From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V15 #230 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, October 3 2006 Volume 15 : Number 230 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much [Eb ] Re: Three advances [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Three advances ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much ["Spotted Eagle Ray" ] Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much ["Spotted Eagle Ray" ] Re: My name is "Eb", and today is my spacely-sprocket day ["Stacked Crook] Re: fegmaniax-digest V15 #229 [Aaron Mandel ] ian mclagan on wfmu [wojbearpig ] Re: Bleakest. Book. Ever. ["Gene Hopstetter Jr." ] Re: Three advances [wojbearpig ] Re: Three advances [wojbearpig ] Is Th-Th-That All, Folks? (No RH) [Steve Talkowski ] Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much ["Spotted Eagle Ray" ] Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much [Eb ] Re: Knob lore [wojbearpig ] Fairly shocking news [Eb ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 17:03:59 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much > I don't know about that. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, OK.... Otherwise? > > All Shook Down, for sure. Half of the entire American Music Club/ > Mark Eitzel catalog. Bob Mould's self-titled record. Key Lime > Pie. The Rainy Day album (which admittedly contains covers of song > from Sister Lovers). Electro-Shock Blues? Destiny Street? Maybe > even Fables of the Reconstruction? To my mind there are oodles > more, although maybe some of them were shooting for/ended up with > Tonight's The Night or Exile on Main Street. Mmm...I don't think any of those albums are anywhere near as explicitly Sister Loversy as It's a Wonderful Life. Some of those don't seem similar at all, in fact. KEY LIME PIE?? Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 20:13:14 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Three advances Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > I also find it a little weird that the bonus CD is > CD-Text encoded, but the album itself isn't. Not that > big a deal really, just kinda funny. Have you ever seen a commercial release that had CD-Text? They're rare. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 17:34:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Three advances "Stewart C. Russell" wrote: > Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > > > I also find it a little weird that the bonus CD is > > CD-Text encoded, but the album itself isn't. Not > that > > big a deal really, just kinda funny. > > Have you ever seen a commercial release that had > CD-Text? They're rare. 90+% of Sony releases of the past 8 years; everything off Matador the last couple years.... . Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 20:56:04 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Three advances Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > 90+% of Sony releases of the past 8 years; everything > off Matador the last couple years.... Sheesh, guess I don't buy much that's major-label. Yay, new A Hawk & A Hacksaw coming soon!!!!1!! Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 18:32:11 -0700 From: "Spotted Eagle Ray" Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much On 10/2/06, Eb wrote: > > Mmm...I don't think any of those albums are anywhere near as > explicitly Sister Loversy as It's a Wonderful Life. I haven't heard IAWL (exceprt for the one by Sparklehorse, several of whose records I should've mentioned as Sister Lovers-y), so I dunno. > Some of those > don't seem similar at all, in fact. KEY LIME PIE?? Yeah, for sure. A somewhat upbeat and exuberant pop-ish band takes a downturn for its swan song as the band falls apart. Deliberately off-putting or alienating moves like opening with "Devil Song" slowed down and detuned, closing with "Come On Darkness" (which reminds me of "Holocaust") where the previous album had ended with "Life Is Grand", taking up half the length of the what starts as the loveliest tune on the record ("June") with atonal, out-of-time plinking... depressing subject matter all around, decay imagery abounds, the onset of David Lowery's meandering old folk-epic style... I mean, even the absurdly funny-titled songs turn out to be immensly downbeat and defeatist ("Light From a Cake", "I Was Born in a Laundromat", "All Her Favorite Fruit", "When I Win the Lottery") Those songs, to say nothing the rest of them, are pretty much all about abandoning hope, or accepting futility, embracing and finally loving darkness. To me, it fits the bill quite well. There's the small matter of one radio-friendly cover song, but in context even that sounds a bit like a "screw-you" self-sabotage move... anyone who bought the album on the basis of the single probably hated it. I loved it, but even I might've found it offputting had it not come out at one of the happier points of my life. Others may have considered it an ideal party record for all I know... that's just how I hear it. I don't especially fetishize downer-collapse records like Sister Lover, but there are some good ones out there. A lot of 'em are slogs I don't care to take more than once. - -SER ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 18:34:36 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much > Some of those > don't seem similar at all, in fact. KEY LIME PIE?? > > Yeah, for sure. A somewhat upbeat and exuberant pop-ish band takes > a downturn for its swan song as the band falls apart. You're reaching. Hard. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 18:28:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Even for Pitchfork This is snarky.... http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/38853/Jet_Shine_On . Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 19:00:59 -0700 From: "Spotted Eagle Ray" Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much On 10/2/06, Eb wrote: > > Some of those > > don't seem similar at all, in fact. KEY LIME PIE?? > > > > Yeah, for sure. A somewhat upbeat and exuberant pop-ish band takes > > a downturn for its swan song as the band falls apart. > > You're reaching. Hard. I don't think so. I seem to even recall reviews of Key Lime Pie alluding to the similar vibe at the time; certainly the parallels have always existed in my mind and I've made the comparison before without causing a stir in polite company. We're talking feel and context here, not sound... of course Chris Stamey's gonna sound a little more like Alex Chilton than David Lowery and a bunch of gypsy fiddles. - -SER ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 19:13:26 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much > I don't think so. I seem to even recall reviews of Key Lime Pie > alluding to > the similar vibe at the time; certainly the parallels have always > existed in > my mind and I've made the comparison before without causing a stir > in polite > company. We're talking feel and context here, not sound... of > course Chris > Stamey's gonna sound a little more like Alex Chilton than David > Lowery and a > bunch of gypsy fiddles. An album is not "Sister Lovers"-y because it's released by a band on the verge of imploding. It's "Sister Lovers"-y because it has the same sense of songs being deconstructed/disassembled/stripped down to an unsettling place where the impact of the songs is arguably dampened. Some of the tracks on It's a Wonderful Life are driven by DRUMS, more than anything else. The guitar/keyboard licks are barely there, in comparison. The music has a very odd sort of presentation. I've lost track of when/why the subject line was changed to the above. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 21:29:30 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Quail probably predicted this On 10/2/06, Eb wrote: > > > I don't think so. I seem to even recall reviews of Key Lime Pie > > alluding to > > the similar vibe at the tim;..We're talking feel and context here, not > sound An album is not "Sister Lovers"-y because it's released by a band on > the verge of imploding. It's "Sister Lovers"-y because it has the > same sense of songs being deconstructed/disassembled/stripped down to > an unsettling place where the impact of the songs is arguably dampened. Uh...there are more ways to compare records than one. Eb's sisterloverliness is different from Rex's. It seems to me that both of our duelling Broomes describe different aspects of the actual Big Star CD. Or maybe I was napping when God came down from the mountain and defined, once and for all, what it meant for a CD to be like Sister Lovers. Uh-anyway: insofar as SL's songs are "deconstructed/disassembled/stripped down," I'd argue that far from dampening the impact of the songs, it enhances them (although not in the same way as fleshing them out with an energetic live band would, for instance). But CVB *did* play with sound preconceptions in a way similar to deconstructing/disassembling/stripping down: the weird break in "June" that Rex mentions, the odd mix (there's some very peculiar isolation going on: I remember listening to the CD in the famed Eno third-speaker layout (soloing the third speaker, which presented only info present in one or other channel) and hearing things I hadn't heard at all in the stereo mix). It's not as thoroughgoing or on-the-surface as it is in much of SL, true - it's more in the downer, gloomy approach - probably partly due to the band's falling apart. (I always interpreted SL as being less about a band falling apart than about a person falling apart, incidentally.) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:47:01 -0700 From: "Stacked Crooked" Subject: Re: My name is "Eb", and today is my spacely-sprocket day ah, i think i see the confusion: i *was* referring to the new christy minstrels. guess i should've hyphenated, but it simply never occurred to me that there might be an ambiguity issue. or, maybe you're just horsing around. i like the second half better than the first...but still not impressed. maybe just need to give it a few listens. yeah, it's definitely their least-boring record to-date. make sure you bring your lighter. <<>> <> is green hell still in business? i saw the "Nightride To Trinidad" 12" there once, but ended up buying it through *Goldmine* (if i recall). ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 23:11:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V15 #229 > From: The Great Quail > 3. I am now listening to the Decemberist's "Crane Wife." It's.... So far, > it's.... It's prog-folk. I am only halfway through the album, but it's > definitely more "Tain" that "Picaresque." I think I read that although The Tain came out before Picaresque, it was recorded later. So yeah, this record has sort of been in the cards for a long time. > From: "Spotted Eagle Ray" >> 2. "Ole Tarantula" freaking rules! Are we all in agreement on this? Best >> thing from Robyn in years, right? > > Gotta be. We have one skeptic who hasn't heard it yet, and otherwise > universal delight. I'm really not into it. That's after only two listens, but man, from the posts here I expected instant happiness. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 09:43:24 -0400 From: wojbearpig Subject: ian mclagan on wfmu some of y'all might like to know that ian mclagan, who plays on "n.y. doll" on _ole! tarantaula_, will be in session on wfmu this afternoon between noon and 3pm eastern time. stream wfmu in glorious 128kbps mp3 and an assortment of other formats and bitrates at http://wfmu.org/audiostream.shtml the show will be archived at http://wfmu.org/playlists/TM woj ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 08:49:59 -0500 From: "Gene Hopstetter Jr." Subject: Re: Bleakest. Book. Ever. > From: The Great Quail > > PPS: Reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." Bleakest. Book. Ever. Bleaker than his "Blood Meridian"? I read a pile of McCarthy books one hot muggy New Orleans summer, and "Blood Meridian" chilled me to the bone. I don't remember breathing while I read that book. It still sits my bookshelves, and glares at me whenever I look for something fun and entertaining to read (which is, lately, some poetry from Anselm Hollo or anything by George Saunders). OK, I'll admit it. I'm afraid to read Cormac McCarthy ever again. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 10:31:45 -0400 From: wojbearpig Subject: Re: Three advances one time at band camp, Stewart C. Russell (scruss@gmail.com) said: >Have you ever seen a commercial release that had CD-Text? They're rare. the only one i ever noticed was the reputation's debut album. +w ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 10:34:12 -0400 From: wojbearpig Subject: Re: Three advances one time at band camp, Jeff Dwarf (munki1972@yahoo.com) said: >"Stewart C. Russell" wrote: >> Have you ever seen a commercial release that had >> CD-Text? They're rare. >90+% of Sony releases of the past 8 years; everything >off Matador the last couple years.... so i guess my previous note tells you how many sony and matador releases i buy! well, in my defense, the only cd player i have which displays cd-text is the car stereo. and that system was depreciated by the new (used) car last winter. so there. woj ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 10:38:12 -0400 From: Steve Talkowski Subject: Is Th-Th-That All, Folks? (No RH) Hmm, we were just talking about this the other day... - -Steve - -- BUSINESS / MEDIA & ADVERTISING | October 3, 2006 Is Th-Th-That All, Folks? By LAURA M. HOLSON With more than a dozen computer-animated movies being readied for release, Hollywood is facing the prospect of serious viewer fatigue. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/business/media/03animation.html? ex=1160539200&en=c939bebcf013663d&ei=5070&emc=eta1 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:36:38 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Bleakest. Book. Ever. Gene asks, > Bleaker than his "Blood Meridian"? Yeah. It's like he boiled "Blood Meridian" down in a big pot, stripped away the (admittedly delicious) fat, and then baked the bones to ash. It's got some of the same themes, but it's a lot more sparse and concentrated. Basically, it's a bout a father and son wandering along an empty American wasteland made utterly cold, grey, and desolate by some (as yet unidentified) fate. In the rare circumstance where they may actually meet a fellow traveler, they have to hide, because there's so little food that people must devour each other. I am halfway through, and....wow. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 08:24:21 -0700 From: "Spotted Eagle Ray" Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much On 10/2/06, Eb wrote: > > An album is not "Sister Lovers"-y because it's released by a band on > the verge of imploding. It's "Sister Lovers"-y because it has the > same sense of songs being deconstructed/disassembled/stripped down to > an unsettling place where the impact of the songs is arguably dampened. Yes, as occurs repeatedly on Key Lime Pie, numerous examples of which I have already cited, and the first instance of which you can hear as soon as you drop the needle on the first track. You don't hear it, I do. Move along now. - -SER ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 08:36:08 -0700 From: "Spotted Eagle Ray" Subject: Re: Quail probably predicted this On 10/2/06, 2fs wrote: > (I always interpreted SL as being less about a band falling > apart than about a person falling apart, incidentally.) Yes, but the person's collapse preciptitates the collapse of the musical enterprise, and he comes up with no way other than to document or deal with both losses other than to express it through what's left of the band. The record is kinda like a tightly wound emotional feedback loop that way-- ironically a loose sounding one. You wanna hear Chilton just be all fucked up and beyond the pale, you can always listen to "Like Flies On Sherbet". On Key Lime Pie, Lowery does it all through character sketches... but bleak fucking character sketches that seem to indicate, cumulatively, a lot of internal distress loss, resignation... we move like we are suspended in amber, we are rotting like the fruit, I can almost smell her breath faint with the sweet smell of decay, the humid press of days, the bitter insurrectionist of "Lottery", the creepy mind of Ronald Reagan, the lover of darkness. Oh well. It's a good record, anyway. I should probably turn it over to Jeme for a detailed description of a TMBG record now, or Quail can talk about Tool or something. - -SER ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 08:39:47 -0700 From: "Spotted Eagle Ray" Subject: Re: My name is "Eb", and today is my spacely-sprocket day On 10/2/06, Stacked Crooked wrote: > > don't think.> > > ah, i think i see the confusion: i *was* referring to the new christy > minstrels. guess i should've hyphenated, but it simply never occurred to > me that there might be an ambiguity issue. Cool. See, I just assumed that there was a cool new band just called The Christies-- perhaps pronounced as in Jesus-- and I just wasn't in the loop on that. It happens. - -SER ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 11:17:22 -0500 From: "Michael Wells" Subject: underwater musiclite On the first SB's reunion show in Chicago, Robyn mused about sinking a bubble in Lake Michigan and having underwater gigs...but this is ridiculous. _Melua's deep sea gig sets record_ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5396970.stm Short video here http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2521406 Michael "we all live in a yellow submarine" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 10:43:07 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: My name is SER, and here's a reminder of why you all hate me so much >> An album is not "Sister Lovers"-y because it's released by a band on >> the verge of imploding. It's "Sister Lovers"-y because it has the >> same sense of songs being deconstructed/disassembled/stripped down to >> an unsettling place where the impact of the songs is arguably >> dampened. > > Yes, as occurs repeatedly on Key Lime Pie, numerous examples of > which I have > already cited Reaching. So. Very. HARD. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 11:18:34 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Knob lore Anyone else enjoying "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"? It's the only new TV show which has interested me since My Name Is Earl/The Office debuted...and it appears to be going down the tubes. Ratings shrinking with each episode. 9/18/06 - Overnights: 10.3/16; Viewers: 13.41 million; A18-49: 5.0/13 9/25/06 - Overnights: 8.7/14; Viewers: 10.83 million; A18-49: 4.2/11 10/02/06 - Overnights: 7.2/11; Viewers: 9.05 million; A18-49: 3.5/ 9 Meanwhile, what is with an increasing number of people saying "I love me some..." or "I loves me some..."? This needs to stop. Eb, still sick now rejecting: Man Man ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 14:21:26 -0400 From: wojbearpig Subject: Re: Knob lore one time at band camp, Eb (ElBroome@earthlink.net) said: >Anyone else enjoying "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"? It's the only >new TV show which has interested me since My Name Is Earl/The Office >debuted...and it appears to be going down the tubes. Ratings >shrinking with each episode. i'm doing my part: it's on the tivo, unwatched. >now rejecting: Man Man behind again? the bloggers love for man man has crested already! ;) +w ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 11:24:42 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Fairly shocking news [I'm surprised enough to learn that Nonesuch never had an A&R department!] Kill Rock Stars' Slim Moon Leaves KRS for Nonesuch Moon's Wife Portia Sabin to Run Kill Rock Stars Kill Rock Stars and Nonesuch might not seem like they have much in common. One label is known for launching pioneering riot grrrl bands (Bikini Kill, Bratmobile), experimental outfits (Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu), and indie rock titans (Sleater-Kinney, the Decemberists). The other, a Warner Bros. subsidiary, specializes in "world" music (the Nonesuch Explorer Series, Youssou N'Dour, Caetano Veloso), NPR fare (Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin), and Wilco (Wilco). But the pair just got a lot tighter with the announcement that the founder/head honcho of Kill Rock Stars, Slim Moon, will leave his position at KRS sometime this fall to work in A&R for Nonesuch. Moon's wife, Portia Sabin, will take over both Kill Rock Stars and its 5RC imprint. Pitchfork got the story straight from Moon and Nonesuch Senior Vice President David Bither. Bither and Moon met through folk chanteuse Laura Veirs, who they both did business with. The two got to know each other over the course of more than a year when Bither, who at the time was considering starting a Nonesuch A&R department, asked Moon for ideas with regards to who might fit the position. "I spoke to Slim," Bither explained, "not about him, because I assumed, because of the label, because of his history, because of his involvement...and commitment to that, he wouldn't be a candidate. But I thought he might know of people in his own travels that he might think of as someone we should talk to. So I mentioned it to him; I told him we were thinking about the possibility of doing this, we hadn't made a final decision, and if he thought of anyone, to let us know. So about...three weeks, four weeks later, he called and said, 'I think you should talk to me.'" Moon elaborated, "Well, David had mentioned in passing to me that they were thinking of adding a new A&R person, which was sort of monumental for them, and they were in no hurry, but it was an idea they were considering and were probably going to do because things are going well there. My reaction when he said it was, 'Wow, what a great job!'...and then over the next few weeks it just kept haunting me...I joked at one time to David, 'Well, I'd love that job if it was an alternate universe where I wasn't doing what I'm doing.' "And then a while more went by, and I was [reading] Performing Songwriter magazine, [and in] one issue I was reading about how the woman editor herself struggles with being a songwriter, and she took time off, and then she reinvented herself. I mean it wasn't really my story, but the point of it was how powerful it can be to reinvent yourself periodically throughout your life, to challenge yourself and do something new, and it just came to me, like, I'm not stuck. I don't have to do the same thing the same way forever. If I think this is a great job, and I love Nonesuch and the way they do business and the people I've met there, then why shouldn't I apply for that job? "I haven't been unhappy or anything," he added. "I just really want to push myself to do a whole new frontier." As mentioned above, Moon's wife and business partner, Portia Sabin, will be taking over his duties at the label. Because the pair is moving from KRS' home base of Olympia, Washington to New York City, where the Nonesuch office is, the former company will go bi-coastal, with Sabin likely taking one or more members of its current staff cross-country with her. An official start-up date for Moon is tentative, as he and Sabin are still searching for a Big Apple living space. Bither said, "They'll be here by the end of the year, would be my guess. And he can begin to be involved in doing things with us, even if he's not physically here yet." He continued, "This is not the traditional case where someone gives two weeks' notice and leaves their job and comes to work for you. We're ready for him whenever he's ready to join us. But he has things that he's dealing with, with regards to the label, with regards to the move, with regards to how he wants to make that transition, and he and Portia are talking about all of that, so we've sort of said to him, 'You tell us what works best for you.' It's been 40 years as a label that we've never hired an A&R person, so it's not as if another month or six weeks is going to make a big difference. So it's however most comfortably he can make that transition." "I think I know quite a bit about working with bands," Moon said of his big career transition. "I know almost nothing about working for somebody else, and working in a larger structure, so I'm guessing, but I think my earliest time will be just with the learning curve of how the company works. "Despite having been a boss and entrepreneur for the past 15 years, I really am comfortable with being a team player, particularly when the team is a really excellent team. It's fine with me that these guys who are smarter than me have veto power, because I respect that they know what they're doing." The big question, however, pertains to whether or not Moon feels he's sacrificing his music-before-money roots in the switch. "With the records I've worked, it's always been about music first, work with talented artists, and just expect that the audience will come. And that's the same way that Nonesuch works and has worked for a long time. "And so I don't feel like there's going to be a learning curve there. I already get it...I just think we see eye to eye on that. It's all about great talent and...trusting your ear instead of wanting to sign whatever hype buzz band everyone else wants to sign. I don't think Nonesuch has ever really worked that way. I think it's about trusting their own ear with what they think is high quality, and then hoping that other people hear it as well." Bither touched on Moon's future duties, stating, "One of the reasons I think bringing someone in to work with us is to just add another voice to that dialogue. We talk a lot, Bob [Hurwitz, President of Nonesuch] and I especially, because we're the ones responsible for A&R, about the kinds of artists that we're drawn to, and the kinds of music, and our desire to be involved across the board in all kinds of serious music...it is about working with artists and records and putting them out into the world. "So Slim will be an A&R person, meaning that he'll be looking at artists and musicians in the same way that Bob and I do...We tend to work collectively, meaning that he'll be sitting in marketing meetings where we talk about our projects, and I'm sure he'll have ideas, especially given his experience, that will be of interest to some of the things we do. "But essentially his job will be about what he's done in some respects at Kill Rock Stars, which is finding great artists. What he won't have to do is run a company and all the other things that adds to his plate, which he's probably happy about at this point...And because he's run a label, he'll have very interesting perspectives...and ideas that I think he can bring to bear, which is another reason we really liked the idea of how this could work. "I can't think of a comparison or a precedent for this. Obviously there have been larger labels buying smaller labels for years and years and years, but for someone of his stature, with a company which I think is one of the great indie labels, deciding that it's time to move into another phase of his own work and joining forces with a company like ours...is creating a hybrid in a way, which I'm not sure there's really a comparison for, which I think is really exciting and unusual." "It's a long history of dedication to being involved in different kinds of music," Bither added. "That's something we absolutely don't intend to change. It's not as if we're moving the company, shifting on its axis toward a model that KRS would represent; it's really more adding one more voice to the dialogue that we have internally about the things we do, and I think he feels there's a certain liberating quality to that too, because it kind of broadens his own palette, as far as the kinds of music he's paying attention to, the kind of music he's interested in, the kind of artists he may be able to pursue, which maybe wouldn't have made as much sense where he was before, so it's about a broadening, not about a shift of direction." Nobody has any qualms about Sabin taking the KRS reins. Moon, for the most part, won't be assisting her except on the most basic level-- "If she has questions about 'What did you promise this band?' or 'How did this royalty calculation work?'-- stuff like that, just to make sure that everything runs smoothly, I will answer those questions," Moon told us. "But I think it's actually pretty important that I don't give it to her and then try to work her like a puppet thing or whatever. She's really going to run the show." Bither added, "He's going to be keenly interested in what happens there, but I think he will be very clear-- it's not as if there's some sort of dotted line back to KRS. He doesn't want anyone to perceive the idea that he's sort of halfway still there. That will only be confusing to everyone, make it difficult for Portia, make it difficult for us and him. This is really about starting something new, but it is about as I said, it's not abandoning KRS to the first bidder, it's about a transition in a reasonable meaningful way, to someone who's equally committed to the company and its success. "I think my hunch is that while they're different people, and she'll have different ideas about what she'll want to do and maybe some of the artists and all of the rest, that it will be more of an integrated move than it would be in other circumstances." Moon said, "She really wants to be careful to maintain the legacy that it's had and to be the artist-friendly, value-driven label that we've been. And she's really up to the task, the challenge of the label, and she's really excited about it." But just because the changes ahead are exciting doesn't mean saying goodbye to KRS is easy for Moon. "In terms of KRS being some sort of ego trip for me or some sort of monument to myself or whatever, I have absolutely no remorse or sadness about leaving it," he explained. "But I'm currently in the middle of working on some projects with some bands who I really like, and there's definitely some sadness involved in handing over the reins on those projects. And calling up artists and telling them, 'Well I guess now we'll just have to be good friends.' The bittersweet part of making a big life- changing decision is the things that you have to leave behind. Finally, Moon wanted to make sure that everybody out there knows he "wasn't interested in a major label job." He commented, "If it wasn't Nonesuch, this would never happen. I wouldn't be running off to work at some other big company. Really, I just think they're such a great organization. I'm ready to take my lumps if someone wants to accuse me of being a sell-out, because I've got to do what I think is right." ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V15 #230 ********************************