From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #408 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, November 22 2007 Volume 16 : Number 408 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: reunion tour [2fs ] Re: Somebody shoot me [2fs ] Bible question [2fs ] Re: Somebody shoot me [kevin ] Re: Somebody shoot me [kevin ] Re: Bible question [Rex ] Re: Somebody shoot me [Rex ] Re: Somebody shoot me [lep ] Re: Somebody shoot me ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: and in last week's leonard cohen thread... (was On yet another note....) [lep ] Re: Somebody shoot me [lep ] Re: Somebody shoot me [Rex ] Re: and in last week's leonard cohen thread... (was On yet another note....) [Rex ] Re: and in last week's leonard cohen thread... (was On yet another note....) [2fs ] Somebody shoot me [craigie* ] Re: Somebody shoot me [2fs ] Re: Somebody shoot me [Rex ] Happy Turkey Day... pass the candied Amine Beta Ring, please [Rex Subject: Re: reunion tour On 11/21/07, Rex wrote: > > > > On 11/21/07, 2fs wrote: > > > > > > I certainly don't agree with everything he said - and there are > > certainly a > > lot of products I wouldn't want to have associated with my favorite > > songs - > > but at the same time, it's true that holding out professional musicians > > as > > exemplars of holy separation from the market is absurd - and, for those > > of > > us who are not hermits, hypocritical as well. > > > Yes, but I've always also thought that, were I in a position to be asked > for my music to be used in such a fashion, I'd have some kind of gag reflex > that would stop me from allowing it. That's not to pass judgment on those > who do, really, but it has always personally struck me as yucky and I just > wouldn't want to do it. > I agree - really, I wish musicians never needed to do that. It's just harder for me to be utterly condemnatory (speaking of izzat a word...oh, and "commodification" is a well-established word, certainly among academic Marxists anyway...), esp. when (as I think Barnes wrote - or someone else did) maybe hte money a band gets from a commercial is what allows them to record more music. "Blister in the Sun" burger ad are just kinda wrong, especially when one of > the band members vociferously agrees. > Yeah, that was obnoxious: I mean, at least get everyone involved on board. Also, it's not as if Gano was lacking for money - that is, unless it had all gone up his nose. Related, yesterday I read this profile in the LA Times of this band of whom > I'd never heard called, I think OneReplublic. I know, you've already > started hating them for that spaceless name, but every subsequent statement > made by the band seemed *designed* to increase the loathing exponentially to > the point where, without ever having heard them. The frontguy makes all > these statements, almost boastfully, about how much corporate and > middle-American least-common-denominator cock he's willing to suck just to > get his band over... most of the statements in themselves being sort of > innoccuous, but taken together adding up to like a Manifesto for Musical > Toolishness. Here, read it yousellf... it was a jawdropper to me. It's > like they're using "selling out" for "street cred"... which just might, > frighteningly, be viable now, the stupidity of both concepts aside. > > > http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-onerepublic20nov20,0,5000593.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar > Way to make me lose my appetite, Rex. In this issue (of "selling out"), there are lines...just as, you know, could you do me a favor and lend me five bucks vs. could you do me a favor and help me pimp out my brain-addled, syphilitic, incontinent mother so I can buy more crack. Doing favors is fine, but... > - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:41:51 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me On 11/21/07, Rex wrote: > > > > Metal Machine Music is good. But for hauling out the big guns, you still > can't beat Aphex Twin's "Ventolin". I'd say the Residents' version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" works pretty well also. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:46:48 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Bible question What verse of the Bible is it where Jesus says, "I am a tastemaker and I kill things - I am not a tastemaker and I kill things"? Oh wait - that was Dan Bejar, not Jesus. I get those two confused sometimes. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:00:16 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me >``serious melody'' you might have trouble finding in the fall. i >think i like them in spite of their lack of melody. all the discord >seems enough to compensate. That works for me too. If you really get that dissonsnce going on it generates enough of what the late Frank liked to call "information density" to be entertaining on a whole other level. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:01:48 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me >I'd say the Residents' version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" works >pretty well also. I always liked their "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida". ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:24:58 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Bible question On 11/21/07, 2fs wrote: > > What verse of the Bible is it where Jesus says, "I am a tastemaker and I > kill things - I am not a tastemaker and I kill things"? > > Oh wait - that was Dan Bejar, not Jesus. > > I get those two confused sometimes. Have you ever seen the two of them etc. etc. Anyways, sorry about the OneRepublic(an) thing. I just felt compelled to share the pain. Nasty of me, really. The workweek is almost mercifully over, is all I know. Howzat Bobby Dillon movie look to you guys? Oh, II Cecilians 5:13. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:29:04 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me > On 11/21/07, kevin wrote: > That works for me too. If you really get that dissonsnce going on it > generates enough of what the late Frank liked to call "information density" > to be entertaining on a whole other level. > I'd be hard pressed to think of a better phrase to describe The Fall than "information density". If you want to go straight to the Zappa reference in the Fall catalog, that'd be "I'm Frank" off of EXTRICATE. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:49:07 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me Rex says: > -Dragnet > -Perverted by Language > -Hex Enduction Hour > -Wonderful & Frightening World of... > -This Nation's Saving Grace > -The Frenz Experiment > -I Am Kurious Oranj > -Extricate > -The Infotainment Scan* > -The Real New Fall LP FKA Country on the Click lord knows that there's not much accounting for my tastes, but, nonetheless, i'm curious as to the omission of the witch trials album. another one's that's rumoured to be good *and* has a funny (ha-ha) name, is the live album ``fall in a hole''. i think i even have it on cd, but haven't gone near the "f" section lately. as ever, lauren - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:54:38 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me Rex wrote: > > One thing that really alarms co-workers is lots and lots of The Fall. I find that early A Hawk & A Hacksaw will evoke response within seconds. If that fails, you have to call in the real heavy ammo: Fred Lane's "The French Toast Man". Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:58:39 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: and in last week's leonard cohen thread... (was On yet another note....) kevin says: > >things like "Democracy" and "Everybody Knows" seem more like > >omniscient (albeit slippery) commentary than personal communiques. > > Favorite more-or-less contemporary Cohen tune is something he's never released - a live performance of "Closing Time" from some late-nite Canadian TV show I picked up while recording a lot of the (uncensored!) Kids In the Hall shows from the BBC out of Vancouver back in the 90s. It's a lo-fi tape of a mono broadcast but it just smokes. Leonard was hot that night and the band was tight - two fiddles, cheesy keyboards and all. It manages to be intensely personal and a prophetic rant at the same time. this is a really good way to put it. i've been thinking about this for the last few days, in part because i've been listening to some cohen albums. this kind of explains my fascination with songs like "first we take manhattan." i mean, when he says "we", i'm never quite sure who he means. he has that habit of going from some intensely personal detail in one line to straightaway apocalypse in the next. with both love and war. take the line ``i don't like what happened to my sister'' in contrast to ``i'm guided by this birthmark on my skin.'' i mean, what's the deal in that song? is he talking about the u.s.? modern civilization? ancient civilization? himself? some cult he joined last week? in the end, i think he's having a bit of laugh with it all. which isn't to say he's not serious. as ever, lauren - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:13:40 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me On 11/21/07, lep wrote: > > > lord knows that there's not much accounting for my tastes, but, > nonetheless, i'm curious as to the omission of the witch trials album. Oh, it's good, but I tend to think of it as a little embryonic for a first time Fall listener, partially because Smith's delivery isn't fully formed yet (it's good, but it doesn't sound quite like it would on the other 873 Fall releases) and the sound is a little more closely aligned with the post-punk of its time, all scratchy and brittle. I love that sound, actually, but it's not that representative of the catalog as a whole. Then again, Fall albums sound like a lot of different things, so that's as good a place to start as any. I put Dragnet on my list instead, because it has a few more songs that stayed in the setlist forever, but it's a tossup. Did I or someone else link to the article where the journalist tried to contact everybody who's ever been in The Fall? The bit about Craig Scanlon was appropriately weird... - -Rex another one's that's rumoured to be good *and* has a funny (ha-ha) > name, is the live album ``fall in a hole''. i think i even have it on > cd, but haven't gone near the "f" section lately. > > as ever, > lauren > > -- > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." > > - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:23:21 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me Rex says: > Did I or someone else link to the article where the journalist tried to > contact everybody who's ever been in The Fall? The bit about Craig Scanlon > was appropriately weird... safe to say yes, as i've seen it, and i'm sure feglist is the only place i would see such a thing (which is a compliment, yes.) btw, it crossed my mind that if kevin likes ``european sun'' as much as he seem to, it's a fairly safe bet that he would like the fall. xo - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:56:27 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me On 11/21/07, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > > > If that fails, you have to call in the real heavy ammo: Fred Lane's "The > French Toast Man". New to me, I think... link? Actually, what I have been listening to at work is pretty scary, and I wouldn't blame my cow-Orko-ers for being a bit alarmed. I've been bulk digitizing 1/4" tapes at home and then indexing them by listening to the wav files while I work. And because these 1/4" are all ancient, screwy, recycled, and spliced up, a great deal of it is backwards, half speed, double speed, hideously recorded to begin with, or literally recorded by small children. It could easily be construed as Satanic... at best... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:09:15 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: and in last week's leonard cohen thread... (was On yet another note....) On 11/21/07, lep wrote: > > this is a really good way to put it. i've been thinking about this > for the last few days, in part because i've been listening to some > cohen albums. this kind of explains my fascination with songs like > "first we take manhattan." i mean, when he says "we", i'm never quite > sure who he means. he has that habit of going from some intensely > personal detail in one line to straightaway apocalypse in the next. > with both love and war. The word "we" (or "us") is powerful juju in lyrics. I remember an interview with Sonic Youth in which they mentioned having come up with the idea of using "we" instead of "I" at some point, and were surprised when (presumably Malkmus out of) Pavement told them he'd arrived at the same conclusion, that it kind of "opens things up". The thing that I find fascinating about it is that, within the economy of a pop song, it might be either inclusive-- you, the listener are one of us, and we're going to, you know, rock it tonight or be all made of stars or whatever-- or alienating-- we, me and my minions disincluding you, the listener, have made plans for you, or Nigel, and we're going to do things of which you may not approve, so watch out for Us, the Threatening Other. If you finesse a lyric to the point where it could mean both or either, you've probably written a pretty intriguing pop song. That's not even tapping into how often "we" is a romantic couple, often as not one which no longer exists. And no longer even trying to keep threads separate, I'm listening to "Witch Trials" right now and remembering why I haven't listened to it as often as some other Fall records: it's an incredible shitty CD issue in its original form, an obvious and not-too-hot vinyl rip! I'm used to such things now, in the post file-sharing-of-OOP-material world, but at the time I bought the CD, I felt pretty ripped off. As a record it's even better than I remembered, though. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:29:17 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: RE: Somebody shoot me kevin wrote: >>If it gets unbearable, I can send you mp3s of _Metal Machine Music_...>>These are all excellent suggestions, thanks everyone. I'll let you know. I'm pretty sure I still have the vinyl MMM I got at a garage sale for half a buck (which couldn't hae been played more than once) laying around somewhere...< ...I'd wager a fair amount that if X = the total amount of copies of "Metal Machine Music" ever sold, then X - Y (where Y < 5,000) would = the total copies of "MMM" played only once (or even only partially)... Michael "Similar mathematics can be demonstrated on 'Two Virgins' and / or 'Wedding Album'" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:20:38 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: and in last week's leonard cohen thread... (was On yet another note....) On 11/21/07, Rex wrote: > > > > The word "we" (or "us") is powerful juju in lyrics. > True - but pronouns generally are tricky, in that the listener can always make the choice of being addressed by the singer ("I" is the singer, with the listener being an implicit "you") or *being* the singer, inhabiting the narrative. "You" is similar: though few listeners are likely to take "you" as directed at themselves personally (except for when Mick Jagger listens to "You're So Vain" maybe), there's a sense of secret alignment: listening to Dylan joyously savage whomever in "Positively 4th Street," the listener can be on the same end of the lyric's accusatory finger as Bob himself. But yeah: "we" is somewhat unique in that it has the inclusionary/exclusionary thing built right in. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:23:48 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me Rex wrote: > > If that fails, you have to call in the real heavy ammo: Fred Lane's "The > French Toast Man". > > New to me, I think... link? for this week only: > It could easily be construed as Satanic... at best... Oh, for that you need "Satan's Blood", by The Frugal Gormets: Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:38:19 +0000 From: craigie* Subject: Somebody shoot me On 21/11/2007, Rex wrote: > > One thing that really alarms co-workers is lots and lots of The Fall. > No Xmas for John Quays, motherfuckers. You may be interested to learn that I know the real John Key and why he came in for such vitriol... which is another story, as they say... c* - -- first things first, but not necessarily in that order... - -- first things first, but not necessarily in that order... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 08:56:46 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me On 11/22/07, craigie* wrote: > > On 21/11/2007, Rex wrote: > > > > > One thing that really alarms co-workers is lots and lots of The Fall. > > No Xmas for John Quays, motherfuckers. > > > You may be interested to learn that I know the real John Key and why he > came > in for such vitriol... > > which is another story, as they say... Do tell. I always thought it was a pun on "junkies" myself... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:08:08 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me On 11/22/07, 2fs wrote: > On 11/22/07, craigie* wrote: > > > > On 21/11/2007, Rex wrote: > > > > > > > > One thing that really alarms co-workers is lots and lots of The Fall. > > > No Xmas for John Quays, motherfuckers. > > > > > > You may be interested to learn that I know the real John Key and why he > > came > > in for such vitriol... > > > > which is another story, as they say... > > > > Do tell. I bet it's cuz he makes teh Nazis. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:12:21 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Happy Turkey Day... pass the candied Amine Beta Ring, please On 11/21/07, Michael Sweeney wrote: > > ...I'd wager a fair amount that if X = the total amount of copies of "Metal > Machine Music" ever sold, then X - Y (where Y < 5,000) would = the total > copies of "MMM" played only once (or even only partially)... I suggest, then, that we all adopt Thanksgiving as our Annual Listen to MMM All the Way Through Day. That'll throw the curve in a few years. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:43:03 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Happy Turkey Day... pass the candied Amine Beta Ring, please On 11/22/07, Rex wrote: > > On 11/21/07, Michael Sweeney wrote: > > > > > ...I'd wager a fair amount that if X = the total amount of copies of > "Metal > > Machine Music" ever sold, then X - Y (where Y < 5,000) would = the > total > > copies of "MMM" played only once (or even only partially)... > > I suggest, then, that we all adopt Thanksgiving as our Annual Listen > to MMM All the Way Through Day. That'll throw the curve in a few > years. Particularly useful if you have over relatives you want to leave. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:36:53 +1300 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: Somebody shoot me >If it gets really bad I may just have to fire up "European Son" on >infinite replay. > > >If it gets unbearable, I can send you mp3s of _Metal Machine Music_... I somewhere have a double-CD boot consisting of four live versions of "Sister Ray". That would probably work wonders, too. Failing that, there's always my trusty Alec Empire "Intelligence and Sacrifice" CD... Or if you want to fight banal with weird but tuneful, just crank the Residents' Commercial Album up to full bore on random shuffle. 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 V16 #408 ********************************