote: > > Charlotte Tupman wrote: > > A friend played me the Stop Making Sense film the other day, > > followed by excerpts from David Byrne's concert at the Union Chapel > > in London. Although I'm familiar with one or two Talking Heads > > songs, I don't have any of their music and was wondering if anyfeg > > could recommend a particular TH album that I ought to begin with? Looking at the various responses to this, I've come to the conclusion that, as much as they were always considered "artsy", and while this may not have been true until music and culture went through a couple of trends and phases (maybe not until five years ago or less), right now I'd say that every single Talking Heads album could be very comfortably described as "accessible". I know I keep saying every young band sounds like Gang of Four, but those early Talking Heads records exert just as much inluence on that brittle, tight, semi-funky sound, and Talking Heads were more melodic. It's just that Talking Heads went on to succeed by sounding other ways... Gang of Four, not so much. Which is to say that maybe in 2006, a Best-Of might make sense in a way that it wouldn't have before? - -Rx ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:53:20 -0800 (PST) From: John Barrington Jones Subject: how I get my Talking Heads fix I just listen to the song "Born Under Punches" on repeat. =jbj= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:06:23 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: David Byrne/Talking Heads Tom Clark wrote: > -tc, still trying to decide if the Talking Heads Brick is > worth exploring... With the first four out today on their own and the latter four due out on Valentine's Day, and the prices in most places seeming to make it a financial wash (though the brick does provide a plastic box with raised lettering on the sides ...oooh), I'm inclined to think it isn't at this point unless you get a good deal on it. Might as well by them singlularly (plus, that way you can skip _Tue Stories._) "A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer." -- Mitch Hedberg "Now I am going to tell you how we are not going to fight communism. We are not going to transform our fine FBI into a Gestapo secret police. That is what some people would like to do. We are not going to try to control what our people read and say and think. We are not going to turn the United States into a right-wing totalitarian country in order to deal with a left-wing totalitarian threat." - Harry S Truman . Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V15 #10 *******************************